COLUMBIA’S MINUTEMEN FRACAS is mocked on The Daily Show.

MY EARLIER POST on the Harry Reid scandal was somewhat skeptical. But this post by Ed Morrissey suggests that there may be more to the story than I thought. Stay tuned, and let’s see whether anything develops.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE:

The government must balance close oversight of the fast-growing field of nanotechnology against the risk of stifling new development, a Food and Drug Administration conference was told Tuesday.

These contrasting views emerged from a host of experts that the agency brought together to how it should regulate products containing tiny particles, some as small as one-millionth the width of the head of a pin.

Increasingly, those submicroscopic particles are being incorporated in the thousands of products overseen by the FDA, including drugs, foods, cosmetics and medical devices. . . .

The FDA doesn’t believe nanotechnology is inherently unsafe, but does acknowledge that materials at the nano scale can pose different safety issues than do things that are far larger.

The FDA wants to learn of new and emerging science issues related to nanotechnology, especially in regard to safety, said Randall Lutter, the agency’s associate commissioner.

I’ve written on this topic recently here. And read this, too. And note that some people are trying to engage in silly scare tactics.

Plus, check out this cool video on nature’s nanotechnology.

WHO TO BELIEVE? Jimmy Carter vs. The New York Times. Okay, it’s an easy choice, really.

A NEW LANCET STUDY ON IRAQI CASUALTIES: I’m skeptical, given their past track record. Meanwhile, Tim Blair notes the paucity of actual data: “Remember: Lancet came up with this via a survey that identified precisely 547 deaths (as reported by the New York Times).” He also notes that it’s a rather large claim by historical standards: “It is a larger number than were killed in Germany during five years (and 955,044 tons) of WWII bombing.” John Wixted comments:

The Lancet, of course, is the same journal that published a similarly flawed study on the eve of the last presidential election in a transparent attempt to influence the outcome (to no avail, fortunately). That study claimed that more than 100,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the invasion.

(Compare that claim with this UN study.) He notes that The Lancet also claimed that 567,000 Iraqis died as a result of sanctions before the war. Omar of Iraq the Model is not pleased, and one of his commenters wonders where all the bodies are. And Chicago Tribune blogger Frank James says that people are right to be skeptical.

UPDATE: MedPundit Sydney Smith notes that the study is getting a skeptical reception from statisticians.

MORE: A new Lancet study finds 600,000 WMDs in Iraq.

SOME THOUGHTS on podcast advertising.

DANIEL DREZNER: This generation’s Nostradamus.

RADLEY BALKO: “The lefty blogs are again jumping all over John Tierney. Actually, not really. They’re jumping all over an incarnation of John Tierney they’ve created that allows them to dismiss him without really considering what he’s written.”

INTERESTING, if a bit later than it should be: “The House Government Reform Committee will review the Sandy Berger-National Archives case in order ‘to determine whether any documents were missing from Clinton administration terrorism records, to review security measures for classified documents and to seek testimony from Berger.'”

FRANCE SAYS KIM JONG IL IS A BIG DUD — or at least his bomb is: “France said outright for the first time Wednesday that North Korea’s proclaimed nuclear test produced such a small blast that it must have failed, and analysts warned such challenging talk could lead Pyongyang to try again.”

Somebody tell the analysts: That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And if they succeed next time, we say “Oh yeah? Bet you don’t have any more bombs that work!” The key is not to admit we’re convinced until he runs out of bomb material.

A PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO AN APARTMENT BUILDING in Manhattan. Not much in the way of detail at the moment. Most likely an accident, but it’s natural to wonder at this point.

UPDATE: Slightly more information here, via Drudge.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Seems pretty clear that it’s an accident.

MORE: Much more information from Brendan Loy.

STILL MORE: Apparently, Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was aboard the plane.

MORE STILL: An Alec Baldwin sighting.

AND FINALLY: John Podhoretz emails to defend Alec Baldwin:

I actually know why Alec Baldwin was trying to cross the barricade. He was going to visit a friend who just had a baby at New York Hospital, which was blocked off. I know this because his friend is a close friend of my wife’s, who was herself visiting the hospital a few minutes before the plane hit.

