CHECK OUT THE LATEST on the DARPA Grand Challenge. Here’s more at the Popular Mechanics blog.

The Singularity is getting nearer!

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE VOLOKHS, on a very special anniversary.

THE NEW CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

MAJOR EARTHQUAKE IN PAKISTAN: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

PLAME-O-RAMA: Tom Maguire is all over it. Just keep scrolling.

WEEKEND COOKING UPDATE: My earlier slow-cooker post produced a request from reader Stephen Lalley that I identify the cookbook with the Lamb and Guinness Stew recipe, and from reader Fred Spruytenberg that I share my recipe. Those really are two different requests, as I changed the recipe a bit, as I always do.

The original recipe is from this book, The Gourmet Slow Cooker, which is full of great recipes. Here’s my version, which is a bit lower in fat:

2 1/2 pounds lamb stew meat
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
10-12 new potatoes
2 large onions, chopped (I prefer vidalia)
fresh thyme
One to two cans “Pub Draught” Guinness
One can French Onion Soup
Salt, pepper, turmeric, paprika, garlic, rosemary, red pepper, to taste.

Brown the lamb in a saute pan with the oil. Set on paper towels to drain. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and paprika on the lamb.

Saute the onions, unless you’re in a rush — then just put them in the bottom of the crockpot first, which gets you halfway there with no work.

Add the lamb, potatoes, onions, and spices to the crock-pot. Pour soup and beer on top. Add spices and turn it on (I cook on low). About 20 minutes before serving, stir in the flour a bit at a time to thicken. Serve (a bread-bowl from Panera makes a nice touch.)

If the Insta-Wife weren’t allergic to carrots, I’d add 2 or 3 cut up carrots to this recipe. Sometimes I’ve added stewed tomatoes, too, and that works out well. So does some grated parmesan cheese added right after the flour.

Other reader requests: John Marcoux wants to know what makes my All-Clad slow cooker better than this much cheaper one. Beats me. My sister-in-law, who gave it to me, is a big All-Clad fan. So am I, especially when I’m not paying.

And several readers requested other quick-meal cookbook suggestions. I like this one: A Flash in the Pan: Fast, Fabulous Recipes in a Single Skillet. The Insta-Daughter likes a lot of the recipes from it, and they’re all fast and easy. That’s the key around our house. I love to take a whole afternoon to cook something that demands that much work, but I don’t have a lot of afternoons when I can do that, alas.

UPDATE: By the way, here’s a link to the Carnival of Recipes, which I think I forgot to mention earlier.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader James Foster recommends this cookbook, too.

MORE: Reader Arthur Mitchell recommends French Cooking in Ten Minutes : Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life, by Edouard de Pomiane. I haven’t read it, but judging from the reviews it looks very cool.

OUCH: “Former federal judge Robert Bork – whose nomination to the Supreme Court the Senate rejected in 1987 – described the choice of Miers as ‘a disaster on every level.'”

Hugh Hewitt thinks this is a case of the right-blogosphere having too much influence, and acting too hastily. I think, though, that it’s a case of the Bush Administration pushing an underwhelming nominee without thinking about how it would play. My own problem isn’t that of people like Bork — the fear that Miers would be too liberal on social issues. To me, that would be a plus. My problem is that there’s no particular reason to think she’d be a good Supreme Court Justice. The Bush Administration should have had a lot of those reasons handy before nominating someone who was sure to raise those kinds of questions.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: “I met with Hezbollah in person today.” Larry King, at least, will not be happy with what he learned.

Also, Syria is smuggling Palestinians and weapons into Lebanon.

SHEESH: “[Y]ou get more punishment for being cruel to a chicken in Arizona than you do for falsely accusing someone of being a child molester.”

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: A nice letter in Bozeman, Montana on the infamous Bozeman parking garage makes a valuable point: If Bozeman were going to spend $4 million in federal money, would a parking garage be the place they’d want to spend it? Nope. They’re spending it there because that’s what they can get, and that’s what groups with influence over the Congressional delegation (like contractors?) want.

Plus, this observation, which a lot of our elected representatives need to hear, apparently: “Of course we have every right to tell you how we think you should spend our money. It seems arrogant to argue otherwise.”

ACCORDING TO THE WHITE HOUSE, we’re not ready for an avian flu pandemic. Well, we’d better be working on that, hadn’t we?

JAMES CARVILLE SAYS THAT DEMOCRATS need to learn from Winnie the Pooh.

So far, I’m not convinced.

UPDATE: Somebody ask Carville where Piglet fits in.

DOUG WEINSTEIN CALLS ANN COULTER an elitist.

Related thoughts here, from Juliette Ochieng.

MICHAEL BARONE posts an analysis of Bush’s National Endowment for Democracy speech. Plus, progress on the Iraqi Oil Trust idea: “And once Iraqis begin receiving payments for their share of oil profits, how long will it be for Saudis and Iranians to demand the same?”

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit notest that Bush and Al Qaeda seem to agree about what’s at stake in Iraq.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Claudia Rosett has more on oil-for-food. (Via Newsbeat 1.)

