A BIODIESEL motorcycle. With video. Does it smell like French Fries? Pretty much!

Running a bike on home-brewed biodiesel can work up an appetite, particularly since the exhaust smells like a greasy spoon. “When I’m out cruising with friends and get hungry,” says Hubbard, “I just pull in front to signal that it’s time to eat.”

Biodiesel — fighting our addiction to oil, but adding to America’s obesity problem! No such thing as a free, er, lunch . . . .

IN THE MAIL: Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents, by Brian Anderson, who is also the author of South Park Conservatives.

MAN VS. MACHINE IN POKER: Advantage: Humans! For a while, anyway. Key line: “The ‘bots are closing in.”

“IT DIDN’T HAPPEN:” GOING SOFT ON crimes against humanity. Is this a species of Holocaust denial?

HOW TO BUILD A coffee-can cellphone booster.

THOUGHTS ON SPACE ELEVATORS, from Sam Dinkin.

“SCOTT THOMAS” REVEALED, and the spin is as predicted. Plus, as Bruce Carroll notes: “The New Republic has still not corroborated anything Private Beauchamp wrote.”

They’re hoping you won’t notice that.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Steyn notes that the most unflattering portrait in “Thomas’s” writing was that of the author.

Still more at Blackfive. It’s telling that most of the pushback on this has come from veterans.

And a journalist reader emails: “Why did TNR have to protect the identity of a blogger who was already public?”

“CAN JOE BIDEN WEAR A CODPIECE?” Now there’s an image I could have done without.

A NEW RECORD FOR solar cell efficiency.

PREDICTION? Or causation? “Not to go all Occam’s Razor or anything, but has it occurred to anyone to ask whether this cat might be somehow killing these people?”

NO SURPRISE HERE:

Mobile phone masts are not responsible for the symptoms of ill health some blame them for, a major UK study says.

Dozens of people who believed the masts triggered symptoms such as anxiety, nausea and tiredness could not detect if signals were on or off in trials.

It’s also unsurprising that many won’t accept the results.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Benefactor to gay couples.

ANOTHER SATISFIED READER: My earlier post on the Braun Pulsonic razor produced this email from reader Ross Woolsey:

Just a quick note. I am a regular reader, but, sadly, am of an entirely different political persuasion. I enjoy reading you because I don’t feel as if I am being slapped around for having a different political viewpoint. Plus, I especially enjoy the occasional posts and pictures about life in the college town of Knoxville.

But, to the matter at hand. I noticed your post re the article in Popular Mechanics about the new Braun Pulsonic electric razor. Sight unseen, I ordered one through Amazon. (How dumb is that?) It has arrived, and it is absolutely a fantastic product. I have bought, tried, and discarded, electric razors time and again in the past, because they didn’t give as close a shave and they stung my face. Not so the Pulsonic. It really is a terrific shaver, and has made reading all the posts that are so crossways from my own views well worth it!

Politics is politics, but a good shave is a good shave. And, like the Braun, I try to be smooth and non-irritating. If I don’t succeed as often, well, InstaPundit is also a lot cheaper . . . .

UPDATE: Sorry, but I can’t recommend this “ultimate head-shaving razor” from personal experience. It just showed up when I visited the Pulsonic page and I couldn’t resist checking it out. With it are a whole bunch of specialty head-shaving products, a whole shaving-world with which I have no experience, and had never really thought about before. Plus, special shaved-head sunscreen!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Eric Kuttner emails a warning:

I decided to start shaving my head last October, and can tell you that the HeadBlade sucks. I heard about how wonderful it was on the net and finally found it after checking out a few stores. I thought it was supposed to eliminate the possibility of nicking yourself, but at least on my head it does the opposite. When I first got it, it didn’t seem to shave my head as well as the Gillette Fusion, and I put it aside. A few weeks back I thought I’d give it another try, and boy was I sorry! — I gave myself three big nicks on my head and they took a while to heal up. I’d recommend the Fusion, which has never nicked me.

