VIRGINIA POSTREL reviews Sheena Iyengar’s The Art Of Choosing. “Just because people happily comply with the choices of an intimate — or, for that matter, an authority they’ve selected themselves — does not mean they want bureaucratic strangers making their decisions. Advocates who want to use psychology experiments to justify choice-limiting public policy should keep that lesson in mind.”

CLAUDIA ROSETT: The Gates Memo: World’s Least Well Kept Secret.

VEGETABLE SHORTAGES in Japan.

FROM DA TECH GUY: An Actual Tip Jar Request. I donated.

TOM MAGUIRE RESPONDS TO CHARLES BLOW: The Tea Party movement is more diverse than the New York Times Board of Directors. Blow’s just trolling these days. Don’t feed the trolls.

JAMES JOYNER:

It’s all truly bizarre. We’re at the most gay-friendly time in American history and have, arguable, the most liberal administration ever on social issues. And yet they’re treating casual mention of Kagan’s sexuality as a smear orchestrated by the Right?

Yes, of course, appointing a lesbian to the Supreme Court would trigger a political fight. We’re much more tolerant of these things than we were ten or twenty years ago, but it’s still a controversial subject. But the reaction makes no sense whatsoever.

Further, CBS should be ashamed. What sort of journalistic ethics have they displayed here? First, they republish a four-day-old column and don’t bother fact-checking? Then, in response to pressure from the White House — at which point any journalist worth his salt would dig in, citing the sanctity of freedom of the press — they again don’t bother fact-checking but, instead, meekly pull the piece within hours? Seriously?

It’s a clown show all around.

NOW IT’S HARRISON SCHMITT: Former astronaut blasts Obama’s plans for space program. I still think Obama’s plan is right, but they clearly didn’t handle the PR well on this.

SCOTT BROWN ON TEA PARTY SUPPORT: “I’m very thankful.” As he should be. . . .

HEY, BABY, let’s get Seismic.

WORRYING ABOUT IRAN — in South America.

TIME-LAPSE IMAGE: Spread of volcanic dust from Iceland. It’s quite fast. More here.

BELDAR: Anatomy of a sham.

MICHAEL BARONE: Tea Parties Fight Obama’s Culture of Dependence. With a Susan Roesgen flashback. “Roesgen is no longer with CNN, and CNN has only about half as many viewers as it did last year. But her questions are revealing.”

AT AMAZON, markdowns on hand and power tools.

GEORGE WILL: Want a VAT? Ditch the Income Tax First.

ROGER KIMBALL: Whistlin’ “Dixie” with Frank Rich. “Just over a year ago, for people like Frank Rich dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Now it is a lethal threat to their most cherished political nostrums.”

WHO KNEW THAT CANADA WAS SUCH A CESSPIT OF BIGOTRY? Complaints overwhelm human rights watchdog.

Ontario’s newly streamlined human rights watchdog is swamped with allegations of sex, race and disability discrimination, the Star has found.

“We are really overwhelmed by our volume of cases now,” said Katherine Laird, the senior official whose job it is to support people who say they are victims. “Our phones are ringing off the hook.”

Thank goodness I don’t live there. It sounds hellish.

ERICK ERICKSON: Is the Obama Administration Behind An Astroturf Anti-Tea Party Website? I suspect Cass is going to be sorry he wrote that article, because — kind of like the “Crash The Tea Party” campaign — it just makes everything on his side suspect.

CYBERWAR: Exposing Hackers As A Deterrent.

DON’T BE AFRAID of the dark spirits.

WILLIAM BRIGGS: The Dismal Economics of Utopia.

GET READY FOR decades of Icelandic fireworks. Steven Den Beste emails that the problems with transatlantic flights will boost teleconferencing. Could be — and, really, that’s a boost that should happen. Not long ago I spoke to a bunch of environmental lawyers in Nashville via Skype, and it went pretty well, right from my basement. To speak in person would have blown a day of my schedule, entailed nearly 400 miles of driving and 14 or 15 gallons of gas, and cost them money for my expenses. This was fast and free. Not as good as being there in person, but close, and with many benefits.

UPDATE: What about iChat? It’s superior, in my opinion, but there has to be a Mac at the other end.

SYSTEM LACKS INCENTIVES to curb big spending. Plus, I admit I’m at a loss.

DAVID HARSANYI:

Yesterday I waded into a mass of tea party protesters gathered at the front of Colorado’s Capitol and completely forgot to brace myself for a “small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht” (as New York Times columnist Frank Rich once characterized these events).

As it turns out, earlier I happened to peruse a new CBS/New York Times poll detailing the attitudes of tea party activists, who, it turns out, are more educated than the average American, more reflective of mainstream anxieties than any populist movement in memory, and more closely aligned philosophically with the wider electorate than any big-city newsroom in America.

Read the whole thing.

IN THE MAIL: From Robert Bryce, Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.