DAVID BERNSTEIN on daddies, mommies, politicians and double standards.

Plus, Eugene Volokh on Gloria Steinem on women’s political opinions.

SCIENCE, ER, MARCHES ON: “A new study found that trained sexologists could infer a woman’s history of vaginal orgasm by observing the way she walks.” There could be a lucrative sideline in teaching single men what to look for here . . . . (Via Randall Parker).

Meanwhile, you can reportedly also spot terrorists by their walk. Could you narrow it down to spotting the orgasmic female terrorists? I’m guessing that’s a pretty small cohort. . . .

THIS IS WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: A reader emails:

I never really paid attention to your talk about vaccinations until my (vaccinated) boyfriend came down with whooping cough. Whooping cough is one of those diseases making a comeback in the last 5 years because of parents irresponsibly refusing to get their kids vaccinated. What’s worse is that the vaccine itself is only effective for 10 years, so most adults are vulnerable to outbreaks. My boyfriend has coughing attacks every day where he vomits and can’t breath, and this is going to last for about 2 months. The only reason he hasn’t caused an outbreak at our college is because he identified the disease online almost right away (even though doctors didn’t believe him) and took precautions.

She sent me her name but I’m leaving it off on general principles here. And yes, as I noted in my column, vaccines aren’t perfect, which is why we need the “herd immunity” effect that protects even those whose vaccinations didn’t take, or expired.

TODD ZYWICKI says that the McCain/Palin ticket has a Western-Libertarian vibe. “What is the ‘western’ vibe? This is purely subjective, but to me it is the feeling of no-nonsense, self-reliant, egalitarian, outsiderism, sort of Barry Goldwater-ish. Is it libertarian? Not exactly, but it does have that sort of feeling to it, to me at least.”

In the London Times, Gerard Baker agrees and reports this joke:

“What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let’s be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”

But read the whole thing, which has some serious observations as well.

LARRY SOLUM: “Is John McCain eligible to serve as President of the United States? Here are two new papers on the McCain’s eligibility under natural born citizen clause.” As with questions about Obama’s citizenship, I predict this will go nowhere, though it’s produced some interesting legal scholarship. Of course, if McCain somehow did get kicked off the ticket, it would just move Sarah Palin to the top. Some Republicans might be okay with that . . . .

MORE PROGRESS ON Neighborhood Electric Vehicles: “At least 40 states have now passed laws to permit NEVs to operate on many state roads with more working on new regulations. Meanwhile, some 40,000 NEVs are operating nationwide, says the Electric-Drive Transportation Association. Kentucky and Massachusetts are considering regulations to permit low-speed vehicles (LSVs) on state roads. LSV is a federal designation that includes NEVs, and also some gas-powered vehicles.” Tennessee has already liberalized its laws.

Since short trips are (1) common; and (2) the setting in which cars get the worst mileage as the engine warms up, widespread adoption of these would make a real difference. On days when I don’t go into the office, I could probably do 80% or more of my driving (usually short runs to the grocery store, post office or nearby restaurants) in an NEV. That would drastically cut my gas usage, and I’ll bet I’m not that unusual. Er, in that respect, anyway.

MORE THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL TRIBUTE VIDEOS: I agree with Megan McArdle that we ought to do away with them. When did this custom start? The first one I remember is the one with Mike Dukakis and the snowblower but I don’t know if it was actually the first.

FABIUS MAXIMUS WRITES that crash programs won’t solve “peak oil.”

A “HALF-TERM GOVERNOR” VS. A “ONE-THIRD TERM SENATOR?”

G.M.’S HYBRID SALES are picking up.

IN THE MAIL: Bernard-Henry Levi’s Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism. From the blurb:

In this unprecedented critique, Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of the world’s leading intellectuals revisits his political roots, scrutinizes the totalitarianisms of the past as well as those on the horizon, and argues powerfully for a new political and moral vision for our times. Are human rights Western or universal? Does anti-Semitism have a future, and, if so, what will it look like? And how is it that progressives themselves–those who in the past defended individual rights and fought fascism–have now become the breeding ground for new kinds of dangerous attitudes: an unthinking loathing of Israel; an obsessive anti-Americanism; an idea of “tolerance” that, in its justification of Islamic fanaticism, for example, could become the “cemetery of democracies”; and an indifference, masked by relativism, to the greatest human tragedies facing the world today?

