A LOOK AT TECHNOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT and the Associated Press.

Plus, Michelle Malkin teaming up with Eason Jordan?

SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE in Iran. Plus, the real problem with the Iraqi army.

VIRTUAL VIOLENCE, real punishment.

NOAH SHACHTMAN looks at antiterrorism efforts in space:

It’s a mission MacGyver would love. Three or four times a year, small groups of junior officers gather at an Air Force Research Laboratory facility in New Mexico and try to figure out how to take down an American satellite using nothing more than sweet talk and off-the-shelf gear.

The U.S. military relies on satellites to relay orders, guide precision bombs and direct flying drones. But those multibillion-dollar systems can be surprisingly vulnerable to the simplest of attacks. So, it’s up to the members of the Space Countermeasures Hands On Program—Space CHOP, for short—to find those weaknesses before enemies have a chance to crack them.

Glad to see they’re working on that.

VARIFRANK WONDERS what’s going on with Saudi Arabia.

IT’S BEEN A WHILE since I closely followed the news on the latest associate bonus wars at big law firms. Like, since I was an associate. I wish they paid law professor bonuses. . . .

HOLLYWOOD ON THE OHIO: Some cool stuff from Rick Lee.

MY EARLIER MENTION OF THE LITTER ROBOT produced some emails:

I have two cats and own a Litter Robot (plus a regular litterbox, in case the power goes out et al). The Robot, aka the Death Star, is great – it never clogs like the models with the rakes do, and it’s got built-in safety features that stop it from rotating immediately if a cat enters mid-cycle. The sound of it starting to rotate can be a little eerie in the middle of the night, at least at the beginning, but that’s the only real drawback. Anyway, I highly recommend it. I have the white model, but the other one looks much cooler. Excellent holiday gift for a cat household, especially a multi-cat household.

(on the off chance you use this, please just identify me as a cat owner in Houston…)

It’s not Laurence Simon, though. Trust me, he never asks for anonymity! (But forget the second litterbox — just get one of these!) And reader Chap Godbey writes:

This Litter Maid model is what we use. There’s a sensor that knows when the cat gets in and out of the box, and after the cat gets out a rake comes by and cleans all the lumps into a concealed bin. It’s much less costly than that other model and is durable. One big cat and one box means one week before you have to empty the bin.

I miss the cats, but not the litterbox.

UPDATE: Reader Glenn Ruddiger is unimpressed with the Litter Robot and its admirers:

Seriously, is the Instapundit readership so well off and time consumed that they can’t afford a minute every couple days to scoop the crud out of a litter box?

Dude, it’s a Litter Robot! Of course InstaPundit readers will want one. What part of “Robot” don’t you understand? Robots are cool!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, fembots are cooler, but you can’t actually buy those on Amazon. Yet.

Meanwhile, Ruddiger responds:

heh heh Yes, robots are cool, but only when they cut my grass or sweep my floors or fight each other in death matches.

Honestly, my cats seemed genuinely interested when I scoop the litterbox. They watch every move I make — sometimes from a distance, sometimes completely in my way. I can see their tiny little kitty brains working — “why not just leave the lid off *that* container…”.

Sweeping we’ve got covered. And I already mentioned the robot lawn mower.

Meanwhile, warn your cats that they can be replaced, and maybe they’ll start cleaning their own litter boxes . . . .

On the other hand, maybe we’d better worry about a robot uprising.

MORE: Dave Price defends the Litter Maid:

Had it for 5 years. I calculated the labor time saved scooping cat execra at $100/hr (because I have to do it, and I get paid roughly that much to do other things I could be doing instead of scooping cat litter) and it’s a bargain. Had to replace it after 2 years, but the newer one seems moderately improved and more durable.

Never have to think about it. Really, the biggest challenge is remembering to clear it once every week or two when it gets full.

If only there were a robot for that . . . .

DUKE RAPE UPDATE:

DNA testing in the Duke lacrosse rape case found genetic material from several males in the accuser’s body and her underwear _ but none from any team member, defense attorneys said in court papers Wednesday.

The papers were filed by attorneys for the three lacrosse players charged, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. They complained that the information about DNA from other men was not disclosed in a report prosecutors provided earlier this year to the defense.

The testing was conducted at a private laboratory for the prosecution.

“This is strong evidence of innocence in a case in which the accuser denied engaging in any sexual activity in the days before the alleged assault, told police she last had consensual sexual intercourse a week before the assault, and claimed that her attackers did not use condoms and ejaculated,” the defense said.

