GOOD QUESTION: “Whenever you hear Gaza described as an ‘unwinnable conflict’ ask yourself: do they mean that victory is similarly prohibited to Hamas?”

WELCOME TO BRITAIN. “Socialism. Worked so well everywhere else it’s been tried, eh?”

“STATUS ANXIETY” in the mainstream media. We’re seeing more and more of that these days.

UPDATE: For example, from Rick Sanchez.

CHESLEY SULLENBERGER III, an American hero. Are we still allowed to have heroes with names like that?

UPDATE: Reader Rob Calabrese writes: “Until the law was changed in 2007, the airline pilot who landed that thing safely in the river would face mandatory retirement at age 60 (he’s 57 now). Can we blame Bush for allowing great pilots like this to fly until they’re 65?” Sure, why not? It’s always okay to blame Bush!

THOUGHTS ON SECURITIES LAW and Steve Jobs’ medical privacy.

THE STAR TRIBUNE declares bankruptcy. “The company said it hopes to use bankruptcy to restructure its debt and lower its labor costs.” If only GM could do the same . . . .

ROOT CAUSES of the U.S. Air crash.

STEPHEN HALBROOK testifies against Eric Holder as insensitive to constitutional rights. Prepared testimony is here. He claims Holder wilfully violated privacy laws, too.

LIKE ME, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer sees Rangel and Geithner’s tax travails as an argument for tax reform:

We get that people make mistakes. It happens because the tax code is too complicated. So dense that even Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House committee that writes tax laws, owes the government money for taxes he failed to pay.

There’s another problem here: transparency. Obama’s staff told senators about the tax problems on Dec. 5. We should have been clued in, say, Dec. 6. It should not come up hours before a Senate confirmation hearing — not when it’s clear that transparency is supposed to be the standard for this new administration. We can only imagine what we would have said had Geithner been a Bush appointee.

Should this news derail the nomination? Probably not. But it sure ought to be “Exhibit A” for tax code clarity. On the other hand, perhaps we all have a new defense come April 16.

“I forgot!”

HERE’S THE TEXT of Bush’s farewell address.

MARKDOWNS ON TURBOTAX. Of course, TaxAct is free, which is a pretty good markdown, too. Is it any good?

THE HOME OF THE FUTURE? Over at Popular Mechanics, I’ve got a story on the energy-efficient, environmentally friendly — and stylish — I-House.

WHICH COMES FIRST? The car, or the road?

OBAMA’S PLAN: Much better than Bush’s plan, yet somehow eerily familiar.

DIVERSITY: Sam Dealey looks at pundits’ worries about a dearth of black White House correspondents and comments:

Whoa, hold on a minute: Hasn’t the mantra from media types all along been that journalists are objective?

If we accept that black reporters will have a different take from their white colleagues on Barack Obama, does it follow that one of those views is more “accurate” or legitimate than the other? And now substitute “conservative” for “black.” Doesn’t this underrepresentation argument concede the point that conservatives have made all along about press bias? After all, it’s hardly a secret that most reporters and editors are liberal or left-leaning.

Indeed.

A U.S. AIRWAYS JET DITCHED IN THE HUDSON RIVER and everyone’s okay. That bespeaks excellent work by the flight crew, and excellent behavior by the passengers, too. According to radio reports I heard, commercial and private boats on the river started rescuing people immediately. But, of course, they’ve had practice at that sort of thing.

UPDATE: Citizen Journalism at work.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More at Popular Mechanics. Plus this technical assessment.

WILL GEITHNER’S NOMINATION FAIL because of blowback over Joe the Plumber’s tax lien? “Just as the media attacks have made it extremely hard for the intelligentsia to rally around Caroline Kennedy Camelot Schlossberg, now – thanks to the foaming-at-the-mouth attacks and illegal, privacy-violating investigation of one Joe the Plumber – we’re going to lose a supposedly brilliant treasury secretary nominee.”

HOW MUCH IS YOUR PRIVACY WORTH? State Department Passport Snoop Faces Little or No Jail Time.

If an outsider had broken in and done this, I expect the punishment would have been much harsher. Is this another case of double standards for government employees?

SANDWICH SHOWDOWN: Domino’s vs. Subway. Subway wins on health: “As you can see, you can get comparable Subway sandwiches with double meat and they’re still far healthier than Domino’s sandwiches.”

NOW ONLINE: The text of the stimulus bill, and the report.

CHRISTINE HURT on taxing financial speculators. “If we tax speculators away, then our financial models that assume the ability to sell a particular security at some price may have to be tweaked once the buyers are gone.”

(Via TaxProf).

IOWAHAWK COMES TO BIGHOLLYWOOD: Movies Are Your Best Entertainment Value.

NUCLEAR POWER: IT’S GREENHOUSE-FRIENDLY AND NOT SUBJECT TO SUDDEN SUPPLY INTERRUPTIONS! The Nuclear Option: European Gas Dispute Gives Nukes Fresh Legs.

RANGEL UPDATE: Taxing Problems:

But Geithner isn’t the only national leader on finances who deserves to be questioned in greater detail. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that oversees the federal tax code, was caught last fall for failing to pay taxes on a rental property he owns in the Dominican Republic.

Rangel paid $10,000 in back taxes last September, and basically received a free pass from his fellow members of Congress for his tax mistakes.

The Senate may yet decide that Geithner is unfit to become treasury secretary because of his tax problem. But we have argued since autumn that Rangel should lose his chairmanship of the important Ways and Means Committee with his tax problems.

Indeed. He’ll probably try to show his dedication to the tax code by sticking it to the rest of us, to make up for his own transgressions. That’s how these things usually work . . . .

UPDATE: TaxProf: More Fallout From Geithner’s Tax Troubles.

RADLEY BALKO on the Drug War’s collateral damage.