TUNKU VARADARAJAN looks at why Indians are dominating the National Spelling bee.

That’s a topic I had some thoughts on a while back. But if this keeps up, we’ll have to rename the National Spelling Bee “The Anglosphere Challenge” — except that that name is already taken . . ..

UPDATE: Reader Madhu Dahiya makes an excellent point:

As an Indian-American reader of your blog I’d like to point out that these are American kids after all. I am very proud of my Indian heritage, but I’m an American first and foremost. These kids are growing up here. They *are* part of the anglosphere – the 21st century globalized, American Anglosphere, and I think they are holding up to the challenge quite well :)

Indeed.

JAMES LILEKS: “I hate to break it to these theorists, but it does not take guts for a young man to want to have multiple sex partners. It takes guts to settle down and have a family and rein in the roaming libido.”

Indeed.

JUDGE-BLOGGING at the Carnival of the Chillin’.

ADAM BELLOW has thoughts on the death of his father.

JOE KATZMAN has a lengthy must-read post on Zimbabwe, genocide, and human rights.

HAROLD FORD, JR.: Down on Dean.

STRATEGYPAGE:

Conservative Islam is the foundation of Islamic radicalism, which is Islam carried to a murderous extreme. This movement is weakening in the place where it originated; Saudi Arabia. One of the most telling signs has been the decline and fall of the religious police. The Mutawwain — national “religious police” – or “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice” has long been a force in Saudi Arabia, acting against any perceived “un-Islamic” behavior in an attempt to preserve religious purity (e.g., it’s better that women should burn to death in a fire than that they appear without their veils). Over the past few years, however, the Mutawwain have come under increasing pressure. Long regarded not only as arbitrary, but also corrupt, the organization is under investigation by the official state prosecutor, and its budget and personnel have been cut repeatedly; from over 2000 officers just five years ago there are now apparently only some 700.

It’s probably still too early to bid on the Riyadh “Hooter’s” franchise, though.

PRE-DEPARTURE, AUSTIN BAY has posted lots of interesting stuff. Just keep scrolling.

BILL HOBBS notes CNN’s move on the blogosphere.

JAMES MADISON WHO?

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE has news from Spain.

JOE GANDELMAN reports on China’s crackdown on blogs.

UPDATE: BlogCritics has more on the subject.

MORE INTELLIGENCE PROBLEMS:

A highly classified intelligence report produced for the new director of national intelligence concludes that U.S. spy agencies failed to recognize several key military developments in China in the past decade, The Washington Times has learned.

The report was created by several current and former intelligence officials and concludes that U.S. agencies missed more than a dozen Chinese military developments, according to officials familiar with the report.

The report blames excessive secrecy on China’s part for the failures, but critics say intelligence specialists are to blame for playing down or dismissing evidence of growing Chinese military capabilities.

“Excessive secrecy” on China’s part? Given that this “highly classified” report was leaked, it seems like we could learn from them. . . .

And the intelligence community keeps missing big developments, doesn’t it?

UPDATE: More here.

NERDS MAKE BETTER LOVERS? Well, duh.

FALSE MODESTY? Well, the real kind is out of the question.

JEFF JARVIS HAS MORE on the 9/11 Memorial debacle: “This mess at the World Trade Center falls — once again — squarely at the feet of Gov. Pataki. We need to demand that Pataki and Bloomberg open up the process and assure us that this will not turn into the International Flagellation Center.”

MICKEY KAUS still has questions for The Boston Globe’s Mike Kranish.

UPDATE: Still more questions, and a few answers, here.

DEFENSETECH reports that the space race is going global.

I just wish the space race were bigger.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS SPOKEN OUT against violence in Ethiopia. Gateway Pundit has the scoop.

IS RESISTING GENOCIDE A HUMAN RIGHT? That’s the question posed in a forthcoming law review article by Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant, and Joanne Eisen.

I’ve had related thoughts myself, here. And you may want to read this article by Dan Polsby and Don Kates, too, if the topic interests you.

SO MUCH FOR FEDERALISM (CONT’D):

A Texas Congressman has introduced a bill that impose a nationwide prohibition on municipally-sponsored networks.

Dubbed by the Author, Representative Pete Sessions (R-Texas), the Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005, the bill prohibits state and local governments from providing any telecommunications or information service that is “substantially similar” to services provided by private companies.

The bill, HR 2726, is similar to a host of state bills pushed by telecommunications companies aimed at fending off municipally-run wireless networks.

Via Cynical Nation, which observes:

How times have changed. Modern technology and a new political climate have resolved sharp differences between two different camps that had been papered over until recently. On the one hand, there are limited-government conservatives and libertarians who chafe at unnecessary government intrusion in the commercial sphere, regardless of whom it benefits. On the other side are “conservatives” like Congressman Sessions here, to whom corporate profit is more important than restraining government meddling.

Related column of mine, here. And here’s an amusing bit: “U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) wants to take state and local governments out of the broadband business. It’s for their own good, the former Southwestern Bell executive said. ”

HUGH HEWITT is criticizing Howard Fineman for relying on an anonymous source so soon after the Newsweek Koran-flushing debacle. Hugh points to some non-anonymous sources, as well.

MAX BOOT:

All the headlines about “Abuse of the Koran at Gitmo” are absolutely accurate. Brig. Gen. Jay Hood’s internal investigation has uncovered some shocking incidents. On at least six occasions, Korans were ripped up. They were urinated on three times, and attempts were made to flush them down the toilet at least three other times.

Why aren’t millions of Muslims rioting in response to these defilements? Because the perpetrators were prisoners, not guards. As John Hinderaker notes on weeklystandard.com, the most serious desecrations of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility were committed by the Muslim inmates themselves.

Read the whole thing, which is quite justifiably harsh on the news media and NGO hysteria surrounding this report.

ALLISON HAYWARD’S NEW BLOG, Skeptic’s Eye, has a lot on the FEC Internet rulemaking, which makes sense as she is a former FEC staffer.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL calling for the arrest of Bush and Rumsfeld?