May 12, 2007

BRIAN MOCKENHAUPT HAS AN INTERESTING LOOK AT ARMY TRAINING in the latest Atlantic Monthly. There's lots of interesting stuff, but the parts worth breaking out have to do with how society isn't living up to the Army's ideals, not the other way around:

Young people are fatter and weaker. They eat more junk food, watch more television, play more video games, and exercise less. They are more individualistic and less inclined to join the military. And with the unemployment rate hovering near historic lows, they have other choices. . . .

Every platoon sergeant and squad leader I spoke with told me a version of this story: Many of the new privates are smart and eager; they’re quick learners and they know what they’ve gotten themselves into, joining the infantry in wartime. But too many are physically weak, are undisciplined, or have mental and emotional problems that should have gotten them screened out at basic training, if not earlier by the recruiter. . . .

The Army’s problem, however, is really just the nation’s problem writ small. The number of Americans serving in the military has steadily shrunk from more than 1 in 10 during World War II to fewer than 1 in 100 today. The all-volunteer military has allowed most Americans to distance themselves from national service, forcing the Army in particular to work harder and spend more to get the people it needs. As former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in another context, “You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Until more Americans are more willing, more able, or perhaps more compelled to serve, the Army must maintain an effective all-volunteer force with the people it has and the limited number of additional people it can recruit. And that larger conundrum is beyond the power of any generals, captains, or drill sergeants to solve.

I think it's a poor reflection on how we're bringing up kids and teenagers, and on civilian/military relations in general.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Lunday begs to differ:

I retired in Jan 2001, however, I still work with these soldiers in a contract job. Your copy of a post regarding their, shall we say, less than optimum physique, is way overstated. Tell ya what, pick a day I have a group out here and you can run with em. And these are the 24 to 38 year olds, CPTs and COLs - not the 18 to 20 year olds that leave basic.

I think they could out run, out lift and out 'hump' me (btw, hump means hike with a Ruck Sack) except when I was their age (gotta say that ya know,,,, it's a guy thing). These guys/gals are the best we have, and they are awesome.

The longest race I ever ran in was a 10k, and I considered it a victory the way Saddam considered Gulf War I a victory -- at the end, I was still alive, and hadn't puked. I'm not really built for running. [What are you built for? -- ed. Blogging! And . . . er, never mind.]

Meanwhile, reader Rashad Mahmood emails:

Look, you can't just explain away incentives by blaming it on parents. There is a simple way to increase the number and quality of volunteers for the army. Pay them more.

That's true. I was commenting more on the physical condition and discipline aspects. It's also true, however, that if society valued military service more, the psychic income involved would go up, and that's a factor as well, as demonstrated by the vast numbers of twentysomethings who toil away in rock bands despite the generally nonremunerative character of that work.

POWERLINE TO THE DNC: So sue us! "We therefore associate ourselves with our reader's statements regarding Governor Dean and invite Mr. Sandler to sue us for defamation as he threatens to sue Free Republic. This is to put him and his client on notice, however, that we intend to seek our attorney's fees under federal law for the assertion of a frivolous claim if he does so."

It seems to me that more people are trying to silence bloggers all of a sudden. Well, they told me that if George W. Bush were reelected, people who criticized the powerful would suffer. And they were right!

Why such libel claims are a bad idea, however, is discussed here.

UPDATE: Jim Treacher emails:

"It seems to me that more people are trying to silence bloggers all of a sudden"

As well as radio personalities. Interesting trend, huh?

It's "battlespace preparation" for 2008.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Dart Montgomery thinks it's all about creating a Parliament of Clocks.

BORIS YELTSIN: LESSONS FOR AMERICA PART TWO:

The Americans with whom I discussed these events were surprised at hearing about the high death toll. They didn’t realize it was this bad, nor had they been informed about the anti-Semitic nature of the riots. It seems the media had failed to do its job, which is strange considering that Moscow was swarming with foreign journalists. As far as I can remember, my personal impressions at the time were that in an attempt to stay objective, the Western journalists chose some questionable middle ground - which made their coverage anything but objective. . . .

Apparently, in their minds, a fascist must always have a swastika prominently displayed on the sleeve at all times - otherwise he’s just a victim working out grievances. These journalists wouldn’t recognize fascism if it smacked them over the head with a hammer and sickle, which is the Soviet version of swastika. They probably wouldn’t have believed me if I were to tell them that in the twisted minds of these ultra-nationalist maniacs, all Westerners were under the suspicion of being Zionist running dogs working to enslave and destroy Mother Russia. To appreciate just how crazy they were, consider the fact that one of their worst imaginary Zionist enemies was Bill Clinton.

Hmm. This sounds familiar.

JEEZ: No Disclosure: Presidential Candidates Defy Tradition, Refuse to Release Taxes.

UPDATE: Mark Kleiman notes that Barack Obama, despite being pictured with the others and a fan of 100 dollar bills, has released his tax returns, something that the story doesn't mention until way, way, down.

PEOPLE LIVE LONGER, and yet: "The average retirement age is now 62, not 65. Indeed, only 27 percent of Americans retire at age 65 or later, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute."
I find that amazing.

UPDATE: Reader Dick Thompson thinks I find it amazing because I'm assuming it's voluntary retirement:

The question that needs to be asked is how many people retire willingly at 62. I know that my company, Citibank seems to have a history of having a personnel cut about every year or so and it also seems that almost all of the people cut are in the age group of 61-63 or 64. I know that when I got retired of the thousands who were cut at that time the age range seemed to be about my age of 63. The cut the year before and the one before that had the same profile. At that age what are your chances of getting another job of the same type where you will not be told that you are way overqualified for the position, sorry.

The other companies on Wall Street seem to be doing the same thing. The problem is that the cutting is not done at the highest levels but at the middle management levels so that the highest level people stay on and those of us who were in the range of 60-100K or better (I was in the slightly over 100K range) are the ones who are cut and basically forced to retire. I would love to see some studies done on this question because I think a lot of the retirees are for this reason. When you are used to getting a paycheck of x amount of dollars then going from there to living on your 401K is not really a good option and people cash in their SSA. The other problem with this group is that the company health insurance is converted to COBRA after 3 months and you have to grab that or you lose it. Have you priced COBRA health insurance for people in the 60+ age range?

