MORE ON THE North Korean kidnappings of Japanese.

THE ESPN.COM READERS' POLL for coaches looks suspiciously like a quarter of the respondents didn't understand the system and voted alphabetically, which was enough to put Rick Adelman over the top.

LIBERALS WHO understand partial derivatives are invited to speak out in the comments section, and we'll forward it on to Rep. Dick Armey.

I FRANKLY THINK it's insane to say anyone but Alex Rodriguez should be AL MVP, but it's still nice to see two Oakland A's go to bat for Rodriguez. How can Miguel Tejada be the most valuable player when he's not even the most valuable shortstop? If Rodriguez doesn't get the award, it'll be the third MVP he's been cheated out of in his short career.

COMMENTS SEEM TO be working again. Apologies to those who were inconvenienced. Not that it was my fault or anything.

INSTAPUNDIT CITES GARY FARBER for the proposition that the wave has a Mexican origin, but this seems to be incorrect. The Hungarian researchers Gary refers to mentioned the Wave as beginning in the 1986 World Cup. But the Wave was being performed at the University of Washington as early as 1981, and was widespread throughout the United States by 1984. It's likely that the Mexicans picked it up from the Americans, and that the Europeans were not aware of the phenomenon until the 1986 World Cup.

Here's another recollection of the first Wave.

On the other hand, this other guy claims to have invented the Wave weeks earlier at an Oakland playoff game in 1981. (Another article, also mentioning the Hungarian research, and hinting at an earlier date.) Regardless, it predates the 1986 World Cup.

A NEW YORK TIMES piece about Division I-AA college football team Wofford, playing powerhouse Maryland this week. It seems like it's out of a throwaway gag in "Radio Days," but Wofford's leading receiver is legally blind.

THE UTTER RIDICULOUSNESS OF the government's smallpox vaccination plan makes me wonder why the heck they're not making vaccine available in advance to those who want it. Instead of trying to vaccinate 200 million people in a week, you could offer the vaccine to anyone willing to sign a waiver--or pass a law with the same effect as a waiver. Charge people $20 each. You vaccinate a bunch of people now, it reduces the risk that the disease gets widely spread in case of an attack, and you reduce the likelihood of a massive logistical snafu that creates panic.

TONY BLAIR'S 65-PAGE dossier on Iraq. (pdf file)

IF I WERE TO DELIBERATELY cause thousands of gallons of gasoline to be burned and hundreds of pounds of NOx and carbon monoxide to be released for no constructive purpose, I would correctly be accused of creating an environmental disaster; there might even be clean air laws prohibiting me from taking such an action. If I were to conspire with others to trap a person intentionally and deliberately for any length of appreciable time in a small compartment against his or her will, you might just call me a kidnapper.

If, on the other hand, I were to conspire with others to trap thousands of people for hours in their cars in a massive traffic jam against their will, well, that just makes me a clever anti-capitalist protestor. And people call capitalism amoral. It's a bloody crying shame that D.C. police give no indication of being willing to enforce the laws and arrest people who are blocking the streets.

P.S. What the heck is with the Washington Post calling one demonstration "a protest and street theater against a rush to war in Iraq" (emphasis added)? Can't the reporters parse from more than a press release and figure out that the demonstrators probably wouldn't exactly be in favor of American force being used against Iraq even if a more deliberative process were used?

STUART BUCK, CALL YOUR OFFICE. A new group is hoping to break the educational monopoly on a scientific "theory" being taught in Georgia science classes, and give equal time to their intelligent grappling theory.

A Georgia group calling itself Teachers for Equal Time has asked that stickers be placed in all new physics textbooks which note that mutual attraction and relativity are not the only theories available to explain gravity and should not be taken as fact.

Teachers for Equal Time hopes that the addition of the warning stickers will pave the way for the teaching of its alternative theory, Intelligent Grappling, the theory that certain intelligent and conscious agents "push" things together.

"Mutual attraction has had a monopoly on the truth for too long," said Dr. Sternberg, "it is time we let children see all of the theories."

"I'm not saying they're little angels," says Dr Sternberg, "Intelligent Grappling only says that conscious agents are the cause of all apparent 'gravitic' phenomenon. There's no religion involved."

