I’M AGAINST RAISING THE CAFE STANDARDS, but here’s a roundup of ways automakers can meet them. Still here’s the key bit: “There’s no question that Detroit can build cars and trucks that meet the new CAFÉ standard. And Congress is determined to make them do it. But has anybody calculated the costs? Raising fleet standards to these levels would add thousands of dollars to the cost of the average vehicle—carbon fiber and polycarbonate don’t come cheap, folks! . . . We suspect that consumers—and voters—may experience something like sticker shock when they realize they’re the ones paying the bill.”

A gas tax would be more honest — which is probably why Congress is considering raising CAFE standards instead. Roundup on the energy bill here. Happily it seems that subsidies for ethanol didn’t do as well as expected. No word on what Ted Kennedy said about wind power, though there was a big debate over requiring utilities to generate more power from renewables; that failed too.

STRANGE SILENCE ON IRAN: “It’s quite amazing how the desire NOT to know trumps intelligence every time. Can’t let the facts get in the way of good policy, right? The desire NOT to know about Iran is not at all unique to this administration or to this secretary of state. Indeed, it is the basic theme of American policy ever since the 1979 Revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Tehran.”

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: “Democrats promised way more than they’ve delivered so far.”

MICHAEL YON POSTS ANOTHER REPORT on the battle for Baqubah: “Our guys are winning. Al Qaeda is about to be strangled and pummeled to death in this town, but the local Iraqi leadership is severely wanting.”

Read the whole thing.

WHEN THE IDENTITY THIEF IS AN IDIOT:

Crooks in an underground chat room for selling stolen credit card numbers and personal consumer information offered pilfered data purportedly about Herman Munster, the 1960s Frankenstein-like character from “The Munsters” TV sitcom.

The thieves apparently didn’t realize Munster was a fictional TV character and dutifully offered to sell Munster’s personal details — accurately listing his home address from the television series as 1313 Mocking Bird Lane — and what appeared to be his MasterCard number. Munster’s birth date was listed as Aug. 15, 1964, suspiciously close to the TV series’ original air date in September 1964.

CardCops Inc., the Malibu, Calif., Internet security company that quietly recorded details of the illicit but wayward transaction, surmised that a Munsters fan knowledgeable about the show deliberately provided the bogus data.

An army of Hermans.

AN EXAMPLE FOR BRITAIN, from the Australians.

MICKEY KAUS: “Hey, I gave Kerry $300! That’s chopped liver? Why can’t I be a scandal too? …P.S.: Salon’s on the list. I’m as biased as Salon!”

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: “Obama again blames staff for miscues.”

HERE’S LOTS MORE ADVICE on keeping computers from ruining your back, from Dr. Melissa Clouthier.

HAMAS SHOWS OFF FATAH’S TORTURE CHAMBER: Fortunately, with Hamas in charge, there’s no danger of anything like that happening now.

FRED THOMPSON on CAIR.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The earmarks are starting to go online:

The House Appropriations Committee today took its first official steps to disclose pet projects in FY08 spending bills, revisiting the Interior-Environment and Financial Services measures to add the earmarks in advance of floor action next week. Now that Republicans got their wish, they are seeing the fruits of their efforts up close. Their own projects are being squeezed both by House Appropriations Chairman Obey’s decree of a 50 percent total reduction in earmarked projects as well as being on the receiving end of a 60-40 split between the majority and minority they have not experienced in a dozen years.

“There’s nothing magic about a 50 percent reduction,” Obey said.

“We’re simply trying to draw the line so that we have sufficient staff capacity to provide the review of these projects that is necessary to avoid embarrassment to the committee or the institution.”

Much more information at the link. Plus, the Republican Study Committee is now posting earmarks information online, too.

Max Sawicky thinks that the PorkBusters campaign is doomed: “You might as well take a match to an iceberg. Pork is here to stay. Try it with some black bean sauce.”

Well, it’s uphill. But we’ve at least got them acting ashamed, and we’re forcing some additional transparency into the system. it’s a start, anyway. I also think that Max underestimates the role of pork in fostering both actual bribery, and also the somewhat more subtle corruption that leads members of Congress to see the public fisc as their own trough, something that leads to the sort of entitlement mentality and pocket-stuffing behavior that has Congress getting a 14% confidence rating from the public. There are lots of costs to that, and the worst ones aren’t economic.

