ARE TODAY’S ELECTRONIC GADGETS WORTH THE MONEY? USA Today says that some are and some aren’t:

Tech companies constantly revamp their product lines, as anyone who has ever paid top dollar for a cutting-edge device knows. Driven by brutal competition, they release faster, cheaper, more feature-laden gadgets each year. More than 2,700 companies are expected to unveil their latest and greatest beginning Sunday at the giant Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is expected to draw more than 2,700 exhibitors.

The show’s 140,000 attendees will see firsthand the effects of Moore’s Law, an industry rule of thumb that says electronics roughly double their performance every two years.

But how much have they actually improved this year? Is it worth paying for a pricey, top-of-the-line camera, TV or other device that may be outdated — or obsolete — in a few months? Or would it be better to wait until next year to buy? USA TODAY asked the experts to find out.

I’m going to be attending the Consumer Electronics Show myself, as part of the Popular Mechanics contingent — and yes, it was awfully nice of the PM folks to invite me along. I’m actually going to be doing more gadget reviews, etc., for them in the future.

UPDATE: What about my TCS Daily column? You may well ask. (“I am asking.” “And well you may!”) As some readers have noticed — and thanks for that! — I’m not doing the weekly column there anymore. I liked it, and Nick Schulz is a fine editor, but I wrote that weekly column for five years straight and it was starting to turn into a bit of a grind. Nick was gracious enough to let me go, and I think he’s better off taking the money he was paying me and using it to hire fresh new writers, especially as he has a special talent for finding new voices and encouraging them. I’ve missed the column a bit these past few weeks, but Helen says I’m a lot more fun on weekends. A column’s a lot more work and stress than an equivalent number of words in blog-post form; I’m not sure why, it just is.

I wrote a while back that I was trying to reduce my workload a bit, and I still am. When Helen was sick, this kind of work was a nice escape from thinking about our troubles. Now that she’s doing better, I find I’d rather spend a bit less time at the keyboard.

GREG SARGENT EMAILS: “Glenn, I think I’ve proven that the ‘lonely Kerry’ story is bogus.”

Here’s his post.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston responds.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tom Nesbit emails:

The explanation that Kerry sought out reporters at the meal, to the exclusion of troops, is just further proof of Kerry’s political tin ear. Why in the world would he take the bait over a relatively obscure picture to reinforce the idea that he does not care for the troops? He is in Iraq, in the presence of soldiers, and he chooses instead to eat with reporters. He admits to purposely avoiding the soldiers. What do you want to bet there will be another clarification within 48 hours that only compounds Kerry’s aloofness? Is it a tempest in a teapot? Sure, if it were any other capable national politician. Kerry, though, might just be able to make it a full fledged storm.

Kerry does have special talents in that direction.

THE JOY OF CLERKSHIP.

GOOGLE INTERVIEW HORROR STORIES: The one about the military veteran is particularly bad.

Amusingly, one of the Google ads accompanying the story is for jobs at . . . Google!

“CULTURE OF CORRUPTION” UPDATE: A standing ovation for Rep. William “Freezer Cash” Jefferson.

BORDER POST OVERRUN: “A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona’s border with Mexico. According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state’s West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.” Seems like a big story, if true.

IN THE MAIL: Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule’s Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts. It’s a rather contrarian take on the question of civil liberties and the war on terror.

MARY KATHARINE HAM says that the Washington Post was unfair to her church.

SPACE DEBRIS:

Pieces of a spent Russian rocket reentered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming early on Thursday, showering parts of the western United States with space debris, U.S. space monitors said.

Pieces of the Russian SL-4 spacecraft that survived their blazing descent intact most likely landed in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, U.S. Northern Command spokeswoman Air Force Major April Cunningham said.

One of my space law students a few years back brought in a “Skylab Crash Helmet” — a novelty item sold back when Skylab was about to reenter. Bring ’em back!

MAOISTS VS. GAYS: Many gay activists supported the guerrillas, only to be turned upon when they weren’t needed any more. So maybe gay rights supporters around the world should hire mercenaries . . . .

