ANOTHER GRIM MILESTONE: MORE FINANCIAL PROBLEMS for The New York Times.

THIS IS COOL: “Astronomers said on Wednesday they had discovered the best evidence yet of water outside our own solar system — in the atmosphere of a giant planet 60 light years from Earth. Writing in the scientific journal Nature, researchers said the planet itself, HD 189733b, was unlikely to harbor life but evidence supported the search for life in other solar systems.”

Yes, if there’s water there, there’s likely to be water elsewhere.

SNOT FOR BOTS: Synthetic mucus for robot noses.

WHISPERING TRUTH to power.

KIMBERLY KAGAN IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: “In Washington perception is often mistaken for reality. And as Congress prepares for a fresh debate on Iraq, the perception many members have is that the new strategy has already failed. This isn’t an accurate reflection of what is happening on the ground, as I saw during my visit to Iraq in May.” Read the whole thing.

STEALTH GUN CONTROL? New OSHA proposed rules on ammunition.

FISH. BARREL. SMOKING GUN: “Writing a newspaper column is like shooting fish in a barrel. But the fish need to be shot and I am happy to do my part.”

STAND YOUR GROUND: Sounds like a bad prosecution to me:

Borden, 44, who was acquitted of all charges yesterday, was walking his dogs last year when three men in a Jeep tried to run him down. He pulled a gun and shot five times through the windshield, then moved to the side of the vehicle and fired nine more rounds.

He thought the shooting was self-defense, but a prosecutor put him on trial in the deaths, despite a new Florida law that grants wide latitude to people using deadly force to protect themselves. . . .

In Borden’s case, a prosecutor filed charges against him, even though he privately thought Borden might have been correct to open fire. In Kentucky, a man suspected of murder was offered a plea agreement because the law was too difficult to explain to jurors.

If the prosecutor thinks a defendant acted correctly, he shouldn’t prosecute. That’s what prosecutorial discretion is for. And if the law’s too hard to explain to jurors, you shouldn’t prosecute, and the legislature should have to pass a new law that people can understand.

RADLEY BALKO: “So why is that despite the fact that there hasn’t been a terror attack on U.S. soil in nearly six years, it still feels like we’re losing the ‘war on terror?'” He blames Homeland Security hype, and I think he’s got a point.

UPDATE: Reader Shahid Alam emails:

With regard to Radley’s reason.com post on Chertoff, it does seem to me that Radley succumbs to the same fallacies that seems to have struck most of the sinistro-sphere dumb but unfortunately not mute. They are of two main parts:

1. Fighting terrorism, as for some fighting wars in general, is a science, not an art. This would only be possible with complete knowledge and no fog of war. I don’t read Chertoff’s statement that he woke up one day feeling that something was gonna come absent evidence. He sees a whole bunch of things which may indicate something specific or more likely something general, but there’s always guesswork involved, and nothing’s better at that guesswork than an experienced gut. We can argue whether Chertoff’s gut would be considered experienced, but it’s certainly more experienced than mine. (No comment on Radley’s… perhaps he moonlights as a counter-terrorism agent, one never knows.)
2. Fighting terrorism is entirely a responsibility of the government and we have no part. I believe we do, and that part is to remain vigilant. This doesn’t mean living in fear as Radley seems to think, but it does mean there will be some inconveniences which can hopefully over time be minimized. And so, I don’t see Chertoff’s warnings an attempt to cower us. Rather, it is to tell the first responders throughout our federal system, and all citizens, to be aware of what’s going on around them, and at least to have a stake in making sure that any attack is prevented, and failing that, its effect is minimized.

Until we can eliminate or drastically attenuate the root causes of terrorism, much of the battles we will have with its purveyors will have to be fought at the points where they choose to contact us. Sometimes, this will mean when they’re close to action. UK, with its MI-5 and blanket coverage of at least London in surveillance infrastructure may be better equipped to keep the battle entirely to its agents of state. Maybe, but July 7th still happened. In any case, we have neither in the US, and I’m betting Radley would be rather opposed to bringing them here, and, I wouldn’t disagree, for good reasons. However, this does mean that a significant burden does fall on us, the citizenry.

