NANCY PELOSI, war criminal?

UNIVERSITIES put their hands out for a stimulus. Plus, seeking money for universities, not students.

ROBERT KAPLAN: “Israel has, in effect, launched the war on the Iranian empire that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, in particular, can only have contemplated.”

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Gaza could have been a model of the future Palestinian state. Instead, it is a place of repression and aggression. “Palestine is a common home for several religious and national groups, but Hamas dogmatically insists that the whole territory is instead an exclusively Muslim part of a future Islamic empire. At a time when democratic and reformist trends are observable in the region, from Lebanon to the Gulf, Hamas’ leadership is physically and economically a part of the clientele of two of the area’s worst dictatorships.”

HEH: A call for green civil disobedience. Of course, if there’s even one 1960s science teacher who used to do mercury-ball demonstrations left, it’ll all be for naught . . . .

HMM: AP Exclusive: Calendar shows key Ill. gov meetings. Note this: “On Sept. 2, Blagojevich was scheduled to have breakfast with investor J.B. Pritzker, whose sister is Obama supporter Penny Pritzker.”

L.A. TIMES: How 98 senators plus 3 = 100.

AT PJTV, A Gaza Update.

GEORGE WHO?

A NEW WAY TO COVER THE TVA coal ash spill.

RAND SIMBERG SAYS THE BLOOMBERG STORY I LINKED THE OTHER DAY WAS BOGUS: Panic over “tearing down” barriers between military and civilian space programs is much ado about nothing.

SO DOES THAT MEAN THE HONEYMOON IS OVER? Al-Qaida No. 2 blames Obama for Gaza fight.

MICHAEL HIRSCHORN: “Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. . . . But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?

UPDATE: Some thoughts in response, from Steven den Beste.

ELIOT SPITZER SAYS OBAMA DOESN’T UNDERSTAND STIMULATION.

Well, that is what he says, you know.

UH OH: Rangel not “comfortable” with Burris confrontation.

MEET THE NEW BOSS, YADA YADA: Obama repeating Bush’s “boneheaded move” at the NSC?

SANJAY GUPTA FOR SURGEON GENERAL? I guess those Iraq War ethics questions have blown over. That’s good, since they were stupid questions (even Arthur Caplan thought so!). And since the Surgeon General’s job is more to be a TV talking-head than an actual physician, I don’t see why Gupta’s TV experience should disqualify him; it’s not as if he isn’t a serious physician, too. Gupta also has an interest in life-extension, which I like.

UPDATE: What do you think? A poll.

MORE: Reader Lane Core emails: “From CNN to the Obama White House? It could hardly even be considered a transfer.”

REPORTING from MacWorld.

CHECK OUT ANDREW BREITBART’S BIGHOLLYWOOD.COM.

CHRIS CILIZZA: Burris Backs Reid Into A Corner.

SO DON’T GIVE ‘EM ONE: Hamas Desperate for Lull.

JEB BUSH WON’T RUN FOR SENATE. Good. By all accounts he’s a decent guy, but we could use a bit less dynastic politics these days . . . .

NATALIE SOLENT: Let us will to do the enemy harm.

NETBOOK UPDATE: I stopped at Circuit City to pick up some stuff today and tried out some netbooks. The Acer Inspire was nice, and so was the little Lenovo, but the best keyboard by far — better than my Asus, too — was on the HP Mini 1035. Meanwhile, they’re discussing netbooks over at the Volokh place.

UPDATE: Will Collier writes:

I don’t think I’ve seen you mention the MSI Wind netbook… my dad gave me one for Christmas this year, and thanks to the helpful folks at the msiwind.net forums, I was able to load it up with Mac OS X almost immediately. I’m extremely happy with this $300 little wonder. The screen is brilliant and very easy to read, and the Atom processor is plenty snappy for standard tasks. Only complaints I have are the 3-cell battery, which runs out way too quickly (I have a larger one ordered), and the comma, period and slash keys, which are just a bit too small and too close together.

Oh, and the fact that you have to manually turn on the Wifi card the first time you use it (with a keystroke combination). I’m one of those people who thinks instructions are for quitters, and I was convinced for a week my Wind was defective when the wireless connection just wouldn’t work. My wife is still snickering at me…

I haven’t seen a Wind, but they’re supposed to be nice.

OH, GOODY: Obama says trillion-dollar deficits may last years.

UPDATE: Missing those evil fatcats: “I suspect that states and even towns like Greenwich are about to discover how much they relied on real estate to round out their tax rolls. They’ll miss them, almost as much as New York will miss those taxable Wall Street salaries.”

THE PANETTA PICK: A brave choice. “The choice is a brave one because it can open Mr. Obama to charges of appointing a loyalist to a crucial post. But that is exactly what is needed at this time.”

UPDATE: More on the Panetta pick: “He’s 70. A 70-year-old man with no background will lead the hunt for al Qaeda. . . . Whatever happened to deep knowledge and real-world experience? Now, you’re willing to go on assertions of good character and a cocky belief in the soundness of what your instincts tell you is obvious and right? That attitude is positively… Bushian.” Meet the new boss, yada yada!

BLAZING SADDLES goes to Washington.

SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR FAILURE BY making excuses in advance:

“This is real self-sabotage, like drinking heavily before a test, skipping practice or using really poor equipment,” said Edward R. Hirt, a psychologist at Indiana University. “Some people do this a lot, and often it’s not clear whether they’re entirely conscious of doing it — or of its costs.”

You certainly see this in students, sometimes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG ON The World’s Pornographic Interest in Jewish Moral Failure. Is it pornographic? Or is it just cowardly, since the Jews don’t cut off your head when you complain?

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from all over.

THE ALBANY TIMES-UNION ON MONEY IN POLITICS:

There’s Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat who, despite heading the Ways and Means Committee that writes tax law, can’t seem to pay his own taxes. Nor does he see an ethical problem with using his congressional stationery to solicit contributions for a school that City College of New York was building in his honor, a matter that last year became grist for the House ethics committee.

Among those Mr. Rangel hit up for money were officials of insurance giant American International Group. Shortly after their April 2008 meeting, a senior AIG executive who had attended it asked Mr. Rangel to support legislation that would save the company millions. That doesn’t square with Mr. Rangel’s public assertion last summer that he couldn’t recall any issues concerning AIG that came before his committee, or that AIG raised any legislation with him.

Then there’s the matter of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary. Mr. Richardson withdrew his name from consideration amid a grand jury investigation into $100,000 in donations to his political action companies from a company, CDR Financial Products. In 2004, around the time of the donations, the company won a state contract worth almost $1.5 million.

And finally there’s Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama’s choice for secretary of state. As part of his wife’s vetting process, former President Bill Clinton agreed to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the donors to his foundation. Among them was Syracuse (and Crossgates)mall developer Robert Congel, who gave $100,000 in 2004, around the same time that Mrs. Clinton was helping to secure millions of dollars in federal support for Mr. Congel’s Destiny USA project. The help for the project, supported by many New York politicians, included tax-exempt bonds for the complex, and $5 million in a highway bill for road construction.

Yeah, it could almost make you kind of cynical. And they don’t even mention Chris Dodd!

TURNING AGAINST compact fluorescent bulbs at the PC L.A. Times? Next they’ll be dissing Al Gore!

I have to say, I replaced a couple of dozen bulbs with CFLs and if it’s made a difference in my electric bill it’s not immediately apparent. I’m currently testing an LED flood in the downstairs hallway — I’ll post a report on that another time.

THE “HOLDER MEMORANDUM” AND Eric Holder’s Sixth Amendment Problem.

WILL NETBOOKS BE the death of x86 computing? Hmm. I think it’s also — as mentioned earlier — that computing power has grown, while most computer tasks — surfing, word processing, email — haven’t gotten much more demanding. Though software writers are always trying to bloat things up to take care of that!

Meanwhile, Bill Quick blogs his netbook experience.

AGAIN: Reuters in the service of Hamas.

ABC NEWS: Funds Tie Obama to Richardson Probe Figure.

IS HARRY REID in trouble in Nevada? “As hard as it may be to believe, given Reid’s political stature, Harry has difficulty connecting with people. Before large groups, he projects a zombie vibe. In person, he appears preoccupied. Looks like a smile might hurt. Never seems comfortable. And perhaps his greatest re-election liability is that he too quickly defaults to bunker mentality with constituents, creating unnecessary suspicion and animosity. Unlike his mentor, former Gov. Mike O’Callaghan, he can’t seem to find ways to charm critics. Over the years, those characteristics have sown a negative cumulative effect on Nevadans.”

MICKEY KAUS: “I submit that the distance between Daniel Patrick Moynihan and AEI is something less than vast. It would be more accurate to say that Moynihan is revered at AEI, especially Moynihan’s neoconservative tendencies.”

INTERFACING WITH NEURONS using nanotechnology.

STANDING IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE SENATE DOOR: Burris blocked!

Some of Burris’ supporters have bemoaned the fact that Democrats would stand in the way of the Senate gaining its only black member. Burris himself downplayed the issue of race, telling reporters: ”I cannot control my supporters. I have never in my life, in all my years of being elected to office, thought anything about race.”

Proving that he lies well enough to be a member of the Senate, anyway! But I guess that’s a necessary but not sufficient condition: “Burris has found little support among fellow Democrats.” I agree with fellow constitutional law professor Ann Althouse that the case for excluding him is weak.

MAKING THE UNDERFUNDED-PENSION TIMEBOMB IN NEW JERSEY even worse.

A CALL FOR OBAMA TO RENOMINATE PETER KEISLER: “Keisler is a superbly qualified nominee (more on that later) who has been praised by legal experts and editorial boards across the political spectrum but has been treated extremely shabbily by Senate Democrats. There is excellent precedent for a president of one party re-nominating an out-going chief executive’s judicial choice. In 2000, a Republican-majority Senate never acted on former President Clinton’s nomination of Virginia’s Roger Gregory to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but President George W. Bush included Gregory among his very first group of nominees in 2001.”

A QUESTION for JPL.

UPDATE: Stephen Gorevan of Honeybee Robotics emails:

The article you linked to about JPL’s missions used the Spirit and Opportunity rovers as the prime example of mission life understatement. But many observers forget that the 90 day lifetime for the Spirit and Opportunity surface ops was based mainly on a prediction that the solar panels on the rovers would take on enough wind blown dust such that the rovers would no longer be able to recharge their batteries. We did not know the Martian winds and dirt devils would regularly clean the panels enabling years of battery life. I know this to be so not only because I am a member of the MER science team but also because my engineering company had a contract to devise a mechanism that would clean off the solar panels for future missions. No one knew such a device would not be necessary!

Very interesting.

IN THE MAIL: Mobility First: A New Vision for Transportation in a Globally Competitive Twenty-first Century.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF WE TOPPLED SADDAM HUSSEIN, gas would be cheaper than it was in 2001. And they were right!

DANIEL DREZNER is now blogging over at Foreign Policy.

DAWN JOHNSEN as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. Another good appointment, I’d say.

POLITICS AS REVIVAL MEETING. My advice: Be the skunk at the picnic!

MORE ON CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON:

Look at New York’s Senator Charles Schumer, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. According to The New York Times, the week after he attended a breakfast of financial high rollers and promised them that Democrats would make sure their $700 billion bailout got through Congress, those same fat cats sent $135,000 in campaign contributions.

Or New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, who reversed himself on a tax break for a business called Nabors Industries the same month that company donated $100,000 to a City College school for public service named after — all together now, class — Charlie Rangel.

Life imitates satire — and vice versa.

Of course, these are just right-wing shills talking. You know, Bill Moyers, right-wing shill.

OBAMA’S STIMULUS STRATEGY: A trap for Republicans?

