WHY ISLAMIC MILITANTS hate women.

NOT RUNNING LOOKS LIKE A GOOD STRATEGY, as Fred Thompson moves up in the polls. His support seems to be coming out of Rudy Giuliani’s hide. Follow the link for more.

UPDATE: In case you missed my earlier link, check out this profile of Fred Thompson by Tennessee political expert Frank Cagle.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: The “al Qaeda leader killed” stories are a perennial, and not big news in themselves. That they seem to be happening more often, and often at the hands of Iraqis, is more newsworthy, I think.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, earlier reports on Al-Masri’s death remain unconfirmed.

“I’M GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!”

THE APPLE OPTIONS SCANDAL seems to be continuing: “Apple Inc.’s board of directors, a star-studded group that features the likes of former Vice President Al Gore and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, is coming under fire for its handling of backdated stock options at the famed computer-maker, including those handed out to its chief executive, Steve Jobs. Apple’s former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson caused an uproar last week when he released a statement saying he had cautioned Jobs in 2001 about the accounting implications related to a particular options grant. In the same breath, Anderson questioned the conduct of Apple’s board of directors regarding options backdating.”

AN EXTENDED LOOK AT WHY THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT SUCKS: It’s certainly done more damage to free expression than the Patriot Act.

(Via BoingBoing, which has much more on this topic.)

RETRO-FUTURO: A look at cars of the future from the past.

RAY KURZWEIL, whose book, The Singularity is Near, I reviewed for the Wall Street Journal last year, is profiled in Fortune magazine. Lots of cool futurist stuff. (Via Nanodot).

Link above is to a rather large PDF version. Here’s the web version of the story.

DAVID BOAZ WONDERS what happened to the anti-communist movies.

Well, there’s always Total Eclipse:

Total Eclipse is rated PG-13 for violence, particularly graphic in some of the mass murder scenes, images of starving infants from Stalin’s 1932 forced famine in the Ukraine, and the torture of dissidents. Director Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List) deftly cuts from the Moscow trials to the torture chambers of the Lubyanka. More controversial are the portrayals of American communists during the period of the Pact. They are shown here picketing the White House, calling President Roosevelt a warmonger, and demanding that America stay out of the “capitalist war” in Europe. Harvey Keitel turns in a powerful performance as American Communist boss Earl Browder, and Linda Hunt brings depth to Lillian Hellman, who, when Hitler attacks the USSR in September of 1939, actually did cry out, “The motherland has been invaded.”

Painstakingly accurate and filled with historical surprises, this film is so refreshing, so remarkable, that even at 162 minutes it seems too short.

There’s only one problem.

A NAME-RECOGNITION PROBLEM for the Republicans?

THE THREE LAWS OF LAWBOTICS: Asimov’s original laws arguably made robots morally superior to humans. These rules for lawyers . . . not so much.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: With earmarks, sometimes the news is what you can’t find out:

Earmarks like the infamous $223 million “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska are getting lots of public attention these days but The Examiner recently found that uncovering simple facts about them can be nearly impossible.

When we asked questions about three earmarks worth millions of dollars given to local recipients, nobody seemed to know how the earmarks started or which member of Congress was responsible for them.

One thing we did find out — members of Congress aren’t the only beneficiaries because federal agencies also get a cut — 10 percent of the total — on many earmarks. . . .

Drilling deep into the OMB database, The Examiner randomly selected three earmarks that went to local firms, and then attempted to establish their paternity. We might as well have asked Coke for its formula.

I think that every single thing in legislation — not just spending — should be traceable to a member. In an elective legislative body, “diffusion of responsibility” is not a feature.

Meanwhile, here’s a roundup of information sources that the public can use to find out, well, whatever they’ll let you find out.

JOHN FUND WRITES on the art of not running for President. At least, not yet.

MARK STEYN: “On any Sunday morning, there are more Anglicans in the pews in Nigeria than in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada combined.”

OOPS: “I blew up my 2008 F350 on biodiesel.”

IMUS SUES CBS? And his contract seems to support it. This should be fun.

GLOBAL WARMING UPDATE:

Methane emissions from flooded rice paddies contribute to global warming just as coal-fired power plants, automobile exhausts and other sources do with the carbon dioxide they spew into the atmosphere.

In fact, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting this week in Bangkok concludes that rice production was a main cause of rising methane emissions in the 20th century. It calls for better controls.

“There is no other crop that is emitting such a large amount of greenhouse gases,” said Reiner Wassmann, a climate change specialist at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

This is depressingly free of anti-American potential, but I’m sure something can be done. (via Dadvocate).

UPDATE: You can always blame America first. Bill Hobbs shows how it’s done!

A REPORT ON THE FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES, from Nidra Poller.

A LOOK AT priorities in academic hiring.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: All eyes on Baghdad.

CHEAPER SOLAR PANELS with better quantum dots. Bring it on. Here’s an earlier post on promises of revolutionary developments in solar, though the math seemed a bit iffy.

DANIEL DREZNER: What I learned at the 2007 Brussels Forum.

FRANK CAGLE: “Fred Thompson threw away the script when he ran for the Senate; he may do it again trying for the White House.” Read the whole thing. Frank’s a smart guy.

MORE BOGUS KYOTO HISTORY FROM REUTERS: “President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing it would cost U.S. jobs and that it wrongly excluded 2012 goals for poorer nations such as China.”

Er, no. The U.S. refused to ratify Kyoto under President Clinton. We’ve been over this before. It’s all spelled out in Wikipedia, even. Really, if Reuters can’t get simple things like this right, why should we trust them for actual news?

UPDATE: The Anchoress is unhappy, with Bush:

I’m starting to get really pissed off with the Bush Administration for their inability or disinterest in fighting their own battles. We should not have to be doing this over and over, setting the record straight again and again. The WH needed to get out in front of this stupid narrative right away, instead of letting it settle in like kudzu.

I’ve commented on the Bush Administration’s curious passivity before.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s an argument that, since Kyoto is rapidly losing its luster, Bush is being smart by letting Reuters give him credit for abandoning it, true or not. . . .

THE FCC HAS APPROVED THE FIRST WI-MAX LAPTOP CARD: I think this will be revolutionary, and sooner than you might think. I had a brief piece on this when I was at the Consumer Electronics Show, where the Intel guys told me that Wi-Max was going to be included in Centrino by next year — read it here.