Funny how I got caught up in the whole shaved head look, which seems to have exploded in popularity fairly recently (at least in New York). It’s almost a bit puzzling to myself, though I can think of a number of contributing factors for why I decided to do it. It wasn’t something I particularly thought about doing for any duration of time, but one day I felt that I wanted to try something different and off the hair went. First I went for a buzz cut, but I thought — “I went this far…why not go all the way?” and then shaved it all off. I was a bit ambivalent about the look at first, but now I think I prefer it, although it is very labor-intensive to keep up. It takes me about 15 extra minutes in the shower every morning to shave my head. No, I don’t have to shave every day, but after one day’s growth, my head feels like sandpaper, and I hate that.

One thing that’s really nice about having a shaved head: you never have to worry again about losing your hair or going grey, which was definitely part of my motivation (though I haven’t lost that much hair or gone very grey yet — but it’s starting). A shaved head makes for a smoother aging transition, as well as a smoother head.

Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where, Elaine was dating the guy with the shaved head. She talked him into growing it out, but it turned out that he had gone bald during all the shaved years without really knowing it. Then she dumped him because she didn’t want to date a bald buy . . . .

INDEED: “There’s nothing like living under actual socialism to drive up support for capitalism.”

THE ATF’S SILLY EFFORT TO SEPARATE “REAL JOURNALISM” FROM “HARASSMENT” has people looking more closely at the agency’s behavior: “The ATF’s push is nonsensical but it continues a trend of bad things for the agency in the last few years.” See the links for more. No wonder they don’t want to be noticed.

MY ADVICE TO UT STUDENTS: Don’t buy major-label CDs after this development: “A federal magistrate judge in Knoxville has approved the recording industry’s request to subpoena the identities of 33 University of Tennessee students suspected of illegal file sharing. . . . The recording industry has targeted dozens of UT students with ‘John Doe’ lawsuits, and the subpoenas allow the record labels’ attorneys to learn the identities of the students they’re suing.”

SARTORIAL CRITICISM OF CONGRESS: “Another reason for contempt of Congress: They’re slobs, coming onto the house floor in beach wear and athletic jerseys. How far we have fallen.”

IS IBM GOING SOLAR?

MORE ON BIDEN ON GUNS:

While Townsend’s means of asking his question probably shocked your average Democrat, Biden’s response that this guy was crazy and looking at him like he had cooties probably damaged Biden (and Democrats) with gun owners. And they had been making waves lately with shedding their gun banning image. But this ain’t a post about that, it’s a post about this:

Why did CNN choose that video? My understanding was CNN chose the questions to be aired. And do you think there weren’t other people asking about gun control in a much less dramatic way? In a way that might not scare your average liberal? And this is the video they showed?

Well, can’t read too much into it since the also let a snowman ask about global warming.

Brr. Meanwhile, Dave Weigel declares victory. “It’s not the O’Reilly Factor getting Ward Churchill fired, but I’ll take it.” And from The Economist,“That’s Mr Biden’s political career in a nutshell. Always (at least) one sentence too many.”

GOING BI: A look at Samsung’s hybrid HD-DVD / Blu-Ray player. (“Verdict: So far, the best.”)

MORE THOUGHTS ON WARD CHURCHILL, from Peter Wood. And here’s a report from Inside Higher Ed. And more background here.

Best headline: Chief Lies-a-Lot Fired.

A PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE from Hollywood. But don’t question their patriotism.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE REELECTED, we’d see people convicted of masturbating in their own room.

And they were right!

RACE AND ROAD RAGE in Philadelphia. “But now that everyone’s race is said to matter, I guess we need to know the race of the passengers. Will it be reported, or are we just suppose to assume they were white?”

LIMEWIRE AS A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: “Hmmm…does anyone want to point out that the users themselves — you know, the federal employees who are dumb enough to install LimeWire on a computer with sensitive documents — may bear some responsibility?”