JAMES LILEKS:

I have no idea if Best Buy knows, or cares, but every annoying check-out interchange reminds me anew: buy online. If I hadn’t needed the DVD player that night to review some family movies I’d just cut (want to get them done now, since I’m wiping the drive to install Tiger nice and fresh next Friday) I would have ordered online. Not because I think my privacy is held in greater honor – they have my address, too – but because it’s just less of a pain in the arse. As it stands, you end your Best Buy transaction by saying NO, NO, and NO. They might consider ways to let people leave with the word “yes” fresh on their lips.

I agree, which is why I seldom go there.

MICHAEL BARONE LOOKS AT religion and politics in America:

But whether the United States is on its way to becoming a theocracy is actually a silly question. No religion is going to impose laws on an unwilling Congress or the people of this country. And we have long lived comfortably with a few trappings of religion in the public space, such as “In God We Trust” or “God save this honorable court.”

The real question is whether strong religious belief is on the rise in America and the world. Fifty years ago, secular liberals were confident that education, urbanization and science would lead people to renounce religion. That seems to have happened, if you confine your gaze to Europe, Canada and American university faculty clubs. . . .

America has not moved in the expected direction. In fact, just the opposite. Economist Robert Fogel’s “The Fourth Great Awakening” argues that we’ve been in the midst of a religious revival since the 1950s, in which, as in previous revivals, “the evangelical churches represented the leading edge of an ideological and political response to accumulated technological and social changes that undermined the received culture.”

My thoughts on the subject can be found here.

UPDATE: Jon Henke thinks we’re far from theocracy:

I’m simply not persuaded by the argument that there is a burgeoning “Theocracy” in the United States. You can tell the Social Conservatives are losing by the very battles they are fighting. Almost without exception, they are doing rear-guard duty. I mean, we’ve got partial nudity on prime-time television, and gay marriage on the radar.

That’s one hell of a long way from the 1940s-50s, where even married TV characters had separate beds, and the question was not whether homosexuals deserved marriage, but whether they deserved a lobotomy. We may feel strongly about arguments like the 10 Commandments statue, Intelligent Design in schools, and Janet Jackson’s nipple, but the fact that we’re arguing about these should indicate just how secular our government has become. 50 years ago, we were putting God into the Pledge of Allegiance.

Indeed.

I DON’T AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT:

MOSCOW – The collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest political catastrophe of the last century,” Russian president Vladimir Putin said Monday as he delivered his annual state of the nation address.

But he’s sounding as if he’s working on an excuse to try to reverse it:

The former KGB agent said the 1991 breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a “true drama” that left tens of millions of Russian people living outside Russia, in breakaway republics formerly under Soviet control.

Keep an eye on this guy. He’s going to be trouble, even if he is talking about democracy.

UPDATE: More on Putin’s speech, here.

ARMS, ARMOR, AND THE MARINES: Jason Van Steenwyk has some thoughts in response to the New York Times’ coverage.

UPDATE: More criticism here.

LEVI’S is now doing videoblogads. Cool.

Meanwhile, Henry Copeland thinks that Business Week has missed the story on blogs.

DAVID BROOKS:

The release of a report in The Journal of the American Medical Association indicating that overweight people actually live longer than normal-weight people represents an important moment in the history of world civilization. It is the moment when we realize that Mother Nature – unlike Ivy League admissions committees – doesn’t like suck-ups.

It turns out she doesn’t like those body-worshiping, multi-abbed marvels who’ve spent so much time at the bench press machine they look as if they have thighs growing out of either side of their necks. She doesn’t like those health-conscious rice cake addicts you see at Manhattan restaurants ordering a skinned olive for lunch and sitting there looking trim and fit in their tapered blouses while their buns of steel leave permanent dents in the upholstery.

Though to be fair, the bench-press dudes, even at 5% bodyfat, come in as “overweight” on the lame body-mass indices usually used for such studies.

UPDATE: For those interested in this subject, I highly recommend this book by Ahnuld. If you read it carefully, you’ll know more than most trainers at most gyms. And this one, though more basic, is still quite good — and worth the purchase price just for the amusingly dated photos.

And yes, I know that this runs counter to Brooks’ stop-worrying-and-enjoy-life point. But only sort of. Lifting weights and exercising in general will make you feel better, not worse. I’m no Arnold, of course (you’ve seen the photos!) but it’s done me a lot of good. Nor, approached properly, does it interfere with enjoying life — as one of my friends says, “I work out so I can drink beer, not so I can’t!” After all, there’s nothing hedonistic about sitting on your ass all the time.

[LATER: First Ahnuld link was bad; fixed now.] Also Ogged hammers Brooks on the BMI factor. And Tom Maguire has more.

UPDATE: Reader Jeffrey Jackson emails:

I started lifting a year ago, a 50 yr old attorney, for surgery rehab. I enjoyed it, read Arnold’s book, kept reading and lifting, and have a comment or two on your post.

