April 07, 2007

IT WASN'T WARM AND SUNNY like when I visited them last Easter, but we attended the (much shorter, much colder, and much more bundled-up) neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt anyway. (Sorry, no picture of me with the Easter Bunny this time around, either). But here's a picture of my lovely new niece Ojie as the Easter Bunny.

And below is a sketch of me by my 2-year-old nephew William. Not a bad likeness!

ANOTHER ZOGBY POLL CONTROVERSY.

MICKEY KAUS: "Why exactly was the resolution of the latest Iran hostage crisis a 'success' for Iran and a 'humiliation' for Britain, as the hawkish Charles Krauthammer argues (and Geoffrey Wheatcroft insinuates but doesn't quite come out and say in his own voice, as opposed to John Bolton's)? The hostages were released in a one-day propaganda stunt, maybe in exchange for the release of an Iranian we were holding and Iranian visitation rights for some others. But the Iranians were also looking at an awful lot of aircraft carriers steaming around their neighborhood. Didn't they blink? If that's humiliation, it's not far from what a U.S.-U.K. victory in the crisis would look like."

LADY VOLS FANS DEFEND RUTGERS from Don Imus's slurs. I had missed Imus's slurs, but then, I miss most of what Imus does.

UPDATE: More on Imus here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Much more on Imus, from RadioEqualizer. Conclusion: "Had this been an isolated incident for Imus, who turns 67 this year, he might have a chance at salvaging his career. With one recent flap after another, however, it's time for this over- the- hill talker to hang up his headphones."

BILL FRIST COMMENTS on Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and national security.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg on Pelosi's trip and suggestions that it might have been illegal: "It seems to me that if the Bush administration was clever, the president would magnanimously issue a preemptive pardon to Madam Speaker . . . . But, of course, the Bush administration isn't noted for cleverness."

Nope.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More reactions to Pelosi here.

FRED THOMPSON IS POSTING AT REDSTATE.

I GUESS THIS WILL PUT A CAP ON THE OUTSOURCING-TO-BANGALORE TREND: India high-tech industry out of workers:

Nearly two decades into India's phenomenal growth as an international center for high technology, the industry has a problem: It's running out of workers.

There may be a lot of potential -- Indian schools churn out 400,000 new engineers, the core of the high-tech industry, every year -- but as few as 100,000 are actually ready to join the job world, experts say.

Instead, graduates are leaving universities that are mired in theory classes, and sometimes so poorly funded they don't have computer labs. Even students from the best colleges can be dulled by cram schools and left without the most basic communication skills, according to industry leaders.

So the country's voracious high-tech companies, desperate for ever-increasing numbers of staffers to fill their ranks, have to go hunting.

"The problem is not a shortage of people," said Mohandas Pai, human resources chief for Infosys Technologies, the software giant that built and runs the Mysore campus for its new employees. "It's a shortage of trained people."

Lots of people in India. But not enough people with the right skills. Just like, well, everywhere.

MISERABLE COLD THROUGHOUT THE REGION, explained. I figured it was something like that . . . .

ORIN KERR: "I also have some doubts about the second unzipping."

Follow the link for evidence that the context of a quotation really does matter. . . .

A LOOK AT taxation and virtual worlds.

MORE WORLD WAR II STORIES FOR KIDS, at the Books for Kids Blog.

SENDING THE SWAT TEAM after tomato plants.

COOKWARE UPDATE: I mentioned a while back that we had gotten the George Foreman grill with dishwasher-safe removable plates, and so far it's turned out very well: Easy to clean, and easy to use. The Insta-Daughter has put in the flat plates to make pancakes a few times, but otherwise we mostly use it as a Panini press. That's easy, quick, and makes you feel like you're getting something special. Tell the family you're serving sandwiches for dinner and it sounds lame, but tell 'em you're making Paninis and it sounds fancy!

UPDATE: Dean Barnett emails: "Absolutely right! It also does a nice job on salmon steaks."

ANOTHER BAD REVIEW FOR PELOSI, in Lebanon's Daily Star:

We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus." Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.

Pelosi embarked on a fool's errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad - when she wasn't on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni - is "the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah." What the speaker doesn't seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria's enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, Robert F. Turner thinks that Pelosi's trip may have been illegal. Turner comments: "The administration isn't going to want to touch this political hot potato, nor should it become a partisan issue. Maybe special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, whose aggressive prosecution of Lewis Libby establishes his independence from White House influence, should be called back."

"UNTERMENSCHEN:" He's right. That's how they seem to think.

UPDATE: Reader Ted Clayton emails: "Perhaps you could specify who "they" refers to. "

As you can see from reading the linked item, it refers to those allegedly-progressive Westerners who refuse to hold non-Westerners to the same moral standards applied to, say, America and Britain. That should be obvious to, well, anyone who's paying attention.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Drew Kelley writes: 'I am shocked, shocked, to find prejudice among our "best and brightest'." The descent of the "progressives" into racist double-standards is an old story, but it's still one that bears pointing out now and then.

GOOGLE LAUNCHES A FREE 411 SERVICE.

ABC NEWS WANTS TO HEAR your firearms self-defense story for an episode of 20/20 on guns and self-defense.

April 06, 2007

IN THE BLOGOSPHERE, it always seems to come down to the boobies.

HERE'S MORE on the Yale flag-burning case.

