QUESTIONS ABOUT USA TODAY, free hotel copies, and circulation numbers. (My favorite bit: “USA Today has a higher hotel circulation than the overall number for the New York Times.”) This topic was discussed on InstaPundit quite some time ago; I don’t think my views have changed, and alas the InstaPundit / Net Porn bundling scheme never did take off.

ERWIN CHEMERINSKY ACCEPTS U.C. Irvine’s renewed offer. I imagine he negotiated a pretty good deal . . . .

SOME RECOMMENDED MILITARY READING, from Abu Muqawama.

MARK STEYN: Looking for love in all the wrong places.

MORE ON U.C. DAVIS’S silencing of Larry Summers. Check out Greg Mankiw’s reaction. And here’s more on U.C. Irvine’s firing of Erwin Chemerinsky. Apparently they’re not big on uncongenial ideas, or administrative backbone, at the University of California. So if they do anything you don’t like, be sure to tell the Regents and they’ll fold!

UPDATE: On Greg Mankiw’s blog: “If there is any place that should be open to a wide range of views, it is a university. To bar a scholar as prominent as Larry from talking simply because you disagree with him is despicable.”

A NEW GUN BLOG, at Outdoor Life.

IN THE MAIL: Cass Sunstein’s Republic.com 2.0 — with the cover being devoted to “Revenge of the Blog.”

EARLIER I MENTIONED AUBREY DE GREY’S NEW BOOK on strategies for ending and reversing aging. Now here are some blog reports from the third SENS conference — just keep scrolling. As with all this stuff, my philosophy is “bring it on!” Some more thoughts on that here. And read this, too.

TAXPROF ASKS: Why should Congress bother to fix the tax laws when it’s easier to blame the IRS?

HOWARD KURTZ WRITES:

This frustration with journalism extends to a slew of other controversies. Is Sen. David Vitter being truthful in denying involvement with a New Orleans prostitute who was paid by Hustler magazine? Is Sen. Larry Craig dissembling when he denies soliciting sex in a men’s room? Did Alberto Gonzales give faulty testimony and make misstatements about various Justice Department controversies or is he a liar?

Hmm. What recent political scandal is he missing? Hsoot, it’s on the tip of my tongue . . . .

A WHILE BACK, I quoted William Gibson as saying: “The geezer of the future will have more plugs and jacks — will be more into that, probably, than younger people — because he’ll need it.”

In this week’s Newsweek, Steven Levy expands on this theme.

HERE’S A REPORT ON THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE’S BIOFUELS INITIATIVE, which focuses on switchgrass and other cellulosic ethanol: “Although the five million gallons expected to be derived from the Vonore facility would make it the largest cellulosic ethanol plant in the country, its output is just a drop in the bucket in relation to 150 billion gallons of annual U.S. gasoline consumption. The Bush administration’s goal is to increase biofuels production to 35 billion gallons by 2017, with an ever-increasing portion derived from cellulosic ethanol.” I’m not sure about ethanol, but I’m sure that cellulosic ethanol is going to be better than corn-based ethanol, which is a complete waste.

Here’s more on the sustainability of switchgrass ethanol. And more on biofuels generally, here.

ROGER SIMON ON THE “RINKY DINK” ANTIWAR DEMONSTRATIONS: “However many people you agree showed up – the AP says “several” thousand – the number is pretty pathetic. In a country of three hundred million, if you can’t muster up even fifty thousand people against a war, the event is basically meaningless, barely even news. You could probably drum up more than that for fly-fisherman’s rights. (From having been at many demonstrations, my eyeballs tell me even the VOA number is exaggerated.)” Whatever the numbers, they’re clearly lower than they were several years ago. Not much momentum here.

ANOTHER CHEMERINSKY / UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA ROUNDUP at TaxProf. Plus a look at the New McCarthyism at the University of California. It’s kind of a bad week month for them.

GOOD THING WE HAVEN’T abandoned them yet. “American commanders in southern Iraq say Shiite sheiks are showing interest in joining forces with the U.S. military against extremists, in much the same way that Sunni clansmen in the western part of the country have worked with American forces against Al Qaeda.”