MICKEY KAUS on a Gonzales nomination: “If Bush loses the right, the left, and Arlen Specter, how, exactly, does Gonzales win easy confirmation?”

CHINA: Scared of smart mobs.

PORK UPDATE: The Washington Post slams Louisiana’s legislators:

The state’s representatives have come up with a request for $250 billion in federal reconstruction funds for Louisiana alone — more than $50,000 per person in the state. This money would come on top of payouts from businesses, national charities and insurers. And it would come on top of the $62.3 billion that Congress has already appropriated for emergency relief.

Like looters who seize six televisions when their homes have room for only two, the Louisiana legislators are out to grab more federal cash than they could possibly spend usefully. . . . The Louisiana delegation has apparently devoted little thought to the root causes of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. New Orleans was flooded not because the Army Corps of Engineers had insufficient money to build flood protections, but because its money was allocated by a system of political patronage.

Ouch. Read the whole thing.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS is up!

STATISTICAL ILLITERACY at the NYT.

CHARLIE RANGEL BACKPEDALS: As well he should.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Via Nanodot, here’s a very cool gallery of nanomachine simulations.

MY COLLEAGUE BOB LLOYD attended the pro-troops protests in Washington yesterday, and just got back this morning. Here are some pictures he took, with his captions:

“This is Margaret Johnson, holding a picture of her son, Captain
Christopher Johnson, an Army helicopter pilot killed in action in Iraq.”

“This Sophia Gilsdorf and Sherri Francescan, both of whose husbands are Marine Lieutenants serving in Iraq.”

“Here are some of the people who lost sons, husbands and brothers. The speaker is a Texas firefighter whose twin brother was killed.”

Presumably, Maureen Dowd would accord all these people, who support the war, “absolute moral authority,” too. Right?

HEH: “Rep. Peter King to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: Just because the president doesn’t watch you on television, it doesn’t mean he’s not doing his job.”

HEY, maybe the blogosphere didn’t fail after all!

PORK RESPONSE UPDATE: Saxby Chambliss responds to Matt Duffy, and Matt Duffy blogs it: “Candice from Senator Saxby Chambliss’ office called today. Unfortunately, she could offer me no specifics . . . . I’ve gotten the distinct impression from both Candice and from Tom Price’s chief of staff that these aides don’t appreciate my intrusions. They can’t seem to understand why I’m bothering them or why I expect more of a response than a form letter assuring me that they share my concerns about the budget.”

Yeah, it’s not like we have representative government or anything.

THERE’S A Carnival of Computing. Plus, the Carnival of Revolutions, covering pro-democracy events worldwide, is now up. And if these don’t float your boat, there’s the Carnival of Cordite, for gun-bloggers, the Carnival of Personal Finance (for people who like money), this week’s Havel Havelim, the Canadian carnival Red Ensign Standard, the always-tasty Carnival of the Recipes, and the Carnival of the Virginia Bloggers.

And don’t forget the Lawblogger’s carnival, Blawg Review. Plus for those interested in fiscal responsibility at the personal level, there’s the Carnival of Debt Reduction. Neither a borrower nor a lender be! Not that our elected officials feel that way . . . .

ALPHECCA finds that reports of violence in the United States are exaggerated.

DON ADAMS IS DEAD, and Cathy Seipp pays tribute.

UPDATE: Something about Don Adams that I didn’t know. (Via The Corner).

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: David Hogberg has heard back from Sen. George Allen and asks: “If Nancy Pelosi can come up with specifics, why is it taking Senator Allen this much time to get ‘far enough along in the process’?”

LSU POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR JEFF SADOW is deeply critical of the Louisiana politicos’ demand for money:

Making matters worse is the pork-laden nature of the request. . . .

And who would control the disbursement of this money? It seems the nine-person panel would have a Louisiana majority.

So, let’s get this straight. Louisiana, from some of her federal officials through some state officials all they way down to city and other local governments, countenanced negligence from benign to irresponsible in ensuring proper flood protection and in dealing with hurricanes. And now these same people have formulated a plan wanting the country to pay an incredible sum of money to the state controlled by people from the state to deal with the aftereffects and, apparently, Louisiana’s past inability to utilize our resources efficiently in other areas?

The rest of the country is going to look at this and think we’re still stuck on stupid.

Only some of you, Jeff.

PORK RESPONSE UPDATE: Reader Neema Salimi wrote Rep. Tom Lantos and reports: “Congressman Lantos sent me a form letter in response to my request that he cut pork to pay for Katrina spending. He doesn’t even address it.”

Salimi’s right, as he forwarded the response. Click “read more” to read it.

UPDATE: Reader Mary Wlodarski sends a response she got: “I have been a regular reader of your blog for years and really love it! I sent both my senators, Durbin and Obama a letter asking them to review the budget in light of the need of our southern states, foregoing our projects to help out the gulf states. I only got response from Obama. He must have thought I was concerned about the pets in the budget, not the pork!”

Maybe he thought it was a pet pig? (I’ve put the letter she forwarded below, after the Lantos letter).

(more…)

DAVE KOPEL HAS MORE on how U.S. technology companies are collaborating with Chinese repression.

STARK RAVING MAD: Farhad Manjoo reports on the Utah rave raid I mentioned here a while back.

MICKEY KAUS is all over the New York Times and its TimesSelect program. Just keep scrolling; he’s in fine form.

ANOTHER REASON NOT TO BE indiscriminately doling out federal pork: “State tax revenues continue to surge.”

APPARENTLY, THE PRESS’S PERFORMANCE DURING KATRINA wasn’t any better than the governments involved. At least, this Times-Picayune report says that the reports of death and destruction were wildly exaggerated. This is significant, not least because false reports of mayhem may have slowed rescue efforts over concerns with security. In addition, portrayal of New Orleans as lawless and debauched is likely to feed reluctance to rebuild.

UPDATE: More thoughts on the press’s overrated performance. Though most of the positive commentary I’ve seen on press performance has come in the form of self-congratulation.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rick Stuart is charging racism:

Can you depend on the media to tell you what is really happening? No. Especially when they are stuck in one place, and can only look around their location and for whatever reason end up spreading rumors. . . .

And why was everyone so quick to believe (and report) that a mostly black group of mostly poor gathered together would turn to such violence? Even early reports on cannibalism? These are people like you and me, not some sub human race. When I watched the news reports I wasn’t fully buying into the wildest stories, but of course the wildest stories made the news. And they made the news often, without being questioned or fact checked.

I thought the reporting from the area was awful, and I’d even go so far to say racist.

I’m guessing that the rumors of Klingon invasion didn’t pan out, either.

MORE: John Cole has further thoughts on why it’s important to get the story right.

MORE BLOGGERS PROFILED over at the Pajamas Media site, including Varifrank, John Cole, and Laurence Simon.

LOTS OF GUESTBLOGGERS AT RIGHTWINGNEWS, including Frank J., who emails: “John Hawkins asked for Frank J. to guest blog, so he got Frank J.” You gotta watch out for that . . ..

SPEAKING OF GOOD ADVICE FROM BERKELEY: “In fact, the biggest problem that the ‘anti-war’ movement has right now is the illusion that somehow the war they protested starting in 2003 is the same war that they’re protesting today.”