More details here.

Intelligent Design says that there is a non-naturalistic,
conscious designer at work at the biological level. Intelligent
Grappling says that there is a non-naturalistic, conscious grappler at
the physicial level. Accepting a naturalistic explanation for one
phenomenon but a non-naturalistic explanation for another is a
philosophically corrupt position and we do not advocate it.

RICH GET RICHER UPDATE: Only 58 members of the original Forbes 400 list of the 400 wealthiest Americans are still on the list twenty years later. As I've said all along, comparing the proportion of wealth held by the top x% over time is misleading, because the composition of those percentiles is in flux.

CAN I ASK WHY the heck jurors didn't say something during a six-week trial when the defective juror could be replaced by an alternate?

I hope the accused juror is prosecuted for perjury, but it's California, so perhaps it's just par for the course.

Ex-State Dept. Worker Pleads Guilty in Attack. Elizabeth Morgan had advised the woman's friend that she had three options in her custody battle involving numerous unfounded accusations of child abuse: obey the court orders, flee with her children, or kill her ex-husband. (It's amazing how little publicity Elsa Newman's conviction received--I just learned about it today. I think the Washington Post kind of passed right on over it. Kudos to Maryland for getting this resolved in the same calendar year as the shooting.)

UPDATE: Update.

GIVE JACK STRAW CREDIT for getting Iraq correct in March. Why don't we have any American leaders being this eloquent?

NEAL POLLACK HAS added permalinks! So I can blog his latest marvelous entry, the following paragraph of which is only the tip of the iceberg:

Meanwhile, I have an annoucement to make regarding my next novel, Hurts So Good, a sequel to Hot To Trot. Because of my dissatisfaction with corporate publishing and chain bookstores, I'm going to release this novel myself, in a limited edition. There will be only five copies printed on golden tickets which will be wrapped around selected candy bars and placed in vending machines at state-university sororities, largely in the south.

The HisTory of Michael Jackson's face.

TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES still has a Bob Greene page, complete with offers of "Product Samples," nyuk nyuk.

THE LA TIMES FINALLY COVERED the West Hollywood attack by Muslims against Jews. Apparently someone even videotaped it, which makes you wonder why the local news haven't been broadcasting the "Kill the Jews" chant instead of the woman smacking her child in the mall parking lot.

RWANDA HAS BECOME increasingly Muslim in the wake of Christian complicity in the genocide there. Of concern is the Saudi Wahhabi influence.

THE GUY WHO did the music in that Volkswagen commercial.

I HAVEN'T SEEN ANY press coverage of this week-old Los Angeles hate crime of a beating by Middle Easterners chanting "Kill the Jews!" Not even in the LA Examiner. What's up with that? (via Facts of Israel)

READER MAIL:

Max,

C'mon, you've been around government long enough to know why the sales tax is needed.
If No. VA is anything like CA, and it surely was in the mid-70's when I lived in Metro DC, a substantial portion of the gas tax is diverted to underwrite various government enabled transportation systems. ie: the vaunted but sucks Metro and all of the commuter bus services serving the government worker commuters at a loss as well as the "don't have an evil car" crowd who are more than happy to suck off the over-taxed vehicle owner.

I think the VA motorist would be more than satisfied if all the state's gas taxes, motor vehicle use taxes, license fees etc. were only spent on VA's highways and roads.

Actually, a big chunk of the sales tax is going to the Metro, so that's not a reason not to prefer a gas tax. (I wasn't around for the mid-70s edition of the Metro, but the current model does a pretty good job of keeping cars off the road and reducing congestion, and could do an even better job with some more money: for example, I would take the Metro if they expanded the six-car Orange-line trains to eight cars, and I didn't feel like a sardine in the morning.)

A gas tax, unlike a sales tax, would encourage use of public transportation and carpooling (as well as more fuel-efficient cars, which would reduce DC smog); therefore, government would need to raise less money to solve the transportation problems in the area.

APPLE COMPUTER OPENED its first store in Houston at 10:00 AM Saturday, and by 10:08, the TeraBlogger was already blogging how underwhelmed he was. They clearly need training from the folks in the Minneapolis branch.