EUGENE VOLOKH: Coming Hate Speech Prosecutions In New York? “The teenagers posting these messages are behaving evilly, but even evil people and evil ideas are protected by the First Amendment. I do hope that the New York prosecutors and police recognize the First Amendment barriers to prosecutions under this statute.” Evilly, but not as evilly as those who would subvert the Constitution to punish speech they don’t like.

ERIC SCHEIE: Does Freedom To Sin Violate Religious Freedom? In some people’s view, how far you can swing your fist depends on how far out I can grow my nose. My own feeling is that noses that stick out too far take their chances . . . .

JOHN ROACH: Are Airport X-Ray Scanners Harmful?

Peter Rez, a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe, did his own calculations and found the exposure to be about one-fiftieth to one-hundredth the amount of a standard chest X-ray. He calculated the risk of getting cancer from a single scan at about 1 in 30 million, “which puts it somewhat less than being killed by being struck by lightning in any one year,” he told me.

While the risk of getting a fatal cancer from the screening is minuscule, it’s about equal to the probability that an airplane will get blown up by a terrorist, he added. “So my view is there is not a case to be made for deploying them to prevent such a low probability event.”

Read the whole thing.

DEFLATION ISN’T ALL BAD: 40″ HDTV for $399. Funny how we’ve had deflation in the tech sector for decades and nobody was bothered by it.

UPDATE: I can’t find the email now, but a reader wrote me that the specs on the Amazon site look better than the ones on the manufacturer’s site. Don’t know which is true, but you can always return it if you’re not happy.

And yes, the deflation remark was tongue-in-cheek.

“WAIT AND SEE:” A new video from Bankrupting America.

GOP PICKS UP ANOTHER: WALSH WINS. “By a margin of 291 votes out of more than 200,000 cast, GOP challenger Joe Walsh emerged Tuesday as the winner over U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean in their nail-biting 8th District congressional race.” When Republicans can win close races in Illinois, maybe there really is hope and change!

DAVID HARSANYI: It’s not a messaging problem.

ANDREW IAN DODGE: MY VERY OWN TSA NIGHTMARE. “I guess there is a new category of suspect persons to the TSA: ‘traveling with scars.'”

TOM MAGUIRE: When is a “bald case” not a bald case? I disagree. Of course Limbaugh’s a racist. He opposes Obama. Case closed. Why are we even talking about this? As with “violence,” it’s all just a matter of choosing the proper definition.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Obama’s Dark Night of the Soul. “Life keeps getting worse for President Obama. It is not just that the conservative press, which never liked him, has a new note of confidence and even joy as it pursues a quarry whose blood reporters think they can smell. It is not just that he lost control of Congress in the midterms. No: the mainstream, liberal press and the American left are deserting him now. . . . We and the President were always likely to come to this point. The adulation lavished on a one-term senator of little life experience was not a good thing for anyone.”

IT WAS FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY . . . .

MARK HEMINGWAY: Just A Reminder: “Politifact” Is Often More Politics Than Facts.

IN CHINA, they’re not so thrilled with “quantitative easing.” “I find it amusing that after a decade of defending China from bashers at home, I’m suddenly put into the position of defending the United States from people who think it’s unfair when we fashion our economic policy primarily to suit ourselves, and not the rest of the world.”

FROM IOWAHAWK, A NEW TSA ANTHEM: Comply With Me.

UPDATE: From Reader Kevin Fleming, “The B-side: I Want to Hold Your Glands.” Heh.

But all has been foreseen by Airplane 2.

DON SURBER: NAPOLITANO MUST GO.

PROFESSOR JACOBSON: Why do leftist Jewish bloggers love the dual-loyalty smear? I dunno. Projection?

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Social climbers always impugn their own less-glamorous cohort in order to curry favor with the elites they seek to join. Many of my co-religionists yearn for acceptance by America’s high society champagne socialists. So, they smear fellow Jews, using them as rhetorical rungs on the social climbing ladder.

Hmm.

CHANGE: DOJ’s Military Voting Mess Continues Post-Election, but Congress Now Paying Attention.

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS: An Even Tougher Deficit Plan.

ANGER IS ONE OF THE FOUR STAGES: House Democrats vent to leaders as they come to grips with losses.

While many Democrats offered kind words, thanks and support for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), defeated Reps. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), Travis Childers (D-Miss.) and Bill Foster (Ill.) called for new leadership, lawmakers said.

Boyd told The Hill that leaving Pelosi as the public face of the caucus would undermine candidate recruitment efforts in 2012.

“I don’t know how you recruit for some of these seats,” said Boyd. “How are you going to recruit somebody to run — a moderate, Blue Dog Democrat — to run down there? Can’t do it.”

Democrats are girding for an internal showdown on Wednesday as they meet for caucus elections over the objections of a growing number of lawmakers who want them postponed. Pelosi surprised many Democrats two weeks ago when she announced she would seek to stay on as the caucus leader.

Personally, I’m pulling for Pelosi in this one. In fact, while I don’t normally endorse candidates here, I’m giving her the InstaPundit endorsement this time around. You go, girl!

Meanwhile, Jim Treacher is gloating.

TURNING THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE into an arm of the Democratic Party?

L.A. TIMES: The gallant story of Salvatore Giunta, America’s newest Medal of Honor recipient.

THE RAPE OF the blog.

TAKING PALIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME TO THE NEXT LEVEL:

Allegedly set off by Bristol Palin’s appearance on “Dancing with the Stars,” a rural Black Earth man kept police at bay outside his home for 15 hours Monday and Tuesday before he surrendered to police.

Steven N. Cowan, 66, railed at the television as the daughter of former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin appeared on the ABC program, his wife told police Monday after she fled from the town of Vermont house, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court.

Too much time reading the Daily Dish, I guess. At least, I heard he was screaming “It’s not Sarah’s baby! It’s not Sarah’s baby!”. . .

But reader John Spaulding writes: “We’ve driven them nuts. Literally.” For some, no driving was necessary. They were close enough to walk already.

A FISH, A BARREL, a smoking gun. The sentiment is widely shared.

IT’S LIKE THEY’RE JUST TRYING TO PROVOKE PEOPLE NOW: Obama Administration Wants To Disable Your Cell Phone While You’re Driving.

The fact is that traffic accidents and fatalities have trended down to a 60-year low according to the NHTSA despite the rise in cell phone use while driving. There’s also a more recent study released by the CDC which shows that traffic accidents among young drivers have dropped 36% over the last five years despite an increase in cell phone use.

Plus, there’s absolutely zero evidence to indicate that bans on cell phone use while driving have done anything to make roads safer where they’ve been implemented.

But that’s not stopping Obama’s Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

LaHood is a clown. Can we impeach him? God knows things would be better if we’d actually impeached Norm Mineta, back in the day . . . .

Plus, the Dems weren’t smart enough to pull a Malcolm Wallop over air security ineptitude in 2002. Will the GOP be smarter now?