A LOOK AT LAWYERS’ EDITS on Wikipedia.

BOTH ACE and Josh Marshall are pretty down on this blog-bashing column by Michael Skube. Skube’s credibility is somewhat undercut as he doesn’t seem to actually, you know, read the blogs he writes about. “Perhaps I’m naive. But it surprises me a great deal that a professor of journalism freely admits that he allows to appear under his own name claims about a publication he concedes he’s never read.”

Well, I dunno. This seems to be the modus operandi for the journalistic establishment these days.

UPDATE: A transparency problem.

DEAN IS NOW A Category 5 hurricane. Bad news for Mexico.

FROM BEN STEIN: Advice for the college-bound.

MICKEY KAUS: “Should journalists gag their own leakers?”

It seems quite consistent with their general approach.

THOUGHTS ON MANLINESS FROM Jeff Goldstein. “Those who refer to masculinity without the requisite disclaimers about how it is unmasculine to refer to masculinity can lay no claim to that real masculinity — which evidently comes from recognizing that real masculinity is seldom pointed out by really masculine people, unless they are pointing it out to show how pointing it out is unmasculine. Which, in turn, makes them masculine for the effort.” Got that? Plus, this observation.

UPDATE: HEH: “My wife shares in your enthusiasm.”

AND NOT THE BLOGGY KIND: Poison pyjamas from China. This is starting to really damage their brand.

LESSONS IN HANDLING ADVERSITY: A comparison of NASA with the space tourism industry.

DAN RIEHL WONDERS WHY DEMOCRATS ARE so scared of Fred Thompson. I can think of a few reasons. Or maybe they’re just trying that Karl Rove / John Kerry reverse-psychology thing . . . .

UPDATE: Thompson’s campaign would do better to worry about this.

ANOTHER UPDATE: From the Thompson campaign:

Just so you know, we’re not behind that Blogs for Fred Thompson website that linked/copied Stephen Green’s post. I think they’re just blogging newbies who are still learning the ropes.

I emailed them this morning to offer to help them learn standard netiquette for how you should/should not operate in the blogosphere.

Glad to hear it.

CAN A VIRUS MAKE YOU FAT?

Yes, according to scientists at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.

At an American Chemical Society symposium this morning, they reported that human adenovirus-36, a common virus that causes respiratory and eye infections, can transform adult stem cells into fat cells. In controlled studies, stem cells that were not exposed to the virus did not develop into fat cells.

An earlier study at Louisiana State showed that 30 percent of obese people were infected with the virus, while only 11 percent of lean people were infected. But until the new study was done, there was no proof that the virus can actually cause fat levels to increase.

So when can we expect a vaccine?

JAMES LILEKS: “To paraphrase Lou Grant: you know how you drive? Don’t drive that way. It’s raining. The roads are covered with a traction-reducing fluid called water. If this ‘water’ material is pounding down on the freeway, you might want to stay more than half a car length behind me.”

Good advice!

HOW DO YOU KNOW THINGS ARE BETTER IN IRAQ? There’s less media coverage.

NOW I’M ON A BUMPER STICKER.

LET AFGHAN POPPIES BLOOM: Seems like a good idea to me.

GETTING A VIRTUAL PH.D. on the Web.

MAKING G.I. JOE LESS AMERICAN: Because, you know, people might be offended.

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY name that party! “ABC 7 has learned the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority have charged Representative Robert Filner of California with assault and battery following an incident at Dulles International Airport Sunday night.”

UPDATE: Reader Hastings Walton visited Filner’s website, which informs us that “Bob is a fearless fighter.” I guess so.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Shelby Clark emails: “The lead-in sentence to the ABC 7 report now reads ‘…Democratic Representative Robert Filner…'” The mystery has been solved!

MORE: Another alert reader emails that Filner’s party affiliation has moved down to the second paragraph. The news is a living thing!

MEGAN MCARDLE HAS LEFT THE ECONOMIST and is now blogging for The Atlantic Monthly. But is there a sinister undertone to this move? “I am trying not to read any significance into the fact that just as I leave The Economist for this shiny new blog at The Atlantic Monthly, the financial markets melt down. Sure, the timing may be correct . . . the market began tanking about a week before my last day, which is par for insider trading deals. But it would be paranoid to take this as any sort of an omen. Wouldn’t it?”

To blame a drop in The Economist’s stock would be entirely reasonable. But would the entire market drop? . . . From “butterfly effect” to “blogger effect”!

MORE HOSPI-BLOGGING, sounding a theme I’ve sounded more than once myself.

SHOULD PROFESSORS REQUIRE STUDENTS TO ATTEND A “TEACH-IN”? And volunteer their time to a cause? Prof. Kenneth Anderson wonders: “I have serious doubts that one ought to be requiring students to attend a conference that starts out from so given a political or policy point of view, much less volunteering them for service in lieu of fees.”

FLIP-FLOPPING ON A MILITARY DRAFT. I remain opposed.

UPDATE: Advice on decoding doublespeak about a draft.

WAS THE GDRIVE RELEASE CANCELED?

A LOOK AT TECH POLITICS IN 2008, from the National Journal folks. Free links.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: INCOME TAX FOES REGROUP. It’s a free link.

JOHN HAWKINS interviews Robert Novak.