This case just looks worse and worse.

JOHN MCCAIN AND INTERNET FREE SPEECH: This story on CNET has gotten a lot of attention, with links on Drudge and Slashdot. Excerpt:

McCain’s proposal, called the “Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act” (click for PDF), requires that reports be submitted to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which in turn will forward them to the relevant police agency. (The organization received $32.6 million in tax dollars in 2005, according to its financial disclosure documents.)

Internet service providers already must follow those reporting requirements. But McCain’s proposal is liable to be controversial because it levies the same regulatory scheme–and even stiffer penalties–on even individual bloggers who offer discussion areas on their Web sites.

“I am concerned that there is a slippery slope here,” said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “Once you start creating categories of industries that must report suspicious or criminal behavior, when does that stop?”

According to the proposed legislation, these types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service.

The McCain people were upset enough with this report that they emailed me about it, and I talked with a guy from McCain’s office named Pablo Chavez. Chavez says that this misstates what the bill does: In fact, there’s no obligation to monitor or discover child porn, just to report it if you become aware of it. And the bill is, he says, aimed at “the MySpaces of the world,” not individual bloggers.

I’ve given the bill a quick read — text here — and it doesn’t seem entirely clear to me that it doesn’t reach individual bloggers, regardless of intent. Chavez says that McCain only wants to get hard-core child pornography, and has no desire to do anything that might reduce free speech on the Internet. He also says that McCain is open to amendments that would alleviate any concerns that bloggers might have. Perhaps people should propose some?

UPDATE: Email from InstaPundit readers is universally mistrustful of McCain, which is indicative of just how much damage he’s done himself with his support of campaign finance “reform.”

PETER KANN WRITES ON mending the media.

A FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS INVESTIGATION into the Duke rape case?

UPDATE: K.C. Johnson has much more.

GOOD NEWS: “Military meets, exceeds recruiting goals.”

When we interviewed Army Secretary Francis Harvey a few weeks ago, he seemed very optimistic about how recruiting was going. I guess he was right to be.

MICKEY KAUS is staying on the Diana-bugging story.

JAMES LILEKS ON IRAN:

It’s interesting: if the Holocaust “conference” decides that the Holocaust didn’t happen, well, then the justification for Israel is specious and founded on lies, and the mullahs are justified in redressing a mistake. I have the awful feeling that terms, conditions and justifications are being set right before our eyes, and the putative leaders seem unwilling to acknowledge what most canny observers infer.

It’ll all make horrible sense. In retrospect.

Indeed.

DAVE WEIGEL NOTES the Ohio gun control rollback that I mentioned earlier and observes: “this is just one policy area where Democrats have finally caved to the libertarian consensus, to avoid another decade of drubbings over the gun issue.”

Even a flatworm is smart enough to turn away from pain. Which means that political parties eventually manage, too.

SURVEILLANCE from 65,000 feet.

IN THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, a look at academia’s ongoing diversity problem. Is it a “hostile environment?”

RANDY BARNETT ON THE NINTH AMENDMENT: It Means What It Says.

He’ll never make it to the Supreme Court with an approach like that . . . .

DAVID DUKE ON HOLOCAUST DENIAL on the BBC.

JAMES PERON says the poor are getting richer, faster.

THE INSTAWIFE AND ANN ALTHOUSE are discussing Tom Delay’s advice to the blogosphere.

MORE KIDS’ BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS, from a children’s librarian who also happens to be my mom:
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Kids in the intermediate and middle school grades can be a hard sell for reading fiction. But fiction is pain-free way to vicarious experience, and experience is what these kids need to find, safely, outside their comfort zone.

In one way or another, most serious fiction for this age falls into the “coming of age” genre, not because authors set out to teach lessons, but because writers know that we’re all “coming of age” as long as we live. That is say, we all struggle to get a handle on managing the various choices and constraints we deal with daily. Here are a variety of novels whose characters deal seriously, and often humorously, with their own coming of age:

Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. Houghton Mifflin, 1995 (hardback); Simon Pulse (paperback), 1999.

Even the most reluctant reader will be hooked by Paulsen’s opening in which 13-year-old Brian takes off with a bush pilot to spend the summer with his estranged father in the North Woods. When the pilot dies at the controls, Brian survives a crash into a lake and manages to stay alive for 54 days and to bring about his own rescue. To do that, Brian has only a hatchet given by his mother, the untried strengths of his own character, and the words of a teacher who reminded him that all he’d ever learned would be there when he needed it. Brian learns that what he has is all he needs.