We can argue about whether our elected and appointed leadership is doing enough so that the citizenry remembers its responsibility. But it doesn’t help when opinion leaders swing to the opposition on principle instead of trying to help. Shrillness sells to the amen-chorus, but I’m not sure it’s beneficial either to the debate or to the civic or public good.

Shrillness seldom pays.

HERE’S MORE ON Nancy Pelosi and gas prices.

TIME TRAVELLING with Bruce Moon.

LEARNING ABOUT Nina Totenberg, at Above the Law.

PSYCHOLOGY, “PEACE,” AND POLITICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A look at a very different Dr. Helen.

BAD NEWS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION: “As legislation is introduced in more than a dozen states across the country to counter political pressure and proselytizing on students in college classrooms, a majority of Americans believe the political bias of college professors is a serious problem, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows. Nearly six in 10 – 58% – said they see it as a serious problem, with 39% saying it was a ‘very serious’ problem. The online survey of 9,464 adult respondents nationwide was conducted July 5-9, 2007, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.0 percentage points.”

DEFICIT FALLS: “The nation’s budget deficit will drop to $205 billion in the fiscal year that ends in September, less than half of what it was at its peak in 2004, according to new White House estimates.”

THE MSM ONCE AGAIN falls for bogus numbers.

JULES CRITTENDEN offers advice on how to read Associated Press reports.

And there’s more on the AP’s shoddy reporting here.

GORDON BROWN as Cornelius Fudge.

MORE ON EARMARKS, at The Stump.

AL QAEDA ON THE RUN: Michael Yon has a new report. Excerpt: “The focus on al Qaeda makes sense here, where local officials have gone on record acknowledging that most of the perhaps one thousand al Qaeda fighters in Baqubah were young men and boys who called the city home. This may clash with the perception in US and other media that only a small percentage of the enemy in Iraq is al Qaeda, which in turn leads to false conclusions that the massive offensive campaign underway across Iraq is a lot of shock and awe aimed at a straw enemy. But as more Sunni tribal leaders renounce former ties with al Qaeda, it’s becoming clearer just how heavily AQ relied on local talent, and how disruptive they have been here in fomenting the civil war.” Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Here’s more from John Wixted.

I WAS JUST ON BRIAN LEHRER’S SHOW, talking about the importance of being handy. I don’t think my own appearance was especially brilliant, but it was interesting that the WNYC phone lines were jammed with people wanting to talk on the subject. More evidence for my “cultural moment” theory. Here’s the post that got them interested.

UPDATE: Oh, and if you’re coming here from the show, here’s the Skill Sets page I mentioned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader David Hignite emails:

When I’m at our apartment in NYC, I often visit the Home Depot on 3rd Ave. I’ve lost count of the number of times women and even a few men have come up to me while I’m looking at something asking me about the item, how it installs, what tools do you need, etc. A single guy with moderate handyman knowledge could make a killing in Manhattan in more ways than one.

Now there’s an incentive.

MORE: They were nice enough to send me the player code, so you can listen below if you like:

IN THE MAIL: Mark Penn’s Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes. Looks pretty interesting, and when I opened it at random I found this passage on romance in the workplace and the need to accommodate people’s changing lives:

As the number of female Ph.D.’s skyrocketed — from about 8000 in 1966 to over 20000 in 2002 — there was a huge boom in the number of academic couples. As a result, universities have been working for decades on ways not only to permit, but to encourage, positions for double-entry candidates . . . .

It’s a new workplace out there, and in what was once a male-dominated office environment, where sexual harassment was the number one problem, the power structure is changing and so is the social structure.

I think that’s probably right, though I have to note that the book has a blurb from Bill Clinton . . . .

WHEN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING goes too far.

IS ETHANOL FUEL leading to higher milk prices?

DANIEL SOLOVE: “I’ve Got Nothing to Hide” and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy.