Mark Franchetti of The Sunday Times (London, presumably; the link is from The Australian) has more:

[F]ollowing the discovery in the wreckage of flight 1047 of traces of hexogen, an explosive used in previous Chechen attacks, the Russian authorities had conceded that terrorism was to blame.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) has confirmed that traces of the same explosives were found in the wreckage of the second plane, and it has also emerged that the Tupolev-154 sent at least two distress signals – an SOS followed by a hijack alert.

Suspicion pointed to two suspected "black widows", female Chechen suicide bombers, apparently determined to strike a blow against the Kremlin in the run-up to yesterday's elections in the breakaway Caucasian republic--expected to be won by Moscow's man Alu Alkhanov.

The suspected "widow" on flight 1047 was S. Dzhebirkhanova, a young woman believed to be a Chechen who boarded the plane after changing her ticket for an earlier flight.

Suspiciously, none of Dzhebirkhanova's relatives or friends has come forward since the disaster to claim her remains.

No next of kin have been identified either for Amanta Nagayeva, 27, the suspected terrorist on the other plane. Registered on the passenger list as living in Grozny, the Chechen capital, she was the last person to buy a ticket for flight 1303, only an hour before takeoff.

She was a market trader whose brother disappeared four years ago after he was detained by Russian troops. It is also believed that she once lived in a small village in southern Chechnya where an Islamic militant ran a terrorist training camp. Her remains were found in small fragments, suggesting she had blown herself up.

The mystery remained how the bombers managed to smuggle their explosives on board. Domodedovo airport, which the two flights left within 46 minutes of each other, was overhauled two years ago and re-equipped with the latest baggage scanning technology and dogs trained to smell explosives.

Maybe black widows didn't fit the profile.

What movies rarely do, however, is provide us an opportunity to marvel at the scope and complexity of materials science and engineering.

Ah, but “rare” does not mean “never,” and there are a handful of films that have great materials moments even if the movies themselves do not always, if ever, attain greatness. To be sure, materials never have the starring role, but they oftentimes have the power to amaze, awe, and accomplish fantastic feats.

Before pushing the “play” button on the countdown, however, I encourage you to first review the ground rules that I employed in filtering through the nominees. Some of them may seem arbitrary (and they are), but they all serve to give me a manageable structure in which to operate. As with any good article, these parameters are outlined in the Experimental Procedures section. Okay, enough with the introductory blah, blah, blah. Let’s get on with the show.

The list is here, and, no, The Graduate isn't #1.

The big problem with aircraft accident investigation is that everyone immediately trots out their pet theories. Of course, as you so aptly put it, everyone is spooked on terrorism already, so there's ample room for a knee-jerk reaction right there.

Determining whether or not these were actual terrorist events will take a while, unless some group claims responsibility and has data to back up their claim. The flight data recorders and the cockpit voice recorders all have to be read, the wreckage needs to be examined thoroughly, radar tapes analyzed, maintenance records reviewed, pilot's medical histories reviewed, autopsies performed (you need to look for shrapnel inside victim's bodies), etc., etc.- all of the gumshoe type work. This is a lot different than 9/11, when the whole world saw on video the two airplanes hitting the towers. Even then, if the World Trade Center attacks hadn't occurred on 9/11, but the Pennsylvania and Pentagon ones had, it would have taken some time to figure those out (well, except for cell phones).

Even after all of the investigation is completed, and the probable causes and findings are issued by the appropriate experts, that's still no guarantee of total agreement. For example, there are still a lot of people out there that believe that TWA 800 was downed by a terrorist missile and a government cover-up ensued, even though the evidence is extremely compelling that the NTSB got it right the first time.

Also, even though the odds of 2 aircraft crashing within minutes of each other due to unrelated causes are astronomical, in Russia, anything is possible when it comes to air safety. If this investigation goes like the one on the Kursk (the submarine that sank in the Barents Sea a few years back), it's going to be a spectacular goat rope.