SOME PERSPECTIVE FROM MARKOS that I agree with: "No matter how much I care about progressive politics, at the end of the day, it's my family and their well-being that's going to come first."

HAS AL GORE BEEN TO CINCINNATI LATELY? Because I'm visiting my brother here and drove the last hour or so through heavy snowfall. It's freezing (literally) and it's April. Ugh.

Greenhouse effect? Global warming? Faster, please.

GOOD NEWS on the jobs front. So is it time to worry about inflation? It's always time to worry about something.

And, right on cue. . . .

A SCIENCE QUIZ at the Knoxville News-Sentinel. How do you think steel is melted?

IN THE U.T. LAW LIBRARY.

USA TODAY ON THE PELOSI TRIP: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi crossed a line this week by visiting Syria, where she met with President Bashar Assad. She violated a long-held understanding that the United States should speak with one official voice abroad � even if the country is deeply divided on foreign policy back home. . . . It's not up to the speaker to unfreeze relations with Assad."

Interestingly, I think that the more Pelosi acts like a wannabe President, the worse it is for Hillary. And I think that Pelosi knows that.

FRED THOMPSON UPDATE:

Fred Thompson, the “Law & Order” actor and former senator from Tennessee, has moved beyond pondering a bid for the White House and begun assembling the nucleus of a campaign should he decide to run, according to people involved in the effort.

Thompson has not yet decided to seek the Republican presidential nomination. But “he is getting more serious every day,” said an adviser familiar with Thompson's plans.

Thompson’s coming-out as a candidate-in-waiting will be a May 4 appearance at the 45th annual dinner of the Lincoln Club of Orange County in the heart of Ronald Reagan country in Southern California. The invitation was widely sought by aspiring Republicans, and his advisers expect considerable media attention around the visit. But there are no plans now for an announcement then.

He's probably better off waiting as long as he can, and letting people get tired of the candidates who are already hogging the newstime.

PUSHING FOR CORPORATE GOVERNANCE CHANGES, at the New York Times.

IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE: On April 20th, the Philip Fulmer Golf Classic will raise money for the Boys and Girls Clubs.

DOES ROSIE O'DONNELL want to get fired?

FUNNIEST AMAZON RECOMMENDATION YET: I'm invited to "be part of the man-scaping trend" with a Norelco bodygroomer. Plus, a video on why I should "shave everywhere!" The guy in it kind of reminds me of Troy McClure. Only less hairy . . . .

UPDATE: Yes, the visual effects are amusing, too, in a cheesy Troy-McClure sort of way.

JULES CRITTENDEN: "If it’s wrong for the president to fire political appointees over their politics, doesn’t that make it wrong for senators to oppose political appointees over theirs? Wait a minute. I’m getting confused. The president fired them over their performance, but the Senate only gave a damn about Fox’s politics. So much crap flying around these days, its hard to sort out what’s what. But I think the Dem Cong might need to start holding hearings about itself."

OUCH: "Anybody would want a second chance after having worked as an assistant to Jimmy Carter. But Zbig has been so marginalized that even the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies refused to give him a real professorship. So he haunts the corridors of power and whatever television shows will have him."

This is unfair. The Olympic boycott was a masterstroke of strategy.

AN ELECTION '08 PROTEST MANIFESTO from The Anchoress: "I resent like hell that these politicians - all of them, but I seem to recall it was Hillary who started early, forcing everyone else to do so, as well - began their stumping and fund-raising two years before an election. . . . I’m not participating in this, yet. I’m not going to allow myself to be suckered into paying attention to these people - and giving them either my money or my time - before I deem it practical and intelligent to do so, and that will be sometime around November of ‘07."

SOLDIER'S LIFE SAVED BY IPOD. In the old days, we had to use Bibles for that.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order. You would think maintaining international order means, at least, challenging acts of piracy. No challenge here. Instead, a quiet capitulation."

Seeing the impotence of the EU and the UN demonstrated, however, is not entirely bad for the United States, or for the Bush Administration, whose critics often seem excessively enamored of those unimpressive institutions.

UPDATE: Impotence, corruption, whatever. No one in his right mind would rely on either institution to do anything against the immediate financial and political self-interest of its players, regardless of the stakes. The Mafia has more principles. And a longer-term perspective . . . .

THE SUPREME COURT GOES NUCLEAR:

The irony is that the beneficiary of Monday's ruling won't be wind power, solar power, or any of the other renewable technologies favored by the Green establishment. Their economic and technological limitations are too severe for them ever to occupy more than a small niche in the American energy economy. Instead, one of the winners from Massachusetts v. EPA just may be something that many of the environmentalists who brought the suit have long abhorred: nuclear power. Like renewables, nuclear power generates electricity with no pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions. But unlike renewables, nuclear is capable of generating reliable power on a massive scale, which is what our country's future energy demands will require.

Nuclear power is on the verge of making a comeback in the United States. Thanks to several favorable provisions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, as well as a streamlined licensing process, it is possible we could see the construction of new plants start within several years. The economics for new plant construction are still being worked out, particularly with regard to financing and federal loan guarantees. But there can be no doubt that federal efforts to hamstring coal can only help nuclear. Moreover, any future regulatory scheme allowing nuclear power plant operators to earn credits for generating emissions-free electricity would enhance nuclear's attractiveness to investors.

Building more nice, clean, greenhouse-friendly nuclear plants seems like a good thing to me.

