A CHINESE ACTIVIST MURDERED?

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has more on the surprising progress of the Chinese democracy movement. I guess that’s what’s got the authorities scared enough to commit murder.

AN ODD SORT-OF CORRECTION at the Washington Post, relating to a Petula Dvorak article on protesters I mentioned earlier.

More journalistic questions at Winds of Change.

WILLIAM SHAWCROSS: Peace is not the answer:

IT SEEMS UNLIKELY that many of the so-called peace marchers who trooped through Washington and London two weekends back listened on Thursday — at least not with an open mind or sympathy — to George Bush’s cogent explanation of why coalition troops are fighting and dying in Iraq.

You did not see in those demonstrations, after all, many banners reading, “Support Iraq’s New Constitution,” “No to Jihad” or “Stop Suicide Bombers.” The crimes committed daily against the Iraqi people by other Arabs who wish to re-enslave them seem to be of little interest to Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and their followers. Rage against the daily assaults on children, women, anyone, by Islamo-fascists and ordinary national fascists is not fashionable. Only alleged American crimes are cool to decry. . . .

The sacrifice of U.S. soldiers, of their coalition allies and of Iraqis is horrifically painful. But if we can stay long enough to enable the Iraqis to lay the firm foundation of civil society, their deaths will not be in vain. We should leave when the elected Iraqi government asks us to do so.

It is the promise of freedom that the fascists who murdered the Iraqi teachers last month want to destroy. It is astonishing and discouraging that those who think they were taking the high ground in marching though Washington do not understand this.

Indeed. Michael Barone observes:

I am struck by the sublime indifference of most critics of Bush’s Iraq policy to the fate of the Iraqi people. They are totally unexultant about the overthrow of a vicious dictatorship and seem to have no interest at all in what would happen to Iraqis if we leave suddenly. Hitchens has argued persuasively that no one deserves the label of liberal who is so indifferent to whether others live in freedom or under tyranny.

Will Collier observes:

I don’t understand why anybody as knowledgeable as Barone would be at all surprised. The western Left didn’t give a tinker’s damn for the fates of the Iranians, Lebanese, Nicaraguans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Koreans, Cubans, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, or even Russians, so long as the eeeevil American right-wingers were dealt a political defeat (and let’s not even start on Israelis).

Why should anybody be surprised thay they could now care less about Iraqis?

Good point. Judging from the size of this protest, which I saw at the University this morning on the way home from the studio, most people aren’t fooled.

HEH. Or, as The Left Coaster puts it:

Kurtz reports this morning that “60 Minutes” will allow a rebuttal of sorts tonight in the piece through the addition of a statement from somewhat discredited Clinton national security advisor Sandy “I stuffed the papers in my pants” Berger that will contradict Freeh’s claims. Berger is the less-than-perfect choice for this assignment.

“Less-than-perfect.” Yes. Am I wrong, or is politics just getting . . . dumber lately?

HOLY CRAP, the Pakistan earthquake is looking a lot worse:

The quake wiped out entire villages, buried roads in rubble and knocked out electricity and water supplies. Pakistan said more than 40,000 people were injured and between 20,000 and 30,000 likely killed, and the death toll was expected to rise.

The United States is sending aid.

HURRICANE VINCE THREATENS EUROPE: Jeez.

UPDATE: Reader Fernando Colina emails that the devastation caused by Hurricane Stan isn’t getting enough attention. He’s right. With the tsunami, Katrina, Rita, the Pakistani earthquake, and now this, I think people are getting a bit numb.

MORE WELL-DESERVED SLAPS AT M.A.D.D. over at The Corner.

ME, MIKE ISIKOFF, AND JAY ROSEN discuss the Judy Miller case. Ian Schwartz has the video.

CHAD DOTSON WILL BE LIVEBLOGGING tonight’s Virginia gubernatorial debate.

MORE ON AVIAN FLU PREPARATION.

NORM GERAS wonders why The Guardian’s shock and mock approach to open religiosity doesn’t apply to Islamists.

Presumably they’re afraid that the Islamists will kill them if they do that. One hopes that religious Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc., won’t take the obvious lesson regarding incentives . . . .

UPDATE: A post from Ed Driscoll from a while back sounded a similar theme.

J.D. JOHANNES is back from Iraq, as are the Marines he’s been covering. Via email he adds:

One of the Marines asked this morning if, knowing what I do now, I would still have done it?

Yes.

I am coming home sore, bruised, tired, financially destitute, unemployed and probably soon to be homeless, but I have witnessed more acts of courage in one Summer than most people will see in their entire life.

He’ll start editing his documentary in a couple of days.

I BLAME MICHAEL BROWN AND FEMA:

Acting New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Thursday that as many as 40 officers from the department’s 3rd District, including the commanding captain, are “under scrutiny” for possibly bolting the city in the clutch and heading to Baton Rouge in Cadillacs from a New Orleans dealership. . . .

Last week, after reports surfaced that the Louisiana attorney general’s office was investigating the alleged theft of about 200 cars from Sewell Cadillac Chevrolet, possibly by NOPD officers, Riley revealed his own internal investigations. All told, Riley said 12 officers were under investigation for looting or failing to combat looting in their presence, four officers had been suspended and one had been reassigned.

So do Jeff Goldstein and Shepard Smith.