No, happily. But this is a good point.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Not quite such a good point, from Kevin Drum: "If you work in a stimulating, highly rewarding job like, say, law professor or paid blogger, it makes sense that you might want to keep working past 62. On the other hand, if you've slogged away as, say, a Wal-Mart checker or an accounts payable clerk eight hours a day for the past 40 years, it makes perfect sense that you'd want to get the hell out at the earliest possible moment, even if it means accepting a lower Social Security payment. What's so amazing about this?"

Well, yes, but I assumed that to people with low-paying jobs, retiring early is harder as they (probably) don't have big 401(k) plans, much less fat defined-benefit pensions that start at 62. Given what I hear about Americans not saving for retirement, if only 27 percent wait until 65 that means either that Social Security turns out to be more generous than is generally supposed, that people have more resources than I thought, or that there's something elese going on. One thing, I suspect, may be that many of these voluntary early retirers have spouses with good benefits packages who will continue working until they hit Medicare eligibility at 65+. Because if you retire at 62, there's a health insurance gap until 65 that is too long to cover with COBRA. Though some employers will continue health benefits for early retirees to fill that gap, I'll be not many of those are the low-wage jobs that Drum talks about.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Bruce Goldston emails: "I wonder how much this situation has been created by the huge number of public employees . . . national, state, city, and county government, and all the various municipal corporations and boards, not to mention the education establishment. Very few of those folks work til 65." That's true.

And reader Gary Thomas doubts the accuracy of Dick Thompson's account: "The fact is that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) specifically protects employees over the age of 40 from discrimination. Companies have to bend over backward not to target them - even during early retirement 'windows' when they try to induce people to leave by giving them more retirement credit. It strains credulity to think that a company would want to get rid of the 63-year-olds- after all, they've pretty much accrued all of their pension and that cannot be taken away from them. I speak as an actuary who has worked for 10 years as an employee benefits consultant."

Well, I'm no expert, but you certainly hear a lot about efforts to squeeze out older workers. Are those stories just media myths? That's possible, I guess.

MORE: Reader Michael Hankamer begs to differ:

I read your post on early retirement and the updates that followed. I'm afraid that your reader Dick Thompson is probably right.

I'm 62, my wife is 61. She's retiring from teaching in June, and while her co-teachers and principal are supportive, her school administration is not. She could stay on (a continuing contract), but the administration could care less about keeping an experienced teacher -- it would much rather hire an inexperienced, and cheaper, teacher to replace her. ADEA doesn't apply. The administration isn't actively or inactively discriminating against her; it simply isn't trying to keep her.

My case is quite similar. I'll be retiring when I hit 63 in a few months. Not that I really want to; I love engineering. But the emotional burden of staying on in a place where I'm not supported by my management isn't worth the paycheck. So I'm leaving too.

My suspicion is that I'm far from alone. With the benefit of early social security, our pensions and savings, we can afford to retire, so we're leaving voluntarily. But not because we really want to; it's simply that the emotional burden of staying on outweighs the financial incentive to do so.

More at his blog. And note this comment regarding Kevin's Wal-Mart example.

DE-COMMUNIZATION IN POLAND: A Polish court says it's unconstitutional, leading Perry de Havilland to observe: "But surely justice cannot be served by allowing the communist era and above all, the role of the people who made it all possible, to vanish down the memory hole. If people did despicable things during the communist era, why should they escape punishment? I cannot imagine a German court being allowed to stop the process of de-nazification in Germany, so why tolerate something similar in Poland in the aftermath of communism? Forgiveness can not come before repentance and a lot of people have yet to repent. I wonder if there are any senior judges who might have an embarrassing file on their communist era activities that they would rather not see the light of day? Just wondering."

SPRINGTIME IN ISLAMBERG: No doubt it's full of FBI informants.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: If you're serious about fuel economy, propose a carbon tax. Forget CAFE standards.

RUDY GIULIANI wants a bigger army.

PATRICK BELTON HAS THOUGHTS on Sarkozy's first 100 days.

A LOOK AT THE DECLINE OF MOTHERHOOD in Canada.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM IN AMERICA: fat people on TV?

A REVIEW OF DANIEL WILSON'S Where's My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived, by (no relation) Simon Reynolds. Troubling observation: "Today we seem to have trouble picturing the future, except in cataclysmic terms." That's a cultural thing, I think, brought about more by the values of filmmakers, etc. than by anything inherent in reality. But it's true enough.

MORE ENVIRONMENTAL HYPOCRISY: The Detroit Free Press reports: "Obama talks hybrids, but his ride has a Hemi."

Nothing wrong with that, but could we have a bit less sanctimony, please? (Via Ed Driscoll).

IF YOU MISSED IT: Here's a complete set of links for the dialogue that Bob McChesney and I had on the future of media at the L.A. Times.

NICE WORK: Reporters' errors heard 'round the world.

NEXT WEEK: It's the Personal Democracy Forum in New York. Looks interesting.

THE (IMPERFECT) MAGIC OF AMAZON RECOMMENDATIONS: It was kind of cool to discover Volume Two of The Official Firefly Companion, by Joss Whedon. But I had never known that there was a Volume One. Oh, well -- I do now!

For a show that didn't even go one full season, Firefly has certainly supported a huge secondary market, with a movie, other books, etc. And, of course, the series DVD has done very well. Quite unusual. I wish the rumors of a second season straight-to-DVD had been true.

Our podcast interview of Firefly executive producer Tim Minear can be heard here.

MARY KATHARINE HAM REPORTS FROM THE MILBLOGGERS' CONFERENCE, in the latest Ham Nation.

KAROL SHEININ ON THE FORT DIX TERRORISTS: "When Elvis and Dritan Duka, two of the three brothers arrested on terrorism charges in Fort Dix, were kids, they were neighborhood bullies. When they got a little older, they became drug dealers. How do I know? They grew up in my neighborhood, my brother and his friends used to brawl with them on a fairly regular basis. My brother's best friend's mom was friends with their mom. Then they moved to New Jersey and became Jihadis."

I'D RATHER THEY FOCUSED ON STOPPING IRAN FROM GETTING NUKES:

In a letter written earlier this week to the House Intelligence Committee, the official, Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, said it was “entirely appropriate” that the intelligence community prepare an assessment of the “geopolitical and security implications of global climate change.”