PROTESTING AGAINST AN EXTREMIST MADRASSA, in Pakistan.

AN UNFORCED ERROR at ABC.

April 05, 2007

ISLAMIC RADICALS BEATEN by a bunny!

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE importance of compromise.

VETERANS AND HARRY REID.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Nuts in Damascus.

CONFUSION REIGNS: "So, Bush invaded Iraq to steal the oil from what could possibly be the 4th largest producer of oil in the world, trailing the United States, which, last time I checked, Nancy Pelosi was president of."

ANGER UNLEASHED.

Of course, it cuts both ways.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:

There is a major disconnect in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House.

While all the top candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed War on Drugs, a war that has morphed into a war on people of color.

The "Drug War" is a colossal disaster, and it's even undermining the real war. The unwillingness of candidates in both parties to oppose it is a disgrace.

PLACING THEIR SEVERED HEADS on those bamboo poles would seem a preferable response, but I suppose you can't have everything. Still, it wouldn't take much of that to nip this in the bud, I imagine.

A LOOK AT secular piety and the new age orthodoxy.

MICKEY KAUS: "Larry King is only 73?"

DEAN BARNETT ANSWERS READER QUESTIONS. Though his answer about the Harry Reid land deal is excessively cynical. Isn't it?

THE DOWNTOWN GRILL AND BREWERY: A nice place.

UNVEILING my next car.

Or maybe this is my next car.

Well, from my perspective they're equally affordable! How's that for putting the best face on things?

JOHN STOSSEL ON THE "FEAR-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX:"

Newsrooms are full of English majors who acknowledge that they are not good at math, but still rush to make confident pronouncements about a global-warming "crisis" and the coming of bird flu. . . .

Here's another example. What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for "20/20," I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I'm sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.

Parents don't know that partly because the media hate guns and gun accidents make bigger headlines. Ask yourself which incident would be more likely to be covered on TV.

Media exposure clouds our judgment about real-life odds. Of course, it doesn't help that viewers are as ignorant about probability as reporters are.

Read the whole thing. I like that "fear-industrial complex" tag. It's certainly apt. As Stossel concludes: "Instead of educating people to real dangers, we scare them about things that hardly matter."

And here's evidence for Stossel's point about coverage of guns vs. other causes of death.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, even in Alaska:

But all is not well in a city that looks on the new bridge with growing skepticism. Citing the project’s costs and risk to a local economy whose benefits are “contingent, speculative and not significant,” the city’s planning commission unanimously recommended against going ahead with the project.

Every neighborhood organization that has spoken to the project has recommended against the bridge or demanded guarantees that no Anchorage neighborhood would be harmed in its construction and city funds will not be used to build or maintain the bridge. . . .

The bottom line is that KABATA is completing a final Environmental Impact Statement while watching nervously over Beluga whales in the inlet and trying to sell a bridge that too many Anchorage residents simply don’t want.

But it's enriching politically connected contractors.

ON THE WINGS OF HEROES, a World War Two book for kids, gets a positive review: "As we look for heroes in our own time, Peck give us clear-eyed vision of the courage and caring we seek."

THE U.S. TRADE BALANCE WITH CHINA: Some surprisingly positive news. Does Lou Dobbs know about this?

BING WEST AND OWEN WEST REPORT FROM ANBAR: Read the whole thing.

"MUDDLE DIPLOMACY:" It's "stupid and vacuous."

AN ARMY, NOT A MILITIA: Michael Totten embeds with the Peshmerga. Remember that his work is supported by reader donations, so if you like it, hit the tipjar.

NO DELL WORKERS WERE HARMED DURING THE MAKING OF THIS BLOG POST: Jeff Jarvis has drinks with Dell.

I should note that after I put up this post, somebody from Dell emailed me to get my service tag number so that they could give an attaboy to the support guy I talked to. So obviously they've started paying attention to blogs.

LESSONS FROM THE FREE KAREEM STORY, and comparisons with Tunisia.

One difference is that I've gotten a lot of emails from Kareem supporters, and none on the Tunisia story. I don't know if that goes to organization, or what. But that kind of thing is essential. Like most bloggers, I'm happy to help out when a blogger is persecuted, but I have to know about it first.

THE ANTI-ROBERT-BYRD: Fred Thompson doesn't want a road named after him.

IN THE MAIL: Michael S. Malone's new book, Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company. Looks very interesting, and it sports one of the most impressive collections of blurbs I've ever seen.

UPDATE: Plus, thoughts on technological progress in book-writing. Ain't it the truth!

GENERAL PETRAEUS ON MCCAIN'S TRIP TO IRAQ:

UPDATE: Be sure to read this post by IraqPundit, too, which contrasts media treatment of McCain's trip with media treatment of Pelosi's travels.

ANOTHER UPDATE: HERE'S MORE ON MCCAIN IN BAGHDAD, from Max Boot, who's there now:

Here’s the perspective the press isn’t providing: We are in the middle of a tough, bloody war in Iraq. Throughout 2006, the war was going very badly, especially in Baghdad. Large chunks of the city were subject to a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing, murder, and terrorism. Sunni families fled. Markets closed. Normal life ground to a halt. Those perilous trends have been stopped in the past few months and are beginning to be reversed. This is due to an increased deployment of Iraqi and American troops, and especially to the fact that Americans are no longer staying on their giant forward operating bases. They are patrollng more intensively from joint security stations and small combat outposts located in the middle of the city.