UPDATE: Related item here: “Third, and for me the biggest problem, is the corrupt atmosphere this breeds, and the utter domination of Congress it gives to the powerful members of the appropriations committees. Incumbent congressmen often win reelection based on “bringing home the bacon.” To do that, they need to play nice to members of the appropriators. Thus, on any given issue, they are very likely to be highly attuned to the desires of the appropriators. Voters have pretty short memories. Politicians tend to have long ones. Between campaign contributions from “leadership PACs” and control over the earmarks appropriations process, the Congressional leadership can rather easily reward compliant congressmen and punish those who refuse to toe the party line. Transparency should only be the first step.”

Indeed.

ATTACKING TALK RADIO via legislation? If you can’t beat people, silence ’em! Trent Lott will probably sign on.

UPDATE: I see that Hillary and Boxer are denying the report, but I gather Inhofe is standing by it. Frankly, I think they’re lying — the Democrats, and many of the Republican inhabitants of Incumbistan, like Trent Lott, would be happy to shut up talk radio, and all the other alt-media, too. If they say otherwise, I don’t believe them.

AN ELECTRIFIED GOAT FENCE for the border?

SEXUALLY ABUSING A CHILD to prosecute child abuse: “The girl almost certainly wasn’t sexually abused by the defendant, but she was by the physician retained by the prosecutor.”

SOME DISTURBING PHOTOS OF CARROTS.

None, however, is half so disturbing as this one.

POLITICAL BLOGGER SENT FOR COUNSELING as a way of keeping his job. Seems kinda Cultural-Revolutionish, doesn’t it? “Off to the reeducation camp for you, blogger!” But it’s actually worse: It means that he doesn’t take responsibility for his words, and his boss doesn’t either, since he doesn’t have to either fire him or keep him on. How convenient.

DON’T TELL OBAMA YOU BLOG! (Via Blogometer).

A LOOK AT JOURNALISTIC POLITICAL DONATIONS: “MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.”

Sounds like they’ve got a diversity problem.

ACRES OF BLINDING CHROME! “Got chrome everywhere I need it, rolled and pleated front to back.”

MORE IRAQ REPORTING FROM MICHAEL YON: Read the whole thing, but here’s an encouraging excerpt:

A positive indicator on the 19th and the 20th is that most local people apparently are happy that al Qaeda is being trapped and killed. Civilians are pointing out IEDs and enemy fighters, so that’s not working so well for al Qaeda. Clearly, I cannot do a census, but that says something about the locals.

Let’s hope so.

A “MILLION LETTER’ CAMPAIGN ON IMMIGRATION, without the million letters.

SOME TRANSPARENCY PROGRESS FROM BARACK OBAMA: “This is interesting: Barack Obama is vowing to detail all his earmark requests in the next two days and is challenging his Presidential rivals to do the same. Obama, who’s tried to be out front on good government and ethics issues, is apparently the first Presidential hopeful to do this.”

THE ORAL-B TRIUMPH gets a rave review from the PM folks: “this is the best, smartest toothbrush I’ve ever used.” Do I want my toothbrush to be smart?

UPDATE: Oops. They look the same, but a reader says that the one I linked to doesn’t have the bluetooth.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Appropriations Committees — cesspits of corruption?

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, the number-two Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, is under investigation by the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska-based oil services company, according to media reports. And he’s not alone: Three other congressional appropriators are facing federal investigations, too.

House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) says another inquiry is complicating a favorite pastime for committee members: earmarking money for special projects that benefit constituents and, all too often, their donors. . . .

All of this has some on Capitol Hill asking if there is something endemic to the culture of the appropriations committees, in both the House and the Senate. Is the scent of money too tempting, too corrupting? Is appropriation’s long history of backroom deal-making no longer acceptable in this more transparent era?

Appropriators don’t think so, of course, and they say that they don’t believe there are any “cultural” problems specific to the committees.

I beg to differ. There’s obviously a culture of entitlement, and impunity there. It’s apparent in many ways, not least the offense taken when people want information about what’s going on. Though to be fair, the problem certainly isn’t limited to the Appropriations Committees, as episodes like William Jefferson’s illustrate.