Is the newest Supreme Court nominee an Antonin Scalia clone? Bloggers are debating the "Scalito" moniker. They're also discussing the $7.1 billion President Bush wants to protect America from avian flu and the potential social dangers of the cervical cancer vaccine.

Justified comparisons? Move over, TomKat and Bennifer, to make way for Scalito. The nickname, linking Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito to fellow conservative jurist Antonin Scalia, appears to date back to a 1992 National Law Journal article. But "if you say 'Scalito,' Professor Althouse will hunt you down," warns Indiana blogger Matt Brown at Swine Bass, who also links to this  New York Times piece by law professor and prominent blogger Ann Althouse suggesting that the nickname fails to convey the men's differing shades of judicial philosophy.

The National Review Online's Bench Memos, a judiciary blog written by conservative lawyer Mark Levin, thinks that "efforts in the media this morning to paint him as 'Scalia-lite' or 'Scalito' are intended to fire-up the leftwing base."

At MemeFirst, freelance writerFelix Salmon dislikes the comparison for a different reason: He doesn't see Alito (or Clarence Thomas, that other stalwart conservative) as possessing the same "intellectual range, depth, and playfulness. … Scalia loves a good argument, and just in case he doesn't get enough in court, he makes sure he always has a liberal clerk so that he can have one in the comfort of his own chambers. Thomas and Alito, on the other hand, are more methodical – one might almost say plodding."

The center-left Thrown for a Loop thinks that Republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouths in an "effort to cast Judge Alito as 'Scalito' and 'Not Scalito' at the same time" to cheer conservatives and calm moderates' fears. Indeed, conservative Terry Dillard of The Right Track is heartened by the nickname Scalito. "If so, he's a Conservative dream-come-true," he says.

Res Publica et Cetera, the blog of conservative Publius, mentions that some righties worry that "Alito might be perceived as too much like Scalia for his own comfort and may try to compensate for that by distancing himself from Scalia jurisprudentially (i.e., go to the left). Confirm Them, a blog that advocates the confirmation of conservative judges, has at least two posts differentiating the two men.

Read more on the Scalito debate. Click here for Slate's roundup of Alito coverage.

Bird season: President Bush announced a $7.1 billion plan to protect America from an avian flu pandemic. The plan includes funding to inoculate 20 million against the virus.

At the Huffington Post, James Love, the director of the nonprofit Consumer Project on Technology, thinks that Bush's plan is not comprehensive enough and fails to address America's woeful supply of antivirals like Tamiflu to help people who contract the illness, which he blames on trade policies that restrict the importation of medication. "[W]e will wait years before we have the stockpiles, putting our citizens at risk," he predicts.

Prairie Weather thinks that objective is admirable but worries this plan might increase the profits of pharmaceutical companies: "We need to find out who in the Administration will profit from holdings in companies receiving any of the $7.1 billion, how the money is distributed, the extent to which 'pandemic' is replacing 'bin Laden' as a political tool."