March 24, 2007

WE NO LONGER QUESTION THEIR PATRIOTISM: “Perhaps the most disturbing scene of the afternoon, however, involved the man who pulled down his pants in front of women and children and defecated on a burning U.S. flag.”

Even more shockingly, he apparently failed to purchase carbon offsets to cover the burning flag's greenhouse emissions. . . .

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll says it's an attempt at peace through superior bodily functions.

"RAMPANT SLUT CULTURE:" Coming? Or going?

If the slut culture goes away, the terrorists will have won!

WHERE'S THE LOVE?

FROM CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION to "conspicuous virtue." In both cases, of course, people are often tempted to overspend.

MORE ON CATHY SEIPP, from Mickey Kaus. And read this from Moxie, too.

And from Jack Dunphy: "What was striking about the service was the uncommon array of people it brought together. She was an uncompromising conservative, but she had close friends at all points along the political spectrum, and indeed it was through our mutual friendship with Cathy that many of us came to know and respect people with whom we otherwise had little in common."

SECURITY COUNCIL VOTES MORE SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN.

DARFUR UPDATE:

Now in its fifth year, a military campaign by the Sudanese government to crush a rebel movement in Darfur has almost completely reordered the region's demographics. The conflict is complex but comes down to one in which the government has armed and supported certain nomadic Arab tribesmen against the region's farming villagers, who are predominantly black Africans.

At least 450,000 people have died from disease and violence in the conflict, and more than 2.5 million -- around half the area's entire population -- have fled to vast displacement camps whose numbers continue to swell.

Yet there remains a relatively small number of farming villages such as Kuteri where people are struggling to maintain dignity under the yoke of the government-backed Arab militiamen, who eat their food, drink their water and lounge under the spare shade of low, twisted trees. . . .

"They beat us, but we treat them like family," added his friend Abdulmalik Ismail. "In our minds, we hate them."

I can't imagine why.

SOUTH AFRICA LOWERS VOICE ON HUMAN RIGHTS:

After just three months as one of the Security Council’s nonpermanent members, South Africa is mired in controversy over what could be its great strength: the moral weight it can bring to diplomatic deliberations.

In January, South Africa surprised many, and outraged some, when it voted against allowing the Security Council to consider a relatively mild resolution on human rights issues in Myanmar, whose government is widely seen as one of the most repressive on earth.

Last week the government again angered human rights advocates when it said it would oppose a request to brief the Security Council on the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe, where the government is pursuing a violent crackdown on its only political opposition. South Africa later changed its stance, but only after dismissing the briefing as a minor event that did not belong on the Council’s agenda.

This week South Africa endangered a delicate compromise among nations often at odds — the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany — to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.

Thabo Mbeki is a typical African leader, and he has been busily turning South Africa into a typical African nation, marked by support for other thugocracies, a paranoid, unscientific AIDS policy and support for the murderous Mugabe regime. That doesn't leave much room for moral exceptionalism.

THE MOST EXPENSIVE THINGS ON AMAZON: This one is pretty outrageous. So is this. But it's all part of the Internet's rich diversity! (Via BoingBoing).

BILL ROGGIO on Waziristan: "Predictably, the Pakistani government used the fighting in Waziristan to make the claim the failed Waziristan Accord is actually working. The Pakistani media campaign was in high gear working to convince the West the fight was about pro-government tribes uprooting foreign Uzbeks." Not so much, he says.

IRANIAN HOSTAGE TAKING: A roundup, at Pajamas Media.

JONAH GOLDBERG: "This is such a stupid, unnecessary scandal. Not since some carny deliberately climbed into a cannon and shot himself at a brick wall has there been a better example of self-inflicted stupidity. Doesn't Gonzales need to spend more time with his family?"

UPDATE: But read this response.

WOW, that dive video I posted the other day has been viewed over 188,000 times.

OH NOOOO: "It's not hard to imagine that the death of the music industry could also mean the death of overproduced boy bands and Britney Spears knockoffs."

But what about Baumol's cost disease?

ALL THE BEST COWBOYS have Chinese eyes.

STILL MORE Fred Thompson talk.

SO I SAW A SATURN AURA at the mall last night, and I have to say that it's a very attractive car -- especially the interior fit and fiinish, which has been a perennial GM weak point. The materials aren't especially expensive, but they're very well put together, and very tastefully done. (Good taste shouldn't cost more.) I don't know how good a car it is -- it won an award at the Detroit Auto Show, but the Popular Mechanics folks were a bit lukewarm -- but I thought the look of the interior was really, really good for the price, on the level of an Infiniti or some more upscale brand. Maybe there's hope for GM after all. There's going to be a hybrid version.

Because Saturn's website is lamely Flash-dependent, I can't link to any pictures directly, but if you go here and look though the photo gallery you can see what I'm talking about.

UPDATE: Reader William Girardot emails:

Perhaps you didn’t intend to, but you seemed to pooh-pooh the award won by the Saturn Aura this year. The Car of the Year award is not just “an award” but is the award most coveted by the automobile manufacturers. It reflects the judgment of 48 automobile journalists who in years past seemed to routinely confer the award on the Toyota and Hondas of the world. Here in Detroit, we are very proud that Saturn won the award (and that Chevrolet took Truck of the Year). For a city that continues to suffer so terribly we at least want the enjoy the small props we earn…

I didn't mean to pooh-pooh. I've been disappointed with Saturn in recent years, but this car looks really good. I'm going to try to post some pics and video later. Hey, maybe I'll even try to drive one.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Brian Weigand emails:

I read your post on the Aura. It is sweet-looking. As part of my job, I test-drove one of these over the summer (just another day in the salt mines). The driving experience lived up to the looks. The model I tried had shifting paddles on the steering wheel, ala Formula One. Very fun. It seemed to be that you got a lot of car for under $30k.

