THE NEW CONGRESS, SAME AS THE OLD CONGRESS:

Another part of this thing that is worth looking at is the way Democrats kept this bill from coming to a vote . In the paragraph quoted below, the same article explains that the Democratic majority did not concede unanimous consent and thus blocked the bill from being voted on that day. The Roll Call article that is quoted explicitly states that Democrats needed more time to look over the bill, but besides that, it went down similarly to how S.223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, was secretly held. . . .

Either way, as The Sunlight Foundation’s Ellen Miller put it, “a hold is a hold is a hold, unless you want to debate what the definition of “is” is.” And, since this holding procedure is being used by both parties to manipulate popular transparency legislation to suit the fancy of a few, it is time for the rule to be revised.

Indeed. Back before the elections, I said that the Republicans deserved to lose Congress, but the Democrats didn’t deserve to win it. Sadly, that’s how it’s turning out.

THE CAMPAIGN TO DISCREDIT GLOBAL WARMING THEORY: Big Oil’s moles are everywhere!

DISASTER AVERTED?

Students wrested a gun away from a University of Southern California student who had been asked to leave an off-campus party after threatening a young woman, police said Tuesday. Zao Xing Yang, 19, was arrested early Sunday and is being held without bail, Chief William Bratton said at a news conference.

Some students at the party, held at a student’s home, overheard Yang making intimidating statements to the woman and threatening her with violence about 3 a.m. Sunday, Bratton said.

Yang began arguing with the host, who noticed Yang was holding a gun, he said.

“Several students wrestled the gun away from Yang and held him until campus security and then LAPD officers arrived,” Bratton said.

Quick thinking and teamwork. Good for them. (Via The Asylum).

RADLEY BALKO:

If there’s one positive that might come out of the Duke imbroglio, it’s that the unusual demographics of the parties involved and alliances it spawned may mean some much-needed new scrutiny of the criminal justice system, and win welcome new advocates for reform.

Nifong is by no means the only overly aggressive prosecutor in this country. And Durham is by no means the only jurisdiction where the wrong people have been wrongly accused. As Seligmann suggested, the only real difference may have been that the Duke players had the resources to fight back. Many others don’t.

Examples abound.

A 2002 audit of the crime lab in Houston, Texas, found that experts may have given “false and scientifically unsound” testimony in thousands of criminal cases. Subsequent reports showed that crime lab employees often tailored their tests to fit police theories about how a crime was committed. The city is finishing up a $5.5 million review of 2,300 cases, including death penalty cases.

In 2003, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35 mostly black residents of Tulia, Texas, who had been prosecuted for drug crimes based on testimony from undercover police officer Tom Coleman. Coleman, once named Texas “Police Officer of the Year,” was found to have manufactured evidence from whole cloth.

Just last month in Maryland, self-styled ballistics expert Joe Kopera committed suicide after it was revealed that he lied about his expertise and training. Kopera had testified in hundreds of criminal trials over 40 years, many of which may need to be reopened.

A 2005 audit found critical errors in the state of Virginia’s crime lab, considered one of the best in the country. The audit found that senior-level experts in the lab were too often persuaded by political pressure to secure convictions. The audit was ordered after the exoneration of Earl Washington Jr., a man who served 17 years on Virginia’s death row.

These are merely examples from the last several years, and they’re by no means comprehensive. Here’s hoping that the most vocal critics of Mike Nifong and the Durham justice system that relentlessly pursued the Duke lacrosse players — many of whom don’t generally speak out on criminal justice issues — will see the case as more than just an example of media bias or reverse discrimination.

I’ve been writing about this kind of thing since the very earliest days of InstaPundit, but, I have to say, to no great effect. I’m not sure why people don’t care about this more, but they don’t. Perhaps they’re afraid of what they’ll find if they look too closely?

DON SURBER ON Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman: “Heads should roll.”

RAND SIMBERG DENIES that Harry Reid is trying to help Al Qaeda: “Look, I don’t think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi objectively want Al Qaeda to win. I’m sure that they have succeeded in deluding themselves that we are the problem in Iraq. I’m also sure that they believe that this is in the near term a political winner for them, and sadly, they may be right. But they’re playing a dangerous game. What if they’re wrong, and the people actually reporting success in Iraq are right? They’re so heavily invested in defeat now that it could actually be an electoral disaster for them next year. I certainly hope that will be the case. For me, it would be win-win–we’d have won in Iraq, and the Dems would have lost precisely because they did everything they could to prevent it from happening.”