IT’S BAY VS. BAY on Miers:

Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers utterly underwhelmed me. Understand I still support Robert Bork. I’d like to see Janice Rogers Brown on the Supreme Court. Kelo? With Justice Brown on the Court? No way.

But my wife disagrees.

A spirited dialogue ensues. But that dialogue isn’t just within a marriage — it’s within Bush’s coalition: Ed Morrissey writes in the Washington Post:

By nominating White House lawyer Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, George Bush has managed to accomplish what Al Gore, John Kerry, Tom Daschle and any number of Democratic heavyweights have been unable to do: He has cracked the Republican monolith. Split his own party activists. And how.

Read the whole thing. And note Ed’s wish that the debate stays as courteous as that within the Bay household.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn: “For what it’s worth, my sense is that Harriet Miers will be, case by case, a more reliable vote against leftist judicial activism than her mercurial predecessor, Sandra Day O’Connor.”

Jeff Goldstein, however, wonders why Bush nominated someone with a track record of supporting affirmative action. The answer to that, I think, comes from the Steyn column: “Bush, it seems ever more obvious, is the Third Wayer Clinton only pretended to be.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a table summarizing pro and con arguments on Miers, and here’s a summary of what was said on the Sunday morning talk shows. (Via Confirm Them).

MORE: Hugh Hewitt has a lengthy post in defense of Miers. Pejman Yousefzadeh observes:

While it may be unfair to have the roberts standard out there with which to judge future nominees, the fact is that the standard is out there and the Bush Administration’s new nominee will look relatively bad in comparison to the new Chief Justice. . . .

I agree with Hewitt that the rules of Constitutional law can be easily learned. But note his comment that “rules changes are troublesome and greatly contested.” He makes this point about golf, but it applies as well to Constitutional law which is “subject to much more frequent changes” than are the rules of golf. Quite so, which means that those who fight over whether or not there will be changes and what kind of changes might be implemented will have to possess the savvy and background to wage those battles successfully. And there is a vast difference between Harriet Miers’s ability to do that and the ability of John Roberts, Janice Rogers Brown, Michael Luttig and Michael McConnell (just to name a few) to be able to do that. Harriet Miers is simply not in their class.

The White House really should have thought this through.

STILL MORE: “Stealth” — but who’s being stealthed? “What he wants is a centrist on economic and liberty issues, supportive of federal power, coupled with an overriding commitment to the Christian Right’s social agenda. But to nominate someone who clearly has these qualifications would create a revolt in the Party, so we have Harriet Miers. The stealth is against us. I hope we realize it in time.”

Hmm. Maybe. Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin has a big roundup and observes:

I think that Hugh, like many of the Bush White House aides and supporters who are wielding the elitism card, seriously misreads and underestimates the opposition to this nomination coming from grass-roots conservatives. And that includes evangelicals. These are not elites.

I find the “elitism” argument rather unconvincing.

MORE STILL: Unhelpful reassurance: “Yes, this is a fundamental problem. Those most vocally opposed to the Miers nomination are strong social conservatives. But the attempt to win them back repels people who care about the proper functioning of the courts.”

Meanwhile, Bush is also losing support for other reasons.

I’LL BE ON “RELIABLE SOURCES” ON CNN in a few minutes, talking about Miers, Plame, and more.

UPDATE: Here’s a post on press shield laws — with some proposed revisions — that’s worth reading.

“KEEP YOUR U.N. off my Internet!” Given Kofi Annan’s efforts to suppress books critical of his operations, as well as such past crimes as the “New International Information Order,” I don’t trust the U.N. with the Internet at all.

UPDATE: As befits someone who’s been paying close attention to the “UNScam” oil-for-food scandal, Roger Simon doesn’t want the U.N. anywhere near the Internet.

THROUGH THE MIRACLE OF WESTLAW, Beldar looks at Harriet Miers’ case record and pronounces it good.

In the comments, meanwhile, Patterico asks an important question: “Why are we hearing this stuff from Beldar and not the Administration?”

HMM: The Top Secret Avian Flu Plan that everyone was talking about yesterday was reportedly available on the HHS website for a year.

JOE GANDELMAN has a massive roundup on the South Asian earthquake, including links to accounts from a number of area bloggers. Things look to be considerably worse than they appeared yesterday.

A DREADFUL LAPSE IN JUDGMENT at the University of Chicago, where Daniel Drezner has been denied tenure. Tenure denials, while dreaded, aren’t career-enders and I expect that Dan will flourish elsewhere, perhaps in a warmer and more hospitable climate. Nonetheless, this sucks.

Advice to people elsewhere: Grab Drezner while you can!

UPDATE: Juan Non-Volokh: “An obvious question is what, if any, impact Drezner’s blogging had on his tenure vote. . . . I’ve often heard academics disparage non-academic writing in terms that suggest it could be a negative in the tenure process, irrespective of the quality of academic work under review. This is one of the reasons I’ve blogged under a pseudonym — and will at least until my own tenure vote — as I want my file, and the work therein, judged on the merits. In my view, that I spend some of my free time blogging is no more relevant to the process than a colleagues’ decision to spend his or her time attending theater, performing in dance recitals, or raising children, but there is no guarantee that one’s colleagues will agree.” No, though it’s a bad reflection on one’s colleagues if they don’t.

A UNITER, not a divider.

ANOTHER LOOMING MIERS DISASTER: This is meant as a defense, but I think it also serves to illustrate that this was a poor choice.