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Andy Roth reports that Jim Moran seems to be paying the price for his pre-election pork promise that: “When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I’m going to earmark the shit out of it.”

Moran in fact got shut out of the subcommittee chairmanships. That’s probably a good sign, suggesting that the Democratic leadership is at least ashamed of pork, something that the GOP leadership wasn’t for most of the last Congress. Unfortunately, as Roth also notes, the records of those who did get important Appropriations positions aren’t all that great. Still, this counts for something, I guess.

ARNOLD KLING: Two strategies for avoiding truth.

Some of Kling’s thoughts are echoed in this essay, and in this shorter piece.

A NEW INTERNET CRACKDOWN IN IRAN.

MORE ON COMPACT FLUORESCENT LIGHT: Megan McArdle doesn’t like it: “The problem is that after five minutes of sitting under a compact flourescent bulb, I feel like an extra in a Fellini film. I use one in the range hood, and if I had closet lights, I’d install them there. But there’s no way I’m using them as my primary form of illumination unless legally forced to do so; it’s just too murderously depressing.”

I put one in my study; it sucks. I put a different brand in Helen’s study — looks great. Put a third brand downstairs — it sucks even more than the one in my study. I’m told that the quality of light issue is a lot less when it’s in a lamp with a shade than when it’s in an overhead fixture. Still experimenting. . . .

DANIEL DREZNER on the Democrats’ trade policy: “Baucus’ embrace of a service pact with the EU, coming so soon after Angela Merkel’s quasi-TAFTA proposal, makes me wonder if the Bush administration will become more enthusiastic about the proposal — or run away, scared it’s an EU-Blue State conspiracy.”

JOHN CONYERS wants to bring European-style hate speech laws to America.

BLOGGING THE DETROIT AUTO SHOW: At Popular Mechanics.

DARFUR UPDATE: Tim Collins calls for an army of mercenaries: ” So, for $1.3bn – approximately £700m at current exchange rates and half of Sudan’s military spend – you could field, feed and sustain an army for a year that could beat anything in Africa , permitting you to deal with the Sudanese forces and their attendant militias. A cost too far? Well Live Aid raised $300m in a single concert to buy food for a starving Ethiopia in 1985. In the UK alone we’ve apparently just drunk more than £1bn in booze over Christmas. So put in those terms it is not so much.”

There are, as he notes, legal and diplomatic issues.

DEAN BARNETT OFFERS F.A.Q.’s on the new Congress. “Pelosi’s smackdown of CAIR the other day was a symbol that the Democrats know their role has changed.”

THOUGHTS ON THE MILITARY, from Victor Davis Hanson.

50 MARATHONS IN 50 DAYS: This guy’s a machine. Or maybe an eating machine:

You wouldn’t believe the stuff Karnazes consumes on a run. He carries a cell phone and regularly orders an extra-large Hawaiian pizza. The delivery car waits for him at an intersection, and when he gets there he grabs the pie and rams the whole thing down his gullet on the go. The trick: Roll it up for easy scarfing. He’ll chase the pizza with cheesecake, cinnamon buns, chocolate éclairs, and all-natural cookies. The high-fat pig-out fuels Karnazes’ long jaunts, which can burn more than 9,000 calories a day.

I’m speechless.

“PLEASE DON’T MAKE BLOGS INTO FACULTY MEETINGS:” I don’t think we should make anything into faculty meetings, except perhaps as a last desperate weapon of war.

WES CLARK’S FOOT IN MOUTH: At least this time around he’ll know about the hand sanitizer.

JAMIL HUSSEIN: IS HE OR ISN’T HE? Bob Owens has some thoughts.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus on Hussein’s apparent existence: “That’s one important component of credibility!”

I’m expecting Michelle Malkin to get to the bottom of this.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ OF THE BELMONT CLUB talks about Iraq and Andrew Sullivan on Hugh Hewitt’s show. Audio at the link.