A LOOK AT IRAN’S peaceful nuclear program.

STUART TAYLOR: “Academia’s Pervasive PC Rot.”

A LOOK AT income mobility.

USING A LASER-EQUIPPED HUMVEE as an IED hunter.

FOR LEE BOLLINGER, a budding faculty revolt at Columbia? Of course, what they’re angry about is that he was too mean to Ahmadinejad.

ANOTHER ELECTION VICTORY for a pro-American leader in Europe.

BACTERIA-BASED hydrogen production. Cool.

A NUCLEAR POWER RENAISSANCE, fueled by global warming concerns:

This resurgence of commercial attention to nuclear power is coming about for several reasons. The increased attention on greenhouse gases and their effects on the global climate is spurring interest in carbon-neutral power-generation technologies, including nuclear power. Improved technologies make new nuclear plants safer and more reliable, supporters say. And federal tax credits and subsidies (.pdf) tucked into the Energy Policy Act of 2005 have kick-started a once-dormant industry.

“The performance record from an operational point of view is extraordinary,” said David Crane, the CEO of NRG Energy, of the next-generation plants currently operating in other, more nuclear-friendly countries such as Japan, China and France. “The U.S. has missed two generations of design that’s been carried out in other countries — they’re simpler to maintain.”

Can someone sue the antinuclear movement for worsening global warming by imposing a decades-long moratorium on clean, greenhouse-friendly nuclear power? Surely there are some state AG’s out there somewhere . . . .

ON politics and Kubler-Ross.

JOE KLEIN: Are we winning in Iraq?

Yes. “We are winning” isn’t the same as “we have won.” But it’s a cruel blow to those who’ve had a lot invested in the notion that we’ve lost, something that’s even been noted on the left. If things continue to play out as they are, Iraq will be stable, and its people will remain deeply unhappy with Al Qaeda, and those — in Iran and Saudi Arabia — who have backed its violence and the effort to keep Iraq chaotic and deadly. It’ll be for the next President to take proper advantage of that, if he or she is smart enough to.

And Klein is surely right in saying that “A renewed campaign on the part of the hapless Democratic leadership to cut off the supplemental funds will only increase the public sense of Democratic futility. It will also play into the very real, and growing, public perception that Democrats are too busy wasting time on symbolic measures (like trying to cut off funds for the war) and shoveling pork (the water projects bill) to pass anything substantive for the public good.”

UPDATE: Greyhawk on what it all means, at The Mudville Gazette.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here: “No one is declaring victory, but cautious optimists on the U.S.-led war in Iraq suddenly find themselves armed with a growing number of indicators that the fighting has taken a new, more hopeful turn.” Iraqi internal politics are looking better, too, though that’s less quantifiable.

SALON: On the fake campaign trail.

BOB OWENS says that the media is missing the point of Fred Thompson’s speech at the Citadel.

AT THE NEW ATLANTIS, an excerpt from Bob Zubin’s new book, Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil. Zubrin’s a smart guy, and I read the book in manuscript (I provided a blurb). It’s worth some time and attention.

A TROUBLING REBOUND IN STDs: Use a rubber, folks. Back when people were more worried about AIDS, they did.

A SPITZER CLIMBDOWN: “New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to abandon a plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, officials familiar with the decision told The Associated Press Tuesday night.”

SOME PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T READ A LOT OF LAW REVIEW ARTICLES — and some others who have — were suprised at how short my Cheney piece was. It was shorter than a lot of law review articles, including a lot of mine, but not as short as all that. Shorter pieces are in now, with law reviews like Northwestern’s, or Yale’s, having special sections. But I was writing short articles long before that: My Chaos and the Court, applying chaos theory to the Supreme Court in the Columbia Law Review, was equally short; likewise Penumbral Reasoning on the Right, in Penn’s law review, or the piece on judicial confirmation from the Southern California Law Review that I linked a bit ago. And I was hardly a pioneer — my heroes Charles Black and Arthur Allen Leff were known for their interesting short pieces, but the world of law-review writing moved away to massive tomes for a while. I think it’s shifting back, and I think that’s a good thing. Short pieces aren’t inherently superior to long ones — and I’ve written plenty of long ones myself — but a piece should be as long as it needs to be, and no longer. For a while, we lost sight of that.

PHIL BOWERMASTER: Three things cloning isn’t. You can’t produce an “Insta-Army”? Dang. I kind of liked the sound of that . . . .

NOT-SO-GRIM MILESTONES: Rand Simberg’s ten thousandth post, and Ann Althouse’s 11,111,111th pageview.

JAMES TARANTO criticizes an outbreak of gay-baiting in the current election. It’s especially admirable that Taranto is willing to criticize a fellow conservative for bigotry.

COOKWARE UPDATE: So after my pressure-cooker post I decided to give it a try myself, and ordered this 6 quart pressure cooker from Presto (cheap!) bundled with this cookbook. So far, so good. I’ve made some of the standards (Chicken Cacciatore, anyone?) to good reviews from the Insta-Wife and Insta-Daughter. But what I like it for most is making fast sides — I made new potatoes in a trice last night. It’s not as fast as they claim — “cook time” may be 5-6 minutes, but you have to let it cool for another 10 or 15 — but it’s still a lot faster than the old way. I don’t think it will be my main cooking tool, but it’s handy and it was worth the money. The cookbook is good, too, and has handy cooktime tables in the back.

CHARGES AGAINST ARMED REPORTER DROPPED: Would they have been dropped for somebody else? Probably.

HOMER SIMPSON’S UNILATERAL CONTRACT WITH GOD: Having spent some time with Boyce Martin back in the day, I suspect he authored this himself.

JOHN EDWARDS’ IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE: “The Democrats often criticize Bush for having an overbroad theory of executive power, but at least when Bush grasps for power, it’s for things the President can do.”

Howard Kurtz comments: “John Edwards’s new Iowa ad is very effective rhetorically–and based on a false premise. A president has absolutely no power to rescind federal health insurance for members of Congress, as the Edwards campaign admits.”

UPDATE: Heh.

Meanwhile, Cass Sunstein weighs in: “‘It’s a stunt,’ Sunstein said. ‘Congress isn’t going to enact legislation taking away its own health care.'” It’s just not a very good stunt.

A BLOG DEVOTED TO REPORTING government harassment of photographers. My next Popular Mechanics column will be on a related topic. (Via Jesse Walker).

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, the morality police would be wielding a heavy hand. And they were right! “The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is trying to sneak a provision to criminalize online gambling. The bill, if passed, would make online gambling punishable by up to 2 years in prison and $25k in fines.”

But there’s more: “Ironically, the provision is buried deep within a bill to allow the construction of three new casinos in Massachusetts to bring more gambling revenue into the state.” As Rev. Lovejoy says, if the state does it, it’s not immoral!

UPDATE: Reader Glenn Howe emails with the correct Lovejoy quote: “Once something has been approved by the Government, It’s no longer immoral.”