PROGRESS IN REGENERATION? Though fingertip regrowth isn’t unheard of.

HE SAID “JUDAS,” AND HE MEANT “JUDAS:”

James Carville, a political adviser to the Clintons, said this afternoon that he stood by his comment last Friday – Good Friday, to Christians – comparing Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico to Judas, even though a Clinton campaign aide said today that, if he were Mr. Carville, he would apologize for the remark.

“I was quoted accurately and in context, and I was glad to give the quote and I was glad I gave it,” Mr. Carville said. “I’m not apologizing, I’m not resigning, I’m not doing anything.”

I don’t think that Bill Richardson is Judas. Of course, I don’t think that Hillary is Jesus, either.

THE SUPREME COURT GRANTS CERT. IN U.S. V. HAYES, and Doug Berman wonders if it’s a Heller tea leaf.

ROAD TEST: Range Rover vs. Challenger tank.

THIS IS INTERESTING:

In the race for the most popular votes in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary contests, Sen. Barack Obama’s lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton is about 711,000 votes — not including Florida or Michigan — according to Real Clear Politics.

Of Sen. Obama’s 711,000 popular-vote lead, 650,000 — or more than 90% of the total margin — comes from Sen. Obama’s home state of Illinois, with 429,000 of that lead coming from his home base of Cook County.

That margin in Cook County represents almost 60% of Obama’s total lead nationwide.

It’s good to have Cook County on your side, I guess.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN GET A FREE ELECTRONIC COPY of Toby Buckell’s Crystal Rain. I liked it.

IRAQ AND TERRORISM: More on that story here.

“WHAT IS Keith Olbermann?” No, it’s not Jeopardy. “So essentially, on March 20, the General Electric Company underwrote an hour long infomercial for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.”

BENEDICT XVI VS. OSAMA BIN LADEN: It occurs to me that the Catholic Church has some experience playing this whole “martyr” game, too.

IN THE MAIL: Steven Goldberg’s new book, Bleached Faith: The Tragic Cost When Religion Is Forced into the Public Square. I’m a big fan of Goldberg’s work, and I think he’s entirely right to suggest that efforts to slide government religious expression past the Establishment Clause do more harm than good to religion. I hope that this book gets the attention it deserves. (Bumped, because it’s important).

PETRAEUS: Iran behind Green Zone attack.

ANTIWAR PROTESTERS WHO ASSAULTED A CONGREGATION AT EASTER MASS have had their bond set at $25,000 to $35,000. They’re facing felony charges.

SHAUN MULLEN: Why Hillary Must Come Clean About Bill.

A STAKE THROUGH THEIR HEARTS: Michael Yon reports on Killing Al Qaeda in Nineveh Province.

“THE OSCARS OF THE FOOD WORLD:” The James Beard Foundation Award Finalists.

DOG BITES MAN: Spitzer Pushed Staff’s Effort to Smear Bruno.

TAKING “A LITTLE EXTRA CREDIT:” Both Obama And Clinton Embellish Their Roles. But they’re not lying. Only Republicans do that.

X MARKS THE SPOT: Bill Bradley on Obama’s Wright Stuff. “The week ahead in presidential politics, as may be the case with much of the next seven-odd months, is dominated by the racial politics swirling around Barack Obama. And by the questions yet unanswered by his speech last Tuesday in Philadelphia. These questions are at least as much about patriotism as they are about race. . . . I think that Obama is not going to become president unless he can explain Malcolm X (Wright’s most outrageous statements are a stand-in for what he represented), the anger that produced him, and the preposterous statements that not infrequently emanate from the black church. He can’t simply float as the easy post-racial figure, a man Americans can vote for as a salve for the issue of race in America. “

WE’RE NUMBER ONE! U.S. States Lead the World in High Corporate Taxes.

CHINESE POLICE open fire on monks and nuns.

MORE ON PARENTS WHO WON’T VACCINATE THEIR KIDS. I still think that McCain should come out and redress his dumb remarks of a couple of weeks ago. I wouldn’t go so far as Megan’s rant suggests — but I do think we should make clear that parents who, with no genuine medical reason, forego vaccinating their kids are bad parents, and bad citizens. That kind of social pressure seems to get people to do all sorts of less important and more intrusive things — like recycle — so it should be enough.

I have some related thoughts here.

UPDATE: Dr. George Milonas emails:

In my office, it’s only the marginally educated white yuppies that are refusing vaccines. This is a trend seen across the country. They go on ridiculous websites where they are absolutely convinced that thimerosol or that vaccines cause autism. This, despite the fact that thimerosol has been removed for years without a drop in Autism rates and tens of million of dollars in research utterly refuting a link. I offer them packets of scientifically respectable information on vaccines, but they still refuse out of fear that their perfectly normal children will regress to the level of an autistic child. They prefer the hype of the medical garbage spread throughout the internet. I’ve had 14-16 year olds’ parents refuse vaccines for the same reason (despite the fact that there has never been a documented case of this).

What I’m truly surprised at is the fact that our illustrious legal community hasn’t begun a class action lawsuit against these parents and ‘autism’ advocates who are responsible for the fact that these eliminated diseases are making a comeback. If I were a parent whose child contracted an infectious disease from one of the unvaccinated children, I’d be out for blood. Why exactly hasn’t anybody sued Robert Kennedy and his minions for convincing parents not to vaccinate their children? To me, it’s the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater.

I mentioned in my column that if drug companies peddled a product as defective and dangerous as what the anti-vaccine hysterics are peddling, they’d be sued out of existence. I doubt, however, that we’ll see any similar accountability on the part of the activists.

RASMUSSEN: “Looking ahead to the General Election in November, John McCain continues to lead both potential Democratic opponents. McCain leads Barack Obama 50% to 41% and Hillary Clinton 49% to 42%.” Polls don’t mean much at this point, but this can’t make Dems happy. It might make McCain complacent, though.

FREE SPEECH AND the “Violence Veto.” Won’t that just encourage people to be violent?

A STREET IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD HAS HAD FOUR HOUSES FOR SALE for a long time. Last week they all sold. Hardly evidence of a trend by itself, but there is this report: “Sales of existing homes in the U.S. unexpectedly rose in February for the first time in seven months, easing concern credit restrictions and falling prices would hurt demand.” Most of the houses in my neighborhood dropped their price. My sense overall is that homeowners are much too slow to drop their prices in a bad market — people can accept that a stock might be worth less than last year, or worth less than when you bought it, but they seem to have a hard time mustering the same acceptance where a house is concerned. But drop the price, and it’s more likely to sell. And that’s what people will have to do, I think. Perhaps they’re catching on.

UPDATE: Reader Scott Claunch emails: “want to concur with what you’ve posted about appropriate pricing to sell a home in the current market. My wife and I recently sold our home in Minneapolis, for our asking price, in two days. Besides it being a great home it was staged meticulously, very clean, fresh paint, and – most importantly – priced for the existing market, not the market in 2006. I realize this is merely anecdotal, but it supports your larger theme. Thanks for a timely post!” Yes, I see houses that are three years old priced as if they should have appreciated 30% since they were built. That’s ridiculous, and not surprisingly they’re not selling.

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY Name That Party! “If only the AP had been similarly reticent about Mark Foley!” Fat chance.

UPDATE: Reuters does better: “Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and official misconduct on Monday stemming from a sex scandal and the prominent Democrat’s handling of an $8.4 million settlement of a whistle-blower lawsuit against the city.”