GUN CONTROL CULTURE SHIFT: Here’s a nugget from Howard Kurtz today on the Louisiana Senate election:

Landrieu even gave a $1,000 donation from Handgun Control to a hunting organization to clear up any “confusion” about her backing of the Second Amendment.

Can it get any worse than that for HCI? She didn’t even return the donation — she gave it to the enemy!

JEEEEEZUS CHRIST: I don’t know why, but this item on 512MB Flash memory cards gave me a real headspin. I remember the first 10MB hardcard I saw. And it cost a lot more than this!

IN PRAISE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES — Josh Chafetz is absolutely right:

I think it’s somewhat biased to the left. Hell, I’ve even gone after one of its columnists in print. But in the end, it’s still probably the best newspaper on earth. If you want to really appreciate it, try reading only the British papers for a week.

So good on Last for reminding us: the Times is flawed, and criticism is important — it can help make it better — but it’s still pretty damned amazing, and it’s still the first stop in my morning reading, not because I’m looking for flaws, but because I’m looking for good, detailed, reliable reporting. And the Times usually — not always, but usually — delivers the goods.

I agree. I think, in fact, that it’s this kind of sentiment that makes a lot of people angry about Howell Raines’ efforts to turn the Times into a house organ for the McAuliffe wing of the Democratic Party.

JIM MILLER REPORTS a troubling poll of British Muslims.

You know, it’s not prejudice to accuse people of being disloyal when they are, in fact, disloyal. But given the anti-assimilation policies favored in Britain, attitudes like this aren’t a big surprise.

“TED BARLOW DISEASE” seems to be spreading. Is there a vaccine for that?

Come back, Ted!

UPDATE: NOOOoooo!

EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH: Michiel Visser has discovered that in Europe, support for terrorism and genocide can get you an award for “human rights.”

Coming next: Nobel Peace Prize winner David Duke.

MY REDUCED-BLOGGING PERIOD this week caused me not to get around to writing about the Padilla decision. Fortunately, Eugene Volokh had it covered. Start here and scroll up.

As I’ve said before, I favor treating American citizens differently from non-Americans, at least where domestic arrests are concerned. (If you’re hanging with Al Qaeda abroad, well, you take your risks as to the occasional Hellfire missile). The big risk isn’t individual injustices — those are bad, but as we’ve seen the ordinary criminal-justice system produces them in significant numbers anyway, meaning that they don’t raise any unique concerns in the antiterrorism context. The big risk is that extraordinary legal powers will be perverted from anti-terrorism to the harassment of political opponents. So long as they can’t be exercised against American citizens, that risk is virtually nil.

YOU MAY HAVE SEEN THE EMAIL about San Francisco’s Rainbow Food Cooperative boycotting Israel. The Rainbow Food Cooperative sure has, and it’s an interesting lesson about the power of the Internet to spread the word:

Yes, the store has a right to wage a boycott, just as consumers have a right to boycott the store.

Zimmerman noted that the Rainbow brigade is now learning “that it’s not a free ride, and I think that’s a good thing.”

The odd thing is, for one year, there was a free ride. The boycotters heaped scorn on a small democracy fighting for its life, and no one said peep. No one asked if they were outraged at suicide bombers who deliberately kill Israeli children. No one challenged them to explain how they could say they are boycotting for freedom, without boycotting the oppressive financiers of violent Palestinians.

They had a free ride. They could feel superior and pure, hyping “freedom for the Palestinians and all people.” Except they didn’t really mean that part about “all people.”

The Internet ended that free ride, as it’s ending a lot of others. Which is why so many people are nostalgic for the days before it existed.

AND THIS IS THE HOME OF THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT? Now it’s not just students, but Berkeley’s mayor stealing copies of student newspapers he doesn’t like. How lame is that?

Pretty lame. But, somehow, not surprising at all.

UPDATE: Hmm. Now the Daily Cal server is down. More of the same? I’ve changed the link.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kevin Deenihan has a lot more on this, including a correction for what he says is an error in the story linked above. Also, the Daily Cal is back up, and here’s the link to its story.

SEE, I TOLD YOU I WAS REALLY A LIBERAL. But, like Norma Desmond, I feel that something has changed. . . .

A SMALL PLANE crashed into the Federal Reserve Bank building in Miami. The pilot is dead, but no one else was hurt. Terrorism? If so, it’s pretty lame. But Al Qaeda has been trending lame for a while.

UPDATE: They’re calling it an accident.

THE WEBLOG ACTION CENTER has information on how to support our servicepeople overseas during the holidays. Check it out.

JUSTICE AND COMEDY: Some interesting thoughts from Stefan Sharkansky.

IT’S NOT QUITE A FISKING, but Eugene Volokh has a pretty brutal critique of the Ninth Circuit’s Second Amendment decision, and what that decision doesn’t discuss. Eugene pronounces it “disappointing.”

BIG IRANIAN STUDENT DEMONSTRATIONS are planned for December 7. I think it’s going to be an interesting weekend.

