DEFEATING MALARIA with both high- and low-technology approaches.

NEW CANCER GUIDELINES COLLIDE WITH RESOURCES: “It is far from certain that there are enough qualified facilities to handle an influx of high-risk women who may now seek regular M.R.I. screenings.”

As Andy Kessler notes, there’s a strong likelihood that technology will solve this problem in the next decade or so if it’s allowed to. We talked to Andy Kessler a few months back — you can hear the podcast interview here.

LAW DEANS AND THE U.S. NEWS RANKINGS: A complex relationship: “Note to deans: you cannot have it both ways. You can’t claim to be oppressed by the rankings and simultaneously celebrate them.” And yet people manage. . . .

MICKEY KAUS ON AFGHANISTAN AND OPIUM: “A simpler, more promising solution to the poppy harvest would seem to be Christopher Hitchens’: legalize it and tax it. And, presumably, let the Afghans sell it to whomever they want. The price of heroin would fall. There would be more addicts. But fewer American British soldiers would have to die in Afghanistan–and we might actually win the war they’re dying in.” Prioritizing the Drug War over the actual war seems like a dreadful mistake. When we interviewed Col. David Enyeart of Task Force Phoenix in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, he dodged the question of how much harm our policies there were doing, saying basically that it wasn’t his guys who were involved in the drug-war stuff. But it seems pretty clear that it’s a problem.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY on the two-faced Saudis: “We get the sense the Saudis grin and kiss us on both cheeks when we walk into their palaces, then spit on the ground the moment we leave.” As noted here repeatedly over the past five years, they are not our friends.

RAZIB HAS THOUGHTS on Western culture and reactionary Islam.

HEH.

“PAYING THE DANE-GELD, WITH ENTHUSIASM.” Yeah, it’s the enthusiasm that I find so odd.

TYLER COWEN: Left-wingers should be the real supply-siders.

MY BROTHER JONATHAN HITS THE BIG TIME, as his band “46 Long” records a commercial for Gold Star Chili! It doesn’t get any better than that! Well, okay, I guess it might, but it’s still pretty cool.

HARRY REID DEMONSTRATES 180-degree nuance on timed withdrawals.

CLIFF MAY says the polls don’t indicate support for an Iraq withdrawal.

JILTED BUSH FANS: “Something tells us if we were to ask President Bush to reflect upon his love affairs with Matthew Dowd and Andrew Sullivan, he would look at us as if we’d lost our mind. Sorry, guys, he’s just not that into you! Are we wrong to think that there is something deeply weird about grown men who have trouble distinguishing between politics and affairs of the heart?”

I’ve never felt that degree of attraction to, or affection for, Bush — you never saw the kind of praise for him here that you once saw for him elsewhere. Mostly, I’ve just felt vaguely sorry for him, and hoped he’d manage to do a decent job under difficult circumstances. On the other hand, I haven’t had the same over-the-top response to disappointment with him, either. But I try to keep the political and the personal separate, something that seems increasingly old-fashioned these days.

UPDATE: Contrary to Andrew Sullivan, I didn’t vote for Bush twice. I voted Libertarian in 2000, voted for Bush in 2004. Sullivan, I think, voted for Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. So each of us voted for Bush at different times, depending, I guess, on what was important to us in that election.

MICHAEL WARE SAYS DRUDGE WAS WRONG, and The Raw Story has video that seems to prove his case.

I can’t find where Drudge has retracted, but on this evidence I’m going with Ware over Drudge. (Via Hit & Run). I’ve updated earlier posts to reflect this, too. Would have corrected sooner, but I’ve been offline — though thanks to the miracle of “scheduled posting,” you can’t tell.

UPDATE: Reader Nathaniel Rein emails:

I wrote to you earlier regarding the Drudge piece claiming that Ware heckled McCain. Since I did that, and you posted a piece clearly retracting the claim, I feel it is only fair to send another email commending you for this. Not that this counts for much, but I believe in acknowledging when people own up to their mistakes.

Well, a polite email always counts for something, especially in the blogosphere these days. As I note in the FAQs, I don’t promise never to link to things that turn out to be wrong (no blogger could do that) only that I’ll try to correct the error if I find out about it. Rein’s email is certainly nicer than some I received about the Ware story, though I think I got about as many from Dartmouth alumni complaining — correctly — that I shouldn’t have called it Dartmouth University in my New York Post column. Well, nobody’s perfect.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Questioning the video. Er, okay, but this requires actual evidence that the video is untrustworthy, or that there were things going on that it doesn’t show, something that Drudge hasn’t really provided.

MORE: Don Surber emails: “I’m going with Ware over Drudge. Them’s the odds — great editor, lousy reporter.”

(Later: Superfluous “not” removed, above.)

ADVICE TO RUDY GIULIANI, from John Fund: “It might help to talk publicly about policy.”

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO BRITAIN? An unfortunate answer.

Related thoughts here, and — seeming more on-point than when they first appeared — here.

SOME TROUBLING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS:

After a long drawn out, and highly fraught, negotiation that pushed right up against the deadline, America and South Korea have inked a new trade deal. It is the largest America has signed since NAFTA. However, tensions between the Bush administration and resurgent protectionists in America’s new Democratic Congress make it highly uncertain that the pact will be ratified. In related news, China is protesting an about-face on anti-dumping suits by America’s Treasury department, which has resulted in punitive tariffs on paper products.

There’s no surer way to get a global recession, or worse, than to have a round of trade wars break out.

AIRCONGRESS: Going negative in Barack Obama’s name.

IRAN: The new South Africa? “Missouri took the first steps among the states to divest their portfolios of any foreign corporations doing business with Iran, a move they started last year. Now eight other states have begun to follow suit, and the latest state may make the biggest impact of all. California has just passed legislation that would transfer billions of dollars away from foreign investments [in Iran.]”

SO IT’S SORT OF LIKE BLOGGING: “Be yourself, and be perfect, too!”

Except maybe for the perfect part . . . .

ARE THE MULLAHS stealing from Saddam’s playbook?

MEGAN MCARDLE:

I’d rather be waterboarded than put in the general population of a high security prison. It is entirely possible that life at Guantanamo is more bearable than life at San Quentin, and no, that is not a defense of Guantanamo.

But that hardly constitutes support for torture, which I haven’t and don’t.

And yet, it was taken that way. Have you noticed that people who spend a lot of time saying that they’re anti-torture often seem to go out of their way to manufacture allegedly pro-torture enemies? It’s almost as if it’s more about brand differentiation than substance. Fortunately, the sensible anti-torture camp is expanding.

Meanwhile, prison rape remains a serious problem that gets much less attention. I’ve blogged about that on a number of times — here’s one post with links to others.

HERE’S MORE on the Automotive X-Prize announcement. “Vehicles will be judged on specific market production criteria detailed in key areas such as safety, cost, features and business plan. So this X Prize will only open to practicable cars capable of reaching the marketplace—no concept cars or science projects. . . . In order to win, vehicles must complete both races with the lowest overall time averaged over all scoring stages while still meeting the Automotive X Prize requirements for fuel economy and emissions. While the competing teams might have their mind on how to win and their eyes on the money, the overall purpose of this competition is to capture the public’s imagination to solve economic, international and environmental problems.” Sounds very worthwhile.

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES get no love from Tim Blair. Though maybe “extradisciplinary approaches” would be a better term.

I LIKED BRIAN DOHERTY’S RADICALS FOR CAPITALISM. David Leonhardt, in the New York Times, wasn’t so crazy about the book. David Boaz, on the other hand, wasn’t so crazy about the review.