KEITH HENNESSEY: A quick guide to the G-20 summit.

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE IS UP!

A BUNCH OF TECHNOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS from Brian Wang.

FASTER, PLEASE: Mass Produced Stirling Solar Concentrator With High Efficiency.

REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS BAD TO POLITICIZE THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT? A Split At Justice On D.C. Vote Bill: Holder Overrode Ruling That Measure Is Unconstitutional. “Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster. . . . In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack. Holder rejected the advice and sought the opinion of the solicitor general’s office, where lawyers told him that they could defend the legislation if it were challenged after its enactment.”

And they promised us that everything would be different. Well, it is! But don’t worry. This may look bad, but “Holder portrayed the basis for his override of the OLC ruling as grounded in law, not politics.” So there.

IN LIGHT OF MY EARLIER POST ON THE HP MINI, note that Verizon will be selling them with built-in EVDO. It’s a combination that makes sense. But will it be a “chick magnet?”

SMART DIPLOMACY: Schedule leaves Obama a media no-show.

NOTHING TO SNEEZE AT: The growing wheat rust threat. “Scientists from 40 countries on six continents are fighting a virulent form of an old wheat disease that some fear could threaten 90 percent of the world’s wheat crop. They aim to fight the fungus on the genetic level, hoping to prevent it from spreading to North America by replacing much of the world’s wheat varieties with tougher plants.” Wish them luck . . . .

FORGET THE TAXES: TigerHawk has questions about Kathleen Sebelius’s mortgage.

Plus, New York Times: Storm Clouds Gather Over Obama Nominees.

BOB LUTZ PREDICTS that the Chevy Volt will survive and prosper.

POPULAR MECHANICS: The Ill Will Effect: Who Really Likes their Telco Provider?

GM (Government Motors) unveils its first model. It’s all I expected, and more!

BACON FACIALS at the “Spabecue.” “Ever seen a pig with wrinkles?”

IN THE MAIL: From William Forstchen, One Second After. A novel about America after an EMP attack. Very positive blurbs from Larry Niven and Harry Turtledove.

MURTHA UPDATE: THE HILL: PMA Scandal Dogs Pelosi: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is under increasing pressure from conservative Democrats to provide political cover from GOP calls for an investigation into PMA Group, a now-defunct defense lobby under firm scrutiny for questionable campaign donations and earmarks. Members of the conservative Blue Dog and centrist New Democrat coalitions are calling on Pelosi to fulfill her promise to set a new standard for congressional ethics by either shaking the ethics committee into action on the PMA controversy or providing an alternative resolution to the one offered repeatedly by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).”

Plus, from Roll Call: This is not an April Fool’s proposal: The House ethics committee ought to get to work. It might as well be . . . .

Plus, PMA Scandal Could Mushroom Around Visclosky.

IN RESPONSE TO YESTERDAY’S NEWS STORY ON THE SUBJECT, another Insta-Poll:

HMM: “Washington state has turned its residents into a group of drug runners.” More like phosphate mules. But this is nothing compared to what we’ll see when the incandescent-bulb black market gets started . . . .

TAX FREEDOM DAY falls on April 13 this year. But don’t look at the deficit-adjusted calendar. It’s just too depressing. Can we move it back to February? Or, hell, January?

HEH: What would be the point of Mickey Kaus? That Bob Wright can’t see the sign only makes it funnier.

I’D SAY THEY’RE PROBE-WORTHY: Conyers Weighing Probe of ACORN.

Opponents of the liberal activist group ACORN have found an unlikely champion in House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., who is clashing with his own party to pursue hearings on accusations that the group has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style “protection” racket.

“I still want to do it and I probably will,” Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, told The Washington Times on Tuesday.

He dismissed the argument made by fellow Democrats that accusations of voter fraud and other crimes should be explored by prosecutors and decided in court, not by lawmakers in Congress.

“That’s our jurisdiction, the Department of Justice,” Mr. Conyers said. “That’s what we handle – voter fraud. Unless that’s been taken out of my jurisdiction and I didn’t know it.”

Mr. Conyers’ continued commitment to hearings bristles Capitol Hill Democrats because it threatens to rekindle criticism of the financial ties and close cooperation between President Obama’s campaign and ACORN and its sister organizations Citizens Services Inc. and Project Vote.

I’d like to see the Justice Department look into these issues, too, but I’m not too hopeful there — and the Congressional Democrats’ reference suggest to me that they don’t expect it to do anything either. Then again, I wouldn’t have expected Conyers to show this degree of interest.

MORE FUSION POWER DEVELOPMENTS, reported by Alan Boyle.

All of a sudden, nuclear fusion is becoming an energy buzzword instead of an energy joke: One route to fusion is being hailed as having the potential to become a “holy cow game-changer,” another mainstream method is getting a multimillion-dollar boost, and a dark-horse candidate is stealthily moving forward as well. Heck, even cold fusion is back in the game.

So what’s behind the seemingly sudden interest?

Part of the buzz is dictated by the calendar. After 12 years of construction, the world’s most powerful laser is finally finished at the National Ignition Facility in California, and VIPs are getting a look at some of the best that Big Science has to offer in fusion energy research.

But part of it is dictated by the hard times we’re living in, said Richard Nebel, who heads a team looking at an unconventional kind of fusion technology. “These can be the times when innovation can really take hold,” he told me today. . . . There’s a place for safer nuclear power as well, involving fission as well as future fusion – or maybe even fission-fusion hybrids.

Read the whole thing, and hope that some of this pans out. He’s got an update on Polywell fusion, too.

RON BAILEY: Battery technology is still not good enough to jumpstart an electric car revolution.

FROM WILL COLLIER: Thoughts toward a Tea Party Manifesto.

AT TAXPROF, a Kathleen Sebelius tax roundup. Earlier post here.

THE EMPEROR HAS NO COATTAILS. “The left-leaning media and blogs are declaring it a huge defeat for the GOP. Considering it was their seat they were defending and Obama apparently has no coattails, that’s some unique spin.” I expect it to be widely repeated, though.