GOOD NEWS: “Iraq completed one of sport’s great fairytales by beating Saudi Arabia 1-0 in the Asian Cup final on Sunday to provide a rare moment for celebration in their war-torn homeland. The Saudis had been bidding to become the first four-times winners of the tournament but Iraq, riding a wave of global sentiment, upset the hot-favourites for a rare slice of sporting glory.”

And Omar writes: “I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that today has been as exciting as one of those election days in Baghdad. Our national soccer team is playing for the Asian cup for the first time in its history. By comparison this is as if the American team is playing for the cup of Copa America against the team of Brazil or Argentina! But of course here in Iraq we care way more about soccer than Americans do. No offense meant of course!”

None taken. Everyone cares about soccer more than Americans do. But follow the link for his liveblogging of the match. He concludes: “Our players, tonight our heroes, learned that only with team work they had a chance to win. May our politicians learn from the players . . . The fear is gone, the curfew is ignored, tonight Iraq knows only joy.” May there be more days like this, and with more occasions than soccer.

PORKQUEST: Mary Katharine Ham goes looking for John Murtha’s missing million-dollar earmark. Watch her visit various Johnstown, PA landmarks, and get the runaround from various PR flacks. (Bumped, because — well, just watch it.)

LOTT V. LEVITT: An update.

MORE ON RECESS APPOINTMENTS TO THE SUPREME COURT: “According to C-Span, there have been 15 recess appointments to the Supreme Court. The first was John Rutledge, who was given a recess appointment to be Chief Justice by President George Washington in 1795. As noted in this report, President Eisenhower made three recess appointments to the Court — Earl Warren, William Brennan, and Potter Stewart. Brennan, in particular, was placed on the Court in the midst of the 1956 Presidential campaign, arguably for political reasons.”

I’m ready for my closeup! Er, but not holding my breath.

STEVEN DEN BESTE, quoted in the New York Times.

The guy hung up his blog ages ago and he’s still unstoppable. So unstoppable, some readers note, that the NYT is even attributing a Mickey Kaus statement to den Beste along with his own. But in the context of the quote, I think that’s okay, since den Beste was quoting Kaus himself, and not really an error on the part of the Times.

UPDATE: Kaus comments: “Print editors do have to save space. But web editors don’t. That’s a major, unremarked virtue of blogs over newspapers when it comes to the newspaper’s alleged unique selling proposition: accuracy. In fact, the need to fit copy to a limited space is a powerful error-creating machine in both dailies and magazines. Harried print editors compress, and get it wrong. Or they fool around trying to simplify attribution and get it wrong. Or they guiltlessly edit quotes within quotation marks and (by definition) get them wrong. … In cyberspace,, if it takes one more line to get it right, you can take one more line. I haven’t killed a widow in so long I’ve forgotten what it feels like.”

ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE FROM THE GUARDIAN, the Bush Administration was already supporting torturing suspects back in 1998. “The report criticises the Bush administration’s approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.”

I blame John Ashcroft. Er, and Stephen Hawking or Frank Tipler, I guess . . . .

UPDATE: Bill Quick asks the inevitable question: “Did Hillary Clinton support torturing Osama bin Laden?”

MORE COOL UNDERSEA PHOTOGRAPHY.

I MENTIONED A WHILE BACK that I was reading Michael Belfiore’s new book, Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space, and I had a review in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Now there’s a free link available, thanks to OpinionJournal.com. The Belfiore book is very much worth reading for anyone interested in space, capitalism, or technology. And thanks to Scott Johnson for the undeserved praise.

SAVING ENERGY BY SWITCHING from Google to Blackle.

Color me, er, skeptical.

SUNSHINE: NOT SO BAD AFTER ALL:

Ever since scientists convicted sunlight of causing skin cancer, many seemingly sensible people have been running around slathered in sunscreen, using hats and long sleeves to hide our skin from the sun as if we were vampires. Now it looks like we may have gone too far: We may be missing out on the benefits of sunshine.

A study (press release) released today in the journal Neurology indicates that children who spend more time in the sun may have a decreased risk of multiple sclerosis. In pairs of twins where one twin had multiple sclerosis, the MS-free sibling had spent more time outside, playing team sports and sun tanning. Scientists theorize that ultraviolet rays in sunlight trigger a protective response that protects the body from this chronic nervous system disorder, either by altering the immune system or by producing vitamin D. . . .

Getting more vitamin D-drenched sunlight might be a good idea, regardless of your genetic risk for multiple sclerosis: Scientists say most people aren’t getting enough. Researchers at Boston University published a paper last week in the New England Journal of Medicine said that more than 1 billion people worldwide don’t get enough Vitamin D. Too little vitamin D for too long can result in dramatic results like rickets—a softening of the skeleton. But other dangers include Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a range of cancers, Crohn’s disease, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension.

Well, I’m en route to the beach now. For my health!

UPDATE: More thoughts here. I wouldn’t throw away the sunscreen. But I wouldn’t avoid the sun completely, either.

THOUGHTS ON PLASTER SAINTS and war stories.

THE CARNIVAL OF CARS IS UP! Also the Carnival of Cinema, the Carnival of Homeschooling, and the Carnival of Recipes. And don’t miss the Carnival of the Capitalists and the Carnival of Archaelology.

I’m pretty lame about carnival-blogging these days, but there are lots of carnivals listed at BlogCarnival.com, with highlights in my right sidebar.

THIS SOUNDS COOL:

Researchers have developed a remarkably simple way to convert ordinary graphite particles into very thin but superstrong sheets that are tougher than steel and as flexible as carbon fiber but can be made much more cheaply. The discovery could spawn entirely new types of materials for applications as diverse as protective coatings, electronic components, batteries, and fuel cells.

I can see a lot of applications.

ROBIN HENIG LOOKS AT ROBOTS:

Sociable robots come equipped with the very abilities that humans have evolved to ease our interactions with one another: eye contact, gaze direction, turn-taking, shared attention. They are programmed to learn the way humans learn, by starting with a core of basic drives and abilities and adding to them as their physical and social experiences accrue. People respond to the robots’ social cues almost without thinking, and as a result the robots give the impression of being somehow, improbably, alive.

Read the whole thing.

BROWN UNIVERSITY WELCOMES Duke rape case victim.

MICHAEL SILENCE IS grillblogging. Looks yummy!

POLITICAL CAPITAL is John Harwood’s new blog over at CNBC.

DEMANDING A PAPER TRAIL FOR VOTING: About time.

“FIND OUT WHAT HE’S DRINKING, and give some to my other astronauts.“

HILLARY, OBAMA, and a return to normalcy.

MORE THOUGHTS ON GUANTANAMO, from Prof. Kenneth Anderson.

INCONSISTENCIES regarding Yahoo! and China.

MARK STEYN offers suggestions for improving prosecutions.

KEITH MILBY GIVES THE SIMPSONS MOVIE a rave review.

STRATEGYPAGE: “In Iran, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is rapidly losing popularity and respect. It’s feared that his only option is to somehow get the United States to attack Iran. This would instantly boost Ahmadinejad’s popularity, and save his political career. For a while, anyway.” Read the whole thing.