VIA BACKPACK COMPUTING, I see that the price on the Nokia N810 pocketable tablet PC has dropped a lot.

Overall, I still think that the Asus EeePC is better for about the same money — but you can’t slip the Asus, small as it is, into a shirt pocket. And it doesn’t have GPS. My Nokia review is here, my Asus review is here.

UPDATE: Coming soon, an even cheaper competitor to the Asus. (Via Brian Micklethwait).

BOBBY JINDAL GETS good reviews as the first legislative session of his governorship concludes.

MORE EFFICIENT SOLAR CELLS, though quantum dot nanotechnology.

ABC: Obama distances himself from Rezko, pastor.

DANIEL DREZNER: Good gossip from Brussels.

JULES CRITTENDEN on the Democrats’ PC primary problems.

BOB SOMERBY ON reading “the tell.” “Our pundit culture is very careful about issues of race (good). But then, it seems to feel quite free to gender-trash certain women. Indeed, watchdogs don’t even seem to see such conduct when it occurs.” Plus, reading a different “tell,” here.

REBECCA MACKINNON: “The Chinese system of Internet censorship and media propaganda may have a lot of holes, but when tested by events like the Tibet unrest this past week, so far it’s holding up well enough for the regime’s purposes.”

GERMANY DECLARES economic war against its neighbors? At least it’s just economic war.

ROGER KIMBALL: “Soft Jihad,” the next phase.

DOUG BERMAN: Why the #$@! is AG Mukasey speaking out against execution for 9/11 plotters and suggesting US justice is sadist? Just more evidence — along with the Heller debacle — that the DoJ isn’t running right.

UPDATE: At TalkLeft, a Mukasey defense.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts from Profesor Bainbridge.

THOUGHTS ON THE BEAR STEARNS COLLAPSE, from Megan McArdle.

ERIC SCHEIE: “Might it be that there is something inherently corrupting about crossover voting? I don’t know.”

STROMATA ASKS, “Which is the real Obama?” I think I agree with this from Matthew Yglesias:

Obama’s going to have a hard time explaining that I take to be the truth, namely that his relationship with Trinity has been a bit cynical from the beginning. After all, before Obama was a half-black guy running in a mostly white country he was a half-white guy running in a mostly black neighborhood. At that time, associating with a very large, influential, local church with black nationalist overtones was a clear political asset . . . . Since emerging onto a larger stage, it’s been the reverse and Obama’s consistently sought to distance himself from Wright, disinviting him from his campaign’s launch, analogizing him to a crazy uncle who you love but don’t listen to, etc.

The “real” Obama, in other words, probably looks a lot like the “real” person inside most politicians — somebody who mostly cares about Number One and will do and say what it takes to get elected. The problem for Obama is that Bill Clinton, who ran as a likable rogue, could get away with this sort of thing to an extent that someone who runs as a force for “unity” and “a new kind of politics” can’t, since this looks a lot like — well, actually it looks exactly like — the old kind of politics.

Especially when Obama’s campaigning against a liquid-metal Terminator. Though I think the Summer Glau kind would get more votes . . . . (Via Maggie’s Farm).

UPDATE: Obama’s problem is pithily summarized here:

Yglesias may well be correct about Obama, but when you’re left with the choice of either acknowledging that you had sincere close, personal, and political ties with a minister whose views most Americans find beyond the pale, or defending yourself by using the “hey, I’m just a cynical politician who uses religion to get votes just like anything else, and I don’t believe in it any more than I really believe that NAFTA is bad” excuse, I think you may be in for some trouble.

We are seeing a pattern of double-talk. Of course, the big question is what’s Oprah’s excuse?

MORE: “What a marvelous race this has become.”

WHILE HILLARY AND OBAMA SPAR OVER PARTY RULES, John McCain is in Iraq.

WHEN A HEART ATTACK isn’t a heart attack.

HEH:

Buffeted by criticism of his controversial Christian pastor while continuing to quell rumors that he is a Muslim, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) took a bold step today to settle questions about his religious faith once and for all.

“I am converting to Judaism, effective immediately,” Mr. Obama told reporters at a press conference in Scarsdale, New York, adding that he would change his middle name from “Hussein” to “Murray.”

The way this election’s going, it makes perfect sense.

ED CONE: Bring back Glass-Steagall. Kind of a horse/barn-door thing, but read it.

UPDATE: Dave Price emails:

I know a few other CPAs who shake their heads when the subject is brought up.

Repealing Glass-Steagal may someday be viewed as the most catastrophic mistake of our generation.

Conflict of interest is not why, however. Most everyone has forgotten the primary reason why Glass-Steagal was so important: it separated banks, insurers, and businesses so that a failure in one area could not cascade into a Panic and collapse the entire economy.

After most of a century, people are once again assuming a systemic collapse is impossible, even as they remove the mechanisms that prevented it for so long.

It’s an unnecessary gamble. Pray we never pay the price.