Though only three of the five extra brigades scheduled to be deployed have yet arrived in Baghdad, the offensive has already paid big dividends. A semblance of normality is returning in some neighborhoods, markets are reopening, sectarian murders and ethnic cleansings have been dramatically reduced. The situation still isn’t great, but at least the downward trend has been stopped. There have been a few big suicide bombings lately that obscure this improvement, but most of these have been outside Baghdad, where the current security operation is focused. Needless to say, coalition forces can’t magically pacify the entire country overnight—and that can’t be the measure of success or failure.

The fact that McCain was able and willing to walk around the Shorja market indicates that things are getting better, even if Iraq remains a war zone. Of course McCain had heavy security; he’s an especially attractive target for insurgents. But the market was functioning normally while he was there, and he wasn’t surrounded by bodyguards. He walked around freely without a helmet (though he was wearing body armor), and mingled with Iraqis. So did the other members of his delegation, as well as General David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq.

Reporters may think this was like a Sunday stroll in Central Park, but that wasn’t the view of the U.S. embassy’s security coordinator, who refused to sign off on McCain’s visit because he thought it was too risky. The Senator thought otherwise, and he made an important point with his visit.

Read the whole thing.

JOHN TIERNEY: "Ordering the E.P.A. to address global warming may be a legal victory for environment groups, but it will probably just slow progress against global warming. The Environmental Procrastination Agency, as I like to call it, has a hard enough time taking action against routine pollutants. It’s in even worse position to deal with something as complicated as carbon dioxide, because the agency was founded on a fantasy: that scientific experts can transcend both politics and economics. . . . It took the agency 15 years to deal with pollution from leaded gasoline, which was a trivially simple problem compared with global warming."

Tierney recommends David Schoenbrod's book on politics and the environment, which I mentioned here a while back. It's worth reading.

THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS turns out to be acting like a monopolist. Go figure.

BIG BUCKS BARACK: "This is a guy who was an Illinois state senator just over two years ago, who didn't so much as hint he was running until late last year, who had no national infrastructure, and who isn't married to a former president. And yet his $25-million haul in the first quarter nearly matched Hillary's 26 mil."

THE WASHINGTON POST EDITORIALIZES:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. . . .

The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

Indeed. If Bush and Cheney were really evil, they'd both resign and stick the Democrats with a Pelosi Presidency for the next two years. The Democratic Party would never recover. Alas, neither would the country.

MICKEY KAUS: "And here I thought I was just bitterly lashing out because Krugman called me a Rhinoceros!"

FRED THOMPSON UPDATE: Writing in the New York Sun, Jim Geraghty says that Thompson would fill a void in the GOP offering.

WHY DO THEY HATE US HIM? Al Qaeda targets the Dalai Lama. But I thought they were only mad at us because Bush wouldn't ratify Kyoto or something?

THOUGHTS ON INFLATION at The Economist:

It is possible to argue that inflation targets are unnecessary, provided that the central bank has a credible reputation as an inflation fighter. True enough, but inflation targeting gives bankers an instant measure of credibility, because markets know exactly what to expect. They also relieve bankers of some of the political pressure they inevitably receive to loosen up the money supply. . . .

Speaking of which, this recent piece from our Finance and Economics section highlights what happened back when central bankers did give into the political pressure to inflate the money supply: a little fast growth early on, and then a whole lot of misery later. In America, it took the deepest recession since the 1930's to finally quiet inflation down again--and it's really only now that American and British interest rates are finally settled back to their natural levels from the non-fiat currency days.

Inflation is highly damaging, and also highly tempting to governments that want to avoid short-term pain, or get rid of troublesome debt by inflating it away. Neither approach is worth it in the long run.

A LOOK AT THE SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION'S WORK in promoting open government and fighting pork.

GREEN-CONS -- that's kind of like crunchy-cons, I guess. I saw this Prius in Washington yesterday.

April 04, 2007

ANOTHER PICTURE from Market Square.

HAROLD KOH FOR SUPREME COURT? Professor Bainbridge doesn't like the idea. Neither does David Bernstein ("by all accounts a nice guy, a good fundraiser, and beloved by his students, but is also a highly partisan liberal Democrat under whose tenure as dean conservative and libertarian students have felt increasingly uncomfortable").

I share at least some of their concerns, but the worry seems a bit premature.

MADE IT HOME IN ONE PIECE, as U.S. Air did a perfect job, delivering me to DC on time in the morning, and getting me back tonight. Of course, both flights were nonstops, which helped. Still, these days simple on-time performance is worthy of note.

OKAY, this one isn't actually from campus. It's from Market Square downtown, where I slipped out for a quick drink with some colleagues yesterday afternoon. I had work to do, I guess -- basically, I always have work to do -- but it was such a perfect, gorgeous day that I decided the work could wait. Others felt the same way.

Those perfect days aren't always around. My advice is seize 'em while you can.

Trust me, the work will always be there.

THIS IS THE LAW SCHOOL, seen from the Student Center plaza.

IS MCCAIN'S TEAM out of touch?

A STRANDED FLYER is blogging from the airplane as it sits on the tarmac. More bad publicity for the airlines. . . .

But kind of cool. I'm at the airport now waiting for my flight back home; hope my luck is better!

FCC SAYS NO to mobile phones on airplanes.

Fine, but I want my in-flight wi-fi.

