JOHN HINDERAKER ON DEFENSE CUTS:

I, personally, think that a lot of money could be cut out of the Defense Department’s budget. There is strong evidence that the DOD bureaucracy is mostly an obstacle to action, and several Secretaries of Defense have tried to reform it or, failing that, to work around it. So I think that money could be saved, if an administration were willing to take on 1) the entrenched bureaucracy of the department, and 2) influential Congressmen and Senators who are determined to preserve bases and weapons programs that benefit their districts and states.

Unfortunately, that isn’t what the Obama administration has in mind.

Of course not.

HOW TO PREPARE for pandemic flu.

PHIL BOWERMASTER: All That We’re Capable Of.

PUTTING SCIENTISTS ON MARS in permanent colonies.

YES, THESE ARE THE CRAZY YEARS. Mummy, just what I always wanted! Girl, 7, gets £7,000 liposuction voucher for Christmas from ‘Human Barbie’ mum.

VISUALIZING FLUID DYNAMICS in a two-horsepower blender.

IF ONLY IT WERE that easy.

CHARLES LANE ON THE SANTORUM ABUSE: “I regret that, unlike the Santorums, who presented the body of their child to their children, we did not show Jonathan’s body to our other son, who was six years old at the time. When I told him what had happened, his first question was, ‘Well, where is the baby?’ I tried to explain what a morgue is, and why the baby went there. It was awkward and unsatisfactory — too abstract. In hindsight, I was not protecting my son from a difficult conversation, I was protecting myself.”

UPDATE: A reader sends this comment from his daughter: “It’s a thoroughly modern idea that the dead are gross, weird, repulsive- family members used to dress their own dead for burial, and they would have the viewing in the house. . . . I must confess that one of your favorite stereotypes rings horribly true- when a humpback whale washes ashore and dies, weeping and general despair ensues. A stillborn baby? ‘Oh my gosh! Isn’t that SO GROSS??!! they’re so WEIRD!'”

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: “WE’RE IN THE MIDST OF A WAR AGAINST TERRORISM, thousands dead, the rest of us worried about smallpox, anthrax, smuggled nukes, dirty nukes, truck-bombs, car-bombs, luggage-bombs and even shoe-bombs. But the New York Times’ editors think that we should be worried about sparklers. Puhleez.”

UPDATE: Reader Craig Good writes: “And shall we compare the percentage change in readership between Instapundit and the NYT over those ten years?” No, that would be wrong.

RACISM IS EVERYWHERE THESE DAYS: L.A. Times Sees Michelle Obama As “Uppity Negro.” The L.A. Times’ Christopher Knight needs to look deep into his heart and think about the prejudices that lie there.

UPDATE: Looking at the L.A. Times’ history of racism.

HOW SCOTTISH SCIENTISTS recreated a hundred-year-old whiskey.

ARE STATE COURT IMMUNITIES FOR FOURTH AMENDMENT VIOLATIONS unconstitutional?

MIND OVER MOTOR: Controlling robots with your thoughts.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Lawn & Garden.

CARS AND ULTRABOOKS: A Consumer Electronics Show Preview.

THOUGHTS ON guns and the disabled.

WIN THE LOTTERY, GET A CHECK, find out the check’s no good. Only in Illinois. . . .

WAGES OF PROTECTIONISM: What Could Have Entered The Public Domain on January 1, 2012. Under the old, and superior, copyright law.

CAMERAS: Revenge Of The Point-And-Shoot.

AT AMAZON, up to 40% off Timex watches.

OF BY AND FOR THE ONE PERCENT: Wall Street Money For Elizabeth Warren.

MEDDLESOME FAA BUREAUCRATS stranding migratory birds.

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Rick Matasar: ‘The Ron Paul of Legal Education’ or ‘My Hero’?

THE TEN GREATEST failed U.S. auto companies.

GOOD NEWS: Cancer Death Rates Continue To Decline.