PATRICK RUFFINI sends this video of George Will making “the conservative case for Giuliani.”

Meanwhile, Joe Lieberman may back a Republican.

FORGET BIPARTISANSHIP: Try respect.

PODCASTING ABOUT the joys of podcasting.

HARRY REID, LAND BARON? The Los Angeles Times takes a look at some of Reid’s dealings. (Via Ed Morrissey, who asks: “Will the reformist zealotry of the Democratic majority be brought to bear on Reid? Don’t count on it.” What about all that “culture of corruption” talk before the election?)

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up. So is the Carnival of Wheels, and Radiology Grand Rounds. And, of course, the Carnival of the Cats. Lots more carnivals — and yes, I know, I’ve been pretty lax in noting them lately — over at blogcarnival.com.

And even when I’m lax, the BlogCarnival box in my right sidebar is always on the job — click here and look right.

AIRBRUSHING AT DAVOS? A bit late for that, isn’t it?

MICHAEL YON posts a lengthy essay, with photos, from Iraq.

He emails: “There are two types of media sources covering this war: the ones who are here, and those who are not. The media is Missing In Action, and reporting from afar. Yesterday, for instance, major media reported on an attack in a small village north of Mosul. None of those sources actually visited the village. I did.”

His work would be in The New Yorker, if there were any justice.

UPDATE: Plus, a photo essay from Bill Ardolino, one of those journalists who reports from Iraq.

“THANKS JOHN: You’re a really big help.”

UPDATE: Eric Scheie: “This is not to suggest that Bush is perfect. Far from it. I’m often disappointed in him, and many times I’ve looked back and asked whether things might have been different had Kerry won. The answer is yes they would have. I think they would have been worse. The more I read about Kerry, the more I’m glad I didn’t vote for him.”

Yes. Bush, as I’ve said many times, was a weak candidate. It’s just that Kerry was much weaker.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh: “In response to Bill Kristol saying John Kerry shouldn’t have left home to criticize American foreign policy abroad, Brit Hume yesterday quipped: ‘Is it really fair to John Kerry to argue, Bill, that when he’s in Switzerland, he’s away from home?'”

MORE MYTHS: This time it’s five myths about suburbia and automobiles. I had a related piece here.

AT STRATEGYPAGE: Top Ten Myths of the Iraq War. Excerpt:

10- The War in Iraq is Lost. By what measure? Saddam and his Baath party are out of power. There is a democratically elected government. Part of the Sunni Arab minority continues to support terror attacks, in an attempt to restore the Sunni Arab dictatorship. In response, extremist Shia Arabs formed vigilante death squads to expel all Sunni Arabs. Given the history of democracy in the Middle East, Iraq is working through its problems. Otherwise, one is to believe that the Arabs are incapable of democracy and only a tyrant like Saddam can make Iraq “work.” If democracy were easy, the Arab states would all have it. There are problems, and solutions have to be found and implemented. That takes time, but Americans have, since the 18th century, grown weary of wars after three years. If the war goes on longer, the politicians have to scramble to survive the bad press and opinion polls. Opposition politicians take advantage of the situation, but this has nothing to do with Iraq, and everything to do with local politics in the United States.

Indeed. (Via Austin Bay, who observes: “In twenty years its common sense assessment will be the conventional wisdom.”)

UPDATE: Some related thoughts from Robert Kagan:

It’s quite a juxtaposition. In Iraq, American soldiers are finally beginning the hard job of establishing a measure of peace, security and order in critical sections of Baghdad — the essential prerequisite for the lasting political solution everyone claims to want. They’ve launched attacks on Sunni insurgent strongholds and begun reining in Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia. And they’ve embarked on these operations with the expectation that reinforcements will soon be on the way: the more than 20,000 troops President Bush has ordered to Iraq and the new commander he has appointed to fight the insurgency as it has not been fought since the war began.

Back in Washington, however, Democratic and Republican members of Congress are looking for a different kind of political solution: the solution to their problems in presidential primaries and elections almost two years off. Resolutions disapproving the troop increase have proliferated on both sides of the aisle. Many of their proponents frankly, even proudly, admit they are responding to the current public mood, as if that is what they were put in office to do. Those who think they were elected sometimes to lead rather than follow seem to be in a minority.

Perhaps we should abolish Congress and run everything by poll. I doubt there’s much support for that idea in Congress . . . . Read the whole thing, and especially this point: “Of course, most of the discussion of Iraq isn’t about Iraq at all. The war has become a political abstraction, a means of positioning oneself at home.”

And TigerHawk writes: “There are, I think, two groups of people who are afraid that the ‘surge’ might work.”

CLAYTON CRAMER will soon be starting a book tour in support of his new book, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie. I’m sure that Michael Bellesiles won’t like it.

JUST THINK OF IT AS EVOLUTION IN ACTION: Muslims urged to refuse ‘un-Islamic’ vaccinations.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl points out the obvious. (“Actually, Reynolds’ noting the item is far from celebrating it . . . any actions, stupid or otherwise, by parents are by definition built in to any working theory of evolution.” I disagree with Riehl on the HPV vaccine, though; I’d include it with routine childhood immunizations.) And some related thoughts of mine, here and here. As for those who wrote me with the usual anti-vaccination scare stories and conspiracy theories, well, it’s evolution in action for you, too. Me, I keep my shots up.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Light Maleski emails:

One overlooked problem with all people not getting vaccinated is the overall immunity level of the population decreases… not just those that don’t have the vaccine. For vaccines to be truly effective, they have to be administered to as much of the population as possible. So this doesn’t just affect the Muslims, but also the communities they intermingle with. An un-vaccinated person will make it more likely a person with a vaccination will contract the disease. Not an issue to overlook. This is also a problem with parents who want to refuse vaccinations for their kids before they enter school for “Religious” reasons (Christians included). These kids being more susceptible carriers increase the risk of other children getting sick, and thus the parents, and everyone else they come into contact. These kinds of people present a danger to us all.