It seemed that way to me, too. Contrary to some readers who've accused me of having it in for the domestic car industry, I've actually been wanting them to succeed. It's just that they haven't given me a lot to work with.

UPDATE: Video posted here, background here.

RAND SIMBERG is blogging from the Space Access Conference.

IT'S A MONSTER MEDIA MASHUP at AirCongress.

March 23, 2007

SAY NO TO PORK: Just watched John Stossel's profile of Tom Coburn on 20/20.

A LIST OF THE MOST UNDERRATED LAW SCHOOLS in America. So is it better to be under-rated, or over-rated? Which would you rather be?

AHMADINEJAD CANCELS HIS U.N. APPEARANCE: I suspect he was taken by surprise by the kidnapping of the British.

IRAQPUNDIT: Sadr in splinters?

PRO-PORK AND PRO-DEFEAT: Austin Bay calls the Democratic Congress's action a double-barrelled shame, and he's right.

UPDATE: Don Surber observes: "If Pelosi wants to be commander-in-chief, let her run for president. Otherwise, today’s vote was a bayonet stabbed in the back of every American troop in Iraq."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Thoughts on what it means, from The Mudville Gazette.

Also The Kung Pao Congress: "Given the pork spent today on shrimp, spinach, and peanuts, this seems like the right way to refer to the new House majority."

MORE: John Hinderaker: "I think it has become clear to pretty much everyone that the Democrats want defeat in Iraq in order to advance their political agenda."

STILL MORE: The troops prepare for being defunded.

MORE STILL: Indeed: "Funny, I used to think there wasn't that much difference between Republicans and Democrats."

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: America needs more Boing Boing Economics!

A CAMEO FROM AHMADINEJAD: Heh.

GEORGE WILL ON RENT-SEEKING:

This is done in the name of "professionalization," but it really amounts to cartelization. Persons in the business limit access by others -- competitors -- to full participation in the business.

Being able to control the number of one's competitors, and to dispense the pleasure of status, is nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you have a legislature willing to enact "titling laws." They regulate -- meaning restrict -- the use of job descriptions. Such laws often are precursors of occupational licensing, which usually means a mandatory credentialing process to control entry into a profession with a particular title.

In Nevada, such regulation has arrived. So in Las Vegas, where almost nothing is illegal, it is illegal -- unless you are licensed, or employed by someone licensed -- to move, in the role of an interior designer, any piece of furniture, such as an armoire, that is more than 69 inches tall. A Nevada bureaucrat says that "placement of furniture" is an aspect of "space planning" and therefore is regulated -- restricted to a "registered interior designer."

Read the whole thing. The Institute for Justice has done great work challenging these kinds of restrictions, but it's a case of baling the ocean with a teacup.

VIACOM IS BEING SUED BY MOVEON.ORG, over its demanding removal of a parody on YouTube. Slashdot has more, and observes: "Couple this with the iFilm fiasco reported earlier, and you have to question how a company like Viacom can cry foul when it can't even accurately account for its own copyrighted material."

Reading the original story, it's not clear who's in the right, but I like the idea of Big Media companies facing pushback when they try to get things taken down that aren't clearly infringing. Chilling effects can work both ways . . . .

Here's more from Ars Technica. And it seems to me that some chilling is in order, as suits over parodies seem to be getting out of hand.

HERE'S A LENGTHY BIG PICTURE POST from Michael Yon. It's beyond excerpting, but I'll excerpt this bit: "I’ve been back in Iraq now for about three months, and sadly have to report that, despite signs of progress in many key areas of the battle space, the conditions on the media/military front have not improved since early 2005. . . . One overarching message from the front is that our combat forces are overwhelmingly good to the Iraqis and extremely accommodating to media, but there is a deeper substrate. We simply cannot beat the terrorists if we do not learn how to embrace media realities. With all the focus on training Iraqi Security Forces, it might be worth considering training our own team, too." As I said yesterday, someone with a clue in the White House or the Pentagon needs to intervene.

UPDATE: Rick Richman emails:

Glenn -- Thank you for the link to Michael Yon’s remarkable post. You were correct that it defies summarization, and needs to be read in its entirety, but I think your brief excerpt may obscure an equally important point closer to the end of the post:

“[I]t bears frequent reminding that General Petraeus has won complex battles before in Iraq. He is extremely open with the media, and nobody with PhD from Princeton would invite a bunch of writers to document an historical fight he plans to lose. He’s invited press to a process he aims to resolve.”

COMMENTARY has posted a forthcoming article from its April issue by Arthur Herman, entitled “How to Win in Iraq -- and How to Lose.” The article sets forth General Petraeus’s new strategy and makes it clear it is far beyond a simple increase in troop levels. The article provides considerable insight into the reasons Petraeus wants the media around.

Thanks.

A NAVAL BLOCKADE OF IRAN would be a traditional response but I doubt we'll see that.

IN THE MAIL: Neal Boortz's new book.

They're also still pushing his "Fair Tax" book. My first thought was that it's less likely to fly in a Democratic Congress. But given the performance of the GOP Congress I'm not sure that's really true. And maybe there's a Nixon-goes-to-China angle on this . . . .

