HUGH HEWITT:

I am amazed that the Times is using military casualties to build a potential toehold for the Kerry campaign.

The Times isn’t the only one. Here’s an email I got from one Daniel Burosh, who opposes the war, in connection with a recent bombing in Iraq:

I Guess the baby soldier body parts flew just EVERYWHERE! Imagine the game:

“Look Abdul, I found an arm!”

“Here’s a couple of ears!”

“Gee, Mustafa. I think a found a scrotum, and the ball are still inside!”

…

Hoo-ray! 985 and counting… When it hits 1000, my friends and I are going to PAR-TAY!

I get a steady flow of emails along these lines. Rooting for American soldiers to die strikes me as a poor strategy for the anti-Bush forces.

UPDATE: Further thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

MORE: Read this, from Slantpoint, too.

CAN’T COUNT: Steve Verdon notes misleading reports on the deficit.

DRUDGE OFFERS A KERRY GUN FLIP-FLOP REPORT: “KERRY COSPONSORED BILL BANNING GUN HE WAVES.”

I believe, however, that the other legal issues mentioned in the story don’t apply to guns that are transferred between individuals, as gifts. But statutory firearms regulation isn’t a specialty of mine. Perhaps Dave Kopel will know.

Also — though I’m not positive it’s the same gun — there’s no pistol grip in this photograph, though there appears to be one in the Drudge photo. In the second photo it looks like a “Monte Carlo” stock, which might fall under the rather crappy definition in the bill Kerry co-sponsored, but which might not (and shouldn’t). So unless there are two guns involved, or I’m missing something, this seems to me to be a bit of a reach. It’s more likely an indictment for inept legislative drafting than for hypocrisy.

Anyway, I think Drudge is burying the lede, since this seems like the big deal part of the story to me:

Kerry was presented with the semiautomatic shotgun during a Labor Day stop in Racine, West Virginia.

“I thank you for the gift, but I can’t take it to the debate with me,” Kerry told a cheering crowd as he held up the device.

Or maybe he’s just angling for the Zell Miller vote!

UPDATE: Hmm. On the other hand, here’s a gun with a Monte Carlo stock that’s described as a “pistol grip,” and here’s another. So I guess it’s not quite so much of a stretch. To me, the term “pistol grip” calls to mind something more along these lines, or like this. But common sense and gun-control legislation seldom go together, as I guess this illustrates. If Kerry could be caught in this position, what innocent gun owner is safe?

Meanwhile reader Boyd Klingler emails: “NYT headline if Bush had said it: Bush Regrets He Can’t Shoot Kerry.” No doubt.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Michael Ubaldi emails:

“In as much as virtually all sport rifles and shotguns have a ‘pistol grip’ as defined in practice, the focus of SB 23 was on “conspicuous protrusion.” Sentence construction indicates that pistol grips that protrude conspicuously constitute an ‘assault weapon’ feature. Pistol grips that only protrude are not. Determination of whether the protrusion is conspicuous is accomplished by using the action as a reference point. However, the use of this term in the statute introduces another element of vagueness since the ‘action’ is neither a part nor a specific location on a firearm.”

The point, I think, is that the devil’s in the details – which is exactly how the antigun lobby likes it. And why it’s relevant.

Meanwhile, Kerry may want to fall back on this discussion of the “pistol grip” question and its complexity.

And Charles Austin notes that Kerry has serious problems with gun safety.

MORE: Gunblogger SayUncle thinks the Drudge story is wrong, and offers much more information. On the other hand, reader Brian O’Connor sends a photo, and emails: “The reference to “pistol grip” is accurate. This is a non-pistol grip, on a 1903 Springfield. You see this on some shotguns nowadays, but hardly ever on a sporting rifle.” And reader Jack Ward emails:

Ahem. All of the guns pictured so far have a pistol grip, including the one Kerry is waving around. As can be seen in the photo of the folding stock shotgun, a “pistol grip” can take a variety of forms. All monte carlo stocks have a pistol grip, even the thumbhole variety, as do almost all currently manufactured rifles and shotguns. An exception would be the Winchester Model 94 and similar lever action guns. God only knows what our congressmen “The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” (heh) meant by “pistol grip”, including themselves.

