MICKEY KAUS IS AMUSED by Rudy Giuliani’s attacks on nanny-state politicians.

TED STEVENS’ HOUSE searched by the FBI. And IRS.

UPDATE: Don Surber: “Alaska’s three Republicans in Congress are an embarrassment. They should be impeached, er, expelled.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Stevens:

Top White House political advisor Karl Rove told a bunch of us over lunch last week that corruption was the single biggest issue in last fall’s election that overturned the GOP congressional majority. I have always agreed with this assessment, based on exit polls that showed corruption and runaway budget spending were actually more important to voters than Iraq.

So this Stevens business has to be swept away. The GOP should not defend him if he is guilty. Just clean house.

They should. They won’t. And it’ll cost them.

“TOO CAUTIOUS” in showing optimism on Iraq? More here.

UPDATE: Worried the surge might work.

BREAD AND A CIRCUS: Michael Yon posts another report from Baqubah, full of photos and firsthand observations.

VIRGINIA POSTREL:

Personal interests aside, the more fundamental issue is the way we treat the term disease. If something is a “disease,” it is worth treating. If it isn’t a “disease,” you should just live with it. But why? Why not treat a biological condition you just don’t like? (I’m assuming that you are directly or indirectly paying for the treatment.) We don’t have to call Restless Leg Syndrome a disease to acknowledge that it disturbs some people’s sleep and that those people would like relief. Contrary to what you may have heard, the only sort of character suffering builds is the ability to suffer–a useful ability in a world where suffering is the routine nature of life but not a virtue that makes the world a better place.

Besides, if suffering is a virtue in itself we’ve always got Middle School. And the DMV.

WISHING FOR JOHN ROBERTS’ DEATH.

UPDATE: More.

JAMES LILEKS REPORTS FROM A CRUISE: “Walking around and eating is hard work, apparently. I don’t know how the Navy managed to win WW2. . . . Everything here costs something. I was under the impression that everything was included, but no – if it’s the slightest bit fun, it costs extra. . . . The sight of the fellow passengers was quite remarkable; if you could sum it up, you’d have to say this is a boat full of small whales looking to catch sight of a larger one. Everyone waddles to and fro, slowly, panting with the effort of transporting the stored energy of previous meals to the location of the next one.”

WHEN BEING A BOY hurts.

A VITAL ANNIVERSARY: “Yesterday was the birthday of John S. Pillsbury, the spiritual father of the lovable Doughboy whose cheerful smile and delightful giggle blind us to the fact that his entire life is one desperate attempt to keep from being shoved in the oven. Here! Eat this! Not me! I’m self-aware!“

IMPORTANT THOUGHTS ON NERDS AND WHITENESS from Tom Maguire.

UPDATE: Related post here. Excerpt: “The article does not mention the true common characteristic of nerds: they are numerate, i.e. conversant in the language of mathematics – an odd omission for a linguist. This omission can be explained by the fact that Berkeley-style multi-culturalism is threatened by numeracy, the development of which is the hallmark of Western Civilization and the historical wellspring of western economic and military success. Consequently, it is incumbent on multi-culturalists to discredit whenever and wherever possible those who are numerate.” Ouch.

MORE: Invoking Weird Al.

SO TODAY AMAZON IS RECOMMENDING Unconventional Warfare Devices and Techniques References Tm 31-200-1, and the Improvised Munitions Handbook. Plus, a helpful volume on boobytraps.

I wonder what led to those recommendations? This is maybe taking the whole Dangerous Book for Boys thing a bit too far. . . .

MORE THOUGHTS ON ELECTION FRAUD FROM JOHN FUND. Our podcast interview with him on this topic can be found here.

GLOBAL OPTIMISM, American pessimism.

PHILADELPHIA: The details change, the narrative remains.

THOUGHTS ON FEAR.

MOLLOHAN CAST VOTES DESPITE RECUSAL:

Despite having recused himself from matters relating to the FBI — which is reportedly investigating his finances — Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday voted against an amendment that would have increased the bureau’s budget by $6 million.

Republicans say Mollohan’s vote proves his recusal is a sham — and claim the amendment was intended to draw him out. Democrats defended Mollohan, saying he had not participated in discussions about the agencies that are reportedly investigating him, though no one from his office or the Appropriations Committee would go on the record for this article. . . .

It has been widely reported that Mollohan sent a letter to the Appropriations Committee recusing himself from matters involving the Justice Department, a decision that was hailed by watchdog groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

But according to the committee, Mollohan’s recusal applies only to four accounts within Justice: the Office of the Attorney General, the U.S. attorneys, the FBI and the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. Neither Mollohan’s office nor the Appropriations Committee would provide a copy of the recusal letter, and Republicans claimed they have never seen it.

A bit more transparency, please.

THE SPEECH POLICE, on parade.

IN THE MAIL: Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy’s The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House.

Plus, Billy Graham and Woody Allen.

MORE PROBLEMS WITH electronic voting.

LARRY SOLUM EXPLAINS the counter-majoritarian difficulty.

And I’ve had some thoughts on the subject, here.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “But though I disapprove of the way that both sides have turned this into a battle in some larger culture war over whether soldiers/Republicans or journalists/Democrats are the bigger jerks, it still matters a great deal whether the story was right. Just as it mattered whether Jayson Blair’s stories were right, or Stephen Glass’s, not because their stories would resolve momentous questions of public policy, but because it matters a great deal whether the information that media conveys is correct. Editors should live in fear that something they have published is wrong; that’s healthy. Whatever the motives of the critics–and I hate to point this out, but almost certainly anyone who gets caught writing a fake story, will be caught by someone who doesn’t like them very much, and has ulterior motives for desiring to disprove what they wrote–the mechanism is sound. It is the journalistic equivalent of peer review.”

“MORE BABIES PLEASE” IN EUROPE: Plus, are children a public good? Not when they scream on airplanes.

MAKE BIODIESEL YOURSELF with a home processing plant.

MICHAEL TOTTEN POSTS ANOTHER REPORT FROM BAGHDAD:

“We want to use you as bait,” Sergeant Eduardo Ojeda from Los Angeles, California, told me before I embedded with his unit on what was shaping up to be a night raid.

“Excellent,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”

Remember, he’s supported by reader donations, so if you like the reporting, you might want to hit the tipjar.

[Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!]

A WAR WE JUST MIGHT WIN: “Viewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal.. . . Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily ‘victory’ but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.”

It’s in the New York Times, so it must be true.