THREE YALE STUDENTS ARRESTED FOR BURNING AN AMERICAN FLAG: Though what makes it a crime is that the flag belonged to someone else -- and was, in fact, attached to that someone else's house at the time. . . .

Not a glowing moment for Mother Yale.

OMAR REPORTS FROM BAGHDAD.

I'M AGAINST ABORTION on the first date.

ROSIE O'DONNELL, Democratic strategist?

ANOTHER shot from the patio.

TOMMY THOMPSON endorses the Iraq oil trust idea.

THOUGHTS ON BUYING RUGS, from Extreme Mortman.

THE LEAVES ARE OUT on campus.

ILYA SOMIN looks at the state of post-Kelo reform.

AIRLINES GETTING READY to roll out airborne wi-fi.

It's about time.

BY THE WAY, the pictures of campus that I'm posting were taken with this tiny Sony, which I believe is a slightly newer version of the one Ann Althouse uses. (Helen has taken over the Sony that I had been carrying, and I'm glad enough to find a digital camera that she likes to use that I'm not complaining.)

I like it pretty well -- it's tremendously small -- but it does run against my philosophies of using AA batteries and having a real (optical) viewfinder. I had to squint a bit to make it out while shooting things like this bumblebee in bright sun.

PORKBUSTERS AMMO: The OMB earmarks detail database is live. I wish it would let you browse by member of Congress, though. Still, it looks quite useful.

UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive! Well, kind of.

BRITISH HOSTAGES TO BE RELEASED: Roundup here.

UPDATE: Roger Kimball is not overjoyed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Austin Bay, who puts this in the context of Iran's "intel war" against the United States.

FROM FORD, a plug-in, fuel-cell, hydrogen-powered car. Hydrogen fuel cells charge the batteries. Everything's electric, but no fossil fuels. Video at the link.

CASTRO VS. the Ethanol Alliance: "Ethanol is making Chavez and Castro nervous. "

Funny -- it usually calms me down.

DO JUDGES SYSTEMATICALLY FAVOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION?

Some of you will be asking "Is this some kind of trick question?" But Ben Barton writes: "Many legal outcomes can be explained, and future cases predicted, by asking a very simple question: is there a plausible result in this case that will significantly affect the interests of the legal profession (positively or negatively)? If so, the case will always be decided in the way that offers the best result for the legal profession."

He also asks "whether our judiciary should be staffed by lawyer-judges at all."

I'LL BE TRAVELLING TODAY, and blogging will be spotty. But I've got some posts scheduled to appear, and some of them will be more pictures from campus, which quite a few readers have requested. This one's the U.T. Law School's patio, which is quite nice.

ABC'S TERRY MCCARTHY REPORTS THAT THE TROOP SURGE is "having a large and positive effect."

AN INTERESTING DOCUMENTARY on the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team.

BRINGING BACK LETTERS OF MARQUE: A reader is interested in the idea:

Thing is, I've enough money to hand to train, equip, and deploy six people for six months in the area between Baghdad and Kabul. I'm ex-military, and I'm young enough to be up for a challenge.

Why not open-source the Global War on Terror?

As I recall, the Independent Institute -- a libertarian thinktank not to be confused with that other libertarian thinktank, the Independence Institute -- was pushing this idea right after 9/11. And so was Ron Paul. If I recall correctly (and Wikipedia says the same thing) the United States never signed the treaty renouncing letters of marque and reprisal. So if you want one, apply to Congress, but I doubt the application will be received favorably at this point.

April 03, 2007

JOE BIDEN EXPLAINS the Democrats' Iraq plan.

MORE ON PARKER: Bob Levy sends this as a followup to my earlier post:

Let me briefly recap the pro-cert argument for Parker, and make a couple of other points:

First, black-letter law is pretty clear. Parker will be vacated -- either by the Circuit or the Supremes -- if a mootness event (e.g., passage of the DC Personal Protection Act) occurs anytime between now and the date that the Supremes either deny cert or issue their opinion. In other words, if the bill passes, Parker is almost certainly history, with no precedential value anywhere.

Second, the time is ripe for SCOTUS review: (1) The Court's makeup is better than it has been and better than it's going to be. (2) The other side has more to lose (47 states) than we do (3). (3) Congress and state legislatures can trump the Court if necessary. (4) An adverse decision on the merits is unlikely, especially during an election year. (5) If the Court is so inclined, it has ways to reverse Parker without reaching the merits (e.g., standing, DC statehood). (6) A bad case will ultimately go up if Parker doesn't. Public Defenders continue to challenge felon-in-possession charges on 2d Amendment grounds. Sooner or later, a bad Court is going to grab one of those cases. (7) Silberman's opinion is great, and so are the underlying facts of our case. (8) Incorporation isn't an issue. (9) DOJ will likely change its view of the 2d Amendment under a liberal AG.

The NRA has stated to me and others that cert is desirable. Sen. Hutchison's press release says she agrees. The other major gun groups, Gun Owners of America & Second Amendment Foundation, also agree. That's the "official" position of insiders who are supposed to have the best crystal ball regarding the Supremes.

Nobody at the NRA has provided a credible answer to this simple question: Why is the NRA pushing the DC Personal Protection Act? If the NRA were to say, "You're going to lose, so we want to kill the litigation," I would understand that argument -- although I would dispute the premise. Instead, we're hearing that the NRA wants the Supremes to review Parker. There's a disconnect somewhere.

