FORTUNE REPORTS on Alberta’s oil sands.

BUSINESS AT THE PRICE OF FREEDOM: An article on technology companies collaborating with the Chinese government:

All the major search engines have given in to Chinese demands to throttle liberty in exchange for access to the Chinese market. Google has removed news listing from its popular news search to publications critical of Chinese policy such as Epoch Times, Voice of America and a dozen other publications. Microsoft has blocked users of its MSN site from using the terms “freedom,” “democracy” and other concepts China has designated as “dangerous.”

(Via Slashdot).

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE has a Medal of Honor story that’s worth reading.

GATEWAY PUNDIT HAS A ROUNDUP ON THE ANTIWAR PROTESTS (“I thought this was going to be an Anti-Iraq War Rally but it’s just a hodgepodge of extreme leftist groups taking turns at a microphone.”), while reader Brandon Marx emails:

I dont think that the anti-war rally is following the Daily Kos’ Do’s and Dont’s of protests. In 10 minutes I have heard that 1) the war is racist 2) Bush left the black and poor behind in New Orleans and 3) Bush is funding the horrible occupation of the Palestinian people. Also, 100,000? On C-Span I’m seeing a couple thousand tops.

When your advice on moderation comes from Daily Kos, you’re in trouble. Especially when you don’t follow it . . . .

Free Mumia!

ANOTHER UPDATE: More firsthand photoblogging, from Michelle Malkin, with graphic evidence that people aren’t following the Kos advice! (And go here, or just scroll down, for lots more photoblogging links).

MORE: More photoblogging here, and Ian Schwartz has video of Cindy Sheehan defying the Kos advice.

MORE STILL: Bad reviews even at DailyKos: “Watching clips of the Answer Anti-War Rally, all I see are things that I want nothing to do with. . . . I watch this rally and see people basically supporting the Hamas, etc., and the suicide killings of innocent Israelis in cafes, on buses, etc.”

Which speaks well for you, but that’s who holds these rallies. As I said before, if there were an authentic grassroots anti-war movement, then the rallies wouldn’t be dominated by fringers. Reading the comments is interesting, because a lot of people are saying the kind of stuff about A.N.S.W.E.R. that I’ve been saying for years. That sounds like good news, to me. I support the war, but I’m not afraid of an intellectually and morally serious antiwar movement. We just haven’t had one of those.

Some earlier posts on that theme can be found here, here, and here, among many others.

STILL MORE: More photoblogging here.

STRATEGYPAGE:

American casualty rates for September are less than what they were the last few months. Attacks on infrastructure (including oil facilities) and civilians are down as well. Combat operations along the Syrian border, and throughout the Sunni Towns of central Iraq have made it much more difficult for terrorist groups to operate. There is still much support for terrorists among the Sunni Arab population, and many Sunni Arabs believe that, if the Coalition troops can be forced to leave, the Sunni Arab tribes can somehow subdue the Kurds and Shia Arabs, and regain control of the country. But the best opportunity for this was lost when the Sunni Arab dominated army and civil service was disbanded after the 2003 invasion. The army and civil service are now thoroughly Kurdish and Shia Arab, and this annoys the Sunni Arabs a great deal. But the Sunni Arabs have been in charge for so long (centuries, even under three centuries of Turkish domination), that they see it as their right to rule. Many other Sunni Arabs in the region, and many Europeans as well, agree.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: The Belmont Club: “But perhaps the strategic rationale for choosing Iraq versus Saudi Arabia consisted in that Iraq lay along a major fault line in the Muslim world, not simply with respect to religion, but in the case of the Kurds, ethnicity as well. It was the one place where America was guaranteed to find local allies whichever way it turned; it was the last place where the population could easily put aside their differences to oppose the United States. And if the objective were to set the region on its ears, here was the pillar in temple of Dagon around which everything could be sent crashing down. . . . However it began, OIF has unlocked forces that are rocking the foundations of the entire region. Saudi Arabia, for example, cannot but remember how the forces of an Iraqi state stopped just a few hours’ drive away from its gleaming cities in 1990, with nothing but the 82nd Airborne Division between the Republican Guard and the Royal Palaces. Now they are torn, truly torn, between their sympathies for the Sunni insurgency and the cold knowledge of its probable consequences. The one thing Arab capitals may fear more than a continuing American presence in Iraq is the possibility of an American withdrawal.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Brad Bettin emails:

SP says disbanding the Sunni-dominated Iraqi army resulted in the new army being heavily Kurdish & Shia … making it less likely to support a Sunni effort to regain control of Iraq.

Perhaps disbanding the army – widely criticized as a mistake by anti-Bush forces – wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Indeed.

JOHN LITTLE REPORTS that Houston dodged a bullet:

We got some pretty good winds in Midtown but it doesn’t look like damage is a problem. Flooding hasn’t been a problem either. I’ve lost satellite but I didn’t lose power.

He praises anti-looting efforts, which seem to have been quite successful, and notes that he has some spare beanie-weenies and bottled water. He also observes: “There’s no gas in the city, no shops open, and millions of people that might be rushing back. If you’re out of town and you can wait a day or two to return please do.”

Good advice.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has a hurricane news roundup: “The bottom line so far seems to be this: all three levels of government were better prepared for this storm, as they anticipated the worst and made preparations.”

ANN ALTHOUSE ON THE BBC: “Unbelievably smug.” Indeed.

UPDATE: “Relentless, clueless, and anti-American.” Indeed, again.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ted Nolan points out that even the NPR ombudsman has noticed:

The BBC also seems to portray aspects of Southern culture in a less than flattering light, especially in its interviews with local religious leaders who see Katrina as divine retribution for New Orleans’ “sinfulness.”