So, to sum- good for you for not even speculating, and sticking to the facts!

Coincidences do occur--all the time. That doesn't mean the crashes were a coincidence, but it's certainly possible.

For more on Kerry and the hapless hamster, see Will Saletan's satire of the Swifties. And the Kerry Hamster Dance is here here. Both links are courtesy of a Google search for "kerry hamster."

That we all suspect terrorism, though no group has claimed responsibility, suggests just how much terrorism has changed: It's not about specific causes (Chechen rebels say the crashes aren't they're doing) or specific targets but about generally striking fear. Or maybe we're all just spooked.

In other blog-favorite news, Grant McCracken has several stimulating posts on "the economics of the gaze" (with a comment from Professor Postrel, who often comments there), as well as a photo the contents of his refrigerator ("How to Blog Like an Anthropologist II").

As Los Angeles County's 100th case of West Nile virus was confirmed Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors took steps to assert sweeping new powers to enter private property to eradicate mosquito-breeding spots.

With Los Angeles County cases surpassing those in San Bernardino County, previously hardest hit in the state, the supervisors directed lawyers, health authorities and the agricultural commissioner to draft an ordinance to let officials go onto private property anywhere in the county and clean up standing water in which mosquitoes can breed.

Where are these mosquitoes? Apparently not on the Westside.

The issue arose at a campaign town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa, when a woman in the audience asked an unusually pointed question: "I need to know, what do you think about homosexual marriages?"

The vice president was candid in his response. "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with," Cheney said. "We have two daughters, and we have enormous pride in both of them."

The statement marked the first time Cheney has publicly addressed the fact that his daughter, Mary--who helps run his campaign--is gay, although she has been open about it.

"With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone," he added.

In February, President Bush proposed a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages.

Since then, the vice president has been in a difficult position. In 2000, he had said the issue should be left up to the states. Reluctant to publicize his differences with Bush, when asked about the issue previously, he said, "I support the president."

But his latest remarks made plain that his view is different. "That's appropriately a matter for the states to decide. That's how it ought to best be handled," he said. "At this point, my own preference is as I've stated. But the president makes basic policy for the administration."

Needless to say, social conservatives are upset. But the Cheneys apparently put family values above political litmus tests.

A new analysis commissioned by the Legislature suggests that sending American jobs overseas, far from being a blow to employment, can actually help preserve existing jobs and create new ones.

The paper, prepared by the Public Policy Institute of California, warns lawmakers against trying to stem the practice by prohibiting offshoring in state contracts, noting that such a ban would drive up the cost of services and take money away from other programs in the budget.

I have seen a copy of the report, sent 10 days ago to the Assembly Office of Policy Planning and Research, which requested it in May. But that office has yet to release the document publicly, and a spokeswoman for the researchers who prepared it said the paper is still a draft that is being reviewed by the Assembly for possible revisions.

"It's a work that is very close to being completed," said Abby Cook, spokeswoman for the policy institute. "We're waiting for some final feedback."

That feedback is not likely to be warm from the Democrats who control the Legislature. Many of them have jumped on the outsourcing issue, hoping to demonstrate their affinity with working people.

The last thing they want is a study done in their name that claims shipping jobs overseas is not only good for the economy, but for workers as well.

But that, more or less, is the conclusion of the 47-page report, for which authors Jon Haveman and Howard Shatz culled all the recent research on the issue and examined trends in California employment. While conceding that data on the latest trends are still in short supply, Haveman and Shatz wrote that offshoring is probably overrated as an economic phenomenon for good or ill, but that, if anything, it is likely to be a net positive.

"Because of the dynamics of the U.S. economy and offshoring's expected effect on productivity, the overall, longer-run effect of offshoring may be to increase living standards at home," they wrote....

That's not just economic theory. The numbers in the real world support this view. Between 1991 and 2001, wrote Haveman and Shatz, U.S. firms that expanded their employment abroad also increased their domestic employment by 5.5 million workers. Their share of overall U.S. employment also increased during this period.