UPDATE: Reader Ben Borwick emails:

i am a regular reader and a fan, but i think you are very wrong on this one….the president has a right to appoint someone he feels shares his judicial philosophy….if that person is qualified, as miers undoubtedly is, all the conservatives who are miffed their own personal favorite wasn’t nominated should accept his decision….all you are doing is helping the democrats score points by portraying republicans as being in disarray…your analysis of miers so far has been petty and unconvincing….if you think she is a liberal why don’t you at least wait for the hearings…the president has a pretty darn good record on appointing judges and people at all levels…i would give him the benefit of the doubt on this one…he needs our support.

Hmm. Well, my worry isn’t that Miers will be too liberal. On the issues that have, say, Robert Bork’s panties in a wad, I’m more liberal than Bush, or Bork, anyway. My question is whether she’s got what it takes to be a Supreme Court Justice. So far, nobody’s shown me much in that department.

BIRD FLU IS IN TURKEY, and the media spin is taking wing.

UPDATE: Romania, too.

ART CRITICISM downunder. It’s not critical enough, if you ask me.

THE BLOGGER BOOBIETHON is in its final stage. Don’t miss it!

CHECK OUT THE LATEST on the DARPA Grand Challenge. Here’s more at the Popular Mechanics blog.

The Singularity is getting nearer!

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE VOLOKHS, on a very special anniversary.

THE NEW CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

MAJOR EARTHQUAKE IN PAKISTAN: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

PLAME-O-RAMA: Tom Maguire is all over it. Just keep scrolling.

WEEKEND COOKING UPDATE: My earlier slow-cooker post produced a request from reader Stephen Lalley that I identify the cookbook with the Lamb and Guinness Stew recipe, and from reader Fred Spruytenberg that I share my recipe. Those really are two different requests, as I changed the recipe a bit, as I always do.

The original recipe is from this book, The Gourmet Slow Cooker, which is full of great recipes. Here’s my version, which is a bit lower in fat:

2 1/2 pounds lamb stew meat
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
10-12 new potatoes
2 large onions, chopped (I prefer vidalia)
fresh thyme
One to two cans “Pub Draught” Guinness
One can French Onion Soup
Salt, pepper, turmeric, paprika, garlic, rosemary, red pepper, to taste.

Brown the lamb in a saute pan with the oil. Set on paper towels to drain. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and paprika on the lamb.

Saute the onions, unless you’re in a rush — then just put them in the bottom of the crockpot first, which gets you halfway there with no work.

Add the lamb, potatoes, onions, and spices to the crock-pot. Pour soup and beer on top. Add spices and turn it on (I cook on low). About 20 minutes before serving, stir in the flour a bit at a time to thicken. Serve (a bread-bowl from Panera makes a nice touch.)

If the Insta-Wife weren’t allergic to carrots, I’d add 2 or 3 cut up carrots to this recipe. Sometimes I’ve added stewed tomatoes, too, and that works out well. So does some grated parmesan cheese added right after the flour.

Other reader requests: John Marcoux wants to know what makes my All-Clad slow cooker better than this much cheaper one. Beats me. My sister-in-law, who gave it to me, is a big All-Clad fan. So am I, especially when I’m not paying.

And several readers requested other quick-meal cookbook suggestions. I like this one: A Flash in the Pan: Fast, Fabulous Recipes in a Single Skillet. The Insta-Daughter likes a lot of the recipes from it, and they’re all fast and easy. That’s the key around our house. I love to take a whole afternoon to cook something that demands that much work, but I don’t have a lot of afternoons when I can do that, alas.

UPDATE: By the way, here’s a link to the Carnival of Recipes, which I think I forgot to mention earlier.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader James Foster recommends this cookbook, too.

MORE: Reader Arthur Mitchell recommends French Cooking in Ten Minutes : Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life, by Edouard de Pomiane. I haven’t read it, but judging from the reviews it looks very cool.

OUCH: “Former federal judge Robert Bork – whose nomination to the Supreme Court the Senate rejected in 1987 – described the choice of Miers as ‘a disaster on every level.’”

Hugh Hewitt thinks this is a case of the right-blogosphere having too much influence, and acting too hastily. I think, though, that it’s a case of the Bush Administration pushing an underwhelming nominee without thinking about how it would play. My own problem isn’t that of people like Bork — the fear that Miers would be too liberal on social issues. To me, that would be a plus. My problem is that there’s no particular reason to think she’d be a good Supreme Court Justice. The Bush Administration should have had a lot of those reasons handy before nominating someone who was sure to raise those kinds of questions.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: “I met with Hezbollah in person today.” Larry King, at least, will not be happy with what he learned.

Also, Syria is smuggling Palestinians and weapons into Lebanon.

SHEESH: “[Y]ou get more punishment for being cruel to a chicken in Arizona than you do for falsely accusing someone of being a child molester.”

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: A nice letter in Bozeman, Montana on the infamous Bozeman parking garage makes a valuable point: If Bozeman were going to spend $4 million in federal money, would a parking garage be the place they’d want to spend it? Nope. They’re spending it there because that’s what they can get, and that’s what groups with influence over the Congressional delegation (like contractors?) want.

Plus, this observation, which a lot of our elected representatives need to hear, apparently: “Of course we have every right to tell you how we think you should spend our money. It seems arrogant to argue otherwise.”

ACCORDING TO THE WHITE HOUSE, we’re not ready for an avian flu pandemic. Well, we’d better be working on that, hadn’t we?

