ED MORRISSEY calls John Conyers’ oped on impeachment disingenuous. Personally, I wouldn’t trust Conyers with my Thanksgiving turkey.

COMMENTS ON MURTHA’S LATEST, here and here. Plus, a call for censure.

STRATEGYPAGE:

In the last seven months, the U.S. Army has met or exceeded all of its recruiting goals. In that time, over 160,000 people have enlisted, or re-enlisted. The total strength of the active duty and reserve forces are 1.2 million men and women, all of them volunteers.

Except for a few months in 2004-5, the military has been able to maintain its strength, despite wartime conditions. The biggest problem has not been casualties (only about 10,000 soldiers have been killed or disabled so far, less than one percent of overall strength), but the disruption to family life caused by so many troops getting sent to combat zones. This discouraged re-enlistments in reserve units, although mainly among the non-combat troops. In combat units, re-enlistments were at record levels.

Interestingly, the biggest recruiting aid has been word-of-mouth from the troops themselves.

MICKEY KAUS is blogging up a storm on immigration.

HMM: ” President Bush helped raise $17 million for the Republican Party Wednesday, a welcome financial boost amid GOP gloom over the possible loss of majority control of Congress in November. ”

Put that together with the whole barbershop thing and I’d say it’s too early to write ’em off yet.

A HAROLD FORD BLOG: I’m mostly seeing signs of activity from the Harold Ford and Bob Corker campaigns — though the latter includes annoying voicemail spam from Bob Corker’s mom — but what’s happened to Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary?

THE DA VINCI CODE gets a lukewarm review in the Times: “In spite of some talk (a good deal less than in the book) about the divine feminine, chalices and blades, and the spiritual power of sexual connection, not even a glimmer of eroticism flickers between the two stars. Perhaps it’s just as well. . . . So I certainly can’t support any calls for boycotting or protesting this busy, trivial, inoffensive film. Which is not to say I’m recommending you go see it.”

Ouch. The audience reviews are pretty negative, too, overall though I suspect that many of them haven’t seen the film.

On the other hand, the New York Post’s reviewer loved it.

RAMONA DIXON IS IN SURGERY NOW: Scroll to the bottom for the latest.

ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS ARE ASKING THE FDA TO REGULATE NANOTECHNOLOGY:

Citing research suggesting that some invisibly small engineered nanoparticles might pose health risks, a coalition of consumer and environmental groups petitioned the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to beef up its regulation of nanoparticle-containing sunscreens and cosmetics and recall some products.

The legal filing was synchronized with the release of a report by the environmental group Friends of the Earth that highlighted the growing number of personal care products with nanoingredients, defined as smaller than 100-millionths of a millimeter.

I’m agnostic on whether this is a good idea, but I think it underscores — as I’ve noted before — the unwisdom of the industry’s strategy a few years back of identifying nanotechnology with this kind of stuff instead of with the more “spooky” advanced possibilities.

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste notes a math error that I shouldn’t have missed, but did:

Lemme see: 1/100 million == 10^-8. A millimeter is 10^-3 meter. Multiply them together and you get 10^-11 meter. So they’re talking about banning particles smaller than 10 picometers.

The smallest atom is helium, which is 280 picometers in diameter. The only things smaller are elemental particles such as protons, neutrons, and electrons. I guess we have to ban everything made out of them, right?

It would be interesting to know if this is the Wapo’s mistake, or if Friends of the Earth really are that clueless. I wouldn’t want to bet either way.

Jeez, I read that as 100-millionths of a meter, not a millimeter, and so it’s hard for me to blame the Post. But it seems like a mistake that’s easier to miss than to make in the first place.

UPDATE: Reader Josh Mandir says the problem isn’t math, but English:

I went through the same calculation that Steven Den Beste did and basically came up with the same answer and was ready ro ridicule the math error myself, but I realized that they probably mean 100 units of 1 millionth of a millimeter. One millionth of a millimeter is a nanometer, 100 of those is 100 nanometers. And 100 nanometers seems to be about the upper limit of what you could reasonably call something nano in science.

Hmm.

UH OH: “The conservative blogosphere’s anger towards President Bush has begun to resemble the foam flecked frothy faced insanity of the left. And I do not like the comparison.”

TIM CHAPMAN JUMPS INTO the Tapscott/Geraghty debate.

PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW HOW HEWLETT-PACKARD has responded to my computer crash. Not at all, yet, because I haven’t called them. Too busy producing the podcast (on the backup machine — here at InstaPundit we take a blasting and keep on ‘casting) to call. I’ll keep you posted.

A MINOR CORRECTION: Right after Bush’s speech, I linked to a report at The Corner suggesting that Lou Dobbs liked the speech. If he did, he has apparently reconsidered.

FIXING IMMIGRATION FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER: Some further thoughts on Mexico and America, over at GlennReynolds.com.

DONALD SENSING has further thoughts on parents and children in response to my TCS column.

JOHN SCALZI INTERVIEWS author Nick Sagan.

MORE COFFEEBLOGGING: Various people wanted followups on my earlier coffeemaker post, and, anticipating requests for more consumer-blogging, I have undertaken an actual in-home coffeemaker test.

I ordered this cheap Black & Decker model, which was warmly endorsed by many readers. And, at about the same time, someone from Starbucks offered to send me this more expensive DeLonghi that Starbucks sells. I’ve tried ’em both out for a few days, and even had some blind taste-testing at the Mother’s Day bash here on Sunday.

Both are good. The Black & Decker wins hands-down for price and for its easy and uncomplicated user interface. (Yes, it’s the 21st Century and coffee pots have user interfaces.) It’s easy to program and use, and the “Perfect Pour” carafe doesn’t spill or dribble. It keeps the coffee hot enough, but doesn’t burn it.

The DeLonghi has a thermal carafe. It’s not hard to program it or set the clock, but it’s not as easy as the Black & Decker. Any idiot can figure out the Black & Decker, while some folks might need to look at the manual to figure out the DeLonghi. It has a thermal carafe, which also doesn’t dribble or spill. It keeps the coffee hot enough for two or three hours; after that it’s a bit cool for my taste, though it takes a while longer to get down to lukewarm. It’s easy to fill with water and coffee, too.

So how’s the coffee? It’s good from both. The Black & Decker — as seems common with the coffeemakers that use basket-type filters — tends to come out a bit on the weak side. You can make up for that by adding more coffee, but if you do that you may find that the savings on the pot is offset by the expense of extra coffee.

The DeLonghi makes excellent coffee, stronger and more full-bodied on the same amount of coffee than the Black & Decker. In our blind taste tests, everybody — including my brother-in-law Joe Smith, a former coffeehouse mogul here in Knoxville — pronounced coffee from both pots good, but the coffee from the DeLonghi richer and fuller-bodied, with more coffee flavor. (I used identical amounts of Starbucks Sumatra for the test).

Conclusion: You can’t go wrong, really, between these two. The Black & Decker is good, and cheap. The DeLonghi is better, but more expensive, though you might make that back via using less coffee, especially if you like expensive beans. And neither one dribbles or leaks, something that you ought to be able to take for granted in a coffeemaker but, alas, can’t.

WITH THE MOUSSAOUI TRIAL OVER, the Pentagon has released video footage of Flight