RECYCLING NUCLEAR WASTE:

Later this year, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee hope to take a big step toward solving America’s nuclear-waste woes. Pending clearance from the Department of Energy, they will demonstrate a new toxic-waste recycling process.

The aim of the demo—part of a controversial $405-million government project called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)—is to transform nuclear leftovers into fuel for a new breed of reactors. The new reactor/fuel combo, GNEP officials say, could produce up to 100 times as much energy as conventional reactors and could generate 40 percent less waste.

One way or another, we need more nice, clean, greenhouse-friendly nuclear plants.

WE’RE NUMBER TWO!

China will pass the United States as the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gasses this year, an official with the International Energy Agency was quoted as saying.

China had been forecast to surpass the U.S. in 2010, but its sizzling economic growth has pushed the date forward, the IEA’s chief economist, Fatih Birol, was quoted as saying in an interview appearing in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal newspaper. . . . China is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gasses, but is exempt from its restrictions because it is a developing country.

Will we try harder? (Via Lou Minatti).

THIS IS COOL:

For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for “life in the universe.”

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a “red dwarf,” is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

I suspect that we’ll find more. Now for some progress on getting there. Warp drive, anyone? Faster, please . . .

NEW INFORMATION HAS ROGER SIMON backing down from his Wolfowitz criticism as the case against Wolfowitz appears shakier. Here’s more from OxBlog.

LEGALIZING ABORTION in Mexico City.

MICKEY KAUS: “Obama has apparently just endorsed one of the worst ideas of Carter era liberalism, ‘comparable worth,’ which would have lawyers and judges deciding what every job is ‘worth’ according to some bureaucratic, non-market criteria that would inevitably punish ‘unskilled’ manual work–i.e, the very workers who are screwed the most by globalization. Are truckdrivers really paid too much?”

I think Mickey’s losing enthusiasm for Obama.

LEGALIZING SPYWARE?

Here we go again. Congress has decided it needs to protect us from spyware, but – surprise, surprise – the bill they are most seriously considering actually offers no help in that regard. What’s worse, the bill seems designed to make it harder for you to legally go after those who spy on you, particularly if they are doing so to determine if you’re authorized to use a software product. . . .

Let’s sum up. If the Spy Act become law, hardware, software, and network vendors will be granted carte blanche to use spyware themselves to police their customers’ use of their products and services. Incredibly broad exceptions will probably allow even the worst of the adware outfits to operate with legal cover. State attempts to deal with the spyware problem will be pre-empted and enforcement left up almost entirely to the FTC. Gee, what’s not to like in that deal?

If Congress’ approach on this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. It’s basically the same formula Congress adopted four years to deal with spam. As we know, the dreadful Can Spam Act of 2003 proved to be the “Yes, You Can Spam Act.” If wiser heads in Congress don’t prevail – and who knows if there are any – I fear the Spy Act of 2007 will just prove to be the “Vendors Can Spy Act.”

The bill is HR 964.

A LOOK AT WHO OWNS THE RIGHTS TO THE CHO VIDEO: I’ll just add this question. Given that Cho was pretty clearly insane at the time he mailed the videos to NBC — and NBC certainly had reason to think this might be the case — should his intention to grant NBC a license be binding as against a lawsuit from his heirs?

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF PLUG-IN HYBRID CARS, from the latest Popular Mechanics. Plus, a look at hybrid skepticism!

MEDIA DOUBLE STANDARDS ON THE N-WORD — even where white people are using it. Are you surprised?

ANOTHER REPORT from J.D. Johannes.

FORGET RANDY BARNETT FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL — here’s a better idea: “While it’s true that he would be far better than the AGs we’ve had recently, there is really only one place in government for real scholars and that’s on the Supreme Court. Nominate Barnett for the Court and I’ll be throwing pep rallies.”

THOUGHTS ON political communications and the left-right divide.

TERROR ARRESTS IN BRITAIN. More on that here.

FINDING UNCLE LEO’S IDENTITY CARD: More Holocaust family history from Eric Muller.

BRIAN DOHERTY WRITES ON how the Right and Libertarians diverged.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION: Some thoughts on the advantages of secrecy.

AND AN ALMOST FANATICAL DEVOTION TO THE POPE! Jan Crawford Greenburg isn’t buying it.

THE POWER OF UNBELIEF.

UPDATE: Not powerful enough.