No doubt we'll soon hear that the case for carbon caps is a "slam dunk."

UPDATE: Some further thoughts on intelligence from T.M. Lutas.

STRANGE BREW: Terrorism and Saudi Arabia:

Some details of terrorist operations in Saudi Arabia have been getting out, in the wake of the recent round up of 172 terrorist suspects, and the seizure of weapons, explosives and plans. There were seven different terrorist cells involved in those arrests. One of the cells had a safe house in Syria, where meetings with terrorist groups in Iraq were conducted. The Saudis are not happy with the links between terrorists inside Saudi Arabia, and Iraqi Sunni Arabs. The Saudis have told the Iraqi Sunni Arabs that the Sunni Arab nations in the regions will not bail them out, and that they must make peace with the Shia Arab majority. Many Sunni Arabs, throughout the region, do not agree with this. But they are a small minority. Most Sunni Arabs are appalled at the body count the Sunni Arab terrorists have created in Iraq. While most of the dead are Shia Arabs, a growing number are Sunni Arabs, killed either by the suicide bombers, or by Shia Arab death squads looking for revenge. While most Sunni Arabs would like to see Sunni Arabs running Iraq, there was revulsion at Saddam Husseins methods, and even greater distaste for the subsequent mayhem by his followers.

Well, that's good. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia makes Freedom House's "Worst of the Worst" list for human rights.

LOOKING AT THE G.I. FILM FESTIVAL.

DESPITE THE CHARGES BEING DROPPED, THERE'S A LOT GOING ON STILL in the Duke/Nifong/Mangum false accusation case. K.C. Johnson continues to follow it. Latest: A call for an investigation of the Durham Police by the Attorney General.

LOTS OF LOVELY PHOTOS, at Melissa Schwartz's blog.

ADVICE FOR LIBERTARIANS AND CONSERVATIVES, from Josh Treviño. "The challenge of building the right wing, conservative, and/or libertarian movement online is in many ways less daunting than that faced by its opposites on the left."

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Talking the ethics talk, but not walking the ethics walk:

House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress.

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls.

The growing resistance to several proposed reforms now threatens passage of a bill that once seemed on track to fulfill Democrats' campaign promise of cleaner fundraising and lobbying practices. . . .

The situation concerns some Democrats, who note their party campaigned against a "culture of corruption" in 2006, when voters ended a long run of Republican control of Congress.

Actually, they campaigned against a "culture of corruption" before the voters ended Republican control of Congress. Since then, not so much.

UPDATE: A lovely poem:

They promised us laws to reform the corruption,
But now they're in charge, that's a needless disruption.

They've got bigger tasks -
What they are, please don't ask.

Heh.

HILLARY: Mission accomplished!

May 11, 2007

A STATE OF EMERGENCY IN PAKISTAN? "Opposition to General Musharraf’s alleged attack on the independence of the judiciary was initially led by lawyers’ associations and rights groups striving to bring Pakistan under the rule of law. But the protests have evolved into a pro-democracy movement, with broad support across Pakistan that extends well beyond earlier antigovernment demonstrations that were led by radical Islamic groups." This could end well, but probably won't. (Via Dan Riehl).

"BUSH RESIGNS:" Some wishful thinking at CNN?

Of course, they probably wouldn't like having to utter the words "President Cheney" hundreds of times a day . . .

THOUGHTS ON TAXING AND SPENDING, from Professor Bainbridge.

PUNISHING BLASPHEMY AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY: They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected our universities would be run by theocrats who wouldn't brook criticism of religion. And they were right!

Via Eugene Volokh, who has further thoughts.

MICHAEL SILENCE EXCEEDS THE SPEED LIMIT ON I-40 and still gets passed like he's standing still. Video at the link.

A LOOK AT polling on Iraq.

EXPENSIVE IDEAS from John Edwards.

VARIOUS PEOPLE think that the sound quality on yesterday's podcast was especially good. I think it's mostly just that we had a really good phone connection. They vary a lot, and alas there's not much we can do except try redialing if they're too bad. But on listening to some older podcasts, I have to say that the audio treatments we added a while back have made a big difference, too. Thanks, Ready Acoustics! (Various other podcast questions answered here.)

I HAVEN'T READ THE "NEW" TOLKIEN BOOK, The Children of Hurin, yet. But I notice that Eugene Volokh Ilya Somin liked it.

UPDATE: Sorry -- the dreaded co-blogger confusion strikes again.

A LOOK AT Paris Hilton's prison hell.

ROBERT MCCHESNEY AND I LOOK AT MEDIA CONCENTRATION in today's Los Angeles Times.

ATUL GAWANDE ON aging and what to do about it.

But be sure to read this, too.

"ICE-COLD REALPOLITIK" from Morton Kondracke. I'm afraid I'm not that cold.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE fact-checks Barack Obama on fuel economy and finds some major errors:

Obama this week flew to Detroit to deliver his message that the U.S. auto industry is the villain for "investing in bigger and faster cars while foreign competitors invested in more fuel-efficient technology."

The domestics certainly haven't flooded showrooms with gas/electric hybrids like the Japanese. But in fairness, the newest Japanese assembly plant in the U.S. produces 14-m.p.g. Toyota Tundra pickups, not Prius hybrids rated at 60 m.p.g.

"While our fuel standards haven't moved from 27.5 miles per gallon in two decades, both China and Japan have surpassed us, with Japanese cars now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon," Obama said.

"I'm not sure where he got that figure," Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said. "No carmaker gets 45 m.p.g. Ours is closer to 30 m.p.g."

If elected president, perhaps Obama's first appointment should be a fact-checker.

Not just for number crunching but also because neither China nor Japan mandate fuel-economy standards. And the 27.5 m.p.g. standard was set by the government, not the automakers.

(Via Matt Sheffield).

A LOOK AT JIHADI CHIC: From Jonah Goldberg.

ER, I COULD BE WRONG, but aren't the scary automatic weapons in this photo actually just AirSoft guns? (More here.)

Then there's the fun of Mayor Bloomberg slamming Virginia for "enforcing the laws." Is this guy for real? Maybe Bloomberg should try not violating federal firearms laws before he gets on his high horse.

UPDATE: Reader Josh Coray is sure these are Airsoft guns: "Being an avid paintballer and related airgun fan, yes, those are airsoft guns." Others aren't so sure. So I guess I can't blame AP for the photo too much, regardless.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More from SayUncle.

