IT’S MY BIRTHDAY, so blogging has been light as we’ve engaged in various family activities. It’s likely to remain so, but if you’re bored, note that GayPatriot is livepodcasting the Emmy awards.

CONVERTED TO ISLAM AT GUNPOINT: It’s not a religious war to us, but it is to them. More here.

Much, much more here. Plus this: “I’m glad these guys are safe and free. I wish them well. But I hope there will be some attention paid by Fox and other media to the way in which kidnappings and similar threats coerce and intimidate journalists, and may influence their coverage.”

RICHARD ARMITAGE WAS THE ORIGINAL PLAME LEAKER, according to the new book by David Corn and Michael Isikoff.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire, unsurprisingly, has thoughts. And there’s lots of discussion at The Corner, too — just keep scrolling.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A Tom Cruise Plamegate connection?

Meanwhile, Cruise has been busier pushing Scientology than anyone knew. According to a just-declassified State Department schedule, Cruise visited then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on June 13, 2003, just an hour after Armitage had met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. (It’s speculated that Armitage outed Valerie Plame as a CIA spy at that meeting.)

Cruise was accompanied by Tom Davis, head of the L.A. Celebrity Center for Scientology, and Kurt Weiland, Scientology’s veep of communications.

What was discussed? “Only Armitage can answer that question, and he’s no longer here,” a State Department spokesman told us. E-mails to Armitage and Cruise’s rep weren’t answered, nor was a call to Scientology headquarters.

Forget 9/11, here’s some real conspiracy-theory material.

SCALZI WINS: Reader Darin Briskman emailed last night, after I went to bed: “I am live at the Hugo awards ceremony in Anaheim. I thought you’s like to know that John Scalzi just won the Campbell Award for best new Science Fiction and Fantasy Author.”

You can hear our podcast interview with Scalzi here if you’re interested. Can we spot talent, or what?

THE ORANGE REVOLUTION’S AFTERMATH: Robert Mayer of PubliusPundit is reporting from Ukraine and Belarus.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Ed Feulner writes:

The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to build an easy-to-use Web database containing detailed information about all the grants and contracts the federal government hands out. This database would allow virtually anyone to see how much money a federal program received and how it spent that money. And, to ensure that public oversight is timely, information about spending would, by law, have to be posted within 30 days of when Congress authorized the money.

“It shouldn’t matter if you think government ought to spend more money or less money,” Obama says. “We can all agree that government ought to spend money efficiently. If government money can’t withstand public scrutiny, then it shouldn’t be spent.”

That makes perfect sense to most people. That’s why the bill has 29 co-sponsors, including staunch liberals, determined conservatives and self-professed moderates. Small wonder it’s moved through the legislative process at what amounts to lightning speed.

The bill was introduced in early April and has already been passed by a committee (the step in the process where senators usually bottle up controversial bills) and placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar.

But one senator doesn’t like it. And that may be enough to derail it, because he (or she) has put a hold on it. A secret hold. How’s that for irony — a secret hold on an open-government bill?

It may not stay that way for long, though. The watchdog group Porkbusters (www.porkbusters.org) is trying to smoke out the offender. It’s urging constituents to call their senators and push them to disavow the hold. Senators who go on record against the hold are “removed from the suspect list.”

Sen. Obama and I disagree on many things. But he’s right about this. The U.S. needs more openness in government, so anyone and everyone can review how Uncle Sam spends our tax money. Good government shouldn’t be held hostage by secret holds.

Lawmakers have the right — indeed, the responsibility — to block legislation they consider bad. But they should always do so publicly, identifying themselves and explaining their actions.

Indeed.

TIM BLAIR: “I’m not religious, so I don’t have a God in this fight, but I’d sure like to read a ‘short, wicked and witty’ book by Robyn Williams exposing all the scientific flaws in fundamentalist Islam (and the ABC’s aggressive promotion of that book).”

A PHILADELPHIA QUAGMIRE? Stop the killing. U.S. out of Philadelphia now!

UPDATE: Iraq veteran Chris Seamans isn’t impressed with the analysis in the Post article:

Among my other duties in Iraq, I was a convoy gunner. I am also a native of inner city Philadelphia who has spent almost all of my life in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. I can say from direct experience that combat duty in Iraq isn’t as easy or as safe as walking down the street in Philadelphia. This is a simple fact that the statistics you’ve linked to attempt to obfuscate. The statistics don’t take into account the fact that the majority of servicemen in Iraq spend their deployments behind rows of T-walls, Hesco barriers, and checkpoints, and that the much smaller number of troops that spend their time outside the wire face far greater danger than young black men walking the streets of Philly. The statistics also ignore the fact that the American military has some of the best trauma care in the world, and that the number of people who live despite grave injuries vastly outnumbers those who die from them. (If I remember correctly, the Army said a little while ago that the number of deaths in Iraq would be four times greater if not for its ability to quickly evacuate casualties to top quality medical facilities.) This means that a lot more soldiers have faced potentially life-threatening injuries than just those who have died. If the proper statistics were referenced (or even available) I’d bet my next paycheck that they would back up the obvious reality: Iraq is a warzone that is vastly more dangerous than even the deadliest sections of Philadelphia.

