MAYBE IT’S SOMETHING IN THE WATER THE VODKA: But the guestbloggers over at Stephen Green’s place sure seem to be having a good time.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES is up.

ANNE APPLEBAUM TO SUSAN ESTRICH: Ain’t I a woman?

UPDATE: Chris Nolan: “For the record, I am not a man. Even though I live in San Francisco, I have no plans to become one.”

IN THE MAIL: An interesting article by John McGinnis and Ilya Somin: Federalism vs. States’ Rights: A Defense of Judicial Review in a Federal System. I think they’re absolutely right in drawing a distinction between federalism and “states’ rights,” and in noting that many people seem to ignore that distinction.

INTERESTING POLL DATA FROM IRAQ:

More Iraqis believe their country is headed in the right direction and fewer think it’s going wrong than at any time since the U.S. invasion two years ago, according to a new poll.

Sounds good, the usual polling disclaimers aside. (Via GeoPolitical Review).

UPDATE: Okay, some people won’t think it’s good news.

OXY-CLEAN: FREE SPEECH PROBLEMS at Occidental College?

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER POST with a quote from his book, Charles Stross emails:

Apropos the snippet of dialogue from THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES that you liked, it’s not so far from the truth!

Back in the mid 1980’s my brother in law was doing a PhD in philosophy of mathematics at Rochester, NY. He’s (a) British and (b) a bit naive outside of a seminar room. He was rather surprised to discover that three fifths of the professors in his department were funded by DARPA or some other Pentagon-related body, for research in his field: he was specializing in Bayes’ theorem and it seems the US military had a strong enough interest in Bayesian reasoning — with particular reference to reasoning under conditions of uncertainty, where there are no prior probabilities — to pay philosophy professors to study it. (Do I need to draw in the dotted line between a theory of uncertainty and the fog of war? :)

Nope. But where’s the Office of Strategic Folklore?

HEH.

SPEAKING OF NOT BEING AFRAID OF CONTROVERSY, here’s a transcript of Scalia’s speech on constitutional interpretation.

NOT AFRAID OF CONTROVERSY, ARE THEY?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush has tapped Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a lightning rod for controversy as one of the main advocates for the Iraq war, as his choice for World Bank president.

It’s almost as if they’re trying to smoke people out.

UPDATE: It’s working!

ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s probably worth reading this interview with Wolfowitz.

RAND SIMBERG LOOKS AT what Airbus’s problems teach us about spacecraft design.

UPDATE: More on Airbus here, and some interesting photos here.

DIGITAL CAMERA UPDATE: The Fuji S3, mentioned here before, gets a lukewarm review from DPreview.com. Seems a bit pricey, to me, considering.

LOTS OF EDUCATION-BLOGGING: At the Carnival of Education.

MORE UN-REASSURING REASSURANCES on F.E.C. regulation of blogs.

IN THE MAIL: The American Revelation: Ten Ideals that Shaped Our Country from the Puritans to the Cold War. The typo on the Amazon site makes it look like a reggae-influenced history, but it’s not actually . . . .

FELONIOUS FUNK: My TechCentralStation Column is up.

OPERATION AMERICAN FREEDOM: It’s time to stand up to the new climate of fear in America.

UPDATE: Here’s more on the climate of fear and crushing dissent.

JON HENKE IS CONFUSED by the Washington Post poll:

The public overwhelmingly disapproves of 1) the way Bush is handling Social Security (56% – 35%), and 2) “Bush’s proposals on Social Security” (55% – 37%).

But the public also overwhelmingly supports — by a margin of 56% – 41% — “a plan in which people who chose to could invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market”.

Which sounds shockingly like the Bush plan.

FREE HEALTH CARE IN CUBA: A touching photo essay. Well, I was touched.

MORE BLOGGING ABOUT problems with the Airbus.

THE PEOPLE’S DAILY SHAMELESSLY MISQUOTED Washington Post editor Phil Bennett, according to Hugh Hewitt.

Boy, if you can’t trust a state-run media outlet, who can you trust?

ONE OF MY LEGISLATORS is blogging now. (Via Bill Hobbs).

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY, don’t it?

DAVID HOROWITZ RESPONDS to charges of urban mythology.

IN THE ONLINE JOURNALISM REVIEW, Mark Glaser has more on The Times of India’s assault on blogs — and the Indian blogosphere’s response:

“Maybe it’s premature, but if this goes where I think it’s going, it should go down in history as ‘The Great Indian Blog Mutiny,'” Gupta told me via e-mail. “The Times of India has simply shown how far they’ve come from being a respectable newspaper to being a common school bully. If bloggers can collaborate to provide humanitarian assistance for the greatest natural disaster the living world has seen, they can certainly tackle the Times of India, a man-made ethical disaster.” . . .

“In Pakistan, which is a dictatorship, you can’t criticize the government but you can criticize the media. In India, which is a flourishing democratic economy, you can criticise the government – but not the media. As a result of prosperity, the guardians of our freedom of expression have become cheap entertainment portals and spin doctors.” — Rohit Gupta, freelance writer and engineer in Mumbai.

I think that the Times of India has managed to blacken its own reputation with people worldwide.

UPDATE: Shanti Mangala is declaring war.