THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: “Iraqi Parliament Delays Constitution Vote.” I don’t think that making the Sunnis happy is priority number one, but I hope to see more progress on other issues.

STEVE STURM EMAILS ON ABLE DANGER: “I know you haven’t been a big follower of the whole matter, and I’m starting to see why you’re probably the better for it.”

As I’ve said before, my pre-9/11 view was that we were best off treating Islamist terrorism as a law-enforcement matter, but otherwise trying to ignore it until it collapsed under the weight of its inherent idiocy. That was wrong, but it’s hard for me to blame the Clinton folks for seeing things the way that I did — except when, occasionally, they pretend otherwise.

CARNIVAL-O-RAMA: The Carnival of the Capitalists is up! So is the Carnival of Personal Finance, the latest Haveil Havalim, the Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers, and the RINO Carnival.

A WHILE BACK, I mentioned receiving a copy of Michael Barone’s Almanac of American Politics for 2006. You can read highlights from the introduction here.

TALKSHOW HOST MICHAEL GRAHAM HAS BEEN FIRED for making negative comments about Islam: Brian Maloney has the story.

GRAVEYARDS: Norm Geras answers Joan Baez’s question.

PAUL SHEEHAN:

It’s time someone praised and defended reckless teenage girls and young women who behave badly, dress provocatively, engage in risky sex, and get pregnant. They are the normal ones. The rest of us are the deviants. They are behaving in the most natural way. The rest of us are mutants. . . .

This is society’s real problem. Teenage pregnancy is trivial by comparison to suppressed pregnancy.

This is, in a weird way, a social-conservative piece. And I suspect it’s an early indicator of how the growing concern over Western demographics will play, even on the left.

UPDATE: A reader wonders if this post has gotten me hatemail from social conservatives. Nope. (Some people wonder if he’s any relation to Cindy Sheehan — not as far as I know, and that hadn’t even crossed my mind.) I just think it’s an interesting melding of usually-immiscible viewpoints, and wonder if it’s a harbinger of some shifts in thinking. Judging by the absence of hatemail, I guess everyone else saw it that way, too, or at least figured out where I was coming from.

THE TALIBAN STRIKE OUT: Gateway Pundit reports on the upcoming elections in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, John Tabin has thoughts on Bangladesh.

JOHN FUND writes about loose talk regarding election fraud and quotes my law school classmate Joe Andrew:

Such cynicism exasperates some Democrats. Last year, Joe Andrew, who served as Bill Clinton’s chairman of the Democratic National Committee, blasted conspiracy theories that electronic voting machines, or DREs, would be used to steal votes and said “most liberals are just plain old-fashioned nuts” on the subject. He lamented that prominent Democrats “are rallying behind the anti-DRE bandwagon in a big election year because they think that this movement is good for Democrats.”

It wasn’t, of course. (In fact, too much of that kind of talk probably depresses turnout among one’s own supporters). I may be prejudiced, but it seems to me that the Democrats were doing a lot better when Joe Andrew, a sensible guy, was DNC chair. Maybe they should try to bring back some of the sensible guys.

BOB MOOG has died.

JUAN NON-VOLOKH: “Time will tell whether there is anything to the Able Danger story — and whether or not the ‘wall’ inhibited information sharing — but it is clearer than ever that Jamie Gorelick should not have served on the 9/11 Commission.” Indeed.

The various folks sending nasty emails to bloggers on her behalf are, of course, only raising her profile in a context where she would otherwise be a peripheral figure (and one who was, until I started getting all these emails, of no particular interest to me). Are they tools of Karl Rove? Er, or just tools . . .?

UPDATE: Craig Henry, meanwhile, thinks it’s all about Tailhook, and what that scandal did to morale among military leaders:

Tailhook started out as a scandal over the drunken behavior of some naval aviators. But it soon grew into a big political battle over military culture with a big dose of congressional posturing, anti-military press bias, and careerist behavior by senior Pentagon leadership. Although Tailhook made the Navy ground zero, both the Army and Air Force faced the same issues and PR nightmares. . . .

This interview with Webb goes into more detail. In it the interviewer notes that more admirals were ruined by Tailhook than by Pearl Harbor. Ponder that for just a moment. . . .

Maybe we are barking up the wrong tree on Gorelick. “The Wall” may have had some impact on the men in charge of ABLE DANGER. OTOH, the post-Tailhook behavior of Republicans and Democrats might be more important.

