BEST DVDS OF THE YEAR — so far.

THE BUDGET: Big Shovels, Deep Holes. And still digging.

UPDATE: Reader Harold Cavanah writes: “As Rome declined Livy observed, ‘We can bear neither our shortcomings nor the remedies for them.'”

COP TASERS 72-YEAR-OLD GRANNY.

THE FIERCE MORAL URGENCY OF CHANGE: Washington Post: Obama Is Right to Allow Mountaintop Removal Mining. “DURING THE campaign and after his election, President Obama left environmentalists in coal country with the distinct impression that he was going to do away with mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachians.” But he didn’t, and that’s a good thing! “While Mr. Obama may have wanted voters to believe otherwise, he never flat-out said he would end this brand of mining. His decision reflects energy and political realities.”

DEPLOYING THE LARGEST MARS PARACHUTE EVER. “When the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover lands on Mars in 2012, it will face a unique obstacle: With an Earth weight of nearly a ton (compared to about 400 pounds for previous Mars rovers) and a Mars weight of about 750 pounds, it is too massive for any existing space parachute. So to cushion its fall through the thin Martian atmosphere (which is less than 1 percent as dense as Earth’s), NASA engineers had to come up with something really big. The new parachute opens to a diameter of 52 feet, making it twice the size of any parachute ever flown beyond Earth.”

SALLY SATEL: Pay Kidney Donors.

PLANNING A NEW-GENERATION NUCLEAR REACTOR IN OAK RIDGE: “The new mPower reactor would be modular in design and would produce about one-tenth of the power generated by other nuclear reactors. It could provide power in increments of 125 megawatts per hour. Most power plants are 1,200 megawatts.”

IT’S OFFICIAL: Swine Flu Pandemic Has Begun.

A.P. DISCOVERS TWITTER.

RAND SIMBERG: The Holocaust Museum shooter has absolutely nothing to do with the labels he’s been given.

STEVEN ANDREW ON ANTI-SCIENCE LUNACY: “Over the years I’ve been a harsh critic of elements in the larger conservative movement and by proxy the modern Republican Party who pay lip service to various forms of pseudoscience, creationism being a prime example. But here we look at the other side of the coin with an incomplete survey of some of the bizarre anti-science beliefs, medical quackery, pseudoscience, and full blown conspiracy theories with questionable roots in science, some of which are sadly gaining considerable traction due to recent political shifts. They’re by no means held exclusively by the left, but nevertheless readers are far more likely to encounter them on progressive websites and liberal leaning celebrity talk shows and networks.”

GENERATIONAL ENTHUSIASM for letting Baby Boomers die.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: $2.5 billion spent on “alternative medicine,” no cures. “Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do.” How did this happen?

he center was handed a flawed mission, many scientists say.

Congress created it after several powerful members claimed health benefits from their own use of alternative medicine and persuaded others that this enormously popular field needed more study. The new center was given $50 million in 1999 (its budget was $122 million last year) and ordered to research unconventional therapies and nostrums that Americans were using to see which ones had merit.

That is opposite how other National Institutes of Health agencies work, where scientific evidence or at least plausibility is required to justify studies, and treatments go into wide use after there is evidence they work – not before.

I can’t wait until Congress is in charge of all health care. Who knows better what’s good for you than “several powerful members” of Congress . . . .

A STRUGGLE OVER PUBLISHING THE NAMES OF big public-pension recipients. I don’t know what I think about that, but $499,675 is certainly a big public pension.

SCIENTISTS advance nanotechnology safety. “In a study published online today (Thursday 11 June) in the newly launched Journal of Molecular Cell Biology [1] Chinese researchers discovered that a class of nanoparticles being widely developed in medicine – ployamidoamine dendrimers (PAMAMs) – cause lung damage by triggering a type of programmed cell death known as autophagic cell death. They also showed that using an autophagy inhibitor prevented the cell death and counteracted nanoparticle-induced lung damage in mice.”

HEY, WAIT, THIS DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE: Politico: Weekly Standard May Have Been Shooter’s Target. “The suggestion that the Standard may have been a target complicates any view of the racist shooter in contemporary left-right terms.” Gee, do you think?

MICHAEL YON: Green Beret Loses Race and Wins a Battle. Some very cool photos from the Philippines. “Thankfully, this war is mostly being fought with Civil Affairs and not rockets. General Petraeus has told me several times in regard to Iraq: ‘Money is ammunition in this war.’ Send more money and more Civil Affairs teams, please!”

MARTHA MINOW is the new Dean at Harvard Law School.

A PLUG-IN PRIUS that can go 70 mph on batteries? But are we facing an electric car glut? Not if oil prices keep skyrocketing!

CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT: Barney Frank walks off the set.

Related: Business groups dare Obama to limit pay for unions bosses.

WORLD’S SMALLEST GIRL: 1 foot, 11 1/2 inches tall.

IN THE MAIL: From Jonathan Littman & Marc Hershon, I Hate People!: Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job.

THE REPUBLICAN CASE for gay marriage.

OIL PRICES SURGE, Media Yawns. If gas gets up to five dollars a gallon again, we’ll get stories on how that’s good because it forces us to conserve.

THE KIND OF BUSINESS ACUMEN WE GET WHEN THE GOVERNMENT RUNS THE ECONOMY: Pelosi Lost Up To $1 Million on AIG Investment.