Yes, this is the standard argument for mandatory vaccination, and I think it has considerable force, especially where, as here, the risk from vaccination is very low.

MORE: One of Dan Riehl’s commenters asks: “Am I the only person in this entire discussion other than Glenn Reynolds who’s read Oath of Fealty?” Heh. Apparently. It’s not like I haven’t used the phrase before.

MORE BUTTER-BLOGGING: So we ran out of the New Zealand butter that won the taste test a while back, and it still was showing as out of stock on Amazon. At a reader’s recommendation, I tried this Amish roll butter instead, though I didn’t fully grasp just how much butter a 2 lb. roll is. . .

The Insta-Daughter — who, delightfully, made me pancakes this morning — likes this stuff better; I find it a bit saltier than I like, but it’s quite good. And I imagine Nina Planck would approve.

UPDATE: No sooner did I post this than I ran across an interesting essay by Michael Pollan on food and nutrition:

But after several decades of nutrient-based health advice, rates of cancer and heart disease in the U.S. have declined only slightly (mortality from heart disease is down since the ’50s, but this is mainly because of improved treatment), and rates of obesity and diabetes have soared.

No one likes to admit that his or her best efforts at understanding and solving a problem have actually made the problem worse, but that’s exactly what has happened in the case of nutritionism. Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health. Perhaps what we need now is a broader, less reductive view of what food is, one that is at once more ecological and cultural.

Read the whole thing.

A REPORT FROM DAVOS:

OK, WE’RE not in America, but a session in Davos today on American energy security would have been a touch more convincing if we hadn’t been sitting in an overheated hotel room with the windows wide open so that this expensively produced heat dissipated into the freezing air outside.

Not to mention all the jetting-to-Davos, sometimes in private jets. Still, this bit sounds right to me: “The eventual answer is a big revamp on the supply side: more nuclear energy, more from existing renewables, more from new technologies. And a smaller revamp on the demand side: less waste, through more efficient cars, smarter building regulations. The state of the union address looked in the right direction.”

THOUGHTS ON politics and human rights.

A CIVILIAN MORTAR ATTACK on a girls’ school.

Plus, other civilians arrested.

BUT IT’S NOT A CIVIL WAR:

Hamas and Fatah gunmen battled each other in the streets Sunday, having sent civilians fleeing from their homes in an increasingly bloody power struggle that left more than two dozen Palestinians dead over the weekend.

An explosion early in the morning rocked the Gaza City home of a bodyguard to Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan, but the guard was not in the building and no casualties were reported. At least eight people were wounded in exchanges of fire between the sides overnight, Palestinian security officials said.

Because it’s only a civil war if you can blame Bush, apparently . . . .

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER at Davos. Plus, Arianna Huffington versus John McCain.

RON ROSENBAUM: The Geico Caveman jumps the shark.

A GOOD WEEKEND for editorials at the Washington Post.

A REPORT from the Code Pink rally.

UPDATE: In Madison, Vive Saddam.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A lengthy report from a reader — click “read more” to read it.

MORE: Another report. And here’s a Pajamas Media roundup.

LITVINENKO UPDATE:

British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a “hot” teapot at London’s Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing.

A senior official tells ABC News the “hot” teapot remained in use at the hotel for several weeks after Litvinenko’s death before being tested in the second week of December. The official said investigators were embarrassed at the oversight.

The official says investigators have concluded, based on forensic evidence and intelligence reports, that the murder was a “state-sponsored” assassination orchestrated by Russian security services.

And yet, Putin pretty much gets a pass for this.

NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN, courtesy of Major John Tammes.

MORE ON ORGAN DONATIONS: Virginia Postrel reviews Kieran Healy’s new book in The New York Times. Excerpt:

The book’s major shortcoming is its failure to address the fastest growing source of organs: living donors. More than two-thirds of the people on the national waiting list — about 68,000 — need kidneys. There are nowhere near enough brain-dead accident victims to fill that demand, regardless of family beneficence or organizational efficiency. Fortunately, nobody has to die to supply a kidney. They can come from living donors, who can live perfectly normal lives with a single kidney and who now account for nearly 40 percent of all kidney transplants. With the kidney shortage at crisis proportions, the debate over financial incentives is really a debate over whether living adults should be allowed to sell their own organs or, at the least, receive a tax credit or some other indirect compensation.

Although he barely mentions living donors, Healy’s sociological message resonates through that debate. Financial incentives would operate within complex organizational structures, as well as contract and liability law. Bureaucratic institutions, notably hospitals and insurers, would shape the environment in which transplants take place. Many kidney sellers would still have humanitarian motives. “The idea that markets inevitably corrupt,” Healy writes, “is not tenable precisely because they are embedded within social relations, cultural categories and institutional routines.” Commerce isn’t antithetical to culture; it is part of it.

Read the whole thing.

JOHN KERRY does it again. Like Jimmy Carter, he’ll never forgive America for rejecting him, and he’ll console himself with the approval of America’s enemies.

UPDATE: Video here.

Don Surber: “This is the best Massachusetts can send to the Senate?”

Jules Crittenden: “Sorry, I don’t feel like writing any more about this guy right now.”

Ann Althouse: “Anticipated next scene: Kerry proffers some mind-bending explanation of how his use of the words ‘international pariah’ didn’t mean what Fox News manipulated unintelligent plebes into believing.”