I am sure that the BBC is not inventing these interviews. But the effect is that it sounds less like reporting than like caricature. Public radio listeners likely understand what is going on — that BBC cultural assumptions about the United States remain mired in a reflex European opposition to American foreign policy. But what comes through the radio sounds mean-spirited and not particularly helpful; it probably evokes knowing glances and smirks among editors and producers back in London.

It’s producing knowing glances and smirks elsewhere, too — just of a different sort!

MORE: One of Ann’s commenters writes:

It’s very sad to see the severe degradation of the Atlantic relationships in recent years, but what can you do when the bridge is being burned from the other end?

Indeed.

ED MCNAMARA is photoblogging the pro-war protests in Washington.

Meanwhile, David Adesnik out-reports the Washington Post by noting what A.N.S.W.E.R. really stands for.

MORE: More photoblogging here — just keep scrolling.

MORE STILL: More photoblogging at BitchGirls, showing more Kos rules-violations.

HERE’S A ROUNDUP OF GULF COAST NEWS SOURCES. And, commenting on the TV coverage, reader Carlos Myers emails:

I’m starting to get bored with reporters giving us a “front row” seat when a hurricane makes landfall. It was impressive the first couple of times they did it, but it is now old hat and all I can say when I look at the sheer silliness of the melodrama is, “Do we really need this kind of reporting and is their play-by-play reporting really newsworthy?”

No, and no, in my opinion.

THE OLD KATRINA RELIEF DONATIONS LIST is now a Rita relief donations list, I guess. They’ll need donations for this one, too.

MORE PROTEST-SPINNING is noted.

THOUGHTS ON TEXAS AND RITA, from a military perspective.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: A rather lame response from Colorado Senator Ken Salazar. The promise to get Michael Brown fired is pretty funny.

EUGENE VOLOKH HAS questions for the New York Civil Liberties Union.

JON HENKE has thoughts on polarization and the blogosphere.

ARMED CITIZENS are fending off looters in Houston. John Little has photos.

In addition, the Houston Police seem to be taking a harder line than the NOPD did:

Ready said officers would be very visible as long as weather conditions allow.

“We have put out the message that we are not going to tolerate looting and we have increased out presence and visibility,” Ready said.

Good. (Via Shawn Wasson).

A CIVIL LIBERTIES VICTORY:

The United States District Court for the Eastern District in Louisiana today sided with the National Rifle Association (NRA) and issued a restraining order to bar further gun confiscations from peaceable and law-abiding victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

(Via SayUncle).

MATT RUSTLER has taken up my suggestion to Google anti-war protesters mentioned in press accounts and has found, to his shock, that they’re not always the starry-eyed naifs that the news reports suggest.

“‘Novice’ protestor? Not hardly.”

UPDATE: Read this, too. And LT SMASH writes: “The anti-war movement is stuck on stupid.”

Along, it seems, with its enablers in the press.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Matt Duffy continues to blog his ongoing efforts to get a straight answer on pork from Georgia Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, and Rep. Tom Price.

Stay tuned. And if you’re in Georgia, why not give ’em a call yourself (he provides the contact information) — maybe you’ll do better.

UPDATE: Reader David McCune emails:

I don’t think Republicans realize what they are dealing with here. There is now a margin-of-victory-sized block of voters that is up for grabs. I never thought I would say it, but if Nancy Pelosi is the only congressional leader who can dial back government, then maybe I need to re-think my party allegiance. At this point, I believe many small-government conservative are wondering whether the budget might not grow less with a Republican minority trying to slow down a Democrat majority, rather than our current majority trying to outspend the Democrat minority.

Yes, I think that they’re behind the curve on this, and it’s very risky for them. All the Democrats need is a candidate who’s not John Kerry, and they’ve got a shot.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Blogging gets results! Matt Duffy has gotten not one, but two calls back.

MORE: Reader Rob Beile emails:

I just sent this to my congressman, John Shimkus…

When then Gov. Clinton lied to the country about smoking pot by saying “…I didn’t inhale”, I wasn’t angry that he lied to me. I was angry about the way he insulted my intelligence.

By the same token, when Mr. Delay says there’s no pork to cut….

Indeed.

AUSTIN BAY reports on what’s going on within Texas Emergency Management circles.

RON SILVER’S NEW DOCUMENTARY ON THE U.N. IS OUT:

“Broken Promises” has at its root the betrayed vision of an idealistic youth from the Lower East Side. Silver grew up in a modest Jewish neighborhood, and his way to escape his parochial world, where everyone was defined by ethnicity and race, he says, was to go to the U.N. and just wander around. . . .

There are interviews with peacekeepers on the failures of peacekeeping, including Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who wrote the famously ignored “genocide memo” months before nearly 1 million Rwandans were killed, in which he begged for reinforcements. Rwandan survivor Eugenie Mukeshimana appears 10 years later with the daughter she gave birth to in a container while hiding from machete-wielding Hutu killers. Former U.N. translator Hasan Nuhanovic describes how U.N. officers in Srebrenica ordered him to tell his family himself that they must leave the U.N. haven to face death by the Serbs.

One of the most stirring comments comes from Kenneth Cain, a civilian peacekeeper who co-wrote a book titled “Emergency Sex” about what Cain views as U.N. betrayals. It is liberals like him who should be most aggrieved, he says, because it is their ideals that have been most harshly sundered.

Indeed.

SIGH. New Orleans re-floods.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN HAS FURTHER THOUGHTS on intentionalism and interpretation.

THE 2006 AALS MEETING, previously scheduled for New Orleans, has been moved to Washington, DC. It will center on the Marriott Wardman Park hotel.

HUGH HEWITT IS OFFERING ADVICE to DSCC staffers.