I’M AT THE SONY EVENT NOW, where everything is blue to promote Blu-Ray. It makes for cool pictures, anyway.

UPDATE: So far the big announcement is that new Bravia TVs will stream HD content via the Internet, in partnership with Yahoo, AOL, and Grouper. The “Bravia Internet Video Link” will be a small module that will fit to the back of the TV, and connect directly to the Internet without a PC. And the service is free.

As always, lots more on CES here.

HERE’S THE OTHER CONFERENCE that’s going on at the same time next door. You might find it more interesting if I were blogging that one, but I think I’ll stick to what I know.

I’ll bet that more of them make use of the “intimacy kits,” though. Oh, who am I kidding — they probably bring along big rolling “intimacy trunks.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m pro-intimacy.

MY FIRST ENTRY IS UP, in the Popular Mechanics saturation coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show. More will follow.

A PEACEMAKER IN THE FORMAT WARS? A hybrid Blu-Ray / HD-DVD player.

UPDATE: A hybrid disk, too!

WAIT UNTIL no one’s paying attention.

STRATEGYPAGE:

As Algeria and the U.S. exchange information on Algerian Islamic terrorists, they find a common pattern. Many Algerian terrorists, who have “disappeared” from view in Algeria, are showing up in Iraq (where they are killed, captured or mentioned by prisoners), in a Western prison, or under surveillance by Western security agencies. Fewer Algerians are going ti Iraq, apparently after noting the high probability of getting killed or captured there. Algerian terrorists are trying to establish themselves in the West (Europe, Canada, Australia.)

I’ve noted the Algeria connection before. Plus, this: “Hassan Hattab, one of the founders of the GSPC, and about a hundred of his followers, have accepted the government amnesty. Hattab was ousted as leader of the GSPC in 2001, and his successor was killed in 2004, and GSPC has been shrinking ever since. Hattab has pretty much stayed in the background since 2001, when more radical members of the GSPC pushed a program of more violence. This turned most Algerians against the Islamic radicals, and led to the collapse of the GSPC.”

JULES CRITTENDEN says we’re at a crossroads.

AS A FOLLOWUP TO THE BIG NONSTICK COOKWARE DISCUSSION from last month, I should note that I picked up one of these Cuisinart nonstick pans a while back, and so far it’s held up well. It’s supposed to be safe for metal utensils, which may solve the InstaWife pan-destruction problem. The nonstick seems genuinely nonstick, and the price is good — I think I paid $29.99 for mine on sale — so even if it doesn’t last terribly long it won’t be a big loss.

HOW YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN VEGAS: The minibar, besides the usual assortment of overpriced drinks and snacks, features an “Intimacy Kit.” The camera’s a nice touch, too . . . .

UPDATE: Reader Jane Chyna emails:

Well, now you’ve peaked my curiosity and I MUST know what’s in the intimacy kit.

I’ll send $10 if you’ll open it and blog the contents.

No need — there’s a label. Two condoms, two “obstetric wipes” and some lube. All you need for, er, intimacy. What could be more romantic?

ISRAEL TO BOMB IRAN? I agree with Allison Kaplan Sommer that this story is being overhyped. The Israelis may decide to bomb Iran — though it seems to me that way too many people are hoping they’ll do so and thus spare the rest of us some tough decisions and tougher tasks — but I’m pretty sure that if they do they won’t leak it first. They didn’t leak the Osirak raid, or the Entebbe plans, or . . . . Well, you get the idea.

I’m sure that they’re making the necessary preparations in case they do decide to launch such an attack. It would be criminal not to. But that’s not the same thing.

TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON: The Robotic Elvis Head.

DOG BITES MAN: Media Matters Distorts Opponents’ Positions.

UPDATE: Read this, too.

POWERLINE HACKED: Joe Malchow emails: “In case folks are asking, yes, PL was hacked. And probably *not* by a
fan of Mitt Romney.”

