SCOTT JOHNSON charges the Post with cheap shots.

MICHELLE MALKIN IS VERY UNHAPPY with President Bush’s nominee to head the the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security:

This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco. And I can tell you that contrary to the Miss Mary Sunshine White House spokeswoman’s comments, rank-and-file DHS employees and immigration enforcement officials are absolutely livid about Myers’ nomination.

Quite a few other people seem to be unhappy, too.

ALLISON HAYWARD: “The Club for Growth is a court-bound guinea pig for the application of some new FEC theories.”

JIM HOFT sees surprising progress in Iraq.

On the other hand, there’s a problem with missing money from the Iraqi Defense Ministry. Rather a lot. This would seem to underscore the point, made here earlier, that corruption is a bigger threat than terrorists, long-term.

UPDATE: Here’s more good news on the terrorism front, but the corruption issue still needs to be dealt with. An Iraq that looks like Nigeria would be better than what we had under Saddam, but not as good as it ought to be.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

“DON’T GET STUCK ON STUPID:” Just heard Gen. Honore’s reproach to a reporter at a press conference on Rita.

UPDATE: Transcript and audio here. Could this be a new slogan for the blogosphere?

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: So I made the call I suggested other folks make, calling my Congressman (Jimmy Duncan) to ask if he would be willing to forego some local pork (either the specific items identified earlier in this post or something else, maybe from this Knoxville News-Sentinel list) in order to fund Katrina relief.

I spoke to his budget analyst, who promised me a swift response — by postal mail, as they don’t do email. Hmm. I know that franked mail is “free,” but it’s not as cheap as email — I think I just figured out another way for the Congress to save some money. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Jim Ewing emails:

Just tried sending Congressperson Duncan an email to reinforce that it might be a good idea to respond to you via e-mail.

From your “Jimmy Duncan” link, I got his page on the house.gov site. The contact menu button took me to the “write your representative” page of the site. This asked for my zip, which is in Georgia. So it get a prompt to inform me that my zip precludes me from sending a him an email. So the email barrier operates bidirectionally, in a way that would make Franz Kafka blanch with envy.

I think it’s safe to say that Rep. Duncan has no ambitions toward nationwide office. However, this seems to be a function of the House’s lame email setup which requires a ZIP+4 to send an email.

PORK UPDATE: Tom DeLay has changed his tune:

Raising taxes would kill jobs, choke off investment, and stifle economic growth. That’s not exactly a recipe for the kind of economic renewal that region so desperately needs.

Instead, I hope some of the money can be the product of spending sacrifices elsewhere in the federal budget.

There are programs all over the federal budget that are bloated or wasteful or inefficiently using the funds we provide them, and I’m very interested in identifying them.

Heh.

HERE’S A CANDIDATE FOR BUDGET-CUTTING:

Early last month, the bureau’s Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as “one of the top priorities” of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of “the Director.” That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. . . .

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

“I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror,” said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. “We must not need any more resources for espionage.”

Either the FBI has too much money, or the government’s priorities are screwed up, or both. If there’s another terror attack in America, how will Gonzalez and Mueller justify this? Maybe by blaming Congress: “Congress began funding the obscenity initiative in fiscal 2005 and specified that the FBI must devote 10 agents to adult pornography.” (Via Volokh).

I would have slapped the PorkBusters logo on this post, but I was afraid someone would notice that the pig isn’t wearing pants . . . .

IN THE MAIL: John Yoo’s new book, The Powers of War and Peace : The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11. Looks very interesting, and it’s sure to receive a lot of attention.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Howard Kurtz has picked up on the porkbusters effort and given it an extensive plug, though he’s pretty skeptical as to whether it will make a difference.

He may be right, of course, but it seems to me that we need to try. I also think that pork-barreling thrives through lack of transparency and scrutiny, and that we can work on that. Transparency and scrutiny are what the blogosphere is best at.

