AL QAEDA CHATTER at pre-9/11 levels. I’m not sure what that means, but unless they’re saying “this whole terror thing sucks, let’s quit,” it’s probably bad news.
UPDATE: Here’s somebody who thinks it might be what I hope.
On the other hand, reader Tom Brosz emails: “March 20th is the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. That’s a date I’d watch closely.”
Nonsense. We’ve been repeatedly assured by antiwar folks that there’s no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, so why would they care?
MORE ON IMMIGRATION: From Marc Cooper.
THAT WOULD BE THE LARGE TYPE EDITION.
Really, what did people do for fun before PhotoShop?
MICHAEL MALONE: “It was just a year ago that I predicted — to considerable consternation and censure from the press — that most major newspapers would be dead or dying by the end of this decade. Apparently, I was being conservative.”
HARRY TURTLEDOVE, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Stephen Green looks at an alternate history scenario.
CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG (CONT’D)? Now it’s George Clooney vs. Arianna Huffington.
AMITY SHLAES on kidney transplants and political stereotypes.
(Via the world’s leading kidneyblogger).
ANOTHER JUDICIAL DEFEAT for anti-gun forces.
UPDATE: Don’t know why that link’s not working, but you can see it on the main page at Overlawyered.com, which you should probably be visiting regularly anyway!
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This sounds like semi-good news:
As House Republican leaders have not agreed on a final plan for earmark reforms, the internal Appropriations Committee rules changes represent the only new limits. House leaders briefly outlined possible earmark reform to rank-and-file members at a closed-door meeting yesterday morning, but fiscally conservative leaders such as Reps. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said the proposal is “sketchy” and unsatisfactory.
Flake said leaders are willing to let lawmakers vote against individual earmarks in spending bills when they first reach the chamber floor but not after bills emerge from conference negotiations.
Appropriators are lobbying their colleagues to oppose dramatic earmark reform. At the same time they are implementing their own new rules.
The chairmen of appropriations subcommittees that traditionally produce among the most project-laden of the annual spending bills said they are limiting their colleagues to 10 project requests each.
This is a modest improvement, which is better than no improvement. However, it shouldn’t stand in the way of more serious reform, which this is nowhere close to.
There’s a hearing on earmark reform in the Senate, starting at 9:30 this morning. You can stream it live via a link here.
CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? Rogers Cadenhead reports that Dave Winer is threatening legal action. Winer responds.
AS I WARNED, BLOGGING HAS BEEN LIGHT: I’ve been hanging out with my grandmother, and enjoying it. Off to the office soon, though. My brother-in-law’s surgery went well, the rather large tumor that they removed still seems to be benign, and everything went about as well as it could, considering that he had something the size of a grapefruit cut out of his back. Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes from everybody.
MARKETS HIT NEW HIGHS:
NEW YORK (AP) — Upbeat reports from the Federal Reserve and DuPont Co. lifted stocks for a second day Wednesday, pushing the Standard & Poor’s 500 past 1,300 for the first time since May 2001. The industrials, materials and transportation sectors led the market higher, allowing the S&P 500 to finally pop above 1,297, a ceiling the index has not been able to cross since November.
Via reader Brandon Marx who emails: “Why is no one talking about this?” Larry Kudlow has been asking that for a while.
Ed Driscoll has some thoughts, too.
Is psychology over-politicized? We interview Dr. Nicholas Cummings, a past President of the American Psychological Association, and coauthor of Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, about the injection of politics into mental health in general, and the American Psychological Association in particular. Plus, why men are disappearing from the psychological profession.
You can listen to the podcast directly (no iPod needed!) by clicking right here, or you can get it via iTunes right here.
There’s an archive of previous episodes here. There’s also an archive of low-bandwidth versions for dialup users, etc., available here.
As always, my lovely and talented cohost is soliciting comments and suggestions.
WRITING IN THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Michael Tanji joins those calling for release of the captured Iraqi documents. He calls for An Army of Analysts. Catchy phrase.
HERE’S A NICE PROFILE of the Tennessee blogging community from Business Tennessee magazine.
MISS KELLY IS LOOKING FOR ADVICE on which shotgun to buy.
AN ARMY OF DAVIDS REVIEW from John Scalzi.
THE ONLINE FREEDOM ACT IS UP FOR A VOTE, and it seems to me that supporting it is very important to the future of the blogosphere and alternative media generally. Mike Krempasky and Kos both have more. To quote Kos:
So the debate over regulation of the blogosphere is starting to boil, with the NY Times throwing its lot against HR 1606 (they call it the “Internet Campaign Loophole”).
Except that this loophole has existed for several years and still hasn’t been exploited. And the alternative plan (dubbed the CDT plan), hasn’t been thoroughly debated and considered.
Note, HR 1606 was killed by the “reformer” groups and Nancy Pelosi because, they argued, it hadn’t been “properly debated”. Well, HR 1606 now has been properly debated and we’re ready to vote on it. Sensing a looming defeat, the bill’s opponents suddenly get behind the CDT proposal — which has had NO debate nor committee hearings. Hypocrisy isn’t too foreign to those types.
At least they’re bringing the blogosphere together.
I LIST BRITISH BLOGS THAT I LIKE: Some Guardian commenters are upset that I didn’t list blogs they like.
AN ARMY OF DAVIDS HAS A RECURSIVE MOMENT: So I ordered a bunch of beautiful custom bookplates to use in the autograph-by-mail setup I mentioned earlier. When they came they were beautiful, but with a slick finish that made them impossible to write on, even with a sharpie. Since the mailed-in requests were already piling up, I wasn’t sure what to do. “Make your own,” suggested my wife. D’oh! I got some label stock, added in an image of the book, and produced custom bookplates that looked as good as the ones I ordered, but that took ink. Problem solved. It’s like technology was empowering me to do things for myself that used to take a big organization or something!
I’LL BE OVER AT MY GRANDMOTHER’S LATER, watching her so that my mother can watch my sister’s kids, so that my sister can accompany my brother-in-law to Vanderbilt where he’s having surgery. (Good news: The “spindle-cell sarcoma” that I posted about a while back appears to have been a false alarm; the consensus after several pathologists looked at the slides is that it’s benign.) Extended families are good, but blogging may be a bit lighter than usual.
DAILY ILLINI EDITOR ACTON GORTON reports that he has been fired for publishing the Muhammad cartoons.
This is, alas, part of a pattern on campuses these days, where free speech is a decidedly one-sided phenomenon.
A CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION supporting the Solomon Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision in FAIR v. Rumsfeld passes 347-65.
I’M NOT SURE if I’m allowed to link to it or not, but Andrew Marcus has posted video coverage of the pro-Danish demonstrations in Chicago yesterday, along with links to other posts on the subject.
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