REMEMBERING THE SNAIL DARTER: A TVA v. Hill retrospective tomorrow, at the University of Tennessee College of Law.

Plus, a reminiscence from Sam Venable.

RACHEL LUCAS EXPLAINS THE BLOGOSPHERE to Glamour magazine. (Via Dr. Helen).

IN TODAY’S WALL STREET JOURNAL, Dave Kopel compares Hillary and Obama on gun control. “Imagine an election race of Pat Robertson versus James Dobson, each of them appearing at organic grocery stores and Starbucks throughout Massachusetts, with each candidate insisting that he alone deserves the vote of gay-marriage advocates. . . . A presidential candidate could of course swear devotion to the First Amendment, while declaring that the amendment’s purpose is to protect sports reporting and book collecting. And that candidate could still support government lawsuits against publishers, local bans on newspapers, and draconian restrictions on political commentary.”

HERE’S A COPY OF THE GOVERNMENT’S BRIEF in the Vermont greenhouse gas case.

AT YALE: Standing up against “patriarchal heteronormative trappings of a right to speak.” I have to agree with this part: “It’s not enough to have the right to say it if you don’t know what you want to say.” Indeed, the video is self-validating on that point.

UPDATE: Apparently, I’m not the only one to think so: “Like cockroaches running for the den when the lights go on: Shvarts’ advisor Pia Lindman chickens out by removing the You Tube video above originally at Lindman’s Soapbox Event. Ah, the courage of our ‘artists!'”

Yes, in honor of their bravery, here’s a much better video from YouTube:

Now that’s art!

BIOFUELS VS. FOOD SUPPLIES: The debate continues: “More to the point, though, is the mistaken notion that we have to use food crops for fuel production. In test fields in Minnesota, Tilman and his colleagues have found that the best energy yields actually come from native prairie grasses, not corn or soy.”

Yes. Nonfood biofuels are a whole different kettle of fish heap of kudzu.

ALAN KEYES IS GETTING NASTY.

Who?

I MISS UGLY MOMMY. “What’s next – ‘New Daddy’s Money Is Better Than Old Daddy’?”

DOG BITES MAN: U.N. ineffective against armed bandits in Darfur.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS RESPONDS TO OBAMA: He doesn’t actually use the words stop whining, but the message is clear.

UPDATE: “Welcome to the big leagues, rookie.”

ARE TEENAGERS RATIONAL ABOUT SEX? It depends on what the meaning of rational is.

IT’S NOT ABORTION, IT’S ART: “Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself ‘as often as possible’ while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.” Hmm. I’m pretty sure the folks at my University would have required this to be run by Human Subjects for approval. Maybe it’s different at Yale, or maybe Yuval Levin’s skepticism is merited.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yale says it’s a hoax:

Statement by Helaine S. Klasky — Yale University, Spokesperson

New Haven, Conn. — April 17, 2008

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

Hoax, performance art, whatever.

THOUGHTS ON HILLARY: “She can reel out the policy when that’s what’s required. But cruel political fighting unleashes her super powers.”

UP! Volkswagen attempts a beetle for the 21st Century.

BROOKS TO DEMOCRATS: No whining about the media. That’s Republicans’ job!

Meanwhile Jennifer Rubin says please, keep whining!

NOAH POLLAK — not buying J Street. “And as far as Israel is concerned, yes, hawkishness over the last five years has indeed worked out ‘so great.’ The Dean of the Credulosphere doesn’t appear to have a historic memory longer than three or four blog posts, but if he did he would remember that five years ago buses and restaurants were being detonated by suicide bombers on a weekly basis in Israel. In March of 2002 alone, 134 Israelis were murdered in such attacks.”

FREE BRIGITTE BARDOT!

DON SURBER: Enough with the apologies already. “I am tired of the politicization of the apology. Phony apologies water down not only the meaning of an apology, but also the political discourse.”

A LOOK AT THE PLANET’S largest, most powerful laser.

BILL ARDOLINO: “I’m going to Baghdad next week to embed with the 2/1 Stryker Cavalry Regiment operating in and around Sadr City.” If you want to help, follow the link and hit the tipjar. I did.

LITTLE TYRANTS. I would add that “they’re so cute when they’re little” — but, really, they’re not.

COMPARING TOM COBURN TO BILL AYERS: Not so fast.

UPDATE: Reportedly, Obama misquoted Coburn.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Coburn Silent on Obama’s Ayers Comparison.

And Tom Maguire has fun with Obama’s ideas of moral equivalence: “Following his linkage of the Reverend Wright to his own grandmother and Geraldine Ferraro in his Philadelphia race speech, in last night’s debate Obama decided to pair off an unrepentant Weatherman bomber with a US Senator; evidently he has run of of relatives and is reduced to pitching friends under the bus.”

IN THE MAIL: The Breakthrough Imperative: How the Best Managers Get Outstanding Results, by Mark Gottfredson and Steve Schaubert.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: When earmarks turn criminal:

The Senate moved yesterday toward asking the Justice Department for a criminal investigation of a $10 million legislative earmark whose provisions were mysteriously altered after Congress gave final approval to a huge 2005 highway funding bill.

In what may become the first formal request from Congress for a criminal inquiry into one of its own special projects, top Senate Democrats and Republicans have endorsed taking action in connection with the earmark that Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), former chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, inserted into the legislation. . . .

Young’s staff acknowledged yesterday that aides “corrected” the earmark just before it went to the White House for President Bush’s signature, specifying that the money would go to a proposed highway interchange project on Interstate 75 near Naples, Fla. Young says the project was entirely worthy of an earmark and he welcomes any inquiry, a spokeswoman said.

This is bad enough in itself, but I think it’s probably the tip of the iceberg. The entitlement mentality widespread on the Hill, combined with decades of no real accountability, makes this kind of thing seem perfectly reasonable, I suspect.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY’S FILM, Indoctrinate U., is now out on DVD. You can also get it via download, and even downloadable “virtual DVD.”