MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM . . . . The carnival of the recipes is up. This week’s theme: what to serve guest bloggers company.

LAURA MCKENNA: Brooks is right. The world is growing more left.

I’m not sure I agree with this. The world has gotten a lot more anti-Bush. And the left is getting more left . . . but the left is not the world. Does a swing against Bush mean America is ready for national healthcare, expanded affirmative action, gay marriage, and so on? Colour me sceptical.

MEDPUNDIT SAYS you might want to cancel that early lung cancer screening.

Most people believe intuitively that doing a periodic chest x-ray has the potential to save them from lung cancer. The worst scenario is when a patient is diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and then blames their physician for never doing a chest x-ray or CT scan, even if they didn’t have any symptoms. In fact, you could have a chest x-ray every month and still die of advanced lung cancer. Lung cancer is one of those cancers that has many faces. There are some that are so aggressive, finding them early makes no difference. By the time they’ve shown up, they’ve already spread. There are others that are slow and passive and easily treated, even if we only find them once they become symptomatic. But try telling an angry cancer patient that. Especially one who read the first set of news stories touting the benefits of routine CT scans, but missed this weeks’s news.

THE NEW YORK TIMES is worried about the mortgage market, and by extension, the market for homes. Here in DC, where I’m living right now, the bottom has clearly dropped out of the market. But in New York City, my permanent home, my mother the real estate agent reports that the buying market continues to be hot. She says her colleagues all marvel that there is still so much money left in the city. This may be because New York City, where sales often-have to get past co-op boards or condo management, was much less driven by sub-prime mortgages than other areas of the country.

DAVE SCHULER asks some questions about subprime loans.

“I’M GIVING SOME THOUGHT TO IT. GOING TO LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN.” Fred Thompson certainly looked like a presidential candidate to me, just now on Fox News Sunday.

Translation: Yes!

UPDATE: Here‘s the video. If it seems hard to play, try fiddling with the buttons. (More Althousian tech advice.)

ANOTHER VIDEO: Here‘s some more video. It works better — and covers a different part of the show.

“A LOW, THROBBING, VIOLENT, READY-TO-RUMBLE HUM DRIFTS past the espresso machine, past the rack of alternative weeklies, past the wall exhibit of photos from a faculty member’s trip to Florence, past the plastic tub where you put your dirty cups and spoons.” RLC reads something rantish in the NYT and rants back — with pictures of “the menacing black hole that unnerved the Times writer.”

“I WAKE UP AT NIGHT AND I SPIN, countless thoughts, tripping over each other. My crazy work schedule this semester, the bid for a new condo, I’ll be moving, everyone’s moving, I’m in Cervinia but the Law School is just emails away. I need to write more, I need to moonlight, I need to sleep.”

“THE UNEASY, ‘INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS’ SENSE that regular people, who were funny-shaped and neurotic and sincere and inefficient, were suddenly having to compete with — and losing to, and inexorably being replaced by — a new kind of 24/7 success cyborg that had had doubt and depression and down time genetically engineered out of it.”

“STRONG AND CLEAR.” Not “soft and muddy.” If John Edwards seems to have changed, he says, it’s only a change in clarity.

“I should make absolutely clear: Nothing has changed about John Edwards as a human being and my value system,” he said. “It’s exactly the same as it’s always been, which is wanting to give people the chances that I’ve had.”

Well, there must at least be a change in your values about how forthright a political candidate needs to be.

UPDATE: A little muddiness on Edwards’ relationship with the netroots.

MIDWESTERN RIVALRY. “We’re No. 1!” Most corrupt!

SO, TOM. Are we doing boldface intros or all caps intros?

Note to Newt – Wake up and smell the Coffey.

HI, TOM. I’m glad to see you’re here early, which is early early this Daylight Savings morning. I thought my Cingular cell phone was the best bet for getting the real time when I got up this morning, but — unlike my computer — it didn’t register the spring forward. Hello, Instapundit readers. I hope, with enough of us blogging in concert, we can serve up juicy nuggets at a Reynoldsian rate. And thanks to Glenn for letting me back in over here. The last time I did it, in August, I was also driving from Madison, Wisconsin to California and back — and counting on Holiday Inn Express to supply the internet connection. It was a bit insane. I’ll be more grounded this time. At least physically.

UPDATE: I can’t believe I’m giving tech advice, but turning the cell phone off and back on got it to spring forward.

Did That Last Entry Say “Tom Maguire”? Yes! I will be guestblogging for a week, along with Ann Althouse and Megan Mcardle. Regular readers here may remember me from Just One Minute, which lately has been The Lewis Libby Channel. I have promised Glenn that (for a week anyway) I will end my Dark Obsession and look for other material in the uiniverse.

You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play. But you do win even if you lose – it’s a dollar for a dream!

A “MELTDOWN” in Nevada. Don Surber is amused.

UPDATE: This might amuse him, too.

I’LL BE AT A SECURE, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION for the next several days. But my usual crop of topflight guestbloggers — plus a surprise new addition — should keep things hopping around here. I don’t expect to be checking email, etc., much if at all. See you when I get back!

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG’S NEW BOOK gets a positive review from Todd Zywicki.

And John Scalzi’s new book get’s a positive review from Eugene Volokh.

HISTORICAL IRONY in South America.

MIKE RAPPAPORT: “How is it that Scooter Libby is facing jail time and Sandy Berger got off with a slap of the wrist. At least part of the answer is that Libby was investigated by a special prosecutor, while Berger was not. My guess is that there is more to the story of Berger as well (incompetence at Justice?)” Or something.

THE BLOGGINGHEADSTV INTERVIEW was recorded (at our end) using the Canon GL2 that Helen has used for her documentaries — it has the remote control that lets you zoom, etc., without being behind the camera. Plus, the aptly-named thrifty light set. That worked out pretty well, although the near-white wall in the background gave a bit of a backlighting effect — next time I’ll do a bit of exposure compensation. It looked fine on the monitor, but just a shade dark in the final version.

JOHN NOONAN: “This war has become, by and large, an exercise in politics. ‘Warped Clausewitz’ is a good way of framing it. “

WHO KNEW THAT HARRY REID HAD SO MUCH INFLUENCE? “Iran tells US to set timetable for Iraq exit.”

UPI REPORTER PAMELA HESS talks about what she saw in Iraq recently, on C-SPAN.