“YES, A PRIUS GOES 100 MPH:” There’s no reason why hybrids have to be slow, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever taken my Highlander Hybrid over 100 — it’s a sport-ute, after all — but it’s quite zippy.

THE INTERNET: A threat to our precious bodily fluids.

LIBRARIANS, Hip, left-wing activists.

NASHVILLE IS STILL TALKING, but now it’s on a strictly unpaid basis.

LOW-BUDGET RACING: Hitting the endurance track in a $500 Volkswagen.

THE ECONOMY IS BOOMING, so what might start the next recession? James Pethokoukis takes a look.

WHILE I VACATION VIA SURFACE TRAVEL IN A MISERLY HYBRID, Live Earth is killing the planet!

Matt Bellamy, front man of the rock band Muse, has dubbed it ‘private jets for climate change’.

A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that far from saving the planet, the extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army.

The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts – nearly nine times the circumference of the world. The true environmental cost, as they transport their technicians, dancers and support staff, is likely to be far higher.

The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists’ and spectators’ travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com, who specialises in such calculations.

Throw in the television audience and it comes to a staggering 74,500 tonnes. In comparison, the average Briton produces ten tonnes in a year.

We’re doomed.

UPDATE: Yep: “Tomorrow’s Live Earth concerts all over the world are part of Al Gore’s plan to save, well, the Earth. But they could end up generating more carbon dioxide than was produced by all of Afghanistan in 2006.”

TAKING TOILETS high tech.

NATURE: 50 years of the Multiverse.

This essay is free to nonsubscribers.

SO I’M READING RICHARD MORGAN’S THIRTEEN, and so far I’m liking it a lot. I liked his Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. On the other hand, his Market Forces left me utterly cold. So far, this book is more like the ones I liked.

AMERICA’S ROADSIDE BLOOMERY, a call to action for photographers. Cool.

NO FOURTH AMENDMENT PROTECTION FOR EMAIL ADDRESSES AND I.P. ADDRESSES, according to the Ninth Circuit.

A PACK, NOT A HERD:

Three men armed with guns robbed the store shortly after midnight and stole wallets and purses belonging to customers, said Lt. Dean Sullivan, a Fort Worth police spokesman.

The man, whom police didn’t identify because he is a witness, saw two of the men walking around nervously before they entered the store. The witness said he called 911 when one of the men pulled out a gun and fired as he walked into the store.

About 20 seconds later, the witness’s wife tried to call him from her cellphone inside the store. But he never got to talk to her.

“I just heard her saying, ‘There is nothing in my purse,’ ” he recalled. “And there was a ‘pow.’ The phone went dead.”

The man, who has a concealed handgun license, sprang into action. He walked into the store with his .45-caliber pistol under his shirt.

“I really thought I’d find her in the store shopping and get her out the back door,” he said. “That was my intention. … I had no intention of confronting these armed bandits.”

But in the store, one of the robbers pointed the gun at the man. The man then fired twice. The robber ran away, and it’s unknown whether he returned fire, Lt. Sullivan said. Outside the store, the retired man fired again.

Lt. Sullivan said Rayshaun Johnson was possibly hit during the robbery. Mr. Johnson, 17, was injured on his backside and foot. He was dropped off in the parking lot of Huguley Memorial Medical Center in Fort Worth.

Good for him.

THIS SOUNDS COOL:

Batteries have long been vital to laptops and cellphones. They are increasingly supplying electricity to an unlikely recipient: the power grid itself.

Until recently, large amounts of electricity could not be efficiently stored. Thus, when you turn on the living-room light, power is instantly drawn from a generator.

A new type of a room-size battery, however, may be poised to store energy for the nation’s vast electric grid almost as easily as a reservoir stockpiles water, transforming the way power is delivered to homes and businesses. Compared with other utility-scale batteries plagued by limited life spans or unwieldy bulk, the sodium-sulfur battery is compact, long-lasting and efficient.

Using so-called NaS batteries, utilities could defer for years, and possibly even avoid, construction of new transmission lines, substations and power plants, says analyst Stow Walker of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. They make wind power — wildly popular but frustratingly intermittent — a more reliable resource. And they provide backup power in case of outages, such as the one that hit New York City last week.

Better batteries are very high on my list of important technologies for the 21st century.

UPDATE: A few readers send condescending emails explaining that batteries only store power, they don’t produce it, and hence can’t substitute for generating plants. Less condescension is in order. In fact, at the margin batteries can substitute for new generating plants, by providing a way to, yes, store power generated in periods of slack loads, and using that power, instead of power from generating plants, to cover peaks load periods — just as pumped-storage plants do now. What’s news is the idea of being able to do this, even in a small way, with batteries.

ANOTHER GRIM MILESTONE: “According to Gallup, just 14% of people express confidence in the current Congress. That’s the lowest measure in the 34 years Gallup has been tracking government institutions.”

It’s a quagmire. They should pull out of Washington and redeploy to Okinawa.

JIHADISTS on the defensive.

UNHAPPY LAWYERS: The Manolo has a solution that at least some of them will like.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: USA Today reports:

The drive to get members of Congress to reveal their requests for federal funds has divided the body’s 10 presidential candidates.

Four of them have released their request lists, putting pressure on others to do so. A fifth, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, does not seek any money. Five others have not released their lists. Four cited long-standing policy. Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment. . . .

The issue of publicizing requests for “earmarks” — money targeted for specific programs or projects, usually in members’ home states or districts — is part of an effort by watchdog groups to shed light on what has traditionally been a largely secret process.

“We think the transparency will eventually lead to fewer earmarks,” says Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, which has asked all lawmakers twice for their funding requests. “It’s difficult for the leadership to continue to say, ‘We’re the most open and ethical Congress ever, and yet we’re not telling you what we’re requesting for earmarks.’ “

But not as difficult as it ought to be.

BRENDAN NYHAN ON LIBERALS AND THE LIBBY CASE: “Note how quickly the tables have turned here. People (like Marshall) who bemoaned the guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude of Republicans during the Clinton years have now decided — based on no hard evidence — (a) there was an underlying crime and (b) that President Bush “is a party to” it. To believe this to be true, you have to believe that Richard Armitage innocently leaked Valerie Plame’s status to Robert Novak before other Bush officials could unleash a plot that demonstrably violated the relevant statute. In addition, you have to believe that Libby’s testimony would reveal this plot. While it’s possible that all of this happened, assuming that it did is completely unreasonable.”

MEGAN MCARDLE ENCOUNTERS LOUSY CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM SONY: Since I own a Sony laptop too, I’m unhappy to hear about this. But not as unhappy as the Sony folks should be: “I’ve never before encountered customer service so actively, seemingly deliberately, aimed at alienating the consumer. It’s almost as if they don’t want me to use their stuff.”

WHILE YOU’RE WAITING FOR HARRY POTTER, some other wizard reading.

Plus, more danger for boys.

SUCCESS IS NOT AN OPTION! It’s like the media are run by Gene Kranz’s evil twin.

No, really, it is like that . . . .

UPDATE: Related thoughts here. And here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rand Simberg responds to a critic.

YOU DON’T TUG ON SUPERMAN’S CAPE: The Taliban take on the Jawa Report.

MARY KATHARINE HAM takes the John Edwards challenge.

MORE REPORTING from Baqubah.

UPDATE: Reader John Steele emails: “How did that story get by the NYT editors?”

Actually, the NYT manages some good reporting from Iraq, though apparently the editorial page folks, and the domestic reporting staff, haven’t been paying much attention.