A BAD REVIEW for the New Orleans rebuilding plan.

MICHAEL YON is reporting from Afghanistan en route to Iraq.

THE MANOLO NOTES some shocking evidence of global warming.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE notes some people who aren’t really supporting the troops.

WE CAN’T DISRESPECT RELIGION, CAN WE? Not the ones that might behead TV executives, anyway. But won’t there be more of those with this attitude? I guess this is a test case on whether people respond to incentives, or have overriding moral principles.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “I wonder if Jon Stewart will mock CC brass for showing how so very small their gonads are.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Maybe Moussaoui can explain that this isn’t about giving offense:

Asked if he was happy to hear her sobbing, he said, “Make my day.”

He noted many relatives of victims wept on the witness stand, then walked past him in the courtroom and looked his way without crying. “I find it disgusting that people come here to share their grief over the death of some other person,” he said.

“I’m glad there was pain, and I wish there will be more pain,” Moussaoui said. . . .

In a lengthy explanation of why he hates Americans, Moussaoui said Islam requires Muslims to be the world’s superpower as he flipped through a copy of the Quran searching for verses to support his assertion. He said one verse requires Muslims “to fight against all who believe not in Allah.”

“We have an obligation to be the superpower. You have to be subdued,” Moussaoui said. “America is a superpower and you want to eradicate Islam.”

Well, not before, but he may put the idea in a few folks’ heads. At any rate, this war isn’t about cultural insensitivity or intolerance, or imperialism. At least, not on our part. (Via Althouse).

CHANNELING MARTIN NIEMOLLER:

First, The Catholics came for South Park and I did not speak out because my head was in the sand.

Then, the Scientologists came for South Park and did not speak out because my head was in the sand.

Then, the Muslims came for South Park and I did not speak out because my head was in the sand.

Then, when I pulled my head out of the sand and turned on Comedy Central to watch South Park it was gone.

I never really watched it anyway, but I’m guessing that this episode marks the beginning of the end.

MARCHES AGAINST ISLAMIZATION in Malaysia.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Brain knitting with nanoscale structures: “Healing brain and spinal-cord injuries is one of the most desirable, but challenging, goals of regenerative medicine. Molecules that self-assemble into nanoscale filaments may show the way.” I linked to a story on this earlier, but this Nature piece has more information.

IMMIGRATION AND A THIRD PARTY: Some thoughts over at GlennReynolds.com.

NEWT GINGRICH ON IRAQ: Patrick Hynes has a videoblog interview of Gingrich.

UPDATE: While Gingrich says the press misrepresented his position, Bob Owens notes some press rowback on another Iraq story.

MICHAEL MALONE ON THE APPLE CASE: “What is a journalist? A court in California may give us an answer next week. And I’ll bet that it gets the answer wrong.” He continues:

These days, the MSM is hurriedly trying to pull up the drawbridge to protect the “professionals” inside from the nonjournalists beyond the walls. But the public isn’t fooled. For all the sniffing by the MSM about bloggers in pajamas and amateur journalism, most readers have figured out they can trust the reporting of a lone blogger like Iraq the Model as much if not more than the entire news apparatus of Reuters.

The cynical lawyers at Apple are trying to capitalize on that dispute and use the ignorant courts as its weapon in the process.

Indeed.

ALAN GREENSPAN thinks Sarbanes-Oxley is hurting U.S. capital markets.

MURTHA AND MORAN HEAR FROM TROOPS IN SUPPORT OF THE WAR:

“And, Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just arrived back from Afghanistan — we never got a letter, we never got a visit from you, you didn’t come to our homecoming. The only thing we got was a letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That’s reprehensible. I don’t know who you two are talking to, but the morale of the troops is very high.”

What was the response? Murtha said nothing, while Moran attempted to move on, no pun intended, stating: “That wasn’t in the form of a question, it was a statement.”

It was indeed a statement; a statement from both a constituent and a veteran that should have elicited something more than silence or a dismissive comment highlighting a supposed breach of protocol. This exchange, captured on video (it was on C-SPAN), has since been forwarded from base to base in military circles. It has not been well received there, and it only raises the already high level of frustration among military personnel that their opinions are not being heard. . . . Murtha undoubtedly knows full well that the greatest single thing that drags on morale in war is the loss of a buddy. But second to that is politicians questioning, in amplified tones, the validity of that loss to our families, colleagues, the nation and the world.

While we don’t question his motives, we do question his assumptions. When he called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, there was a sense of respectful disagreement among most military personnel. But when he subsequently stated that he would not join today’s military, he made clear to the majority of us that he is out of touch with the troops. Quite frankly, it was received as a slap in the face.