I do not expect that this idea is going to go anywhere in the blogosphere. If it is correct, the blame is bi-partisan. Trent Lott is as culpable as Gorelick or Hilliary. Bi-partisan outrage is popular only when it can be directed at social conservatives.

Beats me, but there’s probably plenty of blame to go around.

IN THE MAIL: Debra Hamel’s Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan’s Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece. Juicy yet interesting.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “Should Democrats bring back the Vietnam era anti-war imagery, with folksinging gatherings and get-out-now rhetoric? I can understand wanting to express yourself that way if that’s what you feel, but you know it didn’t win elections back then.”

WEBB WILDER UPDATE: Webb has a concert DVD coming out. There will also be a live concert CD, produced by R.S. Field.

Reader Glen Harness emails: “We went to the show, and it was (as usual) great. He had both Tony Bowles and George Bradfute on guitar (that’s the second time I’ve seen the band with both guitars) and the third guitar definitely adds to the sound. We also saw the same lineup Saturday night in Huntsville, AL, and that show was probably even better.”

Cool. I notice that Webb has also released a new compilation CD, Scattered, Smothered and Covered: A Webb Wilder Overview — I have all the songs already, but I still ordered it. They don’t call him the “idol of idle youth” for nothing.

STEM CELL UPDATE:

Scientists for the first time have turned ordinary skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells — without having to use human eggs or make new human embryos in the process, as has always been required in the past, a Harvard research team announced yesterday.

The technique uses laboratory-grown human embryonic stem cells — such as the ones that President Bush has already approved for use by federally funded researchers — to “reprogram” the genes in a person’s skin cell, turning that skin cell into an embryonic stem cell itself. . . .

Since the new stem cells in this technique are essentially rejuvenated versions of a person’s own skin cells, the DNA in those new stem cells matches the DNA of the person who provided the skin cells. In theory at least, that means that any tissues grown from those newly minted stem cells could be transplanted into the person to treat a disease without much risk that they would be rejected, because they would constitute an exact genetic match.

It’s still early, but I hope this pans out.

THE LATEST CARNIVAL OF TOMORROW is up! Don’t miss it!

OMAR AT IRAQ THE MODEL REPORTS: “National Assembly member Bahaa Al-Aaraji just told Al-Iraqia TV that an agreement has finally been reached among the leaders of political bodies on the final draft of the constitution and that disputes over issues like federalism, distribution of resources and the role of Islam have been solved.”

No word on how they’ve been solved yet. Let’s hope it’s better than we feared yesterday.

AVIAN FLU UPDATE:

NORTH AMERICAN sales of the drug oseltamivir have more than tripled in recent months — a trend seen by public health experts as evidence that individuals are stockpiling the once little-used antiviral as a hedge against a possible flu pandemic.

With similar reports emerging in other countries as well, a leading advocate for pandemic preparedness is concerned that public demand could soon outstrip the limited global supply. . . .

Canadian Tamiflu sales jumped to more than 76,000 prescriptions in the 12-month period ending in June, compared to 22,000 prescriptions in the entire 2004 calendar year, says IMS Health, which compiles drug sales data.

U.S. sales have surged as well, to nearly 1.7 million prescriptions in the first half of 2005 from just under 500,000 in 2004.

More here (reg. req’d):

Dr. Fred Aoki, an antiviral expert at the University of Manitoba, sees little wrong with the idea of individuals putting aside a cache of antivirals, as long as they learn how to properly use the drugs, which he believes are very safe.

“It’s a management strategy. It’s a health-care approach that isn’t unique,” says Aoki, noting a number of prescription drugs are given to patients on an as-needed basis, such as antiviral creams for cold sores and nitroglycerin for angina.

Oseltamivir blocks flu viruses from spreading throughout the respiratory tract.

If started early — within 48 hours of symptom onset — the drug can cut the length and severity of a bout of regular flu.

Lab testing suggests it is effective against all subtypes of influenza. But to date there are few data on its performance in human cases of H5N1.

(Via Newsbeat 1). People have been emailing me asking what to do in response to the avian flu reports. “Nothing, yet,” is probably the best answer — it’s the public health people who need to be getting their act together at this point — but there’s probably no harm (other than the financial variety) in asking a doctor for a prescription, and getting it filled, now. And to the extent that this causes production to be ramped up in advance of an outbreak, it might do some small good.

The real solution, of course, is to work on technologies for rapid development, production, and distribution of vaccines. Because regardless of whether the avian flu threat materializes or not, a flu pandemic is a near-certainty sooner or later, and so are outbreaks of other diseases yet unknown.