A RAID IN EAST TIMOR: “International security forces raided a rebel base they had been surrounding in East Timor, the country’s president said. Four people were killed in the raid early Sunday, but President Xanana Gusmao did not identify them. . . . The United Nations, which is control of security in the country, was scheduled to hold a media conference within hours.”

Another report here.

STEPHEN HAWKING WILL GO ZERO-G:

On April 26, Dr. Hawking, surrounded by a medical entourage, is to take a zero-gravity ride out of Cape Canaveral on a so-called vomit comet, a padded aircraft that flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce periods of weightlessness. He is getting his lift gratis, from the Zero Gravity Corporation, which has been flying thrill seekers on a special Boeing 727-200 since 2004 at $3,500 a trip.

Peter H. Diamandis, chief executive of Zero G, said that “the idea of giving the world’s expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity” was irresistible.

In some ways, this is only a prelude. Dr. Hawking announced on his 65th birthday, in January, that he hoped to take a longer, higher flight in 2009 on a space plane being developed by Richard Branson’s company Virgin Galactic, which seeks to take six passengers to an altitude of 70 miles.

Dr. Hawking says he wants to encourage public interest in spaceflight, which he believes is critical to the future of humanity. . . . “Life on Earth,” he said, “is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”

He and I are in agreement on that.

IRAQ’S POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC BULLET: Interesting.

ANN ALTHOUSE’S NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN on speech and law schools is now available for free outside the Times Select paywall.

And be sure to read this post, and the comments that go with it.

DONALD SENSING is defending Al Gore.

CHEESE is a poor substitute. But I feel pretty sure that my heart will never belong to Julian Sanchez.

ANOTHER PUTIN CRITIC MYSTERIOUSLY SHOT: In the United States, this time.

HIGH EFFICIENCY INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULBS: Bring it on.

PUSHING ETHANOL:

President Bush, hoping to reduce demand for oil in the Western Hemisphere, is preparing to finish an agreement with Brazil next week to promote the production and use of ethanol throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, according to administration officials.

Not a bad idea, in terms of promoting energy independence, though ethanol, like other biofuels, is generally overhyped. But there’s also this objection:

But the agreement has already begun to prompt complaints from politicians from corn-producing regions of the United States. They fear that the plan would lead to an increase in imports of cheap foreign ethanol and undercut American producers.

That’s stupid, or at least self-serving. In fact, we should get rid of the protectionist trade barriers that favor corn syrup over sugar anyway. Plus, there’s this bonus:

By increasing ethanol production and consumption, particularly in countries that produce sugar, officials of the Bush administration hope to reduce the region’s overall dependence on foreign oil and to take some of the pressure off oil prices.

As a side effect, American officials contend, the program could also reduce the influence of Hugo Chavez, the president of oil-rich Venezuela.

Does that mean that the agribusiness interests who oppose this plan are unpatriotic?

UPDATE: Ethanol tariff protest babes! Well, pretty much.

DON SURBER:

Only 2 percent of India is air-conditioned versus 71 percent of the United States. India not only is further south but it has nearly four times the U.S. population.

Now would be a good time to make sure India gets its air-conditioning right to protect the planet.

Instead, we are worrying about what kind of light bulbs Wal-Mart sells.

He’s right. Compact fluorescents are swell — I’ve installed over a dozen now, and will have my house mostly converted soon as old bulbs burn out and I replace ’em with CFLs. But while this stuff is worthwhile, it’s not much in the great scheme of things, and the stuff that does matter gets less attention because it doesn’t fit the moralistic approach that global-warming activists have chosen to take.

That moralistic approach is also why Gore got slammed so much for hypocrisy. Carbon offsets (to the — unclear — extent that they’re non-fake) are a practical, rationalistic, capitalistic approach to a problem that has been defined in romantic, moralistic, apocalyptic terms.

THE HIGH COST OF RAISING A KID:

Government figures put the total cost of raising a child at $279,000, but some increasingly common expenses can send the number soaring over $1 million.

Is it any wonder that birthrates are low? And this feeds on itself — when people have fewer kids, they spend more, which encourages more spending and makes it more expensive to have kids, encouraging people to have fewer, on which they spend more . . . .

Add to this the increased social costs in terms of higher parenting standards — which are mostly a matter of parental competitiveness and guilt, rather than the kids’ actual needs — and we’re in an unfortunate spiral. More on that topic here.

HEH.

ALWAYS-ON CAMERAS: Making a difference in the Tennessee legislature, according to this report.

MEGAN MCARDLE wants laptop advice.

I’m still happy with this one. The EVDO service works well, and will even roam to non-Sprint providers. Battery life is terrific. Biggest weakness: It’s so light you can’t tell if it’s in your briefcase without looking.

A REPORT FROM IRAQ, in the Small Wars Journal. (Via RealClearPolitics).

KILLING FIELDS, then and now.

THOUGHTS ON HEALTH CARE, from Cathy Seipp.

Plus, some sort-of related thoughts from Stuart Browning.

I’VE NOTED BEFORE that “public health” folks seem to have gotten more interested in political crusading than in, you know, public health. Here’s another example:

Rats! New York City has become a national laughingstock.

Indeed, while Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden has kept busy as a beaver designing new paradigms for public health – databanks for diabetics and trans-fatless fast food – the rats have been running amok.

That’s rats as in Rattus norvegicus – a legendary dispenser of disgusting diseases and the bane of traditional practitioners of public health for centuries.

Video footage of Rattus – a whole herd of them – flitting about a Village fast-food joint made national news last week.

Before they start with their bureaucrat-empowering agenda of 21st-century health initiatives, maybe they should get a handle on the 19th-century health problems first. . . .

Some related thoughts on public health here.

IN THE MAIL: Brian Frazer’s Hyper-chondriac: One Man’s Quest to Hurry Up and Calm Down. Helen grabbed it, read it, and has posted a review.

THE MYTHBUSTERS offer advice on extreme plumbing:

The forces at play with high-pressure tanks can be huge. If the energy stored in a workshop air-compressor tank is released all at once, it can hurt or kill a person. I once complained to our insurers, “Why are you so fussy about the explosives we use on the show? Every day we make rigs using pressure tanks that are just as dangerous.” Big mistake. Now they fuss about pressure tanks, too.

Read the whole thing, which is quite amusing.

FREEMAN HUNT is blogging pictures of her new baby. Cute!

BLOGGER OF THE YEAR: It’s much deserved.

SCOTT BURGESS: “As has been widely noted, accusations of hypocrisy have made it a bad week for do-gooders on both sides of the Atlantic.”

AN ASSASSINATION THE LEFT CAN FEEL GOOD ABOUT.

BEST BUY CHARGED WITH RUNNING A FAKE WEBSITE:

Under pressure from state investigators, Best Buy is now confirming my reporting that its stores have a secret intranet site that has been used to block some consumers from getting cheaper prices advertised on BestBuy.com. . . .

Based on what his office has learned, Blumenthal said, it appears the consumer has the burden of informing Best Buy sales people of the cheaper price listed on its Internet site, which he said “is troubling.”

What is more troubling to me, and to some Best Buy customers, is that even when one informs a salesperson of the Internet price, customers have been shown the intranet site, which looks identical to the Internet site, but does not always show the lowest price.

Blumenthal said that because of the fuzzy responses from Best Buy, he has yet to figure out the real motivation behind the intranet site and whether sales people are encouraged to use it to cheat customers.

Hmm. Hard to believe they’d be so stupid, but I’ve been surprised by stupidity before.