Jeez, you figure when you read something positive about the war in the Big Media it’s probably true. Oh, well.

But read this post from Dean Esmay, which seems about right.

ANTOTHER UPDATE: A response to Chris Seamans here:

No one is trying to say that Philadelphia is “more dangerous” than Iraq. (Well, okay, I’m sure someone somewhere is. But I’m not, Glenn Reynolds wasn’t, and the Washington Post article didn’t…)

Let me repeat: The point wasn’t that Philadelphia is “more dangerous” than Iraq. The point was that the death rate in Philadelphia among black men was 11% higher in 2002 than it was in Iraq among US troops during the first three years of the campaign. For the purposes of the point at hand, the statistics referenced were, indeed, the “proper” ones and they’re very clear.

I think that nearly everyone realizes that Iraq is far, far more dangerous than Philadelphia. But let’s not pretend that it’s more dangerous than it is. The statistics show how many people died in Iraq and they showed how many black men died in Philadelphia.

The ultimate point is that the numbers, when compared to each other, will probably surprise you.

Yes, by historical standards the war in Iraq isn’t terribly bloody, which does tend to get lost in the media coverage.

ROY BERENDSOHN:

Let me see if I’ve got this right. The price of all types of fuel is headed toward historically high levels. So how do we respond in this country? What are we doing, at least on principle, to cut our fuel consumption? Cranking up the AC.

I’ve never spent a summer as cold as this one. Everywhere I go, I find air conditioners running at full blast. Now, I’ve got nothing against air conditioning. But have you stepped inside an office building, train, restaurant, airport, house of worship, school, or doctor’s office lately? I rode on a train the other day that was, from one end to the other, nothing more than a rolling meat locker.

I think that air-conditioning is one of the great inventions of Western civilization. But I agree that over-airconditioning is rife, though it actually seems to me that things have been better this summer than last.

A LOOK AT JOHN MCCAIN’S somewhat iffy record on gun rights. This is a big problem for him.

IT’S LIKELY TO BE “HURRICANE ERNESTO” NOW: Brendan Loy has a roundup.

UPDATE: Jeez, I fixed an error above almost immediately, but not before Brendan saw it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I was just a little bit ahead of the news cycle — Ernesto’s a full-fledged hurricane now.

SPACE TOURISM UPDATE: “Anousheh Ansari, a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin, will become the world’s first female space tourist when she blasts off aboard a Russian rocket on September 14, the launch company said on Friday.”

FAUXTOGRAPHY AND OTHER JOURNALISTIC FAKERY, discussed by me, Charles Johnson, and Dean Barnett, in the latest TCS Daily podcast.

A SHOCKING KATRINA PHOTO has been released.

HOW LIKELY ARE YOU TO DIE WHILE SERVING IN IRAQ? About half as likely as Americans back home, reports the Washington Post. Yeah, there are some caveats — read the whole thing — but it’s hard to look at these numbers and see the catastrophe that the “527 media” are proclaiming. The Belmont Club has much more discussion.

UPDATE: But see this post.

UH OH: “A landmark scientific report that was supposed to bridge the gap between proponents and opponents of human embryonic stem cell research has become the focus of an escalating feud, with a prominent critic of the research alleging that scientists were deceptive in presenting their results.”

HOWARD MORTMAN NOTES A GROUNDSWELL: “If only Teddy Roosevelt had appeared on Comedy Central.”

WHAT CONGRESS WILL LOOK LIKE, if the Democrats win a majority.

ORIN KERR looks at the group dynamics of mass unsolicited email lists.

DIVORCE IS A BIG ISSUE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE these days, at least judging from the response to our podcast on marriage and divorce featuring family lawyer Lauren Strange-Boston. It’s now been downloaded over one and a half million times, edging it into first place. It’s funny, but although the political shows get more attention, overall I think the nonpolitical ones are more popular.

MORE AIRBRUSHING?

UPDATE: Stephen Spruiell: “If Mitchell altered the text of this article, what he’s done is taken an embarrassing situation and turned into one that seriously calls his ethics into question.”

Another take: “Gobsmackingly vile.”

PAYBACK IS A BITCH:

Lieberman — who after losing an Aug. 8 Democratic primary to Ned Lamont has launched a third-party bid to hold onto his seat in the Nov. 7 general election — was asked whether he still endorses Diane Farrell, Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy, three Democrats looking to unseat endangered Republican incumbents Chris Shays, Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson.

“I’m a non-combatant,” Lieberman declared. “I am not going to be involved in other campaigns. I think it’s better if I just focus on my own race.”

Why are the netroots surprised by this? You guys stuck a knife into him. Of course he’ll stick you back. And I suspect that this is only the beginning.

WHAT THE PRESIDENT KNEW AND WHEN HE KNEW IT: A look at the Clinton Administration’s intelligence on Saddam’s WMD.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Todd Steed.

THE “527 MEDIA:” Jed Babbin publishes a letter to Ken Mehlman on what the Republicans need to be doing.