The CIA has asked that the lastest leak about secret CIA prisons be investigated.
As Billy Idol would say, more more more!!!

White House Staffers to take Ethics Class.
Hey, the business solution to ethics problems. Michael Sears once observed that if you weren’t ethical before you took an ethics class, you wouldn’t be ethical afterwards — and he ought to know!

Ahmad Chalabi will meet with Secretary Rice during trip to US
You don’t have to hold you’re nose, but I’d wash my hands afterwards Condi. Just remember, an ambassador is an ethical man who lies for his country (hey, that must be why Joe Wilson is out, he wasn’t ethical and his lies were only self serving).

US-EU Stalemate Persists Over Farm Subsidies.
Let me be perfectly clear: end farm subsidies now. Let’s not bicker over whose is bigger, cut them both off, completely.

Crude Oil Falls Near a Three-Month Low as U.S. Supply Increases
What, it wasn’t Bill O’Reilly holding the feet of Big Oil to the fire that dropped the price of gas? Maybe we’d be better off listening to Adam Smith on tape than listening to radio or TV pundits.

Gates Orders Web Services Emphasis.
I thought MS would already have been all over web services, what with that marvelous free browser of theirs that giving away free didn’t hurt consumer choice, and especially after Chairman Bill changed that chapter in his book The Road Ahead from Internet Schminternet to I Guess The Internet Might End Our Monopoly So We Better Crush Our Competitors There First

Europe Space Agency Launches Venus Probe
Looking for love in all the wrong places…. The good news is that spaceflight has become routine, the bad news is spaceflight has become routine.

Scientists unearth earliest known Hebrew ABCs
From graphiti to scientific bonanza in 30 short centuries. How long before the scribblings here become worth writing about?

It’s not Friday, but I’m even more busy than usual so here come your links.

Tom McMahon recounts a funny joke of the French kind which I’m going to be sure to tell my daughter. She already loves my wacky pronounciation of ill-informed attempts to translate English words into French.

Steve Verdon looks at Simpson’s Paradox. I thought at first he was examining a new twist on Zeno’s paradox, namely that month after month every magazine in the checkout lane at the supermarket proclaims that Jessica and Nick are divorcing, but somehow they never actually divorce. The other night I happened to notice that one magazine cover had Nick begging Jessica not to leave him, while the one next to it had Nick serving Jessica with divorce papers personally. But as intriguing as that paradox is, that isn’t what Steve was referring to, but one that is even more of a head scratcher: the reversal of trends from several separate groups when combined into one larger group.

When my son asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said an iPod. He and my daugther both laughed. I have Ciocco envy.

Today is Friday, and that means Links!

But before we get to any, I just have to mention a referrer log result (isn’t that what bloggers write about when they don’t have anything to say?). I’m used to getting the occasional weird or unpleasant one, and I’ve gotten used to the whole armpit thing (you’d be amazed at just how international that particular fetish is based on my referrer logs), but I got a hit the other day from a search for “Maureen Dowd Sexy Feet”. Yes, I get the “Maureen Dowd Sexy” searches all the time, but one thing up with which I will not put is two fetishes in one. So to the next person who hits this site with that search and gets this post, you need help. MD isn’t sexy, right down to her toes, so please consult a mental health professional before you google again.

OK, now that that’s out of the way, on with the rest of the show!

Tom McMahon asks a good question: Why can’t they bring back the Apple Newton? 

Sexy, oops, I mean Busy Mom has some reading advice:  Confessions of Super Mom”. My wife never mentioned she was writing a book.

The Other Kevin Murphy warns us of a pretty sophisticated phishing (um, why isn’t it spelled the normal way? And if you’re going to do wierdly, why not ghoti-ing?) attack.  Be careful out there!

Here’s a study sure to piss off everyone – researchers in Britain have discovered that men are smarter than women (that’s half the people upset) but men are lazy and don’t make full use of their intellegence (there’s the other half).

Here’s an extended review of Apple’s new Mighty Mouse. I think you could safely say he gives it two scroll wheels up.