Looks quite interesting.

RASMUSSEN: Sarah Palin the most popular politician in America. Expect more negativity in response.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

ANNOUNCING THE MICHAEL MOORE AWARD FOR ANTI-AMERICANISM. It’s a dishonor just to be nominated!

INSTA-POLL:

JIM LINDGREN — WHO LOVES HIM SOME NUMBERS — DOES AN ANALYSIS and concludes that in spite of the press treatment, Obama’s speech included more negative attacks than Palin’s. But girls are supposed to be nice. His conclusion: “By continuing to spread false memes about the nature of Sarah Palin’s speech as if they were true, the press marches forward in the most biased season of political reporting I’ve seen since at least 1998.” Absolutely.

And a reader emails:

My casual discussions with ladies around the hospital where I work indicates that they have never heard of ACORN and have never heard of Bill Ayers. I suspect that they don’t know anymore about Tony Rezko either. But everyone seems to know about Bristol Palin’s fiance.

Has there ever been a time in the history of our presidential politics where the press has so willfully chosen to do what they can to elect a specific candidate to the presidency?

If the Obama-Biden ticket loses, this will be the final nail in the coffin of the main stream media. The credibility of the MSM will be irreparably damaged, and Americans across the board will come to trust the alternative media for real, working information.

Prediction: PJTV will easily eclipse the viewership of every one of the MSNBC talking heads within the first year of broadcasting.

That would be nice. Meanwhile, David Bernstein looks at a New York Times article and observes: “You would think that the author would at least mention somewhere in this article that the Democrats control both houses of Congress. You would be wrong.”

UNLEASHING THE ABZUG BRIGADE? That’s a little harsh, Don.

TIME TO PLAY “name that Christianist!”

WELL, OBAMA IS OPRAH’S GUY: “Oprah Winfrey may have introduced Democrat Barack Obama to the women of America — but the talkshow queen is not rushing to embrace the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket! Oprah’s staff is sharply divided on the merits of booking Sarah Palin, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.” Oprah already took a ratings hit from women angry over her support of Obama over Hillary. This probably won’t help.

“HAVEN’T HEARD A WORD?” That’s just not true.

DOG BITES MAN: Study Shows ‘No Connection’ Between Measles Vaccine, Autism. Again. Meanwhile, here’s my column on vaccines from last month.

QUESTIONS ABOUT flu vaccine for older people: “A growing number of immunologists and epidemiologists say the vaccine probably does not work very well for people over 70, the group that accounts for three-fourths of all flu deaths.” But studies are complicated by the fact that healthier older people are more likely to get vaccinated. Assuming this is true, I wonder if the vaccine could be reformulated to be more effective in older recipients, or if older immune systems just don’t respond as well.

JOE BIDEN DEMOTES PALIN to Lieutenant Governor of Alaska? What’s the matter, Joe, can’t imagine that a woman could hold the top job?

ELECTIONS: GOOD FOR TRAFFIC! Over 432,000 pageviews yesterday, and over 9 million pageviews last month. Just a dollar per pageview, that’s all I ask . . . . If only!

MICKEY KAUS: “I predicted McCain’s would be a good speech. Wrong again. That makes two successful conventions ending with weak final acts.” Yeah, McCain’s speech, like Obama’s, was too long and had the laundry-list/State of the Union aspect that Obama’s had. Both were upstaged by others — McCain by Sarah Palin, Obama by Bill Clinton.

PALIN RIVALED OBAMA IN TV VIEWERS: “Barack Obama apparently isn’t the only ‘rock star’ in presidential politics this year. After days of intense media coverage about Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s qualifications, more than 40 million Americans tuned in Wednesday to see for themselves what they thought of her. . . . Nearly 2 million more women were watching Palin than men, Nielsen said. Viewers were far more interested in Palin than Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden. Biden’s speech to Democrats last week was seen by an estimated 24 million people.” All the media attacks mostly just built up the audience.