PUBLIUS has a live report from the Venezuelan elections. “Miguel Octavio and I went across the entire city of Caracas in search of a polling station full of people. Or half full. Or people at all!”

And Gateway Pundit has more.

SOME FURTHER THOUGHTS on happenings in Azerbaijan: “Unlike their neighbors, the Georgians (with whom I also worked with for a year) the Azeri opposition was never able to understand the basics of political message development and communication – namely, that you have to research the electorate and identify and communicate a message that will resonate with a specific portion of that electorate.” Somebody should offer them some help.

EUGENE VOLOKH looks at neutrality and trust in the judicial system.

MORE ANNOYING SPYWARE installed on your computer. And here’s a review of antispyware tools. (Both via Slashdot).

I think that companies that install spyware should be liable under RICO. Or we could just bring back tarring and feathering.

I’M HOME FROM HAVING A COLONOSCOPY — everything went fine, but I think I’ll let the drugs leave my system for a while longer before doing any serious blogging. In the meantime, you might want to check out Cato’s new blog, Cato Unbound, and also this interesting post on India’s increasing engagement with the Anglosphere. And if you’re still bored, you can cast your votes for best blog in the Wizbang Weblog Awards.

UPDATE: Better now. A few people were offended that I even mentioned the word “colonoscopy,” while others wondered why I didn’t live-blog it a la Katie Couric. The latter is a bit much, and would have required me to forego the drugs; the former is just silly.

A colonoscopy isn’t just a diagnostic test — if they find polyps, they can remove them, making it virtually certain that you won’t get colon cancer. If you skip that because of squeamishness, well, you’re just an idiot. Luckily, I was clean and don’t have to go back for five years. By then, they may have replaced them with swallowable cameras, with actual scoping only when there’s something that needs fixing. At any rate, though, there aren’t many simple safe procedures that can absolutely prevent cancer, and this is one. Don’t forego it because you’re squeamish.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I’m blaming the drugs for this error, which Dave Johnston emails me to correct:

Cato Unbound is not Cato’s blog, which is forthcoming later this month. Unbound is a online magazine-type project by Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson. It will feature monthly issues and discussions, with work submitted by scholars in various areas depending on that month’s topic. It is set up to look a bit like a blog (I’ve installed WordPress for Will and Brink to use as a content management system).

I point this out because there has been significant internal wrangling here at Cato to make sure that the two projects are not confused.

The blog will be very free-flowing with no set topics or discussions…like, well…a blog.

Certainly this one!

MORE: Oncologist reader David McCune emails:

Before you exit your Katie Couric mode, I was hoping you would do one last public service announcement. You reach a wide audience, and it wouldn’t hurt to get the word out as to the current screening guidelines for colorectal cancer.

Colon cancer screening with either colonoscopy (a flexible tube that allows a doctor to visual the entire colon) or flexible sigmoidoscopy (a shorter scope) is recommended for men and women beginning at age 50. If the person has a family history of either cancer or pre-cancerous polyps, then screening should start at 40 or 10 years younger than the earliest age at which cancer was diagnosed in the family, whichever is earlier. Although the two tests are considered equivalent, I personally recommend the colonoscopy. The sigmoidoscopy has too high of a chance of missing cancers that occur beyond the reach of the shorter scope. The colonoscopy does have its own drawbacks, though, including a higher risk of serious complications and the need for sedation. Here are the recommendations from the American Cancer Society, and here are the ones from the National Cancer Institute.

I’m an oncologist, so I end up seeing the people who eventually get advanced cancer. The percentage of people who have not had the recommended colon screening is much higher than the percentage who have neglected to have mammography (probably because of the “ick factor” of talking about the colon), even though the reduction in cancer death is even more impressive than that seen with mammogram screening for breast cancer. Thanks for getting the word out.

You’d feel pretty stupid, wouldn’t you? And yes, I started early because of family history issues.

HERE’S MORE on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong yesterday.

GO BUY VIRGINIA POSTREL’S BOOK — or she’ll think you’re unpopular! Actually, I think it’s the other way around, which strikes me as poor salesmanship . . .

THE CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS IS UP!

PLAME TWO: The sequel! More subpoenas are on the way, no doubt.

JOHN HAWKINS HAS ANNOUNCED THE WINNERS of the 4th annual Warblogger Awards.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Rich Galen traces the connection between pork and corruption. Plus a suggestion on what to do.

PorkBusters action has slowed down since Congress is out of session — but if you’d like to call your Congressmember’s local office and stress your opposition to pork spending, and your desire for cuts, there’s nothing stopping you. Since most of them are home in their districts now, it might even get noticed more.

UPDATE: Read this, too.

I DON’T CARE MUCH ABOUT THE OSCARS, but Roger Simon does.

LOTS OF UPDATES TO THE HDTV POST, including a video camera endorsement from James Lileks.

BILL ROGGIO CONTINUES HIS REPORTING FROM IRAQ.

JOHN HAWKINS interviews Tammy Bruce.

UPDATE: Reader Frank Wilson forwards this review of Tammy Bruce’s new book.

