NASA: Warp drive, when?

A REPORT ON upgrading from Vista to XP: “Well, here there appears to be no contest. Windows XP is both faster and far more responsive. I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock that happens whenever I log onto Vista, instead I can run applications as soon as I can click their icons. . . . In addition, numerous tasks that take a long time on Vista have been greatly speeded up.” Congratulations, Microsoft!

THANK YOU for not existing.

BLOGGING MITT ROMNEY on Meet the Press.

UPDATE: A false claim of an NRA endorsement. That’s not good.

A SUBPRIME CRI DE COEUR from Iowahawk: Please don’t destroy my American dream!

FUNDRAISING: Fred Thompson beat his 2400 donors in 24 hours goal. And Ron Paul has raised $2.1 million since midnight. This tells you that there are a lot of people out there who aren’t too happy with the frontrunners.

UPDATE: This may be the secret to Paul’s sudden surge . . . .

IN THE MAIL: John Ringo’s Vorpal Blade. Also, John Ringo’s Sister Time.

MICKEY KAUS: “Obama goes after Edwards: Hillary’s not even Obama’s main rival anymore?”

UPDATE: Brendan Loy isn’t happy: Edwards vs. Huckabee? Shoot me now.

Huckabee was a nice, likeable guy when we talked to him. But honestly, I think I’d vote for Edwards over Huckabee, though I’d feel dirty the next morning. And I’d be even more likely to vote for Hillary or Obama.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “Huckabee is the Harriet Miers of the presidential candidates. Two words: under… qualified.”

And some related thoughts from Rand Simberg.

MORE: One of Rand Simberg’s commenters wants to know why I’d prefer Edwards over Huckabee. Basically, I believe that both would have similar socialist/populist programs, but that Republicans would combine against Edwards’ programs, producing useful gridlock. On the other hand, Dems would be only too happy to go along with Huckabee’s programs, and too many Republicans might do so too, out of party loyalty. The main thing Huckabee has, policy wise, that Edwards doesn’t is that he favors Second Amendment rights, but I wonder if he wouldn’t jettison them in some sort of “for the children” compromise at a crucial point, knowing that he’d get media adulation for doing so. Plus, the more I watch him operation, the more Clintonian his campaign seems. Edwards’, on the other hand, is just inept, which suggests that he wouldn’t be very scary in office. And both would probably be equally Carteresque in foreign policy.

TENNESSEE RECONSIDERS merit-based scholarships. Personally, I think that students should be rewarded for working hard and being smart. Need-based financial aid is fine, too — but assistance based on merit sends an important message.

STALIN REDUX: “A Russian opposition activist has been sent to a psychiatric hospital by authorities a day before a planned demonstration. Artem Basyrov’s detention is the latest in a series of incidents suggesting a punitive Soviet-era practice is being revived under president Vladimir Putin.”

DICK MORRIS: Why are the wheels coming off the Clinton bandwagon?

WASHINGTON POST: Poll shows more optimism on war.

GLENN SACKS ON Stephen Baskerville’s Taken Into Custody.

HUCKABEE: Falsely claiming a theology degree.

That’s not cool.

DAVE KOPEL on the media and copycat killers.

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE REPORTED hate crimes at Princeton. I’ll just note that they told me if George W. Bush were reelected, unpopular groups would be subject to beatings and intimidation. And they were right!

And as a commenter notes, this would get more attention if it had involved a noose on a doorknob even though in this case, according to the reports, we have an actual physical assault and beating.

UPDATE: Princeton resident Fausta Wertz notes that there’s been no coverage in the town paper.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Further thoughts from Prof. Tom Smith.

MORE: Some of Fausta’s commenters think this is a hoax. That’s always possible with “hate crime” reports, of course (see the Redstate item linked at the top of this post), but this one did involve a concussion, which probably wasn’t fake. At any rate, media skepticism about possible hoaxes — as another commenter notes — seems absent whenever there’s a noose involved.

