NATIONAL REVIEW: “The situation with the Romulan Empire is rapidly becoming the defining crisis of our age.”

THE ANCHORESS: Not begrudging the rich their riches.

YOU CAN CRACK DOWN, but you can’t hide: “Satellite images confirm reports of burned villages, forced relocations and other human-rights abuses in Myanmar, scientists said on Friday.”

DEMS IN IRAQ ‘TIL 2013: The latest Corn & Miniter Show is up!

JOHN LEO REGARDS LEE BOLLINGER’S RECENT TALK about free speech at Columbia as hypocritical:

Last October, Columbia radicals stormed a campus stage, knocking over furniture, creating pandemonium and preventing speeches by Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist and a colleague. Nobody seemed very upset about this, least of all Lee Bollinger, who issued a tiny bleat about free speech before referring the issue to a committee where it languished for three months. Awakening briefly on Christmas weekend, the committee administered an undescribed slap on the wrist to an unknown number of unidentified members of the censoring rabble and there the matter ended.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), now the most powerful free-speech watchdog in the country, dismissed Bollinger’s “say-one-thing-do-another-act” and noted that Columbia “has a long and distinguished record of suppression of free speech.” Mayor Bloomberg echoed the thought, urging Bollinger to get his arms around the problem, because “There are too many incidents at the same school where people get censored.”

Several people, myself included, suggested that if Bollinger is as interested in free speech as he keeps saying he is, then he should reschedule the Minutemen and introduce them himself, with enough security around to discourage the reappearance of last year’s stormtroopers in training.

A few weeks ago, it looked as though Columbia was about to make a rare lurch in the direction of free speech. Students re-invited the two Minutemen, but after these proposed speakers bought plane tickets, Columbia’s pro-censorship DNA re-asserted itself and the two men were once again disinvited. Not a peep out of Bollinger.

Yes, and this hypocrisy is a problem with higher education more generally, alas. It’s why people don’t take claims that “we’re just opening up a debate” seriously — because, you know, they’re basically lies.

Related item here.

DID SHUSTER HAVE IT RIGHT? Apparently, but the confusion displayed along the way would undercut any claim that Marsha Blackburn should have known what took MSNBC this long to figure out.

But the real point, as I noted before, is that the question was a cheap shot that Shuster wouldn’t dare ask Hillary, who also voted for the war.

UPDATE: Some related thoughts from Ace on the media’s self-destruction. Trust, once lost, is hard to get back. On the other hand: ‘I think we’ll see an awful lot more of this. It’s simply too easy to break with supposed journalistic traditions of objectivity and become a crusading hero to one quarter of the population.”

It’s going to get kind of tough for the journalistic industry if they’re all trying to feed themselves from an audience made up of one quarter of the population.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader James Ivers emails: “I eagerly await Shuster’s asking a liberal Rep. if they can name the most recent person to go on welfare in their District. Or the person who most recently died due to ‘lack of health insurance.’ Until then, he’s a hit artist and I’ll pay him no attention at all.”

I’d settle for Shuster asking the name of the most recent Medal of Honor winner. As for the “no attention” bit, I suspect that’ll be the attitude of the other three-quarters. Good luck with that business plan, guys.

SWEET HSURRENDER: Ed Rendell is returning the donations from Norman Hsu. “Rendell and other recipients of donations Hsu gave or helped facilitate have been trying to distance themselves from him over the past month.” Do you think?

WHAT HAPPENS IN SULAIMANIYAH STAYS IN SULAIMANIYAH: Vegas-style casino opens in Iraq.

MANHATTAN at night.

IN THE MAIL: Alan Miller & Satoshi Kanazawa’s Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire– Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do.

TIM WU: Why have municipal wi-fi networks been such a flop?

BURMA UPDATE: IN THE WSJ: (free link) Citizen journalists evade Myanmar’s blackout.

RON BAILEY looks at the latest in ozone hole science, after twenty years.

IF YOU MISSED the first PJM show on XM Radio’s POTUS ’08 Channel, you can listen online here.

I MENTIONED RUTH WISSE’S Jews And Power yesterday.

Rick Richman emails that he liked it a lot.

MICKEY KAUS: “John Edwards is getting grief because the hedge fund he worked for is responsible for some subprime loans and foreclosures in Iowa. But the hedge fund for which Chelsea Clinton has worked is not exactly Landlord of the Year either.”

Plus, uninteresting news about Kiefer Sutherland!

FROM THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, a look at nanotechnology and national security. (Via Nanodot, which describes the report as “conservative.”)

SIDNEY VS. CHARLES: I think Sidney would be wise to “redeploy.”

DAN RIEHL SPOTS SOME media battlespace preparation underway.

“WE ARE THE WORLD.”

SPACEBLOGGER MATT BOWES HAS DIED: Rand Simberg has more thoughts.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Bringing back fallout shelters.

DUTIFUL sons.

AUSTIN BAY:

America needs a “revolution in diplomatic affairs.”

Even the State Department’s chardonnay and brie brigade suspects we have entered a new era of grimy, street-level foreign policy. It’s an era where effective diplomacy starts with long days in bad neighborhoods, as culturally-savvy diplomats identify the hopes, fears and trends that seed future crises, and — preferably — create American-influenced opportunities to positively shape events.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: “The Iranians are in a state of total panic.” Well, possibly. I hope so.