TED KENNEDY DOESN’T LIKE WIND TURBINES, but Boston’s Electricians’ Union thinks they’re great. Because they mean jobs for electricians. But what’s that compared with a trivial infringement on Ted Kennedy’s ocean view? (Thanks to reader Matt Szekely for the tip.)

IF IT’S AUGUST, it must be time for another round of “Gender in the Blogosphere.” Ellen Goodman serves, and Ann Althouse volleys. “Goodman doesn’t really have too much to say, but I note that she doesn’t come up with one idea that’s not about how men are a problem. Somehow women never have any shortcomings. It’s really a shame, because if you’re a woman, then there’s nothing you can change about yourself to do better.”

TASK FORCE WARHORSE: Reporting from Haifa Street.

PERHAPS MIKE BLOOMBERG SHOULD HAVE WORRIED ABOUT THIS PROBLEM, instead of spending his time on trans-fats:

In a Crisis, Subway Riders Get Little Guidance

Compared with commuters in many of the world’s leading cities, subway riders in New York live in something of an information vacuum once they enter the system’s 468 stations. For decades, riders have regarded their creaking and antiquated subway network as a minor miracle, tolerating frequent delays, cramped stations and malfunctioning public-address systems.

But the storm this week, highlighting yet again deficiencies in how the authority gets information out, seemed to push riders past the limits of their patience.

This is not just a convenience issue, but a safety issue.

ARNOLD KLING looks at the Facebook Generation Gap.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER ON the TNR / Beauchamp affair: “We already knew from all of America’s armed conflicts — including Iraq — what war can make men do. The only thing we learn from Scott Thomas Beauchamp is what literary ambition can make men say.”

MATTHEW HOY: “It appears as though efforts by some in the military and media to turn a tragedy into a crime are going to fail. Yesterday, Lt. Gen. James Mattis decided not to court-martial Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt and Capt. Randy W. Stone.” Something of an embarrassment for John Murtha, if he’s capable of embarrassment.

UPDATE: Murtha still running for cover.

ORIN KERR: Questions and answers on the new FISA bill. Plus a report on the FISA conference call for bloggers. Glad he was taking notes, as I was unable to, er, listen in . . . .

IF ONLY: “We’re entering the early mid-late summer blur, I suspect. Something deep, ancient, elemental and ancestral in the back of our minds has noted the angle of the sun at noon, and concluded: in two weeks I shall see school buses making practice runs. Of course, this information was useless to our Neolithic forebears, but it explains their epic poems about giant yellow beasts that prowled the land and devoured the first-born.” School started here yesterday. The insta-daughter’s opinion? . . . . Mixed.

SEGWAY FAN CLUB disbands.

MICKEY KAUS: “One way to characterize Bush’s second term in domestic policy is that he’s consistently moved to Plan B too late to salvage anything from the demise of his Plan A. That was certainly the case on Social Security reform, and in all probability will be the final story on immigration. Will he replicate that misjudgment on Iraq?”

DEFENDANT WINS BREATHALYZER SOURCE CODE. Well, without that being public it’s just a black box.

THEY USED TO BE CALLED “THE POPULAR PRESS,” BUT NOT ANY MORE:

More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don’t care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.

And poll respondents who use the Internet as their main source of news — roughly one quarter of all Americans — were even harsher with their criticism, the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center said.

More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don’t care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased.

More than half — 53 percent — of Internet users also faulted the news organizations for “failing to stand up for America”.

Do you think?

DON SURBER: “Come next January when the top is up on my Mustang and I am shoveling my driveway, I will be warm in the knowledge that at least some of my federal tax dollars will be used to allow members of anti-alcohol groups to sun themselves at the Bahai Resort hotel in Mission Bay, Calif.”

LIVEBLOGGING THE Democrats’ gay debate. I’m disappointed that no Republicans showed up. Not even Ron Paul.

UPDATE: More from Ryan Sager.

MORE: “The President of Canada?”

DIRTY BLOG TRICKS: A fake Fred Thompson website.

UPDATE: More here.

IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO HAVE THE RIGHT SENTIMENTS — you must have them at the proper time:

Hillary Clinton, who has criticized rival Barack Obama for saying the use of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan should be “off the table,” expressed a nearly identical sentiment about Iran a year ago, the Associated Press is reporting this afternoon.

After Obama made his remarks about nuclear weapons, Clinton said, “I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.” But in an April 2006 interview with Bloomberg Television, the AP reports, Clinton, when asked about reports that the Bush administration was considering a nuclear strike against Iran’s nuclear program, said: “I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table. This administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven’t seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that’s a terrible mistake.”

Clinton’s campaign says things are different now. Yep.

“AREN’T YOU A LITTLE SHORT FOR A STORM TROOPER?” Francis Fukuyama denies any connection to “armies of cloned Hitlers.”

ARE THE DEMOCRATS peaking too early?

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Club for Growth has put up a Congressional Pork Scorecard tracking members’ votes on all 50 anti-pork amendments that have been presented.

Highlights:

* Sixteen congressmen scored a perfect 100%, voting for all 50 anti-pork amendments. They are all Republicans.

* The average Republican score was 43%. The average Democratic score was 2%.

* The average score for appropriators was 4%. The average score for non-appropriators was 25%.

* Kudos to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) who scored an admirable 98%-the only Democrat to score above 20%.

* Rep. David Obey (D-WI) did not vote for his own amendment to strike all earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Rep. Obey scored an embarrassing 0% overall.

* 105 congressmen scored an embarrassing 0%, voting against every single amendment. The Pork Hall of Shame includes 81 Democrats and 24 Republicans.

* The Democratic Freshmen scored an abysmal average score of 2%. Their Republican counterparts scored an average score of 78%.

Follow the link for much more. Bottom line: “Unfortunately, the Club for Growth RePORK Card shows that most congressmen care more about lining their buddies’ pockets than they care about protecting American taxpayers.”

And, sadly, it’s a bipartisan problem. Incumbistan is a one-party state. Upside: My own congressman, Jimmy Duncan, scored 88%, which I actually find somewhat surprising.

KNOXVILLE — VALLEY OF THE BLOGS: “You can’t swing a cat in this town without hitting a blogger.”

FROM IPHONE TO ICLONE: “The little gadget was bootleg gold, a secret treasure I’d spent months tracking down. The miniOne looked just like Apple’s iPhone, down to the slick no-button interface. But it was more. It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn’t. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers.” But read the story to find out what happens, and get a look into the Chinese market for cloned products — even part-for-part Chevrolet copies.

SUBPRIME MORTGAGES AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES:

In short, government has been the principal factor preventing the “affordable housing” that politicians talk about so much.

Politicians have also been a key factor behind pushing lenders to lend to borrowers with lower prospects of being able to repay their loans.

The Community Reinvestment Act lets politicians pressure lenders to make loans to people they might not lend to otherwise – and the same politicians are quick to cry “exploitation” when the interest charged to high-risk borrowers reflects that risk.

The huge losses of subprime lenders, some of whom have gone bankrupt, demonstrate again the consequences of letting politicians try to micro-manage the economy.

Yet with all the finger-pointing in the media and in government, seldom is a finger pointed at the politicians at local, state and national levels who have played a key role in setting up the conditions that led to financial disasters for individual home buyers and for those who lent to them.

While financial markets are painfully adjusting, and lenders and borrowers are becoming less likely to take on so much risky “creative” financing, politicians show no sign of changing.

Why should they, when they have largely escaped blame for the disasters that their policies fostered?

Perhaps we should have hearings and subpoena some politicians for tough questioning. Oh, wait . . . .

BILL BRADLEY: Wake me up when the debates are over.

MORE DDT NEWS:

Mosquitoes that carry malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever avoid homes that have been sprayed with DDT, researchers reported on Wednesday.

The chemical not only repels the disease-carrying insects physically, but its irritant and toxic properties helps keep them away, the researchers reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.

They estimate that DDT spray reduced the risk of disease transmission by nearly three-quarters. . . .”The historical record of malaria control operations show that DDT is the most cost-effective chemical for malaria control. Even now DDT is still considered to be the cheapest and most effective chemical for use in house spray operations,” the researchers wrote.

Read the whole thing.