JAMES CARVILLE SAYS THAT DEMOCRATS need to learn from Winnie the Pooh.

So far, I’m not convinced.

UPDATE: Somebody ask Carville where Piglet fits in.

DOUG WEINSTEIN CALLS ANN COULTER an elitist.

Related thoughts here, from Juliette Ochieng.

MICHAEL BARONE posts an analysis of Bush’s National Endowment for Democracy speech. Plus, progress on the Iraqi Oil Trust idea: “And once Iraqis begin receiving payments for their share of oil profits, how long will it be for Saudis and Iranians to demand the same?”

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit notest that Bush and Al Qaeda seem to agree about what’s at stake in Iraq.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Claudia Rosett has more on oil-for-food. (Via Newsbeat 1.)

JAMES TARANTO:

When President Bush nominated Harriet Miers on Monday, we saw it as a missed opportunity. It left us underwhelmed, not appalled. But having spent last evening communing here with some 1,000 conservatives at National Review’s 50th anniversary dinner, we see a political disaster in the making.

We talked to quite a few people, and we heard not a single kind word about the nomination from anyone who wasn’t on the White House staff. . . . Conventional wisdom still has it that Miers is a shoo-in for confirmation. We’re not so sure. From what we saw last night, the right is furious at President Bush for appointing someone they see as manifestly underqualified and for ducking a fight with the Democratic left.

Sounds serious.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Reader Jim Uren heard back from Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA):

Hi Glenn,

A response to my inquiry arrived today, about 2 weeks after my email was sent.

It is not responsive to my question about cutting pork, but instead talks about class and race, former FEMA head Mr Brown, and spending bills that theCongresswoman has voted for.

Lame. Meanwhile, blogger Eric Cowperthwaite isn’t any happier with the response he got from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA): “I plan to vote against Senator Boxer when she comes up for re-election and I plan to vocally and publicly let people know that she is absolutely unwilling to cut waste and pork from the budget in order to be fiscally responsible.”

UPDATE: Meanwhile, here’s a detailed look at the Louisiana pols’ demands for hurricane relief, which seems to come liberally wrapped in bacon. Layers and layers of bacon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Eshoo from reader Chris Saari:

I must have received the same form response as Jim Uren, and on the same time line from Rep. Eshoo. I wrote to Rep. Eshoo about two weeks ago suggesting she give up a particularly unneeded bit of pork (a $3.2 million package for a very well maintained and smoothly flowing highway, Oregon Expressway) in our wealthy (median income ~$100,000) town of Palo Alto.

In reply, I she sent me a letter with a couple of cheap shots at Bush Administration failures, the class and race trope, and then the boast, “I’ve already voted for $62.3 million…[which] represents only a down payment… .” Not a word about how to pay for it, or for my suggestion concerning pork she could give up on behalf of us well-off, but “outraged” Palo Altans.

I guess she, like the rest of the Congressional blob in both parties who hold safe seats, figure a late, non-responsive canned reply to a letter from a constituent is good enough for government work.

I think this sort of response is likely to give a boost to the movment for term limits and a Balanced Budget Amendment, which I predict will make a resurgence in the next couple of years.

MORE: CoolBlueBlog contacted Pat Leahy (D-VT) and reports that Pat Leahy thinks that snowmobile trails are more important than hurricane relief. Meanwhile, Reader Fred Stankowski reports from Hawaii:

Just wanted to send you the response I got back from my Rep Ed Case (D)(Hawaii, 2nd District):

Thank you for your letter urging the deletion of “pork-barrel” spending from our nation’s budget, especially to finance the reconstruction costs of Katrina and Rita.

We certainly have a mutual and very expensive obligation to assist in the reconstruction of the Gulf States. At the same time, it is important to note that, in our overall federal budget perspective, the far larger and ongoing costs are the combination over the last four years of the fastest increases in overall federal spending and the broadest decreases in growth in federal revenues in decades. On the spending side of the equation, congressionally-designated project spending (aka “pork”), while growing, is a very small fraction of overall spending.

There is no question that our federal finances continue to deteriorate rapidly because of the growing imbalance between revenues and expenses. To stabilize this deterioration and then dig ourselves out of the hole, while adequately meeting our priority needs such as Katrina/Rita reconstruction, all options must be on the table, including pork and other spending and further revenue reductions.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please don’t hesitate to do so again in the future.

Over all it wasn’t too bad (for Hawaii anyway; see Gas Cap), but to say there is little “pork” is laughable. The highlighted line I think is a mistype, I think it is supposed to read “revenue increases”. Nice transition into a tax hike, no?

Heh. Lots of readers are unimpressed with the letters members of Congress are sending out, as they should be. Reader Eric Eck emails:

The many responses you have detailed from Congress to constituents are a graphic exposition of the distance between voters and their representatives. Our representatives have no interest in actually responding to voters’ specific concerns. They have even less interest in controlling federal spending or cutting back on that oh so delicious pork.

What can be done to restore fiscal responsibility in this country? I wish I had that answer.

I don’t know, but I think we’ll see a significant move to do something.

ROGER SIMON has an Unscam update, as Kofi Annan continues to get criticism for the oil-for-food scandal.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: An Alaskan blogger listens to Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and doesn’t like what he hears.

BILL ROGGIO looks at Iraqi army capabilities.

