READER BRUCE GOODE WRITES:

I wanted to let you know that I’ve enjoyed watching PJTV on my TV using Apple TV.

The picture quality is excellent. I just added the PJTV video RSS feed as a channel to my Apple TV running BOXEE using the add feeds option. I didn’t know if you were aware of this option- or if there are any other PJTV viewers out there using Apple TV- I imagine there are a few.

It’s news to me. Anybody else out there doing this?

IT’S NOT A FLYING CAR, it’s a driveable airplane.

HMM: Money-losing Chevy Volt will stay alive even if it can’t “pay the rent”. Okay, but how will that help save GM, which is currently broke?

IN THE MAIL: Ross Clark’s The Road to Big Brother: One Man’s Struggle Against the Surveillance Society. I wrote the introduction, and I think it’s an important book.

CANADA: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.”

Funny how those who are always lecturing on “human rights” are so quick to ignore Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s as if they’re really more concerned with power than with rights . . . .

WILL MURTHA BE NEXT? Visclosky hires lawyer in wake of PMA probe. “U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, confirmed Monday he has hired a nationwide law firm in the wake of a federal probe into a Washington lobbying group that has been his top campaign contributor. . . . The firm’s hiring comes four months after the FBI raided the offices of The PMA Group, of Arlington, Va., a firm that has been Visclosky’s biggest single source of campaign cash since 2003. It has funneled $179,450 to him in the last eight years, federal records show. The New York Times reported Saturday that federal investigators appear to be examining PMA’s relationship with Visclosky and are questioning people about the congressman and his staff.”

And then, of course, there’s Carolyn McCarthy.

REASON TV: 3 Great Reasons to Pay Your Taxes (or Else)!

JOEL KOTKIN: Don’t write off the suburbs.

BLOGGINGHEADS TV: MEGAN MCARDLE on wealth and poverty.

PUBLIC POLICY THAT MAKES US ALL GUINEA PIGS:

Suppose you wanted to test the effects of halving the amount of salt in people’s diets. If you were an academic researcher, you’d have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants. . . .

But if you are the mayor of New York, no such constraints apply. You can simply announce, as Michael Bloomberg did, that the city is starting a “nationwide initiative” to pressure the food industry and restaurant chains to cut salt intake by half over the next decade. Why bother with consent forms when you can automatically enroll everyone in the experiment?

And why bother with a control group when you already know the experiment’s outcome? The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, has enumerated the results. If the food industry follows the city’s wishes, the health department’s Web site announces, “that action will lower health care costs and prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year.”

But that prediction is based on an estimate based on extrapolations based on assumptions that have yet to be demonstrated despite a half-century of efforts. No one knows how people would react to less-salty food, much less what would happen to their health.

Can we sue them and jail them if it doesn’t work out, the way we would if they worked for the private sector?

POLITICO: Reality Hits Obama Express.

LAWRENCE CUNNINGHAM: The Great Repression. This doesn’t bode well for the economy . . . .

FAIRNESS: CBO: Top 1% Earned 19% of Income, Paid 28% of All Taxes. And got 1% of the vote.

UPDATE: A reader points out that “all taxes” here means “all federal taxes,” and doesn’t include state and local tax. Good point, though I don’t know how much it changes things.

TOM MAGUIRE IS RAVING about Tom Ricks’ The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.

CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Greenwich Democrat Says He’s Likely to Challenge Dodd in 2010. “Dodd has slipped for several reasons: his role in writing a bill that protected bonuses for executives at bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc.; his initial refusal to release documents about his two controversial mortgages with Countrywide Financial Corp.; and his financing of a vacation cottage in Ireland. Dodd drew criticism in his home state for moving his family to Iowa before the presidential caucuses there.”

THE RISE OF “influential nobodies.”

SEXISM AT THE SHELTER: “Britain will cut off funds to domestic violence shelters that don’t help male victims. Fiona Mactaggart, the former Home Office minister, complains.”

MORE ON SLOW POLICE RESPONSE and the Binghamton massacre. “Most gunshot wounds are survivable if the victim receives medical attention quickly, but almost any gunshot wound will be fatal if nothing is done to stop the resultant bleeding. As they waited outside, police had no way of knowing all the victims were dead, and they had a moral duty to undertake a rescue effort as quickly as possible, even if the SWAT team had not yet assembled. Sometimes you just have to go with what you have. It’s what cops do.” Well, not always, obviously.

THE HILL: Lieberman-Obama honeymoon stops at missile defense. “Lieberman had begun to sing Obama’s praises in recent weeks but his song sounded a decidedly harsh note this week. As during the campaign, the latest tension stems from disagreement over national security and foreign policy.”

THOUGHTS ON Obama, pitchforks, and political threats.

JOHN MCGINNIS ON Eric Holder’s politicization of DOJ and OLC. “Attorney General Holder has pledged to restore the rule of law, implicitly suggesting that it was weakened during the Bush Administration. But less than two months after his confirmation the Attorney General has shown that he is not interested in the rule of law when it conflicts with his own political preferences. In a move that appears unprecedented, he has disregarded the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel on the constitutionality of pending legislation without overruling OLC with his own reasoned analysis. If he recommends that the President sign the bill under these circumstances, he will be shirking the Attorney General’s primary duty—aiding the President in following his own oath to uphold the Constitution.” (Via Volokh).

MURTHA UPDATE: Congress: The PMA Noose. “Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, released dozens of earmark requests late Thursday, including millions of dollars for projects sponsored by former PMA clients. Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), who in previous years had sought earmarks for PMA clients, released his earmark list without a single request for a former PMA client.”

Plus, it’s not just Murtha: Carolyn McCarthy tied to PMA. “McCarthy’s top contributor this cycle is the now-defunct PMA Group. . . . Moreover, McCarthy has voted against a resolution that would initiate an ethics investigation into the relationship between lawmakers and the PMA Group, which the FBI raided in November and is currently investigating. That vote is complicated by McCarthy’s own work on behalf of the group. In the 2008 defense appropriations budget, for example, McCarthy secured $1 million in earmarks for clients of PMA, according to CQ.”

WHO WON THE BUDGET BATTLE? “Obama’s lack of fiscal responsibility is emboldening the opposition and making moderates in his own party very nervous.”

SHRINKWRAPPED: Narcissism, Ideology, and Mass Murder.

Plus, Don Surber: Selective outrage on cop killing. Free Mumia!

OOPS: “The government’s official view that toxic assets are incorrectly priced due to illiquidity ‘fire sales’ is wrong, a new study by Harvard and Princeton finance professors suggests. . . . The striking conclusion is that the low prices of toxic assets actually reflect the fundamentals, rather than being driven by an illiquidity discount.” If they’re right, the whole enterprise is a colossal screwup. Are they? Beats me.