A FEW INTERESTING WAR-RELATED ITEMS: “Indonesians ask why Muslims turn to bombs.” They’re not the only ones asking.

“Assassination in Samarra Backfires.” Austin Bay notes that sometimes terrorists experience blowback.

“Dems Determined to Ignore Progress in Iraq.” Mark Steyn says that antiwar Democrats have their heads in the sand. (Meanwhile, the Columbia Journalism Review seems to have its head in the sand regarding Democrats who aren’t antiwar.)

UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein uncovers a new war plan.

CARNIVALESQUE is a carnival of medievalist blogging. (Via ClioPatria.)

UPDATE: The Carnival of the Cats is up, too.

DISAPPEARING MEN IN HIGHER EDUCATION:

The trend of females overtaking males in college was initially measured in 1978. Yet despite the well-documented disappearance of ever more young men from college campuses, we have yet to fully react to what has become a significant crisis. Largely, that is because of cultural perceptions about males and their societal role. Many times a week, a reporter or other media person will ask me: “Why should we care so much about boys when men still run everything?”

It’s a fair and logical question, but what it really reflects is that our culture is still caught up in old industrial images.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: GirlintheLockerRoom says Gurian’s numbers are wrong.

MOVEON STRIKES OUT: “ZERO calls, emails, or letters resulting from the ad.”

BILL QUICK’S weekend cooking thread is up!

UPDATE: So is this week’s Haveil Havalim.

HUGE PRO-DEMOCRACY PROTESTS IN HONG KONG: Gateway Pundit, as usual, has a roundup, with photos.

Publius has more, too.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING ARTICLE FROM WIRED on efforts to reinvent the 911 emergency-call system to take advantage of more modern technologies. The conclusion seems right:

If national safety – the ability to respond to hurricanes, terrorist attacks, earthquakes – depends on the execution of explicit plans, on soldierly obedience, and on showy security drills, then a decentralized security scheme is useless. But if it depends on improvised reactions to unknown threats, that’s a different story. A deeply textured, unmapped system is hard to bring down. A system that encourages improvisation is quick to recover. Ubiquitous networks of warning may constitute our own asymmetrical advantage, and, like the terrorist networks that occasionally carry out spectacular attacks, their power remains obscure until they’re called into action.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: The author of the Wired article, Gary Wolf, has more on this topic on his blog.

THE OFTEN-IRASCIBLE MATOKO KUSANAGI thinks I’m exaggerating the threat from avian flu. (“My friend that’s a post-doc in biochemistry says probably we have 5 to 10 years before the virus can mutate for airborne human-to-human transmission, and that it may never happen.”)

Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to be alarmist: I’ve repeatedly tried to make the point that avian flu may not amount to anything, but that preparations for pandemics in general are a good idea. (See, just for example, this post and this one. Oh, and especially this one.) And I’ve certainly never been as, um, dramatic as the scientific journal Nature, which published a fictional journalist’s weblog reporting on the course of an avian flu epidemic.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that the assurances of a friendly post-doc in biochemistry are the end of the matter, either. The truth is, it’s impossible to predict with certainty when or if avian flu will mutate to spread easily among humans. But it’s clear that we’re not prepared for that, or similar, threats. If we wait until it’s clearly underway, it’ll be too late. Pointing that out hardly seems alarmist to me.

UPDATE: Here, by the way, is the Wall Street Journal’s avian flu newstracker. It’s free to nonsubscribers, I think. (Since I subscribe, it’s sometimes hard for me to tell.)

Meanwhile, here’s a poll. What do you think?

(Go straight to the results by clicking here.)

MORE: Reader Eric Kuttner emails:

“If we wait until it’s clearly underway, it’ll be too late. Pointing that out hardly seems alarmist to me.”

Uh oh! Now they’re going to say you claimed the threat was imminent, just like Bush!

Heh. I think they already did. Meanwhile, William Aronstein emails: “Any appeal to authority should be rejected in a scientific discussion. But the appeal to ‘my friend that’s a post-doc in biochemistry’ takes the cake.” I thought so, too.

Aronstein has more to say, below the fold. Click “more” to read it.

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I KEEP SEEING FOX NEWS doing its “War on Christmas” things. Why don’t they just give John Gibson the month off and replace him with Foamy the Squirrel?

UPDATE: Uh, oh: “Vandals burn Swedish Christmas goat, again.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related post here.

MORE: Reader Aram Hagopian thinks I’m mocking Christianity. But while there’s mocking going on here, that’s not it. I find the whole thing kind of bemusing: Merchants who desperately want people to spend money because it’s Christmas are afraid to say the word, while those who are complaining are basically demanding that we commercialize Christmas more openly. Sigh.

Ann Althouse, meanwhile, thinks that Christmas doesn’t belong in commercials for judicial nominees.

Related stuff from Fox, with video, here.

PLAME UPDATE: Tom Maguire is all over the latest developments. And Mickey Kaus observes: “The upshot may be that, despite Joseph Wilson’s dramatics, his wife’s outing didn’t really cause such national security damage–something a few scandal-poopers have claimed all along.”

Gee, do you think?

UPDATE: A “flock of pouting spooks.”