TERRORISTS: Figments Of Your Imagination?

PATRICK COX: Sunshine, Vitamin D, and Death by Scientific Consensus. “As was the (now corrected) case with omega-3 fats, the ‘consensus’ on sunlight exposure has badly misled us towards massive vitamin D deficiencies.”

Plus, obviously I should have gone to the beach this week instead of working on a law review article: “Simply put, unless you are one of the few people with optimal serum D levels, such as lifeguards and roofers in South Florida, you can cut your risks from most major diseases by 50 to 80 percent. All you have to do is get enough D. It also means we can significantly reduce both health care costs and the staggering national deficit by taking a few simple steps.”

DIGGING A BIGGER HOLE: White House: Hey, We Told Counterterror Chief to Go Skiing.

ERIC POSNER: “Many of us said during the days of the Bush administration that restrictions on civil liberties motivated by the conflict with Al Qaeda would be maintained during any subsequent administration, whether Democratic or Republican, as long as the terrorist threat remained. This prediction has been amply confirmed. . . . The persistence of policies across ideologically divided administrations is good evidence that those policies are now mainstream rather than partisan and ideological. Of course, many people will continue to disagree with them, just as many people continue to object to a standing army and a central bank; but these people are now officially on the fringes. There will also continue to be arguments about interrogation practices and the like, but a wide range of Bush administration policies—indefinite detention without charges, trials by military commission, the use of military force against suspected terrorists in foreign countries, secrecy privileges that undermine litigation against government officials responsible for terrorism policies, profiling on the basis of nationality, and much else—are now politically entrenched.”

CHARLES JOHNSON OWES ME A CORRECTION. Well, yeah. But cheap and bogus charges of racism are so common nowadays, that they don’t matter like they used to. And I’m not just talking about the ones from Charles.

UPDATE: Charles now updates, several days late, and says:

Reynolds updated his post again to say he does think the picture is racist, despite the appearance that he was excusing it (and I wasn’t the only one to think so). According to Glenn Reynolds, he was reacting against “cheap and bogus charges of racism.”

Except that isn’t what I said at all. I said that I thought the pic was racist, but was trying to be fair to the Democrat who sent it around when someone (Tom Maguire, hardly some white supremacist) suggested things might be otherwise. The “cheap and bogus charges of racism” bit is above. This is just as misleading as his original characterization of my post. In the past, I’ve relied on Charles’ assessments of other blogs and bloggers, and it’s now clear that was a mistake on my part.

Charles, I wish you well, but . . . well, I don’t really have much else I want to say right now.

UPDATE: Reader Rollory writes:

The most amazing thing about Charles Johnson is how he did the same thing to multiple people, one after another, over the course of two years, and in every case, everybody who might have had some impact by speaking out about it and pointing out what a dishonest liar the man is, stayed quiet and either said nothing or empty platitudes like “I don’t know all the details” and deliberately ignored the repeated and clear pattern of behavior. Until, that is, he gets around to them, and all of a sudden they’re shocked and surprised that he could be such a dishonest liar.

What can I say, Ed? You’re right. I trusted him — even though I stopped reading or linking him much years ago because he seemed kinda extreme — and I was wrong to do so. As penance, I guess now it’s my turn for the Two-Minute Hate.

IT’S TWO YEARS SINCE JONAH GOLDBERG’S Liberal Fascism came out, and it sure was well-timed. Our podcast interview with Jonah is here.

CELLPHONES protect against Alzheimer’s disease? Of course, given evidence for an Alzheimer’s / Cancer tradeoff, does this make the claim that cellphones cause cancer more plausible?

CHANGE: Social Security deficit slides to worst showing in a generation. “Maybe Barack Obama should find someone whose predictions don’t come up as consistently bad as Orszag’s to help run the budget.”

CYBERSECURITY: What Really Worries The Pentagon.

AT AMAZON, taking trade-ins on used textbooks, and discounting new ones. This could put a world of hurt on college bookstores, which have traditionally enjoyed a semi-monopoly.

SAY IT AIN’T SO: Murtha Friendly Contractor Suspended For Kickbacks.

COOK POLITICAL REPORT MOVES MASSACHUSETTS SENATE RACE from “Solid” Democratic to “Leans” Democratic.

Meanwhile, Scott Brown launches a new ad. He’s running as the candidate of change. Well, that seems about right.

FOR $200, a watch-sized cellphone.

A READER EMAILS TO ASK why I haven’t gotten behind Arianna Huffington’s “Move Your Money” campaign. “‘Move Your Money’ is very John Galt, very Tea Party.” Well, maybe. I had meant to post on this a while back, and it slipped through the holiday cracks. I kind of like the idea, and while I doubt it will have as much impact as they suggest, it seems to me that moving money from bailed-out banks to smaller community banks is a good idea — sort of like buying your car from non-bailout car companies.

I’ve got an uncle who’s on the board of a community bank in Georgia, and they’ve done fine — by the simple strategem of making traditional loans to people who can pay them back — and he’s very incensed that they’re in effect being taxed (via higher FDIC premiums and a 3-year prepayment that’s basically a forced loan to the FDIC) to pay for the problems of big banks that did stupid things.

BRIAN DOHERTY: The NRA Takes on McDonald v. Chicago. They’re not so big on the Privileges / Immunities angle.

TIME TO Abolish TSA As We Know It?

MICHAEL TOTTEN: An Interview With Christopher Hitchens, Part I.

AND YET, SOMEHOW, THE HYBRIDS JUST SEEM COOLER: Volkswagen Passat EcoFuel squeaks past Prius as greenest car in Europe.

EUGENE VOLOKH: A Future Wave of Speech Codes, Though Enforced Through Exclusion from the Bar and Not Just University Discipline?

How about a future wave of free-speech rights, enforced by shunning and shaming officious junior tyrants? More seriously, I believe that this sort of thing is likely to fuel moves to lessen the bar’s authority over who practices law.

OUTRAGE FROM A SURPRISING QUARTER: Jack Cafferty says “President Obama hasn’t even made a token effort” to keep his campaign promises of openness.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: If a Siamese Twin Commits Murder, Does His Brother Get Punished, Too?

IN THE MAIL: From Brian Anse Patrick, Rise of the Anti-Media: In-forming America’s Concealed Weapon Carry Movement.

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: You’ll be shocked when you hear all the things that went wrong with security on Flight 253.

TRANSPARENCY: Pelosi to Public, C-SPAN: Drop Dead.

JUST FOLLOWING THE TONE SET AT THE TOP: Antiterror Chief Michael Leiter remained on ski slopes after Christmas Day airline bombing attempt.