FROM THE WOODROW WILSON CENTER, a report on regulation of nanotechnology.
My thoughts can be found in this article from the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. Also, here are some thoughts from the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and here’s my report from the EPA’s Science Advisory Board meeting that I attended a while back. Meanwhile, interestingly, here’s a polling report saying that the public in the U.S. and Canada trusts nanoscientists more than regulators.
A DESIRE NAMED STREETCAR: That’s about as cool a title for a policy paper on mass transit as you’re ever likely to see.
AN OUTBREAK of ABS dependency among drivers?
IT’S AS IF THEY’RE ALL CROOKS, or something.
MONDO ALITO is a special all-Alito-all-the-time blog at PJ Media.
UPDATE: If I’d watched the whole thing, I’d be crying, too. Er, if I were still awake . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: A bad review from Ann Althouse:
Durbin accused of Alito of seeking out ways to decide cases against the little guy and even tried to connect a decision of Alito’s to the recent mining disaster. Alito defended himself in his usual way: I decide cases according to the law. That case relating to mining was about the statutory definition of “mine,” and the above-ground pile of coal at issue in the case did not fit the definition.
“Pile of coal” = “mine,” eh? I’ve seen stranger legal arguments, but it’s hard to imagine that this played well on TV.
MORE: David Corn: “It doesn’t appear to me that the Democrats are striking fear into the hearts of Alito supporters.”
Meanwhile John Cole notes a missed opportunity by the Democrats.
STILL MORE: Kaus is unimpressed with Adam Nagourney’s coverage in the NYT (“embarrassingly, coccooningly wrong”) but thinks that John McIntyre of RealClearPolitics has it right. Dog bites man!
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Larry Kudlow weighs in on the House Majority Leader’s race: “In my opinion, the Blunt posse’s incestuous, backroom exchange of favors and money is the last thing Republicans need right now. What the GOP does need is a House majority leader with integrity and a passionate, fiery commitment to righting the wayward ship.”
IT’S ANOTHER PODCAST: We were going to run this later, but with the American Film Renaissance happening this weekend, we decided to go ahead and post this new podcast interview with independent documentarians Evan Coyne Maloney and Stuart Browning of On the Fence Films, talking about looking for the Men’s Center on campus, how technology is changing the documentary-film business (and maybe reducing its leftward tilt), and the difference between Canadian hopitals and Canadian veterinarians. They’ve got two films coming out soon: Indoctrinate U., about politics on campus, and Dead Meat, about the Canadian healthcare system, both of which you can read about by following the link.
You can listen to the interview by clicking here, and it’s also available via iTunes or the InstaPundit RSS 2.0 feed. I think you’ll also find the interview audio better on this episode than on the previous one. (The producer, as always, is soliciting comments.) And check out Evan’s blog, too.
AVIAN FLU UPDATE: Good news or bad news? I’m not sure:
Two young brothers, ages 4 and 5, who have tested positive for the dreaded A(H5N1) avian virus but shown no symptoms of the disease were being closely watched at Kecioren Hospital here on Tuesday. Doctors are unsure whether they are for the first time seeing human bird flu in its earliest stages or if they are discovering that infection with the A(H5N1) virus does not always lead to illness.
In any case, the highly unusual cluster of five cases detected here in Turkey’s capital over the last three days – all traceable to contact with sick birds – is challenging some of the doctors’ assumptions about bird flu and giving them new insights into how it spreads and causes disease. Since none of the five have died, it is raising the possibility that human bird flu is not as deadly as currently thought, and that many mild cases in Asian countries may have gone unreported.
Curiouser and curiouser.
DO IT YOURSELF: “The ugly reality of being energy independent hit today. Some gunk got into our generator’s carb, rendering it inoperable on a day when we really needed it.” On the other hand, a guy accidentally dug up our gas line the other day, and there was nothing I could do about that except wait for the gas company to fix it.
FACES FROM THE FRONT looks at the New York Times’ “amour for Armour.”
UPDATE: A related post from The Mudville Gazette.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Where should PorkBusters go next? I just got off the phone with N.Z. Bear, and we have some ideas, but we decided that we should take advantage of all the smart folks in the blogosphere. You can post comments in his post soliciting suggestions.
STIFF COMPETITION: If you’re watching the Alito hearings, Daniel Drezner is offering a prize for “finding the single dumbest thing a Senator says during the hearings.”
UPDATE: It’s “Whack-a-Pol — the sport of bloggers!” Meanwhile, Orin Kerr and Howard Kurtz round up reaction to yesterday’s hearings.
OKAY, THIS IS COOL: Via a big double-page ad in BPM magazine, I noticed the Numark iDJ iPOD DJ Mixer.
UPDATE: Reader Jim Carmignani emails: “This product was in Target’s ad in my Sunday Chicago Tribune! My oldest daughter is already begging for one.” That’s good news for Numark, I guess, though it’s pretty cheap — the big beneficiary may actually be Apple, since everyone who gets a iDJ will need two iPods. . . .
MORE ON AVIAN FLU over at GlennReynolds.com. And here’s a small bit of good news:
World Health Organisation (WHO) officials said that the 14 cases of avian flu recently discovered in Turkey were contracted through contact with infected animals and that there is absolutely no evidence that human-to-human transmission is occurring.
It’ll stay that way, of course, right up until it doesn’t.
RADIOBLOGGER is serving up Joe Biden Princeton waffles.
JOHN MERLINE writes on media distortions and the Sago mine disaster.
Heck, you can’t even trust those guys to get a flaming mouse story right, though as far as I know nobody managed to blame that on lax Bush Administration standards for small-rodent ignition safety.
AN ARMY OF Clyde Tombaughs.
OVER AT BLACKPROF.COM, Shay Riley writes: “If left to parental choice, I’d bet money that one would be hard-pressed to find a secular school in black communities.”
MORE ON THE “ANNOYING INTERNET SPEECH” STATUTE, by Eugene Volokh, who thinks there’s reason to be troubled after all.
ANGRY ALUMNI at UCLA. Angry legislators in Pennsylvania.
PUBLIUS NOTES big events in Ukraine, plus coffee chaos in Caracas.
JACK SHAFER NOTES that American media organizations value the lives of their colleagues more highly than the lives of other Americans:
Sitting on newsworthy information is an unnatural act for most reporters—some would say unprofessional—and nobody can argue that the kidnapping of Jill Carroll isn’t newsworthy. By effortlessly banding together across several time zones to squelch information in the name of protecting one colleague in Baghdad, American journalists placed themselves in a hypocritical position. Didn’t their leading newspaper just publish national security information over the objections of a White House that protests that the story endangers the lives of millions of Americans?
Why yes, it did.
CORY MAYE UPDATE: Radley Balko reports:
As I’ve mentioned before, Cory Maye’s lawyer on appeal is Bob Evans, who also happens to be the public defender for Jefferson Davis County. For ten years, Evans has also served as the public defender for the town of Prentiss, the seat of Jefferson Davis County.
It now appears that the Prentiss Board of Aldermen have fired Evans as the Prentiss public defender. His transgression? Representing Cory Maye. Evans told me last month that he’d been warned that if he agreed to take this case, he could well be fired. Looks like whoever warned him was correct.
The whole thing smells.
BARONE ON RISEN: Ouch. (Via RWP).
VIRGINIA POSTREL has thoughts on bloggers and books.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.