That’s usually how things work. “Who needs these fireproof drapes? — We never have fires!” We see this in all sorts of areas.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Rippey emails:

You and a bunch of other high-minded thinkers are leaning toward the view that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was a mistake. Your thinking is based on . . . well, gee, I don’t know. The idea is just plain dumb.

The Thursday report of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG), available on Treasury’s web site, lists the causes and proposes cures for what has been happening in the financial markets since last summer. Nowhere is it suggested by the regulators that the existence of Glass-Steagall would have ameliorated present market woes, nor does the report suggest that its reenactment would provide relief.

Note that JPMorgan-Chase has been Bear-Stearns banker, in other words JPM-C this month is doing exactly what commercial banks have been doing for decades, i.e., providing short-term credit for investment banks (otherwise known as commercial loans)–an activity always permissible under Glass-Steagall. (Albeit this time, the Fed has stepped in to guarantee the transactions for 28 days.)

If there is a culprit in commercial banking, it is, per usual, lax supervision of national banks (e.g., Citi) by the Comptroller of the Currency (think Franklin National Bank), coupled with counter-productive capital requirements cooked up in Basel.

Are large state member banks experiencing life-threatening problems? No. Significantly, the Comptroller was left off the working group, but the Fed was not. Please, professor, before latching on to platitudes, examine the facts.

Bottom line: I’m wrong. Well, that’s hardly a man-bites-dog event. One of my hedge-fund readers agrees, albeit a bit more politely:

The Bear Stearns crisis du jour is not at all related to the Glass-Steagall separation of commercial from investment banking. Bear has always been an investment bank, and its current fragility is entirely a consequence of bad decisions made in the running of its standard, core businesses.

If one wants to point a finger at regulations for the present mess, look at the green eyeshade boys who decided on mark-to-market asset pricing for items lacking a market, and international capital rules that drive institutions to move stuff off balance sheet while demanding paper be rated AAA whether merited or not.

Stay tuned, as we’ll probably be hearing more about this.

A VERY UNFORTUNATE WORKDAY for Sgt. Mom.

JEROME ARMSTRONG NOTES good polls for McCain: “On the heels of a Rasmussen poll showing McCain leading Obama or Clinton by a 46-40 margin in Iowa, Zogby includes Nader in a national poll. Now, Zogby loves to make news, so I wouldn’t put it past him to have polled for a sample showing Nader doing well, and he did, showing McCain, Clinton, Nader at 45, 39, 6 and McCain, Obama, Nader at 44, 39, 6.”

More an indicator of the Democrats’ troubles at the moment than a predictor of what will happen in the fall. Still, better news for McCain than anyone would have expected a few months ago. Of course, things could reverse again in the next few months.

A ROUNDUP OF interesting new videogames.

SEX EARLIER IN LIFE REDUCES DELINQUENCY? Makes sense to me. Most of that juvenile-delinquent behavior is just an effort to get laid anyway, so . . . .

“ALMOST BELIEVABLE.” John Kass writes: “Barack Obama looked me straight in the eye. I heard him speak. Yet unlike some other pundits, I felt no thrill going up my leg. . . . I wanted to believe Obama, and almost did.” (Via TalkLeft).

UPDATE: Gerald Posner at the Huffington Post: “I’m still in the Barack camp. But, as a vocal supporter, I’d like just a couple of answers about the flap over Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago megachurch where the Obamas have been members for 20 years. . . . Barack is not responsible for Wright’s views. However, how he responds to those views – and whether he is being straight with us, the voters – is critical as to whether he should lead our country.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oprah Winfrey goes to Wright’s church, too? “Wright, 65, is a straight-talking pragmatist who arrived in Chicago as an outsider and became an institution. He has built a congregation of 8,500, including the likes of Oprah Winfrey and hip-hop artist Common, by offering an alternative to socially conservative black churches that are, Wright believes, too closely tied to Chicago’s political dynasties.” That’s from a 2007 Chicago Tribune piece via Hot Air. This kind of makes me see Oprah a bit differently, too. “Not many people would associate Oprah’s easygoing nature and warm, welcoming appeal with the kind of oratory provided by Wright.” As with Mitt Romney on guns, I’m starting to think that they haven’t been entirely straight with us.

MORE: More Obama/Wright scrutiny from Jake Tapper of ABC News. Plus, further digging from Tom Maguire.

INSTAPUNK has added a not-really-necessary apology to this post. He got kind of cranky because I didn’t link it last night. But, see, blogging — my kind, anyway, not essay-blogging like his — is sort of like DJ’ing. It’s not just what songs you play, but in what order. Sometimes a song’s good, but it just doesn’t fit into the mix.

UPDATE: More on the blogging/DJ comparision.

JERRY POURNELLE continues to blog his radiation treatments, along with much else. If you’re a fan and would like to help him out, hit the PayPal subscription button. I did. (Bumped).