Some interesting thoughts on the difficulty of organizing a conspiracy:

Every time [a possible conspiracy] comes up in a class I ask the students if they’ve ever tried to order a pizza for 3 people, and if yes whether it was difficult to agree about what to get on it and how to divide it up. Occassionally a light bulb goes on over one of their heads when they make the connection that if pizza is this hard than conspiracy must be damn near impossible.

Completely unrelated: has anyone noticed that the recommended serving size of virtually any frozen pizza (so far tested with DiGiorno, Tombstone, and Kroger-brand Tombstone clone) is one-fifth of a pizza? However, dividing a pizza—particularly the “thin crust” DiGiorno, which is square—into fifths is left as an exercise for the consumer. (þ: Cold Spring Shops)

Marc Cooper is rightly outraged that the Bush administration is attempting to stop former American POWs during the 1991 Gulf War from collecting damages for being tortured by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

While I’m somewhat sympathetic to the administration’s argument that the new Iraqi regime needs the money to help it get on its feet, and I recognize that the law that the POWs sued under (the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996) is designed mainly to deplete the assets of anti-American regimes like Cuba and Iran rather than for the purpose of securing any meaningful “justice,” I have to say this is an incredibly boneheaded decision, one that Congress would do well to force reconsideration of.

I don’t always agree with Stephen Bainbridge, but he has a point about Paul Krugman’s latest missive:

Mr. Dean is squarely in the center of his party on issues like health care and national defense. (Link)

Which is precisely the Democrats’ problem. In their party, being what the Economist’s Lexington called “a moderate governor of one of the most left-wing states in the union,” qualifies you as a centrist. There’s a big difference between being a centrist in Vermont (or Manhattan or LA) and being a centrist in, say, Missouri.

Of course, that cuts both ways; a Republican at the center of his or her party (Thad Cochran? Bob Taft?) is going to be well to the right of the centrist voter in many states, and certainly would not be the same thing the media would label a “moderate” Republican (someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain, or Christie Todd Whitman). Howard Dean may well be at the center of his party (or at least the “Democratic wing” of it, as he would put it), but that doesn’t make him a political moderate like fellow Democrats Martin Frost, John Tanner, and Joe Lieberman.

Nice to see the appellate courts still wasting time on claims of reporters’ privilege; it’s only been 33 years since Branzburg v. Hayes after all. And, if we’re really lucky, this means the stupid Valerie Plame business will be settled once and for all… of course, I’ve said that before. (þ: OTB)

Via the AP: Rolls-Royce announces plans for Mississippi engine-testing plant:

BAY ST. LOUIS — Airplane engine maker Rolls-Royce said today it had selected a site in Mississippi to replace its outdoor engine-testing facility in central England.

Rolls-Royce PLC announced in 2001 that it planned to close the facility in Hucknall, 120 miles north of London, once it found a new location. The firm said today it had chosen NASA‘s John C. Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis — its first partnership deal with the space agency.

“This move highlights our growing commitment to the U.S.,” James M. Guyette, president and CEO, Rolls-Royce North America, said in a statement. “As a global company with nearly 100 years of operations in this country, we are pleased to be able to conduct this important work on these shores.”

Among the engines to be tested at the Stennis site are the Rolls-Royce engines for both the Airbus A380 “Superjumbo” and Boeing 787 (formerly 7E7) Dreamliner.