OKAY, IT'S NOT HOSPIBLOGGING, it's doctor-office-blogging, while the Insta-Wife gets imaged. Thank goodness for EVDO.

BILL HOBBS: "It's a good thing that the Alabama Homeland Security folks don't have jurisdiction in Nashville, else they might have raided the big libertarian hoedown Tuesday night."

Plus, how to get psychotic school shooters off campus. It's so simple!

IT'S BETTER THAN KEITH OLBERMANN AND HARDBALL PUT TOGETHER! The latest Corn and Miniter Show is up!

IN THE MAIL: Joe Haldeman & Martin Greenberg's Future Weapons of War. I thought at first that it was a nonfiction book by a couple of science fiction guys, which would have been pretty cool, but it's actually an anthology of military SF stories. They're all copyrighted 2007, so they're all new, apparently.

DOG BITES MAN: Zbigniew Brzezinski wrong again.

LONG LIVE THE BLOGOSPHERE: Norm Geras has some thoughts on newspapers and blogging.

HOWARD KURTZ rounds up reactions to Tony Blair's step-down announcement. It seems to me that it comes with less a bang than a whimper. Perhaps that's because he's leaving on his own, but I notice that libertarian Britblog Samizdata hasn't posted anything on the subject yet. You'd expect them to be cheering.

UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive: At Samizdata, Perry de Havilland writes: "I do not really give a damn because it is actually not that important. Glenn expects us to be cheering, but why? About the prospect of Gordon Brown running our affairs? Sorry but that is nothing to cheer about and I cannot really see that this will make a great deal of difference to government policies."

And further thoughts from Paul Marks: "Mrs Thatcher was interesting. Mr Blair (like Mr Major) was just another statist politician."

Well, aside from the general benefits of government turnover -- which come into play more strongly when there's a change of party anyway -- I don't think the difference will be huge.

BORIS YELTSIN: lessons for America.

WALMART SALES PLUMMET, but Bob Krumm thinks that's actually economic good news: "Well, simply put: No-one likes to shop at Wal-Mart unless they have to. It’s always crowded, the checkout lines are understaffed, the place is dirty, the parking lot is a mess." Thus, when Wal-Mart goes down, it means people can afford to shop elsewhere. Interesting theory -- we'll see if he's right. Personally, I'm a Target man because he's right -- Wal-Mart is just depressing. But I'd ditch Target in a second if someone would open up a Samuel's in my neighborhood.

PHIL BREDESEN AND JOHN MCCAIN: Together at NASCAR. Hmm. A McCain-Bredesen "unity ticket?" Gentlemen, start your punditry . . . .

DEBUNKEN!

MICKEY KAUS on politicians who drive 100 miles per hour: "Isn't this a pretty basic violation of social equality?"

Er, yes. Lots of people drive fast -- I was going to visit my brother a while back, zipping along in the left lane at what I thought was the highest prudent speed for the road in my Mazda RX-8, only to find an endless array of minivan-driving soccermoms coming up on my rear bumper and signalling me to move over. Everybody drives awfully fast nowadays -- but the rest of us face tickets if we do it. As Kaus points out, Bill Richardson wouldn't even pull over when a cop tried to ticket him.

UPDATE: Reader Joe O'Rourke emails:

Though not environmentally responsible or safety conscious, most cars nowadays are more than capable of holding speeds in excess of 80mph comfortably. This is noted by your minivan experience.

20-30 years ago, cars would shake a lot while doing 75mph, or they would feel “floaty”. Chassis and suspension engineering and good quality tires have eliminated these sensations, and superior engine technology means the car doesn’t strain to hold the speed.

I think it’s time for our longer highway systems, at the least to begin raising speed limits. When a supermajority of the populace does not obey the law, is that not a mandate for increasing the limit of the law?

The problem with that is that highways would need to be maintained to a level consistent with high speeds…and, at least in the northeast, no state ever maintains their roads to a level of safety consistent with modern day speed limits…

True on all counts.

YEAH, I CAN IMAGINE things worse than polygamy, too.

HERE'S AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN ROBB, whose book, Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization, I mentioned a while back.

SOME THOUGHTS ON character and the Presidency, from Ross Douthat.

BLAMING THE AUDIENCE for Katie Couric's failures.

A NEW AP-IPSOS POLL: "People think the Democratic-led Congress is doing just as dreary a job as President Bush, following four months of bitter political standoffs that have seen little progress on Iraq and a host of domestic issues. . . . The survey found only 35 percent approve of how Congress is handling its job, down 5 percentage points in a month. That gives lawmakers the same bleak approval rating as Bush, who has been mired at about that level since last fall." Upside for Nancy Pelosi -- she's still more popular than Congress as a whole, which means she can spin it that she's more popular than Bush!

FRED THOMPSON ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

Giuliani on the Second Amendment.

Barack Obama on the Second Amendment. Or, well, gun control anyway.

K.C. JOHNSON NOTES that despite the utter collapse of the Nifong prosecution, members of the Duke faculty are continuing to make fools of themselves. Sounds like more of that "rhetorical will to power by way of narrative control" that I've been hearing about.

This is not academia's finest hour.

May 10, 2007

CENSORING ART IN RICHMOND:

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama hasn't been elected and already his campaign is engaged in a cover-up of sorts.

Before the Illinois senator spoke Tuesday night at a Richmond art gallery to about 500 Democrats, an Obama advance woman asked the gallery to cover one painting deemed potentially offensive and to remove another.

Artist Jamie Boling said he first was offended by the censorship but now has mixed feelings. In today's political and cultural climate, the pictures could have been used against Obama, he said.

They told me that if George W. Bush was reelected we'd see objectionable paintings taken down. And they were right! (Via Don Surber, who comments: "Shades of John Ashcroft and the nekkid statue." Hey, thanks to Alberto Gonzales, Ashcroft is acquiring a retroactive glow!)

ARE OPIE AND ANTHONY imperiling an XM/Sirius merger? Wired's Epicenter Blog thinks so.

VETERAN SOUTHEASTERN ROCKERS will probably remember the seminal '70s punk band Balboa. Lynnpoint Records has put a bunch of their songs up online for free download now -- from a compilation I put together with Balboa guitarist Terry Hill in 2001 shortly before he died. You can get the tunes here. My personal favorites are Live Like This, The Big Sleep, and Writer and the Artist. (Bumped).

