WELL, MAYBE I’LL WAIT A BIT: I mentioned Snow Leopard’s malware protection earlier, but this says it only scans for two trojans.

HOW TO REPAIR DECKS and safely pour concrete.

COURTROOM CHIC: Ably demonstrated by one of my former students.

IN THE MAIL: From Paul Rahe, Montesquieu And The Logic of Liberty.

OH, GOODY: Banks ‘Too Big to Fail’ Have Grown Even Bigger: Behemoths Born of the Bailout Reduce Consumer Choice, Tempt Corporate Moral Hazard.

PJTV: Dr. Helen talks with Psychology Today blogger Barbara Oakley about the politicization of the American Psychological Association.

Oakley is the author of Evil Genes.

WILL CHRIS DODD OR BARBARA MIKULSKI TAKE OVER THE HEALTH COMMITTEE?

Now, in what would be a unique parting gift, there is a chance that Kennedy’s death could elevate Mikulski to the chairmanship of a major committee for the first time in her 23-year Senate career. For her to inherit his job, though, Kennedy’s closest friend in the Senate would have to turn it down first.

The odds of that happening are difficult to gauge. They depend on a complex blend of seemingly unrelated factors, including President Barack Obama’s legislative priorities, arcane Senate rules and the political calculations of one of the most endangered Democratic senators in the country.

That man is veteran Sen. Christopher J. Dodd. The Connecticut senator hasn’t tipped his hand, but if he decides that shoring up his shaky re-election prospects is his top priority, Mikulski would remain the most senior Democrat without a major committee chairmanship.

Dodd told reporters Wednesday that he had not given “a second’s worth of thought” to whether he would take over for Kennedy as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The same day, Dodd spoke by phone with Mikulski, according to a Mikulski aide.

I question whether getting involved in the healthcare debacle will help Dodd’s reelection prospects. But he and Kennedy were certainly close.

ROGER KIMBALL: My absolutely, positively final word about Yale and the Danish cartoons.

DECLAN MCCULLAGH: Healthcare bill taps IRS information.

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.

Read the whole thing. Plus this: “I do wonder where the usual suspects like the Electronic Privacy Information Center are. Presumably inserting limits on information that can be disclosed — and adding strict penalties on misuse of the information kept on file about hundreds of millions of Americans — is at least as important as fretting about Facebook’s privacy policy in Canada.” But the politics are different.

L.A. TIMES: Obama defies safety nuts, shuns bike helmet, looks great, ignites debate.

THOMAS LIFSON: “An unpleasant smell attends the Department of Justice decision to not prosecute New Mexico Governor (and Obama ally) Bill Richardson. Fresh on the heels of the Department declining to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation, while appointing a special prosecutor for CIA interrogators, the appearance of a politicized Justice Department is being created.”

UPDATE: “Get in their faces.”

LOOKING BACK AT KATRINA, FOUR YEARS LATER: “Ordinary people mostly behaved well. Those in power panicked, spread fear and fiction, and showed eagerness to kill.”

RON BAILEY: Sunspots Do Really Affect Weather Patterns, Say Scientists. “A new study in the journal Science by a team of international of researchers led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research have found that the sunspot cycle has a big effect on the earth’s weather.”

ACLU SUES HOMELAND SECURITY OVER LAPTOP SEARCHES AT BORDER. I see no justification for suspicionless searches of laptops at the border, though I’m not sure how strong the ACLU’s case really is; you don’t have much in the way of constitutional rights when crossing the border. But hey, if you don’t want your laptop searched, you can always just have an illegal immigrant carry it across for you. . . .

TOM BLUMER: There Are Two Types of Boycotts: The Elite-Supported and the Invisible.

LONDON TIMES: Democrats accused of using Edward Kennedy’s death to promote reforms.

CRYING UNCLE.

A TV MAKER YOU NEVER HEARD OF: How Vizio Went From Nowhere to No. 1.

NO NUDES ALLOWED HERE — this is an art museum!

SNOW LEOPARD IS NOW SHIPPING. I said I would probably wait, but now that I hear it’s got enhanced anti-malware functions I may not wait as long as I’d planned.

EARTH MESSAGES TO EXOPLANET ready for broadcast today. “A total of 25,880 text messages will be broadcast into space, transmitted 20.3 light-years to Gliese 581d. That world is the outlying planet in the Gliese 581 system, and orbits its parent star every 66.8 days. It may be covered by a large and deep ocean and is the first serious ‘waterworld’ candidate discovered beyond our Solar System. The effort was carried out as by the Australian magazine, Cosmos, to celebrate Australia’s National Science Week and the International Year of Astronomy. The initiative was done with the support of NASA, Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), and the Australia’s Science Minister Kim Carr.” Is this a good idea?

UPDATE: Sarah Natividad writes:

Aliens, omg ur my new bffs! u got life on ur world? txt me to ur leader!

Yeah, THAT’ll advance interstellar society

Txt me to your leader! I love it.

CHARLES RANGEL UPDATE: The New York Post editorializes:

Rep. Charlie Rangel’s multimillion-dollar “oops” this month raises plenty of good questions, but this may be the best: How can Democrats continue to close their eyes to such sleaze?

And, more to the point, this: Will prosecutors follow up on any of it?

Rangel’s “corrections” to his financial-disclosure statements from 2002 through 2007 are stunning, even by the low standards of this “error”-prone paperwork-filer — who, by the way, happens to be in charge of writing the nation’s tax laws.

The Harlem Dem now admits that he failed to disclose several million dollars in income and business deals during those years — including up to $1 million from the sale of a building on 132nd Street.

How could that happen?

Charlie won’t say.

I’m sure that Eric Holder’s Justice Department will be right on it. . . .

STEVE CROWDER GOES UNDERCOVER.

SHOWING MORE COURAGE THAN YALE: Danish cartoons go on exhibit. “The caricature—one of twelve satiric drawings published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten—represents Muhammad wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb with a lit fuse. Muslims found the drawing, which confounds the prophet with terrorism, offensive. The seventy-four-year-old Westergaard had words of praise for the gallery director, Erik Guldager. “[He] is the first to dare to exhibit my works, even if my watercolors are not political.” In May 2008, Westergaard received the Sappho Prize from the Society for the Protection of the Freedom of Expression of the Press and the Right to Criticize Religion. Westergaard had originally hoped to show his watercolors in an unnamed gallery in Hoejbjerg near Aarhus. But his participation was canceled when an unnamed Swedish artist invited to participate in the same exhibition threatened to pull out if Westergaard showed his works.” The unnamed Swedish artist, not so much.

JOHN NOLTE REVIEWS Taking Woodstock.