VIRGINIA POSTREL:

Unlike Mark Kleiman, I think Cruz Bustamante’s MEChA connection might be reason enough not to vote for him, especially because he’s been such a mealy-mouthed coward in addressing the question. But I completely agree with Mark that Bustamante’s increasingly nutty economic populism is an even better reason. . .

He’s supposed to be an advocate for low-income Californians, and he attacks Wal-Mart, which has not only driven huge productivity gains in the economy over all but, more to the point, sells quality merchandise at low prices? Where exactly does he want the people eating his red meat to shop? Melrose Avenue boutiques? That’s economic cluelessness.

Attacking Wal-Mart shows that he’s not a populist, but rather a slave to anti-globo-bobo fashion. Which his sad devotion to the outdated radical-chic ideology of MEChA also suggests.

UPDATE: Meanwhile Stephen Green wonders if Arnold Schwarzenegger has what it takes. Who knows? The fact that Davis and Bustamante are losers doesn’t, by itself, make Arnold a winner.

ANOTHER UPDATE: But Jesse Ventura says that Arnold’s just the ticket to shake up California’s sick and corrupt political culture:

Believe me, Democrats and Republicans will break laws, take campaign contributions from anybody, slander, lie, cheat, conspire in defense of their power. And, more often than not, they will enjoy the compliance of the popular media in their quest to maintain their exclusivity.

Tell us something we don’t know, Jesse.

EUGENE VOLOKH: “I’m happy to report that the comic book is indeed mostly graphic sex.”

OUTLAND WONDERS if the death penalty protesters aren’t that interested in protesting Paul Hill’s execution, or if media folks just aren’t that interested in covering them.

Meanwhile Eric Muller wonders why Hill is getting so much publicity.

MICHAEL UBALDI has been looking at press reports on Afghanistan and he’s noticed that they’re leaving something out.

Well, Michael, that’s because the body count only matters when it’s ours. It’s as if they were, I don’t know, racist or something.

UPDATE: Unless it’s noncombatants, I should add. Then the numbers get inflated, rather than ignored. Matt Welch explodes the bogus dead Iraqi babies claim yet again.

Why it’s almost as if making America look bad were the unifying theme here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael Waldorf emails that we shouldn’t underestimate the laziness of the media:

That’s true with almost all media with respect to Iraq, not just the intentionally defeatist. Every day and night I hear “today/yesterday, [insert number] U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq by sniper/car bomb/land mine/etc.”. That’s for two reasons. Reason one is because many of the writers are defeatist and want to highlight American deaths in the hope we pull out and admit we were wrong to invade (fat chance, mind you!); reason two is because they’re downright lazy. Every day the local U.S. military command spoon-feeds the number of U.S. deaths to pool journalists and onto the wire, because it’s the sort of thing we can’t hide — the families will speak up when their sons and daughters don’t come home — and because these are facts, how many people died, and our government believes in the honest reporting of facts. The enemy casualties are always missing in these reports. That’s not because they aren’t any, of course, but because determining and verifying a number requires reporters to get out of hidey-holes Baghdad and work for a story, and if the U.S. military tried to estimate enemy dead for the public, they’d be taunted with endless cries of “show us the bodies, we don’t believe you” as we did in the case of Uday and Qusay.

Of course U.S. armed forces kill more than are killed. Our boys are very good at what they are trained to do. And the number of enemy dead does matter, because there are that fewer bad guys to take pot-shots at our good guys and maybe potential bad guys may be deterred if their buddies don’t come home. But I wouldn’t be looking for either Saddam Hussein or Al Qaeda to hold regular press conferences with accurate numbers of casualties on their respective sides.

Laziness is a factor, no doubt about it. And it might even explain the willingness of media folks to accept obviously-inflated civilian casualty numbers from the likes of Tariq Ali and Marc Herold. But would they lazily accept bogus numbers from obviously-interested parties if they made the United States effort look good?

MORE ON 9/11, THE WAR, AND REMEMBRANCE, over at GlennReynolds.com.

MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME? These guys are believers:

At the Vol Market No. 3 on Western Avenue, the person preparing your food, cashing your check or ringing you up at the register likely will be wearing a holstered handgun on their hip.

But unlike most Tennesseans who have a handgun carry permit, Vol Market owners have decided that open display as a visual deterrent is preferable to concealment as final protection. . . .

Store employees have been carrying guns openly after the 1996 carry permit law went into effect. Since then, it has not been robbed but was burglarized three times. And several persons who tried to cash stolen checks were detained by employees until police arrived.

“We are not trying to be police officers, we just want to protect what is ours,” said Frye’s co-owner, Rich Nichols, 32. “We’ve never had to draw the guns.”

Interesting, and about what I would have expected, actually. Nothing’s foolproof, of course, but cops wear guns, and they’re seldom mugged.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I love this. It’s a free market – you can choose to go to the supermarket where the help carry guns, or the one down the street where they don’t, wherever you feel safer!

I know which one I’d choose — especially over on Western Avenue.

ANOTHER UPDATE: As Spoons notes, Chicago is less progressive than Knoxville in this respect. Chicago needs to update its gun laws. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it!

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, the traditional approach to crime is making a comeback!

Following the recent armed burglary at Cilla Black’s house, another great old dame of British television has decided to take the Tony Martin approach to home protection.

“I’ve just bought myself a gun,” says Lily Savage star Paul O’Grady at the launch of Black’s autobiography, What’s It All About? “After what happened to Cilla, I’m not taking any chances. If I’m lying in bed and any gob-shite burglars are in my house, thinking I’m not going to do anything, then they’ll be in for a shock.

“I’ll shoot them in the kneecaps and feed them to my pigs. I’m with Tony Martin on this one. If you’re in my house and you shouldn’t be, then I’ll shoot you, simple as that.”

You go, girl.

MAUREEN DOWD’S LATEST COLUMN IS BARELY WORTH FISKING, reports Stephen Green, who notes that her comparison of Clinton with Rommel is, um, inapt.

MORE ON BUSTAMANTE AND RACISM: Pejman Yousefzadeh has a lengthy and link-filled post on the subject. Conclusion:

Cruz Bustamante, to the best of my knowledge, is not a racist, or a secessionist, or an advocate of violence. But he once joined those who were, and who are. And just recently, he failed to denounce them. If he had any shame whatsoever, he wouldn’t even get his own vote. It’s bad enough that California is currently governed by an incompetent. It need not be governed by a coward. Cruz Bustamante blew an easy call by failing to denounce MEChA. His supporters repeat the mistake by trying to excuse away the indefensible.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Roger Simon comments:

Identity Politics is so reactionary that it works against the very thing it pretends to espouse. I say pretends quite deliberately because many so-called progressive militants in these areas consciously or unconsciously yearn for the by-gone era when they could be social outsiders with all the attendant moral high ground. But all they succeed in doing is alienating people who already, for the most part, agree with them. Not smart and not useful to anybody.

That is why I was surprised to see that MEChA is still employing the rhetoric of another era and why I agree with Mickey Kaus that Bustamante must more fully disassociate himself from it. Not only does this shopworn language do his cause no good, it makes it difficult to have a serious discussion on what is probably the most controversial and complex subject facing California today.

Read the whole thing.

ERIC OLSEN IS CONCERNED that some people have already declared Howard Dean the presumptive nominee.

JAMES LILEKS:

The one thing that made the Nazis distinct from the Sovs was the former’s fixation on racial identity. Blood Uber Alles. What’s your race? C’mon, we need to know. What – is – your – race?

How can we understand you if we don’t know your race?

Good thing we’ve put that kind of thinking behind us.

RON BAILEY IS REPORTING from the meeting of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences. I hadn’t heard of the group, but the report is interesting.

SO I GOT MY COPY OF KEN LAYNE’S CD LAST WEEK, and I’ve listened to it in the car, at the office, and even on the boombox.

It sounds great everywhere, which is a tribute to the mastering done by Pieter K.