UPDATE: Kudlow likes the cut of Obama’s jib, but thinks the Republicans should offer a “bold alternative.” (How about making mortgage interest a refundable credit for three years? That should help the housing market!)

Meanwhile, Arnold Kling is against the stimulus bill.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Don’t take the bait!

POPULAR MECHANICS OFFERS continuous reporting from MacWorld and C.E.S. No, I didn’t go this year — I had originally planned to go to the Detroit Auto Show instead, but in the end that kind of looked like too much of a downer so I just stayed home.

MSNBC: “Rangel Watch: Charlie Rangel is still defending himself from allegations of fundraising improprieties. Given the Blagojevich situation and now the Richardson chatter, is Rangel even in more trouble? Will he have to temporarily give up his Ways and Means gavel at this critical time?”

MY POST LAST NIGHT on the 10″ Asus netbook produced an email from reader James Flanagan, who loves his 10″ Samsung N10: “The key selling point for me was the large keyboard, which feels like a ‘real’ laptop. And unlike my ‘regular’ laptop, never an issue about whether to pack it or not. Thanks for all your great netbook coverage.” Yeah, the Samsung looks cool and I considered it, but it’s a bit more expensive than the Asus.

And Scott Atkinson writes: “Further to your post on your Asus netbook, I am into the second day of use of an HP Mini 1035, a 10″ netbook, that I bought at Circuit City yesterday. Very impressed with the speed of XP and I am astonished at the quality of the screen. I am getting used to the keyboard but as you say, the nearly full size makes it easier to use, at least compared to what I was anticipating. Sufficient features for 90% of my personal computing these days, size and weight seem damn-near perfect and the build quality is impressive as well. Nice job, HP (or their partners at Inventec Hi-tech Corporation of Shanghai, China according to the side of the box).”

I like the mini-Note line, though the one I tested had Vista which slowed it down considerably. Great keyboard, though it seems a bit heavier than the others. Good battery life, though.

HOPE AND CHANGE! Pelosi Moves to Silence Minority By Erasing Long-Standing House Rules.

JULES CRITTENDEN OFFERS advice to the Taliban on how to refine their information-warfare techniques.

REPORTING on the RNC Chair debate.

HEH: Bill Clinton: CIA Pick Panetta Can Keep a Secret.

FROM LIAR TO GENIUS: Harry Reid on General Petraeus. At least he’s caught on to the fact that the Surge was more about different tactics than just more troops, something he could have learned by reading InstaPundit two years ago.

SO WHEN IT HAPPENS, boo. Loudly and lustily.

HERE’S A BIT MORE on the Brandon Darby story.

MOVING TOWARD ATOMIC-SCALE COMPUTING with nanotechnology.

ERIC POSNER ON BOLTON AND YOO ON THE TREATY POWER: “It didn’t take long for conservatives to rediscover limits on executive power. You’d think something—if not philosophical consistency, then at least manners—would cause them to hold off until, say, inauguration day.” Well, I thought the question of executive abrogation of treaties had been settled — practically, if not constitutionally — by Goldwater v. Carter. And Larry Tribe’s backdown on NAFTA suggests that inconsistency among politically connected academics is nothing new. Still, a decent interval and all that . . . .

CRUSADING AGAINST STILTED WRITING. ["Crusading?" Can you still say that? -- ed. Yep. I may "lack fire," but I am without fear!]

DUMB LAWSUIT OF THE DAY: Suing Cold Medication Manufacturers Because Drug Dealers Make Drugs out of the Medication. Can I sue these people for making the legal world just a little bit more ridiculous? I’d also like to sue the people who made it so goddamn hard for me to buy Sudafed when I have a cold.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON wonders who will police the police:

If it was true that when the Republicans enjoyed majorities in the House and Senate and ran the White House, there was no one to object when they overspent, grew the government, and ran up the debt, who now will police the Democratic police in matters of corruption?

