NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: White House bristles at mention of Elena Kagan’s sexuality, and says it will reach ‘accommodation’ on releasing memos.

PAKISTAN, AGAIN: “A passenger was detained by airport authorities in Pakistan after electrical circuits and batteries were found in the soles of his tennis shoes, an airport security official said today.”

UPDATE: Sometimes a massage shoe is just a massage shoe.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jerome Krough is thinking shoe-phone.

PROF. BAINBRIDGE: A memo to law school casebook authors. “The major law school casebook publishers are working on game changers like eBooks and textbook rentals, while trying to do so unilaterally within the confines of standard form contracts designed for the 19th Century. Textbook pricing is out of whack. Our students are paying outrageous prices. I am willing to consider how we can fairly take steps to reduce that financial impact, but not at the expense of gutting my royalty income.”

BIZARRE FACT OF THE DAY: Media Take Note: In Arizona County, Of 64 Highway Chases Last Month, Not One Perp a U.S. Citizen.

CHANGE: ‘Tea party’-backed platform sails through Maine GOP convention.

READER CREEDE KURTZ shot this photo of the Ardmore, Oklahoma tornado: “Ardmore got lucky – many town all around us got hit hard, according to breaking reports. The storm has moved 70 miles in 90 minutes and has dropped multiple tornadoes. Local news is saying no reports of injuries or fatalities. PS – taken with an Olympus Stylus 850 SW.”

REPORT: Mullah Omar captured. So would this explain the Administration’s sudden interest in broader interrogation tactics?

MATT WELCH: Obama: College Experimentation Is Great, Keep That Mind Open, and Now if You’ll Excuse Me, I’m Going to Continue Presiding Over Our Militarized War on Personal Drug Consumption. Great photo.

TATTOOING as a signal of genetic fitness?

SHE BLINDED SIGHTED ME WITH SCIENCE: DARPA’s Brain Implants Would Help Replace Mental Function in Wounded Warfighters.

SOFTWARE POLICE in a petabyte age of surveillance. Hope it works out better than earlier automated-enforcement efforts.

“WE JUST RELEASE THEM NOW:” Where would Arizonans get the idea that Janet Napolitano’s ICE isn’t serious about enforcing the immigration laws in even the more obvious cases?

THE COLD WAR VICTORY PARADE WE NEVER HAD?

IS THE KAGAN NOMINATION OBAMA’S WAY TO “advance the cause of the closet?”

UPDATE: A Brief History of Andrew Sullivan’s Confusion Over The Politics of The Closet.

THE MORE YOU WALK, the lower your risk of Metabolic Syndrome.

BECOMING A WAGE SLAVE to software.

SHOOTING THE MESSENGER: “Note that the rating agencies are not getting dinged in response to their legitimate failures — the famously too-high ratings awarded to Enron, Lehman Brothers and the universe of junk debt instruments. They’re being punished for doing the right thing: sounding the alarm on Europe’s manifest sovereign debt crisis and America’s looming one.”

THE KODAK PLAYSPORT WATERPROOF CAMERA seems to be popular with InstaPundit readers. Here’s another review, from reader Joseph Gautier:

I bought the Kodak Play sport underwater HD camcorder. Upon further review ( I read your post on what one of your readers had written to you), I’ve got a couple of observations/suggestions as well. Because you’re probably in the water and kicking your feet when using this camera, Kodak could have made a couple of the settings quicker and easier to access. 1) Just my personal preference… there’s no need for one of the 4 quick-access buttons on the front of the camera to be a “trash bin”. As with any of my cameras, I’m not out there deleting photos as I shoot. This is done on the computer back home after all pics have been downloaded and viewed. Change the “trash bin” button to an “underwater mode” button. As it is now, you’ve got to press the “settings” button, then scroll 5 positions before being able to set the underwater mode. 2) If you’ve pressed the “play” button, which allows you to view the picture/video that you’ve just taken, and you want to get back to the “live” picture/video mode so you can take a picture again, you will press the top button on the front of the camera, identified by a little movie camera icon on it. My suggestion for this button would be to not only jump back to “live” for you, but to also, once you are back in the “live” mode, be able to jump back-and-forth quickly from “movie” to “still” mode. Example: If my preferred movie setting is 720p 60fps, then it would stay at that movie setting until I changed it under the “settings” button. And the front button would jump from “720p 60fps” to “5 MP HD” still mode. The two things that I do most with this “underwater” camera could be quickly done if these improvements were made. Remind me to call Kodak. Other than that, it takes awesome stills, and wonderful movies – best seen on your living room HDTV!

Thanks for the purchase tip.

He sent a few pics. Here’s one:

MATT WELCH: OBAMA WORKS THE REFS: “While hypocritical (given the president’s own slippery relationship with the truth) this critique is strategically clever. For those still inclined to believe it, the message reinforces Obama’s fading image as a truth-telling, above-it-all academic (see the Michigan speech in particular for a bunch of we need to get beyond the tired debate about big-vs.-small-government claptrap). And for the straight-journalism types this is a soothing tongue-bath from the Sensible Centrist in Chief that reinforces their own self-pity/importance and gives them even more motivation to go after the real lying liars: The ones who noisily and hyperbolically oppose the policies of the most powerful man on earth. Back when George W. Bush was president, much hay was made at the fact that 43 didn’t see the working press as particularly representative of the American people, and instead tailored his media communicatin’ (at least somewhat) to the right-of-center mediasphere (or if you prefer, the non-Reality Based Community). Now that Obama is essentially using the same divide-and-conquer strategy, only backing a different side this time, it will be interesting to see if any journalism chin-strokers do anything but applaud.”

ROBERT SAMUELSON: The Welfare State’s Death Spiral. “What we’re seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state. This isn’t Greece’s problem alone, and that’s why its crisis has rattled global stock markets and threatens economic recovery. Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect.”

ANN ALTHOUSE: Elena Kagan said “There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage,” but does that mean that, as a Supreme Court Justice, she won’t find that right?

SHOCK ABSORBERS that generate electricity.

TURNING HOLLYWOOD INTO A CASINO with movie futures? If only people put as much effort into, you know, making good movies.

FROM PROF. BAINBRIDGE, some questions on electoral reform.

A MUSIC VIDEO, with Chinese girls and robots.