(Sequels: The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Return, and Brian’s Hunt.. Outside this series but with the same theme are The Voyage of the Frog, Tracker, Dogsong, and many others by Paulsen).

Lest you think Paulsen is one of those rugged survivalists who ask no help from any quarter, the middle reader shouldn’t miss these nonfiction memoirs:

My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen. Yearling, 1999.

From Cookie, the sled dog who rescued him from the icy waters of the Arctic, to Caesar, the Great Dane who hid in terror of trick or treaters, the stories of Paulsen’s real-life pets make you laugh out loud or blink back a tear as he relates how much they had to give..

The Cookcamp by Gary Paulsen. Scholastic, 2003.

In this reminiscence with the dreamlike quality of early childhood memory, Paulsen tells how he (“the boy”) recalls being sent to live with his Norwegian grandmother, a camp cook for a World War II construction crew who are, in the boy’s mind, as mythic and mighty as tall tale heroes, yet more loving and protective than his own parents.

(Tie-ins from Paulsen’s autobiographical works for the persistent nonfiction reader: Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, Harvest Paperbacks, 1995, in which he describes his two entries into this epic dogsled race; Dogteam, (illustrated by Ruth Wright Paulsen) Dragonfly, 1995, an evocative pictural description of the blending of human and dog in a wild night ride; and Guts, Laurel Leaf, 2002, in which he relates the personal experiences (including repeated encounters with Joe, the moose with a personal vendetta), that became parts
of the narrative of Hatchet.

Meanwhile back in suburbia, kids also have to deal with choices and constraints:

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, by Jack Gantos. Harper Collins, 1998.

Joey’s ADD means that he’s always “wired bad, or wired mad, or wired sad, or wired glad,” but Joey is a strong and sweet kid who survives in a situation in which, in the words of his dying, manic grandmother, “…you got better, and the rest of the world didn’t.” (Sequels: Joey Pigza Loses Control and What Would Joey Do?)

Lunch Money, by Andrew Clements. Simon and Schuster, 2005.

Money-loving Greg thinks he’s got a sure thing turning his artistic talents into Chunky Comics to sell at school. Then, aargh, his arch enemy Maura starts selling her sappy unicorn sagas and cuts into his profits, and then, whoa, the principal says no selling comics at school. But, wait, Maura really knows how to move product, and, wow, she points out that the school-sponsored book club is hawking paperbacks from a big publisher. It all comes to a conclusion at a heated school board meeting, and Greg learns a few things about navigating the pitfalls of business, education, and life. (See also by Andrew Clements: Frindle, The School Story, The Report Card, A Week in the Woods, The Last Holiday Concert, The Landry News, and more.)

For slightly older Clements fans:

Things Not Seen, by Andrew Clements. Puffin, 2004.

A lot of students feel like they are invisible to their peers, but Bobby really is! He wakes up one morning and–he’s not there in the mirror! Bobby seeks a sort of refuge in the library and finds the only person to whom he’s, like, real, a blind girl named Alicia. Bobby and Alicia pool their talents to hack the Sears corporate computer and get him back to the visual realm, and Bobby learns a bit about who he really is. (Semi-Sequel: Things Hoped For by Andrew Clements, Philomel, 2006.)

Even in the world of fantasy, there’s no escape for the plucky protagonist! For example:

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine. HarperCollins, 1997, 2004.

Cursed by “that fool fairy Lucinda” with a spell that makes her always obedient to any command, Ella has to contend with an absent father, an evil stepmother, and abusive step-sisters, not to mention the handicap of always having to be, if not willing, at least compliant with any order. How she manages to fight her way through the usual fantasy foes and rescue her prince proves a girl’s gotta have game! Levine turns the Cinderella story on its head with humorous and page-turning results. (See also by Gail Carson Levine: all of the Princess Tales, (singly or boxed setsHarperCollins; The Wish, HarperCollins, 2002, and her newest, Gifted, HarperCollins, 20, 06.)

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I’m hoping to talk her into starting a children’s book-blog. Maybe the reaction to these recommendations will help!

MUD WRESTLING with Tom Delay and Arianna Huffington.

DON SURBER NOTES that Nancy Pelosi is making some progress on ethics. “Tom DeLay went around calling himself the Hammer. Talk is cheap. Nancy Pelosi has this ethics thing nailed.” Good!