PODCASTING FROM THE DOLLYWOOD EXPRESS: Are there twin mountains?

A MAJOR UPDATE at The Truth Laid Bear.

(Bumped to top)

PROMINENT ARAB BLOGGER ALAA has been arrested by the Egyptian government.

Sandmonkey has more, and so does Sabbah.

Contact information for the Egyptian embassy:

The Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt
3521 International Ct. NW
Washington DC 20008
Phone (202) 895 5400
Fax (202) 244 5131
(202) 244 4319
Email:

As TigerHawk says, “release the hounds!”

UPDATE: Global Voices has more.

BLACKFIVE TV appears on the scene. Be very afraid.

PHOTOBLOGGING at The Itinerant Angler.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES is up! So is this week’s Haveil Havalim.

OUCH: “Salon’s interstitial ads confront would-be users with the message ‘Good commercials are as rewarding as the Salon journalism they support,’ with which they must choose to ‘Agree’ or ‘Disagree,’ leaving the user in a desperate Tron-world binary conundrum of surely unintended ironies in which disagreement loops back around to agreement.”

“DRAFT HOLLYWOOD:” Read the whole thing.

MORE SCANDAL IN FRANCE:

A burgeoning political scandal of alleged dirty tricks involving the cabinet’s two top ministers has tainted the entire French government, pushing it to the brink of paralysis and collapse in the final year of President Jacques Chirac’s administration, according to government officials and political analysts.

Not surprising, but unfortunate, as France could actually use an effective government at the moment.

OF WINDS AND WHIRLWINDS: Now that the Muhammad-cartoon precedent has been set, we’ve got Christians calling for censorship of stuff that offends them. No surprise, there.

UPDATE: Chuck Pelto emails: “they won’t be as effective as their Islamic counterparts ….until they start sawing off people’s heads with dull knives.” That’ll come, if people keep caving to the Islamists. Fanatics learn by example.

MORE ON Kerry’s fake quote problem. Good advice: “someone in the Kerry campaign should monitor the blogs more to prevent his recycling already debunked urban myths, such as the plastic turkey story and the Jefferson quote.”

UPDATE: “Ridiculing Kerry is the highest form of patriotism.”

Jefferson didn’t say that either. But I think that’s only because he never heard Kerry speak.

At least Michael Dukakis just went away.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE looks at the killing of Atwar Bhajat.

Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit notes Muqtada Al Sadr’s bad behavior.

IT’S STILL PLEDGE WEEK over at Protein Wisdom.

REPUBLICANS SEEM TO BE UNHAPPY WITH HAYDEN as CIA Director, and Captain Ed wonders why the White House didn’t run this by them first.

GEORGE WILL SAYS IT’S OUR CIVIC DUTY to see United 93, and makes a point I’ve made here a time or two:

The message of the movie is: We are all potential soldiers. And we all may be, at any moment, at the war’s front, because in this war the front can be anywhere.

The hinge on which the movie turns are 13 words that a passenger speaks, without histrionics, as he and others prepare to rush the cockpit, shortly before the plane plunges into a Pennsylvania field. The words are: “No one is going to help us. We’ve got to do it ourselves.” Those words not only summarize this nation’s situation in today’s war but also express a citizen’s general responsibilities in a free society.

Indeed. What’s interesting are the pans from lefties in the audience reviews. It’s like that idea is offensive, somehow. Happily, however, people in general have learned the lesson. And learned it rather well.

MARKOS IS DOWN ON HILLARY CLINTON:

Hillary Clinton has a few problems if she wants to secure the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. She is a leader who fails to lead. She does not appear “electable.” But most of all, Hillary has a Bill Clinton problem. . . . Hillary Clinton leads her Democratic rivals in the polls and in fundraising. Unfortunately, however, the New York senator is part of a failed Democratic Party establishment — led by her husband — that enabled the George W. Bush presidency and the Republican majorities.

Tim Blair figures that this means Hillary has the nomination all sewn up. But Kos is certainly right about this:

While Republicans spent the past four decades building a vast network of small-dollar donors to fund their operations, Democrats tossed aside their base and fed off million-dollar-plus donations. The disconnect was stark, and ultimately destructive.

Unlike Kos, however, I don’t see many signs that the Democratic party is moving in a more constructive direction, or that the influence of those big-money donors is waning. But I could be wrong.

And, as John Kerry’s continued fake-Jefferson-quoting demonstrates, we could do worse!