TOM MAGUIRE has more on Plame, and notes Mark Kleiman’s perspicacity.

SUPPORTING MILITARY RECRUITERS in San Antonio. And reporting about it in The New York Times!

IN THE MAIL: Steven F. Hayward’s Greatness : Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders. Looks very interesting, though it looks as if a flamewar may be developing in the reader reviews . . . .

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Congressman Mike Rogers (R-AL) responds to a constituent on pork, and leaves the constituent unsatisfied: “A vague form letter that doesn’t directly address the question.”

THE COUNTERTERRORISM BLOG has a roundup on the New York City terror alert. Happily, Megan McArdle appears to have survived.

JAY CURRIE has thoughts on preparation for avian flu. Once again, it’s worth noting that those preparations are also likely to be useful in the event of other outbreaks.

I have related thoughts on technology and preparedness over at GlennReynolds.com.

A LOOK AT LAWBLOGGERS in The New York Times.

IS THE MIERS NOMINATION IN TROUBLE? She’s polling like Robert Bork, and she’s flubbing easy questions.

UPDATE: Miers’ defenders will have to do better than “shut up.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Virginia Postrel has lots of interesting things to say about Miers — just keep scrolling.

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES, fresh back from New Orleans, has thoughts on the proper use of the National Guard.

IS IT A BLOG BOOM, or a blog bubble?

I THOUGHT EVERYONE KNEW that law librarians rock.

BETWEEN BOOK-WRITING AND OTHER PROJECTS, I’ve been exceptionally busy this fall. And though I’ve always viewed slow-cookers with some suspicion, I have to say that this All-Clad Slow Cooker, which my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday, rocks. I’ve used it several times a week, to make lamb stew (with Guinness), gumbo, spaghetti sauce, cornish game hens, etc. It’s a little weird to be preparing dinner at 8 a.m., but it’s pretty nice to get home at 5:30 or 6 and find it cooked, and the house smelling nice. At my brother’s recommendation (yes, we Reynolds men tend to be the cooks in our households) I got this cookbook, which rocks, too. (My sister-in-law gave me this cookbook, which has great recipes but most of them are kind of heavy on prep work; I prefer the “fix it and forget it” approach, most of the time.) I should have gotten one of these things years ago. (And my apologies for stepping on Bill Quick’s turf. . . .)

FROM PHOTO ANALYSIS TO VIDEO ANALYSIS.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE:

I have the distinct impression that the Democratic Party sees the liberal blogosphere as being inside the tent, while the Republican Party views the conservative blogosphere as being somewhere between an irrelevance and a minor nuisance. Maybe this is true, at least in part, because many prominent “conservative” bloggers (Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Stephen Green, and Eugene Volokh spring to mind) are not exactly stalwart Republican party loyalists but rather libertarians (or whatever) who put routinely put their principles ahead of party interests. Alternatively, maybe the Democrats have just decided to follow Lyndon Johnson’s advice about keeping your critics inside the tent peeing out rather than outside the tent peeing in.

I think he’s right. There’s no doubt that the GOP party apparat is less engaged with the blogosphere, overall, than the Democrats’.

THE DSCC SCANDAL reaches the New York Times.

RADLEY BALKO CELEBRATES M.A.D.D.’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY by calling them a bunch of prohibitionist twits:

Even MADD’s founder, Candy Lightner, has lamented that the organization has grown neo-prohibitionist in nature.

“[MADD has] become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned …,” Lightner is quoted as saying in an Aug. 6 story in the Washington Times. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving,” she said.

Unfortunately, the tax-exempt organization has become so enmeshed with government it has nearly become a formal government agency. MADD gets millions of dollars in federal and state funding, and has a quasi-official relationship with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In some jurisdictions, DWI defendants are sentenced to attend and pay for alcoholic-recovery groups sponsored by MADD. In many cities, MADD officials are even allowed to man sobriety checkpoints alongside police.

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, perhaps its time Congress revisit the spigot of federal funding flowing to MADD, and consider revoking the organization’s tax-exempt status. Clearly, MADD isn’t the same organization it was 25 years ago. It has morphed into an anti-alcohol lobbying organization. There’s nothing wrong with that — it’s certainly within MADD’s and its supporters’ First Amendment rights.

But taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize them.

Indeed.

MORE THOUGHTS ON BUSH’S SPEECH here and, from Donald Sensing, here.

LARRY LESSIG ADVERTISES a Creative Commons fundraiser.

JONATHAN GEWIRTZ does a media compare and contrast.

LOTS MORE on the Oklahoma suicide bombing.

UPDATE: More here, too. Also here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s a lengthy post casting doubt on the Islamic-terror angle.

MICHAEL YON HAS A NEW REPORT FROM MOSUL, with particular emphasis on how the Iraqi forces are doing. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Westhawk compares Mosul with Ramadi and draws lessons.

MORE ON AVIAN FLU: No wonder Bush seemed so up-to-date at the press conference the other day.

ROB ANDERSON IN THE NEW REPUBLIC:

When it comes to the oppression of gays and lesbians in Muslim countries, gay activism hasn’t died; it never really existed. Gay activists have used two types of excuses to justify their failure to aggressively mobilize for the rights of gay Muslims–moral and strategic. The moral argument is that Americans are in no position to criticize Iranians on human rights–that it would be wrong to campaign too loudly against Iranian abuses when the United States has so many problems of its own. Then, there are two strategic rationales: that it is better to work behind the scenes to bring about change in Iran; and that gay rights groups should conserve their resources for domestic battles.

