RON BAILEY: “Should the government restrict the reproductive choices of parents in order to make sure that a certain percentage of people are ‘born’ gay? Evolutionary psychology suggests that parents (that is people who, by definition, want to reproduce) will prefer to give birth to children who are more likely to give them grandchildren.”

Of course, you can do that when you’re gay — especially as technology advances.

BAD NEWS ABOUT CATHY SEIPP. Please send your best.

I POSTED ON CAR SURVIVAL KITS HERE A WHILE BACK, (also here) and that led reader Matt Miller to point out this post on the subject from Autoblog.

AN ACADEMIC ENRON AT PRINCETON? Well, the investors certainly didn’t get what they were bargained for, and apparently there was some falsification of the record, too.

UPDATE: Princeton’s side of the story is here. More here.

44% THINK THINGS ARE WORSE after U.S. invasion and regime change: “I am talking about Europe. A Financial Times-Harris poll found great discontent with the European Union, which was an outgrowth of the Common Market, which was set up at the behest of the American government as a means of getting the nations of Old Europe to get along and quit having wars every generation or so.”

LESSONS IN APPEASEMENT: The Spanish example.

SELF-MARGINALIZATION in the legal academy.

But read these thoughts, too.

AN OPEN-AIR, ROTATING countertop pizza oven. Well, it looks cool. (Via BoingBoing).

UPDATE: Apparently, it’s not as new as I thought. Reader Clay McNerney emails:

My wife and I got this for Christmas of 2005 and I gotta tell you, it is fantastic. We use this thing at least 2-3 times per week. It is perfect for preparing a Tombstone or Freschetta or DiGiorno type of frozen pizza…

Since you don’t have to wait for an oven to pre-heat, you can be ready to eat in 1/2 the time using this thing. Wonderful product!

The platter is non-stick, so you have to be careful in cleaning it (which I would recommend you do immediately after baking the pizza so it cleans easier.)

I guess it would be just as good for a homemade pizza, too.

ERIC MULLER looks into some family history.

INDOCTRINATE U.: Evan Coyne Maloney has posted an online trailer for his new film on politics in higher education.

We interviewed Evan and his partner Stuart Browning in one of the inaugural Glenn & Helen podcasts. You can hear it here.

UPDATE: Yes, the production values have improved since episode #2. Well, it would be worse if they hadn’t!

READER STEPHEN COX EMAILS: “It seems from the tenor of your links that you may be moving closer to an Inhofe/Crichton ‘global warming is a hoax’ position. Is that a correct inference?”

Not really. I do think — as do many scientists, something that the New York Times just noted — that the hype and alarmism on this front has reached absurd levels:

In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.” . . .

Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

I don’t know a lot about climatology. But I know a lot about media bulldozing operations, and I see one of those in action at the moment on this subject. (Kind of like this one).

However, my own position is that it doesn’t matter much in terms of policy. We should be trying to mimimize the burning of fossil fuels regardless of whether it’s a cause of global warming or not. The rather patent hucksterism — and outright bullying — of some global warming advocates, though, will probably hurt that cause more than help it over the longer term.

GETTING IT WRONG ON THE WAR: Well, a lot of people missed the WMD issue.

MICHAEL BARONE on blaming America first. Read the whole thing.

HEH: “Wouldn’t it be more plausible if a few items like styling gel, latte makers and tofu were said to destroy the planet as well?”

FOUR YEARS IN: Some thoughts from Gerard van der Leun that are worth your time.

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS is defending Al Gore against charges of environmental hypocrisy. I think they’re about right.

UPDATE: John Fund is less charitable.

JULES CRITTENDEN: “I’m getting a warm and fuzzy Pravda kind of feel off that.” But he’s not reading Pravda.