Read the whole thing.

HILTON WORRIED about “the number of wounded and disabled people” (who happen to be soldiers from Walter Reed and Bethesda) dining at Fran O’Brien’s? Sounds like an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen, if this report is true.

THIS LOOKS KIND OF LIKE BLOGADS FOR PODCASTS: Sounds kind of cool. I wonder how well it works.

THE EUSTON MANIFESTO proposes a renewal of Progressive politics.

JIM LINDGREN: “Did Comedy Central censor tonight’s episode of South Park? The answer would appear to be YES.”

(Not all commenters on his blog agree). Still, either way the point is the same: Don’t like people mocking your religion? Threaten them with violence. It seems to work pretty well.

UPDATE: Reader Anthony Fountain writes:

Glenn, you don’t have it quite right when you write, “Don’t like people mocking your religion? Threaten them with violence. It seems to work pretty well.” To be accurate you should change “religion” to “Islam.” If a Christian or Jewish group threatened violence over an unfavorable depiction of their faith, MSM would fall over itself getting it before the public, accompanied by pious references to the First Amendment and brave statements about refusing to cower before religious extremists. I’ll bet the New York Times has already written the editorial, ready to trot it out in the event.

Given the signals they’re sending, we may find out how they respond to threats from other groups. I suspect they’ll discover that Robert Heinlein was right when he said that it may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion — but that it’s better still, and usually easier, to be a live lion.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A lesson that Comedy Central hasn’t learned — it’s now official that they did censor South Park.

MICKEY KAUS picks up on Harold Ford’s remarks on immigration from our podcast interview. “It’s not that hard to get to Bush’s right on immigration and still sound like a Democrat.” I’ve been kind of surprised that the Democrats haven’t done more of this, given their African-American and labor constituencies. It strikes me that both parties are doing their best to ignore the base on this issue, and I’m not quite sure why that is.

PLAME UPDATE — LIBBY RESPONDS: Tom Maguire is all over the topic. And Dan Riehl has thoughts, too.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: A scathing editorial in the Wall Street Journal:

If Republicans lose control of Congress in November, they might want to look back at last Thursday as the day it was lost. That’s when the big spenders among House Republicans blew up a deal between the leadership and rank-in-file to impose some modest spending discipline.

Unlike the collapse of the immigration bill, this fiasco can’t be blamed on Senate Democrats. This one is all about Republicans and their refusal to give up their power to spend money at will and pass out “earmarks” like a bartender offering drinks on the house. The chief culprits are the House Appropriators, led by Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis of California and his 13 subcommittee chairmen known as “cardinals.” If Republicans lose the House–and they are well on their way–Mr. Lewis deserves the moniker of the minority maker. . . .

A category five political storm is building in GOP precincts around the country, and it is going to blow Republicans right out of the majority in November if they don’t soon give their supporters some reason to re-elect them. So far this year they’ve passed limits on free speech that liberals love, but they haven’t been able to extend the wildly successful 2003 tax cuts by even a mere two years. And now they won’t even allow a vote on budget reforms that their own President and a majority of their own Members support.

At the current pace, a Democratic majority in Congress would be preferable, if only for reasons of truth in advertising.

Ouch.

THE OFFICERS’ CLUB has been redesigned and renamed as Op For. And they’re podcasting!

MORE HOMELAND SECURITY PROBLEMS:

A computer failure that hobbled border-screening systems at airports across the country last August occurred after Homeland Security officials deliberately held back a security patch that would have protected the sensitive computers from a virus then sweeping the internet, according to documents obtained by Wired News.

The documents raise new questions about the $400 million US-VISIT program, a 2-year-old system aimed at securing the border from terrorists by gathering biometric information from visiting foreign nationals and comparing it against government watch lists.

It’s not entirely their fault, but rather an indication that (1) security systems probably shouldn’t be running Windows; and (2) most big organizations can’t move as fast as virus writers.

IT’S LIKE MAUREEN DOWD WITH TIMES SELECT: Howard Stern has a lot fewer listeners now.

UPDATE: Related post here.

BLOCKING MILITARY RECRUITERS MAY BE EXPENSIVE: The Mountain States Legal Foundation is moving to cut off federal funding for UC Santa Cruz after the University permitted students to block military recruiters on campus. (Via Michelle Malkin). The University will presumably argue that this doesn’t reflect its policy; I’m not sure how that will play out.

THERE’S LOTS OF NEW STUFF up at the PorkBusters website. Just keep scrolling.