Me, I think that Hillary might just turn out to be “the most uncompromising wartime President in the history of the United States.” After all, she’s already argued that President Bush had “inherent authority” to go to war against Saddam without any new Congressional authorization.

If she promises to make Atrios Secretary of State she just might get my vote, but some people might be frightened by such a warlike approach.

DEMOCRATIC TALK OF IMPEACHMENT AND INVESTIGATIONS: Shoring up the GOP? I think it very well may come to the Republicans’ rescue. Bush’s biggest problem is in the unhappiness of the GOP base — see below — and nothing will push them back into the fold faster than Democratic politicking of this sort.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

HOMELAND SECURITY IS STILL A JOKE, and Jonathan Rauch writes on how the government let down its guard by passing on an innovative security approach:

Hiring people to stand guard full-time over all but the most sensitive sites would be prohibitively costly and cumbersome. Walker’s solution was what he calls distributed surveillance. HomeGuard posts webcams on the peripheries of no-go zones around critical sites. Cameras, of course, are old hat. Here is the innovation: Regular people, not high-priced security professionals, monitor the sites over the Internet. If a camera detects motion, it transmits a picture to several “spotters,” ordinary Web users who earn $10 an hour for simply looking at photos online and answering this question: “Do you see a person or vehicle in this image?” A yes answer triggers a security response.

The details are ingenious, and you can read about them in my 2003 column on HomeGuard. Suffice to say that, in principle, the system is cheap and almost infinitely scalable. In practice, however, the system needed field-testing before private industry could consider it. Having built a prototype, Walker Digital approached the government in the spring of 2003.

On the recommendation of Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., Walker and his staff met with a series of officials, first at the White House and then at DHS, where they spoke with people from then-Secretary Tom Ridge on down. They were not selling anything. “We were very clear we would give it to a contractor in a heartbeat,” Walker says. “We were reluctant to build a field trial. It’s not our thing. We’re systems designers.” Having designed the system, they were trying to give it away.

It didn’t happen, though. Too bad, as it seems like a real Army of Davids approach.

VARIOUS PEOPLE ARE WONDERING why the New York Times felt compelled to stick up for Zarqawi.

I’LL BE ON MICK WILLIAMS’ CYBER LINE radio show in a few minutes. You can listen live here.

S.K. BUBBA offers a sure-fire mint julep recipe. It’s even better if you let the bourbon steep overnight in the mint, which is the secret to my friend Ralph Davis’s famous mint juleps.

Yes, I know the Derby’s already over. But mint julep season has just begun.

WELL, DUH: “Angry conservatives are driving the approval ratings of President Bush and the GOP-led Congress to dismal new lows, according to an AP-Ipsos poll that underscores why Republicans fear an Election Day massacre.”

Plus, Robert Novak reports: “Republican National Chairman Kenneth Mehlman went to Capitol Hill last Tuesday to warn the party’s House and Senate campaign staffers of dire consequences unless Republicans break the current legislative deadlock. Mehlman stressed the necessity to pass a budget resolution and an immigration reform bill, dealing with two issues that seriously concern the Republican base.”

Hugh Hewitt, meanwhile, says that all is unfolding as he has foreseen.

UPDATE: Over at Ankle Biting Pundits (permalinks not working for some reason, but at the moment it’s the top post), some skepticism about the poll’s demography, with some support. And Professor Bainbridge has related thoughts.

IRANIAN NUKES, U.N. SANCTIONS, AND MORE: Austin Bay has a roundup of news and analysis.

THIS IS COOL:

In an attempt to “seek novel solutions for mission challenges from non-traditional sources,” according to a press release, NASA has announced yet another public competition, this time to create a lunar landing “analog.” With a $2.5 million prize purse at stake, this is the twelfth such event to be announced in the past year under the space agency’s Centennial Challenge program. This new challenge is co-sponsored by the X Prize foundation, and will be held in October at the X Prize Cup Expo.

According to X Prize, the competition will be divided into two “levels.” Level one, with a $350,000 first place prize, a vehicle to take off, fly to150 feet (50 meters) altitude, and then to hover for 90 seconds before landing precisely on a landing pad 100 meters away. Level two, which stipulates a hover of 180 seconds and a landing on a rocky, simulated moon surface, comes with a $1.25 million first place prize.

This was announced at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles yesterday. Dale Amon has been blogging from that conference over at Samizdata — just keep scrolling.