IRANIAN REVOLUTION, DAY 25: A roundup at The Berman Post.

I NEED ANOTHER APPLIANCE LIKE A HOLE IN THE HEAD, but I must admit I find this pizza oven intriguing. The customer reviews are good.

UPDATE: I’m reminded that I find this so intriguing that I wrote about it before a couple of years ago. The Insta-Wife’s position remains the same: No more kitchen gadgets that take up counter space. And, sadly, she’s right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Diane Meyer emails:

Glenn, normally I wouldn’t bother you with a note about something like this, but I couldn’t stop myself after reading your post on the pizza oven. We got one of those Presto Pizza ovens a few years ago. It is simply the greatest. It does homemade pizzas really well and certainly does a better job of reheating delivery pizza or frozen pizzas than a regular oven.

We have worn ours out and will definitely be getting another one. By the way, we store it in a lower cabinet, not on the counter.

A lot of people wrote that they like this gadget (though some said the teflon is a bit delicate). But my cabinet space is at a premium, too, alas. Meanwhile, Chad Chandler writes that kitchen gadgets are Stuff White People Like. Well, I’m pretty white, so . . . .

PJTV: Is Obama Confused About His Supporters and Critics? With Scott Ott, Stephen Green, and Bill Whittle.

JACK SHAFER CHARGES A “CORRUPTING EFFECT” from The Atlantic’s “salons.” Plus, what they could learn from the CATO Institute.

But I’m not so sure. Erving Goffman wrote years ago about the importance of a “backstage” where people could say things that needed to be said, but in a non-public way. That backstage has steadily vanished ever since, a result of technology and changing mores. Maybe that’s good, but maybe we need a backstage space somewhere. Buck-raking off-the-record dinners may not be the way to do it, but Shafer’s insistence that everything be on the record seems wrong, too.

UPDATE: I suppose, as we’re heading for another round of Petty Blifil (the use of “ethics” as an offensive weapon, discussed in The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society) I should disclose again that, like Ed Morrissey, and a host of other bloggers, my Amazon links (like the one pimping my book immediately above!) generate referral fees in the form of a small percentage of what sells. Also like Ed Morrissey, I don’t do pay-per-post. (There’s somebody going around blog comment sections claiming I get paid to post links to The Atlantic and Popular Mechanics, but that’s not true. I link to them regularly — as to Popular Science, Autoblog, Wired, etc. — because they have a lot of stuff that interests me, and, hopefully, you.) On the rare occasions when people send me free stuff (aside from books, which get the “in the mail” books-received treatment), if I blog about it I disclose that. Would I disclose an off-the-record dinner with a bigshot? No, not if I promised not to. Would I arrange those dinners on behalf of advertisers for a fat fee? Doubtful, though the moral dilemma remains entirely abstract at this point . . . .

ANOTHER COMPLAINT about the New York Times lifting leads from bloggers. Hey, it’s a dog-eat-blog world out there.

SO MAYBE THAT ON-THE-SIDE PRIVATE LAW PRACTICE was just some sort of a tax dodge. That would make it okay, right?

Related item here.

OUT OF THE BLEACHERS AND INTO THE ARENA: Scrappleface’s Scott Ott is running for office.

PEACHTREE CITY TEA PARTY UPDATE: 1,750 Tea Party Patriots fill The Fred to talk taxes.

PJTV: Wasilla Residents on Sarah Palin’s Decision.

REPORT: What Caused the Fannie and Freddie Debacle: “The housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to a financial crisis can be traced back to the federal government intervention in the U.S. housing market intended to help provide home ownership opportunities for more Americans.”

NO SAFE ZONES. I’m sorry, but the only way to fix this is to be an asshole, complain loudly, and make things even more unpleasant for the perpetrator than for you. Even a flatworm is smart enough to turn away from pain.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I have been a contributor to the NY Phil for several years. But no more. I thought that the Philharmonic was about music and art. But Bramwell Tovey recently made some gratuitous political remarks from the stage, championing Barack Obama and, by obvious implication, demeaning George W. Bush.

Since my own politics lean in the opposite direction, and since the Philharmonic has chosen to make itself a political organization, I will no longer contribute. I don’t begrudge Mr. Tovey, or the members of the orchestra who applauded him, their political convictions. I do begrudge their choice to air their politics at a concert! I simply cannot understand why you allow behavior that is guaranteed to alienate many members of your audience.

No more. You may consider me a former contributor. I am thoroughly disgusted about this.

Like the Big Media, they don’t seem to mind losing audience in exchange for politics.

CITY SLICKERS MEET FARMHANDS. Sorry, but we’ll only see a lot of “urban farming” if food becomes scarce.

IT’S NOT NANOTECHNOLOGY, BUT IT’S COOL: Robot invented to crawl through veins. “With a diameter of just one millimeter, a tiny robot has been unveiled that will crawl through the body to diagnose artery blockage.”

REASONS not to panic over acetaminophen.

REMEMBERING ROBERT MCNAMARA as father of the Ford Falcon.

Meanwhile, Ray Patnaude, who by a curious coincidence is rebuilding the brakes on his Falcon right now, sends: “How can a car designed by Robert McNamara keep veering to the left as it slows down? oh.”

PERVERSE IMPULSES and brain architecture. “Efforts to be politically correct can be particularly treacherous.”

By the way, speaking of perverse impulses, I’ve been substituting “instapundit” for the NYT’s own internal reference info on my links to their paper for a while. I assume it shows up in a log somewhere, but if they’ve noticed I haven’t heard.

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

BUREAUCRASH AT THE WASHINGTON TEA PARTY:

CALIFORNIA supports incorporation of the Second Amendment. Plus this: “Thirty-three other states also filed an amicus brief supporting incorporation, though they weren’t the surprise that California’s brief was — 31 of them filed an amicus brief in Heller that also endorsed incorporation (footnote 6). The two new additions are Maine and North Carolina. One of the states that joined both of the multistate briefs, Minnesota, is one of the six states that doesn’t have a right to bear arms provision in the state constitution; California is another.”

CRACKING THE SOCIAL SECURITY CODE:

The nation’s Social Security numbering system has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual’s date and location of birth. The findings, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are further evidence that privacy safeguards created in the era before powerful computers and ubiquitous networks are increasingly failing, setting up an “architecture of vulnerability” around personal digital information, the researchers said.

I’m sure they’ll do a fine job of protecting your healthcare information, though.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Ex-Contractor with Ties to Murtha Indicted.

TRACY QUAN REPORTS ON the sex lives of male hookers. “For male escorts who aren’t gay, it’s more complicated. . . . Because of the Internet, today’s practitioners have to specialize, find a gimmick.”

IN SPACE, no one can hear you blog.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: The Real Quagmire in the Middle East.

VIRGINIA POSTREL ON CALIFORNIA: Prison reform as budget reform.