POLITICAL FEATHERBEDDING in Congress.

RALPH NADER CHOOSES A RUNNING MATE.

COMPLETE WITH GIANT PIG: A report, with photos, from the Murtha pork bash crash.

NEITHER GODS NOR GOO: Todd Seavey reports on the state of nanotechnology.

IN THE MAIL: Greg Bear’s Anvil of Stars, sequel to The Forge of God. Republished in a fancy new edition, and worth your time if you haven’t read ’em.

JONAH GOLDBERG: “In the next few days, there will be a wave of liberals — Frank Rich comes particularly to mind — who will use WFB’s memory to beat up on today’s conservatives. . . . That said, I’m delighted to have conservative heroes become simply American heroes. But it’s at least worth pointing out that Goldwater, Reagan and, of course William F. Buckley were subjected to vicious criticism from the left in their day. That they belong to all Americans now is no small testament to their success in the face of often unrelenting opposition.”

HOW CAN WE TRUST THEM WITH ANY OF OUR TAX DOLLARS, when they can’t even build a freaking 28-mile fence?

A QUIZ, from Arnold Kling.

THE DEMOCRATS’ SOUTHERN OUTREACH PROGRAM CONTINUES, as illustrated in this email:

no shit Mccain leads democrats in TN. Like that is even a question.

Its a fucking southern red neck state. Obama or Hilary would never win that backwater hole.

we in nyc laugh at the south and think you people are pathetic.

It must be tough to think of yourself as so cosmo and still live in hell.

And when you visit NYC we sense your backwaterness. We can smell it a mile away.

With supporters like these, how can they fail to carry the south?

UPDATE: Reader Joseph Beaulieu emails: “Well, it was nice of Gov Dean to take some time out of his busy day to write to you.” Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ted Siegel emails: “Lots of us here in NYC thank the south for keeping us safe and prosperous (i.e. low taxes). Unfortunately, with all of these Liberals, there’s a lot of bigotry in the city.”

Yeah, but what are you gonna do?

LIBERTARIAN NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS for Obama.

HELLER UPDATE: “Nearly three out of four Americans — 73% — believe the Second Amendment spells out an individual right to own a firearm, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,016 adults taken Feb. 8-10. Yet for decades, federal judges have seen the Constitution differently, allowing a range of gun-control measures imposed by governments seeking to curb gun violence.”

As Brannon Denning and I have noted, this suggests that finding no individual right to arms would be a blow to the Supreme Court’s legitimacy.

THE NEWSPEAK VERSION OF “Human Rights Activists.”

THIS WAS REALLY STUPID: “An armed man who burst into a classroom at Elizabeth City State University was role-playing in an emergency response drill, but neither the students nor assistant professor Jingbin Wang knew that.” The guy’s lucky that nobody shot him, or cold-cocked him. Which would have been an appropriate response to what seemed to be going on.

MORE ON THE TONY REZKO STORY and Barack Obama.

IMPORTANT THOUGHTS ON National Grammar Day. (Via Volokh).

“SAFE HOMES” IN BOSTON: It’s not about safety.

ANOTHER CBS SCANDAL? Well, it’s an election year.

JACK JACOBS, MSNBC: Obama needs a lesson in military history.

UPDATE: On the other hand, reader Paul Collacchi sends this. On the third hand, it’s from The New Republic . . . .

ROBO-DOGS: Offering the same benefits as real dogs?

DAVE KOPEL AND HOWARD NEMEROV: Is There a Relationship between Guns and Freedom? Comparative Results from 59 Nations. “The data show that (although exceptions can be found) the nations with the highest rates of gun ownership tend to have greater political and civil freedom, greater economic freedom and prosperity, and much less corruption than other nations.”

IT’S A BAD IDEA TO BREAK INTO A GUN-OWNER’S HOME: Or even a gunowner’s parent’s home, sometimes. “Dallas police were at the scene of a fatal shooting Wednesday morning in which a homeowner’s son apparently killed a suspected burglar.”

GIVING PROPER CREDIT to William Howard Taft.

A SHOCKER: Clinton’s Efforts on Ethanol Overlap Her Husband’s Interests. “Because Mr. Burkle’s Yucaipa funds are private, and the Clintons have refused to release their tax returns, details of Yucaipa’s investments and Mr. Clinton’s potential to profit from them are not publicly available.”

NEW IMAGES OF the Moon’s south polar region.

HEH:

Having the middle name Hussein doesn’t make Obama any more a Muslim than having the middle name Jefferson made Clinton a strict constructionist.

Indeed.

UPDATE: I guess Andrew Sullivan would regard this post as a “passive aggressive” defense of Obama. Actually, of course, he’s just as clueless as ever.