Meanwhile, in the United States: Bay Area School Closed Due to Whooping Cough. "The state averages a 99 percent immunization rate. But at East Bay Waldorf School, health officials say less than 50 percent are protected from the disease and say that's why it was able to spread so easily. . . . The Waldorf School System was founded by Rudolph Steiner in 1919. He believed children were made stronger through illness and believed in a holistic approach to medicine. A school spokesperson says they do not make recommendations to parents regarding immunizations."

I do. My recommendation is, get the shots. Meanwhile, has McCain ever backtracked from his Imus-inspired anti-vaccine talk? According to this report from Farhad Manjoo he hasn't, and Clinton and Obama seem to be on board too. However: "McCain and Obama are the worst offenders."

Commercial hardware tends to turn over pretty fast, reducing this risk somewhat. Military hardware tends to stay in service for a long time, making the hazard greater.

IT MAY BE the last Kay's Ice Cream stand left, but the staff is still smiling.

Good Lord, now we've got Republicans proposing Five Year Plans and Seven Step programs like some 1930's Soviet Beet Kommissar. The last thing we need is the know-nothings in Congress pretending they have the expertise required to plan the future of a market segment as huge and critical as energy. They have no such knowledge because that knowledge doesn't exist anywhere as some type of accessible whole. It takes a market with millions upon millions of people, each with their own intimate knowledge of their own needs and capabilities, participating in an open energy marketplace with free prices to coordinate such an unimaginably huge, ever-changing body of knowledge and action. Gas prices have been elevated for several years now due to many reasons, and already the marketplace is responding with the millionth shipped hybrid, high mileage clean diesels, flex-fuel vehicles, and endless number of promising technologies from compressed air vehicles to hydraulic drive trains, all with ZERO input from Washington.

The problem for politicians is that voters often demand a plan, even when letting the market work is best.

UPDATE: A counter-plan from Democratic opponent Mike Padgett.

UPDATE: A look at Mother's Day down the generations.

UPDATE: West Virginia Could Spell Trouble for Obama. Wait, I thought it was all over . . .

UPDATE: See what I mean? "Michelle won't let Barack pick Hillary as VP."

In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.

In defending his stated intent to meet with America's enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: "I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.

Read the whole thing. And also Tom Maguire, who observes: "Think about this - the probable next President of the United States does not know even the broad outlines of the history of American foreign policy from WWII forward and does not know the history of Democratic icons Roosevelt or Truman. " Then there's the fact that he's still hazy about how many states there are in the Union . . . . "I would tell him to check the flag in his lapel, but of course he won't be wearing one."

It's a good thing for Obama that everybody thinks he's got the nomination locked up, because otherwise all this bad news would do some damage.

Gack. Now Obama is ranting about how he's going to make the corporations give us super fuel-efficient cars, find awesome new sources of oil, make renewable energy affordable, and invent a really delicious fat-free ice cream. However did we manage to get through the first 200 years without Barack Obama to beat some progress out of the corporations that have been holding us back?

To be fair, it's not clear if Obama is talking about "nationalization of the means of production," or something even stupider, but if I were an Obama booster I wouldn't be calling attention to the issue. Instead, I'd try to make sure Obama knew how many states are in America. Baby steps, baby steps . . . .

UPDATE: L.A. Times: "Barack Obama wants to be president of these 57 United States."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Elia: "Personally, I don't think it was a 'tired mistake' as much as this is just how Chicago Democrats are used to counting during elections and election campaigns..."

MORE: "I love the way he pauses and really thinks before adding the '-seven.'"

MORE STILL: Can he spell potato? "This is much worse than anything Dan Quayle ever did." But there's no Obama-is-stupid narrative for it to reinforce.

STILL MORE: Dreaming of empire? "Grand Strategist (and likely Obama supporter) Thomas P.M. Barnett in his seminal work 'The Pentagon’s New Map' urged America to add several states to the nation, perhaps as many as a dozen. . . . I'm shocked that Obama apparently believes in a hyper-muscular 21st century version of Manifest Destiny. Truly, I didn't see that one coming."

FINALLY: Reader Jeff Cauthen emails: "Somebody should ask him to name all 114 US Senators."

When Bush v. Gore was decided in December of 2000, everyone thought it was a hugely significant case. But was Bush v. Gore a significant case after all?

When the votes were actually counted, after the fact, they showed that Bush would have won anyway. Nearly eight years later, it is safe to say that the case has not generated a jurisprudential revolution, even though a panel of Ninth Circuit judges tried to stop the California recall election by relying on Bush v. Gore, only to be overturned by an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court has not cited the case at all, as far as I know, since Bush v. Gore was decided. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a constitutional law case decided in the past eight years that has been referenced less than Bush v. Gore has been referenced.

So was all the hoopla a waste?

UPDATE: Armando says it's not just harsh, it's sexism.

UPDATE: More commentary here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A cynical take from Jules Crittenden. Which doesn't mean he's wrong, God knows . . . .

For all the hype about Barack Obama being some new kind of politician, in one respect he is very similar to recent Democratic presidential nominees: He takes criticism very badly, responding to it by getting both defensive and nasty. It is a most unattractive quality.

And it involves passing up more constructive responses, as Michael Totten noted.

Cars like the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt are one reason I think the auto industry is entering one of the most fascinating decades in its history. For the first time in almost a century, the internal-combustion engine is no longer the default powertrain choice for automakers; true innovation and experimentation, not just continuous refinement and clever marketing, will be the cost of entry into the business.

Thing is, while it's okay for a company like Tesla to innovate and experiment, a lot of folks seem mighty uncomfortable when GM tries it.

Read the whole thing. I agree about the excitement, and that's a big, big difference between now and the oil-shock era of the 1970s.

Plus, chin-pulling pieces about how the sexual repression of the right naturally leads to such things.

UPDATE: ThinkProgress claims the Gore quote is bogus. Which still leaves it no crazier than the Cheney Halliburton connections!

I'll buy it, if I they'll indulge my "philosophical" objections to taxes and speed limits.

SUBURBAN WILDERNESS: This pond sits inside the southeast cloverleaf at the Pelissippi Parkway / Kingston Pike interchange. You'd never know it was surrounded by bustling roads, except for the barely-visible bit of billboard in the background at the upper center-right.