So there you are.

EUROPE RETHINKS ISLAMIC IMMIGRATION:

Europe appears to be crossing an invisible line regarding its Muslim minorities: more people in the political mainstream are arguing that Islam cannot be reconciled with European values.

“You saw what happened with the pope,” said Patrick Gonman, 43, the owner of Raga, a funky wine bar in downtown Antwerp, 25 miles from here. “He said Islam is an aggressive religion. And the next day they kill a nun somewhere and make his point.

“Rationality is gone.”

Mr. Gonman is hardly an extremist. In fact, he organized a protest last week in which 20 bars and restaurants closed on the night when a far-right party with an anti-Muslim message held a rally nearby.

His worry is shared by centrists across Europe angry at terror attacks in the name of religion on a continent that has largely abandoned it, and disturbed that any criticism of Islam or Muslim immigration provokes threats of violence.

I just hope they don’t overreact, now that they’re reacting. Claire Berlinski has a lot of useful, if sometimes depressing, thoughts on this situation.

MORE: Brian Dunn emails: “One of my biggest worries is that a war being waged fairly gently to save Islam will turn into a war against Islam. And the Europeans are high on my list of worries in this regard.”

He’s got a longish post on the subject.

HUGH HEWITT MAKES A BOLD PREDICTION: “The high water mark for the 2006 Democrats was a week ago.”

UPDATE: Hmm, well, this story helps his case:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn’t personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

The Nevada Democrat’s deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. . . . Reid hung up the phone when questioned about the deal during an AP interview last week.

Read the whole thing. With Republicans, it’s sex. With Democrats, it’s money.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Anthony Calabrese thinks there’s probably less here than the AP story suggests:

I am a long time reader — also a tax lawyer. While my practice does not involve real estate investments, I think it may be much ado about nothing. Generally, if you transfer property to a company in return for an interest in the company, there is no federal income tax on the transfer. If the company was an LLC (as stated in the media reports), the company was probably a partnership for tax purposes. There would be no LLC level tax as profits and losses would pass through to the partners.

So I can see no real tax issue. The only issue is that Reid might have been hiding his ownership of the property, but holding investment property in an LLC is fairly common in order to protect the owners from torts or bankruptcy. I think this is simply an issue of someone forgetting to file a form.

Well, we’ll see. In an election year already marked by Republican scandal, I’m sure the press will want to be evenhanded about looking into potential Democratic improprieties.

But reader C.J. Burch disagrees:

Had Dennis Hastert hung up on a reporter CNN would have provided round the clock coverage with analysis by Carville and Begala for three days. I wonder how they’ll treat this?

Stay tuned.

MORE: More thoughts on Reid’s land deal:

It looks like Brown did all the work and cut his friend Reid in on the deal. The AP report contains no evidence that there was anything crooked about the transactions themselves, although they apparently were never documented. Basically, the partners bought land that was zoned for residential use, and persuaded local authorities to change the zoning to commercial, then sold out to developers who put up a shopping center. Brown obtained the re-zoning in part by emphasizing Reid’s participation in the deal.

Is there anything wrong with this? Not necessarily. You can make easy money by buying land on the outskirts of a fast-growing town like Las Vegas. It helps if you have the influence to get zoning changed, but, to be fair, there’s nothing wrong with re-zoning land to permit commercial development as a community grows outward.

It does appear, though, that Reid clearly violated Senate ethics rules by failing to disclose the existence of the LLC and his partnership with Brown. He reported the income, but not the relationship. I suspect the reason for Reid’s reticence is explained by the AP’s description of his friend’s history.

That seems right, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on a single wire story. No doubt we’ll learn more in coming days.

