WHEN MURDERERS are heroes.

TECHNOLOGY THAT DOESN’T WORK: We’ve been in DC, investigating the MRSA outbreak — we brought plenty of hand sanitizer — and the hotel we’re staying in features the Miconic 10 elevator system, where you enter your floor number instead of just pushing “up” or “down” and the system routes the elevators for maximum efficiency. Except that it doesn’t work. Wait times have been as much as 15 minutes. Plus, one poor woman rushed to get into our elevator as it was heading up, only to realize that — since there are no floor-selection buttons in the elevators themselves — she was just stuck there until she could get off at another floor and select her destination there. Plus, there’s something slightly disturbing about the lack of any controls in the elevator — it’s the “spam in a can” approach to interfloor navigation, or something. I’ve used these systems in big skyscrapers (the Hearst building has them) and they seem to work there, but in this hotel, it’s pretty much sucked.

A PHOTO TOUR of the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show.

MUKASEY SHOULD VOLUNTEER TO BE WATERBOARDED, and invite curious members of Congress to join him. There’s precedent.

“TRUMAN LIED, ALIENS DIED.”

OBAMA TAKES THE OFFENSIVE: ” Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday lashed out at rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, accusing her of dodging tough questions about Social Security. Obama, campaigning at a senior center in Des Moines, said all the presidential candidates need to talk honestly about Social Security instead of sidestepping the issue, but he singled out Clinton—the front-runner for the nomination—for special criticism.”

THE KREMLIN’S CYBER-OFFENSIVE: “After ignoring the Internet for years to focus on controlling traditional media such as television and newspapers, the Kremlin and its allies are turning their attention to cyberspace, which remains a haven for critical reporting and vibrant discussion in Russia’s dwindling public sphere.”

BIN LADEN ADMITS DEFEAT in Iraq.

A LOOK AT CHINA’S underground electronic music scene.

THE INFLUENCE OF “BIG MONEY” ON POLITICS: Suddenly, not such a big deal.

INDEED: “As Dan Rather –obviously TNR editors’ role model– would say: ‘Courage.'”

MONSTERS EVERYWHERE? I don’t care! I wonder if there will be a Dutch translation?

JAMES LILEKS: “If you could tell your previous 1997 incarnation one thing, what might it be?”

I’m pretty sure it would be “Buy Google.”

A DIFFERENT SLANT ON ILLEGAL ALIENS: “If he wins his bid for the White House, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson may be just the man to get to the bottom of the 60-year-old Roswell UFO mystery.”

I GUESS THEY FIGURED THAT AFTER AHMADINEJAD AT COLUMBIA, IT WAS OKAY: “In the boneheaded move of the year, conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom invited British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin, a flat-out racist and Holocaust denier, to speak about the dangers of Islam at Michigan State University.”

UPDATE: Ron Paul supporters?

EXTREME MORTMAN: Congress can get something done!

SEARED, SEARED in his memory.

MICKEY KAUS: “Will three surges late in his term salavage Bush’s presidency? 1) Petraeus’ ‘surge’ in Iraq; 2) Bernanke’s rate-cutting liquidity surge to prevent the economy from sliding into recession; 3) The new border enforcement surge, which might tighten the unskilled labor market so the economy looks good from the bottom as well as the top (and save Bush from whiffing completely on a signature issue)?”

Kaus, however, underestimates the resourcefulness of the American media in extracting lemons from lemonade.

SOLVING THE MEDIA’S diversity problem.

OUCH: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”

LIVE-BLOGGING FROM THE X-PRIZE CUP, at Rand Simberg’s place.

POL POT’S STRETCH LIMO for sale on eBay.

Ever notice how the champions of the proletariat always have stretch limos?

CAR LUST: The unforgettable AMC Matador X.

WITH ALL THE CAREERS BEING BUILT ON FAKE NEWS, I don’t see why a fake press conference comes as any surprise, really . . . .

In the Colbert Administration, all press conferences will be done this way!

SOME POST-CALVAN advice for reporters in Iraq.