HOLLYWOOD AT WAR: “The cluelessness on display here is sad. On the other hand, it might have been their way of preparing our correspondent for life on the home front.” I doubt it, though, since hardly anyone on the home front actually saw Rendition. No, really: “(Ninth place, with a shockingly bad $4.1 mil). The French have a word for a movie like that, PopWatchers, it’s called une bombe.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Curious George.

A VERY HITCHENS Christmas! (Via Ann Althouse).

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: “How many more will die in ‘gun-free’ zones before the media start asking why?”

MICKEY KAUS senses a contradiction.

IN OUR PODCAST INTERVIEW EARLIER THIS WEEK, John McCain delivered a lot of I Told You Sos. This YouTube video from 2000 suggests that he might add his assessment of Time Man of the Year Vladimir Putin to that list.

I have my problems with McCain on domestic policy issues, but on national security and foreign policy he’s good, and this video makes you wonder how he would have done had he won in 2000. The other striking thing about this video, though, is how much younger both McCain and Bush look. Well, the years since haven’t been easy ones.

UPDATE: More here.

BULL DOG PUNDIT: John Edwards deserves the benefit of the doubt.

ELECTRONICS THAT DON’T SUCK: Dr. Mercury emails:

I just read your “Keep It Quiet” article on TCS Daily. I wanted to buy a couple of backup power supplies a few months ago, did some research, and was amazed to find that the Geek Squad supplies from Best Buy actually (gasp!) have a button that lets you turn off the ultra-annoying beeper. If it’s daytime (and the room lights aren’t on) and my power goes off, I’d never know it except for the little ‘click’ the power supplies make as the relays engage. Very nice.

I’ll buy some as soon as the Christmas traffic disperses.

Plus, a look at the ever-shifting reasons for a “disappointing” shopping season. I’m playing it safe and blaming Dick Cheney.

BETTER BATTERIES WITH NANOWIRES: “‘It’s not a small improvement,’ Cui said. ‘It’s a revolutionary development.'”

GIULIANI ON EARMARKS. Glad to see this becoming a campaign issue.

SOME SUGGESTED luxury gifts.

JOHN LEO: “It is slowly dawning on the public that fake hate crimes, like the one just perpetrated by Princeton student Francisco Nava, are quite common on college campuses.”

A SURPRISING PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENT, from Frank J. Fleming. “I should note, though, that the most important factor in IMAO endorsing Fred Thompson is that I already have an awesome t-shirt designed for him which will pretty much go to waste if he isn’t the nominee. ”

Read the whole thing. The Thompson campaign emails: “Frank J’s reasoning is impeccable.”

MATH-CHECKING DICK DURBIN. Ouch.

NO FLOATING CROSS from Rudy.

But there are multiple crosses in the background at the end of this Ron Paul Christmas message. Well, sort of.

REMEMBERING THE Citroen CX. A guy who lived up the street from my dad had one, and I thought it was cool until it caught fire one day and burned to a cinder.

GEORGE W. BUSH, CLIMATE-CHANGE HERO:

The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998. A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government. If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

* Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
* Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
* Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
* Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto.

They told me that if George W. Bush were elected, the United States would lag behind the rest of the world on greenhouse gases And they were right!

UPDATE: Actually, if you look at the most recent years the news gets better:

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels decreased by 1.3 percent in 2006, from 5,955 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in 2005 to 5,877 MMTCO2 in 2006, according to preliminary estimates recently released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The economy, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), grew by 3.3 percent and energy demand fell by 0.9 percent indicating that energy intensity (energy use per unit of GDP) fell by 4.2 percent. Carbon dioxide intensity (CO2 emission per unit of GDP) fell by 4.5 percent.

The market seems to be doing what Kyoto hasn’t. (Somewhat related item here).

THE WAR AGAINST SCIENCE: “”As reported by Science magazine, Congress has cut science funding increases for fiscal year 2008. This comes in spite of the earlier announced presidential initiative to increase funding for basic research to improve the future economic competitiveness of the United States.” Nobody tell Chris Mooney.

POWER LINE LOOKS AT THE 1864 DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM, but a reader notes something interesting that they don’t highlight. Among the Democrats’ complaints about Lincoln is this:

the interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear arms

They don’t seem to be talking about state militias, either. (Thanks to Insta-Reader Bruce Stewart for the pointer).

THE JOHN EDWARDS STORY is back up on the Enquirer’s website.

LIQUID PORK:

There’s a simple reason that ethanol is popular with politicians: money. Substituting corn ethanol for a large fraction of the gasoline we burn will mean sluicing gushers of cash from more populated states to politically powerful farm states. And a lot of that cash will wind up in the pockets of the big agribusinesses, like Archer Daniels Midland, that dominate ethanol processing—and whose fat checkbooks wield enormous influence in Washington.

Read the whole thing.

SO THEY SENT ME A PRESS RELEASE ON “JUDICIAL HELLHOLES,” but now I can’t get the song out of my head.

You know where you stand in a hellhole. I guess that’s the point, though.

PRINTER INK AT $8,000 a gallon.

I BLAME THE ENVIRONMENT-DESTROYING HALLIBURTON: “An ocean is not the source of the jets emanating from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, a new study concludes.”

After all, they’ve already been implicated in Mars scandals.

AN UGLY LOOK AT criminal justice in Japan.