Beats me. My assumption has been the "you're going to lose" argument. Maybe I'm wrong.

I CAN SEE THIS: "Space thriller Serenity has beaten Star Wars to the title of best sci-fi movie in an SFX magazine poll of 3,000 fans."

ERIC SCHEIE HAS THOUGHTS on crime and punishment.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: "What is disturbing about the Iranian piracy is that it establishes a warning of what we can come to expect when Iran is nuclear, and how organizations like the UN, the EU, and NATO will react. If a few Iranian terrorists in boats can paralyze an entire nation and the above agencies, think what a half-dozen Iranian nukes will do. This was the hour of Europe to step forward and show the world what it can do with sanctions, embargoes, and boycotts, and how such soft power is as effective as gunboats—and it is passing."

"Soft power" might work, but not when the people wielding it are even softer.

FEMINIST IN AMERICA, subservient in Syria.

IN LEBANON: "The anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon's parliament handed a petition to the United Nations on Tuesday asking for steps towards an international court to try suspects in the killing of a former prime minister, majority sources said. . . . Majority leaders accuse Damascus of the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and a string of other attacks on anti-Syrian figures. Syria denies involvement. The attacks are being probed by a U.N. investigation."

UPDATE: Read this, too.

MIKE PENCE IS blogging from Iraq.

FLIP. FLOP.

U.N. STAFFERS COVERING UP North Korean counterfeiting operations? Nothing that those guys did would surprise me, these days.

A "SECRET WAR" AGAINST IRAN? Well, not any more. . . . .

I don't know how reliable this report is, but if it's true it suggests that there's something to Edward Luttwak's "divide and conquer" take. See this somewhat similar piece by Spengler, too.

UPDATE: C.J. Burch is questioning the timing: "Don't kid yourself even for a second -- this story was floated to give Iran cover, period."

J.D. JOHANNES -- whose Iraq documentary Outside the Wire is very much worth your time -- is back in Iraq and reporting on things.

UPDATE: By the way, if you've seen the film, J.D. would like you to post a review on Amazon.

U.S. SUCCESSES AGAINST AL QAEDA: Bad news!

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR PORK in Congress. The Roll Call article is subscription only, but here's an excerpt:

EPW Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), at a markup March 29, said the only way to guarantee the WRDA bill moves speedily to the floor is to “oppose all amendments” and keep the bill “at the same level of funding as last year.” The Senate passed a $13 billion WRDA bill last year but was unable to reach agreement with the House on a final bill.

But keeping the bottom line the same has not meant that last year’s legislation is inviolable. Boxer’s markup vehicle had a new, $140 million project inserted at Baucus’ request to repair an 85-year-old system that delivers water to towns along Montana’s northern border.

Republicans objected, but Boxer explained that she had made an agreement with Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), the ranking members of the committee and subcommittee respectively, to allow Baucus’ measure and provide a way for Republican project to be “treated equally.”

According to Isakson, the deal essentially means that Republicans on the committee now have $140 million to divide among the projects of their choosing.

“The agreement was that if they were going to put that treatment in [for Baucus], there had to be equitable treatment for our side,” Isakson told Roll Call last week. “I did not feel that it was appropriate for me to say where the money would go without all the members of our committee participating.” So Isakson said Democrats agreed to “let our side get together and determine what they ended up going to.” . . .

The Senate has approved legislation that would require Members to declare their earmarks and declare that they have no direct financial interest in the earmarks. But the House has not acted on similar legislation, so the new rules are not in effect in the Senate. Environment and Public Works Committee staff said at this point there is not any plan to require disclosure of the earmark request in the WRDA bill.

Isakson said he thinks the sponsors ought to be disclosed.

“I think that’s what we have voted on the floor of the Senate,” he said. “My intent is to follow the spirit of what happened on the floor. I think that would certainly be the thing to do.”

But staff said that the two sides have agreed not to disclose earmarks on this bill because the new rules are not yet in place.

Enthusiasm for pork crosses party lines, and Senate rules . . . . Or perhaps we should say that they're pretty much all members of the Pork Party.

MICHAEL YON posts another report from Iraq. He says we're losing the media war, and that it's partly the Pentagon's fault.

IN THE MAIL: Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. It looks quite good, and comes well-blurbed by the likes of Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell.

Taleb is also the author of the very interesting Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.

BUSH IS HARDER ON THE DEMOCRATS than he's been lately. Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

AN ARGUMENT THAT IT'S worth the risk to fix the Hubble Telescope.

ROBERT LEVY IS COMPLAINING about Congressional efforts to overturn D.C.'s gun ban, arguing that they will undercut the Parker case before it gets to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That would be bad -- at least as compared to an alternate future where the U.S. Supreme Court took the case and ruled correctly, in favor of an individual right to arms. On the other hand, how likely is that? It's not impossible, but it is, to put it charitably, far from assured. On the other hand, there's reason to believe that repealing the D.C. gun ban is the best move, and that it will create momentum toward gun control rollbacks elsewhere.

Who's right? Who knows? Which is why it's unfortunate to see gun-rights people imputing bad faith to those who disagree. This sort of uncertainty is typical in litigation of this sort -- one reason why I like to show my students in Constitutional Law the excellent film about Brown v. Board of Education, Separate But Equal, is that it does a good job of displaying how people of good will in the civil rights community disagreed on whether it was best to go full-bore to end segregation, as Thurgood Marshall ultimately did, or to proceed incrementally. And as the film makes clear at the end, the answer to that question still isn't certain.