The strategic rationales are not especially compelling, but it is the moral argument that is particularly troubling, because it suggests that some gay and lesbian leaders feel more allegiance to the relativism of the contemporary left than they do to the universality of their own cause. Activists are more than willing to condemn the homophobic leaders of the Christian right for campaigning against gay marriage; but they are weary of condemning Islamist regimes that execute citizens for being gay. Something has gone terribly awry.

Indeed.

BOB CASEY IS NOW LEADING RICK SANTORUM by eighteen percent.

A MILBLOG BOOK: Cool.

A VERY NICE PIECE ON ACADEMIC BLOGGING by Henry Farrell.

HERE’S MORE on efforts by the UN and EU to take over the Internet. You can bet that they’ll do their best to quash criticism of corrupt international bureaucracies if that happens.

UPDATE: Reader Julian Morrison emails:

It’s like I posted to Slashdot: why would the EU and the UN want to grab control, when that control right now is only being used for laissez faire? Because they want to /stop/ the laissez faire!

China wants to take down Tibetan and Falun Gong sites. Germany wants to ban neonazis from the internet. The arab nations would want to kick off Israel until it “fulfils its international obligations”. Etc etc. This is nothing less than an attempt to stuff the information genie back into its bottle.

At all costs, they must be prevented from claiming the spurious moral high ground! Confront them with the question: what would you change? And, why not go through process at ICANN? What would you want to do,
that they would refuse? And why?

Indeed. The U.N. and E.U.’s moral high ground is usually spurious, in my experience.

IN THE MAIL: Peter Schuck’s new book, Meditations of a Militant Moderate : Cool Views on Hot Topics. Not a great title in my opinion, but a very interesting-looking book, with chapters on immigration, racial reparations, military recruiting on campus, etc. Here’s a bit of what he says about the military recruitment issue:

The Supreme Court will decide, but let us assume that the schools are right on the law — that their interviewing rules as applied to the military do not violate Solomon (now amended to require “equal access” by recruiters) or that the First Amendment prevents Defense from sanctioning them. A key question remains: Should law schools have such policies in the first place?

Virtually all the schools (and the AALS) long ago answered affirmatively, but I have my doubts. I strongly favor barring discrimination against gays and protecting academic autonomy in the face of political pressures. But law schools shold be dedicated to a third norm, too, one that would discredit their position on this question. As a matter of principle, law schools should treat their students as mature individuals who have absorbed enough education, legal and otherwise, to assess the evidence and make their own choices among employwers without needing to be “protected” by the schools. Why should the schools screen employers’ practices for some of the most critical and well-informed young adults in the country? Can’t students make up their own minds on this?

They can, of course, but letting them do so deprives law schools of the opportunity to display moral superiority at low cost, which is what the recruitment policy is all about.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Reader/reporter Evan Dawson emails:

Today I had the chance to speak with Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-Clarence, NY) regarding his views on the pork-for-relief proposal. Reynolds was in town to talk about new federal plans to deal with gas gouging and energy conservation. During his response, he referenced several projects for which he earmarked money in the transportation bill. One is a road safety improvement. The other project is known in Rochester as Renaissance Square; it will be a combination of an underground bus terminal and an upscale performing arts center. Reynolds helped secure three separate earmarks that total roughly $8 million for the project. Elected leaders have tied the arts center to the bus terminal in order to make it eligible for these kinds of transportation earmarks.

Rep. Reynolds had this to say: “When you look at the road and bridge projects, I don’t think people of the 26th District, on the type of money that I was able to bring back, are gonna want to say, ‘Let’s stand aside.’”

Regarding Renaissance Square and road safety improvements: “I don’t think those are luxury items that were brought in on the federal transportation bill.”

On why giving up the earmarks is a poor idea: “If we moved that money and voluntarily gave it back, it comes out of the state’s allocation, and the state would be penalized on the formula that we put together in order to participate in these types of dollars. Are there questionable projects that are in that bill? Sure there are… But I think the projects that I brought in, and others I’ve seen by neighboring districts, are vitally needed road improvements that are part of our transportation planning, and also come out of our transportation formula for New York. I think there are good ways to find cost savings to pay for Katrina. I think taking it away from local projects isn’t the answer.”

I’d like to reiterate that as a reporter, I take no position on the pork-for-relief proposal. I just want to make sure the public has ample information on this issue. I’ll continue to provide responses as we get them from elected leaders.

Thanks.

Evan Dawson
13 WHAM Reporter
Rochester, NY

Tom Reynolds is, I stress, no relation. And I’m glad to see local media asking questions like this, even if I don’t like the answers much. Just remember this if Reynolds runs on an anti-spending platform.

Meanwhile, reader Steve Cooper emails:

I contacted my congressman Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) asking about cutting “pork” from the Transportation Bill to help offset the costs of Hurricane Katrina. I received a letter back from him touting his support for the Katrina spending bills and that there was “no pork” in those measures to cut?!? Not one mention of the Transportation Bill or any real concern about the excessive spending spree that Congress has been on. I plan to call back and hold their feet to the fire on this and will pass on any further responses.

Good. There sure seem to be a lot of Republicans who aren’t interested in cutting pork.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: IF YOU BUY IT IN HARDCOVER, it’ll cost you $150, but Robert Freitas & Ralph Merkle’s book on Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines is available online for free.

