PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE on buying wine in Tennessee.

IRAQ WAR VETERANS — “TOO CONTROVERSIAL.” Ward Churchill: Educational!

SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY: Let’s Fleece the Illegals!

PHIL BREDESEN WARNS DEMOCRATS that disaster looms. Heck, they should’ve nominated Bredesen while they had the chance. Hey, it’s not too late!

BRAIN REPAIR IN MICE, using stem cells: “Some see rejuvenation therapies as distant prospects. But I do not see why stem cell therapies lie only in the distant science fiction future. A therapy that works for mice today is going to work for humans within a timespan quick enough for many of us alive today.” Bring it on.

UPDATE: More on replaceable parts.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST: Saddam paid for lawmakers’ Iraq trip:

Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. There was no indication the three lawmakers knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

I wonder where else Saddam’s money wound up? Plus, what George Stephanopoulos said.

UPDATE: Saddam’s Three Stooges. Which one’s Moe?

SPACE TOURISM UPDATE: A report on the XCOR Lynx.

There’s lots more over at Space Transport News — just keep scrolling. And Jeff Foust has items here and here. $100K tickets to space? Cool. (Via Rand Simberg).

RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION, Harvard style.

STEPHEN BAINBRIDGE: Seriously, how do you flip from Romney to Obama?

MORE ON NETWORK SOLUTIONS’ CENSORSHIP POLICY, from Eugene Volokh. Which domain registrars and webhosts are most protective of controversial speech? Any?

MCCAIN AT THE BONAVENTURE: Roger Simon reports.

I’D LIKE TO ARGUE WITH THIS HEADLINE, but . . . well, no I wouldn’t. I have to admit that it’s been amusing to watch Greenwald try to dig his way out of the hole he dug for himself with his ridiculous overplaying of the race card. And yes, that’s a mixed metaphor, but remember who we’re talking about here . . . .

GALLUP: If McCain vs. Obama, 28% of Clinton Backers Go for McCain.

UPDATE: Suddenly, they’re talking about Vice President Condi Rice.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire on Condi Rice: “For my money, McCain could do better.” Yet just by floating her name, Hillary and Obama’s comparatively light experience gets some attention.

GADGET ADVICE: Buy the cheap cables. “For the record: Pricey, so-called high-end cables and wiring—speaker, HDMI, DVI, Firewire, RCA, USB, you name it—no matter what, are an out-and-out scam.”

PETER THIEL ON GLOBALIZATION. “The narrative of the past four centuries has not been one of continuous progress, but strewn beneath the stories of cupidity and strife there lies the story of the powerful impulse toward globalization and of the transformational effects of technology. In this context, a near-term backlash against globalization should not be confused with the end of the world, though a wholesale rollback could represent the ultimate catastrophe.”

VIDEO: Bloggers making history.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs was there, too.

OOPS: “Elite colleges have been undermining their own efforts to diversify by giving much more weight to high SAT scores than they did before, according to an analysis of College Board data presented this morning at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association.”

JAMES LILEKS on beauty and memory, and truth and fiction. All of that, from this.

ANNOUNCING THE FINALISTS FOR THE PROMETHEUS AWARD, for the year’s best libertarian-themed science fiction. Nice to see Toby Buckell’s Ragamuffin, which I liked, doing so well. Last time I noticed, he was also in contention for a Nebula.

OBAMA PULLS A HILLARY: “Barack Obama has promised a new kind of politics. Unfortunately, he has the same problems with calculating birth dates as Hillary does. In his speech commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the march on Selma, Alabama, he credited the march with his existence — even though he was almost 4 years old at the time.”

OUCH: “At Bowdoin College, about half of the computers are Macs, and half are PCs. When Apple released the latest version of OS X in October, professors with Macs immediately swamped the IT department asking about the long-awaited Leopard. But after Windows Vista, the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system, came out over a year ago, there were no such requests.”

ERIC SCHEIE VS. THE FBI: “When link clicking is criminalized, we are all at risk.”

Indeed.

IN THE MAIL: Grover Norquist’s Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.

RASMUSSEN: 22% of Democrats Want Clinton to Drop Out; 22% Say Obama Should Withdraw. I think the momentum started here. And an I-told-you-so here.

NOW JEREMIAH WRIGHT IS DISSING THE ITALIANS?