THOUGHTS ON The New Republic and journalistic ethics.

SCHEMA UPDATES! A year ago, I didn’t know what an XML Schema was. And it appears that I wasn’t alone. But now my Sister-in-Law and company not only define what an XML Schema is in plain English, but they are now also providing a free on-line tool, SchemaXplainer, that provides Schema users with 60 custom analyitics with which to understand their XML Schemas. So if you’re into this stuff — and, really, shouldn’t you be? — check it out.

UPDATE: I should have linked to her main SchemaXpert site, too.

INDEED: “The fact that our state’s code is thoroughly woven with references to two specific political parties is evidence that the parties themselves act like a single, two-pronged special interest group, one that is more powerful than any labor union or trade association could hope to be.” It’s not much better at the national level, either.

DO WE NEED A DAVIS-BACON ACT FOR HIRED PICKETERS?

How about just requiring them to wear t-shirts saying “The Union is paying me $__ an hour to do this job.” Then we’ll know what they think is a fair wage.

UPDATE: Is it time for a picketers’ union?

SPEAKING OF ALASKA: A “fishy” land deal for Sen. Lisa Murkowski:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, says her deal with longtime friend and political supporter Robert Penney is entirely above board. Late last year, Murkowski paid Penney, a real estate developer, $179,000 for a 1.74-acre tract, although local real estate agents say it was worth as much as nearly double that figure.

Fishy, indeed. But do politicians engage in any other kind?

FIXING FLIGHT DELAYS WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY?

Bring it on.

POLITICS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: Radley Balko notes that former Surgeon General Richard Carmona has his own problems with politicized science:

One issue Carmona didn’t address is medical marijuana. Last year, the FDA put out a baldly political press release claiming that “no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States.”

This is flatly wrong. A wide-ranging 1999 Institute of Medicine report actually did show medical benefits from smoked marijuana while also finding minimal harmful side effects. The FDA press release was right in one respect: There have been no conclusive studies since. But there’s a good reason for that: The federal government won’t allow them.

Carmona didn’t mention medical marijuana in his list of grievances because Carmona isn’t any more interested in actual science on the medical marijuana issue than the Bush administration is. When the New York Times asked him his position on the issue, he gave the odd reply that he was against medical marijuana because, “Smoking is bad for you.”

In other interviews, Carmona has said medical marijuana is a “science issue, not a political issue,” which would be a great answer had Carmona actually looked at the science during his tenure and not merely at the political landscape.

Of course, merely suggesting that we study the possibility of reforming federal drug policy cost Dr. Jocelyn Elders, one of Carmona’s predecessors, her job. So perhaps you can’t blame him.

Claims that the Bush Administration has politicized science are correct. The implication that this is something new, however, is not. And read the whole thing for more examples involving obesity, alcohol, etc. Among the politicized sciences, “public health” has long been a top offender. As Balko notes: “The Office of Surgeon General always has been overtly political, a captive of the most hysterical public health activists. Its only real powers are tongue-clucking and finger-wagging, usually about the latest moral panic, lecturing the American public to knock off its bad habits, lest somebody get hurt. Richard Carmona’s tenure was no different, which is why it’s laughable to hear him lecture someone else about science.”

A WEST COAST BlogFest.

IN THE MAIL: Rowan Scarborough’s Sabotage: America’s Enemies Within the CIA.

The CIA is unhappy.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Alaska Rep. Don Young (R-AK) isn’t getting much love at home for his pork-loving ways:

The occasion for his latest tirade? A Republican colleague’s effort to cut a federal program that adds extra education money for indigenous students in Alaska and Hawaii.

It’s a helpful program for Alaska, where we struggle to find effective ways of educating Native students. But at a time when federal spending is under lots of scrutiny, it’s not beyond the pale for colleagues to wonder if this special program is necessary or appropriate.

Rep. Young decried this legitimate debate as “fighting each other” and compared it to how “mink in my state kill their own.”

He might have been OK if he’d stopped there. But he went on:

“There’s always another day when those who fight will be killed too, and I am very good at that.” . . .

Alaska has been tagged as a pork-swilling backwater that gobbles up federal money for “bridges to nowhere.” Congressman Young has drawn scrutiny in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. He has drawn criticism for two different instances where he did favors for Outside businessmen who also happened to raise about $60,000 for his re-election campaign. . . . If anyone in this case is helping to call the honor of the House into question, it’s Congressman Don Young.