This is what happens when you legislate based on aesthetics, I guess. Which is all the “Assault Weapons Ban” ever did.

STILL MORE: Dave Kopel weighs in and says Drudge is right:

S. 1431, co-sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, says that an “assault weapon” is any semi-automatic rifle or shotgun with a “pistol grip.” According to the bill, “(42) PISTOL GRIP- The term ‘pistol grip’ means a grip, a thumbhole stock, or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.” Kerry’s new semi-automatic gun has a protrusion below the stock, which a person could grip. The protrusion is not a “pistol grip” in the ordinary meaning of the term, but it is a “pistol grip” as defined by S. 1431.

Lousy legislative drafting, indeed. Though many readers note that the language is probably drafted to cover far more guns than is obvious on its face, in which case it’s devious legislative drafting, and Kerry really is guilty of hypocrisy.

STILL MORE: Here’s the Browning Citori 525 (either the model Kerry is holding or a close match) — with a “close radius pistol-grip stock.” I guess that makes it a dread Assault Weapon. And yet it looks just like a hunting shotgun!

MORE STILL: I’m wrong about the gun Kerry is holding — at least, the National Shooting Sports Foundation says it’s a Remington 1187. (I confused the gun Kerry was holding in the Drudge photos with the different gun he’s using in these photos of unsafe shooting practices. Sorry.) That doesn’t change the point much, though, as the NSSF says the Remington would have been covered under Kerry’s proposed ban.

But if you want more, Donald Sensing, who knows far more about this stuff than a mild-mannered law professor such as myself, has a thorough post with lots of pictures.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology writes: “A recent report published by the U.S. National Science Foundation highlights their systematic failure to address the most important issues raised by nanotechnology. By ignoring the societal impacts of molecular manufacturing, they miss the major significance of the technology.”

MESSAGE TO REPUBLICANS: Don’t get cocky! Good advice.

UPDATE: More don’t-get-cocky advice here.

WHAT’S WITH BESLAN AND CHECHNYA? Dan Darling has a very useful and information-rich roundup over at Winds of Change.

ANOTHER KERRY-DUKAKIS PARALLEL: Well, when you hire the same people, I guess you get similar campaigns. But why would you do that?

And Patterico looks at a parallel the Washington Post is drawing and pronounces it parallel, but not in the fashion the Post thinks.

UPDATE: Howard Kurtz has your Kerry-Dukakis roundup, and observes: “Comparisons to Michael Dukakis are popping up everywhere.”

DARFUR UPDATE: Here’s satellite imagery of the refugee camps.

TIM BLAIR NOTES that James Wolcott got his wish.

KERRY’S UPHILL BATTLE, over at GlennReynolds.com.

THE INSTA-DAUGHTER and all her little-girl friends are totally into The Sims. Now there’s The Sims 2. The good news: It apparently conveys the message that if you marry a loser, he’ll probably stay a loser, and your kids are likely to be losers, too.

I got a column out of this insight.

JAMES LILEKS’ LABOR DAY POST is better than mine. Like that’s a surprise.

TOM MAGUIRE WONDERS why the Kerry Campaign thinks it’s a good idea to call John McCain a liar. Me too. In a related post, he’s soliciting advice for Kerry from his readers.

UPDATE: Lorie Byrd notes some McCain truth-telling.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Kerry Campaign seems to have taken down the page, something that has happened before. This isn’t making them look better organized. Begging to Differ has more. And one of The Mudville Gazette’s commenters makes a good point: “Just a bit OT, but the fact that [Kerry] thinks that it’s beneficial to publish a list of 143 vague and droning things, rather than relentlessly hounding on three or four . . . can you say wonky bureaucrat? Out of touch? Over-lawyered?”

