THE EXAMINER WONDERS when Duke will apologize to the lacrosse team.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Okay, this isn’t directly related to pork, but it’s a good idea, and it’s certainly in the ballpark:

But if Newmark has his way, there might be a new online venture that most certainly would be of interest to Washingtonians. At a private dinner in Manhattan over the weekend, Newmark expressed an interest in starting a Web site that would track the net worth of politicians while they’re in office. There are no concrete plans under way yet, but Newmark admitted that he’s done a lot of thinking about the idea recently.

One of the things that sparked Newmark’s interest in such a project was former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who has seen his own personal fortune grow from roughly $290,000 when he first joined Congress to more than $6 million, 20 years later.

“I just don’t see why these guys are amassing personal, private fortunes while in office,” Newmark said.

This wouldn’t be Newmark’s first participation in an online venture designed to increase transparency: On Friday, Newmark announced that he had accepted a full board membership at the Sunlight Foundation, which seeks to “reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy.”

Yeah, it’s kind of suspicious how these guys always seem to get rich on government salaries.

And here, by the way, is an interesting rumination by Craig Newmark on what he’s learned from Craigslist. I heard it on the radio the other day, but now the audio’s up. It’s worth a listen.

AFTER I DISSED THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS’ EDITORIAL YESTERDAY, they invited me to write a column on guns. It’s here.

I think Dave Kopel did a better job in this piece for the Wall Street Journal — but he had twice the length. Yeah, that’s my excuse. . . .

UPDATE: I should stress — my formulation above isn’t as clear as it should have been — that the invitation wasn’t in response to my dissing of their editorial. They had actually emailed me on Monday. It was in spite of my dissing of their editorial. Still admirable, but not quite the same thing.

MICKEY KAUS: “Barack Obama’s misguided attempt to connect the Virginia Tech murders with the Imus slur (“quiet violence”) and, yes, loss of health care benefits due to layoffs and overseas competition, doesn’t come off quite as obscene as you’d expect when you listen to it–because Obama’s delivery is too fatigued and subdued, even depressive, to trigger the sense that he’s manipulating anybody. Still, it’s not exactly evidence of a fresh intelligence, or even basic common sense, at work–much less rising to the occasion.” But Mickey offers a charitable explanation.

THERE’S A HIT LIST? I wonder if I’m on it? If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, I’d rather walk . . . .

ARNOLD KLING HAS THOUGHTS on decision-making under uncertainty.

RUNNING THE NUMBERS on Al Gore’s solar panels: “Bad Investment, So-So Environmentalism, Good Politics.”

IS THE EUROPEAN UNION GOING SOFT, TOO SOON in Bosnia?

REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS: Gateway Pundit has a lengthy and moving roundup.

BLOGOMETER: “If you were expecting for the netroots to join more traditional Dem calls for increased gun control following the tragedy in Blacksburg, VA, don’t hold your breath. At deadline, none of the top five netroots sites (Daily Kos, Eschaton, TPM, AMERICAblog, and MyDD) have called for any changes to gun laws (CLARIFICATION: AMERICAblog does ask for a ‘revisit’ of guntrol but nothing specific). And don’t expect them to either. The VA Tech shootings are serving as an albeit tragic marker in demonstrating just how different Dems are in ’07 than they were in ’99. With bloggers in the lead, Dems have gotten past the gun-control issue and helped reclaim majorities with help from netroots backed pro-gun candidates Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA), John Tester (D-MT), and Reps. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) and Heath Shuler (D-NC). As Rudy Giuliani faces heat from social conservatives for telling them they need to ‘get beyond issues’ like abortion, one wonders how many elections the GOP has to lose before they embrace a similar evolution.”

UPDATE: Harry Reid is with the Netroots on this.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Don Surber: “Not so fast, Blogometer:

No, dearie, the voters of West Virginia got Democrats to change their tune. Had Gore carried us, he would have won the 2000 election without Florida.

