CASS SUNSTEIN: WRONG AGAIN. Republic.Com isn’t holding up very well.

STEPHANIE DUPONT’S INFLUENCE GROWS: Now it’s Howard Kurtz calling me Insta man.

As long as it’s not my wife.

THE WASHINGTON POST LAYS DOWN THE SMACK on European antisemitism — and in particular, on Chris Patten’s blustering about American observations thereof. Patten has moved from being a figure of fun (well, amused contempt,anyway) in the Blogosphere to playing that role in the mainstream media. Congratulations, Chris!

IS THE UNITED STATES BECOMING a soccer “hyperpower?”

The good news is that the French will be too embarrassed to complain about it, this year.

ANDREW SULLIVAN challenges TAPPED about traffic. Oh, yeah, he also talks about some other stuff in the news, like terrorism and the Catholic Bishops’ conference.

Me, I just wish TAPPED would post more often.

GAY CARDINAL TO BE OUTED? Via Susanna Cornett, I found this post claiming that ACT UP is going to “out” a gay Cardinal.

Big deal, even assuming it’s true. To me, this seems like opportunism rather than any real contribution to the debate, and it’s likely to play into the hands of those who are trying to blame the sex scandals on homosexual clergy so as to divert attention from the Bishops’ shameful efforts to cover up the problem. But then, it is ACT UP.

HERE’S ANOTHER STORY suggesting that a coup in Venezuela is imminent, and likely to be bloodier than last time.

PERHAPS ALL THE LEFTIES WHO HAVE SHOWN AN UNACCOUNTABLE AFFECTION FOR FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAM will think twice now:

UNITED NATIONS — Conservative U.S. Christian organizations have joined forces with Islamic governments to halt the expansion of sexual and political protections and rights for gays, women and children at United Nations conferences. . . .

But it has been largely galvanized by conservative Christians who have set aside their doctrinal differences, cemented ties with the Vatican and cultivated fresh links with a powerful bloc of more than 50 moderate and hard-line Islamic governments, including Sudan, Libya, Iraq and Iran.

“We look at them as allies, not necessarily as friends,” said Austin Ruse, founder and president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes conservative values at U.N. social conferences. “We have realized that without countries like Sudan, abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a U.N. document.”

Yeah. “We’re not really the same, we’re just, um, fellow travelers who happen to be going down the same road together for a while.”

Jeez. Perhaps the “Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute” should focus its attentions a bit closer to home.

UPDATE: Reader Will Duquette writes:

Regarding the story about Conservative Christian groups banding together with the likes of Sudan, I’m curious if any groups other than the “Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute” were mentioned. I’d be surprised if any of the groups one ordinarily thinks about when one hears the phrase “Conservative Christian” were involved, as it’s widely known in Evangelical circles that Sudanese Christians are being severely and violently persecuted by the Muslim majority. I’ve spoken with missionaries who’ve visited Sudan in the last year, so I know that the persecutions aren’t being overstated.

Yes, there are other groups, including a couple that I believe are largely evangelical in nature. Apparently it’s not just the State Department that gets taken in.

UPDATE: A couple of readers think this is unfair to evangelicals, and claim that the groups involved (see story) aren’t really evangelical. Er, okay. But I thought Concerned Women for America was pretty well tied in with evangelicals. If I’m wrong, well, then I’m wrong: it’s certainly not impossible that the Post would give the wrong impression, accidentally or deliberately. But nobody’s said that yet. At any rate, evangelical or not, it’s certainly the “religious right.”

On the other hand, some people dispute my assertion that there are lefties who like fundamentalist Islam. Well, there certainly seem to be a lot of people — Chomsky, Kingsolver, Edward Said, etc., who miss no opportunity to criticize the United States’ war against terror, while saying very little about the practices of our enemies. The Taliban website (yeah, they’ve still got one, and it’s actually not bad) seems pretty pleased with the “not in our name” crowd of lefties. And there’s the example of Gloria Steinem, who opposed the Taliban until the United States went to war with them, and then changed her mind. Pro-Islamic Fundamentalist, or just anti-American? It gets kind of confusing after a while.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh, and this is amusing: the author of this story in The Guardian thinks it’s a pro-Taliban website that’s using the headline “Gangsters, murderers and stooges used to endorse Bush’s vision of ‘democracy'” — but when you follow the link you find it’s actually Robert Fisk’s headline. Robert Fisk: Indistinguishable from Islamist propaganda — even by The Guardian!

GOOD NEWS: The FBI appears to be focusing on important things, like catching spies and terrorists, now.

PRO-TERRORIST ANTI-MCDONALDS ACTIVIST JOSE BOVE is going to prison. Let’s see how he likes the food there.

IRAQ HAS BEEN SMUGGLING NUCLEAR BOMB-MAKING PARTS on “humanitarian aid” flights, according to this report in The Times.

SCOTT SHUGER OF SLATE has died in a scuba-diving accident. Mike Kinsley has an obit here.

Shuger was the founder of the Today’s Papers feature, which makes him a major founding influence on blogdom, an excellent writer, and by all accounts a very nice guy. My condolences to his family and colleagues.

REGURGABLOG HAS MOVED, to another one of those slickly designed Movable-Type-powered websites that the folks at Sekimori do so well. It’s got a new name, and its keeper a new pseudonym, too.

And welcome to the newest Knoxville blogger, too!

BELLICOSE WOMEN UPDATE: Two heroic New York women jumped a racist gunman, and quite probably prevented a massacre. (Via email from Patrick Nielsen Hayden)

UPDATE: Reader Allen Russell says:

I think you missed the most important element of this story. Apparently 40 people allowed this man to hold them hostage even after making it obvious he was going to burn them alive (dousing them with kerosene, having someone handcuff them). People need to realize that if someone holds a gun (or boxcutter) on them that they may as well fight (and maybe die) rather then sheepishly put themselves into an even worse situation. I understand there may be times when it’s better to do as your told (a convenience store employee being held up), but there are limits to what you should allow even in the face of probable death. I would rather have someone shoot me in a struggle (where I may get wounded, but probably won’t die) then allow them to handcuff me and shoot me in the head at their leisure.

Yeah, or worse — as you note, that guy was carrying kerosene and matches, too. John Lott has some words of advice today. On the other hand, reader David Cohen notes that:

In the story on the gunman in New York, the Police Commissioner praised the women who jumped him as “having done the right thing.” This strikes me as a change caused by 9/11 — before that, it seems to me, the police took the position that citizens weren’t supposed to get involved. Next thing you know, the NYPD will be calling for a “shall issue” law.

Well, maybe not. But attitudes certainly are changing this. The notion that you can avoid harm by being harmless is on the way out.