“YOU’RE EITHER WITH US, OR YOU’RE WITH THE ROBOTS!”

I’m thinking, I’m thinking!

NO ANTISEMITISM INVOLVED: “The largest university and college lecturers union in Britain is likely to decide shortly to recommend that its 67,000 members boycott Israeli lecturers and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the territories.”

MY COLLEAGUE JEFF HIRSCH is now blogging over at the workplace law blog.

SANDMONKEY HAS MUCH MORE on imprisoned Egyptian blogger Alaa.

SOME COOL IMAGES OF EARTH FROM NASA: They’re available in very large sizes for download.

Plus, movies from Titan.

WOMEN WARRIORS: It’s a bellicose-women roundup over at Hot Air.

FROM REFUGEES to tycoons: “Those expelled from East Africa were third generation immigrants to Africa, and had created assets and wealth. Which is why Idi Amin was so interested in them. Now, those families are again third generation immigrants, this time to Britain, and again they are rolling in wealth. How was this extraordinary feat accomplished twice?”

ALPHECCA’S WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF MEDIA GUN COVERAGE IS UP: And read this, too. Though wasn’t Andrew Sullivan praising testosterone not long ago?

UPDATE: More here. I think this gives you a First Amendment right to own a gun!

DAVID BOAZ:

Last week I turned on NPR and heard some crazy woman ranting “We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3 a gallon gasoline. It is no accident; it is a cause and effect, a cause and effect.” Then the next morning I watched CNN and discovered that the ranting woman was Nancy Pelosi.

So it’s hard to summon up hope that libertarians might find common cause with the Democratic party.

But the Republican party doesn’t seem very inviting lately, either.

Boaz finishes on a more hopeful note than this opening suggests. Read the whole thing, part of an interesting discussion over at Cato Unbound.

IN THE MAIL: Caitlin Flanagan’s new book, To Hell with All That : Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. I’m at something of a loss to see why so many lefties hate her so much. But what struck me in reading the book, with its comparison of housekeeping and childrearing from 30 years ago with the same today is how much harder people have made both.

We keep hearing about declining birthrates, but raising a kid is far more expensive — financially, emotionally, and in terms of time — today than it was a few decades ago. As she occasionally notes, things that were considered adequate, or even exemplary, parenting then are now considered abuse or neglect. In fact, when you look at how the burden of childrearing has increased, it seems amazing that we see as many people having children as we do.

Society would be a lot better off (emotionally and demographically) if it would cut parents more slack on this stuff, though as she notes, much of the pressure is the result of competitiveness among parents, particularly mothers.

As evidence that kids can turn out fine despite all sorts of parenting – and as evidence that the latest fads and pronouncements of experts are often bunk — Flanagan’s book should be read together with James Lileks’ Mommy Knows Worst : Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice. Happily, Amazon recommends the two together, a recommendation that, if followed, may do more to improve American society than many government programs.

LESLIE WYLIE HAS A LENGTHY LOOK AT ABSTINENCE EDUCATION: I think that it’s OK to tell high school kids they shouldn’t have sex yet. I think that saying that sex outside of marriage is bad is both wrong (sex outside of marriage isn’t necessarily bad at all, in my opinion, and can be an excellent thing), and an inappropriate use of tax dollars.

ERIC SCHEIE: “When I propose that we ‘end the culture war by restoring classical values,’ I am not proposing striking Judeo-Christian values and replacing them with Greco-Roman ones.”

AUSTIN BAY CONGRATULATES RICHARD COHEN on a discovery.

AL QAEDA SAYS WE’RE WINNING: That’s not news, really, if you’ve been paying attention.

A PR DISASTER IN THE MAKING: Wal-Mart is trying to trademark the smiley face.

ABC SAYS THAT TOM CRUISE’S IMAGE HAS BEEN DEFLATED BY THE LIMP PERFORMANCE of Mission Impossible 3.

I wonder if it wasn’t the other way around. As further support for the notion that it’s Cruise’s recent public idiocy that’s hurting the film, rather than its inherent lameness, the audience reviews are actually pretty good. Back in the old days of the studio system, a star like Cruise who behaved badly in public would have been cut off as box-office poison. Maybe those guys knew what they were doing?

DANIEL GLOVER HAS MORE ON NET NEUTRALITY and the role of the blogosphere in the debate.

A REVIEW OF SHELBY STEELE’S NEW BOOK, by the InstaWife, over at TCS Daily.

CNN MOCKERY CONTINUES, AT KAUSFILES: “I take it back–Jonathan Klein really is a genius! His networks’ ratings are down 38% in prime time, and he gets the LAT’s TV columnist to focus on … a decline of half as much at competitor Fox!”

There are two things going on, I think. First, people are tired of politics, of political news, and of news in general. There’s been too much news over the past several years as we’ve lived in interesting times.

Second, CNN really is sinking, even faster than the ebbing tide is lowering all boats.

DEAN ESMAY IS FISKING SILLY ISLAMOPHOBIA: Just remember that the behavior of radical Islamists is supposed to produce backlash and religious strife. So don’t be manipulated.

CAMPAIGNING ON THE BLOGS: The real story, of course, is another diminution of Old Media’s gatekeeper power.

CIA UPDATE:

Gen. Michael V. Hayden isn’t the first active-duty military officer tapped to lead the CIA — he is in fact the fifth — but many intelligence experts and officers have bemoaned the idea of a general leading the agency at a time when the Pentagon is expanding its ability to engage in global spying and man-hunting, traditional realms of the CIA.

Despite such qualms, intelligence specialists say Hayden’s appointment may turn out to be a clever move by intelligence czar John D. Negroponte to help him assert authority over Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his burgeoning intelligence bureaucracy. Negroponte, who by law oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, has expressed frustration that he has not made more progress in managing the agencies under the Defense Department’s jurisdiction.

It’s all about the turf wars. Is that bad? Well, FDR used turf wars as a way of encouraging subordinates to do their best. That has not, however, been Bush’s practice.

Meanwhile, Ann Althouse thinks that the Hayden confirmation is a good time to talk about the NSA intercept program: “Well, really, why isn’t this the perfect occasion to hash it out about the program? If it is not made a central issue in the confirmation, I think I’m going to assume that the critics believe that airing the issue will hurt them.”

By nominating Hayden, I think that Bush has said that already.

HERE’S MORE ON THE ARREST of imprisoned Egyptian blogger Alaa: “The tireless Aida Seif El-Dawla, who was there, says Assistant Interior Minister Sami Sedhom told the protesters, ‘You bitc***. You sons of bitc***. This is how it is going to be from now on if you do not behave and know your limits. If you do not behave you’ll have the bottom of my old shoes all over you.'”

Remember his name.

EUGENE VOLOKH HAS MORE on Ohio State University’s ongoing sexual harassment debacle: “Yup, unyielding defenses of a book recommendation are obviously something that human resources departments should be investigating in ‘a university that is a beacon of intellectual freedom.'”

BUSH AND AHMADINEJAD: Victor Davis Hanson was on Hugh Hewitt talking about the latest letter — transcript and audio are here.