RADLEY BALKO LOOKS AT hypocrisy as a driving force:

Corzine isn't the only one. There's an increasing hubris among many elected officials that their job is so important, their time so much more precious than ours and their position in public life so privileged, that they can zip by us on the road, pushing everyday folk aside so they can get to their far more important destinations.

This is about more than just traffic laws, of course. It's about the arrogance of power. These politicians not only assume their lives, meetings and fundraisers are more important than everyone else's to the point that they don't have to follow the rules, they're willing to put other people on the road at risk to prove their point.

In 2003, The Washington Post reported that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson routinely ordered his driver to whip down public roads at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. Even after those reports, when a police officer attempted to pull over Richardson's car for speeding in 2005, the governor's driver refused to stop. In the last two years, Richardson's lieutenant governor has also been caught running a red light and parking in a fire zone.

For his part, Richardson refused to apologize for his law-breaking. He said he'd instruct his drivers to slow down, but cited his busy schedule as governor and said he wouldn't promise not to speed again. By April 2006, his car was seen pushing 90 again.

In 2003, South Dakota Rep. Bill Janklow blew through a stop sign while speeding and killed a man on a motorcycle. Janklow had been previously pulled over 16 times for speeding, but never ticketed.

Though Janklow was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the accident, in 2004 prosecutors determined he was officially "on the job" when he struck the motorcyclist, meaning federal taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the $25 million lawsuit filed by Janklow's victim's family.

Press reports in 2004 revealed that Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's car had been clocked traveling over 100 miles per hour on nine separate occasions. Rendell subsequently admitted to giving his drivers permission to speed to get him to meetings, though he did promise to stop giving those instructions in the future.

After Corzine's crash in April, Rendell acknowledged that despite his prior assurances, his drivers do sometimes still exceed the speed limit to help him make appointments, but he assured Pennsylvanians that he always wears his seat belt. Well. Good thing he's keeping himself safe.

Yeah, it makes me feel better. I think we should allow citizens to arrest politicians they find breaking traffic laws, since ordinary law enforcement officials have a conflict of interest. That'll pass!

DIVORCE RATE lowest since 1970.

WOW. Today's podcast on advertising is underscored by this piece I just ran across in Advertising Age:

Since 88% of Audi buyers spent a significant amount of time on audiusa.com before purchase, Audi is spending dramatically more online this year, Mr. Keogh said, though he declined to reveal details.

88%. Wow.

KEITH HENSON UPDATE: Surprise arrest for Scientology critic. I swear, it's safer to confront the mob -- and they like it that way, I think.

JACOB SULLUM: "To me, it seems kind of strange that someone arguing in favor of hate crime legislation would single out people for criticism based on their race and age."

To me, it seems entirely predictable.

BILL HOBBS: Tax cuts don't shrink government. A.C. Kleinheider agrees.

WALMART ON CFLS:

Wal-Mart announced Thursday that its suppliers of compact fluorescent light bulbs have agreed to dramatically reduce the amount of mercury in the energy-saving bulbs. . . . The company said its CFL suppliers — GE, Royal Philips, Osram Sylvania and Lights of America — "committed to achieving a greater reduction in mercury content than the 5 mg standard set by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association earlier this year. These suppliers will also adhere to clean production techniques that will minimize mercury pollution from factories manufacturing CFLs." . . .

The mercury content in the average CFL — now about 5 milligrams — would fit on the tip of a ballpoint pen, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and manufacturers have committed to cap the amount in most CFLs to 5 milligrams or 6 milligrams per bulb.

The majority of Philips Lighting's bulbs contain less than 3 milligrams, and some have as little as 1.23 milligrams, said spokesman Steve Goldmacher.

Read the whole thing.

THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY of Lou Dobbs.

TONY BLAIR STEPS DOWN, and James Joyner comments:

After eleven years, few of his countrymen are sad to see him go. Then again, that was the case for Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, too. Leaders simply wear out their welcome after long stints in office. That’s been the case with every two term American president since FDR. Perhaps it’s inevitable in the media age, especially with the advent of 24/7 instantaneous commentary.

When we had kings, and the death of one meant a nontrivial chance of bloody succession struggles, people liked longevity in a leader. Now that the stakes are lower, not so much. Boredom is one of the great forces in politics, and nonstop news coverage makes it worse.

I was never a fan of Blair in general, and before 9/11 would have been delighted to see him go. I've never liked the soft totalitarianism that Labour has championed, and to a large degree implemented, in Britain: Cameras everywhere, political correctness, gun confiscation -- and yet a diminished ability to actually maintain public order.

On the other hand -- and it's a big other hand -- I did, along with many others, value Blair's clarity on the subject of Islamic terror, and his pro-American sentiments, which were the exception rather than the rule in Old Europe. Blair was a beacon in that regard, and we needed him I'll miss that, but honestly we're short of clarity on this side of the Atlantic, too. And I suspect we'll wind up missing that even more than Tony Blair's.

Paul Cella has some similar mixed feelings.

OUTSOURCING LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE to India. Yeah, that'll save the industry.

WILL WILKINSON: "What can we learn from 'happiness' research?"

THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL'S JACK LAIL on the Nashville Tennessean's decision to publish a searchable database of people with gun carry licenses: "It is an illustration that just because you legally and easily can publish databases of public information, the public might not think you should. And if you can't defend your position in answering their concerns, maybe they have a point."

SADLY, YES: "The fact that a law firm feels it necessary to train its young associates on something so basic as meal etiquette is certainly an interesting comment on modern society."

WHY NOT regulate guns like cars?

Why not?

RAPING CONDI RICE: It's all in good fun, since she's a Republican.

I predict nothing like an Imus moment here. Because black Republican women deserve it. They're traitors to their race and gender.

Probable Rice response: "Opie and Anthony? I crap bigger than them."

2700 ACTIVE DUTY SERVICEMEMBERS PETITION CONGRESS ON THE WAR: It's not news. If they'd taken the other side, it would be the story of the week month.

MICHAEL MALONE looks at newspapers' sheer stupidity.

BEN SMITH: "Forget television executives and the FEC. The new regulators of political speech are Sergey Brin, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg -the chieftains of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, respectively." This is a reason for avoiding concentration, or dependence on a small number of Web entities.