A EUROPEAN POLITICIAN WORRIES: "Political correctness is killing our freedoms." Read the whole thing.

OUCH: "Dennis Hastert is looking more competent by the hour."

POLYGAMY IN NEW YORK CITY: Interesting report. This would be dealt with more effectively in a non-multicultural framework, I suspect. (Via Ann Althouse).

XENI JARDIN HAS MORE on imprisoned Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman.

MORE TALK ABOUT FRED THOMPSON.

INSPIRED BY THE SECRET, Phil Bowermaster tries an experiment. Somebody should ask Ryan O'Neal . . . .

HEH: '"When Democrats say "We support the troops",' Rep. Pelosi said, 'these are the troops we’re talking about.'"

UPDATE: More from Jules Crittenden.

IS THE WESTERN WORLD GIVING UP ON WAR? And is that such a good thing after all?

UPDATE: Eric Scheie says it's not.

THE EXAMINER: "Why can’t Washington politicians level with the American people, particularly when they are about to raise our taxes? That question is posed regularly on this page and it is addressed as directly and as often to Republicans as to Democrats. When the Democrats won a resounding victory last November in great part because they promised to clean up the corruption in the nation’s capital, we hoped there would be fewer occasions to justify repeating the question. If hope is the father of optimism, then the Democrats in charge of Congress are about to inspire a lot of pessimism."

UPDATE: A challenge to politicians to put up or shut up.

WHY CD SALES ARE PLUMMETING: The music industry blames piracy, but other factors -- from the ability to just buy the songs you like, and not a CD full of filler, to competition from other things like games and the Internet, to the fact that releases tend to suck more than they used to -- seem more significant.

It occurs to me that the media sectors that are doing badly -- movies, music, newspapers, TV women's shows -- seem to be the most highly politicized, while the sectors that are doing well, like games, aren't. I'd be interested to see more analysis on that subject.

UPDATE: On newspapers: "Newspapers are powerful. Or were. Many of the big guys — the LA Times, NY Times and the old Knight-Ridder newspapers — put people in charge who could not handle the power. That the real problem here." That probably applies across the board, actually.

LIFE IMITATING ART IMITATING LIFE -- imitating politics.

DEAN BARNETT on Elizabeth Edwards. A must-read.

LIVEBLOGGING AL GORE'S An Inconvenient Truth.

I wonder how this would compare?

March 22, 2007

NOT AS HARD TO FIND AS WALDO.

ED MORRISSEY EMAILED to ask why I hadn't posted any Cayman dive pictures. Well, I've done that before. But here's something better, a dive video. I didn't shoot this -- in fact, you can see me in it with the black split fins, yellow mask, and yellow "spare air" cylinder on my chest. It was shot by Kaz Vickery of Ocean Frontiers Diving, who's a terrific underwater videographer and who was happy to have me post a bit online. (I replaced his very nice music with Mobius Dick's Submarine on Europa just to be sure there were no issues with the music permissions.) All of this was done in Adobe Premier Pro, and it took me about 30 minutes to put this together from the much longer video he shot.

He shoots everything in 1080i HD, but of course, that won't matter here. If you'd like something a bit clearer than the MotionBox video below, though, you can download the video in 512kbps WMV by clicking here. This dive was on Grand Cayman's East End, where as you can see the reefs and sealife are in excellent condition.

UPDATE: Reader Robert Ayers emails:

Thanks for the video of the Cayman diving.

As a relatively new diver (cert a year ago, 70 dives ranging from Little Cayman to Fiji) I have never even *seen* a spare air on a diver. I understand the game, but have never seen one.

You might blog sometime on your decision ...

That's a fair amount of diving in one year! Here's the Spare Air page. It's basically a small air tank with its own regulator, enough to let you make a leisurely ascent to the surface if your main air supply goes bad. Its main role is as wife-comforter, but if you lose a high-pressure hose or O-ring you've got about 45 seconds before you're out of air from the main tank, which is enough time to get to your buddy and share air, but not a lot more. I've seen a high-pressure hose go for no apparent reason before, though it's not common. I don't know how many divers use spare air -- I've seen a few others, and even one guy who dove with a "pony tank" (much bigger, though still smaller than a regular tank) and separate regulator as a spare. Dive equipment is quite reliable, and seldom fails catastrophically. On the other hand, the spare air gadget isn't very expensive (you'd certainly pay more than that for air if you happened to need it!) and it's a gadget, which as you may have noticed I'm disposed to like.

And here's an interesting blog entry on out-of-air situations. Meanwhile, if you're interested in diving don't let this talk discourage you. Emergencies, especially due to equipment failure, are very rare. And as the video illustrates -- though it's a pale shadow of reality --- there's a lot of natural beauty to enjoy. Plus, as I've noted before, I think that diving encourages people to care about the environment.

Also, there's more dive video -- from my rebreather story for Popular Mechanics -- here.

LOSING THE MEDIA WAR, ONE GENERAL AT A TIME: Michael Yon reports that a general is trying to get him thrown out of Iraq. Austin Bay is rightly upset.

Jeez. Can somebody at the Pentagon or White House with a clue intervene here?

We interviewed Michael Yon from Baghdad yesterday -- here's the podcast.

MORE ON THE L. A. TIMES SCANDAL, from Mickey Kaus.

UPDATE: More problems for the LAT here.