The New York Times, the grey lady of American journalism, the head of the press pack, right? Sure, especially since they have a tendency to write what they want, and their own sources be damned.

Are all whistleblowers created equal?  Umm, no, according to Craig Henry. Oddly enough, certain whistleblowers are more equal than others.

I may not have made the cut at Burning Bird, but I still love Shelley’s pictures.

Another symphony from Wretchard, with Donald Sensing performing the solo.

The Listless Lawyer has some results from the Barna Group’s latest religous survey in America. Missouri was number one in a couple of categories, but you’ll have to go there to find out which ones.

The Plame Wilson Rove thing must be officially dead, since Tom Maguire is all Able Danger all the time now. Even with Tom’s magnificent work, the Able Danger story is as murky as this morning’s fog.

QandO has advice for bloggers.  And when Jon Henke speaks, I listen. You should too.

The King of Fools has some observations on TV violence. No, not like Monty Pythons observation about Sex on the Telly.

That’s All, Folks!

It’s that time again for Friday links.

Ed Driscoll has a great post that looks at suicide bombers.

Chris Johnson looks at the conservative response to the liberal destruction of orthodox Anglicism and says the time for words has passed.

Freesoiler John Hilton uses Gov. Matt Blunt’s war chest as proxy for popularity. While I don’t think the Governor inherited a state government “in total disarray”, he did get handed a budget deficit due to a referendum that Archpundit, no friend of Blunt’s, said would make the governorship “a booby prize”. So we’ve been treated to a succession of stories about how Blunt is cutting services with attendent outrage by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch without the reminder that these cuts are not because the Gov likes to cut, but because the people of the Missouri voted by an overwhelming margin to have all gasoline tax money be spent on roads instead of a portion going to services as they had in the past. I don’t think the stories are finding much resonance beyond the usual suspects, though, with the exception of the cuts to medicaid.

Shelly Powers delivers another great photo essay. Beauty is a joy forever.

The Listless Lawyer provides his own “Best Of”. Maybe I’ll do that when I actually have an entry I’d be willing to include.

Cam Edwards writes about a column by Mark Yost and the response to it. It seems Mr. Yost doesn’t like the media’s reporting, and they don’t like Mr. Yost. Via Bill In DC.

Arthur Chrenkoff has a post entitled “Charles the Hammer Made Them Do It”. With a name like that, how can you resist?

OK, I couldn’t resist ScrappleFace’s take on L’affaire Plame.

Somehow the guys at In The Agora exhaustively examine France without once mentioning the words “leather bustier”. (I admit it, I mentioned them just for the hits).

Bill Roggio at Winds of Change examines the support for Al Qaida and finds it slipping through their Governor Tarquinesq fingers.

Powerline does some of their best work by bringing us beach volley ball pictures.

Finally, a post at Pandagon I can agree with. (Except for that part about watching dating shows and having a boyfriend.)

Of all the stuff on QandO, I chose to link to this? Well, he is the most dangerous pundit on the face of the planet afterall.

Michael Totten wonders about our memory. Apparently there’s a hole in it that swallows things like prior reporting on links between, oh, ah, I forget, so go read the darn thing yourself.

Joe Carter explains why he’s a reluctant Republican that makes a lot of sense. So much sense that for I don’t consider myself a Republican at all, just someone who often votes for Republican candidates. I’ve voted for Democrats, Libertarians, Independents – in short, who I thought the best candidate was in that election. And in doing so, Joe brings up a good point about Pat Robertson, namely, Pat doesn’t represent me as an evangelical. The media is constantly turning to people like Pat to represent particular groups, and typically they pick the person who best represents the caraciture they have of that group, which is why a bozo like Robertson is draped around the vangelical neck.

Dodd has two good posts – one comparing the sex life and the overall health of Democrats and Republicans and the other about the continuing misrepresentation of comments about Judge Owen by Judge Gonzales by those elite newspapers, the NYT and the WaPo.

