WALTER SHAPIRO defends the New Hampshire primary.

I’m not sure I agree, but I liked his book, One-Car Caravan.

THE FAIR TAX FRIDAY Carnival is up. For more carnivals, click here and look right.

A REVERSAL ON GAY MARRIAGE in New York.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The National Journal’s Daniel Glover notices that Senator Tom Coburn has put the PorkBusters logo on his website.

I hadn’t noticed that, but it’s pretty cool. As Glover observes:

Shared logos are becoming a regular feature in the blogosphere as bloggers unite in common causes. But it’s not often that you see one of those logos on a congressional Web site.

The logo from the PorkBusters campaign, in fact, appears to be the first to achieve that status. Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn has the logo displayed prominently on the right side of his Senate Web site, just under a ticker that shows the rapidly increasing federal debt. The logo also appears on a separate page dedicated to the PorkBusters cause.

Welcome aboard, Senator.

And remember: Congress is out of session now, so legislation is on hold, but that means that if you’d like to meet with your Congressmember while he/she is home, it’s a good time.

IF A COP BREAKS INTO YOUR HOUSE UNNANOUNCED, and you shoot him thinking he’s a burglar, it’s self-defense. But Radley Balko reports on a case of a wrong-house no-knock raid that has led to what sounds like a total miscarriage of justice:

As the raid on Smith commenced, some officers – including Jones — went around to what they thought was a side door to Smith’s residence, looking for a larger stash of drugs. The door was actually a door to Maye’s home. Maye was home alone with his young daughter, and asleep, when one member of the SWAT team broke down the outside door. Jones, who wasn’t armed, charged in, and made his way to Maye’s bedroom. Because police believed Maye’s side of the duplex was still part of Smith’s residence, they never announced themselves. Maye, fearing for his life and the safety of his daughter, fired at Jones, hitting him in the abdomen, just below his bulletproof vest. Jones died a short time later.

Maye had no criminal record, and wasn’t the target of the search warrant. Police initially concluded they had found no drugs in Maye’s side of the duplex. Then, mysteriously, police later announced they’d found “traces” of marijuana and cocaine. I talked to the attorney who represented Maye at trial. She said that to her knowledge, police had found one smoked marijuana cigarette in Maye’s apartment. Regardless, since Maye wasn’t the subject of the search, whether or not he had misdemeanor amounts of drugs in his possession isn’t really irrelevant. What’s relevant is whether or not he reasonably believed his life was in danger. Seems pretty clear to me that that would be a reasonable assumption.

In a way, this is the flipside of the Miami airport shooting. And I regard the shooting of a cop in this situation similarly: It’s a tragedy, but the risk is, and should be, borne by the person who’s acting unreasonably. Here, it’s the cop’s. When you break down people’s doors and charge in unannounced, you do so at your own risk, cop or not.

Radley has more reporting here, and observes:

Put yourself in Maye’s shoes. You have no criminal record. You’ve done nothing wrong. In the middle of the night, in a bad neighborhood, you awake to find someone attempting to break down your door. The door flies open, and a man in black paramilitary gear comes storming into your bedroom, where your infant daughter also happens to be sleeping.

Not only is that set of circumstances “reasonable ground” to think that someone is about to do you “great personal injury,” and that you’re in “imminent danger” of said personal injury being accomplished, you’d be crazy not to take quick action to defend yourself.

The SWAT team was in Maye’s home illegally. And they failed to exercise due dilligence in obtaining the search warrant, given that they were obviously unaware that the target of the warrant was a duplex with a second residence. These are facts.

If the facts are as he reports, this guy never should have been charged — and he should have had a lawsuit (though those, unreasonably, are usually losers) against the police for breaking down the wrong door. The cop who was shot was the police chief’s son. And there’s a racial angle, too.

More here and here.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Alexander emails:

My brother and I (both military officers and strong police supporters) were just discussing “no-knock” raids last week. A citizen has every right to defend himself in his home to unknown intruders. Not too long ago, a family was the victim of home intruders posing as cops. I’d be hard-pressed to believe anyone barging in my home in the middle of the night, especially if I KNEW I wasn’t a criminal. “No-knock” raids should be illegal in all 50 states.

Further, why doesn’t the Hollywood crowd take up the cause of a truly wronged black man on death row, instead of real criminals like Tookie and Mumia?

Excellent question. Unlike those other cases, this seems like one without a political angle. It’s unclear whether that will get it more attention, or less.

JORDAN GOLSON has a roundup on the Midway Airport plane crash.

UPDATE: Lots more from The Travel Bloggers.

HERE’S A GRAMMY NEWS ROUNDUP: As a member of the Recording Academy, I get to vote, but I can’t think of a year when I’ve been less excited. But maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention.

A LOOK AT FEDERAL SPENDING, 1970-2005.

JERALYN MERRITT REMEMBERS JOHN LENNON: Lots of people wonder what he’d be doing now. I’m skeptical that he’d be a Republican today if he had lived, but who knows? He went through a lot of changes in a short period.

Back in the 1980s, researching a novel that nobody has read, I watched some old British TV of the Beatles (Ready, Steady, Go! and so forth) and what struck me was how burly and tough the early (1965-66) John Lennon looked, compared to the one I remembered. I had heard stories of him breaking people’s ribs, and they didn’t seem very credible in light of my memories of the fragile and emaciated Yoko-era John. But looking at the earlier Lennon, well, yeah.

So who knows? But I think it’s a mistake to make Lennon into anything today — even a poster boy for handgun control — instead of remembering him as he was. He never got the chance to develop into whatever he would have been, and that’s the tragedy of his death, of course.