THIS IS NEWS:

Dozens of grand jury subpoenas issued in a terrorism financing investigation of Muslim charities in northern Virginia have spawned a largely secret legal battle before a federal appeals court, according to court records and a person close to the investigation.

Read the whole thing.

LOOKS LIKE THE FCC WON'T ALLOW in-flight use of cellphones on planes after all. I don't know what I think about that, but I definitely agree with the people who say that in-flight broadband Internet is more important. It is to me, anyway!

ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES A HERO: Or something like that: "It really can't be both, can it? That Mr. Edwards would have been heroic for dropping out, and that he's also a hero for carrying on?"

UPDATE: Reader Larry Stamper emails:

While these assertions of heroism may seem contradictory, you do see a wide range of reactions by the families of cancer victims. Often these reactions are called courageous by those that care about them, though one case may seem at odds with another. It's just that in this case the same persons are involved. I think the thing to get out of this is that dealing with cancer requires courage, and people who care will find a way encourage them.

Good point. It's just the ability of commentators to turn on a rhetorical dime that he's making fun of.

SEND HOYERS, GUNS AND MONEY: Things in the House don't seem to be going well for the Democrats, but at least Mortman's getting good titles out of it.

MICHAEL BARONE looks at the polls for the presidential race.

TESTDRIVING THE AIRBUS A380: It's a probably-irredeemable financial disaster, but it's apparently a pretty cool plane.

LONDON BOMBING UPDATE:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Three men have been arrested in connection with the July 7, 2005, bomb attacks on the London transport network, British police said in a statement.

Two men, aged 23 and 30, were arrested at Manchester airport in northern England shortly before 1 p.m. GMT on Thursday as they were due to catch a flight to Pakistan, New Scotland Yard said.

A third man, aged 26, was arrested hours later at a house in Leeds. Police were searching five addresses in the Leeds area, the statement said.

"The three men were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000," it read.

Pakistan. It just keeps coming up.

STILL "INSURGENTS" after all these years.

MORE FINANCIAL TROUBLES for the Boston Globe.

WRITING ABOUT THE "NO IMPACT" LIFESTYLE: "I hope that book isn't going to be printed on, you know, paper."

ELIZABETH EDWARDS' CANCER HAS COME BACK, but the Edwards campaign will continue. Please send Elizabeth Edwards your best wishes for a full recovery.

LOSING FAITH in the Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE: More here: "I suppose this would be a bad time to bring up former Times editor and Martinez mentor John Carroll's pompous lecture on the rise and dangers of pseudo-journalism."

JAMES LILEKS DEFENDS GARRISON KEILLOR against charges of anti-gay bigotry. Somehow I had missed this kerfuffle.

IN THE MAIL: Hugh Hewitt's new book, A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney.

Shockingly, not all of them involve his religion.

MORE PORK PUSHBACK:

An Iraq spending bill Congress will vote on Thursday has an Eagle Mountain mother angry, but not about war spending. The huge, 124.1 billion dollar appropriation bill also contains billions of dollars in spending that has nothing to do with the war. . . .

"I understand this is the way our legislature works, but I think it's just sickening," Michelle Matthews of Eagle Mountain told ABC 4 News. She's upset because one of the earmarks reimburses California spinach farmers $25 million for losses they suffered. The losses came when they were unable to sell their crops last fall after Americans got sick and died from e-coli bacteria in a batch of tainted spinach.

Some of that spinach found its way to the Matthew's dinner table. Michelle got sick, but her daughter, Arabella, almost died. Arabella was just two-years-old when she came down with e-coli. She spent nine days at Primary Children's Hospital, had an operation and was on kidney dialysis.

The Matthews have about $60,000 in medical bills now, mostly covered by insurance. She says the family has been assured the spinach grower's insurance company would pay the bills, but no money has arrived. Then Mrs. Matthews read that the spinach farmers stand to gain $25 million from the Iraq war spending bill.

"To reimburse them for making people ill is just inappropriate," Mrs. Matthews said. "It's insane that my tax dollars and the tax dollars of my family are going to pay these spinach farmers for their bad spinach for things that were their fault in the first place."

Bailing out an industry that makes children sick, with taxpayer dollars! Now that's smart politics!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: USA Today editorializes:

With the House poised to vote as early as today on a $124.1 billion budget bill that would end U.S. involvement in Iraq next year, you'd think House leaders would let such a critical decision ride strictly on its merits.

But Democrats are having trouble rounding up votes for the measure. So the leaders are trying to buy votes the old-fashioned way — by luring wavering members with billions of dollars for parochial projects.

These range from providing "risk mitigation" at Mississippi's Stennis Space Center to storage fees for peanut farmers in Georgia.

It's hard to say which is worse: leaders offering peanuts for a vote of this magnitude, or members allowing their votes to be bought for peanuts. These provisions demean a bill that, if enacted, would affect the lives of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the balance of power in the Middle East and America's long-term security.

The provisions also violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the new majority's promise to cut back on "earmarks" — provisions slipped into bills that direct your tax dollars to a specific locale or politically favored project.

Last January, as soon as Democrats took control of Congress, the House passed new rules designed to curb earmarks, which had exploded under years of Republican rule. Yet here they go again, just 10 weeks later, including an assortment of dubious expenditures in "emergency" legislation to finance the war in Iraq and the wider war on terror. . . .

A spinach emergency? A peanut storage emergency?

Please.

