BLOGGER SUED OVER COMMENTS: This suit is probably a loser, but . . . .

UPDATE: Googling the name of the company filing the lawsuit suggests that suing bloggers won’t be enough to restore its reputation. Sheesh.

LUCKY IS THIRSTY: Some Friday cat-vlogging.

MIDEAST UPDATES: Movement toward democracy in Egypt (and this is interesting, too). Plus an essay from Publius on Iraqi federalism.

UPDATE: A deal in principle on the Iraqi Constitution, we’re told.

THE PERFECT SUMMARY of a lot of confirmation stuff I haven’t blogged about:

I don’t really have strong feelings about Roberts one way or the other. If it weren’t so pathetic, the media’s desperation to validate their existence by discovering some bombshell would be amusing.

Actually, that covers a lot of stories running at the moment.

ANDY BOWERS has a podcast roundup.

PATRICK RUFFINI analyzes the results of his 2008 Republican presidential straw poll.

KATRINA THREATENS NEW ORLEANS: Brendan Loy is blogging.

UPDATE: More on New Orleans here.

SOME INTERESTING POLL DATA:

People with friends or relatives serving in Iraq are more likely than others to have a positive view of a generally unpopular war, an AP- Ipsos poll found.

Kind of like the higher re-enlistment rates, I wonder if this is because they’re getting information from someone other than the big media.

UPDATE: Well, not everyone feels this way. Megan McArdle:

Having spent the last week complaining vociferously that conservatives were just making it all up about high-profile liberals who are rooting for the insurgents, the left half of the blogosphere cannot be happy to discover that Cindy Sheehan thinks that the folks infiltrating into Iraq to blow up cars in large crowds are “freedom fighters”.

Indeed.

ED LARSON:

Intelligent design, despite its proponents’ claims to the contrary, isn’t modern science. It’s part of that rebellion against it. Scientists look for natural explanations for natural phenomena. Their best explanations, if they survive rigorous testing, become scientific theories.

Intelligent design, in contrast, is a critique of all that. Its proponents may challenge the sufficiency of evolutionary explanations for the origin of species but they have not — and cannot — offer testable alternative explanations. The best they can offer is the premise that, if no natural explanation suffices, then God must have done it. Maybe God did do it, but if so, it’s beyond science.

I highly recommend Larson’s book on the Scopes Trial, A Summer for the Gods. And he and I did this video for Court TV. Some Scopes Trial background (which, like Larson’s book, demonstrates that Inherit the Wind doesn’t really tell the story) can be found here, courtesy of Jim Lindgren.

I HAVEN’T PAID MUCH ATTENTION to the Able Danger story, but Mickey Kaus has a roundup of the latest developments.

AGING AND THE KLOTHO GENE: Sounds fairly promising for drug development.

HUGH HEWITT will have Michael Yon on his show shortly, if the satphone connection works out.

UPDATE: Radioblogger has a transcript.

THIS IS KIND OF COOL: Reader Jason Shelton emails: “I thought you might enjoy a quick picture of your website as seen with Sony’s new PSP web browser.”

UPDATE: Reader David Scott emails: “PSP? That’s nuthin. Here’s underwater Instapundit.”

Heh. But actually, this is underwater InstaPundit:

WRITING IN INSIDE HIGHER ED, KC Johnson has thoughts on intellectual diversity, and the lack thereof at American universities, and the unpersuasive arguments offered by defenders of the status quo.

NEW ARMY PRONOUNCEMENTS on military blogs and operational security.

I think that they’re right to worry — but they’d be crazy not to take account of the benefits of military blogs, too.

INTERESTING ARTICLE ON CELLPHONES AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA — and I think it’s representative of how technology in general helps. (Via Samizdata).

I’M HAPPY TO REPORT that these are still yummy, and that I’m still enjoying the free part, too.

OMAR AT IRAQ THE MODEL has thoughts on the Iraqi Constitution.

UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein has more thoughts.

