JOHN DERBYSHIRE ON trust and science.

MICHAEL RUBIN: Will Turkey Spoil? “How was Turkey lost and why did Washington do nothing to stop it are questions that historians will ponder.”

HEH: Did you hear the one about Washington lecturing Afghans on corruption?

CHANGE: More self-identify as Republicans; Democrats dwindle.

MOTLEY CRU: It’s time for climate science to clean house. Whatever investigations come of Climategate, they should not stop with the United Kingdom.

JAMES TARANTO: “There weren’t a lot of surprises in President Obama’s Afghanistan speech last night, but here’s one: The president quietly repudiated the myth that Iraq has nothing to do with al Qaeda.”

REREADING ROBERT HEINLEIN with Adrienne Martini. More here.

MARKDOWNS on luxury watches.

OOPS: Former NASA climate scientist pleads guilty to contract fraud. “A former top climate scientist who had become one of the scientific world’s most cited authorities on the human effect on Earth’s atmosphere was sentenced to probation Tuesday after pleading guilty to steering lucrative no-bid contracts to his wife’s company.”

Related, from the ClimateGate emails: “We need to show some left to cover the costs of the trip Roger didn’t make and also the fees/equipment/computer money we haven’t spent otherwise NOAA will be suspicious.”

NICKI KUROKAWA: Oil, Oil Everywhere, And Not A Drop To Pump.

FIRST COUGARS, NOW CHEETAHS STALK MANHATTAN. “Good God, I thought, how many of my fellow men are at risk at this very moment?!”

Rachel Sklar is not amused.

ROOM, COMFY, ALL-BUSINESS-CLASS TRANSATLANTIC PLANES SOUND NICE, but there’s something about this photo that puts me in mind of a nursing home or a dentist’s office, not a luxury jet. I think it’s the hard, angular plastic, which gives off a medical vibe.

HEH: Men: The Gender Wars Are Over — We Won. “The amazing thing, really, is how easy it was, how fast the old world of obligation and responsibility dissolved. The first, crucial step, of course, was convincing women that they had it bad, that our jobs were ‘intellectually stimulating’ and not the soul-crushing monotony that they in fact were.”

TEABAG THIS: Anderson Cooper’s Ratings as in-the-tank as he is.

MORE ON BLOGGING AS SCHOLARSHIP, from Professor Bainbridge. My previous Dean made a big point of counting my blogging as scholarship, but I never claimed it as such on my Faculty Activities Report. His theory was that whether the individual posts were scholarly or not, the whole blog was an ongoing experiment in media and communications technology.

Meanwhile, I’m somehow reminded of this post from years ago, and of these comments from Ann Althouse:

And speaking of U.S. News, wouldn’t it be funny if it used faculty blogging as a factor? There would be all these blogs by lawprofs trying to move their school up the rankings.

And every law school dean, everywhere, would be as supportive as mine have always been!

LIST: Best toys you’ve never heard of.

ADDRESSING Antibiotic Resistance. “It’s more than a little embarrassing to be decisively losing a battle of wits to unicellular organisms. At least the bacteria are smart enough to develop new strategies every now and then. We plodding humans have been fighting antibiotic resistance the same way for decades: by restricting access to antibiotics and developing new drugs to kill off problem bugs. It hasn’t worked, and it’s never going to.”

CLIMATEGATE UPDATE: Competitive Enterprise Institute Petitions EPA to Suspend Proposed CO2 Regs.

WILL DESIREE ROGERS be the White House’s next Van Jones?

THOSE BIGOTED RED- BLUE-STATERS! Gay Marriage Overwhelmingly Defeated in NY State Senate.

Well, it must have been those ignorant upstate Republicans, right? But wait: “State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx made an impassioned argument against same-sex marriage, describing his continued opposition as reflecting the broad consensus that marriage should be limited to a union between a man and woman. ‘Not only the evangelicals, not only the Jews, not only the Muslims, not only the Catholics, but also the people oppose it,’ he said. Of course, to some New Yorkers, the Bronx practically is upstate. But Diaz is a Democrat.

UPDATE: Reader Dave Bosserman writes:

Yes, Ruben Diaz is a Democrat, but you’d never know it by reading your morning newspaper. Here’s how the Associated Press framed it in today’s story: “During the debate, Sen. Ruben Diaz, a conservative minister from the Bronx, led the mostly Republican opposition.”

Following standard policy, the AP does not mention Sen. Diaz’s political party because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

On the other hand, the New York Times did mention it:

The lone opponent to speak in the chamber, Rubén Díaz Sr., a Democrat from the Bronx, invoked his own experiences as a minister to explain his vote, and rejected arguments from other senators that religion should not play a role in deciding who can legally marry in New York. “You should carry your Bible all the time,” Mr. Díaz said.

If he were a white guy from Alabama, Andrew Sullivan would be indulging his wildest urges toward stereotyping. And he wouldn’t be alone.

NOW THIS OBSERVATION applies to all sorts of things: “I would find Malcolm Gladwell’s responses to Steve Pinker so much more compelling if they didn’t rely so heavily on sly, and irrelevant, accusations of racism.”

ATLAS VLOGS.

ED DRISCOLL: “Christmas In Cambodia,” with ClimateGate.

AWKWARD NEWS AHEAD? A “looming crisis” in human genetics?

SHOCKER: Government-operated sewage plants get away with a whole lot of polluting. “Modest proposal: privatize sewage treatment plants so that governments won’t hold back on going after polluters. It is politically much more acceptable to go after profit-making private sector polluters. Look at the USSR. The state let itself pollute on a massive scale. When the government doesn’t own the capital assets it has a much easier time imposing costs on the asset operators to make them clean up.”

UPDATE: A reader who requests anonymity emails: “Not shocking to me. I’ve seen it many times over. I consulted in the environmental engineering field for 15+ years. I have a BS in Chemistry and an MS in Industrial Engineering. I am a licensed wastewater operator. I have also been a member of a county environmental regulatory oversight committee. Not once have I ever seen a government run operation be more ‘green,’ more efficient, or more honest than a private enterprise. It all comes down to employees and their belief system in my humble opinion: gov’t employees are union members and believe they are ‘owed’ and private enterprise employees feel their paycheck is linked to the fulfillment of their duties.” And politicians know they can get more mileage out of attacking “greedy corporations” than unionized public employees.