HEY, MAYBE THERE’S SOMETHING TO THIS OLD-MEDIA STUFF AFTER ALL: I’m now ensconced in a posh suite in Las Vegas, where I’ll spend the next couple of days wandering around the Consumer Electronics Show courtesy of Popular Mechanics, which will be doing saturation coverage. Blogging still has trouble on the ‘getting someone else to spring for the suite’ front. . . .

I’M GOING TO THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW, and not the Association of American Law Schools conference. But if I’d gone to AALS, I could have attended this discussion of academic freedom.

Plus, evidence that law schools are gaming the U.S. News rankings.

THE AP SEEMS TO STILL BE DISSEMBLING about Jamil Hussein, according to Dan Riehl.

IS MALIKI getting serious about the militias? That would be nice.

DO NOT PUT PEOPLE IN WASHING MACHINE: It’s a roundup of wacky warning labels.

MELANIE PHILLIPS:

The fight in Washington with the army top brass has not just been over whether more or fewer troops are needed in Iraq. It’s also been over a major difference in strategic perception. In order to win in Iraq, it is essential to defeat Iran. This is for the blindingly obvious reason that the principal instigator of the war in Iraq is… Iran. I have never understood how anyone could think that you can win a war by refusing to fight the aggressors and instead running around trying vainly to put out the fires they are starting. As I said last month here and on many other occasions, the coalition cannot secure Iraq without first defeating Iran.

It has also long been clear that Iraq is merely a front in wider regional — and indeed, global — war. Iran declared war on the west in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini announced his intention of conquering the west for Islam. The response of the west has been to ignore the fact that war was thus declared upon it, as was demonstrated by attacks upon it ever since by Iran — along with the Sunni/Wahhabi Islamists, who were both its deadly theological rivals for regional hegemony and at the same time its allies in the war against the free world.

(Via Newsbeat1).

ANN ALTHOUSE: “The cry of ‘eugenics’ always goes up, but what are the people who raise it really worrying about? Not the return of the Nazis. It’s all-too-convenient the way the Nazis pop up to assist in making the argument you already wanted to make.”

If the Nazis didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent them.

UPDATE: Bill Quick responds, but if I understand his point correctly then I think he misses mine. I was commenting — as was Ann — on the trivialization of the Nazis: If everyone you disagree with is a Nazi, then no one is a Nazi. I think that Bill is charging us with trivializing the Nazis, or denying their evil, which is exactly the opposite of the point we’re making. But I’m blogging from an airport — a place that subtracts at least 20 IQ points on a good day — so maybe I’m missing something.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill says more in the comments to his post, but I think we’re still at cross purposes. Yes, there are Nazi-level horrors in the world now. But — as Ann notes — the actual topic under discussion, genetic choice in IVF, isn’t one of them. To be a Nazi kind of thing, the government would be making the decisions, and killing people who resisted. Thus, Nazi analogies in this context, though predictable, are also silly.

ENERGY PROBLEMS for Iran?

PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR AHEAD IN SCIENCE, from — who else — Popular Science.

GEORGETOWN: Home of rich diversity!

A COOL-SOUNDING underwater photography contest. The deadline is tomorrow.

And speaking of photography, Lisa Scheer has some nice stuff posted. We share an affinity for odd signs and graffiti.

STEM CELL UPDATE: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, (free link) reports:

For all the bluster over Iraq, taxes and budgets, the first direct confrontation between the Republican president and the new Democratic Congress may come on an entirely different subject that has gotten relatively little attention recently: stem-cell research.

That reality will become more clear this coming week, when the House has pledged to take up a bill expanding federal support for embryonic stem-cell research. The issue — sensitive because many social conservatives and religious leaders believe it is morally wrong to destroy human embryos to extract stem cells — has prompted the one and only veto President Bush has issued in his term. House leaders now propose to pass the same measure the president killed with that veto last year.

I think the Democrats have Bush in a difficult position here.