Such arguments ignore what voters, fed up with corruption and ethical lapses, wanted when they threw Republicans out in November and helped Democrats take control of Congress.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Here's a big roundup of the pork that's included in this bill.

MORE: Ed Morrissey emails:

Isn't it interesting that the Democrats -- who ran on an anti-corruption, anti-war platform -- now offer us a porked-up supplemental to fund the Iraq war?

Low as my expectations tend to be, they're once again going unmet. . . .

And that the war isn't a winning issue for the Dems is demonstrated by their eagerness -- actually "desperation" is a better word -- to get it off the table before November of 2008.

"GONZO-GATE"?

Shouldn't there be a bat involved? "The bat is my attorney general, Carl Laszlo."

UPDATE: Don Surber responds: "Just my marketing strategy for my book, Fear and Loathing in Poca.” It'll sell!

A FEW FRINGE ACTORS in the anti-war movement.

A STUDENT REBELLION IN RUSSIA:

The New York Times reports today that a group of students calling themselves "OD" (that's their logo above) at Russia's version of Harvard, Moscow State University, is actively engaged in a protest against shoddy teaching standards and virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism at their college.

Maybe it'll spread to San Francisco State University . . . .

IN THE PAST I'VE MENTIONED THE INDEPENDENT FILM BURNING ANNIE, which I liked very much. It's now available on DVD. Here's a trailer:

MICKEY KAUS has updated his compact fluorescent bulb post, and I'm pretty sure his problem is the dimmer switches. But as a CFL booster, I found this observation rather troubling: "Note the hectoring get-with-the-program, you're-an-idiot-if-you-flicker, there-is-no-more-debate tone of some of the Fluorescers."

It's just a light bulb, people, not a moral crusade. I think that there must be a genetically programmed desire for moral crusading, hardwired into various people to various degrees. If you don't have religious stuff to crusade about, then you just make up something else to satisfy the need. But . . . light bulbs?

240 YEARS IN JAIL, for a hate crime.

UPDATE: Reader Patrick Hajovsky emails: "I think you got wrapped up in the headline. Attempted murder and assault are among the charges." Er, yes. That's what's odd about the headline.

HOW AFRICAN LEADERS protect Robert Mugabe.

And read this piece by Austin Bay, too.

March 21, 2007

BURNING U.S. SOLDIERS IN EFFIGY, in Portland, Oregon.

"Anti-war?" Or just on the other side? Your call.

UPDATE: Read this, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Video here.

MORE: It's all because of frustration.

DANIEL DREZNER: "I'm simply more pessimistic about Europe's ability to alter its domestic institutions and overcome its long-term demographics to continue to rise. The EU has staved off this problem in part by increasing expansion, but the fact is they're going to be running out of viable countries soon."

Me, I worry that Claire Berlinski got it right. (More on that here.) Question: Who's willing to die for the EU? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Okay, forget that. Who's even willing to take a 10% cut in pension benefits . . . .?

A BETTER POLITICIAN THAN WRITER? Claire Berlinski on Nicolas Sarkozy.

THE POLITICAL OPERATIVE BEHIND THE HILLARY 1984 YOUTUBE AD has been revealed, and it's about who you'd expect: "a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama."

IT'S A DUMB IDEA ON EITHER COAST: A proposal to ban incandescent bulbs in North Carolina.

UPDATE: Or maybe it's an effort to boost a North Carolina business! Thanks to reader Daniel Moore for the tip.

CAMPAIGNING AGAINST SHOPPING? Not a winning platform for 2008.

HEH:

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma asked Gore to pledge to reduce his personal home energy to the national average within a year.

That was in reaction to reports of Gore’s large utility bill at his Nashville home.

Gore responded that he lives a “carbon neutral life” by buying carbon offsets to compensate for his energy use.

Inhoffe called the offsets “gimmicks” used by the wealthy.

That may be too strong, but they don't sit well with moralistic messianic crusading. There's more here:

Former Vice President Al Gore refused to take a “Personal Energy Ethics Pledge” today to consume no more energy than the average American household. The pledge was presented to Gore by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, during today’s global warming hearing.

Senator Inhofe showed Gore a film frame from “An Inconvenient Truth” where it asks viewers: “Are you ready to change the way you live?”

It has been reported that many of these so-called carbon offset projects would have been done anyway. Also, carbon offset projects such as planting trees can take decades or even a century to sequester the carbon emitted today. So energy usage today results in greenhouse gases remaining in the atmosphere for decades, even with the purchase of so-called carbon offsets.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people who adore you and would follow your example by reducing their energy usage if you did. Don’t give us the run-around on carbon offsets or the gimmicks the wealthy do,” Senator Inhofe told Gore.

“Are you willing to make a commitment here today by taking this pledge to consume no more energy for use in your residence than the average American household by one year from today?” Senator Inhofe asked.

A gimmick? Yes. A stunt? Yes. But it's one that Gore has opened himself up to. That's the problem with moralistic, messianic crusading -- people expect you to live up to it.

CATHY SEIPP HAS DIED. May she rest in peace, and may her friends and family get through this period as well as can be.

Susan Estrich has a fine remembrance, here.

UPDATE: Here's more in the Los Angeles Times.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Matt Welch remembers Cathy. So does Virginia Postrel.

TALIBAN VS. AL QAEDA? That's a "cycle of violence" I could live with.

UPDATE: Bill Roggio has more.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Cardinal Mahoney must go.