The LAT has more:

"What data are available suggest that the number of jobs being offshored is small relative both to the overall labor market and to the number of people working in the relevant at risk-occupations," the report says. "The bigger challenge for California is the … movement of jobs from California to elsewhere in the United States."

The report warns that foreign countries might retaliate by limiting their purchases of California goods, and that the state may end up spending more taxpayer money if it hires only companies offering domestic workers, because the higher labor costs will make the contract prices larger.

"At a time when California is considering decreases in help to the poorest Californians and making other difficult spending choices, limits on offshoring will aid above-average wage earners," the report said.

The Assembly's Office of Policy Planning and Research, which commissioned the report for $25,000, has not released it, but a copy, dated Aug. 12, was obtained by The Times.

That passage appears in an article reporting that the legislature has passed the first of six anti-outsourcing bills. A bill to "prohibit the state from hiring outside service contractors, such as software companies and call centers, if they planned to use foreign workers for the jobs" is headed to the governor's desk. Only a girly-man would sign it.

When art economist David Kusin read about The Scream being snatched, the first thought that came to his mind was terrorism.

Mr. Kusin speculated about the reasons behind the theft only because he was asked to by a reporter. But as president of Dallas-based Kusin & Co., which helps governments and banks value artwork used as collateral for loans, he's tapped in to the art world in a way few people are.

"Norway is not a member of OPEC, and its oil production is completely independent," he reasons about the world's third-largest oil exporter. "As a result, the country is resented in many fundamentalist Islamic circles because it goes its own way."

The heist could be an effort to get Norway to fall into step in return for the famous painting. Such a scenario takes the widely held belief that the artwork was stolen for ransom into a frightening realm.

Sounds a bit far-fetched to me--but then this is a strange crime. (A Google search turns up several articles in major publications quoting Kusin. He's a bona fide art expert.)

UPDATE: For the answer, Tim Sandefur points to these posts at Musical Perceptions.

Perhaps the most revealing part of the article is the paragraph where Lapham pretends to have heard the speeches at the Republican National Convention that does not open until a week from today. Referring to "the platform on which [George W. Bush] was trundled into New York City this August with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the heavy law enforcement, and the paper elephants," Lapham writes:

The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal--government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maiden's prayer--and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that [Richard] Hofstadter didn't stay to answer. How did a set of ideas both archaic and bizarre make its way into the center ring of the American political circus?

True, the issue is dated September, but I got my copy in early August, and Lapham must have written those words in July. Didn't it occur to him that his readers might notice he was claiming to have witnessed an event that had not occurred when the magazine went to press? Evidently, Republicans are not the only ones Lapham thinks are stupid.

Jason Tanz in Fortune looked at how well-established industrial companies are using aesthetics as a competitive tool:

Of course, it's no surprise that companies like Apple and Herman Miller are good at design. What is surprising is how many downright dowdy manufacturers are successfully reinventing themselves as design-driven shops. Master Lock, for instance, would be happy to sell you one of its sleek new Titanium Series padlocks, developed with the aid of Design Continuum in Boston. (If you're not crazy about this particular model, don't worry. "We change our designs every year, almost like the auto industry," says John Heppner, Master Lock's president and COO.) AC Delco now offers a car jack that mirrors the curves and colors of the wackiest concept car. And in the past few years the Stanley Works--a 160-year-old company--has released a raft of new offerings that range from a one-piece Antivibe hammer that cuts down on vibration to a laser-equipped stud finder. "You're seeing lots of companies that have very good technological histories saying, 'That's great, but it's not enough in this marketplace,' " says Virginia Postrel, a columnist for the New York Times and author of the new book The Substance of Style. "Now they're trying to find a way of using design to make their technologies resonate."