IS THERE A PLACE FOR THE FCC IN THE 21ST CENTURY? I say no, Bob McChesney says yes, in the Los Angeles Times. Though with defenders like Bob, the FCC shouldn't sleep soundly: "The FCC is the poster child for corrupt policy making."

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING DEFICIT? May it continue to get smaller.

COMMITTEE HEARINGS ON YOUTUBE.

SURVIVORS SLAM SEBELIUS for politicizing tragedy.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

After the Virginia Tech tragedy, even talking about concealed carry is grounds for suspension.

They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we'd see Americans punished for expressing their ideas. I guess they were right!

A LOSS FOR ELLIOT SPITZER:

One of the cases that former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer might have expected to be a slam dunk was his six charges against former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso. . . .

A New York appeals court, however, said earlier this week that Spitzer lacked authority under state law to bring the suit. In a lengthy decision that threw out four of Spitzer’s six charges against Grasso, the court said “the authority to bring suit in what the attorney general perceives to be the interest of the state cannot trump contrary determinations about the public interest made by the legislature.’’ In other words, Spitzer was not at liberty as attorney general to decide on his own what is in the public interest.

It got him to the Governor's Mansion, so it accomplished his goals.

BECAUSE IT'S NEVER TOO EARLY, APPARENTLY: Obama readying a TV ad blitz?

The Glenn and Helen Show: David Verklin on Online (and Offline) Advertising

Traditional media are worried, and new media are excited. In both cases, it has a lot to do with where the advertising money is going, and where it's not going. Nobody knows more about advertising than David Verklin, CEO of Carat Americas. Carat is the world's largest independent media buying operation, and Verklin is also the coauthor -- with Bernice Kanner -- of Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here: Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume. We talk to him about what's happening now, what will happen next, and how the future of advertising might actually be more pleasant for consumers, as advertisers serve up ads based on things people are actually interested in.

You can listen directly -- no downloads needed -- by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player. You can download the file by clicking right there, and you can get a lo-fi version, suitable for dialup, etc., by going here and selecting "lo fi." And of course, you can get a free subscription via iTunes -- and why wouldn't you, really?

This podcast is brought to you by Volvo Motors USA. Music is "Nobody's Full," by the Opposable Thumbs.

A PACK, NOT A HERD: "A male employee who works at Circuit City behind the Moorestown Mall is the unsung hero that first enabled authorities to foil the Fort Dix terror plot." So long after 9/11, it's nice that people are still paying attention.

And apparently it made a difference: "Federal authorities said Wednesday that six Muslim men suspected of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were on the verge of carrying out the attack when they were arrested this week."

ROGER SIMON, who knows something about movies, saw the canned PBS documentary Islam vs. Islamism and posts a review.

A TENNESSEE POLITICAL HERO:

State Rep. Joe McCord, R-Maryville, has resurrected his bill to regulate red-light cameras in hopes of preventing an expansion of their use.

McCord's House Bill 0698, as originally written, would have prohibited local governments from entering into profit-sharing arrangements with private companies that install and operate the cameras.

The bill, however, failed to pass the Public Safety and Rural Roads Subcommittee.

Now, McCord is trying again with language that would codify current practices.

"They can still go ahead and have cameras at red lights, but it will put into code that it shall be charged as a nonmoving violation," he said. "Yes, you'll still have to pay a $50 fee, but it does not go against your insurance record or against the points on your driver's license."

I think the original bill -- which I believe also set minimum yellow-light times because cities appear to be manipulating those to create more revenue -- was better, but the Knoxville political establishment responded to that so hysterically that it makes me suspicious of what's really going on here.

More on the problems with traffic cameras here.

AT PATTERICO, a post on the dysfunctional LAPD, by one of his readers. I guess things there were never as good as they looked on Adam 12.

BILL ROGGIO:

In March, we noted the successful model of the Anbar Salvation Council will very likely be replicated elsewhere in regions where al Qaeda has established bases of operation. We singled out Diyala in particular, as al Qaeda's campaign of murder and intimidation was beginning to anger the tribes much as it did in Anbar province. Al Qaeda's establishment of its Islamic State of Iraq, with its capital in Baqubah made the province ripe for a major Coalition operation in the region. In early March, Al Sabaah reported the local sheikhs in Diyala were organizing against al-Qaeda and its Islamic State of Iraq, "which [is] spreading corruption in the province districts." Today, the speculation has become a reality, as "Arab tribesmen in Baqubah have said they will form a tribal alliance to cleanse the Diyala province of foreign fighters and those of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq."

We need more of this sort of progress.

BILL GATES thinks the traditional ad business is over: "Microsoft thinks the advertising business model for traditional media — those venues where advertisers still channel most of their spending — will fall apart faster in the coming five years as the kind of interactive, targeted advertising that is defining the Web comes to the fore."

Our podcast a bit later today will look at this very phenomenon.

REPUBLICAN MODERATES getting restive on the war. I think this is shortsighted and wrong and likely to hurt the country. On the other hand, for the Bush Administration it's a reality. I've mentioned the three-year-rule before, but we're now past the four-year mark (five if you count Afghanistan). If Bush were a great communicator, he'd be able to help himself some, but I doubt Reagan could have held things together a whole lot better. The White House and Pentagon need to be figuring out how to deal with this, and what constructive fallback positions they can prepare.

UPDATE: On the other hand, John Aravosis is unhappy to hear that conservative Democrats will support the President. His take: "It's time to replace some conservative Democrats in Washington, DC." Hey, electing guys like that is how you took back the Congress. . . . .

AS THE SCANDALS SWIRL IN ALASKA, Republicans might want to think of a plan B in case Ted Stevens has to go.

I'M OFF FOR A JACOB T. LEVY-STYLE WAXING: More blogging later!

ABANDON RED TO GO GREEN:

Wouldn't we save a lot of gasoline quickly and cheaply if we replaced most of our "STOP" signs with "YIELD" signs?

Well, we would if most people didn't treat 'em that way already.

FRED THOMPSON: "Oh, to be sure, the French media hates us, but there are a lot of people who say ours does too. Regardless, Sarkozy’s victory has sent shock waves through the world’s media centers."