The Glenn and Helen Show: Michael Yon Reports on the Surge

The surge is well underway in Iraq, and by some reports it's already making a big difference. We contacted the blogosphere's man-on-the-spot in Baghdad, Michael Yon, by satellite phone, and got his take on how things are going. Some important bits: The dispersal of troops out of big bases and into Iraqi neighborhoods has had a big impact -- somewhat like the "community policing" approach in New York and elsewhere -- and is generating a lot more intelligence and assistance from ordinary Iraqis. "Just being there makes a huge difference," says Yon. But don't expect overnight results: "The surge itself will go on well past summer," and it'll be Fall before we can tell if the trends are good or bad.

Listen to the whole thing -- he's also got some interesting takes on changing tactics and changing press coverage. You can stream the file by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player, or you can download the file directly by clicking right here. There's a lo-fi version suitable for dialup here -- select the lo-fi version -- and, of course, you can subscribe for free via iTunes. Is that a deal, or what?

Music is by Mobius Dick. This podcast was brought to you by Volvo Motors -- buy a Volvo today and tell 'em it's all because of the Glenn and Helen Show!

And as always, my lovely and talented cohost is taking comments and suggestions.

BARACK OBAMA: More nuanced than the Economist item I linked below suggests.

NOSTALGIA ACT: Bobby Seale is selling Black Panther posters. They're kind of ugly and black-and-white.

I can, however, vouch for his barbecue cookbook, Barbeque'n with Bobby. Say what you like, but the man knows his 'cue.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll is tired of '60s nostalgia.

MAPPING WI-FI HOTSPOTS -- including yours:

Just in case the picture isn’t clear, let me paint it for you:

Skyhook’s trucks have been cruising your street, have identified your home wireless router by its unique code that only your home wifi has - and is correlating it with your location using GPS.

And then they put it in a database.

Read the whole thing.

LOOKING AT GUBERNATORIAL INCAPACITY: If your state has an approach that you think is good, drop me a line.

HEY, MINE DON'T FLICKER, but I guess your results may vary:

I recently bought a compact flourescent bulb, the GE brand recommended by Instapundit. I hate it. It flickers constantly. When it's not flickering it fills the room with a depressive, dulling haze. Maybe this is what happened to Courtney Love! It gives me a headache to look at it. ... I've consoled myself with the thought that I'll replace it with a regular bulb when it burns out. Then I realized it won't burn out for five years. I'm replacing it tomorrow. If John Edwards can be live in a 28,000 square-foot mansion, I can have a 100-watt bulb. Populism!

Really, mine don't flicker at all. It's hard to argue with the Edwards point, though.

UPDATE: Reader Jim Armstrong thinks Mickey got a bad bulb:

I have a house full of them and never encountered that problem.

Has the guy ever considered how many times he installs a bum incandescent straight from the pack? AT LEAST one of 8, in my experience; and I have installed many more than 8 CFL's without a problem.

I've had one bad CFL, but it just didn't work at all. None of them flicker, though.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mickey emails that all the switches in his place have dimmers. That's probably it!

DON SURBER HAS EXTENSIVE THOUGHTS on the Gonzales mess.

Meanwhile, Orin Kerr thinks that Bush shouldn't want a showdown with Congress. I'm not so sure. It'll fire up his base, and Congress is polling even worse than he is.

Other folks seem to see it this way too.

IN THE MAIL: Myrna Blyth and Chriss Winston's How to Raise an American: 1776 Fun and Easy Tools, Tips, and Activities to Help Your Child Love This Country.

GROUND VIEWS, from Jules Crittenden.

UPDATE: This post is interesting, too.

THOUGHTS ON STRUCTURING THE RESERVES for a long war.

UPDATE: Check out this podcast with then-Army Secretary Francis Harvey, too. I worried then that Harvey was a bit too optimistic.

BARACK OBAMA: That's not what I didn't say!

ADVERTISING PROBLEMS for The New York Times.

DAVID CORN AND RICHARD MINITER on what's shaking in Washington. It's better than Crossfire!

YES, THAT'S THE ONE: Yesterday's Hill Street Blues reference produced this email from reader Jon Knouse:

Regarding your link to Mr. Goldberg’s piece on betraying the base, it is exactly Hill Street Blues. One of my favorite shows of all time (my father is a retired policeman), and a great episode. Officers Hill and Renko are called to a restaurant that offers an all-you-can-eat salad bar. The owner is upset because a very heavy-set man is literally laying on the buffet picking at all the food with his fingers and a fork, which is driving away other customers.

Hill and Renko say to the guy, “Time’s up buddy, you have to leave.” The guy looks at them and says, “Make me.” Well Hill and Renko look at each other, half shrug and each grabs a hold of the guy. With a one, two, three! Both men endeavor to move the guy, but he doesn’t move one inch!

Priceless.

I remember that. Making the episode better, as I recall, was that Renko was busy worrying about his own weight. It turns out that Hill Street Blues is now out on DVD, and Doug Weinstein thinks it holds up pretty well.

NFL CAUGHT ABUSING THE DMCA: What's worse, they made the mistake of targeting a law professor. Oops!

THOUGHTS ON the press and the Second Amendment.

Read this post, too.

SAY IT AIN'T SO: Cardinal Mahoney lied about sex abuse.

TOM MAGUIRE looks at academia today. Sigh. It's a fair cop.

"IN THE FUTURE, EVERY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE will buy carbon offsets."

And all restaurants will be Taco Bell!

GEE, I WONDER WHY? Congressional job approval is sinking. And it's already lower than Bush's.

IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING: "The FBI is investigating five-year-old contributions by the family of a Mississippi trial lawyer to former Democratic Sen. John Edwards."

CATHY SEIPP OUTRANKS PARIS HILTON. Well, yeah.

SPACEX'S ROCKET MADE IT TO SPACE, but didn't achieve orbit.

THE STATE vs. the family.

BUSINESS CALLS FOR CARBON CAPS: "What they really mean is that they want the government to compel other US companies to consume the low-carbon solutions that they hope to be producing."

March 20, 2007

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Things seem to be going badly on the anti-pork front:

Not yet three months into their first congressional majority since 1994, the Democrats are acting like the Republicans they condemned for fiscal freewheeling.

In the House, lawmakers are considering the Democrats' $124 billion war funding bill that not only includes $21 billion for political pet projects, but also establishes an ill-advised Aug. 31, 2008, deadline for bringing the troops home from Iraq.

The legislation, swollen with $3.7 billion in farm subsidies, is expected to be voted on Thursday. It also includes $500 million for wildfire suppression, $283 million in milk subsidies, $100 million for citrus growers, $75 million for peanut storage, $25 million for spinach growers and $15 million for rice farmers. . . .We clearly remember Democrats during last fall's campaign thundering righteously against Republicans' special-interest spending, as if they had a record of frugality. That drumbeat, as well as the GOP's inability to counter the charges, was in large part responsible for the Democrats' return to power.

Back in power, however, and the Democrats revert to their free-spending ways.

The Democrats talked a good game on pork before taking power. But, then, so did the Republicans.

SAM BROWNBACK unbackslides.

UPDATE: Could this be why?

MORE: I've gotten a number of unhappy emails from soldiers about the Rules of Engagement in Iraq, so this bit is notable, I think:

Rules of engagement (ROE), highly criticized as being too restrictive and sometimes endangering our troops, have been "clarified." "There were unintended consequences with ROE for too long," Petraeus acknowledged. Because of what junior leaders perceived as too harsh punishment meted out to troops acting in the heat of battle, the ROE issued from the top commanders were second-guessed and made more restrictive by some on the ground. The end result was unnecessary - even harmful - restrictions placed on the troops in contact with the enemy.

"I've made two things clear," Petraeus emphasized: "My ROE may not be modified with supplemental guidance lower down. And I've written a letter to all Coalition forces saying 'your chain-of-command will stay with you.' I think that solved the issue."

Read the whole thing.

MAYBE NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: "Democrats Split on Iraq Bill; Even Vote Counters Aren't Lined Up Behind Spending Measure."

Quick: More pork-bribes!

I MISSED THIS YESTERDAY, but here's Richard Posner on the FBI and terrorism:

Is it the case that the FBI is "incapable of effective counterterrorism," as an editorial in this newspaper wondered? Does the country need "to debate again whether domestic antiterror functions should be taken from the FBI and given to a new agency modeled after Britain's MI5"?

The answer to both questions is yes.

Click "read more" for a longer excerpt.

Read More ?

IRAQI TRIBES BATTLE AL QAEDA: 39 terrorists killed.

A LOOK AT DIFFERENT airline customer experiences. (Via Mark Frauenfelder).

I learned all about Delta's.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE A DIPLOMATIC SUCCESS: Russia pulls plug on Iranian reactor. Let's hope it stays pulled.

BUMPER STICKERS as personality tests.

A MORE-OR-LESS HAPPY ENDING AT SFSU, but I agree with Eugene Volokh:

If SFSU responded to an allegation that some group had insulted the President, or opposed the war, or criticized Christianity, by putting them through an extended investigation and a hearing, I take it we'd be quite troubled even if ultimately SFSU exonerated the students. The same should apply if the allegation is that the group trampled on the name of Allah.

Once again, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education was involved, which probably helps to account for the outcome. I don't think I've mentioned them lately, but they do excellent work.

A MODEST CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY in New Jersey.

SHUTTING DOWN THE INTERESTING STUFF at NASA?

LAOBSERVED has video of the Airbus A380 arrival in L.A.. "It's coming here two years late -- talk about a travel delay."

That's worse than I had with Delta.

JOHN TIERNEY LOOKS AT RAT LAUGHTER: With bonus rat-tickling video!

THERE'S A DRAFT FRED THOMPSON COMMITTEE, which includes my local congressman, Jimmy Duncan.

STAYING POSITIVE at the Obama campaign.

BECAUSE IT WORKED SO WELL FOR THEM LAST TIME: A look at Iraq, Democrats, and the return of McGovernism.

THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION, from Megan McArdle.

SOME POLLING LESSONS for James Carville, from Gallup's Frank Newport.

AN UNSYMPATHETIC LOOK AT CHICAGO'S HANDGUN BAN, in the Chicago Tribune.

And read this editorial, too.

BUYING VOTES AGAINST THE WAR, in Congress. But don't question their patriotism -- they're just for sale on this subject like they are on everything else!

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Hawn emails: "Coalition of the bribed! I heard that somewhere, once." Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mobilizing in opposition. Count me in, as this involves two things I don't like -- playing defeatist politics with the war, and pork-barrel spending.

MORE: Indeed: "Um… I thought the Democrats had a 'mandate' on Iraq? Why do they need to buy votes?"

IN THE MAIL: A.J. Venter's new book, Allah's Bomb: The Islamic Quest for Nuclear Weapons. Looks like worrisome reading.