It's working. In 2001, Whirlpool introduced its Duet line of washers and dryers, which have soft curves and splashes of color; now the company has 19% of the front-loading washer market, up from zero two years ago. In 1999, Coleman revamped the design of its coolers to make them look more streamlined; by 2001 its cooler sales had increased 40%, and Coleman led the category for the first time in ten years. (It sells 100,000 of its hip solid-steel coolers—which retail for around $100—annually.) And in the two years since it was released, Stanley's newest Antivibe has become one of America's top-selling hammers.

And Bobbie Gossage in Inc. examined small-business strategies. HarperCollins has posted an excerpt from the first chapter of The Substance of Style online here; in it, I discuss GE Plastics' use of aesthetics as a competitive tool. (Interestingly, the excerpt is from a slightly earlier draft of the chapter than the one that actually appears in the book.)

Hey, those Martha Stewart sounds are even scarier this year... What do you call a stack of 48 copies of "Martha Stewart Living: Spooky Scary Sounds for Halloween," or another of375 copies of "Entertainment Weekly: The Greatest Hits 1971?" How about a CD price-fixing settlement award? As a result of a class-action lawsuit filed in 2000 by 43 states, the nation's five major record lables are adding thousands of CDs to the collections of state libraries, schools, government organizations and other non-profit groups. And according to most reports I've seen, the CDs the labels are shippping, are trash. Unless, you've got a better word for 1,400 copies of Whitney Houston's CD single "The Star-Spangled Banner" or 58 copies of Michael Bolton's "Timeless".

I've omitted dead or otherwise annoying links; the remaining one is worth checking out.

UPDATE: Danny Noonan of Electric Commentary blogged on this topic last month:

The Milwaukee Public Library got, in part: 188 copies of Michael Bolton's 'Timeless," 375 of "Entertainment Weekly: The Greatest Hits 1971," 104 copies of Will Smith's "Willennium," 11 of "Martha Stewart Living: Spooky Scary Sounds for Halloween," lots of Christmas music, and everything in between, from nearly all genres from rap to classical - and even 77 copies of a CD by chanting Spanish monks.

There was even mold growing on a few of the 520 CDs received in Mequon - a five-disc 1999 set titled "Respect: A Century of Women in Music."

Today's Washington Post has a front-page story about anti-Americanism in Arab pop culture, leading with a description of the latest film from Egypt's best-known moviemaker, Youssef Chahine. The new film, entitled Alexandria . . . New York, is "a cinematic divorce paper," according to the Post. Writes reporter Daniel Williams, "Chahine said he had long admired the United States and its biggest city, but now he has made a film brimming with resentment."

Oh yeah? Spare me Chahine's supposedly lost admiration. The last time I saw Chahine take up the subject of the U.S. he once "admired" so much, he portrayed the country as an old whore pandering to Jews. That's the conclusion of his 1978 "masterpiece," Alexandria . . . Why? The film tells the story of an Egyptian film student in the 1940s who wants to come to the U.S. to study. At the movie's end, he's on a ship approaching New York. What we see is the Statue of Liberty itself in the guise of that fat, painted whore, welcoming not the Egyptian student, but instead a group of European Hasidic Jews complete with long sidecurls. The overpainted Ms. Liberty laughs lasciviously, exposing her mouthful of bad teeth, while a Jewish chant is playing on the soundtrack.

It gets more devastating from there. Read the whole thing, which includes recommendations for Egyptian artists worth covering. And if you haven't read it already, check out Chuck's feature-length look at how pop culture might liberate the Muslim world.

There are two ways to interpret this week's Dilbert strips, which satirize aesthetic-oriented tech design, and probably both of them are right. As always, Scott Adams has a keen eye for corporate foolishness, especially when it involves taking good ideas and making them stupid. As Dilbert tries to suggest to his bosses, today's aesthetic imperative is not a drive to substitute style for function but to add style to function. One of the main causes is that quality as traditionally defined has gotten so high (and price so low) that businesses have to find a new dimension on which to compete. Slapping a pretty shell on a lousy product, or building a beautiful restaurant with lousy service and worse food, won't work.