Speaking of elite newspapers, the St. Louis Post Dispatch had a fun front page this morning, what with the old fraud Bill Moyers foaming at the mouth over the right wing with statements like: “That’s because the one thing they loath more than liberals is the truth. And the quickest way to be damned by them as liberal is to tell the truth.” I call Mr. Moyers a fraud because he claims to be a journalist telling the truth but he’s really just a left wing activists who lies pretending to be a journalist. He was speaking at an event here in St. Louis call the Conference for Media Reform, and seeing as how he received several standing O’s according to the article, I doubt the conference will have any positive effects.

But next to that article was one where NEWSWEEK admits that, so sorry, they just don’t have a shred of support for their claim that interrogators at Gitmo desecrated Korans. Somedays the Post is priceless, in ways I doubt intended.

Heard about Laura Bush’s stand up routine at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner?  USA Today has a complete transcript.

Wondering about what’s really happening in politics this very moment?  Let Michael Barone (no relation to Ray) explain it to you.

Is old Media collapsing, or is it just going through a Gail Sheehy moment?  Terry Eastland of The Weekly Standard has an essay in the Wilson Quarterly sorting it out.

The ChicagoBoyz take on reproductive freedom and marvel at the attempt in Illinois to restrict ultrasound so that pregnant women can’t get an ultrasound without a doctor’s permission because it’s an effective tool in persuading women not to have an abortion (yes, I get letters from the local Crisis Pregnancy Resource Center requesting money to buy such machines because they are effective, so here’s the proof that they really are). So much for “hands off my body”.

Businessweek has discovered a story that’s bound to get every blog in the country to link to them — “Blogs Will Change Your Business “. With lines like “Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they’re going to shake up just about every business — including yours.” how can any blogger resist linking? And they even do it in a traditional blog form, so we can’t even ridicule them as clueless MSM. Insidious.

Armavirumque takes a look at the new pope’s elevation in such an educated manner I’m not sure I followed. But I did understand his dig at Andrew Sullivan, even if it wasn’t as graphic as Wizbang!’s: (how’s that for some punctuation)

Cafe Hayek talks international trade in such a down to earth way I clearly understood it.

The Japanese have apologized, again, for all the really awful things they did in WWII. Will this smooth the waters over with China? Beats me, because while I think even the Chinese goverment is kinda hoping this dies down, they can’t be seen as being soft on Japan.

Cronaca complains about the ongoing destruction of the Temple Mount at the hands of the Islamic Waqf, and wonders where the howls of outrage are. Me too, so according to Business Week I’m doing the most I can to help just by posting this. 

Over at Professor Bainbridge’s I discovered a readibility test and of course I plugged in the ol’ web page. I’m not sure if the blog roll distorts the results, but here they are anyway:

Readability Results for http://www.funmurphys.com/blog

What’s it mean? I write at the level of popular novels, I’m a scosh too readable, and people who passed at least the fifth grade should be able to read me.

Mary Madigan at Michael Totten’s (that’s the trouble with naming your blog after yourself — hey, you could have used the word eponymous and kept the fifth graders at bay — then invite other people to post) looks at love of Armaggedon amongst the fringe of the environmentalists.

President Bush keeps shaking things up — now he’s named a Marine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (shouldn’t that be Chief of the JCS?). No word on the Navy’s reaction.

The Vodka Pundit’s Sidekick writes about the biggest story you’re not reading about: “And what a story! It’s got corruption, Kennedys, secret informants, Clintons, even weird sexual allegations.” Hey, I want to read about that!

In a move that should surprise nobody, the woman who claimed to have found a finger tip in a bowl of chilli at Wendy’s was arrested today. I watch those shows on the food channel, (Unwrapped and The Secret Life Of — both of which you ought to be watching too), so I know if somebody loses a finger anywhere near the chilli while being made, they stop the line and if they can’t find the finger, they dump the chilli because that’s a lot cheaper than paying a claim down the road when someone else finds the finger. And nobody, nobody, overlooks losing one and half inches of a finger.