YESTERDAY'S DISCUSSION of how courts are citing law review articles less and less often -- especially damning given the exploding number of law reviews, and the growth in caseloads -- produced a number of interesting points, including this post by Eugene Volokh on whether law professors should even care whether their articles are cited by courts.

I would say that the answer depends on how wide your focus is. Whether any particular article is cited by courts doesn't matter much, and many articles aren't really suitable for court citation. My Columbia Law Review piece on chaos theory and the evolution of Supreme Court doctrine, for example, isn't the sort of thing that a judge would cite, but I think it was kind of a neat little piece. Likewise, this piece on "penumbral reasoning" as employed by right-leaning judges isn't likely to be cited much, except perhaps in a separate opinion by a left-leaning judge who wants to get a shot in.

Other stuff's different. Some of my Second Amendment writing -- like this piece -- has been cited by courts because it's straightforward doctrinal analysis. (This piece, too). It all depends on what you write, and what winds up in courts.

But for the legal-academic profession as a whole, the decline is worrisome, because it does suggest that we're talking to ourselves, and not producing insights that people outside the legal-academic profession care about very much. (I suppose that lots of people other than judges could be devouring law reviews eagerly -- er, but how likely is that, really?) So I do think that we should take it as a warning sign that legal academia is getting too divorced from legal practice, and revisit our work -- and our curricula -- with that in mind. I'm all for writing interesting stuff of no particular judicial application -- otherwise I wouldn't write about chaos theory or evolutionary biology -- but I do try to mix things up and also address doctrinal issues at times.

Ultimately, legal education is about the practice of law. I don't think it's bad that academics write about things beyond this narrow focus, but it's worrisome when the profession as a whole is looking this disconnected from the real world.

BONG HITS FOR JESUS: Ann Althouse has a big post on this case. I don't think that schools have any business regulating student speech outside of school. The notion that schools can punish out-of-school speech that "undermines" (that is, disagrees with) the school's message is creepily totalitarian, and in my opinion any principal who thinks this way is unfit to hold the job.

HOW BEIRUT POLICE FINGERED SYRIA in the Hariri assassination.

JONAH GOLDBERG ON BETRAYING THE BASE:

The GOP grew sweaty and bloated like a fat man at an all-you-can-eat pasta bar, and the voters were right to pry the Republicans' white-knuckled grip from the hot table's sneeze guard.

So here's the ironic part. Suddenly, it looks as if the Democrats are the Republicans on fast-forward.

Read the whole thing. And is it just me, or is the pasta-bar analogy reminiscent of an old episode of Hill Street Blues . . . .

MOHAMMED FADHIL reports from Baghdad.

LIBERTARIANISM -- ITS PAST AND PROSPECTS: An interesting discussion over at Cato Unbound.

FIGHTING MALARIA with malaria-resistant mosquitoes.

DELTA AND ME: Okay, my various cryptic references to Delta have people wanting the whole story. It is, sadly, typical.

I left Knoxville headed for Grand Cayman on Sunday morning a week ago. I was connecting in Atlanta to a flight scheduled to depart at 10:20 a.m. Just before boarding, the counter folks announced that the flight was overbooked (by 22 seats!) and started bumping people. I was one of them. There were no other available flights, and I wound up spending the night in Atlanta and taking the next day's flight at 10:20 a.m. That cost me a full day of time in Grand Cayman. Delta gave me $400 and three meal vouchers for $7 each. I did not feel adequately compensated for losing, effectively, one fourth of my stay.

Well, airlines overbook, and people get bumped. But this degree of overbooking on a flight at the crowded spring break season seems way excessive to me. And worst of all was the attitude of the Delta employees at the counter that morning. They gave the impression of actually enjoying the process of delivering the bad news -- including the supervisor whom I asked to speak with. I've been flying Delta since I was three years old, and my experiences with them have generally been good, but this experience makes me understand why they're doing so badly, and not care very much what happens to them. Airlines have a lot of problems to deal with that make flights late sometimes, like this past weekend's blizzards, and I have considerable sympathy with them when those come up. But after this I don't trust Delta to do its best, and I think it's important to trust people you're hiring to get you somewhere on time and in one piece.

EXTREMIST STUDENTS TAKE OVER MOSQUE: And I'll bet there's Saudi money behind this stuff.

OOPS: Magazine publishers see future, but no profit, in shift to Internet.

ALBERTO GONZALES appears to have accomplished what once seemed impossible -- making people nostalgic for John Ashcroft. Now The Politico reports that the White House is looking for replacements.

Should've listened to me when I was recommending Randy Barnett!

IT'S AN IRAQ Q & A over at Tim Blair's.

March 19, 2007

ANOTHER BUSH LIE? But I thought "more troops" were what we needed! (Via Kaus).

AIRBUS LANDING COVERAGE, with video. Plus this: "The plane has cost the European aircraft manufacturer $16 billion to build and each plane carries a list price of around $300 million, although current customers are reportedly getting steep discounts to compensate them for the production problems, brought on mainly by wiring woes."

EUGENE VOLOKH: "So the question is: Should the university let the thugs drive debate on important and controversial issues off the university campus? I think the answer is that it should not."

If it does, of course, it's sending a signal: Be a thug, and we'll reward you. It shouldn't be surprised if people it dislikes seize the opportunity to control speech on its campus.

FRED THOMPSON ON the Iranian reaction to 300.

PRIORITIES IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY: It kind of reminds me of th