Rep. Rangel oversees on Ways and Means US tax policy, but is himself a tax offender, among other, far greater charges and allegations about his behavior and character. Sen. Dodd simply cannot tell the truth about his cut-rate, quid pro quo mortgage deals. His actions and the Barney Frank-Franklin Raines exchange are metaphors for the entire subprime mortgage crisis. It would take a genealogist to sort out all the tribal ties, inside pay-offs, and pay for play deals involved in the selling of Obama’s Senate seat; meanwhile, we await the tapes of Jesse Jackson, Jr., Rahm Emanuel, and Co. Al Franken simply relied on Minnesota Democratic officials to keep counting until they came up with the right result. On matters of nepotism, entitlement, and insider favoritism, Democratic egalitarians will probably anoint Caroline Kennedy as Senator in New York. Bill Richardson didn’t even try to pull off being Secretary of Commerce. Nowhere is there anyone on the Democratic side to decry the culture of corruption as in the days of Duke Cunningham and Ted Stevens.

A fair, honest, and impartial press would do this. Wish we had one!

LEON PANETTA FOR CIA DIRECTOR: Richard Miniter comments: “Obama needs to explain why an inexperienced former congressman and lobbyist will be a better CIA director than the guy doing the job now.” Meanwhile, Dianne Feinstein may oppose him. In a related development, I saw Newt Gingrich on TV saying that the CIA “can’t be run by an outside political appointment.” I’m not so sure that it shouldn’t be, as I believe there’s some cleanup that needs to take place. Here’s a similar point from Angelo Codevilla: “Leon Panetta may not know very much about foreign affairs or defense matters. He is wholly unacquainted with the questions and quarrels that have roiled the US intelligence community for a half century. But, as veteran political warrior, he will do what President Obama expects of him: prevent CIA from making war upon him as it made war on George W. Bush.”

UPDATE: “They’ve got to put him somewhere.”

TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Five reasons why India can’t “do a Gaza” on Pakistan.

SO, A WHILE BACK I MENTIONED THE 10″ ASUS NETBOOK, but since then I’ve gotten one and used it enough to form an opinion. My opinion is that it’s a pretty neat little gadget. It’s only a little bit bigger than the 9″ Asus, but it feels a lot bigger. The bigger screen is nice, but it’s the keyboard — which goes from cramped-but-usable to nearly full-sized — that’s the big difference. And you get a lot for the $383 that Amazon is currently asking: Windows XP, wireless, webcam with microphone, a 160 GB hard drive, an Atom processor, and 1GB of RAM. Also, it has a surprisingly high-quality feel for the price — it doesn’t feel like a cheap netbook, it feels like a small laptop. The 9″ Asus is entirely usable, but at the 10″ size a lot of the compromises seem to melt away. Battery life is good, too — I’m not sure you’ll really get the claimed 6-7 hours, but I’ve gotten 4.5 hours with some time remaining so it’s pretty good for such a lightweight machine. And did I mention it’s cheap?

UPDATE: Reader Mike Robinson likes his: “I bought one from Amazon (free shipping of course) and it is just wonderful and a nice bright screen. Runs applications adequately and the size of the keyboard really doesn’t require any compromises. I also purchased a memory upgrade to 2GB, which cost an extra $30 bucks or so. Thanks for your earlier recommendation.”

And John Frederick has an Acer Aspire: “I’m typing this on my wife’s, I mean ‘our’, new Acer with extended battery and 160 GB HD. We love it. It’s like carrying a little book around. We got over 6 hours the other night using it for web surfing and basic tasks.” Yeah, I saw one of those when I was in the Caymans and it looked cool; the guy who owned it said it was great.

AND HERE I THOUGHT the “culture of corruption” was gone.

CONSUMER CHOICE saves “Dora the Explorer.” But I’m still in favor of it . . . .

ANNOUNCING THE automotive Darwin Awards.

OKAY, CHRISTMAS IS OVER, and so is after-Christmas, but here’s a one-day-only toy sale in case anyone’s still interested.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: If You Dropped a Corn Kernel From Space, Would it Pop During Re-Entry?