JAMES TARANTO:

When President Bush nominated Harriet Miers on Monday, we saw it as a missed opportunity. It left us underwhelmed, not appalled. But having spent last evening communing here with some 1,000 conservatives at National Review’s 50th anniversary dinner, we see a political disaster in the making.

We talked to quite a few people, and we heard not a single kind word about the nomination from anyone who wasn’t on the White House staff. . . . Conventional wisdom still has it that Miers is a shoo-in for confirmation. We’re not so sure. From what we saw last night, the right is furious at President Bush for appointing someone they see as manifestly underqualified and for ducking a fight with the Democratic left.

Sounds serious.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Reader Jim Uren heard back from Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA):

Hi Glenn,

A response to my inquiry arrived today, about 2 weeks after my email was sent.

It is not responsive to my question about cutting pork, but instead talks about class and race, former FEMA head Mr Brown, and spending bills that theCongresswoman has voted for.

Lame. Meanwhile, blogger Eric Cowperthwaite isn’t any happier with the response he got from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA): “I plan to vote against Senator Boxer when she comes up for re-election and I plan to vocally and publicly let people know that she is absolutely unwilling to cut waste and pork from the budget in order to be fiscally responsible.”

UPDATE: Meanwhile, here’s a detailed look at the Louisiana pols’ demands for hurricane relief, which seems to come liberally wrapped in bacon. Layers and layers of bacon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Eshoo from reader Chris Saari:

I must have received the same form response as Jim Uren, and on the same time line from Rep. Eshoo. I wrote to Rep. Eshoo about two weeks ago suggesting she give up a particularly unneeded bit of pork (a $3.2 million package for a very well maintained and smoothly flowing highway, Oregon Expressway) in our wealthy (median income ~$100,000) town of Palo Alto.

In reply, I she sent me a letter with a couple of cheap shots at Bush Administration failures, the class and race trope, and then the boast, “I’ve already voted for $62.3 million…[which] represents only a down payment… .” Not a word about how to pay for it, or for my suggestion concerning pork she could give up on behalf of us well-off, but “outraged” Palo Altans.

I guess she, like the rest of the Congressional blob in both parties who hold safe seats, figure a late, non-responsive canned reply to a letter from a constituent is good enough for government work.

I think this sort of response is likely to give a boost to the movment for term limits and a Balanced Budget Amendment, which I predict will make a resurgence in the next couple of years.

MORE: CoolBlueBlog contacted Pat Leahy (D-VT) and reports that Pat Leahy thinks that snowmobile trails are more important than hurricane relief. Meanwhile, Reader Fred Stankowski reports from Hawaii:

Just wanted to send you the response I got back from my Rep Ed Case (D)(Hawaii, 2nd District):

Thank you for your letter urging the deletion of “pork-barrel” spending from our nation’s budget, especially to finance the reconstruction costs of Katrina and Rita.

We certainly have a mutual and very expensive obligation to assist in the reconstruction of the Gulf States. At the same time, it is important to note that, in our overall federal budget perspective, the far larger and ongoing costs are the combination over the last four years of the fastest increases in overall federal spending and the broadest decreases in growth in federal revenues in decades. On the spending side of the equation, congressionally-designated project spending (aka “pork”), while growing, is a very small fraction of overall spending.

There is no question that our federal finances continue to deteriorate rapidly because of the growing imbalance between revenues and expenses. To stabilize this deterioration and then dig ourselves out of the hole, while adequately meeting our priority needs such as Katrina/Rita reconstruction, all options must be on the table, including pork and other spending and further revenue reductions.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please don’t hesitate to do so again in the future.

Over all it wasn’t too bad (for Hawaii anyway; see Gas Cap), but to say there is little “pork” is laughable. The highlighted line I think is a mistype, I think it is supposed to read “revenue increases”. Nice transition into a tax hike, no?

Heh. Lots of readers are unimpressed with the letters members of Congress are sending out, as they should be. Reader Eric Eck emails:

The many responses you have detailed from Congress to constituents are a graphic exposition of the distance between voters and their representatives. Our representatives have no interest in actually responding to voters’ specific concerns. They have even less interest in controlling federal spending or cutting back on that oh so delicious pork.

What can be done to restore fiscal responsibility in this country? I wish I had that answer.

I don’t know, but I think we’ll see a significant move to do something.

ROGER SIMON has an Unscam update, as Kofi Annan continues to get criticism for the oil-for-food scandal.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: An Alaskan blogger listens to Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and doesn’t like what he hears.

BILL ROGGIO looks at Iraqi army capabilities.

TOM MAGUIRE has more on Plame, and notes Mark Kleiman’s perspicacity.

SUPPORTING MILITARY RECRUITERS in San Antonio. And reporting about it in The New York Times!

IN THE MAIL: Steven F. Hayward’s Greatness : Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders. Looks very interesting, though it looks as if a flamewar may be developing in the reader reviews . . . .

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Congressman Mike Rogers (R-AL) responds to a constituent on pork, and leaves the constituent unsatisfied: “A vague form letter that doesn’t directly address the question.”

THE COUNTERTERRORISM BLOG has a roundup on the New York City terror alert. Happily, Megan McArdle appears to have survived.