GIULIANI'S ABORTION STRATEGY, explained.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) has placed a professor on forced administrative leave and has recommended that he be terminated for e-mailing a Thanksgiving message to his colleagues last November. On the day before Thanksgiving, Professor Walter Kehowski sent out the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” and a link to the webpage where he’d found it—on Pat Buchanan’s web log. After several recipients complained of being offended by the e-mail, MCCCD found Kehowski guilty of violating the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy and technology usage standards. Kehowski then contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

“It simply boggles the mind that a professor could find himself facing termination simply for e-mailing the Thanksgiving address of our first president,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “This situation is an embarrassment to MCCCD and would be laughable if a professor’s most basic rights and very livelihood weren’t on the line.”

You know, people told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we'd see professors fired over trumped up charges of ideological nonconformity. And it looks like they were right!

SYNTHETIC PHOTOSYNTHESIS:

While researchers and technologists around the world scramble to find cleaner sources of energy, some chemists are turning to nature's own elegant solution: photosynthesis. In photosynthesis, green plants use the energy in sunlight to break down water and carbon dioxide. By manipulating electrons and hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon atoms in a series of complex chemical reactions, the process ultimately produces the cellulose and lignin that form the structure of the plant, as well as stored energy in the form of sugar. Understanding how this process works, thinks Daniel Nocera, professor of chemistry at MIT, could lead to ways to produce and store solar energy in forms that are practical for powering cars and providing electricity even when the sun isn't shining.

Faster, please.

POLITICS IN IRAN:

The biggest source of discontent in the country is economic. Inflation is about 18 percent and the unemployment rate is moving past 30 percent. Since Ahmadinejad took over, the price of oil has skyrocketed, bringing in lots more money, yet the Iranian GDP growth rate has dropped from four percent a year, to three percent. As a result, the average Iranian is worse off than before. Ahmadinejad promised to spread the oil wealth around, but that has not happened, and most Iranians are not happy. Ahmadinejad and his politically correct attitudes are the cause of the spreading poverty. Ahmadinejad has taken action, but mainly to halt economic activity with the outside world, which he considers largely hostile to Islam. Ahmadinejad wants Iran to be self-sufficient, like North Korea. You get the idea. So do most Iranians, and they are not happy about it. But they are still not willing to fight to change it.

Can't we encourage them, or something?

UPDATE: More on Iran's economy, here.

GENDER QUOTAS ON scholarly panels.

May 09, 2007

MORE PHOTO-FISHBLOGGING from Ann Althouse.

The gar is pretty impressive, and I can't really match it. But here's a pretty nice picture of a sawfish that I took when I went to the aquarium with the girls a couple of years ago.

He seemed to like watching the people through the glass. I guess we looked . . . delicious.

To me, he looked kind of like a space alien.

And don't worry, I'm not going to try to match her dead animal photos, though I passed a bloated roadside possum today and was tempted. Also, sadly, a very pretty little fox. Cars, I guess, take the role of predators nowadays.

THINGS THAT DON'T BOTHER ME: Rudy Giuliani donated to Planned Parenthood? Hey, that's okay. So have I.

I understand that the pro-life people, and the social-cons generally, are unhappy with this. But hey, a lot of gun-rights people thought that Bush was squishy on the gun issue -- and he has been. Nonetheless, he's been a lot better than Kerry or Gore would have been had they been elected; his support for the assault weapons ban, for example, was extremely limp. Likewise, the social-cons are crazy if they let this sort of thing keep them home on election day in 2008. And I think that the Republicans' troubles started -- as I pointed out at the time -- when the social-cons overplayed their hand during the Terri Schiavo affair. But hey, vote for who you want.

HMM. HOW DID I MISS THIS DEVELOPMENT?

"It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking," Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

I'm pretty sure it's different from the Europe of the present, too. I've got family in France, and I've never heard of such a thing.

Eugene Volokh points to a post by Ana Marie Cox suggesting that Romney got this from an Orson Scott Card science fiction novel set in the future, in outer space.

Now look, I like science fiction, and I wouldn't mind a President who read science fiction -- though I'm not sure the Battlefield Earth thing helps him here -- but I also want a President with a firm grip on the difference between fiction and, you know, reality. This is just weird.

UPDATE: Ace:

A truly outrageous move on France's part to so undermine the very foundation of civilizational organization.

One problem: It's not true. . . . Coming Next: Romney explains his flip-flop to the pro-life view as caused by the new respect for life gained after witnessing the destruction of planet Alderaan, where "a million voices cried out... and then were silenced."

Of course, Ace also notes some other alternate-reality enthusiasms that are getting less press attention. Edwards should be ashamed, and needs some book-learning of his own.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader David Fleeger writes about Romney and Edwards (well, mostly Edwards' "trutherism") and observes: "I don't know about you, but for the first time I have begun to feel a little fear for the next year's elections. The nation can (probably) survive incompetence. Reality-denying psychosis is something else."

As I've said before, our political class was obviously dysfunctional in the 1990s. Times have gotten worse, but they haven't gotten better. Further thoughts from Rob Port.

MORE: A suggestion that there's less to Edwards' gaffe than meets the eye. Jeez, I hope so.

A LOOK AT TREATING AND PREVENTING HEART ATTACKS, from Darshak Sanghavi in Slate.

And here's a podcast we did a while back on heart attack treatment and prevention.

RUNNING WILD WITH MIKE GRAVEL:

"That's him!" says a Today show producer. All eyes focus on an old-fashioned Checker cab coming up Broadway, an odd relic in the teeming New York City traffic. It's a bright Thursday afternoon and dozens of sign-carrying supporters are gathered at the main entrance of Columbia University. They begin clapping and whooping for their new favorite presidential candidate—a 77-year-old most of them hadn't even heard of a week before.

NBC has taken an interest as well. A crew is on hand to film the rally for the network's morning show and its 5.3 million viewers. "Wait! Is he driving?" wonders one of the supporters. As the Checker gets closer, the white-haired man behind the wheel waves at the crowd and smiles a broad politician's smile. He is driving. Newsweek columnist and occasional Today correspondent Jonathan Alter is riding in the back seat, looking a little green. It turns out the two got in a fender bender on the way uptown. The Checker's brakes went out on Madison Avenue, and Gravel rear-ended another cabbie. But, with no injuries and after consulting a mechanic, they'd pushed on.