But the strips also represent the engineer's rebellion against the idea that style has value--or that, on the margin, additional style might have more value than additional function. This objection, which often comes from people who consider themselves on the right of the political spectrum, echoes the left-wing critique that says consumer capitalism is all about deceiving peoople with pretty packaging. In chapter three of The Substance of Style, I look at the legitimate value of aesthetic pleasure, even in functional products, and at one point I argue with this post from Steve Den Beste's blog:

Today an engineer similarly condemns the latest iMac for using behind-the-curve chips and mocks buyers who've "been seduced by the case plastic":

After people get over the oh, cool! and start really looking at this, the only real reason for getting it will be to impress people, just as was the case with the Cube, because what is really innovative about this is the case. And you can't actually get any work done with a fancy case.

Missing the effects of the technological progress he sees as legitimate innovation, the engineer doesn't consider the tradeoffs. For a long time, ever-greater computing power was indeed what people looked for in a new machine. But computers are so capable these days that most customers don't need the absolutely fastest chip. To someone who doesn't plan to tax the machine's processing speed, a beautiful case may be worth more than cutting-edge technology, not just for status ("to impress people") but for personal enjoyment. At a given price, adding style will be more valuable, at least to some people, than adding power. True, you can't get any more work done with a fancy case, but you can enjoy the same work more.

Despite my qualms about its implicit argument, I did enjoy the Dilbert series, particularly yesterday's entry:

For a full archive and lots of other Dilbert stuff, go here. My Reason interview with Scott Adams is here.

"We didn't understand the shoe business worked in fashion seasons. We finally got a line of shoes and brought them to the marketplace and the retailers said 'Fine. What are you doing for fall?' We realized then that a bunch of MIT folks trying to design women's shoes was a big mistake. We had this great technology…why not sell it to other people who make shoes and make their shoes better and let them deal with the fashion stuff?

"The shoe industry is more accepting of change as it relates to styling because they view that as the most critical thing. Of course, the high tech industry couldn't care less about fashion." (After all, it took the personal computer industry nearly two decades to realize there was life beyond eggshell white.) "The point is, industries change first in their own dimension, not all dimensions."

The prominent cases are rooted, in part, in 1991 civil rights legislation that allowed victims of employment discrimination to seek punitive and compensatory damages, according to academics and lawyers who represent both employers and employees. The change makes such lawsuits potentially more lucrative for law firms, which have begun building the expertise to pursue them.

The discrimination cases come from all over the country and make a variety of claims, but some common threads run through them. The claims tend to focus on pay and promotion rather than hiring, they rely heavily on statistical evidence of race or sex disparities, and so far, most of them haven't gone to trial. In most cases, either the employer wins when a judge or an appeals court refuses to allow the case to go forward as a group action or the employees win when the class is certified and the two sides settle.

Along with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1991 civil rights law was one of the proudest accomplishments of the Bush I administration.

The articles you cite are inadvertently a counter to the right-wing criticism of Bush's economic policies. His most severe anti-market move was the tariff on imported steel, which was highly porous legislation that did not even continue, and which may have served as a low-cost sop to protectionists in certain states. In contrast, on the more important and less easily observable work of micro-efficiencies -- the Bush skepticism of regulation, which is in fact the default position of the entire economic profession -- looks to be exactly the sort of thing free marketeers would want. Would people like Tyler Cowen or Dan Drezener really prefer a Kerry administration which was Clintonesque on visible free trade and biased in favor of activist legislation away from the public eye?

After all it's the day to day accretion of unexamined regulations that probably do as much if not more damage to the long run efficiency of the economy -- than the bigger-splash macro policies on the deficit and trade.

On economic policy, I always care most about regulation because it's capable of creating huge distortions, is largely unscrutinized by the public, and is almost impossible to get rid of once it's in place. Here's another reason to watch Arnold's veto pen.

Nobody has yet picked up on the single most incredible thing in Kerry's war story about being in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968: he has been saying for years, unchallenged, that South Vietnamese troops were celebrating Christmas by shooting into the air.

