MILBLOGGERS THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE and Neptunus Lex have thoughts on the Washington Post’s withdrawal from the Freedom Walk.

Among those thoughts: “My God, but that’s tone deaf, not to mention timorous.”

I’VE PRETTY MUCH IGNORED the Air America scandals, but others are paying attention.

UPDATE: More here. “Air America went out of its way to make an enemy of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, and now is paying the price.” Also here.

THE INSTA-WIFE GRADUATED TODAY: From cardiac-rehab class. She’ll still be going, she just won’t have to wear a monitor any more. And, yes, they actually had a little ceremony, complete with cap and gown.

When she got her PhD just after we married, I thought that was the last of her graduations. I guess I wish I’d been right, but still, I’m very happy that she’s progressed to this point. (And she was certainly the most attractive — er, and the youngest by a couple of decades — of the graduates!)

You just never know what’s coming down the pike, do you?

THE IRAQI OIL TRUST IDEA actually seems to be getting more support now, from a surprising source.

ISLAMIC TERROR BOMBINGS in Bangladesh.

UPDATE: Here’s a blog report via Global Voices.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has a roundup, and says there were far more bombs than originally realized.

MORE AVIAN FLU WORRIES: “The bottom line is that avian influenza is endemic and probably ineradicable among poultry in Southeast Asia, and now seems to be spreading at pandemic velocity among migratory birds, with the potential to reach most of the earth in the next year. . . . This exponential multiplication of hot spots and silent reservoirs (as among infected but asymptomatic ducks) is why the chorus of warnings from scientists, public-health officials, and finally, governments has become so plangently insistent in recent months.”

UPDATE: Hmm. Just noticed that the author of the quoted piece is also the author of this book on avian flu. I’m not sure which way that cuts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I cover this stuff, but if you’re really interested you should be reading the Avian Flu Blog, which has a somewhat narrower focus.

MARK TAPSCOTT emails that he really likes this Ford commercial: “It’s not really an ad so much as a statement about America’s past and present. It’s 5 minutes long but worth every second.”

It’s also something that the Web makes a lot easier.

ADVICE to the angry young blogger.

A SOLDIER IN IRAQ, TO MATT LAUER: “Well sir, I’d tell you, if I got my news from the newspapers I’d be pretty depressed as well.”

Indeed.

PODCASTING AND THE NEW MEDIA: I interviewed GarageBand.com’s CEO Ali Partovi on the subject recently, and the results are in today’s TechCentralStation column.

AUSTIN BAY: “It’s time for the President to make a statement about Able Danger.”

UPDATE: Tom Maguire: “Let’s end with an easy question – do people think they have seen enough to merit a Congressional investigation? And do people want the investigation to be in Curt Weldon’s House, or over in the Senate?” Plus, he parses typos from the Times!

Important caveats here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: TigerHawk has much more on this.

Related information here.

MORE THUGGISHNESS IN ZIMBABWE, with little reaction from the world.

AVIAN FLU UPDATE:

One of the biggest brokerage firms in Canada is sounding an alarm over the potential economic disaster that could result from an influenza pandemic. . . .

Some of the repercussions projected in the report, were a pandemic were to break out, include:

A dramatic slowdown in the economy, equal to the Great Depression. A rampant decline in spending would result from people panicking, which would put a sudden stop in spending.

High levels of unemployment, with many people unable to work.
Travel restrictions on the free-flow of goods and people across borders. “In a world that depends so heavily on global trade, this would have a very damaging effect on economic activity,” said Cooper.

Regardless of whether avian flu breaks out, a new flu pandemic is a near-certainty at some point. (Via Newsbeat 1, which also has a link to the PDF of the full report).

A NOBLE CAUSE: Thanks to David Adesnik for the link.

THE TIMES OF LONDON is writing about man-bashing and masculinity:

Outperformed by girls at school, emasculated by women at home and at work, shockingly dislocated from your emotions and the hapless joke figure in endless TV commercials and sitcoms whose message is that females rule and men are fools.

Well wise up, because apparently it’s time to say enough is enough; the ridicule of men must stop. The pendulum of power has swung too far into the female corner and you must stand up and assert your right to masculinity.

Perhaps Doris Lessing’s efforts are bearing fruit.

UPDATE: Trudy Schuett isn’t that impressed.

SINGULARITY UPDATE: Arnold Kling is betting against Ray Kurzweil.

Ray is certainly getting a lot of interest up for his forthcoming book, so he’s a winner either way. . . .

ANN ALTHOUSE has thoughts on Elvis’s death.

And here are mine.

MICHAEL BARONE has thoughts on multiculturalism.

JOHN ROBERTS UPDATE: Some people are declaring victory. But Professor Bainbridge has been hitting the law reviews.

I MISSED OUT ON THE “ABLE DANGER” STORY while I was on vacation, and I still don’t think I’m up to speed. But doesn’t this advance the story? “A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly. The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the F.B.I.”

UPDATE: John Podhoretz: “If he’s telling the truth, then the entire history of the last five years needs to be rewritten.”

BIRD FLU UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt points to an article from the Times of London reporting that Bird Flu is closing in on Europe. He also notes this worrisome article from Foreign Affairs.

But if you really want to worry, then you should note what InstaPundit reader Joseph Beaulieu did — a report that one of the books President Bush is reading on vacation is John Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History. Uh oh.

GOOD NEWS:

A go-ahead was given last week by the U.S. Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) that clears the way for exchanges of technical information between Scaled Composites of Mojave, California and Virgin Galactic of the United Kingdom to build passenger-carrying suborbital spaceliners.

Among its duties, DDTC administers and enforces International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

“Putting it in ITAR terms…this is one small step for ITAR, one big leap for Virgin Galactic,” said Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic—the space tourism endeavor that is a subsidiary of British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.

“It allows us to activate all the parts of the project,” Whitehorn told SPACE.com in an exclusive phone interview, such as use of technology—SpaceShipOne’s reentry concept and hybrid rocket motor design, for example—that can be licensed through Paul Allen’s Mojave Aerospace Ventures.

Great news. I think the Virgin Galactic folks should save me a “press” seat!

UPDATE: A reader writes:

So it’s good news when some government bureaucrats “permit” two privately owned companies to voluntarily exchange technical information. Gee, aren’t we lucky to have such clear-sighted bureaucrats controlling our supposedly free economy?

Sometimes it is very difficult to understand how you consider yourself even mildly libertarian.

No, but it’s easy to understand why so many overly literal libertarians are at the margin, politically and socially, when you read stuff like that.

To me, when government officials act intelligently in the exercise of their powers, it’s good news (and I suspect that few libertarians take such intelligence for granted). That’s a distinct question from what powers they ought to have — and in export controls (as I’ve noted in various scholarly writings) their powers are pretty clearly too broad. But that’s a separate discussion, as should be obvious. People who want every discussion of current events to go back to first principles are tiresome and I find discussion with them is seldom profitable. Plus, people avoid them at parties.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Shelby Clark emails:

Ouch! Dissed by a law professor for being tedious and poorly socialized!

I kid – as a lawyer, law profs are some of my favorite people. But still.

Yeah, that’s gotta hurt, I guess.

MUCH TOO KIND. But I’m not complaining.

AUSTIN BAY: Three bucks a gallon may save Iraq. “One man’s irony will be another’s nifty conspiracy theory — a jack in oil prices rescues Baghdad.”

HOMER SIMPSON CHANNELS Pliny the Elder.