Speaking of food, Tom Maguire links to a NYT article that tells us that contrary to what’s been said in the past, that whole overweight thing, don’t worry. A few extra pounds is actually a good thing, at least when it comes to life expectancy. Tying your shoes, well, that’s a different problem. Now I can get back to ordering chilli from Wendy’s with neither worry nor guilt. I remember my local paper, the St. Awful, doing front page articles and writing fulminating editorials when the CDC was telling us that obesity was the number 2 cause of death. I’m not holding my breath (because that would lead to death!) for them to run front page articles and write fulminating editorials about how parts of the CDC are trying to scare us to death, since that’s pretty much the press’s stock in trade.

Blognor Regnis provides reason 793 why I don’t respect academics. I do respect people who, through no fault of their own, are academics.

Speaking of Chilli, the first census of gut bacteria was taken by a fellow Standford man and found 395 variety of microbe living in healthy guts. Just remember, bacteria in the human body outnumber human cells by a factor of 10, and counting the bacteria that live on the outside, people are really just a big bacteria trellis. And in the category of information I didn’t want to know, the weight of a human turd is half bacteria. And in the category of information I can use, I can blame my weight on the efficiency of my gut bacteria. I’m not overweight, I’m improving my life expectancy through superior bacteria.

Andrea Dworkin passed away. While I disagreed with her views about most everything, her firebrand should have burned for years more.

We may be planting trees too deeply. On trees that aren’t pines, you should be able to see a flare just before the tree goes into the ground. If you can’t, it’s too deep and the roots (and therefore the entire tree) will suffer.

China and India are talking about resolving their long standing border disputes. This is big news, and may represent each country using the other as a counterwieght to the US. I think though that the trend of the US and India growing closer is too big to stop as it’s fed by the growing similarities in the two countries. Now if China would also throw of the political shackles as well as the economic ones, we’d be getting somewhere.

A team at the University of Liepzig claims that they can isolate “embryonic quality” stem cells from adult blood. They use the stretchiness of stem cells to isolate them from the rest of the blood cells and they use a drug called G-CSF to fill the blood with stem cells from bone marrow so there are enough to harvest in the first place.

Scores are being settled with John Bolton in his confirmation hearings as old foes are complaining bitterly about him. I had to laugh when Joe Biden, who’s not a bad Senator, said that anytime a senior official calls in a lower-level one “and reams him a new one that’s just not acceptable.” Somehow I think Joe has reamed a few new ones himself, but I doubt the press will be out looking for current or ex subordinates who’ve been so reamed. I don’t know that much about Bolton, but the idea that the UN needs a sympathetic nudge to get back on track is just ludicrous – it needs a few swats with a two by four to get it’s attention and then a series of hefty kicks in the pants to get it pointed in the right direction. Non metaphorically, it needs major structural change that isn’t going to happen without strong and unrelenting accountability.

Nick Krisof has discovered that the American people don’t trust the news media.  Tom Maguire discovers one set of error’s Nick makes, and Pendagon discovers a whole nuther set. See Nick, this is how the newsroom you want works – same story, two viewpoints.

Vladimir Putin says he won’t seek a third term in office in 2008. Well, a nice democratic change in leadership would be a sign of growing maturity in the democratic process and help acustom Russia to the practice of democracy.  Davids Medienkritik has more on Putin’s trip to Germany.

Wisconsin is seriously considering a feral cat hunting season. I think they don’t have enough Asian restaurants is all. (It was just a joke people.)

Apple has announced that Tiger, or OS X 10.4 (yes, I know the X and 10 are redundant, but Apple doesn’t) will ship April 29. This is the first OS upgrade I’ve ever planned on buying , let alone actually buying. Hopefully it won’t break any of my favorite games.

Omaha is home to a military anti-terrorism think tank. Good. Maybe Geitner could led them a hand.

AP took a poll and discovered to their amazement that “Many Dread Preparing Taxes.” No kidding. It sounds like the winning entry in a Wizbang most obvious headline contest. Soon they’ll be running articles about how it gets hot in the summer.

It’s official – humor is good for you. How long before Sienfeld is being prescribed as an anti-depressent?