Huh?

This has prompted me to a sorta Casey Stengel moment -- I mean, can't ANYBODY here play this game?

Kerry's story has five parts: 1) He was in Cambodia on a secret mission, 2) it was Christmas Eve, 1968, 3) South Vietnamese troops were shooting into the air to celebrate, 4) he was afraid he'd be killed by the friendly fire, and 5) he was worried that Nixon would lie to his family about his death, because it was a secret mission in an illegal war.

Points 1, 2, 4 and 5 have all been attacked by everybody from the Swifties first recruited by Nixon (see #5) to liberal columnists for the Boston Globe.

But nobody has attacked #3 -- which is the part that makes the least sense.

AND it's the part that most strongly suggests Kerry is essentially telling the truth.

ARVN, the South Vietnamese Army, was overwhelmingly Buddhist. (It was a Buddhist general. Big Minh, who had knocked off Diem, the Catholic, in 1963 and plunged us into the mess.) So they would have been most unlikely to be loudly celebrating Christmas -- which, in fact, is rarely if ever celebrated anywhere by firing off guns into the air.

But TET is celebrated with loud noises.

Kerry's biographer Doug Brinkley says that Kerry wasn't in Cambodia, or even close, on Christmas Eve 1968, which has been widely reported as proving that the story is false. But -- ain't that the LEAST important part of the story? The WSJ scoffed at Kerry's 'visions of sugar plums', but if you read what he actually said -- every time, he's been very consistent -- what 'seared' him is #s 1, 3, 4 and 5. Number two just happens to be a handle for the story, it's not essential.

And it is false. But the error tends to corrororate the rest of the story.

Cuz -- again, according to Brinkley, who has the documents -- Kerry WAS in Cambodia on several occasions, in late January and early February 1969. Kranish's reporting tends to support Brinkley in part and doesn't disprove him anywhere.

Tet was February 17, 1969.

Since you asked: there was a HUGE amount of activity along the border all through this period. The year before, remember, we'd gotten nailed in a surprise attack. In 1969, the First Air Cav launched a major offensive on February 23, shortly after Tet.

So it only makes sense that Kerry would have been putting spies into Cambodia at the time, to see if the trails were full, if weapons were being cached for another Tet offensive.

And Vietnamese soldiers were so notoriously fond of firing weapons to celebrate Tet, that (as every memoir shows) we initially disregarded the firing on Tet 1968, figuring it was just more celebration.

I dunno why the Kerry campaign didn't jump ahead of this, but it reminds me of Stephanopolous in 1992, when questions about Clinton's draft record came up, He was too young to know why this stuff was such a big deal for the Boomers. I get the impression nobody in the Kerry camp has the balls to go to him quick and set him straight on his own stories... but, geez: you know as well as I do that it's the guy whose war story checks out in EVERY detail who is most likely fibbing. People tend to remember the important thing (those assholes may kill me, and what would Nixon tell my family) and get details wrong (it was a Sunday, when it was a Tuesday).

In this case, the mistake on a detail tends to support everything else: he confused OUR holiday, with theirs -- and over 30 years of telling the tale, he's gotten the handle wrong.

But the evidence supports that he's telling a true story. Somebody should say so.

I personally don't care all that much about this ancient history (or, for that matter, about George Bush's Air National Guard service or Clinton's draft dodging). But obviously a lot of people DO care about it, and political reporters are in business to give people information about candidates. If they can't do their jobs on this story, they should switch to another beat. So, guys, here's another hypothesis worth checking out: Did Kerry simply confuse Christmas and Tet?

And once you're done checking out this story, could you give us some information on Kerry's likely policy toward Iranian nukes?

UPDATE: Those who can't get enough of this topic should check out Roger Simon's post on the Globe piece, including the comments.

Here are 10 bills the majority Democratic Party may attempt to send to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk in the final days of the legislative session, many of which are targeted for opposition by the Republican leadership or business groups. The governor's response to them will more firmly establish his developing track record.

