The Dish

A Lady Ga-Ga improv direct from Afghanistan.

Louise Levathes reports on the proliferation of small, inexpensive scanners to uncover what lies within:

Raman devices work by shooting a laser beam at an object. The laser light interacts with the object’s electrons, making the atoms vibrate and shifting the energy of the laser photons up or down. The shift creates a visual pattern—the Raman effect, named after C. V. Raman, the Indian scientist who discovered it in the 1920s. Almost every material has its own unique Raman pattern, based on how strongly its atoms are bonded.

The potential medical applications of Raman technology are perhaps the most exciting.

Researchers at Stanford University are experimenting with it as a non-invasive tool to diagnose breast, lung, and other cancers. River Diagnostics, in Rotterdam, is marketing a bacteria-strain analyzer to identify pathogens in real time and combat hospital-acquired infections. Diabetics may someday be able to monitor their glucose without poking themselves to get a drop of blood. Allergy sufferers may be able to instantly detect which pesky pollens are in the air and respond accordingly.

Just in case you thought the GOP was moderating on immigration …

Megan chimes in on the Arizona debate:

The reason this law passed is that the people who support it–the same people now claiming that this isn't about racial profiling–know that it only applies to people who are poorer and darker skinned and probably speak with funny accents, anyway. I'd be a lot more sympathetic to this law, in fact, if it required the police to check the immigration status of every single person they pulled over, without any gauzy "reason to believe" fig leaf to cover up what's really going on. Raise your hand if you think that law could have passed in Arizona.

Matt Welch feels that everyone is already a potential target, at the discretion of cops:

"On the average car," [Steve] Chapman said a cop once told him, "he could find half a dozen reasons to write up additional citations if provoked. Any of those would serve equally well to justify a stop." When you have thousands upon thousands of criminal laws, chances are non-trivial that you're breaking one of them as we speak, or at least can be seen as possibly breaking one of them, in case you happen to cross paths with a motivated law enforcement officer. The "driving while black" phenomenon is not some Al Sharpton urban legend.

Here's a Friday gift to Hitch: a scabrous, vile, nasty, Donohue-baiting, profanity-laden, musical anti-papist piece of English cartoon satire. Not fucking safe for mother-fucking work. But somehow fucking appropriate under the current circumstances.

Balko provides talking points for both parties.

David Cameron is seeking to seal the deal with British voters by deploying a version of Gingrich's 1994 Congressional campaign:

Titled “A contract between the Conservative Party and you” It is accompanied by a personal pledge from Mr Cameron, who tells voters that the contract "couldn't be clearer".

"If we don't do the things it sets out, if we don't deliver our side of the bargain: vote us out in five years' time," adds the Tory leader, who is shown in a photograph signing a piece of paper.

Cameron is proving a strong closer. I'm more confident of a clear Tory victory now.

A reader writes:

I've been an avid reader of yours for the past few years, and I feel compelled to make a comment on how you've been covering the election in the UK. Specifically, your coverage has felt very different from your coverage of the US election two years ago. Whereas in the American election your coverage felt very balanced, pragmatic, and focused on the issues, your coverage recently of the UK has had a constant undercurrent of gloating, specifically in reference to the fading fortunes of Labour, reaching a climax over Bigot-gate. I'm no big fan of Brown, who isn't a terribly attractive candidate, and would much rather prefer the Lib Dems. But I also don't think Labour or Brown deserve your comment "the fakeness of Brown and his contempt for the voters." And your readers deserve better than "It just doesn't get better for political junkies than this." I read you because of your independent, reasoned perspective on the issues, not to see you revert to '80s-style Tory cheerleading. Apparently "no party or clique" doesn't extend across the Pond.

As a Whiggish Tory, I think I've been extremely fair and generous to the Liberal Democrats in this campaign. I like Clegg and have been fascinated and thrilled by his rise to second place. My disdain for Brown is based on terrible fiscal mismanagement, statist reflexes, the old class attitudes of the old Labour left, and a nasty personality. My partisanship is not complete at all: I supported Blair in 1997 for many of the same reasons I supported Clinton in 1992. But yes, in my native land, unlike America, I have residual partisan loyalty – and, as readers know – am close to some senior Tories with whom I've been friends since Oxford (William Hague being the prime example).  I like them. I like Cameron. I feel that the British Tories may even have a role in showing the American right how to steer back to the sane, governing center. I want them to succeed – and I want the Lib-Dems to do well too.

Imagine, also, if Bush and Cheney had been seeking re-election in 2008 (as they could do in a British context). I think my coverage of the US campaign would have been very similar to my coverage of the British. I want change. After thirteen years of one party rule, you might too.

Rancho Santa Margarita, California, 9.11 am

Bruce Bartlett explains why.