I think that “Worried” is the boss hitbound single, and it may have displaced the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Slow Death” as the best song the Rolling Stones never wrote. I like all the tunes, even the ones with Welch on backing vocals. Check it out; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

DANIEL DREZNER SAW Virginia Postrel’s appearance on CNN yesterday, toilet brushes and all, and posted a review.

AMONG THE TERRORISTS:

Mohamed Sifaoui is an Algerian Muslim journalist who became incensed by the war of terror waged by Islamic fundamentalists against the Algerian people. Not a few of his friends, relatives and colleagues perished at their hands, and before leaving for Paris he himself was nearly killed in an attack on his newspaper.

The combination of cowardice and indulgence shown to the terrorists by bien pensant opinion in France heightened his disgust. To expose the truth he decided to pose as a terrorist sympathiser, and his book is a diary of the three months he spent infiltrating a Parisian cell of al-Qa’eda under an assumed name.

The portraits he provides are not of the suicide bombers or gunmen, but of the recruiters, brain-washers and organisers behind them, yet the book conveys a convincing picture of the terrorist milieu. And a dismal picture it is. The members of the network emerge as a bunch of inadequates and infantile fanatics, although they are not the less fearsome for that.

Inevitably one thinks of the low life who staff the IRA, but it is a false comparison. The people Sifaoui writes about are on an even more debased cultural and psychological level. By their very nature, their grievances against the world can never be removed, and they are capable of pretty well anything.

These aren’t people with legitimate grievances. This is the Klan with a Koran.

HELPFUL ADVICE FROM A RELIGIOUS LEADER:

ONE of the leaders of Malaysia’s Islamic opposition has upset women in the country by suggesting that they should stop wearing lipstick and perfume to lower the risk of being raped.

Nik Abdul Aziz, the spiritual leader of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, claimed that even women who wore Muslim head-scarves could arouse men if they also wore make-up and perfume. The end result could be rape or molestation, he said.

My advice: carry a .357 magnum, and wear whatever the hell you want. “Spiritual leader,” my ass.

UPDATE: Speaking of spiritual leaders, here’s more advice from Allah. This time I’d say it’s dead-on.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Suraya Yahaya emails from Malaysia:

As a Malaysian woman, I totally support your .357 magnum idea as the perfect “license” to wear whatever the hell we want. Of course, we’ve been doing that anyway (wearing whatever the hell we want that is, the .357 part is kinda tricky) and typically only take notice of Nik Aziz and his “spiritual” comments when we need a joke to tell at the bars….

Preach it, sister.

MORE AMMUNITION FOR THE DEMOCRATS, if they care to use it:

The bin Laden family were granted extraordinary White House privileges to fly out of U.S. airspace following the attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001.

Former White House counter terrorism expert Richard Clarke told Vanity Fair the Bush administration decided to allow a group of Saudis to fly out of U.S. airspace just after Sept. 11– a time when access to the United States was still restricted and required special government approval.

According to the magazine’s sources, at least four flights with about 140 Saudis, including roughly two-dozen members of the bin Laden family, flew to Saudi Arabia that week without even being interviewed or interrogated by the FBI.

That cost us a lot of leverage. And it’s not clear that it got us anything. The really interesting part is that no one admits to being responsible for the decision, now. Of course, the Democrats have their own vulnerabilities.

UPDATE: Snopes says the bin Laden flight story is a hoax. The Snopes entry is old; the Washington Times story above is new, and quotes a former White House terror official. Odd that the Washington Times would be recycling something like this if it’s false.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader suggests that this may explain why Clarke is recycling this claim now.

THE IMPORTANCE OF COTTAGE INDUSTRY: My TechCentralStation column is up.

WITHOUT ALLIES, THERE IS NO VISION? Donald Sensing examines Gen. Wesley Clark’s philosophy and finds it wanting.

ED CONE on the upcoming 9/11 anniversary:

Invading Iraq when we did and how we did was not my preference, but it is the policy we are pursuing. We’ve got to succeed. This isn’t a matter of revenge. It’s not bringing anyone’s husband or father back to life. But as the anniversary approaches, let’s remember what started this whole thing.