E.U. REFERENDUM:

But the peace prize? How much peace is there in the world and if there is, how much of that had been achieved by the various nominees?

Let us face it, if it is peace and democracy we are honouring then we should look to the body of men (and some women) who have done more than anyone else to bring both those concepts to parts of the world that have, in the past, known little of it.

This blog hereby nominates the US Corps of Marines for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Read the whole thing, which includes an unflattering contrast to Gerhard Schroeder.

“VACATIONING BUSH WRITES NEW IRAQI CONSTITUTION:” Heh.

HUGH HEWITT has thoughts on the Michael Yon phenomenon. I agree with Hugh that old media ought to be buying Yon’s dispatches, and I’m quite surprised that they haven’t done so yet.

AUSTIN BAY just finished attending a conference on the media and the military, and has some thoughts.

HERE’S AN ABC REPORT ON THE PR MACHINE BEHIND CINDY SHEEHAN:

ABC7 Looks At The Financing Of ‘Camp Casey’
By Mark Matthews
With the President back at his Crawford ranch, the anti-war protest right outside his ranch is getting a lot more media attention. ABC7 looks at who is financing the operation and who’s providing on-the-ground support.

The camp at Crawford is full of Cindy Sheehan supporters, people from all walks of life. But off to the side are a small group of professionals, skilled in politics and public relations who are marketing her message. . . .
Leading the group is Fenton Communications employee Michele Mulkey, based in San Francisco. Fenton specializes in public relations for liberal non profits.

Their bills are being paid by True Majority, a non-profit set up by Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream fame.

Ben Cohen: “People are willing to listen to her and we want to do as much as we can to make her voice heard.”

Cohen’s liberal group has teamed up with Berkeley-based moveon.org, an anti-Bush group co-founded by Joan Blades.

I can’t say I’m surprised: the “grassroots” antiwar movement keeps turning out to be MoveOn/A.N.S.W.E.R. astroturf. But I bet that if a GOP group were to send servicemen’s families to picket Democrats it would be getting more play. And more negative play.

UPDATE: Reader Don Fishback thinks this is just a smokescreen:

You have to wonder if Karl Rove is the one who is REALLY behind Cindy Sheehan. Look at what he has accomplished and hopes to accomplish with her help:

First, his name is completely off the radar screen. Valerie Plame? Who is she?

Second, liberal interest groups are getting their hopes up once again, as they have after every so-called Bush implosion. Hardcore Democrats feel liberated and are actively supporting Sheehan, who contemporaneously says things like “AFGHANISTAN was a mistake” and “Get Israel out of Palestine.” It’s as if the hardcore leftists are so emboldened that even Howard Dean isn’t enough for them!

But most of all, he’s set an awful sweet trap for some bigger catch. I am sure that he was hoping that some potential Democrat presidential candidates showed up in Crawford. Well, at least someone besides Sharpton. Alas, it looks like he’s going to have to wait until her entourage gets to Washington.

It’s as if Rove has set the Democrats up with a Kobayashi Maru. If a major Dem goes to Cindy’s side, they’re doomed as a national candidate. No one in Tennessee or Indiana is going to support someone who agrees with the policy that Afghanistan was a mistake. But if they don’t, as Kaus points out, they’ll never get nominated by the emboldened left-wing base.

Evil Genius indeed.

Hmm. Is Karl Rove that smart? Are Democratic activists that gullible?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Maybe so.

IRAQ, unplugged.

MICHAEL FUMENTO REPORTS FROM FALLUJAH with some surprising news:

After crisscrossing Fallujah by foot and Humvee in May, I reported on tremendous progress being made to restore “the city we had to destroy to save.” Actually fighting left most of the town unscathed; most damage was from three decades of neglect under Saddam Hussein. And rebuilding began almost immediately.

Good news from Iraq rarely gets a single story compared to the many thousands on a war protestor’s stake-out in Texas. Yet it occurs nonetheless.

Read the whole thing.