SARAH PULLMAN has read Nina Planck’s Real Food and likes it. Our podcast interview with Planck is here.

NOW THERE’S A WINNER: “Senator Biden Wants to Give Your Ex-Wife a Free Attorney…”

A 220 MPG HYBRID SUPERCAR featuring “wild horsepower?” I’d like to see one. Er, and drive one . . .

EXTREME BALLOON TYING! But it’s only “pop art” if you do it wrong . . . .

I HAVEN’T SEEN SCOTT MCCLELLAN’S NEW BOOK, but McClellan himself is not exactly getting raves at The New Republic:

Writing a harsh tell-all memoir of the Bush years is just good business sense at this point. You only need to look back at the anemic sales of Ari Fleischer’s rosy, no-tell memoir of his White House years to realize that–and Fleischer’s low-seller came out at a time when Bush’s approval rating was higher than 28 percent.

So kudos to McClellan. His book displays a calculating mind that was never much in evidence in the White House press room.

Ouch. Anyway, the Wall Street Journal has an excerpt, and some are noting the contrast between the press’s reception of McClellan’s book and the heavily-documented work of Doug Feith. What could account for the difference?

UPDATE: Clayton Cramer: “Still, I find myself asking this rather serious question: if, as McClellan says, he could see that Bush was intentionally misleading the nation into war back then, why didn’t McClellan say anything? Why didn’t he quit his job and blow the whistle? . . . It makes me wonder how much of this is that McClellan is trying to sell a book.” Yes, it’s hard to decide whether he comes off worse if he’s lying, or if he’s telling the truth.

MORE: Indeed: “It’s not the disloyalty that bothers me. It’s the press suddenly finding wisdom in a guy they previously disregarded as stupid and unreliable. It’s inevitable that critical Bush-era memoirs will come out, but written by smarter people. I’ll read those.”

POLITICS, COLLECTIVISM, and hypocrisy.

CHOCOLATE: Is there anything it can’t do? “All the talk about chocolate being good for your health is starting to get serious. Mars Inc., of chocolate bar fame, has established a scientific division. And a group of researchers, some in Germany, others with the new Mars division known as Symbioscience, has just published a report showing that an enriched hot cocoa beverage can improve blood flow in people with type 2 diabetes.”

ADVICE ON AVOIDING TRASH on airplanes.

HANGING OUT AT the Law Review Lounge.

YOU WOULDN’T HAVE TO WARN ME TWICE. Or, actually, even once: “Health officials are warning New Yorkers to stay away from an illegal aphrodisiac made from toad venom after the product apparently killed a man.”

Others may see things differently, but to me there’s a big gap between “toad venom” and “feeling sexy.”

MICHAEL SILENCE IS down on NBC’s economic coverage: “I’ve watched NBC Nightly News for quite some time now, but that’s going to end. I used to have a lot of respect for Brian Williams but I’m over seeing the network night after night seemingly trying to drive a stake into the nation’s economy. I don’t want my news sugarcoated but I do want it in context. NBC News is failing to deliver on that simple request.” Ouch.

WHEN BEING WILLING TO MEET WITH ANYONE doesn’t mean being willing to meet with anyone.

PROS AND CONS OF switching to scooters to save gas.

What if the scooter’s electric? You’ll still need proper attire, advertisements notwithstanding.

UPDATE: Well, it’s not all advertising hype.

DEMOGRAPHIC UPDATE: “Hypermortality” in Russia.

POLITICO: Dems seek to avoid meltdown.

THIS IS COOL: Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter Captures Images of Phoenix Lander’s Descent.

SAILING UP THE RHINE TO AUSCHWITZ BUCHENWALD IS SEARED, SEARED IN HIS MEMORY: “You know, if I were an Obama staffer, I’d start fact checking everything he says, to try to stay ahead of the blogosphere.”

PROGRESS, OF A SORT: Childhood Obesity May Be Leveling Off. We had a podcast on the subject a while back, with Dr. Michael Zemel.

IN THE MAIL: Tom Kratman’s dystopian novel, Caliphate.

It’s bound to be at least as realistic as The Handmaid’s Tale.

DEAN NANCY ROGERS is the new Ohio Attorney General, replacing the scandal-plagued Marc Dann.

A LOOK AT Key 2008 House races.

LIBERAL VS. CONSERVATIVE: What’s in a name?

MORE TROUBLE IN CHINA: “Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms during the earthquake in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protests in recent days, forcing officials to address growing political repercussions over shoddy construction of public schools. arents of the estimated 10,000 children who lost their lives in the quake have grown so enraged about collapsed schools that they have overcome their usual caution about confronting Communist Party officials. Many say they are especially upset that some schools for poor students crumbled into rubble even though government offices and more elite schools not far away survived the May 12 quake largely intact.”

I suspect that the one-child policy is amplifying the effects here.

VIDEO: John McCain’s temper on display.