THE 47-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN: The latest Ask Dr. Helen column is up!

IN THE MAIL: Blogger Vox Day’s The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Judging from the jacket copy, it’s not so much pro-God as anti-atheist.

THE U.S. ARMY: Practicing Fourth Generation Warfare, while still training in Third Generation Warfare.

MORE ON IRAN.

HOWARD KURTZ: “It looks like a singular political figure has suddenly broken through and united both the left and the right in this country. Everybody seems to be ticked at Bill Clinton.”

COURTESY OF SAM ZELL, getting rid of Internet filters at the Chicago Tribune. “You are now exposed to the dangers of You Tube and Facebook. Please use your best judgment.”

BILL CLINTON: “Screw it, I’m running for President!” Heh.

MORE HUCKABEE PUSH-POLLS in Florida.

LASER TREATMENT for stroke victims.

THE EXAMINER: Has Bush Lost His Spine on Earmarks?

Public anger over earmarks cost Republicans their majority in Congress in 2006, but Democrats have proven themselves equally incapable of getting rid of outrages like the Bridge to Nowhere. More than 11,700 earmarks, totaling $16.9 billion, are attached to 2008 spending bills. It’s now up to President Bush to make good on his promise to “end this practice” once and for all. . . .

But Bush hesitates to exercise his authority. Surely he doesn’t fear challenging a Congress that trails him in public approval surveys. House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., has reportedly warned administration officials that meddling with earmarks will anger GOP members who are responsible for 40 percent of those in the 2008 spending bills. But what about angry taxpayers who see their hard-earned tax dollars being shoveled out the back door, and who correctly view earmarks as politically corrupting payoffs?

What, indeed? I could carve a better backbone out of a banana.

MICKEY KAUS: How Obama can escape from the ghetto. “Here we thought we were getting the Mondale/Hart campaign of 1984–without Mondale’s likeability or Hart’s weirdness–and instead we get the Dukakis campaign of 1988, in which an marginally likeable establishment figure established his mainstream (white) bona fides by running around the country thumping Jesse Jackson.”

PIECING TOGETHER THE DARK LEGACY of East Germany’s secret police.

REPAIRING HEARTS WITH STEM-CELL INJECTIONS:

British scientists have been given the go-ahead to begin potentially ground-breaking experiments using injections of stem cells to repair patients’ damaged hearts. The team hopes to repair the organs of people who have suffered the most severe heart attacks. . . . The team will extract bone marrow from all 60 patients and separate out a class of stem cells that makes up 1% of the tissue. Previous studies have suggested that this cell type is able to regenerate heart muscle cells and blood vessels. By using the patient’s own cells there will be no problems with tissue rejection.

I hope it works.

A BOMB-MAKING, SWASTIKA-PAINTING COLUMBIA PROFESSOR roommate — just blocks from Ann Althouse. (See the update).

YEAH, THE CAMPUS POLITICS AT U.T. ARE a bit shaky right now. No, I don’t know much about the backstory, if any. It’s impacted our dean search, though, which has made it hard for me to ignore the campus politics as I usually do. For those who want to know more, well, here’s a bit more from the local press.

OUCH.

READER TOM SARTIN WRITES:

Somehow, the following observation from Robert Heinlein seems quite apropos.

‘If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for . . but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.”

“If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.”

The more things change . . .

COLOR PHOTOS from the Great Depression and World War II.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Deja Vu all over again: Here comes the big collapse by Bush, Hill GOP on earmarks.

UPDATE: A Bush-McGovern comparison. Ouch.

PLAGUE PREP: A look at new infectious disease precautions.

IS BRITNEY SPEARS good for the economy?

FREDHEADS SHIFT POSITIONS: Bob Krumm is endorsing Rudy. Sort of. And Rusty Shackleford gets behind Mitt.

Liberty Belle, however, is still in the anger stage.

UPDATE: Eric Scheie: “Don’t expect me to throw my support to anyone right now. (Not that it would make much difference.) Before I supported Fred I supported Guiliani and I guess I can do that again, but that’s not the point of this post. The whole thing is just a damned shame.”

Plus this: “I don’t know what I’ll do. . . . But November is a long ways away.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: The case against fiscal stimulus.

FAREED ZAKARIA:

Pity the U.S. presidential candidates. They had their positions on Iraq all worked out by last summer and have repeated them consistently ever since. But events on the ground have changed dramatically, and their rhetoric feels increasingly stale. They’re fighting the Iraq War all right, but it’s the wrong one.

The Democrats are having the hardest time with the new reality. Every candidate is committed to “ending the war” and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of it.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: More thoughts from IraqPundit. “It would make a lot more sense if the candidates, especially among the Democrats, would talk about what they would do in the current circumstances, rather than bicker among themselves over past votes on war funding, while urging withdrawal from the Iraq of 2006.”

FRED THOMPSON’S FIRST HIRE looks at the campaign.