First, the best site on the web for info on lifting belongs to one of Arnold’s old competitors, davedraper.com. The discussion forum is priceless. The articles on nutrition and exercise are very good.

Second, Arnold’s book is fine, but his high-volume isolation approach is way wrong for most beginners. Look at the sample workouts on Dave Draper’s web site, and you will see the alternative approach, focused on fewer, compound movements. I am much happier with this approach than Arnold’s, and expect I will be for a long time to come.

I find that variation is the key, over time.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF has another roundup of underreported news from Iraq: Don’t miss the BBC’s surprise.

MATT DRUDGE: “For some reason the media elites aren’t as hostile to me.”

NEW CANADIAN PUBLICATION BANS: And Ed Morrissey is promising to violate them again, if he can:

Gomery’s publication ban only applied, of course, to rebroadcasting the specifics of Jean Brault’s testimony. If one was either fortunate or well-connected, seats were available for the public hearing in which Brault testified to accepting and making bribes and kickbacks in exchange for contract renewals, as well as hiring Liberal Party workers who never performed any work at all for Brault — but spent their time on party business, off the books.

Politicians will know the specific testimony of the two witnesses at the end of each day, if not almost in real time. Some media sources will watch and hear Guité and Coffin tell everything they know about Adscam and the politicians who profited most from it on live TV feeds that they will be barred from rebroadcast. The only people left in the dark will be those Canadians who have seen their money stolen by the people they trusted to wield power lawfully.

As part of the ‘imperfection’ mentioned tangentially in the Montreal Gazette, I had hoped that the brouhaha over my publication of Brault’s testimony would have convinced Justice Gomery of the folly of publication bans. Apparently not. If my original source can get me reliable information on the testimony under the ban, I will republish it again here.

Stay tuned.

PROTESTS IN MEXICO:

Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans marched in silence Sunday against a government campaign to put a popular leftist politician on trial in a battle that could knock him out of presidential elections.

Protesters crammed into Mexico City’s vast central square and narrow streets in the historic downtown, many waving banners condemning the legal case against Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

“Don’t let democracy die,” read one banner. Others vilified President Vicente Fox as a traitor and dictator.

(Via Joe’s Dartblog, which observes: “It is amusing, if not scary, that Americans often have a better idea of what is going on politically across the Atlantic than the situation south of the border.”)

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS is up, for all your business- and econo-blogging needs.

TOGO ELECTION ROUNDUP: Gateway Pundit looks at the aftermath, which isn’t at all pretty: “Reports of Violence, Death and Destruction in the Aftermath of Togo’s Presidential Election.”

IS GM “TOO BIG TO FAIL?” Thoughts at GlennReynolds.com.

DANIEL DREZNER OFFERS praise for the wisdom of average Americans.

SOME LARGELY DEPRESSING THOUGHTS on democracy, stability, and Nepal.

IT’S NOT (QUITE) TOO LATE to register for the BlogNashville conference. Be there, or be square!

ANGLOSPHERE UPDATE: NATALIE SOLENT has interesting thoughts relating to Jim Bennett’s book.

TODD ZYWICKI:

There aren’t many good studies on this, but some have concluded that as much as 10% of bankruptcy filings are caused by tax liabilities (and that doesn’t count those who would have alot more money available to pay their debts but for having to pay their taxes or pay their taxes because they are generally nondischargeable in bankruptcy). For those keeping score at home, this exceeds the number of bankruptcies traditionally thought to be caused by health problems, death in the family, college expenses, and gambling.

Interesting.

UNSCAM UPDATE: ROGER SIMON has new information on the unravelling Volcker Committee.

PERHAPS THIS IS BECAUSE IT WAS ALWAYS A CROCK, but The New York Times notices that ending the assault weapons ban didn’t matter:

Despite dire predictions that the streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban last September has not set off a sustained surge in the weapons’ sales, gun makers and sellers say. It also has not caused any noticeable increase in gun crime in the past seven months, according to several metropolitan police departments.

The ban was symbolic legislation, designed to bolster the media profiles and direct-mail efforts of gun control lobby groups, while building momentun for eventual complete gun confiscation (something that some gun-control enthusiasts admitted, and others unconvincingly denied). It failed at that, and in fact succeeded mostly in costing the Democrats control of the legislative and executive branches.

UPDATE: More thoughts here and, in the comments, here. (“I never wanted a semi-automatic rifle until the government told me I could not have one.”)

TIM WORSTALL is hosting another BritBlog roundup.

(SALMA) HAYEK-O-RAMA: Nobody tell Daniel Drezner about this.

THE BBC: Hiring hecklers? This seems quite damaging:

The BBC was last night plunged into a damaging general election row after it admitted equipping three hecklers with microphones and sending them into a campaign meeting addressed by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader.

Sheesh.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RIGGED ELECTION in Africa. Publius has a Togo election roundup. We need to be working harder to promote democracy in Africa.

SPONGEWORTHINESS UPDATE: The Sponge is back. (Via The Well-Timed Period, which has much more).