UPDATE: Some memories from Gerard van der Leun: “We’d finished filming John and Yoko for the video a day or so before. It was their last video, but of course we didn’t know it at the time.”

TIAN LOOKS AT SOME hysterically overpriced cookware. No, really: “When he revealed the price, it was so overpriced that it is truly laughable! . . . If you don’t have any cash on hand, a 48-month payment option is available with 18% interest rate.” Spare me.

At the recommendation of various readers back during the Great Cookware Thread, I bought some Cuisinart Multiclad stuff, which was quite cheap even compared with All-Clad, which I thought was expensive until I saw this stuff, and with which I’ve been very happy. And I’m even happier when I compare the price with the stuff Tian’s writing about. Holy crap!

And for the Insta-Wife, who’s kind of hard on pots, I bought a few pieces of Chefmate stuff from Target. Even cheaper, and not half bad considering the price.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM HASN’T GONE AWAY:

Six people were arrested in a string of ecoterrorism attacks in the Pacific Northwest dating to 1998 _ four fires that caused millions in damage and the toppling of an 80-foot power transmission tower, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

The arrests were made Wednesday in Arizona, New York, Oregon and Virginia.

The radical groups Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front had claimed responsibility for most of the acts.

The extent of this sort of terrorism is underappreciated.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: “Americans are aiding and abetting pan-Arabism. Seriously. This isn’t a joke.”

UPDATE: Ack, it’s not by Michael, it’s by one of his cobloggers on his blog. Sorry.

LITTLE BOXES: Here’s an interesting followup on my TCS column.

GUN CONTROL IN CANADA, YESTERDAY AND TODAY: It is ever thus. Read this, too.

POLICE HAVE VIDEO PROBLEMS in San Francisco.

U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH IS “GALLOPING.”

Meanwhile, France’s problem is not enough Wal-marts.

THE CARNIVAL OF EDUCATION IS UP! And some others (look right!).

DON HO, CARDIAC PIONEER:

Ho had his own stem cells injected into his heart Monday night, which is expected to improve the muscle’s pumping ability by as much as 70 percent.

Ho suffers from cardiomyopathy and his doctor said conventional surgery could do nothing to ease the inflammation. The procedure, which is not available in the United States, was performed by former University of Michigan cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Kit Arom and overseen by Dr. Amit Patel of Pittsburgh.

I hope this works, and that if it does it becomes available in the United States.

NEWS FROM IRAQ, via the Washington Post:

As Iraqis nationwide prepare to go to the polls for the third time this year on Dec. 15 — this time for a new parliament — candidates and political parties of all stripes are embracing politics, Iraqi style, as never before and showing increasing sophistication about the electoral process, according to campaign specialists, party officials and candidates here.

“It is like night and day from 10 months ago in terms of level of participation and political awareness,” said a Canadian election specialist with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a group affiliated with the U.S. Democratic Party that is working to ease Iraq’s transition to democracy. . . .

In January, most candidates outside the dominant few parties largely eschewed campaigning, fearing they could be kidnapped or assassinated. Now, even long shots are getting into the act. One day this week, National Democratic Institute instructors explained get-out-the-vote techniques to a dozen members of the Free Iraq Gathering, a new coalition that “probably won’t get many more votes than you see in that room,” according to an institute employee.

Sounds positive to me.

THE LAST REFUGE OF POLITICAL SCOUNDRELS: Paul Martin proposes a handgun ban for Canada. Because a ban on rampant political corruption would be too hard to enforce . . . .

ON THE BALL: Even though I selected 2-day shipping, the satellite radio I ordered yesterday showed up this morning as I was leaving for work. That’s pretty impressive. No time to fool with it today, but I’ll charge up the battery tonight and post a report.

A SOLAR-ENHANCED PRIUS: Cool, in a geeky sort of way.

At the gym this morning, I parked between another Highlander hybrid and a (non-solar) Prius. That probably says more about my neighborhood than their overall sales, but maybe not. A few years ago it was Chevy Suburbans and Toyota Landcruisers as far as the eye could see.

FOUR YEARS AFTER THE TALIBAN FELL — and four years and a month after people pronounced Afghanistan a hopeless, Vietnam-like quagmire — an ABC News poll says that Afghans are optimistic about the future:

77 percent of Afghans say their country is headed in the right direction — compared with 30 percent in the vastly better-off United States. Ninety-one percent prefer the current Afghan government to the Taliban regime, and 87 percent call the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban good for their country. Osama bin Laden, for his part, is as unpopular as the Taliban; nine in 10 view him unfavorably.

Progress fuels these views: Despite the country’s continued problems, 85 percent of Afghans say living conditions there are better now than they were under the Taliban. Eighty percent cite improved freedom to express political views. And 75 percent say their security from crime and violence has improved as well. After decades of oppression and war, many Afghans see a better life.

Read the whole thing. (Via BarcePundit).

UPDATE: Major John Tammes, who spent some time in Afghanistan with the Ordnance Corps, and also served as InstaPundit’s Afghan photo correspondent (see some of his photos here) sends this email:

I saw your story (and link to the Barcepundit) on the optimism of the Afghans. The past few months have been a little difficult – feelings of letdown, etc. Seeing something like this is…validation.

You and Franco have made my day!

Good! As I’ve said before, if you read the news coverage and it leaves you dispirited, demoralized, and depressed, that’s not an accident. That’s the goal.

HERE’S A ROUNDUP OF BLOG REACTION to the Miami airport shooting. It’s tragic, but as the InstaWife was saying this morning, traveling with a bipolar who’s off his meds is like traveling with a diabetic who’s not taking insulin: unwise.

KOS: A voice for moderation in today’s Democratic Party.