THE PELOSI DOCTRINE: What’s good for her is good for America!

FORBES: Clinton’s Iranian Connection. Surely the vetters will have looked at this . . . oh, wait—-

UH OH: New bird flu cases revive fears of human pandemic.

BAILOUT FEVER reaches the University of Virginia.

MAN POWERS HOME DURING ICE STORM using his Prius.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Sorry, Climate Change Wouldn’t Hurt America’s Economy.

Plus, how to turn the E.U. President into a “figurehead.” EU’s new figurehead believes climate change is a myth. Apparently, the Times hasn’t gotten the word about the new message discipline.

BUT DON’T CALL THEM “BARBARIANS,” because that would be rude. Comparing Hamas to the Nazis. “The Hamas founding covenant explicitly calls for the extermination of all Jews. Hitler never made total extermination an official plank of the the Nazi party platform.”

UPDATE: Rand Simberg wonders why so many on the left are indifferent to Hamas’s intentions. “What are the Israeli intentions? To live in peace, without a threat to their lives and nation, and to minimize casualties, on both sides, in any war waged against them. What are Hamas’ intentions? Their intentions (and not secret ones, but stated openly and proudly, as Ron Rosenbaum points out) are the most evil imaginable (other than the extinction of the human race itself). Their explicit goal is the extinction of all Jews in creation.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts here: “I have never seen these two or many of the Guardian writers go after Hamas or Hezbollah like they do Israel. . . . When your advice for peace is to give up, don’t be surprised when others look down at you.”

ETHANOL-POWERED MUSTANG reaches 252 mph.

ELENA KAGAN to be Solicitor General. Seems like a very good choice.

OBAMA’S NEW DEAL is sounding kinda familiar: “The Obama tax-cut proposals, if enacted, could pack more punch in two years than either of President George W. Bush’s tax cuts did in their first two years.” Meet the new boss, yada yada. But Jim Lindgren thinks it’s “smart policy.”

IN MINNESOTA: More ballots than voters?

MICHELLE MALKIN: Who says conservative bloggers don’t do reporting?

Meanwhile, Michael Silence explodes another base calumny.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Katie Granju. Nice to have so many folks from my local paper respond to charges that I’m a newspaper-hater.

RON COLEMAN, TWITTER GOD: “The fact is, I’m too good at social networking for my own good.”

IN THE MAIL: From Bruce Schneier, Schneier on Security. I’ve said repeatedly that homeland security is a joke, but Schneier does a better job of explaining why.

IS BILL FRIST HEADED FOR a job at the Gates Foundation?

Farragut, Tennessee.

INSTA-POLL: Rate the scandals!

KENNETH ANDERSON on battlefield robots and war crimes.

MICHAEL YON: The Department of Homeland Security in Action. It’s not pretty. But, then, when has it been? Jeez.

SURPRISE! IT’S NOT ACTUALLY TERRIBLE! Hands-on with the Windows 7 beta.

UPDATE: Okay, I don’t know why that link’s not working now. But you can also go here and scroll down.

HARRY REID: “In sync with the Bush Administration” on Israel.

GEE, DO YOU THINK? Richardson withdrawal leaves gap in Cabinet picks. Plus, reader Jim McKee emails: “They told me if I voted for McCain, I’d have a President who didn’t properly vet his nominees–and they were right!”

UPDATE: Burris heads to Washington.

NOTHING SAYS “BUILD AN INTERNATIONALLY COMPETITIVE ECONOMY” like 600,000 new government employees! Hope and Change!

RANGEL UPDATE: Rangel Ethics Probe Incomplete, Despite Pelosi’s Prediction.

GLENN GREENWALD and bogus video.

UPDATE: Greenwald responds in the comments.

ANTI-VACCINE ACTIVISM in New Jersey. Some thoughts of mine are here.

WILL HARRY REID BARRICADE THE SENATE DOOR?

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus wonders about a Burris / Blago / SEIU connection.