Prescription drugs (AB1957 and AB1958, Frommer, D-Glendale and SB149, Ortiz, D-Sacramento) -- Would create a state-run Web site to help consumers buy prescription drugs from Canada and allow CalPERS, the state employees' retirement system, to establish a purchasing pool for prescription medication.

Outsourcing (Nine bills altogether, including AB1829, Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge and SB1492, Dunn, D-Santa Ana). The Democrats' broadest legislative offensive seeks to rein in California companies that send jobs overseas. Liu's bill prohibits companies contracting with state or local governments from doing so; Dunn's bill, citing privacy concerns, limits medical information that can be processed overseas. The California Chamber of Commerce, which teamed with Schwarzenegger on workers' compensation reforms, is unilaterally opposed to the round of outsourcing bills.

'Big-box' impacts (SB1056, Alarcon, D-Sun Valley) -- Would mandate economic impact studies be performed locally before cities decide whether to allow "big-box" retailers into the area.

Minimum wage (AB2832, Lieber, D-Mountain View) -- Boosts minimum wage by $1 per hour over the next two years, from $6.75 to $7.75.

'Green' businesses (SB1703, Alarcon, D-Sun Valley) -- Allows businesses to be certified by a local agency as environmentally friendly if found to be preventing pollution and minimizing waste.

Foie gras (SB1520, Burton, D-San Francisco) -- Bans sale and production of foie gras, the fattened goose liver savored by some high-end diners but abhorred by animal rights activists because of the force-feeding method commonly used to produce it. Would take effect July 2012.

Immigrant rights (SB1160, Cedillo, D-Los Angeles) -- Would allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, provided various conditions, including a clean background check, are met. The bill has been the subject of protracted negotiations with the administration.

Food stamps (AB1796, Leno, D-San Francisco and AB2013, Steinberg, D- Sacramento) -- Assemblyman Mark Leno's bill, supported by several law enforcement groups but opposed by Republicans, would allow the state to override a federal rule that bans food stamp use by felony drug convicts. Thirty-two other states have exercised their right to do so. Steinberg's bill would stop the state practice of fingerprinting welfare and food stamp recipients as a means to deter fraud.

Car purchases (AB1839, Montañez, D-San Fernando) -- A sweeping consumer protection act giving car buyers new access to a host of financing information and applying caps to loan rates used by banks and dealers. Possible three-day "cooling off" period that would allow buyers to return vehicles for a fee. The bill is being heavily lobbied on both sides; Schwarzenegger has taken political contributions from car dealerships in the past.

Drug possession (AB2274, Dymally, D-Compton and SB131, Sher, D-Palo Alto) Affects the charges applied to various types of drug crimes. The bill aims to equalize the penalty for selling crack cocaine with the penalty for selling powder cocaine. Assemblyman Byron Sher's bill would downgrade possession of less than 28.5 grams of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction.

Stay tuned.

I don't have to do these things because I don't want to and because they are not my job. But there are a lot of fine journalists who do have the job of political reporting, they are not doing it when it comes to Kerry's past, and they are making our whole profession look bad. Come on, folks. If you can't find out any independent sources on Kerry's own story, at least report the "he says-he says" allegations. And help out your audience with some context: Dig up some more-or-less unbiased (or at least nonpartisan) sources to provide some historical context for the bizarre Cambodia story. Never mind John Kerry specifically, what were U.S. operations during that period? Are any of his various accounts plausible and, if so, which ones? Or give readers some background on the procedures for awarding medals during Vietnam. There was a lot of medal inflation and, presumably, some politics in how medals were awarded. What, if anything, does the broader context tell us about Kerry and his critics?

This story would be a lot easier on news reporters--who, after all, are supposed to write history's first draft, not to figure out what happened long ago and far away--if Douglas Brinkley were a better (I'm tempted to say "real") historian.

UPDATE: An armchair analyst beats the beat reporters to a plausible explanation of the Cambodia story.

