WHY PEOPLE WHO HATE THE IMMIGRATION BILL SHOULD BACK THE IMMIGRATION BILL: Okay, I had this thought last night as I was drifting off to sleep. But the Nyquil wore off and I still think it may make sense.

Lots of people think that the immigration bill stinks, and want to punish the GOP by staying home in 2008. Fair enough. But if you plan to punish the GOP in 2008, then you might want to support the immigration bill now. Why? Because if the Democrats win the White House and Congress in 2008, you’ll get a bill that you like a whole lot less! So if you plan to punish the Republicans later, you should encourage them to pass their bill now . . . .

There’s got to be something wrong with this analysis, I just can’t figure out what it is. Anyone? Kaus? Anyone?

UPDATE: Mickey has just put up a post coming to the opposite conclusion, proving that great minds think alike, but differently! Well, one of us will be right . . . .

CONGRESSMEN CALL FOR A FEDERAL PROBE OF THE CARBON OFFSET BUSINESS, which probably is rife with fraud and misrepresentation.

Of course, so is Congress . . . .

A COUPLE OF PHOTOS FROM MICHAEL YON, captioned: “Near Fallujah: Marine Staff Sergeant Rakene Lee enters culvert while searching for bombs under 4-lane road after attempted IED attack.”

IS ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION MAKING INTERVIEWS OBSOLETE?

It is a transaction that clearly favors the person asking the questions. A print reporter writes down someone’s answers, then picks and chooses how much, if any, to use, how to frame the quotes and where to put any contrary information. Television correspondents slice and dice taped interviews in similar fashion.

But in the digital age, some executives and commentators are saying they will respond only by e-mail, which allows them to post the entire exchange if they feel they have been misrepresented, truncated or otherwise disrespected. And some go further, saying, You want to know what I think? Read my blog.

Sounds fair to me. Most journalists I’ve dealt with have been fair, and generally accurate — though the actual words that came out of my mouth are usually not the actual words they report, it’s close enough. But I see no reason for journalists to object to having the whole interview on the record.

WIDENING THE FIELD: “Why doesn’t Carter put his money where his mouth is and seek the Democratic presidential nomination? After all, he’s only a few years older than Mike Gravel, and he may be the only guy who can beat Hillary Clinton. He’s been against the Iraq war since at least 1991, when Barack Obama was in diapers and Al Gore was a neocon war monger.”

Shouldn’t test the waters without a poll, though. So here goes:

And, for more information:

UPDATE: Okay, with around 2,500 votes, there’s a very large majority in favor of Jimmy Carter running, and an absolutely crushing majority in favor of not voting for him if he does. I can only conclude that the vast majority of InstaPundit readers either enjoy watching train wrecks, or feel that Jimmy Carter hasn’t been humiliated enough. Or, possibly, both.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader suggests I should drill down further. Good idea!

BRA-BLOGGING, from Ellen Warren.

A JANUARY 29TH FLORIDA PRIMARY? Good for Fred Thompson. (And Al Gore, if he gets in, which I doubt.) Bad for people who’ve been wasting their time already in Iowa or New Hampshire.

THOUGHTS ON IMMIGRATION POLITICS within the GOP: I particularly agree with the points about the White House’s tin ear for its own base, and the lack of trust.

LIVEBLOGGING A conference call with McCain.

UPDATE: More from Ryan Sager and James Joyner.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Still more from Capt. Ed.

IF AN AL QAEDA ATTACK FAILS, and nobody reports it, did it really fail?

UPDATE: Or, for that matter, a Taliban attack?

“THANK GOD” there were no WMDs.

BBC: Did Greens Help to Kill the Whale?

Apparently, the environmentalists had won. Yet whaling continues today.

Norway and Iceland hunt commercially, while Japan, which behaves more assertively in the international arena than its northern counterparts and attracts most ire from the anti-whaling bloc, catches whales in the name of scientific research.

So what went wrong?

One theory, explored in the BBC World Service’s One Planet programme, is that the environmental movement pushed too hard; that its strident calls helped to alienate Japan at the very point where it was prepared to abandon whaling, and to remove a key bargaining tool from the US armoury.

Did the environmental movement harpoon its own ambitions?

Ambitions for saving whales, maybe. Ambitions for feeling good about itself? Not at all! Just a reminder that over-strident activism can be counterproductive, though if one assumes that over-strident activism is really about feeling good rather than about results, maybe it doesn’t matter. . . . (Via Jennifer Marohasy).

JOHN BURGESS AND JAMES JOYNER look at conflicts between State and stability operations.

IN THE MAIL: William Langewiesche’s The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor. One of the things it underscores, I think, is how foolish the United States was, starting in the 1990s, to allow A.Q. Khan’s network to operate.

A SKEPTICAL LOOK AT corn-based ethanol.

PROBLEMS FOR THE Coast Guard.

A LOOK AT progress in regeneration research.

MY COLLEAGUE BARB KAYE in the University of Tennessee Communications College is conducting an online survey of blog readers. If you’ve got time, lend her a hand by taking it.

IS AL GORE ALREADY GETTING OLD?

First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.

“I really don’t understand why they keep showing it,” says McKenzie (his parents asked that his last name not be used). “I’ve spoken to the principal about it, and he said that teachers are instructed to present it as a debate. But every time we’ve seen it, well, one teacher said this is basically a two-sided debate, but this movie really gives you the best idea of what’s going on.”

At this rate, the next generation will all be driving hemis just to rebel.

JOHN ASHCROFT, civil liberties hero! I wonder what other reputations will be reconsidered in coming years?

AN EMINENT DOMAIN REFORM BILL in Congress. Ilya Somin has some thoughts.

FORBES’ RICH KARLGAARD ASKS how many people died because of Rachel Carson?

Buried in paragraph 27, and paraphrasing the Congressman, The Washington Post concedes that “numerous” deaths might have been prevented by DDT.

Let’s stop here. Any curious reader would ask, Just how “numerous” is numerous? Wouldn’t you ask that question? The Post never asks that question. Why?

Because the answer devastates Rachel Carson and her followers. According to these CDC figures, malaria kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year.

Every year, 800,000 small children die from malaria, a disease once nearly eradicated. Ponder that.

And all The Washington Post can say is “numerous?”

That’s scandalous.

More on that subject here. It’s certainly an argument against overreacting.

SYRIAN BACKED TERRORISTS RAMPAGE IN LEBANON: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

TIM WORSTALL NOTES SOME DEVELOPMENTS in the BritBlogosphere.

A FORMULA FOR understanding the immigration bill.

The math doesn’t seem to be working, though: “Fewer than 20 senators are publicly committed to supporting the immigration deal that hits the Senate floor today while nearly 40 are already opposed or have serious concerns, underscoring how difficult it will be for President Bush and his allies to craft a coalition that can pass the bill. ” More evidence that this is a case of political ineptitude at work, something underscored by the Democrats’ sitting this out.