JERRY POURNELLE: “The purpose of prizes is to focus attention on a goal. . . . The neat thing about prizes is that we spend no money unless someone wins. Now surely it would be worth far more than $300 million to have any capitalist have the battery technology McCain describes. Indeed it would be worth far more, and the only real criticism of the McCain prize might be that it wasn’t large enough. On the other hand, how does it harm us to have the $300 million offered? This is a very good move on McCain’s part, and makes me a lot happier to support him than I was. It makes him something more than the lesser evil.”

KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON:

The prospect of having to endure rolling brownouts in addition to the Washington region’s already legendary traffic jams would make even Pollyanna reach for the Prozac. But that could happen in just three years unless state politicians and regulators on both sides of the Potomac approve more transmission lines to handle the Washington region’s ever-increasing thirst for electricity.

Both power-line and traffic gridlock have the same root cause: an inexplicable unwillingness to add the capacity needed to accommodate demand by current residents, plus the tens of thousands of newcomers who are expected to move to the Washington area in the next two decades with their iPhones, computers and hybrid cars.

And if problems result from this inexplicable unwillingness, they’ll be blamed on evil corporations, not on feckless officialdom.

BRUCE BAWER: “Just as it once did with the dangers of Stalinism and Hitlerism, the New York Times is doing its best to whitewash the threat of Islam.”

MORE ON HOW MEDICAL BUREAUCRACY is driving practitioners away. Plus this email from reader Madhu Dahiya:

Glenn,

I’ve thought about quitting medicine plenty of times in the past few years. I am a full-time dermatopathologist (a laboratory based physician who looks at skin biopsies, skin excisions, sentinel nodes for skin cancer, and the like, under the microscope). I’ve always practiced in teaching hospitals and the work load has exploded over the past few years. Part of this is our fault – we under train in pathology, especially dermatopathology, for a complex of reasons. I’ve decided, instead of quitting, to try and stick it out basically because teaching hospitals need doctors with some experience – they can’t rely solely on newly minted docs fresh out of training who stay a few years in academia and then leave for private practice where, even if things are equally bad, at least the pay is better.

Hospitals, especially teaching hospitals, are little bureaucracy factories and the layers of government and state regulation certainly don’t help. I don’t know the answer, I mean, I don’t know how you slay that Goliath. I honestly don’t know. I think that’s the most troubling part. Some of us just don’t know what the next step should be. We don’t even know where to most concentrate our energies. I guess, for me, that’s the residents although they’d be hard pressed to know it given how grumpy I’ve become in the past few years under this work load. When I first started out, I spent a lot more time teaching. A lot more.

Sadly, medicine isn’t the only profession that’s been ruined this way. Law isn’t what it used to be, and the problems of engineers are well-known. I think, though, that medicine and related fields have gone downhill faster in recent years.

ROGER SIMON ON JOE KLEIN:

The statement in general is remarkably arrogant and, dare I say it, out of control. What about the idea that so-called neocons actually believe in democracy in the Middle East? Not possible, Mr. Klein? It’s all legerdemain? Maybe we’ve got a little projection going on here.

Whatever one thinks about the neocons, they had virtually the only program, the only idea of how to right the world after 9/11. Conventional liberalism and conventional liberals had nothing to say. They still don’t.

That’s why they keep trying to change the subject.

UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!

AND THE SNARK AWARD GOES TO CHARLES AUSTIN, who emails: “Did Senator Obama really kill a seal that was less than a week old?”

MORTGAGE VIPs: “Do all Washington politicians get their loans directly from CEOs in the mortgage industry? Readers might be wondering after learning about Countrywide Financial and its VIP treatment for Senators Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D., N.D.).”

UPDATE: Reader Glenn Gallup emails: “The subprime six story makes me wonder if any big media people got in on ‘special” loans.'” That would explain the low-key treatment of this story in national media . . . .

WATCHING THE B.E.T. AWARDS, so you don’t have to.

ENVIRONMENTAL CLASSISM: “Why did Congress stop offshore oil drilling while allowing coal mining in Appalachia?”

BECAUSE IT’S NOT LIKE WE NEED ANY NEW OIL SUPPLIES: Obama vs. the Canadian Oil Sands.

LOS ANGELES TIMES: A 19 point gap is “narrow,” but a 12-point gap is “sizable.” It’s all about the narrative!

REGENERATING CARTILAGE with nanotechnology.

RFID TAGS can interfere with medical devices.

WELL, GOOD: “One of the biggest names in aviation has developed a jet engine that is more efficient, less polluting and cheaper to use than almost everything else in the sky, and it could revolutionize an industry facing skyrocketing fuel prices and mounting pressure to clean up its act.”

SUBPRIME SIX UPDATE: Questions for Kent Conrad.

Plus, more from Connecticut on Christopher Dodd: “This scandal has legs.” Again, it seems that local media are paying more attention to this story than the big national publications. Further proof: The ol’ Favor Game pops up in Congress. “So here’s a member of the Senate Finance Committee, who should have been helping draft rules against Countrywide’s fast-and-loose playing with ‘subprime’ home loans — behavior contributing to the housing-mortgage crisis — owing favors to the company’s boss.”

GEORGE CARLIN forgot the Rule Of Three.

NANCY PELOSI, victim of sexism: “It’s fair to say, I think, that the Democratic Party can be characterized as a collection of groups that perceive themselves as being victims.” Racism trumps sexism, though, as we’ve seen.

MIKE O’SHEA: So Let’s Say Justice Scalia Writes D.C. v. Heller …

APPEALING TO BUDGET VACATIONERS AND DISASTER-PREPAREDNESS ENTHUSIASTS ALIKE: A camping equipment sale.

LAYERS OF FACT-CHECKERS AND EDITORS at work in Wisconsin.

THE IRAN LOBBY and its influence. Which, happily, seems limited to left-wing blogs.

JONATHAN ADLER: “The federal government backs a program creating moral hazards and encouraging risky home loans. Why am I not surprised?”

ADVICE TO REPUBLICANS: Don’t make it worse than it is.

Plus this: “Hint: Republicans should stay away from country club analogies.”

“A ONE-TIME SEAL FOR A ONE-TIME EVENT.” Okay.

But Mickey Kaus won’t stand for it: “Save the Seal!”