The reporters take the attitude that any restriction approved by "activists" and disapproved by "business" must be good--end of debate. They also make heavy weather of the fact that regulatory policy is made largely without public scrutiny. That's true, of course, but it's nothing new. The whole point of regulatory agencies is to take law-making out of the legislative process and put it in the hands of "disinterested" technocrats. And enabling legislation is almost always esoteric and complex, the sort of thing only special interest groups, pro and con, pay attention to or even understand.

This NYT graphic tells the story (click link for full-size version). Note that it shows the incremental costs of new regulations, not the total cost of all regulations. Today's regulatory costs include the costs of complying with old regulations.

Taken as a whole, this latest media campaign offers an answer to an oft-asked question: Why on earth would a libertarian vote for George W. Bush?

This past May, I made an open call at The Command Post to counter the evil of Nick Berg’s murder by strengthening the good of Susan Tom and her kids. It was an easy promise to make--we would donate any funds deposited in our PayPal account over a 48 hour period to the Tom Family Education Trust--and I never really thought we’d meet the $10,000 goal. Indeed, I had been casually planning my “well, we gave it a good show and at least we helped” post literally from the moment I made the initial request. People are, I thought, just too often asked to contribute to charity, from their United Way Drive at work to the CF candy bar drive at their door to their church tithe.

It was an easy promise to make, and I never really thought we’d meet the $10,000 goal. Indeed, I had been casually planning my “well, we gave it a good show and at least we helped” post literally from the moment I made the initial request. People are, I thought, just too often asked to contribute to charity, from their United Way Drive at work to the CF candy bar drive at their door to their church tithe.

But people DID respond, and not only did we meet the $10,000 goal—we did far better, raising $15,000 in less than three days for the education of the Tom children.

From reading the comments and emails I received, it wasn’t just the idea of countering evil by helping good that attracted people to Susan Tom and compelled those people to give. For many, it was just reading her story and hearing about something noble and caring in this difficult world. It was about having a break from constant reminders of death and terror and crime. And for many, it was the chance to help in a way that was immediate, simple, and very, very personal. The chance to give to something they could trust … something with a face where they knew their impact would be felt, even if they only gave $1. The chance to actually make a difference.

I think there are many, many such chances in the world. I also think the sentiment to read about something good and strong, and to have the opportunity to make a difference if one so chooses, runs very deep.

And so, in late May I had an idea, and now I have a proposition.

With The Command Post, people from all walks of life and from all points of the world--over 120 bloggers in all--came together to create something wholly new: decentralized journalism. And while the Post isn’t the day-to-day bandwidth hog she was during the run to Baghdad, her power is in her network, and the model still works: when news happens...be it the 2003 Northeast Blackout, the New Hampshire Primary, or Hurricane Charley, our contributors know where to post, and people all over the world log in to get the story from multiple sources in real time.

It’s proof not just of the power of the Web. It’s proof of the power inherent in the global network of blogs, and in the end, of the power of people within that network to create something greater than the sum through individual but coordinated action.

Now I think it’s time to extend that power to something good...to make the leap from decentralized journalism to decentralized charity.

Here’s the idea: Create a network of bloggers who raise awareness of "micro charities"--charitable opportunities that are simple, personal, non-bureaucratic, and, like Susan Tom, inspiring. Charitable opportunities where someone can feel great about giving $1, or even just from reading the story of the charity, its sponsors, and its beneficiaries....

So here’s the proposition: I’ll find them, if you’ll link to them.

Last May I registered the domain www.strengthenthegood.com, which now is the home for a blog of the same name. (It’s a placeholder design for now while Sekimori works her magic.) Every third Sunday night I’ll post about a "Susan Tom-esque? micro-charity. I’ll find them, I’ll qualify them, and I’ll post their story with enough detail that people can qualify them for themselves, and feel good (or even inspired) by what the charity stands for and who it benefits.

I'll be participating in this innovative effort and am interested in hearing about any causes that may fit the bill.