THOUGHTS — and some conflicting reports — on Basra, at Abu Muqawama.

SEVEN STATES THINKING OF LOWERING THE DRINKING AGE: They should. And the Federal government should get out of the business of trying to regulate state drinking ages, a subject of no legitimate federal concern whatsoever. it’s also telling that MADD wouldn’t even appear on camera to argue the other side.

A LINK BETWEEN HIRING LAW CLERKS FROM YALE and having your opinions reversed?

Stuart Benjamin observes: “As a Yale Law alum, I wish I could say that the paper’s findings don’t ring true. Alas, I cannot.” Hmm. It’s been a bad week for Yale, hasn’t it?

MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION with a heart. Haven’t read this one.

FROM THE GLOBE-GIRDLING NETWORK of sometime InstaPundit correspondents who are also ex-girlfriends comes this mideast report:

Hey Glenn! My husband and I have just returned from 3 weeks in Egypt and Israel. We rode camels, cruised the Nile, climbed Mt. Sinai, floated in the Dead Sea, sailed the Sea of Galilee, AND I got a cool roman necklace at Har Megiddo. Anyway, it was fascinating to see how most of the Arab world is supporting Obama, while the Israelis that we talked to hoped that McCain wins. Here are a couple of photos from Old Jerusalem, showing Obama posters on the door of an antique shop.

When we arrived in Jerusalem, we were staying at the Ambassador Hotel in the Palestinian section. I ran out of hairspray, so I went down to the front desk to inquire as to where I might find a pharmacy. They gave us directions, and Steve and I walked about a mile. We found the pharmacy closed, but there was a Beauty Salon right next door, so we went in. Eight women leaped up and started yelling that “lalalalalala” sound, and screaming that Steve couldn’t be in there! They were Muslim women, with their headcoverings off because they were having their hair done. Poor Steve RAN out into the street, and the women invited me for coffee and sold me a can of the best hairspray I’ve ever used. It was one of the high points of my trip, but not one of Steve’s.

Oops. Cool photo. And who knew that when I was dating back in college I was actually, even then, helping to build the blog?

WIRED: Cars get more blame than they deserve for carbon dioxide emissions.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: “It is a constant source of wonderment that seemingly intelligent people persist in mythologizing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.” Well, they pretty much stop seeming intelligent once they do.

NOT A CRIME TO photograph undercover police officers. Good.

GETTING LIBERTARIANS OVER THE HUMP:

As suggested by a Samizdata reader called Hugo, I am going to kick off a Friday discussion which takes the following line: “A barrier to people accepting libertarianism is the notion that we’d let people starve in the streets.” . . .

The one place where starvation of the poor is a likely occurrence, of course, is under collectivism. Just look at the great socialist disasters of the 20th Century.

Indeed.

CAR LUST: AMG Mercedes-Benz CLK63 Black Series. It’s gotta beat the Gremlin from yesterday.

ANTI-WAR FOLKS ARE CALLING FOR A DRAFT: Jules Crittenden says let them have it. And he has some thoughts on just how. I think he’s been reading Robert Heinlein again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

“VISUAL SEXUAL AGGRESSION:” Earlier reports of an intrusive Maine statute seem to have been false. The InstaWife got in touch with the Maine Legislative folks and found out their side of the story.

TIBETAN GROUPS FACE SUSPICIOUS CYBER-ATTACKS. A precursor of Chinese tactics against enemy nations? “Security consultants say that some of the attacks involve computer servers in China that were previously used to target several United States military contractors.”

SLATE IMAGINES this Hillary / Obama attack ad:

It’s probably better than the ones she’s actually been running . . . .

GIVING HILLARY the finger?

CANADA’S “HUMAN RIGHTS” COMMISSIONS: Turning enemies into friends!

THIS JUST SEEMS UNFAIR: The fatter you are, the hungrier you get?

LONGEVITY SCIENCE UPDATE:

University of Washington scientists have uncovered details about the mechanisms through which dietary restriction slows the aging process. Working in yeast cells, the researchers have linked ribosomes, the protein-making factories in living cells, and Gcn4, a specialized protein that aids in the expression of genetic information, to the pathways related to dietary response and aging. The study, which was led by UW faculty members Brian Kennedy and Matt Kaeberlein, appears in the April 18 issue of the journal Cell.

Previous research has shown that the lifespan-extending properties of dietary restriction are mediated in part by reduced signaling through TOR, an enzyme involved in many vital operations in a cell. When an organism has less TOR signaling in response to dietary restriction, one side effect is that the organism also decreases the rate at which it makes new proteins, a process called translation. . . .

The researchers also tested a drug called diazaborine, which specifically interferes with synthesis of the ribosomes’ large subunits, but not small subunits, and found that treating cells with the drug made them live about 50 percent longer than untreated cells.

Faster, please.

RANKING LAW SCHOOLS BY 1L attrition rates. This is a tough call. If you admit people with high LSATs and grades, not many will flunk. If you admit people with bad predictors, many, many more will flunk — but some will do well and become great lawyers, because the predictors aren’t perfect. But some will survive with scars. Until some time in the late 1970s, the UT law school followed the traditional pattern — near-open admission followed by flunking out about a third of the first-year class — and some of the alumni I’ve met from that era still have resentments and anger, even though they’re not the ones who failed. Our students today, now that we’re much, much more selective, are a lot happier. But what about the people who didn’t get in, but who might have made it?

YOU CAN ORDER YOUR ALL-ELECTRIC SHELBY COBRA if you want! And it’s cheap! Er, well, for certain values of the word “cheap,” values that don’t pertain to impecunious law professors. . . .

IN THE MAIL: The new paperback edition of Mark Steyn’s America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. With a new introduction. Send one to your favorite Canadian censor!

MORE ON THE ITALIAN ELECTION: “Berlusconi spoke of discipline, family values, hard work and individual generosity. Veltroni countered with his talk of solidarity, sharing and collective compassion.” Berlusconi won in a landslide. Is this a lesson for the U.S. candidates?

JULES CRITTENDEN: DARK FORCES abroad in the land.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “So that’s what passes as insight at Yale these days? If I was going to get livid and horrified about something it would be that a great university sucks so many young women into the into the intellectual graveyard of Women’s Studies. Think what these women could be studying instead of this endlessly recycled drivel.”

CHINA UNREST makes Vietnam nervous.