SOME RARE BUT WELCOME GOOD SENSE FROM MARY ROBINSON: “I hoped that the Human Rights Council would act in a human rights way, and set up a commission of inquiry into both. Alas — and this was a problem of the previous Human Rights Commission — it only set up a commission of inquiry into what had happened in Israel, by the Israel forces. And that is not the human rights approach; that is the political approach. And if the Human Rights Council continues to taint human rights with the political approach, this time because of the Organization of the Islamic Conference countries…. They had the majority, they wanted to hit Israel, not do human rights work.”

(Via AtlanticBlog).

JOE MALCHOW has more on the Insider-vs.-Outsider alumni politics at Dartmouth. It’s getting pretty ugly.

WELL, WOULD JOURNALISM EVEN BE POSSIBLE without “hundreds of anonymous experts?”

BRENDAN LOY is attacked by Kos-blogger McJoan and responds with customary insouciance: “This is the first time I’ve been linked on the front page of Daily Kos, and I must say, the link is producing a surprisingly feeble amount of traffic.” The Kossacks, in my experience, don’t follow links much.

ON, WISCONSIN: “Why doesn’t the university have a program that promotes debate about tough issues and teaches students how to express themselves forcefully? No, no, when someone mocks your political ideas, you ought to slink away and go back to your little room and download a report form. (And, yes, it’s incredibly ironic that the university also went to the wall for free speech values when it dealt with Kevin Barrett.)”

JACOB SULLUM: “I Have a Dream…of a Nation Where the Sons of Former Slaves Practice Voting Fraud As Effectively As the Sons of Former Slave Owners.”

Dreams do come true!

A STRONG DEFENSE OF CAPITALISM, from Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps. Read the whole thing.

THINGS THAT DON’T SUCK: We have some high ceilings with light fixtures so far up that they require a big ladder to change the bulbs, which is a pain. So I ordered one of these and it worked like a charm. Beats hauling the ladder around and trying not to bang the walls.

A TRAGEDY AVERTED through the skillful and appropriate use of arms:

It happened Monday afternoon at a home in the 4200 block of Ocean Drive. A 14-year-old boy shot and killed a man who broke into his family’s home Monday and threatened to kill him and his mother, Police Chief Bryan Smith said.

Smith said the man, confronted a woman as she was carrying groceries into her home shortly before 1 p.m. The man forced her inside and tied her and her son up. Smith said the woman was able to loosen the binding and free her son, who got his father’s revolver from a security box beneath a bed.

As the man tried to break into the room where the two were and threatened to kill them both, the teen fired a shot through the door and hit the intruder in the head, Smith said.

Not only was this tragedy averted, but if the guy had gotten away with it he almost certainly would have killed others. Not now.

UPDATE: Naturally, the boy is still getting some criticism:

This is really not excusable behavior. You aim for the center of mass, child: center of mass – especially if you’re shooting through a door. Save head shots for the Playstation.

If you make the shot, it’s not bad shooting.

NORM GERAS: “I understand from a friend in Washington that, contrary to the report in The Nation that’s being going round the blogs, retired Colonel Sam Gardiner does not believe an ‘October surprise’ military strike on Iran is imminent. Gardiner, who who has war-gamed air strikes on Iran independently of the Bush administration, thinks an attack is likely at some point before Bush leaves office; but it is still some way off.”

I agree. And so, apparently, does Ahmadinejad:

“Their latest decision was to gather all their political force and frown at us, cast bad looks and shout with empty threats to force us to retreat,” Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech in a rally in a town west of the capital.

That pretty well describes the multilateral nonproliferation process, I have to admit.

HE’S NOT BACKING DOWN:

Pope Benedict said on Wednesday Christians could not allow their beliefs and identity to be diluted for the sake of dialogue with other religions.

“We have to remember that this identity of ours calls for strength, clarity, and courage in the world in which we live,” he told pilgrims and tourists at his weekly general audience.

Since he made controversial comments on Islam a month ago, the question of how much dialogue Catholics should have with other religions has become a point of debate in the Church.

Some Catholics feel they have compromised too much of their Christian identity in the four decades since the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council called for increased dialogue with Muslims, Jews and members of other religions.

Read the whole thing. Will Benedict be able to stay on the middle course he’s charting?