UPDATE: By the way, check out this speech, for which Dr. Hashem Aghajari was sentenced, to death, triggering the current wave of revolutionary sentiment. Excerpt:

Non-Muslims Too Have Inalienable Rights

“If we, as Muslims of divine and perfect Islam, value mankind, and say that [people] are human beings regardless of religion, even if they are not Muslims, even if they are not Iranians, such as Turks, Kurds and Lurs,[8] whatever they may be – [we should say that] they are human and they have inalienable rights.”

I think this truth is self-evident. And the mullahs fear that it is.

THIS POST of mine had a quote from a Michael Gove article in The Times that quoted Amnesty International’s Irene Khan. (Got that?). Now I notice that Kevin Drum has a post saying that the Khan quote is actually several weeks old and not — as it appears from Gove’s piece — in response to the British government’s new report of Iraqi human rights violations.

I don’t know how big a deal this is, but I do try to get these things right.

TROUBLE IN VENEZUELA: Here’s a BBC story and here’s an AP story. A national strike, oil not getting out, lines at gas stations. Ugly.

THE CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY HANUKKAH RALLY went off without being suppressed by the University, which, I’d guess, is unhappy at all the attention its effort to shut down the campus Hillel chapter has gotten. Here’s a report from Sari Stein:

Event went great. Huge turnout. We sang, we danced, we lit candles, we proclaimed our freedom. Samer Elatrash got arrested. I’ll post more details over on my blog as soon as I finish answering e-mails.

There’s a much longer account on her weblog. The photo above is by McGill student Michael D. Smith, who kindly consented to its use here. There are more pictures on Sari Stein’s blog.

FLOYD MCWILLIAMS says things aren’t as bad in Europe as I think — it’s just the 1970s over there. Hmm. This would explain Daft Punk, not that I have anything bad to say about guys who make electronic music while pretending to be robots.

THONG-CLAD SUICIDE BOMBERS? But where will they hide the C4?

YOU GOTTA HAVE A GIMMICK. For Clinton, it was the saxophone. For George W., it was that he didn’t play the saxophone. Now Palmermix has discovered John Kerry’s . . . .

UPDATE: Heh. And read this, courtesy of Eve Tushnet, who also found this. Beware the Blogosphere. . . .

HERE’S A REPORT that the New York Times is even spiking letters to the editor from sources who say they were misquoted about the Augusta National affair.

Mickey Kaus is all over this story, but so far I’m ahead of him with this.

STILL MORE OBSERVATIONS OF WATER ON MARS.

Of course, this just makes these observations by Rand Simberg on the upcoming 30th anniversary of the last human footsteps on the Moon that much more poignant.

THE NINTH CIRCUIT, in an opinion by Stephen Reinhardt, says there’s no Second Amendment right to arms. At least, I think so — the opinion is 69 pages long and I’ve only skimmed the beginning so far.

Footnote 1 is to an article by Michael Bellesiles, though, which doesn’t exactly enhance its credibility.

UPDATE: Clayton Cramer has more. And now that I’ve skimmed the whole thing, it seems that the 9th Circuit believes there’s a right of the states to have — in the words of a Warren Burger passage from Parade magazine that the opinion quotes — “state armies.” If this is taken seriously, states can nullify federal gun control laws simply by declaring that their adult citizenry constitutes “the militia” and is to have machine guns. (You can read an article that Don Kates and I wrote in the William & Mary Law Review on this very subject here.)

I don’t think it’s meant to be taken seriously, though. The “states’ right” argument is usually employed by gun control supporters like a chain of garlic against a vampire — pulled out at need, but then hastily tossed back in the cellar afterward, lest its odor offend.

To be fair, though, I’ve just skimmed the opinion. It’s possible that there’s a layer of sophistication that I’ve missed.

UNILATERALISM: Germany is planning big defense cuts, in violation of its commitments. Geitner Simmons says it well:

German criticism of U.S. military muscle and “unilateralism” is hard to take when German officials are unapologetically shortchanging their own country’s military capabilities. The same goes for German complaints about the yawning gap between their country’s military capability and that of the United States.

As the Times article points out, the German government’s decision directly undercuts a recent pledge by NATO officials to reduce that technology gap.

I think it’s fair to call this “irresponsible unilateralism” and “contempt for international agreeements.”

UPDATE: Reader Don Stadler writes:

I’m afraid I have to disagree with your opinion about the German defense cuts. They are unilaterism to be sure. But much, much more than that, the cuts are simply desperation. And arguably a good sign.

Yopu have been linking to stories and blogs documenting the slide of Schroeder into a slough of unpopularity because he has been trying to stitch the German budget together with tax increases and no effective reform.

When you are trying to dig a country out of a hole so you can cut taxes what do you do? You cut back on the ineffective things the government is doing.

For Germany defense is a good start. For what is more ineffective than the German Armed Forces? The Greek Navy?

Good point. And, in light of history, probably a cheering one. . . .