A rough ride for Alter, but a good couple of opening paragraphs.

JACOB SULLUM: "The federal hate crime bill is unnecessary, unjust, and unconstitutional."

NOW THIS IS JUST EMBARRASSING: Squirt guns banned at Tennessee State University.

I'm pretty sure this won't make anyone safer, unless some crook somewhere dies laughing.

MICHAEL TOTTEN TALKS ABOUT IRAQ and the French elections, on the latest Blog Week in Review.

OBEY CURSES KUCINICH. Kucinich strikes me as a bit kooky, but also as one of the least curse-inspiring members of Congress.

AL SHARPTON SQUIRMING: Not a pretty image.

I HAVEN'T PAID AS MUCH ATTENTION TO THE PELOSI EARMARKS STORY as I should have, but Stephen Spruiell has a roundup. Excerpt:

For now, it appears that the problem is less with Pelosi’s disclosure on this particular earmark and more with the state of earmark reform in general. The Democrats swept into power making a lot of noise about cleaning up the “culture of corruption” in Washington. Earmark reform was a big part of their stated agenda. First, they put a “moratorium on earmarks” until new rules governing them could be put into place. Then the House passed new earmark-disclosure requirements. “It’s good that we’re even having this discussion about Pelosi’s earmark,” Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, tells NRO, “because now [thanks to new disclosure requirements] we know that she’s the one who asked for it.”

But that’s where Democrats left it. The House rules apply only to the House. The Senate lumped earmark reform into its ethics and lobbying bill, which is now languishing in conference and has yet to take effect. Nevertheless, the Democrats must think these half-measures constitute thorough earmark reform, because the moratorium is long gone. The Water Resources Development Bill contains, along with Pelosi’s earmark, more than 800 others. Perhaps the most egregious is a provision to add sand to a California beach famous for its annual sandcastle competition.

The Democrats campaigned as a party that would clean up Washington. But the water-development bill, exemplified by Pelosi’s earmark, is nothing if not Beltway business as usual.

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

WHILE BOB MCCHESNEY AND I HAVE BEEN TALKING about the future of news media, the poor folks at Scripps have been trying to do something about it. Here's the latest internal memo, which faces the bad news admirably:

You’ve no doubt read about recent challenges in the newspaper business. We’re certainly not immune to many of these trends.

In the first quarter of this year, our total revenues were down 7.8% compared to last year, our expenses were down slightly, and our profit was down 28%. Many of our industry peers posted similar results. While online revenue remained strong (up 20%), total ad revenue fell due to classified advertising declines at our larger papers, as well as some softness in retail advertising.

The long and the short of it is that any business that has declining revenues and sharply declining profits must do something about it.

Some suggestions on what to do can be found in the comments, here.

AXIS OF SOROS?

FRED THOMPSON ON GEORGE TENET:

My attention was drawn to Tenet’s statements that al Qaeda is here and waiting and that they wish nothing more than to be able to see a mushroom cloud above the United States.

Naturally, the media emphasis is not on that. Its attention is on any differences Tenet had with the administration. The media’s premise is that Iraq should not have been considered a real threat to us and that the administration basically misled the country into war. While one may take issue with Tenent on several things, I was intrigued that on some very important issues, Tenet did not follow the media script when answering Russert’s questions.

Read the whole thing.

IN THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL BLOG, Les Jones looks at the handgun permit issue and concludes: "Concealed Carry Weapons Permit Holders More Lawful Than Most." Gee, do you think?

TODAY'S BRAND-CONFUSION MOMENT:

Andrew Sullivan of Instapundit questions Parsons choice of metaphor, seeing as how the Sioux nation ultimately lost the war.

Well, me and Andrew are pretty much interchangeable, I guess! But it's not BuzzTracker's finest hour . . . .

UPDATE: Reader Matthew Bown emails: "I think they meant Mickey Kos of Daily Kaus."

That must be it. . . .

WHICH NEWSPAPER WILL BE THE FIRST TO DIE? Bob McChesney and I address this question in today's Los Angeles Times. You'll never guess which one is my pick . . . .

SOME CRAPPIE BLOGGING from Ann Althouse.

IN THE MAIL: John Robb's Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. From a quick look, it appears that Robb thinks that state sponsorship will become a less important part of the terror equation, and that we need to start hardening and decentralizing our society so as to make it more resistant to terrorism. I think he's clearly right about part two, and quite possibly right about part one. He also seems to support "pack not a herd" approaches to security and disaster response, which, again, I agree with strongly.

UPDATE: More on Robb from Ed Cone.

WHY IS OBAMA SO TIRED? "During a campaign speech, Barack Obama overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll by a factor of approximately 1,000, saying 10,000 had died when only 12 did. He later explained that he made a mistake because he was tired."

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh points out that campaigning for President is tiring. Indeed it is. That's a reason not to start early -- as I've mentioned here before, the sooner you start, the sooner you get tired enough to make dumb mistakes. If Obama's tired enough to do that now, what will he be like in a year? I suggested a while back, after an earlier gaffe, that he should get some rest and this would seem to underscore the need.

Of course, being president is tiring too, and one of the arguments for a grueling campaign season is that it weeds out people who don't function well when tired.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Feeling the heat in Alaska:

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has dropped his support for a controversial salmon marketing program he created that has funneled tens of millions of federal dollars to fishing industry interests in Alaska and has become an element of a Justice Department corruption investigation into the Senator’s former aide and his son, ex-state Sen. Ben Stevens (R). . . .

The AFMB’s connection to the FBI probe of Stevens’ son has brought renewed scrutiny on the project and the way it has doled out millions of federal dollars since 2003. Critics of the AFMB, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have long complained that it is little more than a pork-barrel conduit for special interests and large fishing companies in Alaska.

Perhaps the most high-profile example of what McCain and others call wasteful spending was a grant from the AFMB to Alaska Airlines to paint a jumbo jet to resemble a salmon, a project that cost millions but that was justified as a way to advertise Alaska salmon products.

In the state, however, the AFMB has long been seen as a mechanism for companies and individuals close to Stevens and other members of the state’s Congressional delegation to secure federal dollars.

Pork isn't just about helping the folks back home, or wasting taxpayer dollars. It's about corruption.

BLOGGINGHEADS FROM BAGHDAD: Robert Wright talks with the embedded Eli Lake, w