Or if he had carried Arkansas.

Or Tennessee.

He lost each of those states because he failed to respect the Second Amendment.

Lesson learned. Kerry toted a gun to the Racine (W.Va.) rally on Labor Day 2004.

Yes, but I think the Netroots folks realized this faster than a lot of more entrenched Democratic leaders.

DON IMUS: Like a school shooter?

UPDATE: Oh, yeah, outsourcing, too. “Does this also make the poor people in developing countries who take outsourced jobs complicit in the ‘violence?'” Fire Obama’s writers.

ROCCO DIPIPPO reports from Baghdad: “I have observed first-hand the effects of the Bush Administration’s new Iraq security plan since it began two months ago. Street violence in Baghdad and surrounding areas has declined. Shops and markets once boarded up are reopening. Iraqi civilians are venturing out onto the streets again and living their lives with less fear of being persecuted, tortured, maimed or killed. To be sure, there is still plenty of terror and violence in Iraq, but since the ‘troop surge’ began, it has lessened considerably.” May it continue to do so.

UPDATE: Sigh.

HAPPY TAX DAY: “Our tax code is the DNA of our nation’s moral compass. I am proud to pay taxes because I take pride in America.”

UPDATE: Jim Treacher emails: “Another way our tax code is like DNA: It takes cutting-edge technology and thousands of man-hours to decode it.”

Heh.

JERALYN MERRITT AT TALKLEFT on Virginia Tech and the gun control argument: “Gun Control is Not a Cure.”

Also, check out this roundup from Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing.

Plus, at The Speculist, a Third Way approach. It may be the future.

UPDATE: Thoughts on infantilizing the culture, from Jeff Goldstein.

YOU DON’T SAY:

Everyone from economists and sociologists to Oprah knows that women work more than men. Their longer combined hours, at the home and at the office, stop men from taking afternoon naps on the couch and cause fights that end with men spending nights on the couch. And yet according to new study, those longer hours are a myth, because it’s just not true that women carry a heavier load.

Will Oprah be running with this anytime soon?

TIM BLAIR: “As an environmental pioneer, I long ago became accustomed to unfair abuse from planet-flushing reactionary kilowatt-burners.”

GAIL HERIOT: “Here’s my question: What if the University of Texas had argued for academic freedom in Sweatt v. Painter in 1950?”

PC RACISTS: “There is something pathetic, when the once mighty and feared Wehrmacht, now the declawed and idle Bundeswehr, is reduced to swearing in English about imagined enemies they will never encounter.”

AND YET THEY HAVE VERY STRICT GUN CONTROLS IN JAPAN: “Nagasaki mayor dies one day after being shot on city street.”

JOHN EDWARDS AND ME: More discussion of our haircuts.

It is true, however, that I do a better-than-average robot dance.

UPDATE: The haircut was cheaper than the bloggers: “The Edwards campaign paid Marcotte and McEwan a total of $4,769.06 between Jan. 31 and Feb. 14.” Though the real cost of the bloggers was noneconomic.

THERE SEEMS TO BE A RESOLUTION in the Katherine Coble / JL Kirk case.

I guess the download gravy train is over!

UNARMED AND VULNERABLE:

It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself.

Please realize that I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in the commonwealth of Virginia, and do so on a regular basis. However, because I am a Virginia Tech student, I am prohibited from carrying at school because of Virginia Tech’s student policy, which makes possession of a handgun an expellable offense, but not a prosecutable crime.

I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out.

Read the whole thing.

GREG GUTFELD FINDS THE COMMENT OF THE DAY!

SHOOTER IDENTIFIED: All the latest on the Virginia Tech shootings, rounded up here.

UPDATE: Here’s a huge and interesting roundup of blog reactions from Brittney Gilbert.

A HERO AT VIRGINIA TECH:

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, “but all the students lived – because of him,” Virginia Tech student Asael Arad – also an Israeli – told Army Radio.

Read the whole thing. More thoughts here.