UPDATE: Levy emails:

Glenn, in my DC Examiner article, to which you link in your posting today, I am indeed complaining about the NRA's confusing postion on the Parker litigation. But nowhere in the article did I impugn the NRA's motives. I raise a number of questions, advance a number of arguments, and contend that the NRA's endorsement of the DC Personal Protection Act undermines Parker and is a disservice to the gun rights movement. Those are the facts as I see them. But I have not suggested that the NRA is acting in "bad faith" or is motivated by anything other than a desire to promote the same ends that Parker seeks.

He's right, and I didn't mean to suggest that he was doing so, though the passage above could easily be read that way. That's my error, and I should have had a better transition from what Levy was saying to what other gun-rights advocates are saying -- and, believe me, a lot of them are (wrongly, I think) suggesting that the NRA has bad motives here.

DISCOVERING MISOGYNY ON THE WEB.

REP. SAM JOHNSON TALKS TO NEWSWEEK about the Democrats and the war.

Plus, John McCain shops in Baghdad:

"After landing at the airport we drove from the airport into various parts of the city. We stopped at Bab Sharqi market where we spent well over an hour shopping and talking with the local people," said McCain.

"Things are better and there are encouraging signs. I have been here many times over the years. Never have I been able to drive from the airport. Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today," he boasted.

But read the whole piece, which has a certain, er, slant.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Does the AP report that you linked to this morning lend some support to the Drudge report you retracted, with its reference to a reporter "giggling" in the back at the press conference? I know Ware was sitting up front. Did Drudge's source misidentify the laugher?

Hmm. Possibly. It's AFP, though, not AP. Which may explain the slant. Then again. . . .

NEWT GINGRICH: A Barry Goldwater for the 21st Century?

HOWARD KURTZ THINKS THAT POLITICAL FUNDRAISING is getting too much coverage:

I think it's an overrated indicator. I lost track of how many big-name political journalists told me in late 2003 that Howard Dean was nearly unstoppable for the nomination because he was the Democrats' leading fundraiser. But his $40 million -- some of which had been frittered away earlier -- didn't do him much good once he got to the Iowa caucuses. All the money in the world doesn't help a candidate who can't close the sale.

I got bleary-eyed in 1996, reading all the glowing pieces about how strong a candidate Phil Gramm was because he was raising truckloads of money. Gramm never made it to New Hampshire. The donors might have been buying, but the voters weren't.

But you have to report about something. And fundraising stories have numbers, meaning that they're totally objective!

PROTESTS IN UKRAINE: "Thousands of Ukrainian protesters streamed into the capital Tuesday in the most serious confrontation between the prime minister and the president since the two men faced off during the Orange Revolution."

As always, Veronica Khokhlova is on the story. She has lots of photos, here.

UPDATE: Publius has much more.

DEFEATING MALARIA with both high- and low-technology approaches.

NEW CANCER GUIDELINES COLLIDE WITH RESOURCES: "It is far from certain that there are enough qualified facilities to handle an influx of high-risk women who may now seek regular M.R.I. screenings."

As Andy Kessler notes, there's a strong likelihood that technology will solve this problem in the next decade or so if it's allowed to. We talked to Andy Kessler a few months back -- you can hear the podcast interview here.

LAW DEANS AND THE U.S. NEWS RANKINGS: A complex relationship: "Note to deans: you cannot have it both ways. You can't claim to be oppressed by the rankings and simultaneously celebrate them." And yet people manage. . . .

MICKEY KAUS ON AFGHANISTAN AND OPIUM: "A simpler, more promising solution to the poppy harvest would seem to be Christopher Hitchens': legalize it and tax it. And, presumably, let the Afghans sell it to whomever they want. The price of heroin would fall. There would be more addicts. But fewer American British soldiers would have to die in Afghanistan--and we might actually win the war they're dying in." Prioritizing the Drug War over the actual war seems like a dreadful mistake. When we interviewed Col. David Enyeart of Task Force Phoenix in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, he dodged the question of how much harm our policies there were doing, saying basically that it wasn't his guys who were involved in the drug-war stuff. But it seems pretty clear that it's a problem.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY on the two-faced Saudis: "We get the sense the Saudis grin and kiss us on both cheeks when we walk into their palaces, then spit on the ground the moment we leave." As noted here repeatedly over the past five years, they are not our friends.

RAZIB HAS THOUGHTS on Western culture and reactionary Islam.

April 02, 2007

HEH.

"PAYING THE DANE-GELD, WITH ENTHUSIASM." Yeah, it's the enthusiasm that I find so odd.

TYLER COWEN: Left-wingers should be the real supply-siders.

MY BROTHER JONATHAN HITS THE BIG TIME, as his band "46 Long" records a commercial for Gold Star Chili! It doesn't get any better than that! Well, okay, I guess it might, but it's still pretty cool.

HARRY REID DEMONSTRATES 180-degree nuance on timed withdrawals.

CLIFF MAY says the polls don't indicate support for an Iraq withdrawal.

JILTED BUSH FANS: "Something tells us if we were to ask President Bush to reflect upon his love affairs with Matthew Dowd and Andrew Sullivan, he would look at us as if we'd lost our mind. Sorry, guys, he's just not that into you! Are we wrong to think that there is something deeply weird about grown men who have trouble distinguishing between politics and affairs of the heart?"

