AMAZON WILL UNVEIL a big-screen Kindle on Wednesday.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, PROMISING STEM-CELL TREATMENTS WOULD BE BLOCKED BY FEDERAL REGULATION. And they were right! “The purpose of employing autologous cells is to prevent rejection of histo-incompatible cells by the patient’s immune system. But it’s also possible that these new therapies could slip from our grasp, at least in the US. If we’re not careful, these therapies could become the exclusive domain of the pharmaceutical industry, as regulated by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This could push the availability of this tool kit 15 to 20 years into the future. The opportunity-cost in terms of morbidity and mortality could be catastrophic.”

A WEARABLE PATCH THAT counts calories burned and consumed?

BILL STUNTZ: Nominate Pam Karlan to Souter’s seat. We could do worse, and probably will.

HYBRID HEAD-TO-HEAD: Honda sells 2,096 Insight hybrids in April, Prius sales drop 61.5%.

KRYPTOS: The code the CIA can’t crack. But the NSA guys just snicker when they hear that . . .

DID 24 LAW SCHOOLS COMMIT rankings malpractice? Actually, I think the term is “honesty.”

JEFF ROSEN: The Case Against Sotomayor.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS is up!

IN THE MAIL: From David Drake, When The Tide Rises.

CONTRACT KILLERS:

‘I’m saying that when the president does it that means it’s not illegal,” shouts Frank Langella’s Richard Nixon at Michael Sheen’s David Frost in “Frost/ Nixon.”

He was wrong, and so was President Obama when he said last week that he’d override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler’s senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers.

Earlier discussion here.

A.C. KLEINHEIDER: Swine Flu Not Modern World’s Real Disease.

NICOLE GELINAS: Spendthrift Sunbelt States. “Arizona, Florida, and Nevada have run through the riches of their boom and are starting to look more like cash-strapped New York.” Politicians can always spend it faster than their constituents can make it — if they’re allowed to.

GEORGE WILL: Fat Public Sector Sickens California.

Under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best governor the states next to California have ever had, people and businesses have been relocating to those states. For four years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in.

California’s business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state’s. If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the full budgets of all but 10 states.

Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger’s less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.

Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues — high income tax rates on the wealthy. California’s income and sales taxes are among the nation’s highest, its business conditions among the worst, as measured by 16 variables directly influenced by the Legislature. Unemployment, the nation’s fourth highest, is 11.2 percent.

As goes California, so goes the nation? Let’s hope not. Plus, A Guide to Bad Public Pension Policy in California. Also, Pension Placement Agents Under Fire — Again.

PETER COHAN: How’s that $787 billion stimulus plan working out?

Well, this isn’t exactly a vote of confidence: China cutting back on Treasury bond purchases.

ROBERT FARAGO: Bailout Watch 518: How Much is This Boondoggle Going to Cost Me? The answer: “I reckon the government’s to-date contribution towards keeping the zombies alive lies just north of $37 billion. That doesn’t include the duo’s share of the $25 billion Department of Energy retooling loans (should they live that long). Or the $5 billion blessed upon GMAC. And the $1.5 billion loaned to the now-defunct Chrysler Financial. Or Canada’s contribution to the kerfuffle. Or the cost of running a 25-member Presidential Task Force on Automobiles. And the phalanx of lawyers employed by same. And the community organizer assigned to help out affected communities with, wait for it, federal funds. And now . . . the rest.”

FEAR in the Hundred-Acre Wood.

GOOD LUCK COMES IN STRANGE SHAPES: “A small airplane dropping from the sky after its engine failed wound up on a cushioning bunch of portable toilets – and the pilot was able to walk away apparently unhurt.” No word on how he smelled.

OKAY, I’M NOT A TRADITIONAL-VALUES GUY, but even if I were I think this would be going too far: Couples save first kiss for wedding day. (Via A.C. Kleinheider).

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Olympic Gender Discrimination.

Your enlightened mainstream media.

Bill Whittle offers a history lesson for Jon Stewart.

Questions about Chris Dodd’s wife’s finances.

Terry McAuliffe’s business background.

Charges of White House bankruptcy thuggery.

And, Obama snubs Visclosky.

LOOKING AT THE NEW YORK TIMES / BOSTON GLOBE struggle against their unions and hoping for both sides to lose. That’s actually the most likely outcome. . . .

KENNETH ANDERSON BURSTS A BUBBLE OF SELF-REGARD:

Academics who take jobs in an administration, any administration, are not bodhisaatvas who, in their compassion toward lesser and less enlightened human beings, have postponed their trip into nirvana to remain in the realms of sin and desire on earth in order to minister to the rest of us.

No one who knows academics well could believe this for a moment — er, unless he or she is an academic, too, I guess . . . .

WARREN BUFFETT wouldn’t invest in newspapers at any price.

AND IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN: Ancient tsunami ‘hit New York’. “A huge wave crashed into the New York City region 2,300 years ago, dumping sediment and shells across Long Island and New Jersey and casting wood debris far up the Hudson River. . . . Today, a wave of the proposed size would leave Wall Street and the Long Island Expressway awash with salt water. . . . The 1929 Grand Banks tsunami, in Newfoundland, which killed more than two-dozen people and snapped many transatlantic cables, was set in motion by a submarine landslide set off by an earthquake. Dr Goodbred imagines that the New York wave was on the Grand Banks scale – three to four meters high and big enough to leap over the barrier islands; but that it did not reach the magnitude of the 2004 Sumatran tsunami.”

THE POLITICS OF CLIMATE HACKING: “What happens if one country decides to start geoengineering on its own?”