PW: How the establishment media has smeared black churchgoers.

“SHE HASN’T PUMPED HER OWN GAS IN YEARS:” This could have been turned into a story like the George H.W. Bush supermarket scanner story. “Clinton hopped out of the truck without incident and joined Wilfing at the pump. She seemed very interested in the actual set up, acknowledging later that she hasn’t pumped her own gas in years.” And then there’s the coffee machine video.

THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST.

ROBERT SAMUELSON: Start drilling.

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both “energy independence” and cheap fuel. They deplore imports — who wants to pay foreigners? — but oppose more production in the United States. Got it?

Read the whole thing.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Postcards from the Balkans.

I’VE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS THAT HOMELAND SECURITY IS A JOKE, but this isn’t funny: “Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) familiar with the situation say the mix-ups, in which marshals are mistaken for terrorism suspects who share the same names, have gone on for years — just as they have for thousands of members of the traveling public.”

WSJ: Weinstein Reversed Again, This Time in NYC’s Suit Against Gun Makers. Mayor Bloomberg is unhappy, so I’m pleased.

CONFLICT AMONG THE NETROOTS: The Messianics vs. the Menopausals.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN OFFERS A HISTORICAL CORRECTION to Jeremiah Wright:

I’m largely uninterested in this never-ending Jeremiah Wright controversy, and I’ll leave the debunking of his nutty National Press Club rant to others in the blogosphere. But there is one minor point that deserves a correction. According to Wright, his “congregation stood in solidarity with the peasants in El Salvador and Nicaragua, while our government, through Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal, was supporting the Contras, who were killing the peasants and the Miskito Indians in those two countries.”

I’m not sure I would be trumpeting my “solidarity” with the foul dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, but I suppose that’s a matter of taste. It should be noted, though, that it was the Sandinista government that famously massacred truculent Miskito Indians, who then responded by fighting a prolonged guerilla war against the very government supported by liberation theologists like Wright.

Is anything Wright says true?

MORE ON THE rebounding cougar population. I’ve heard several reports of cougars in East Tennessee, but there’s no official confirmation.

JUST WATCHED HILLARY ON O’REILLY, and what struck me most was how much both of them seemed to enjoy the interview. O’Reilly had it right — they’re both “polarizing figures,” and they’re both okay with that.

UPDATE: Reader Jody Green emails:

I watched the Bill and Hill show as well and what struck me was how tough she plans to be on those evil corporations. She will lower gas prices by taking the profits away from American Oil Companies???? How are old Chavez and Mugabe doing with those evil corporate profits they took away? Prices sure seem to be lower, eh?

Yeah.

ZIMBABWE UPDATE: Mugabe beaten in presidential vote, says government source. By so much they couldn’t even fake it, I guess.

YESTERDAY’S POST on the motorcycle GPS unit produced several emails that I quoted, but today I got this from Marc “Armed Liberal” Danziger:

Glenn, we’ve got one – I got it because Tenacious G (my wife) rides really well, but navigates less well, and we found that the stress of trying to navigate on the fly on a motorcycle tends to degrade her riding skills – making her less safe.

I’ve used it on my motorcycle, and found it not to be overly distracting at all (plus it plays MP3’s via Bluetooth).

Highly, highly recommended.

As long as we’re talking gadgets, we also got one of these – a Spot Messenger (http://www.findmespot.com/Home.aspx). It uses GPS and satellite communications to allow you to send emails with a Google Maps link to a designated list of people saying “I’m OK” or “I need help” and it also will page the GEOS rescue center for you. Makes those long rides through cell-phone-less back country just a little more secure…

That looks like a very cool gadget.

JAMES TARANTO:

So, was Obama sincere? Did he spent 20 years as an intimate of Wright and a parishioner of his church without ever having an inkling that the guy is a wacko hatemonger?

If so, can you think of anything more terrifying than sending such a naïf to the White House while there’s a war on?

Read the whole thing.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON VOTER ID FRAUD: “Have Marty Lederman and Rick Hasen never heard of Mayor Richard ‘the Boss’ Daley?”

PROFOUND DESIRE NOT TO BE JUDGED.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN DIDN’T PUT CHAINS ON HIM: An interview with former Sudanese slave Simon Deng.

THE WEB IS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD TODAY. While still a fractious adolescent, it’s showing some signs of maturity . . . .

CHOLESTEROL HELL.

REPORTING ON THE WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL sex toy controversy.

UPDATE: Worth quoting: “The enlarged pictures are NSFW, but I guess if the women put them up, then it’s not sexual harassment.”

CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS AT THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS? All I can say is that if they’re being sued by Bob Long, they might as well surrender now.

OVER AT JOYSTIQ, a review of Grand Theft Auto IV.

FRED THOMPSON IS BACK ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: For McCain.

EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON: Obama, Not Wright, Is Obama’s Worst Enemy. “Finally, and worst of all, no matter how much he protests that Wright doesn’t represent him or his thinking, the fact is he sat in his church for nearly two decades, called him a spiritual mentor and family confidant, appointed him to an advisory post in his campaign, and in his so-called race speech refused to disown his two decade experience and relationship with him. This instantly makes his Wright protest sound like the wail of a politician running scared, and who sees the long, arduous, time consuming and patient work he put into building up public trust in him as the nation’s great political hope fast washing down the drain.”

Related thoughts here: “You know who made this a racial thing? Not Sean Hannity. Not Fox News. Not Hillary Clinton. Barrack Obama made Jeremiah Wright a race thing. It was his big ‘race speech’ that transformed a singular black preacher into the living personification of the ‘Black Community.'”

FLOYD ABRAMS: Foreign Law and the First Amendment. A bad combination.