STREPTOCOCCUS SUIS — another deadly Swine bug? I find the name amusing.

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION OF NANOTECHNOLOGY. I had an article on this topic a while back in the Environmental Law Reporter. And here’s a Popular Mechanics column I did on the subject, too.

RONALD SIMS UPDATE: Records violations ensnare housing nominee. Transparency!

TUNING IN: Michael Yon posts another report from Tracking School in Borneo.

OBAMA’S AXIS OF EVIL vs. Bush’s Axis of Evil.

ONLINE RECIPES AND RECIPE MANAGEMENT, in beta at Food.com. (Via Jack Lail).

RAJAN RISHYAKARAN on Malaysia’s constitutional crisis. Ending separation of powers, politicization of the civil service, erosion of democratic institutions. . . thank goodness that can’t happen here!

IN THE MAIL: From Edmund Andrews, Busted: Life Inside the Great Mortgage Meltdown.

ROLL CALL: ENDING THE EARMARK GAME:

The vast bulk of the media coverage of PMA, and of the Jack Abramoff scandal that preceded it, focuses on the unseemly details of what, in reality, is commonplace behavior among D.C.’s power brokers.

Little wonder that Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a major beneficiary of PMA’s contributions and a major dispenser of appropriations earmarks, is “contrition-free,” as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. After all, the same behavior that the media deem worthy of censure earns him accolades in his home district, where a banner reads “We Support John Murtha. He Delivers for Us.”

As Murtha argues, earmarks are a perfectly legal part of the game, and he’s just a much better player than most of his peers. The Post-Gazette describes the PMA triangle as follows: Murtha “directs earmarks to particular firms that hire lobbyists who, in turn, direct campaign contributions back to Mr. Murtha.” For investigators to search for smoking-gun evidence of criminal intent in such a Borromean knot is as difficult as trying to pinpoint formal causation in a chicken-and-egg problem.

What is needed is not just an investigation. What is needed is a game changer, something to cut through the knot of influence- peddling once and for all.

I don’t think that public financing is the answer, though. I think the answer is to give Congress less money to spend.

PJTV: Megan Ortagus reports on her latest trip to Afghanistan.

NICK GILLESPIE: Your Stimulus Dollars at Work: Stimulatin’ Seldom-Used Airports Named for Influential Congressmen!

WE’VE PROBABLY SHIPPED IT TO IRAN TO “FACILITATE DIALOGUE:” Has the Libyan equipment left Oak Ridge?

CAN I JUST VOTE “PRESENT?” Preferably without having to listen?

LEIGH SCOTT: Conservatives Need To Fire the Marketing Department.

YOU DON’T SAY. Washington Post: Obama’s Budget Knife Yields Modest Trims. The plan is less ambitious than the hit list former president George W. Bush produced last year, targeting 151 programs for $34 billion in savings.” Where are those “net spending cuts” we were promised during the campaign?

UPDATE: Oh, here they are: White House: Obama seeks hike in domestic spending. Hope and change, emphasis on the change.

NOW IT’S TENNESSEE that’s pushing a state sovereignty resolution. I saw somebody — I forget where — calling these things “neo-confederate,” but if you look at the list of states where they’ve been proposed, well, the Confederacy must be getting pretty big, to encompass places like Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But I think they’re a dumb idea — supporters would be better off getting behind Randy Barnett’s constitutional proposal, which is much more likely to make a difference.

GATEWAY PUNDIT IS POSTING VIDEO from the Offshore Technology Conference. Just keep scrolling.

STAR TREK’S WARP DRIVE: Not Impossible? “One reason this idea seems credible is that scientists think it may already have happened. Some models suggest that space-time expanded at a rate faster than light speed during a period of rapid inflation shortly after the Big Bang.”

ILYA SOMIN: California Local Government Uses Threats Against Property Rights to Force Owners to Give up Voting Rights.

ANDY MCCARTHY: “I wonder if AG Eric ‘Rule of Law’ Holder is going to investigate his Justice Department’s unethical leaking of the details of an ethics investigation — y’know, consistent with his fearless commitment to ‘follow the evidence wherever it takes us, follow the law wherever it takes us.'”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Leaks? You’re talking about leaks? Someone at Treasury or its regulatory handmaidens has engaged in gross market manipulation by arbitrarily dribbling out the results of the bank “stress tests”, which were supposed to have been made public en masse after the stock markets closed.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the govt financial apparatus would be controlled by insiders leaking confidential information to their pals on Wall St….

It seems to me that there’s a prospect for a lot of criminal investigation — and private securities litigation — as a result of all these bailout shenanigans.

VIDEO, PICS, AND LINKS, from yesterday’s school choice rally in D.C.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, in Tennessee the legislature is moving to expand charter schools.

CHRIS DODD UPDATE: He’s going after . . . wait for it, wait for it. . . fishy lending practices. And calling his presumptive opponent a tool of Wall Street:

On one hand, it’s interesting that Democrats have chosen to attack Simmons on his connection to lobbyists and special interests — Dodd’s greatest weakness and the reason the five-term Senator is performing so horrendously in the polls.

In September, the Hartford Courant wrote that Dodd had collected nearly $6 million over the past two years from PACs and employees of finance-related firms. Since then, the incumbent Democrat has been linked in unflattering ways to disgraced mortgage lender Countrywide Financial and even to American International Group, the embattled insurance and financial services company.

You might think that it’s crazy for Democrats to bring up ethics, lobbyists and Washington insiders where Dodd is concerned. Shouldn’t Democrats want the Connecticut Senate race to be about something where Dodd actually looks good? No, say a number of consultants I spoke with about the tactic.

They note that the DSCC’s strategy is right out of the campaign textbook: Convince voters that there is no difference on ethics and lobbyists between Dodd and Simmons, and voters will make their vote choice on other matters, including party, where Dodd has a significant advantage.

Ah, politics.

A QUINCY TEA PARTY ORGANIZER wasn’t allowed to speak to the City Council. Now Quincy’s mayor has responded. “Quincy Mayor John Spring says he has no regrets about a City Council vote which denied a taxpaying citizen to opportunity to speak before the city’s governing body on Monday night.”

TOO MUCH UNIFORMITY at the F.C.C.’s “diversity committee.”

HOMELAND SECURITY REMAINS A JOKE: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation has incorrectly kept nearly 24,000 people on a terrorist watch list on the basis of outdated or sometimes irrelevant information, while missing people with genuine ties to terrorism who should have been on the list, according to a Justice Department report released Wednesday.”