Yes, let’s.

AFFIRMATIVE DESCRIPTION: John Rosenberg reports that Michigan is creating minorities, rather than admitting them.

Steve Martin was ahead of the curve. Again.

THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF DISCUSSION in the last few days about California losing population. Reader Craig Will says it’s wrong, and sends this link.

UPDATE: Jeff Wolfe emails:

I was skeptical of the California population data Craig Will pointed you to, since it comes from the state of California. So I looked up the data from the U.S. Bureau of Census, which has less incentive to cook the numbers.

Here’s the Census Bureau data for California for the year 7/1/2001 to 7/1/2002:

Net Births & Deaths: 295,598
Net International Migration: 326,917
Net Domestic Migration: -108,595

So, to overgeneralize, you could say Mexicans would rather live in California, but Californians would rather live elsewhere in the U.S. The only state with a bigger negative domestic migration last year was New York (-170,828). New York’s total net migration (domestic and international) was -24,436.

The Census data is in a .csv file that can be downloaded here: link.

Hmm. This is certainly more consistent with what I’m hearing.

IT SEEMS AS IF A LOT OF TERRORISTS ARE BEING ARRESTED THESE DAYS:

The sleuths of the anti-terrorist cell of the Delhi Police, who are interrogating the recently arrested Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists, have established that this terrorist module had plans to strike in Mumbai.

According to sources, the two arrested terrorists, Raees and Atiq (both are brothers of Habibullah, who was killed along with Pakistani terrorist Zahoor in a police encounter on Saturday) during interrogation, disclosed that the slain Pakistani terrorist Zahoor was under instructions from the Jaish high command to set up a base in Mumbai and wait for further orders as to where and when to strike.

For this purpose, Atiq had rented a house in the Meera-Bhayender Road in Mumbai and the module was in the process of establishing a base there. The arms consignment seized by the special cell on Saturday was to be sent to Mumbai for accomplishing specific tasks assigned to this terrorist module by the Jaish high command.

Sources said, while Habibullah and his two brothers Raees and Atiq took terrorist training at the Sailkot in Pakistan, their youngest brother Musfiq is still in Pakistan and is undergoing terrorist training there.

It’s hard to know how much to make of these reports, but there do seem to be more of them lately.

DEPLETED URANIUM FEARS: A case of the dishonest preying on the credulous, according to this link-rich and heavily-footnoted post by Michael McNeil. And he’s right. It’s a heavy metal (like lead), and thus it can be toxic (like, er, lead), but the radiation fears are hype. As with, er, lead, the real hazard lies elsewhere. As CPO Sparkey comments: “The most hazardous DU anyone will ever face is the one coming their way at 3,650 fps.” Or as physicist Robert Park puts it: “I always figured it would be a lot better to be shot with a uranium bullet than a dum-dum — it should make a good clean hole. Physicists don’t spend much time worrying about natural uranium, and DU is even less radioactive by about 40 percent.”

In other words, you can relax, Howard. That these stories get any play at all is a testament to, well, dishonesty and credulousness.

MATTHEW HOY HAS POSTED A LETTER FROM A SOLDIER IN IRAQ. Excerpt:

The difficulty in communicating with this man, to me a true hero, was not the result of a language barrier. It was because his tongue had been literally cut out by the same Iraqi soldiers who had dumped the munitions near his “house,” just prior to releasing him because of our impending arrival.

Later that day I returned with a convoy and removed the ordnance so the kids could play without blowing themselves up.

So those of you who question the righteousness of this conflict might look to your children, or your friends’ children, give thanks for your blessings, and pray that if you were in the same type of situation someone would have the courage to help you and not stay complacent.

Read the whole thing.

I GET PR SPAM FROM THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY and I’ve noticed that it’s developed an increasing anti-Bush spin. That’s too bad, since the WM, though liberal, used to take a less party-line approach.

Now, though, The Daily Howler is taking them to task.