Yeah. Though a good lawyer would have focused on the important stuff.

THE FOLKS AT DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND are awfully excited about the new Kitty Kelley book. No doubt the New York Times and other reputable media will refuse to cover such scurrilous accusations without substantiation.

UPDATE: Stephen Bainbridge thinks their hopes are exaggerated.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN is questioning the timing.

IS COMPUSA IN TROUBLE? Ed Morrissey has had a notably lousy experience. So did my sister-in-law recently. And so did Doug Weinstein. The stories are surprisingly similar, which suggests a systemic problem.

Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be buying anything from CompUsa.

UPDATE: But Donald Sensing reports a good experience.

SOME RATHER CRITICAL THOUGHTS on the President’s Council on Bioethics, and on the bioethics profession in general.

I’ve been pretty critical of the White House bioethics council myself. I will say, though, that I’ve read the chapter on aging in this report as part of a law review piece I’m writing, and although I certainly disagree with the Kass slant on ethics, the treatment of the science isn’t too bad, really, and the ethical arguments are straightforward even though I disagree with them. When they ask, “Is the purpose of medicine and biotechnology, in principle, to let us live endless, painless lives of perfect bliss?” however, my answer is “yes, if at all possible.”

MISCONCEPTIONS: This post by Bill Quick drastically overstates InstaPundit’s influence, I think. But a misconception in his comments — though quickly corrected by Steven Den Beste, no less, in the subsequent comment — may be widespread enough to be worth mentioning here.

I don’t get a bandwidth subsidy from the University of Tennessee. Although other faculty-run blogs are hosted at their universities (I’m pretty sure that The Volokh Conspiracy is, for example), InstaPundit never has been. It was on blogspot, and now it’s hosted by the swell folks at HostingMatters.

I could have hosted it at UT, I guess — my Dean is very supportive of InstaPundit, and regards it as scholarship because it’s part of an ongoing experiment in communications and technology, and the University President had some nice things to say about the blog when we met at a dinner last June — but I’ve always kept it separate from the day job. Though only a fool would think that I, or any other faculty member, speaks for the University, it’s just always seemed smart to keep it a distinct thing, though I couldn’t quite tell you why it’s seemed that way to me. I understand that other faculty bloggers may feel differently, but that’s always been my instinct.

UPDATE: Reader Robert Mandel notes that all the guy had to do was to look InstaPundit up on Netcraft. Yeah. Or just look at the “Hosting provided by HostingMatters” button over on the right. . . .

HOW GEORGE BUSH COULD LOSE: By letting the Assault Weapons Ban, which is scheduled to expire next week, be extended. Pro-gun folks aren’t happy with his vague support for the extension, but have been willing to believe that it wouldn’t matter as the extension (like the Federal Marriage Amendment) wasn’t going anywhere. They might well abandon him if it were to pass, and he were to sign it. (For me, the war is the only issue this election, but not everyone feels that way). Jeff Soyer has a lot more information. And here, by the way, is a post from almost exactly three years ago on this topic. I rather doubt it will pass, but I suspect that Democrats will try extra hard in the hopes of putting Bush in a tight spot.

IT’S A SEVEN-POINT LEAD FOR BUSH according to the Gallup poll. Mickey Kaus has more on why people think that’s more reliable than the Time and Newsweek polls mentioned earlier. Who’s right? Beats me.

UPDATE: Interesting observations on the polls from TurkeyBlog.

IT’S LABOR DAY, and I had a nice run down Cherokee Boulevard (below and to the right). Yesterday I did Lakeshore park (at top). Tomorrow, I’ll give my knees a break and go to the gym instead, which is just as well since Frances’ remnants are supposed to bring us clouds and rain.

The “Vol Navy” was headed back downriver after last night’s football game, the sun was shining, there were people jogging, and sunbathing, and reading on the park benches.