Indeed.

ANOTHER FALSE CLAIM OF AUTHORSHIP FROM JOE BIDEN? Well, a false claim of originality, anyway. “Many people associate the assault weapons ban with Dianne Feinstein, so Biden can be forgiven for pointing out that he introduced legislation before she did. However, Biden is wrong to claim credit for being the first.”

BILL WHO?

Did Hillary avoid mentioning Bill in last night’s debate? She sure tried! For example, in talking about sending Chelsea to private school, she said: “I was advised… if she were to go to a public school, the press would never leave her alone… So I had to make a very difficult decision.” “I”? No “we”?

I’m guessing that their polls show Bill as more liability than asset. But if that’s true with the Democratic primary voters who were the target of this debate, will it be truer (or less true?) in the general election?

PC MAKERS “disappointed” with Vista.

On the other hand, there’s this: Vista Use Grows as Mac OS X Stays Flat.

DIRTY TRICKS IN THE SPITZER ADMINISTRATION:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s aides, including one of his closest advisers, improperly used the State Police to gather information about the governor’s chief rival, Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate majority leader, in an effort to plant a negative story about Mr. Bruno and damage him politically, according to a report on Monday by the attorney general’s office.

This doesn’t really surprise me.

NEW POLLING:

In a newly released set of 2008 Gallup general election matchups, Rudy Giuliani has edged in front of Hillary Rodham Clinton among registered voters, 49-46, while Clinton has an equally thin margin over Fred Thompson, 48-45. Giuliani comes in ahead of Barack Obama, 49-45, while Obama leads Thompson 51-40.

This pattern has been pretty consistent. Is a Giuliani/Thompson ticket the Republicans’ best shot?

RICHARD MINITER INTERVIEWS MITT ROMNEY on the surge and more.

And if you missed it yesterday, check out our interview with Michael Yon on the surge, too.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from The Belmont Club and Bill Roggio.

PUTTING THE SOCIALISM back into National Socialism. “In Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State, Gotz Aly argues on the basis of extensive evidence, that German support for Nazi rule was maintained by the creation of a massive welfare state funded in large part by plunder captured in Hitler’s foreign conquests, but also partly by means of “soak the rich” taxation within Germany itself. . . . Like some modern opponents of globalization and free trade, the Nazis viewed economics as a zero-sum game between nations, where increasing wealth for one country could, in the long run, only be achieved by impoverishing or conquering others.”

MICKEY KAUS ON BIDEN:

I agree that the Biden response to the gun-toting You-Tuber was revealing–it showed Biden lacks even moderately calibrated snap judgment–and it was revealing in a way that a) wouldn’t have happened with a non-YouTube debate, in which the questioner most likely wouldn’t have gotten past security, let alone the screeners, and b) reflected Biden’s alleged fatal flaw (or one of his several alleged fatal flaws), namely his cringe-making, unhinged spontaneous reactions.

The big news isn’t the diminution in Biden’s already microscopic chances of becoming President, but the collateral damage to other candidates and the Democrats’ brand. It’s hard to win swing states if gun owners hate you. Biden just exacerbated a problem the Democrats have been trying, with some success, to ameliorate.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN:

The historical significance of corn in the Americas is comparable to that of rice in China or wheat in the Middle East. Corn is more than a staple, it is part of the region’s DNA — which explains the hysteria in many Latin American countries over rising prices.

In just four years, leaders and organizations that style themselves as progressive have gone from denouncing the precipitous fall in the price of corn to denouncing its sharp climb — with many of the same arguments!

Children of the Corn was also the title of a Nebraska Guitar Militia CD, though not the one with the song about farm subsidies, “Farming the Government.” Nothing about dead people there, though it would have been cute.

ILLINOIS COUNTIES PASS RESOLUTIONS opposing gun control.

JOHN BAMBENEK FILES AN F.E.C. COMPLAINT AGAINST DAILY KOS: I have to say that I agree with David Freddoso that this is a terrible idea.

UPDATE: More here.

HUNGRY IN HOGTOWN: An interesting food blog.

L.A. TIMES: IRAQIS SEE PROGRESS IN IRAQ: Let’s hope Americans do, too, soon. (Via A.J. Strata).

A LOOK AT the weather on Mars, from John Tierney.

LAYERS OF EDITORS.