ANOTHER BLOG SWEEPS WEEK IMAGE: I’ve been travelling, but I do intend to spend my holiday weekend drinking beer on the deck, as promised last week.

Sadly, however, the atmosphere won’t be quite this festive, though I’m sure we’ll have a good time.

Hope you enjoy your long weekend, too.

UPDATE: Phil Bowermaster is shocked, shocked at the whole Blog Sweeps Week phenomenon.

OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY looks at Congress’s effort to tax pimps: “Wouldn’t that money be better spent on law enforcement agencies that actually have a prayer of shutting them down? This is pandering at its finest–a pretty bandage that does zero to solve the underlying problem.”

I also agree with this: “If governments actually cared about the victims of sex trafficking, the logical thing to do would be to legalize and regulate prostitution. A legal, transparent system would make it much easier to ensure both the age and ability to consent of prostitutes. Abuse would go down, disease incidences would go down, and child trafficking would go down. Prostitution will always be with us, so why not ensure that any acts of prostitution occur solely between consenting adults?”

Why, indeed?

IN THE NEW REPUBLIC, Cass Sunstein echoes a point I made yesterday: “Hamdan v. Rumsfeld demonstrates that checks on executive power are alive and well.”

THE LATEST BLOG WEEK IN REVIEW PODCAST IS UP, with Daniel Drezner, La Shawn Barber, Eric Umansky and Austin Bay. Don’t miss it!

CHANGING TIMES: At Hot Air.

JOHN TAMMES ROUNDS UP news from Afghanistan that you may have missed.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Claudia Rosett is blogging the Tongsun Park oil-for-food trial.

RON CASS WRITES ON HAMDAN: Sorry I haven’t had more, but I’m on travel and haven’t had time to read the decision myself.

Chester, however, has some thoughts, and so does Shannon Love.

UPDATE: Here’s a Hamdan roundup by Mark Moller of Cato.

And more thoughts from Jack Balkin.

MY LAW SCHOOL CLASSMATE PETER KEISLER has been nominated to the D.C. Circuit. He’s a nice guy, and he’s been head of the Civil Division at DoJ for a while. I doubt he’ll prove especially controversial. He’s from the Roberts mold, pretty much.

SINCE IT’S BLOG SWEEPS WEEK, I guess I should note that it’s the Sixtieth Anniversary of the bikini.

Some people are talking about a bikini explosion, and there’s even a special anniversary bikini book. But despite its alluring cover, I urge you to ignore all this commercialism and go beyond Bikini Bottom.

I mean, what’s crasser than using bikini imagery to pump up circulation and sell stuff? Right?

Instead, let’s return to a simpler, more wholesome time.

RAND SIMBERG ON THE NEXT SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH:

Many have criticized this decision, claiming that it was reminiscent of the same kind of “launch fever” that destroyed the Space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, with their crews. There are two differences, though.

First, the previous decisions were made out of the public eye, with dissent against them discouraged by management. This decision was made in the open, with an explanation publicly provided by the administrator, and ample opportunities for discussion and disagreement.

Second, the risk of concern (more foam falling off the external tank, and striking the orbiter in a manner similar to that which doomed Columbia) is to the vehicle, but not necessarily to the crew, despite hysteria on the part of some of the critics. Even AA O’Connor agrees with this, which is why he has accepted his boss’s decision to go forward. This is because in the event of damage to the Thermal Protection System, unlike the ill-fated Columbia, Discovery will be going to the International Space Station (ISS), where they will have more options: Potential damage can be inspected and possibly repaired, and if not, the crew can stay there safely until a rescue vehicle can be brought up to return them to earth.

It’s not likely that this will be a problem — we flew over 100 flights previous to the loss of Columbia, and we probably lost foam every time — we just weren’t looking for it — so last July’s “close call” isn’t necessarily as worrisome as some would make it out to be. But if this does occur, it would likely represent the end of the shuttle program (an eventuality that can’t come soon enough for some, even some space enthusiasts). It is no secret that Dr. Griffin would like to end it as soon as possible, to free up money for the president’s new lunar/Mars initiative, and has basically stated that he would end it if there’s another accident, not just because it would be yet another indicator of the system’s unreliability, but because it’s probably impractical to complete ISS construction (the only purpose for which shuttle survives at all) with a fleet of only two orbiters. And the dirty secret, of course, is that despite talk about using the ISS in support of the new exploration programs, the only real reason we’re spending the many billions of dollars and years that it will take to complete it is (uncharacteristically, in the thinking of many reflexive opponents of this administration) to meet our obligations with our international partners in Europe and Japan. But even that reason wouldn’t be good enough in the face of another major shuttle mishap.

Read the whole thing.

IT MUST BE SOME KIND OF A SWEEPS WEEK: Christopher Hitchens is offering a social history of the blowjob. Is it really “the specifically American sex act?”

I GUESS IT IS BLOG SWEEPS WEEK: Nude Britney Spears photos and a comment on the Hamdan decision, all in one post.

PUBLIUS REPORTS on an anti-communist freedom rally in Bolivia that attracted over 100,000 people. There are pictures.

Bolivia seems like a nice place.

UPDATE: Reader Bart Hall writes:

It IS a nice place — actually one of my favourites in all Latin America, and I’ve spent a lot of time there. If you ever get the chance to go there (and a strongly recommend you do) you’ll find that each region is different.

My personal favourite is Cochabamba and environs. The area around Santa Cruz is the heart of free-enterprise libertarianism, and FWIW has a large Japanese community as well as many Mennonites.

The best part of the Altiplano is on the Peruvian side, but I must warn you that Andean cuisine generally sucks (lots of old sheep, potatoes, stringy beef and not a lot else). In Cocha and Sta. Cruz it’s a lot better.

Santa Cruz sounds like the place to be. Unless you enjoy Scottish food. . . .

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON really doesn’t like Hillary.

Neither, apparently, do Peter Daou’s friends.

I still maintain hopes that she might turn out to be “the most uncompromising wartime President in United States history.” After all, she argued that President Bush had “inherent authority” to go to war against Saddam!

Plus, we might see the tough-talking Secretary of State Atrios!

MAN CHARGED AFTER VIDEOTAPING POLICE: I think it should pretty much always be legal to videotape police, but this is particularly silly as it was in his own home:

Michael Gannon, 49, of 26 Morgan St., was arrested Tuesday night, after he brought a video to the police station to try to file a complaint against Detective Andrew Karlis, according to Gannon’s wife, Janet Gannon, and police reports filed in Nashua District Court.

Police instead arrested Gannon, charging him with two felony counts of violating state eavesdropping and wiretap law by using an electronic device to record.

Jeez.

MAUREEN DOWD PRAISES BLOGGERS: “Politicians are courting the best bloggers because they bring donations, volunteers and goodwill to their campaigns. . . . It’s a very healthy situation: blogs lead me to try to be better every day.”

Surely the end times are nigh.

UPDATE: The Anchoress comments: “I knew she’d come around, sooner or later!”

MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING: Stooges for Bin Laden?

AEROTREKKING: Sounds pretty cool.