SPIDER ROBINSON’S WIFE IS VERY ILL. John Varley is trying to help. You can, too. (Bumped).

JIMMY CARTER’S RACE PROBLEM. And then there’s his more recent anti-semitism problem. He’s a foul old man, and a disgrace to the office he once held.

L.A. TIMES: ACORN scaling back or shutting down in many cities.

VOLVO’S NEW C30-BASED electric car.

HOW CASS SUNSTEIN’S CRITICS missed the boat.

IN THE MAIL: From Michael Walsh, Hostile Intent. It’s blurbed by Bill Whittle. What more do you need to know?

MEGAN MCARDLE: “If Republicans were smart, they’d find a couple of Democratic senators from swing states and pound the Teddy Kennedy rule change until they forced one of them to sit out the cloture vote. But I’m not exactly holding my breath on a resurgence of Republican strategic brilliance.”

ANN ALTHOUSE ON NANCY PELOSI’S “ridiculous mash of political will and phony emotion.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Reflections On The ACORN Controversy.

DAVID HARSANYI: Civility Is Overrated. Especially to elected officials.

Not sure I agree, but when the elected officials are calling us Nazis and racists, well . . .

WHY ISN’T THE ZUNE HD a cellphone, too?

WHAT COULD BE MORE FUN? Musical flamethrowers.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Christopher Hitchens on Jimmy Carter. Still worth reading. “It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that every administration since has had to deal with the chaotic legacy of Carter’s mind-boggling cowardice and incompetence.”

NEW YORK: Gov. Paterson Puts All ACORN contracts on hold.

Georgia: Gov. Perdue to state: Don’t do business with ACORN.

HMM: Colo. Man in Suspected NYC Subway Plot Admits Ties to Al Qaeda.

SO IF, AS MICHELLE OBAMA SAYS, women are “crushed” under our health care system, then how come they live longer than men?

SAN DIEGO: ACORN stands by their employees until they don’t.

JOHN SCALZI on special extended Director’s Cuts.

IT’S THE Friday Sale at Amazon.

THOUGHTS ON WHEN WE’LL SEE Human-Level AI. “So it depends on your definition. If you’re OK with calling a robot human equivalent if it can, say, do everything a janitor is supposed to, it’s likely by 2025; if it has to be able to create art and literature and do science and wheel and deal in the political and economic world and be a productive entrepreneur, you may have to wait a little bit longer.”

HMM: India Plans to Export Uranium and Thorium Fueled Reactors.

AQUACULTURE NOW ACCOUNTS FOR half the fish we eat.

HMM: VW Redefines ‘Car’ With A 170-MPG Diesel Hybrid.

IRVING KRISTOL HAS DIED. John Podhoretz and Roger Kimball offer thoughts.

THE TOP 10 most dangerous plants in the world.