ZUBRIN VS. SIMBERG: Conservatives In Space. Except that neither, really, is a conservative . . . .

MAKING THE AARP’S DAY: Behold Those Scary, Swastika-bearing Astroturfers.

CNN POLL: After 6 Months, More View Obama’s Presidency as a ‘Failure’ Than Bush’s.

WHY DOES COKE TASTE DIFFERENT FROM A BOTTLE?

GOOSE AND GANDER: And a memory-refresher for Paul Krugman.

HOW HAVE I LIVED WITHOUT IT? A “salt shaver.”

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Prairie-Fire Anger. “The approval ratings on nearly every one of the President’s key policy initiatives—cap-and-trade, health care overhaul, government take over of industry and finance, deficit spending, stimulus—are already less than half of polled voters. Obama’s own popularity has fallen dramatically and hovers near fifty percent. A number of well-publicized town meetings have erupted in shouting, as administration and congressional representatives try, often in condescending fashion, to explain the Obama agenda. The Republicans—written off just a few weeks ago as an obsolete party headed for oblivion—are now often polling higher in generic surveys than are Democrats. Why the sudden uproar?”

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS on America’s talent for reconciliation.

SEVEN REALLY NASTY DISEASES you can get from animals.

KENNETH ANDERSON: Is Cash for Clunkers Really Win-Win, as Representative Carnahan Says? “But it does seem to me that not only don’t I get a cash benefit that other people get as a reward for what, on the Congress’s apparent view of things, are their anti-social buying habits – I’m going to pay a higher price for the new car than I otherwise would.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: Congress has outlawed my hobby.

THOUGHTS ON self-replicating machines and risk.

IN THE MAIL: From Norvell Page, The Spider: City of Doom.

VIDEO: Steny Hoyer’s Townhall roiled by well-dressed sophisticates. “The older voters in this row wear shorts, t-shirts, and apparently Democratic Party registration cards.”

FLYING MISS NANCY: “Just last week Washington announced it would cut $100 million from the federal administrative budgets and acted like that was some big achievement. Now this week we learn that about the same time those cuts were made public, the House OK’d the purchase of the private jets. The taxpayer money the House plans to spend is to be used to buy three Gulfstream G550s at roughly $65 million each. These are long-range business jets with large, palatial interiors and three temperature zones.”

TALKING POINTS MEMO: The HCAN playbook for thwarting Town Hall protesters.

READER JAMES SOMERS WRITES:

Glenn, isn’t the attached Politico story, discussing how President Obama is asking all of his supporters via email to support his healthcare bill and respond to attacks upon it, an example of the dreaded phenomenon of “Astroturfing?” Doesn’t this mean that all support for Obamacare is now the product of a top-down mandate for activism? And doesn’t that delegitimize any support for health care “reform?”

Or, instead, is it legitimate, nay inspiring, when Democratic bigwigs organize support for liberal policy objectives, but illegitimate, even sickening, when Republican bigwigs organize opposition to such objectives?

Well, you have to understand, the Democrats do what they do in a good cause, an the Republicans in a bad one, so a double-standard on tactics is only reasonable.

A “MANUFACTURED MEMO” from ThinkProgress?

UPDATE: ABC News:

There were no lobbyist-funded buses in the parking lot of Mardela Middle and High School on Tuesday evening, and the hundreds of Eastern Maryland residents who packed the school’s auditorium loudly refuted the notion that their anger over the Democrats’ health care reform plans is “manufactured.”

“I went to school in this school,” a man named Bob told me. “I don’t see anyone in this room that isn’t from Mardela Springs right now.”

“We’ve been quiet too long,” said a woman named Joan.

They came to yell at their congressman, freshman Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil, and they were surprised to hear that the “Congress in Your Corner” event to which they had been invited — by a robocall from Kratovil himself — was not to be a public airing of grievances, but instead an opportunity for private, one-on-one sessions with the freshman Democrat.

Read the whole thing, which doesn’t fit the narrative the DNC is trying to create.

EUGENE VOLOKH LOOKS AT The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. “So having yet again heard about how the U.S. is the only U.N. member, other than Somalia, not to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, I decided to read the thing. This led me to be tentatively pleased that we haven’t signed it.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: “Mark Kleiman suggests that Democrats start implying that Republicans want to abolish Medicare. This is a rather common trope among Democrats. But in this case, I don’t think it will work. . . . Well informed seniors–the sort who follow these debates–are aware that Medicare is unsustainable, and presumably the reason so many of them oppose health care change is that think that expanding coverage will simply hasten the day of reckoning. Bringing up abolishing Medicare simply reminds them of this point.”

Related item here: Seniors Defend Medicare Plan Obama Calls “Wasteful.”

MICKEY KAUS: “From out here on the West Coast, it sure looks as if OMB Director Peter Orszag is the Donald Rumsfeld of the looming health care quagmire, in the sense that a) it’s his strategy that’s failing–at least failing to win over public opinion; and b) it’s hard to see how the strategy changes with him in the position he’s in, and c) he’s a logical fall guy in any case.”

ROGER SIMON: HEALTHCARE COMEDY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

A LOOK AT sexual violence in 21st century America.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: A “national design policy?” Quick, we need a “design czar!”

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Ark. crowd mocks lawmakers over Obama health plan. “An unruly Little Rock crowd heckled and shouted at two Arkansas Democratic congressmen Wednesday, accusing them of supporting a government-backed health plan that would take away Americans’ personal choice and freedom. At one point, U.S. Rep. Mike Ross sat with his head in his hands while the crowd shouted. He and fellow Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder told audience members at a forum at Arkansas Children’s Hospital that they wouldn’t support a completely government-run, single-payer health insurance plan. . . . Lawmakers across the country are encountering growing public doubts about President Barack Obama’s push to remake the system for providing medical care, evident in polls that find confidence in Obama’s handling of the issue has fallen since January. Concerns are growing about government-run health plans, a growing federal deficit, and the impact on small businesses and end-of-life provisions.”