THOUGHTS ON Israel and transhumanism.

A BUNCH OF new DVD releases.

HACKING the 21st Century automobile. “Today’s cars may seem too sophisticated for tinkering, but the DIY auto movement is thriving, yielding designs and innovations too radical for mass production.”

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Building a bridge out of Duct Tape. “Since we had all these cases of tape, we figured, why not?”

TEST-DRIVING A plug-in Prius conversion.

FOR SALE: Thousands of hacked Twitter accounts.

EUGENE VOLOKH: “Down the Memory Hole” Speech Restrictions, Supported by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Syria, Iran, and Turkey Openly Defy Obama, as Russia Regains Mideast Influence.

KITCHEN TOOLS for a happy marriage.

DEMANDING THAT TVA release executive salaries.

DECRYING PREJUDICE AGAINST THE AMERICAN SOUTH . . . in The Guardian? “Oddly, the same people who disparage us also have love affairs with our culture. They ridicule us and then profess their love for Nina Simone, Austin, Johnny Cash or Louisiana’s crawfish etouffee dish when it’s trendy. This brings me to my favourite specimens: cocktail party progressives. You know the type – can’t converse without referencing the New Yorker. Pretentious, self-congratulatory liberals who applaud their own humanity while mocking the south.”

ANOTHER WRONG-HOUSE DRUG RAID: Woman Hospitalized Following Botched Raid.

Police say they have had her mother’s home under surveillance for two years.

Holl says if that’s true, how could police get the wrong address?

Your tax dollars at work.

UPDATE: Police say it wasn’t a “raid,” but their story seems to match the woman’s so I’m not sure how big a difference this is. Still the wrong house, etc.

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: Propane-powered lawn mowers.

HENRY GATES deflates the reparations balloon.

A SPACE-TOURISM price cut?

NOT BACKING DOWN: Neil Armstrong criticises new space plan in Congress. “In a rare public appearance, moonwalker Neil Armstrong warned Congress on Wednesday that the US risks losing its leadership in space flight under President Obama’s new NASA plan.”

VIDEO: Shocking Car Crash Footage Shows Father Taking Full Impact to Save Baby.

HMM: Many “food allergies” may be bogus. This doesn’t surprise me.

YALE SENIORS CAN NOW CHOOSE coed suites.

IN THE MAIL: Henry Clay: The Essential American.

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Dicks Bent On Appropriations Gavel. Sounds painful. And what’s this about members of Congress wanting to “anoint Dicks?” I mean, what they do on their own time is their business, but . . . .

WHEN RACIAL AND ETHNIC STUDIES BACKFIRE: College students taking racial and ethnic studies courses have lower respect for members of other groups. No surprise.

A NEW MOVEMENT: “I Need A Freakin’ Job!”

FROM THE SOVIET ARCHIVES, A HISTORY OF HIDDEN EVIL:

In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history.

And its willing collaborators in the West, many identified by name here. “Perhaps it doesn’t surprise you to read that prominent European politicians held these views. But why doesn’t it? It is impossible to imagine that figures who had enjoyed such close ties to the Nazi Party—or, for that matter, to the Ku Klux Klan or to South Africa’s apartheid regime—would enjoy top positions in Europe today. The rules are different, apparently, for Communist fellow travelers. . . . We rightly insisted upon total denazification; we rightly excoriate those who now attempt to revive the Nazis’ ideology. But the world exhibits a perilous failure to acknowledge the monstrous history of Communism. These documents should be translated. They should be housed in a reputable library, properly cataloged, and carefully assessed by scholars. Above all, they should be well-known to a public that seems to have forgotten what the Soviet Union was really about.”

WHY DOESN’T THE PRESS care about unemployment?