Yes, that’s a 150″ TV.

AN INTERVIEW WITH JASON STATHAM (Transporter) on the occasion of his new movie, Revolver. My first question would have been, “Aren’t you afraid people will think it’s a Beatles movie?”

THE RON PAUL SHOE DROPS, and Ann Althouse is saying “I told you so.” Meanwhile, more here. I’m about to get on a plane, and don’t have much to say right now. Did Paul write this? Was it ghostwritten under his name? Is it better if the answer is the latter?

UPDATE: Dale Carpenter calls it “a damning indictment.” Carpenter’s conclusion: “He has at worst endorsed, and at best coddled, some of the most base impulses in American politics.”

LOTS MORE C.E.S. REPORTING over at Popular Mechanics.

YUVAL LEVIN: “One of the most interesting elements of the Clinton implosion in the past week has been the way Bill Clinton has chosen anger and resentment as his mode of persuasion. . . . I just wonder: Does he actually think this could be effective in getting voters to support Hillary?”

Meanwhile, Bill Bradley pointed out evidence of something I predicted — Clinton can’t go negative against Obama without losing key black supporters:

The Clinton campaign is searching for the right tool with which to take down the Illinois senator. One tool they won’t be using is a reference to his self-acknowleged teenage drug use, which he disclosed in his best-selling autobiography.

NWN has learned that when that was brought up last month by campaign co-chairman Billy Shaheen, the Clintons faced an internal revolt from many of their prominent black supporters.

“You are not going to make the first black man who can be president out to be a drug dealer,” one told the Clintons.

I told you so. Even if some people weren’t bright enough to get the point, at least until Tom Maguire patiently explained it.

“ECO-CONSCIOUS COMPUTING,” from Intel. As I said, it’s a theme this year. They were giving away t-shirts.

NOT ALL THE MUSIC WAS CLASSICAL:

JACK LAIL on the implications of performance pay for journalists. I don’t agree, though, that the Web provides “razor-precise metrics,” though I suppose that by comparison to print it does . . .

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY on oil prices, OPEC, and the candidates.

I’m surprised that one of the candidates hasn’t picked up on Bob Zubrin’s idea. They could start by listening to the podcast. . . .

MORE ON THE NEW OLED TVs, here and here.

SURE TO BE CONTROVERSIAL: A proposal to federalize the law of wrongful termination.

BILL BRADLEY HAS ALREADY STARTED to cover New Hampshire. And here are some thoughts on what to expect from exit polls, courtesy of Mark Blumenthal. Don’t worry — this time around there will be no early leaks!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: John Fund says it’s time for Bush to step up:

Just before Christmas, Congress sent Mr. Bush a $516 billion omnibus spending bill stuffed with 8,993 special-interest earmarks. To make matters worse, most of the earmarks aren’t even in the language of the law itself. They were slipped into a 900-page “committee report” that represented the wish-lists of the Senate and House appropriations committees. Almost no one got a chance to read that report before the budget was passed late at night and with barely a day for members to review it.

Mr. Bush agreed to sign the budget but said he was disappointed at Congress’s failure to overcome its earmark addiction. He announced he was asking his budget director, Jim Nussle, “to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill.”

What Mr. Bush knows, and Congress doesn’t want the taxpayers to know, is that the vast majority of the offending earmarks–the ones that aren’t part of the actual budget law and were instead “air-dropped” into the committee report–aren’t legally binding. A Dec. 18 legal analysis by the Congressional Research Service found that most of the committee reports have not been formally passed by both houses and “presented” to the President for signing, and thus have not become law. “President Bush could ignore the 90% of earmarks that never make it to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote,” says Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who has read the CRS report. “He doesn’t need a line-item veto.”

Will he have the guts to do anything?

YEAH, I’LL BE BLOGGING ABOUT NEW HAMPSHIRE TONIGHT, don’t worry.

MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME: Michigan sees fewer gun deaths — with more permits.

Six years after new rules made it much easier to get a license to carry concealed weapons, the number of Michiganders legally packing heat has increased more than six-fold.

But dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed have largely gone unfulfilled, according to law enforcement officials and, to the extent they can be measured, crime statistics. The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.

More than 155,000 Michiganders — about one in every 65 — are now authorized to carry loaded guns as they go about their everyday affairs, according to Michigan State Police records.

This is surprising only to those who haven’t been paying attention.

OTHER REPUBLICANS ARE RUNNING AGAINST EACH OTHER, Fred Thompson is running against the press.

JONAH GOLDBERG on Putin’s role model.

Meanwhile, his new book goes on sale today. Our podcast interview with Jonah is here. Despite (because of?) all the hoopla from lefty bloggers who hate the book’s title, it appears to be doing very well to judge from the Amazon ranking.

HERE IN NEVADA, I’ve heard some Ron Paul ads. They make him sound like a regular Republican — strong on defense (against base closings, in favor of “stealth warriors” to “hunt down terrorists” around the world) and against illegal immigration. The war isn’t mentioned, nor is the “L’ word — libertarian. If you hadn’t been paying attention, you could think they were Duncan Hunter commercials . . . .

WHEN PUSHING HD CAMERAS, it’s apparently important to have women playing classical music.

MICKEY KAUS: “But why would Edwards drop out? What else does he have to do?”

BILL RICHARDSON, lashing out at the Clintons. I guess he’s given up on the Hillary veep slot. But there’s always Obama!

MORE COMFY CHAIRS. You can never have too many.

FRED THOMPSON heads to South Carolina.

MORE FROM SANYO: Note the “Think Gaia” in the background on the left.

GERARD VAN DER LEUN notes that some things don’t change.