It was a perfectly ordinary nice day. But if we’ve learned anything over the past three years — though some of us, alas, knew it even before then — a perfectly ordinary nice day is a kind of a miracle. It’s something to be savored, and not taken for granted, because there are plenty of extraordinarily bad days out there that could happen at any time.

Ann Althouse notes the final line of a story about the schoolhouse massacre in Beslan. Before it happened, says one of the survivors, “we never knew how happy we were.”

It’s been my experience that whenever anything dreadful happens in your life, you look back on those perfectly ordinary days and say just that. We never knew how happy we were.

Try to know that now. Happy Labor Day!

DUKAKISIZATION! Soxblog is taking credit for predicting this first.

UPDATE: Roger Simon writes that this comparison is unfair — to Dukakis:

Dukakis, whatever his (considerable) deficiencies as a candidate, was a man who usually tried to fight for his principles, whether you agreed with them or not. Even in his worst moments like the stammering answer to the hypothetical about his wife being murdered during a debate on capital punishment, you see a man wrestling with his commitment to an issue.

Kerry is the opposite. He has never seemed committed to any issue. That goes back to the days when he supposedly was against the war in Vietnam and then volunteered to fight in it (the only one I knew of at Yale then to do such a thing – we all assumed it was resume padding for future electoral battles and we were right). And now he brags about his heroism in that same war after coming back to oppose it vehemently. No wonder Clinton is advising him to shut up. I’d advise him to resign. To have a man with this lack of values in the White House in this era is terrifying.

Leave Michael Dukakis alone.

Kerry should wish for such defenders.

TIM WORSTALL HAS THOUGHTS ON THE ECONOMY, inspired by Bob Herbert:

There was a time, roughly 1980-1995, when 5.4% unemployment would be regarded as a very tight labour market indeed. Indeed, it would be regarded as below the structural norm for the USA and would inevitably lead to wage inflation. We now have a 5.4% unemployment rate and we do not have wage inflation. So, we must conclude that there has been some structural change in the US economy. That’s pretty much one of those “Yeah, Duh” statements.

Bill Clinton is the hero of this story, kind of.

I REMAIN DEEPLY SKEPTICAL of the Kerry/China money-laundering story, but it does seem to be getting some major-media attention. Funny that they’d pay attention to this while ignoring the Cambodia story.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis seems unhappy with this post. In the earlier post, linked above, I explain why I don’t think this story is particularly credible at this point. In Jeff’s post, on the other hand, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, where the story appeared, is simply denounced as a right-wing crackpot paper. (I do think, though, that it’s a major-media outlet. It’s a major metropolitan paper. So it’s “major-media” attention, though not — as Jeff makes it by omitting the hyphen — “major media attention.”) Lots of people are emailing me with this stuff, and I do think it’s worth pointing out, as I did, why I think it’s not very persuasive at this point.

I also think that it’s interesting that the exploding of the Kerry Christmas-in-Cambodia story — which the Kerry campaign has admitted is false — has gotten so little attention, and that it would be ironic if this story, which I think is probably bogus, got more. Perhaps Jeff would prefer for me to simply not mention any stories that reflect badly on Kerry, even to pooh-pooh them. I don’t think I’ll oblige, and I think that Jeff would do better to explain why he regards information as not credible (as I did in my earlier post on the China story), rather than resorting to name-calling.

BOIFROMTROY REPORTS:

You know that Democrats are grasping for straws these days. Their candidate has fallen behind by double digits in a race that was never supposed to be separated by more than four points.

In Indiana, the Democratic Party is gay-baiting…sending messages to Republican faithful warning that GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Mitch Daniels might be trying to court the gay vote.

The horror! Then again: “Perhaps Daniels and Bush are continuing the tradition of the Grand Old Party… as Mayor Bloomberg said at the Big Tent Party, Abraham Lincoln was the original Log Cabin Republican!” Well, only Nixon could go to China. Only a Republican could come out in favor of gay marriage. Kerry certainly hasn’t.