UH OH: Sun Stays Sluggish as Weathermen Fight for Anti-Ice Age Funding.

I swear, it’s only a work of fiction. Or so I thought. . . .

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY ROLLS OVER for the music industry.

Plus, an eBay uprising.

DEMOCRATS: Pitched fight looms over delegates: “The race for the Democratic presidential nomination between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama of Illinois is becoming a pitched delegate-by-delegate battle, which is likely to drag out for months and may even be unresolved heading into the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.” Will the superdelegates stick with Hillary, or will they dump her for Obama?

MEGAN MCARDLE: “To date, Mark Penn’s firm has received $4.3 million from the Clinton campaign. Obviously, the thing to do, if you want to be in politics, is not to be a candidate, but a consultant. You don’t have to shake hands or kiss babies, and no matter what happens, you never really lose.” This doesn’t include money not yet paid by Hillary’s campaign, and it doesn’t include the commissions on media buys that consultants generally get. So he may well be doing even better . . . .

BRR. 260 DEAD in record cold in South Asia.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: There’s going to be a big earmark vote in the House tomorrow:

Disappointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) rejection of House Republican calls for an immediate moratorium on all taxpayer-funded earmarks, House Republicans will force a vote on the issue tomorrow, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) announced this afternoon. The leaders said House Republicans will force the earmark reform vote as a higher education authorization bill comes to the floor containing what many argue is a taxpayer-funded slush fund for colleges and universities. . . .

Three GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee — Reps. Jack Kingston of Georgia, Frank Wolf of Virginia and Zack Wamp of Tennessee — have authored legislation that would bring the earmark process to a halt and establish a panel to identify ways to permanently change the spending process. Kingston-Wolf-Wamp has been cosponsored by 129 House Republicans, including the entire House Republican leadership team. However, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who as leader of the Democrat-controlled House has the power to shut down the chamber’s earmarking process immediately, declined to support the measure or the proposed moratorium.

It’ll be interesting to see how the vote goes.

MARK LEVIN: “I think one important focus of Reagan conservatives should be to do all they can to protect as many Republican seats in the House as possible. There needs to be at least one elected part of our government that might be in a position to stem what could be a very unpleasant four years.”

MIKE BLOOMBERG IS RUNNING PETITIONS for a third party run. Meanwhile, I notice that the book I got in the mail and linked today is something of a ground-preparer for Bloomberg. Judging by its Amazon sales rank, I’d say he’d better reconsider . . . .

BRET STEPHENS: “American ‘decline’ is the foreign-policy equivalent of homelessness: The media only take note of it when a Republican is in the White House.”

Related item here. The New York Times asked readers to produce a six-word slogan for America and got such gems as “Number One? Smells like number two.” Though I kind of like this one: “Luckily, our parents left your country.”

UPDATE: From the comments to this post, a six-word slogan for the European Union: “Ouch! Boris, stop! We’re socialists too!”

BRINGING A SHEET OF PAPER TO A GUNFIGHT: “Disarmament always gives the advantage to the thugs. Europe has been disarming itself, militarily and morally for six decades now. It will be interesting to see if they can stand up to even a second-rate thug like Russia.”

STIMULUS BILL IN LIMBO: Since I see it as a complete waste, that sounds good.

UPDATE: Heh.

FIGHTING NUCLEAR TERROR WITH CELL PHONES:

Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach. Fischbach is working with Jere Jenkins, director of Purdue’s radiation laboratories within the School of Nuclear Engineering.

Hmm.

A BAD REVIEW FOR JUNO from Neo-Neocon.

TONY KRONMAN’S Education’s End gets reviewed by George Leef.

HOW MCCAIN CAN BEAT THE DEMOCRATS — with Vice President Thompson.

Or there’s always J.C. Watts.

Or Bionic Dick Cheney! Okay, I’m pretty sure that last suggestion wasn’t serious.

Some related thoughts from Sissy Willis.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Sounds similar to Lincoln’s cabinet in ‘A Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln’ by Doris Kearns Goodwin.”

NOBODY HAS TRIED HARDER FOR ROMNEY, OR AGAINST MCCAIN, THAN HUGH HEWITT. But now he’s beginning the reconciliation process: “These aren’t the years to wish a pox on your primary opponents’ heads beyond June.”

UPDATE: Thoughts on talk radio from A.J. Strata.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More from John Hinderaker.

MORE: Dan Riehl isn’t following Hugh’s lead.

SO PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ASKING IF THE TORNADOES WERE NEAR US: Nope. We got some wind but nothing serious. But this cool gadget was on the job, displaying a bright yellow light and a scrolling “Tornado Watch” display that gave the times, etc. It would have made an audible alarm, but I silenced it for all the silenceable events — it would have made a lot of noise if there had been a tornado warning as opposed to a watch. Or a tsunami. And, well, if East Tennessee ever gets a tsunami warning I guess I’d want to know, although, jeez. . . .

OBAMA GIRL didn’t get around to voting.

HERE’S SOME MORE INTERESTING PROPOSED LEGISLATION relating to higher education:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) proposes significant new reporting on the admissions processes and decisions at colleges, aimed at exposing potentially illegal affirmative action. King’s amendment asks “whether federally funded institutions of higher education are treating student applications differently depending on the student’s race, color or national origin, and if so, the way in which these factors are weighted and the consequences to students and prospective students of these decisions.”

I’m sure that will be well-received.

AUTOBLOG IS COVERING the Chicago Auto Show.

A LOOK AT THE CANDIDATES’ POSITIONS on free trade.

ANOTHER HILLARY FUNDRAISER embarrassment.

UPDATE: And a different Hillary financial issue, here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hillary loaned her campaign 5 million dollars.

YUM, YUM: Bacon candy!

LET’S HOPE PAKISTAN’S NUKES ARE more secure than its prisoners.

A MESSAGE FOR CONSERVATIVES, from Bob Krumm.

UPDATE: What conservatives could learn from McCain.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Podhoretz on why they hate McCain.