A TRULY SPECIALIZED BLOG: Bad Vestments.

HUGO CHAVEZ: Cannibalism’s not so bad.

HOW COMMON IS the Socratic method?

“UNEQUIVOCAL:” Tom Maguire notes a howler in the WaPo Climategate story.

MOE LANE: Four Words of Pure Utter Terror. “Bud Light… Honey Wheat.”

SEIZE THE Day Job.

EIGHT DEEP-FRIED TURKEY DISASTER VIDEOS.

IN THE MAIL: From Gary Becker and Richard Posner, Uncommon Sense: Economic Insights, from Marriage to Terrorism.

CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Dodd Dodges Protesters:

Rather than face a crowd of protestors who jeered at his appearance, Sen. Chris Dodd entered LaCupola’s restaurant through the back entrance Saturday for a luncheon with Democrats.

Lining Route 202 and carrying signs that read “Dump Dodd,” more than 80 protestors underscored the political perils the senator faces as he runs for a seventh-term.

Quinnipiac polls released earlier this month show 54 percent of Connecticut voters disapprove of Dodd’s job performance. Polls have him trailing Republican challenger Rob Simmons by more than 10 percent ahead of next year’s election.

Seems that whole health-care thing isn’t buying him much popularity. . . .

CLIMATEGATE STORY makes the Washington Post in a big way. And don’t miss Charlie Martin’s piece on what it all means.

And Ann Althouse notes threats of violence against politically incorrect researchers.

JAY TEA: “There’s a trend emerging in American politics. I don’t think it’s a new one, but it’s growth is disturbing to me. And it’s the amazing hostility to the common people.”

AN AWAKENING IN AFGHANISTAN?

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE parodies Obama in China. I eagerly await Wolf Blitzer’s fact-checking.

FROM POPULAR MECHANICS, a DIY Thanksgiving guide.

SCOUTS SCORE SEIU SCALPS: “Note that the SEIU itself hung Balzano out to dry: when your guys are already out there on camera beating up protesters and gadflies, it’s not a good time to start a fight with the Boy Scouts of America*. I suggest that the various loyalists of that organization keep that in mind.”

I INTERVIEWED BRANDI EMMA AND RICK TORRES OF THE SMART SET earlier this week, and now their new album is available via Amazon.

MORE ON THAT CLIMATE DATA-FUDGING SCANDAL: Global WarmingGate: What Does It Mean? Charlie Martin explains.

The hackers released about 172 megabytes of data, and we can be sure examining it closely will take some time. But after a few days, certain things are beginning to become clear.

* The data appears to be largely, perhaps entirely, authentic.
* The emails are incendiary.
* The implications shake the scientific basis for AGW, and the scientific reputations of some of AGW’s major proponents, to their roots

Read the whole thing.

WHEN IN DOUBT, delete.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON THE UCLA TUITION “RIOT:”

In the first place, reliable counts say that there’s only about 200 students at the protest–out of an enrollment of almost 40,000. 0.5% is not exactly the March on Washington.

In the second place, what realistic alternatives would the protesters prefer? . . .

I believe that the UC system is going to have to get smaller. We can’t fund everything. We need to right-size, however, rather than downsizing. Cuts should be made strategically, so that the strongest programs on each campus remain strong. If you want to think about it this way, we have to cull the herd and the weakest members have to go.

We also have to face the reality that tuition and endowments are going to be the major sources of funding going forward. Unfortunately, in the present economy, development and fund-raising are tough. So we must look to tuition to fund our programs.

I think this will be the case nationwide. Plus, some related thoughts from Jerry Pournelle:

got my education in a state university system: indeed I went to the University of Washington because I was legally a Washington state resident due to my parents then residing in the then Territory of Alaska — Alaskans were Washington state residents, since Alaska was an economic colony of Seattle at the time. I couldn’t afford a private university, and I was running out of the GI Bill which had paid my way through much of the University of Iowa where I was certainly not a resident. Long story. My point is that I can hardly denounce the state university system in this country.

But whether given the new and enormous costs of state universities — see the Iron Law of Bureaucracy for many of the reasons why — and the enormous expansion of that system (California used to have a system in which the Universities had tiny elite undergraduate programs and were mostly graduate schools, and the State Colleges were undergraduate schools with little graduate school activity — but that got thrown out in the name of diversity and equality, and now there’s no sane allocation system.

But the students had to be dispersed by riot police. And it’s not over. That’s education for you.

The solution is to admit fewer students to the expensive education systems, and expand the cheaper ones. But that won’t happen. It would make too much sense.

Transparency and subsidiarity… That is, keep the State centralized university system, scale it to what can be afforded, and give the local state colleges to their local districts, to control and to finance as they can and will. But that is not likely to happen.

Stay tuned.

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Federal Clerkship Applications Hit Record High.

BYRON YORK: Why was it so hard for Dems even to start health care debate?

DAVE KOPEL EXPLAINS: President Obama Is Not A Jihadi. “There is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that our President is a jihadi.”

From the comments: “I think to be a jihadi you have to belief in something larger than yourself.”

SANJAY GUPTA ON those new mammogram guidelines.

SARAH PALIN: Cloned?

She may need some doubles, what with the attacks.

JIM TREACHER: Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, No Breast Exams for Mama.