TOM MAGUIRE: I am trying to imagine Cohen delivering this column with “McCain” substituted for “Obama” throughout.

THIS MEGA THICKBURGER IS MEDICINAL: Treating epilepsy with a high-fat diet. It’s actually an approach based, like the Atkins Diet, on ketosis.

THE TENNESSEE JUSTICE NEWSLADDER covers criminal justice and its problems in Tennessee. (Via Michael Silence, who has a few thoughts and a quote from U.S. Court of Appeals judge Gilbert S. Merritt, for whom I clerked).

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from this weekend’s newspapers.

GALLUP: Most Democrats Not Eager for Either Candidate to Drop Out.

UPDATE: Reader Ron Moses emails: “Neither are most Republicans, I’d imagine.” Heh. Indeed.

A REVIEW OF THE PBS SERIES, CARRIER. “I recently heard a very senior admiral discuss how the chief of naval operations was bracing other admirals for the series, and why – despite its warts and all – the documentary eventually could help recruiting efforts. How so? In the ethos of Web-life, the series offers more of a transparent view of life aboard a flattop – and future, raised-with-Internet sailors have to be recruited on those terms.”

THE SPECULIST MANIFESTO. It’s better than some other manifestos I could name.

WAR PROTESTERS frustrated by apathy.

Hey, they should prefer apathy to this!

A REVIEW OF THE SATURN VUE Green Line Hybrid.

JAPAN: “This is the land of disappearing children and a slow-motion demographic catastrophe that is without precedent in the developed world.”

WELL, THIS IS NEWS: “Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff.”

A NEW YORK TIMES WRITER SEES IMPROVEMENT, and thinks American troops should stay in Iraq. Read the whole thing, by an Iraqi employee of the NYT’s Baghdad bureau.

MICHAEL SILENCE: Corker and Obama are right about the gas tax cut. “Sens. McCain and Clinton are pandering to the public.”

On the other hand, Salon says they’re wrong: “Think Clinton’s plan to suspend the gas tax temporarily is a bad idea? A similar measure in Illinois — which Obama backed — seems to have helped consumers.”

A LOOK AT THE top ten early contenders for the Automotive X-Prize.

PAUL CASSELL ON MCCAIN ON JUDGES: “From a conservative perspective, he says all the right things. I take him at his world. I can’t imagine that, were he elected President, he would select someone who would rankle the folks who have worked so hard to reshape the contemporary legal culture. . . . . I would be interested in seeing Senator Obama’s response to the speech, including a more thorough explanation of why he was one of 22 Senators to vote against Chief Justice Roberts.”

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGISTS LOOK AT ANIMALS and discover, as Jurgen did, that cleverness is not on top, and never has been.

HERE’S A CONTINUOUSLY-UPDATED roundup of primary coverage.

OBAMA HAS ALREADY WON NORTH CAROLINA, in light of record black turnout, according to this report.

IN THE MAIL: From Daniel Bell, China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society.

Corner of Broadway and Central, Knoxville. By the way, you can see larger versions of this and other photos posted here, at my Exposure Manager gallery.

DAVID BROOKS: “Life is short, but campaigns are long.” Not while the evil days come not. Er, or something like that . . . .

GARDENING, EVEN WITH A black thumb.

“OBAMA UNDER SIEGE:” A media myth, according to Karl at Protein Wisdom.

OUCH: “Now that he’s disowned his pastor, I’m looking forward to Obama initiating a national conversation on religion to explain his church.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: “Anybody who thinks they can change the world by blogging is deluded.”