STILL MORE: But Fausta’s commenters turn out to be right. Jeez. I think hate-crime hoaxes should be punished severely; they cause as much fear and hate as the real thing, oftentimes.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

Scientists from The University of Manchester have pioneered new ways of tweaking the molecular structure of antibiotics — an innovation that could be crucial in the fight against powerful super bugs.

Hope it pans out.

RALPH LUKER: “If you’ve devoted your professional career to teaching World History or Western Civ, you might rather slit your wrist now than watch this clip from ABC’s The View.” He’s right, though some of us might omit the qualifier.

HMM: “McCain is rising in New Hampshire polls, and savvy on the ground observers there tell me McCain’s campaign is catching fire.”

DEATH THREATS AT PRINCETON:

Four officers of the Anscombe Society and a prominent conservative politics professor received threatening emails Wednesday evening from off-campus email addresses.

The five individuals received identical messages telling them they would “suffer,” ordering them to “shut the fuck up” and declaring that “you are not welcome here.” “We will destroy you,” the message said.

Though the message did not explicitly mention the Anscombe Society, the four students who received emails were Anscombe vice president Jonathan Hwang ’09, president Kevin Staley-Joyce ’09, former president Sherif Girgis ’08 and administrative committee chair Francisco Nava ’09. Politics professor Robert George — who has publicly supported conservative causes, including the Anscombe Society’s goal of promoting chastity — also received the message.

I guess it’s part of the growing climate of fear in America.

UPDATE: More here:

Francisco Nava ’09 was physically attacked by two men in Princeton Township Friday evening, sustaining a concussion but no other serious injuries. The assault comes on the heels of several threatening messages recently sent to Nava, apparently in connection with his involvement with the socially conservative Anscombe Society.

I wonder if this will get the kind of attention that politically-reversed assaults would get?

MORE: Regardless, it appears to be a hoax.

STILL MORE: Andrew Sullivan seems to regard this as an “Insta-Embarrassment.” But there’s no embarrassment in correcting an error as soon as you’re aware of it. That’s something that Andrew, and his friends at The New Republic, should have figured out already.

ACE: “Everyone’s always clamoring for more art coverage on this blog, so here you go.”

HAPPY BILL OF RIGHTS DAY: Tim Lynch looks at how we’re doing.

I MENTIONED blogger-turned-Supreme Court clerk Will Baude the other day (not actually the first such, but the latest) and now I see that he’s got an interesting article out. Topic: “When an Article III court decides a case, and the President disagrees with the outcome, what can he do about it?”

UPDATE: Approving commentary on Baude’s “sexy reference to Ex Parte Merryman.” Yeah, baby!

GPS UPDATE: So I wound up ordering the Garmin Nuvi 660 instead of the 350 I mentioned earlier. Everyone who emailed about the 350 loved it, but the 660 gives me bluetooth (which I may care about) and traffic alerts/rerouting, which I definitely do care about. I’ve often had the experience of being on a trip and stuck in traffic, and wishing I knew local conditions well enough to find a way around the jam. I’ll let you know how it works out.

A FISCAL CRISIS IN CALIFORNIA? Ed Morrissey notes that the inability to restrain spending has made this inevitable, and suggests that the likely outcome is a tax increase justified by the crisis.

I’ve just been reading Daniel Weintraub’s excellent Party of One: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of the Independent Voter, which comes out in a couple of weeks, and you can certainly see how Schwarzenegger’s compassionate-conservative approach, coupled with the inbred, gerrymandered lack of accountability in the California legislature, made this inevitable. I predict that Schwarzenegger will announce a “compromise” tax increase based on the “emergency,” with some cosmetic budget cuts that won’t really amount to much. But I could be wrong — as Weintraub’s book notes, Schwarzenegger is a canny politician in many ways. However, his budget approach seems to have been based on kicking the can down the road, and that only works for so long. Meanwhile, I’m reminded of Poul Anderson’s statement that “compassionate government” is a code phrase meaning that there will be absolutely no compassion for the taxpayer.