DICK CAVETT on Don Imus.

IN THE MAIL: Stephen Baskerville’s Taken Into Custody, on marriage, divorce, and families. It actually came last week, but the Insta-Wife immediately stole it.

A STATE OF EMERGENCY IN PAKISTAN: Follow the link for a roundup.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: New ethics reform law hasn’t ended earmark abuses:

Such is the mixed legacy of ethics reform passed by the new Democratic majority that took control of Congress in January on a wave of voter revulsion about corruption. The Democrats banned an assortment of sleazy practices, such as the gifts lobbyists used to shower on Congress. They also ordered lobbyists to report more fully on contacts and contributions. But they left plenty of wiggle room and, not surprisingly, there’s plenty of wiggling going on. . . .

One of Congress’ seamiest practices is earmarking, when lawmakers slip special projects into bills to direct your tax dollars to politically favored recipients. The Senate promised to shine a bright light on this practice. But in some cases, the reform works more like a low-watt bulb. For example, the $5.2 billion in earmarks tucked into the Senate’s defense spending bill are still difficult to decipher, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group.

Then there’s the whole private-jet thing. Follow the link for more.

AL QAEDA THREATENS THE “AMERICAN POODLE:” Moammar Khadafy.

INSTAPUNDIT HAS BEEN NOMINATED as best individual blogger in the 2007 Weblog Awards.

PLAYING CATCH-AND-RELEASE with suspected shoe-bombers.

A LOOK AT THE TERROR WAR, and the danger of academic legal theory.

A REPORT FROM THE Brussels counterjihad summit.

IT’S NOT QUITE THE BATCAVE, but in some ways it’s cooler.

A LOOK AT the fifteen ugliest cars at SEMA.

Plus, IowaHawk’s got some car imagery of his own.

CLINTON AND BUSH, duped by the same source.

“YOUNG STRIVERS” IN WASHINGTON find that being a “professional world-saver” doesn’t pay as well as they’d hoped.

And they’re not getting much sympathy.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Geez, we’ve been dealing with this in academic science for decades now.

I wish these people would do the math: Doing something that’s stimulating and fun, sounds great at a cocktail party, and is supported by charity or tax money means that you will probably be making peanuts. (In my field, there are usually about 200 applicants/permanent position, all with Ph.D.s.)

Don’t like being broke? Do something that makes you a profit center instead of a cost center.

Good advice anywhere.

A STUDENT PORN CLUB at the University of Texas San Antonio?

MORE DOG BITES MAN: Tom Maguire looks at the toothmarks.

YEEHAW!

So later this month, according to THIS INVITATION, the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is holding a “Rural Americans for Hillary” lunch and campaign briefing at the end of this month….

..but she’s holding it in Washington, DC….

…at a lobbying firm…

… and specifically, though it’s not mentioned in the invitation, at the lobbying firm Troutman Sanders Public Affairs…

…which just so happens to lobby for the controversial multinational agri-biotech Monsanto.

Salt of the earth.

MORE ON MURTHA: A Contractor, Charity And Magnet for Federal Earmarks:

Behind the rise of Concurrent is Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, who helped arrange funding to launch the organization in 1988. Murtha has since arranged millions of dollars more in directed congressional appropriations called earmarks. Now Concurrent has nearly $250 million in annual revenue and 1,500 employees.

Concurrent is a prime example of how to marry entrepreneurial savvy, influence on Capitol Hill and arcane procurement rules to create budget magnets in congressional districts. Unlike many other big contractors, Concurrent pays no income tax on most of its revenue. Unlike nonprofit, federally funded research-and-development corporations, it is not chartered by the federal government. . . .

“The message they give to federal agencies is, ‘We’re the guys you want to play with because we have big friends,’ ” said Keith Ashdown, an investigator at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group in the District that monitors congressional spending. “This is the model everyone is following.”

No danger of corruption here. Move along.

REASONS TO VOTE FOR HILLARY: “Hillary Clinton, like Richard Nixon, is a hard-boiled realist, who understands national vital interests as well as political necessities. She will throw rhetorical bones to the left but govern in the center, because she will want to be reelected. She will employ all the usual suspects of the American foreign-policy making establishment and pursue a moderate-to-firm course in international relations. . . . John Edwards is fairly close to reality when he says a ‘vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for the status quo.'”

ROBERT SPENCER AT DARTMOUTH: Joe Malchow has posted video, circumventing Google’s censorship.

SCHUMER WILL vote for Mukasey.

UPDATE: So will Dianne Feinstein.

DEAN PETERS IS BLOGGING FROM JORDAN.

SOME SUGGESTED debate questions.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER on Hillary, Bill, and Argentina.

WILL COLLIER ON cheap HD-DVD players at Wal-Mart.

OBAMA, PIZZA, AND CHARITY: Some thoughts from Extreme Mortman.