Speaking of which, the Porkbusters page has been updated, with lists of members of Congress and whether they’ve committed to cut pork. (Basically, no, at the moment). The list also has links to their webpages so that you can call or email them and ask why not.

Is it enough? Who knows, but it’s what we can do, and it can’t hurt.

UPDATE: Mark Tapscott says the porkbusters approach is gaining momentum and notes Congressional action and media agreement.

GRAND ROUNDS is up!

NICK SCHULZ WRITES on the link between poverty and bad governance.

MORE ON PORK: Powerline warns that the Katrina-relief bill will be a pork magnet beyond all precedent, which is undoubtedly true. Perhaps the blogosphere should take the “adopt a box” approach that Hugh Hewitt pioneered, with different people taking on different provisions.

Meanwhile, on a larger, structural level those of us who want more discipline on fiscal (and other) matters should probably think of pushing something like Brannon Denning & Brooks Smith’s proposed Truth In Legislation Amendment, which would impose considerable discipline on the practice of hanging unrelated items on big funding bills.

DEAN ESMAY: “For a country that’s on the verge of collapse, we seem to be doing pretty well.”

INDEED:

Thank God for the evil pharmaceutical companies. One day, when the history of this period is written, I have a feeling we will look back with astonishment as we recognize that advances in medical science, particularly pharmaceuticals, were arguably one of the most significant developments of this era. And yet the people who pioneered these breakthroughs were … demonized and attacked. Baffling and bizarre. I’m merely grateful the attacks haven’t stopped the research progress. They’ve merely slowed it.

I hope that we’ll remember who was behind that, too.

YEAH, I GUESS THAT’S, LIKE, PURE EVIL: “The Time Magazine Blog of the Year comes up with something to fact-check and blast into oblivion oh, every time you hit refresh.”

Better to direct your anger at the people who provide them with raw material, I’d think.

UPDATE: Greg Erickson notes that I’m mentioned as a “ringleader” in the same post and writes:

Now you know you’re ready for the big time. The liberals think you are an arch conservative. The conservatives think you are soft – a moderate at best.

Glenn Reynolds for President.

I’m just saying….

Yeah, that’s what they thought would work for Kerry.

THE DLC FACES A DOUBLE-BARRELED ASSAULT — first Kos, now Kaus: “Who needs Reed’s Democratic Leadership Council if its leaders are going to go to bat for this Old Democrat, special-interest, anti-government law?”

WELL, IT’S NOT QUITE THIS, but you can see it from here: “In the final declaration last week 191 countries, including Sudan and North Korea, went along with a restatement of international law: that the world community has the right to take military action in the case of ‘national authorities manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’. It comes too late to help Darfur, not to mention Rwanda and Cambodia, but it is a millennial change.”

And now that this principle is established, the next international human right is clear.

TOM MAGUIRE offers to refresh Bill Clinton’s memory.

I think Chris Lynch was right.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Michael Barone weighs in with this observation:

A worthy idea, and one that raises the question, an uncomfortable one surely for many congressmen, of whether voters really value pork barrel projects. Of course some interested parties do, but do most voters? In the course of writing the Almanac of American Politics, I have to read of all the various projects that members bring to their districts. It’s tedious reading after a while.

I suspect that most voters in a district don’t care about the pork, and would be happy without it.

USUALLY you hear this kind of story about email.

A BLOGOSPHERE POLL for Secretary General.

My vote is already cast.

I’VE SAID EARLIER that the failure of New Orleans’ police radio system seems to have had a lot to do with the subsequent collapse of the NOPD. Now John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jane Harman, and Curt Weldon have an oped in the Washington Post calling for survivable and uniform radio systems for first responders.

THE CARNIVAL OF CORDITE IS UP! So is the Carnival of the Capitalists.

And don’t miss the Blawg Review. Also, the Carnival of Personal Finance and the Virginia Blog Carnival.

ANN ALTHOUSE photoblogs from Hell.