MORE PROTEST FACT-CHECKING. It’s amazing what you can find out on the Internet these days.

UPDATE: More background here.

MARY MAPES has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS ON A.N.S.W.E.R. and its fellow-travelers:

To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as “antiwar” when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Anti-war journalists think Americans can’t handle the truth.

GENDER AND HIGHER EDUCATION: My TechCentralStation column is up.

UPDATE: Thoughts from a college student.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Ann Althouse.

There’s some interesting stuff in the comments about K-12 education, too. The Insta-Daughter reports that male teachers in her school (who are few) aren’t much respected by other teachers, or by students, though she very much liked the man who taught her last year — and then left.

MORE: More thoughts here.

FUTUREBLOGGING: Don’t miss the latest Carnival of Tomorrow!

MICKEY KAUS on a Gonzales nomination: “If Bush loses the right, the left, and Arlen Specter, how, exactly, does Gonzales win easy confirmation?”

CHINA: Scared of smart mobs.

PORK UPDATE: The Washington Post slams Louisiana’s legislators:

The state’s representatives have come up with a request for $250 billion in federal reconstruction funds for Louisiana alone — more than $50,000 per person in the state. This money would come on top of payouts from businesses, national charities and insurers. And it would come on top of the $62.3 billion that Congress has already appropriated for emergency relief.

Like looters who seize six televisions when their homes have room for only two, the Louisiana legislators are out to grab more federal cash than they could possibly spend usefully. . . . The Louisiana delegation has apparently devoted little thought to the root causes of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. New Orleans was flooded not because the Army Corps of Engineers had insufficient money to build flood protections, but because its money was allocated by a system of political patronage.

Ouch. Read the whole thing.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS is up!

STATISTICAL ILLITERACY at the NYT.

CHARLIE RANGEL BACKPEDALS: As well he should.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Via Nanodot, here’s a very cool gallery of nanomachine simulations.

MY COLLEAGUE BOB LLOYD attended the pro-troops protests in Washington yesterday, and just got back this morning. Here are some pictures he took, with his captions:

“This is Margaret Johnson, holding a picture of her son, Captain
Christopher Johnson, an Army helicopter pilot killed in action in Iraq.”

“This Sophia Gilsdorf and Sherri Francescan, both of whose husbands are Marine Lieutenants serving in Iraq.”

“Here are some of the people who lost sons, husbands and brothers. The speaker is a Texas firefighter whose twin brother was killed.”

Presumably, Maureen Dowd would accord all these people, who support the war, “absolute moral authority,” too. Right?

HEH: “Rep. Peter King to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: Just because the president doesn’t watch you on television, it doesn’t mean he’s not doing his job.”

HEY, maybe the blogosphere didn’t fail after all!

PORK RESPONSE UPDATE: Saxby Chambliss responds to Matt Duffy, and Matt Duffy blogs it: “Candice from Senator Saxby Chambliss’ office called today. Unfortunately, she could offer me no specifics . . . . I’ve gotten the distinct impression from both Candice and from Tom Price’s chief of staff that these aides don’t appreciate my intrusions. They can’t seem to understand why I’m bothering them or why I expect more of a response than a form letter assuring me that they share my concerns about the budget.”

Yeah, it’s not like we have representative government or anything.

THERE’S A Carnival of Computing. Plus, the Carnival of Revolutions, covering pro-democracy events worldwide, is now up. And if these don’t float your boat, there’s the Carnival of Cordite, for gun-bloggers, the Carnival of Personal Finance (for people who like money), this week’s Havel Havelim, the Canadian carnival Red Ensign Standard, the always-tasty Carnival of the Recipes, and the Carnival of the Virginia Bloggers.

And don’t forget the Lawblogger’s carnival, Blawg Review. Plus for those interested in fiscal responsibility at the personal level, there’s the Carnival of Debt Reduction. Neither a borrower nor a lender be! Not that our elected officials feel that way . . . .

ALPHECCA finds that reports of violence in the United States are exaggerated.

DON ADAMS IS DEAD, and Cathy Seipp pays tribute.

UPDATE: Something about Don Adams that I didn’t know. (Via The Corner).

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: David Hogberg has heard back from Sen. George Allen and asks: “If Nancy Pelosi can come up with specifics, why is it taking Senator Allen this much time to get ‘far enough along in the process’?”

LSU POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR JEFF SADOW is deeply critical of the Louisiana politicos’ demand for money:

Making matters worse is the pork-laden nature of the request. . . .

And who would control the disbursement of this money? It seems the nine-person panel would have a Louisiana majority.

So, let’s get this straight. Louisiana, from some of her federal officials through some state officials all they way down to city and other local governments, countenanced negligence from benign to irresponsible in ensuring proper flood protection and in dealing with hurricanes. And now these same people have formulated a plan wanting the country to pay an incredible sum of money to the state controlled by people from the state to deal with the aftereffects and, apparently, Louisiana’s past inability to utilize our resources efficiently in other areas?

The rest of the country is going to look at this and think we’re still stuck on stupid.

Only some of you, Jeff.

PORK RESPONSE UPDATE: Reader Neema Salimi wrote Rep. Tom Lantos and reports: “Congressman Lantos sent me a form letter in response to my request that he cut pork to pay for Katrina spending. He doesn’t even address it.”

Salimi’s right, as he forwarded the response. Click “read more” to read it.

UPDATE: Reader Mary Wlodarski sends a response she got: “I have been a regular reader of your blog for years and really love it! I sent both my senators, Durbin and Obama a letter asking them to review the budget in light of the need of our southern states, foregoing our projects to help out the gulf states. I only got response from Obama. He must have thought I was concerned about the pets in the budget, not the pork!”

Maybe he thought it was a pet pig? (I’ve put the letter she forwarded below, after the Lantos letter).

(more…)

DAVE KOPEL HAS MORE on how U.S. technology companies are collaborating with Chinese repression.

STARK RAVING MAD: Farhad Manjoo reports on the Utah rave raid I mentioned here a while back.

MICKEY KAUS is all over the New York Times and its TimesSelect program. Just keep scrolling; he’s in fine form.