SO DRIVING HOME FROM THE GYM I turned on the radio and got Bush giving a really first-rate speech on foreign policy and the war to the National Endowment for Democracy. Notable features — besides its overall clarity — are the naming of Iran and Syria, and his willingness to talk about a war against Islamic terror, not just generic “terror.” Maybe he’s been reading Bill Quick’s critiques!

UPDATE: So on the drive into work, I heard Neal Boortz blasting Bush for “sugarcoating” Islam. I guess you just can’t win.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Bush’s speech here.

MICKEY KAUS takes on John Carroll.

JIM PINKERTON WRITES on politics and art.

THE SENATE HAS PASSED a bill setting standards for treatment of detainees regardless of whether they’re covered by the Geneva Convention or not. The White House is resisting.

This resistance seems to me to be a mistake. First — as Lamar Alexander noted on the Senate floor, in a passage I heard on NPR earlier this morning — it is very much the Congress’s responsibility to make decisions like this; the President might do so in the first instance, but we’ve been at war for more than four years and Congress is actually doing its job late, not jumping in to interfere. If the White House thinks that the Senate’s approach is substantively wrong, it should say so, but presenting it as simply an interference with the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers is wrong. Congress is entitled, and in fact obligated, to set standards of this sort. It’s probably also better politically for the White House, since once the legislation is in place complaints about what happened before look a bit ex post facto.

Perhaps current practices are producing a treasure trove of intelligence that this bill would stop, but I doubt that — and if I’m wrong, the Administration should make that case to Congress, not stand on executive prerogatives. And this bill seems to be just what I was calling for way back when — a sensible look at the subject by responsible people, freed of the screeching partisanship that has marked much of the discussion in the punditsphere. That should be rewarded, not blown off.

UPDATE: The Mudville Gazette has a link-rich post full of factual background that’s a must-read on this topic.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Belgravia Dispatch has much more.

MORE: Juan Non-Volokh writes:

I do not know whether the standard adopted by the Senate is the best approach, but I nonetheless view the vote as a positive development.

If anything, this newfound Congressional willingness to address the rules of detention is long over due. While I certainly believe that the Executive Branch is due a fair degree of deference from the courts in its execution of war-related activities, the Constitution confers the ultimate responsibility for such matters to the legislature. Article I, section 8 explicitly delegates the power “to make Rules concerning captures on Land and Water.” Congress also has the power “to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” Viewed in this light, Congress is not interfering with executive power. It is exercising a responsibility the Constitution explicitly places in the legislature’s hands.

Absent Congressional enactments specifying how military detainees are to be treated, the precise limits of the executive’s authority are necessarily ambiguous. This ambiguity may give the executive some measure of leeway — a leeway the White House and military apparently want to preserve — but it also has unfortunate consequences. Among other things this ambiguity encourages legal challenges to military operations and invites the courts to second-guess decisions that should be made by the political branches. Insofar as the legislature sets clear rules, there will be less room for the judiciary to interfere. If one fears excessive judicial meddling in the conduct of the war on terror, as I do, one should applaud this development.

Yes, and members of Congress will be responsible for how things work out, not just after-the-fact critics, which is also a good thing.

THOUGH HE’S BETTER KNOWN AS A BLOGGER and musician, Doktor Frank has also got a novel coming out. He’s a 21st century Renaissance man!

THE DARPA GRAND CHALLENGE seems pretty cool.

AL GORE IS GOING ON ABOUT “DIGITAL BROWNSHIRTS” AGAIN, and Brendan Nyhan wonders why.

SUDDENLY EVERYBODY’S PILING ON IRAN: Hmm.

JONATHAN GEWIRTZ has more thoughts on the Florida gun law that I mentioned earlier.

A SPY in the White House:

Federal investigators say Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines, used his top secret clearance to steal classified intelligence documents from White House computers.

In 2000, Aragoncillo worked on the staff of then-Vice President Al Gore. When interviewed by Philippine television, he remarked how valued Philippine employees were at the White House.

“I think what they like most is our integrity and loyalty,” Aragoncillo said.

Officials say the classified material, which Aragoncillo stole from the vice president’s office, included damaging dossiers on the president of the Philippines. He then passed those on to opposition politicians planning a coup in the Pacific nation.

“Even though it’s not for the Russians or some other government, the fact that it occurred at the White House is a matter of great concern,” said John Martin, who was the government’s lead espionage prosecutor for 26 years.

He worked for Cheney, too.

OVER AT LEGAL AFFAIRS’ DEBATE CLUB, Richard Posner and Geoffrey Stone are debating the Patriot Act and related matters.

HEH.

RESPONSES TO GEORGE WILL’S COLUMN ON MIERS, here and here.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

BAGHDAD — Recent polling shows widespread support for a new Iraqi constitution to be voted on Oct. 15, even in strongholds of Sunni Arab groups that are fighting to derail the charter.

Mehdi Hafedh, director of the Iraqi Center for Development and International Dialogue, said his latest survey showed that Iraqis are exhausted by the continuing violence and that most are hoping the new constitution will be a first step toward the restoration of order.

(Via ATC). In other news, the Iraqi parliament, fearing Ann Althouse’s wrath (as all must), has removed a controversial provision on ratification.