I've never felt that degree of attraction to, or affection for, Bush -- you never saw the kind of praise for him here that you once saw for him elsewhere. Mostly, I've just felt vaguely sorry for him, and hoped he'd manage to do a decent job under difficult circumstances. On the other hand, I haven't had the same over-the-top response to disappointment with him, either. But I try to keep the political and the personal separate, something that seems increasingly old-fashioned these days.

UPDATE: Contrary to Andrew Sullivan, I didn't vote for Bush twice. I voted Libertarian in 2000, voted for Bush in 2004. Sullivan, I think, voted for Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. So each of us voted for Bush at different times, depending, I guess, on what was important to us in that election.

MICHAEL WARE SAYS DRUDGE WAS WRONG, and The Raw Story has video that seems to prove his case.

I can't find where Drudge has retracted, but on this evidence I'm going with Ware over Drudge. (Via Hit & Run). I've updated earlier posts to reflect this, too. Would have corrected sooner, but I've been offline -- though thanks to the miracle of "scheduled posting," you can't tell.

UPDATE: Reader Nathaniel Rein emails:

I wrote to you earlier regarding the Drudge piece claiming that Ware heckled McCain. Since I did that, and you posted a piece clearly retracting the claim, I feel it is only fair to send another email commending you for this. Not that this counts for much, but I believe in acknowledging when people own up to their mistakes.

Well, a polite email always counts for something, especially in the blogosphere these days. As I note in the FAQs, I don't promise never to link to things that turn out to be wrong (no blogger could do that) only that I'll try to correct the error if I find out about it. Rein's email is certainly nicer than some I received about the Ware story, though I think I got about as many from Dartmouth alumni complaining -- correctly -- that I shouldn't have called it Dartmouth University in my New York Post column. Well, nobody's perfect.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Questioning the video. Er, okay, but this requires actual evidence that the video is untrustworthy, or that there were things going on that it doesn't show, something that Drudge hasn't really provided.

MORE: Don Surber emails: "I'm going with Ware over Drudge. Them's the odds -- great editor, lousy reporter."

(Later: Superfluous "not" removed, above.)

ADVICE TO RUDY GIULIANI, from John Fund: "It might help to talk publicly about policy."

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO BRITAIN? An unfortunate answer.

Related thoughts here, and -- seeming more on-point than when they first appeared -- here.

SOME TROUBLING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS:

After a long drawn out, and highly fraught, negotiation that pushed right up against the deadline, America and South Korea have inked a new trade deal. It is the largest America has signed since NAFTA. However, tensions between the Bush administration and resurgent protectionists in America's new Democratic Congress make it highly uncertain that the pact will be ratified. In related news, China is protesting an about-face on anti-dumping suits by America's Treasury department, which has resulted in punitive tariffs on paper products.

There's no surer way to get a global recession, or worse, than to have a round of trade wars break out.

AIRCONGRESS: Going negative in Barack Obama's name.

IRAN: The new South Africa? "Missouri took the first steps among the states to divest their portfolios of any foreign corporations doing business with Iran, a move they started last year. Now eight other states have begun to follow suit, and the latest state may make the biggest impact of all. California has just passed legislation that would transfer billions of dollars away from foreign investments [in Iran.]"

SO IT'S SORT OF LIKE BLOGGING: "Be yourself, and be perfect, too!"

Except maybe for the perfect part . . . .

ARE THE MULLAHS stealing from Saddam's playbook?

MEGAN MCARDLE:

I'd rather be waterboarded than put in the general population of a high security prison. It is entirely possible that life at Guantanamo is more bearable than life at San Quentin, and no, that is not a defense of Guantanamo.

But that hardly constitutes support for torture, which I haven't and don't.

And yet, it was taken that way. Have you noticed that people who spend a lot of time saying that they're anti-torture often seem to go out of their way to manufacture allegedly pro-torture enemies? It's almost as if it's more about brand differentiation than substance. Fortunately, the sensible anti-torture camp is expanding.

Meanwhile, prison rape remains a serious problem that gets much less attention. I've blogged about that on a number of times -- here's one post with links to others.

HERE'S MORE on the Automotive X-Prize announcement. "Vehicles will be judged on specific market production criteria detailed in key areas such as safety, cost, features and business plan. So this X Prize will only open to practicable cars capable of reaching the marketplace—no concept cars or science projects. . . . In order to win, vehicles must complete both races with the lowest overall time averaged over all scoring stages while still meeting the Automotive X Prize requirements for fuel economy and emissions. While the competing teams might have their mind on how to win and their eyes on the money, the overall purpose of this competition is to capture the public's imagination to solve economic, international and environmental problems." Sounds very worthwhile.

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES get no love from Tim Blair. Though maybe "extradisciplinary approaches" would be a better term.

I LIKED BRIAN DOHERTY'S RADICALS FOR CAPITALISM. David Leonhardt, in the New York Times, wasn't so crazy about the book. David Boaz, on the other hand, wasn't so crazy about the review.

PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS ASKING for some pictures of the campus in springtime. Here are a couple I managed to snap at lunchtime today. It's a beautiful spring day.

OVER AT THE HOTLINE BLOG, Marc Ambinder is tracking all the presidential-candidate fundraising news.

DON SURBER: "Could we please stop arguing and go back to fighting this war?"

Maybe once the Democrats get back in power. Until then, not so much.