IN RESPONSE TO MY COLUMN, reader Don Bosch sends this on telecommuting and energy savings. He also sends this story on Rep. Frank Wolf’s efforts to increase telecommuting within the Federal government.

UPDATE: Another response here.

SAY, I WONDER IF THIS GUY is making any hay off the Tom Delay indictments? I know I keep thinking of him every time the subject comes up.

HOLMAN JENKINS looks at NASA’s latest plans with a skeptical eye — and notes the impact of spacebloggers and space advocates:

There’s now a popular constituency for space policy that does more than just tune in for the blast-off extravaganzas. Blame the Web: We told you last year how seething space fans had kept Congress’s feet to the fire and ended up saving a bill designed to speed development of private space tourism.

The same folks are also a source of critique of NASA’s Exploration Systems Architecture Study, issued last month, mostly in consultation with the usual suspects — the giant aerospace contractors, who’ve been NASA’s primary iron triangle sounding board since Gemini. Now there’s an effective peanut gallery, their voices magnified by the Web, which has sprouted numerous sites devoted to criticizing and kibitzing about NASA.

The critics won’t be flyswatted away for one big reason. NASA’s “return to the moon” efforts over the coming decade, as budgets bloat and deadlines are missed, will take place against a background of much faster progress in private spaceflight endeavors. . . .

NASA’s moon plans are a budget bluff — at best, a cipher for a space policy to be named later, once the political landscape has shifted and it will be possible finally to pull the plug on the shuttle, the space station and NASA’s whole failing model of human spaceflight.

What will cause this shift in the landscape? Successful private space endeavors — which, despite setbacks, through trial and error and animal spirits, will begin to show that men and material can be moved off the earth and into orbit affordably by spreading the cost over many flights, routinely undertaken. Only then can the next stage of manned space exploration really start.

Hence a powerful line of criticism aimed at NASA from the non-usual suspects. NASA’s program has a “fundamental unseriousness about it,” complains Rand Simberg, a former aerospace engineer, at his Web site Transterrestrial Musings. “A serious program would be based on a foundation of an infrastructure that would dramatically reduce the marginal costs of getting to orbit, operating in orbit, and getting to the points beyond low earth orbit.”

Adds the Space Access Society’s Henry Vanderbilt: NASA should “let go of controlling their own space transportation from start to finish” and “put the entire ground-to-orbit leg of their new deep space missions out to bid.”

Says consultant Charles Lurio: “Instead of ‘pork from space’ we see the prospect now of practical industries from space, developing on their own.”

We put these views in the paper as a public service. NASA can be expected to dismiss them. Most of the media, bound up in its notion of legitimate “sources,” reports only the views of NASA, the lobbying sector and the congressional delegations whose main interest is keeping the pork flowing.

My thoughts on the subject can be found here.

POLITICS AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: Some interesting thoughts at Impearls.

IS BUSH LIKE TRUMAN? Michael Barone has comments in response to Bill Stuntz.

THIS WEEK’S TANGLED BANK science blog carnival is up.

TIM BLAIR has more on the latest Bali bombing reactions.

IN THE MAIL: Lee Epstein and Jeffrey Segal’s Advice And Consent: The Politics of Appointing Federal Judges. You couldn’t ask for better timing on a book like this . . . .

GEORGE WILL makes an important point on why the Bush Administration’s “trust me” argument is falling flat:

In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked — to ensure a considered response from him, he had been told in advance that he would be asked — whether McCain-Feingold’s core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, “I agree.” Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, “I do.”

My emailers are invoking this very thing, and it’s illustrative of the way that the Miers nomination is upsetting the base in ways that go well beyond Miers herself, or the usual hot-button issues like abortion.

UPDATE: Mystery Pollster has the numbers from Gallup and the base seems displeased.

I’M WATCHING MY GRANDMOTHER (my sister has her during the week, but she had to go out of town today) and on the drive out to her place I heard Mike Gallagher talking about this Florida legislation:

Sen. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, and Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, have filed bills that would permit workers to have the guns on the employer’s property as long as the weapons remain locked in their vehicles. Both proposals included provisions that shield companies from lawsuits in case an employee committed a crime with the gun they had been storing in their car.

The proposals resemble an Oklahoma law that drew attention when a number of major companies, including ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, sued to have it overturned.

Supporters of such laws say they prevent companies from forcing workers to give up their constitutional right to carry firearms.

I think the bill is probably a good idea, and it’s unlikely to do any harm. But the discussion was the sort of thing that makes law professors tear out their hair.

Gallagher kept saying that employers were violating Second Amendment rights by banning firearms. But the Second Amendment — like the rest of the Constitution, except for the 13th Amendment — doesn’t apply to private actors. Banning firearms on private property is no more a Second Amendment violation than banning videocameras on private property is a First Amendment violation.

That doesn’t make the bill wrong, of course. Legislation to stop employers from doing things seen as socially harmful is commonplace. The Constitution doesn’t prohibit racial discrimination by private employers, but state and federal legislation does, because we think it’s a bad thing.

There’s nothing in the proposed Florida law that’s either required or forbidden by the Constitution (and if Florida, or other states, wanted to make employers and businesses that have no-firearms policies strictly liable for injuries caused by criminals on their premises, that wouldn’t violate the Constitution either). But Gallagher’s discussion illustrates how quick people are, even on the right, to constitutionalize all sorts of arguments that aren’t really about the Constitution at all.

MORE PHOTO ANALYSIS.