THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’S NUMBERS GUY looks at ethanol as an alternative fuel. (Free link.)

In case you missed it, here’s our podcast interview of Popular Mechanics editor-in-chief Jim Meigs on ethanol and other alternative fuels, with a link to the PM article on the topic.

ROGER SIMON proposes a successor to Kofi Annan.

His proposal is a bit more, um, ruthlessly pragmatic than mine.

WHY THEY HATE US: I blame Hollywood. So do Muslim women, according to a Gallup survey:

The most frequent response to the question, “What do you admire least about the West?” was the general perception of moral decay, promiscuity and pornography that pollsters called the “Hollywood image” that is regarded as degrading to women.

No doubt antiwar Hollywood producers and talent will begin self-censorship at once to remedy this problem. Look for remakes of those wholesome Bing Crosby Irish-priest movies.

KHOMEINI CALLS FOR BUSH TO invade Iran.

Well, a Khomeini. Not the dead one, though. That would be bigger news.

HUGH HEWITT accuses Washington Post blogger Joel Achenbach of engaging in moral equivalence regarding Zarqawi and American forces in this post, but I have to say that I didn’t read it that way. To me, it seemed that Achenbach was juxtaposing the bestial approach of Zarqawi with the matter-of-fact tradesmanlike approach of the U.S. military.

Now some of the comments below Achenbach’s post, on the other hand, are just pathetic — but not surprising.

VIRGINIA POSTREL WRITES on How massage went from the strip club to the strip mall.

I had some semi-related thoughts here.

SCOTT ADAMS ON ZARQAWI’S DEATH:

This is a classic yet rare win-win-win-win scenario. The new Iraqi government is happy because he’s dead. The Americans are happy because he’s dead. Even his friends and coworkers are happy. Al-Qaida issued a statement saying, “We want to give you the joyous news of the martyrdom of the mujahed sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme.” . . .

I’m also happy for the pilot or drone operator that dropped the bomb on him. That guy has a story to tell. “You know that al-Zarqawi terrorist guy? I killed him on Scott Adams’ birthday.”

So Scott Adams is happy, too.

A CAT REALITY TV SHOW?

CLAUDIA ROSETT: “What matters at least as much as the killing of al-Qaeda top terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq is that we, in America, appreciate it for the important battlefield victory it truly is.”

Meanwhile, on another front in the war on Islamist violence:

The publishers of Indonesia’s version of Playboy magazine defied militant Islamists yesterday by producing their second issue. . . .

Playboy’s publishers said they were producing the magazine to defend democracy and freedom of expression against fear and intolerance.

An editorial called for “the absence of a monopoly set of values and views in our beloved country”.

And rightly so.

DONALD SENSING: “I think that more and more Muslims will decide that Ashraf al-Akhras is right: Allah is in the game, but not on al Qaeda’s side.”

SOME PHOTOS of Iraqis celebrating Zarqawi’s death.

FORGET ZARQAWI, HERE’S THE REALLY BIG NEWS! An email from Professor John Banzhaf at GWU:

NYC’s Women Celebrate 1st Potty Parity Anniversary [06/08/06]
Porcelain Proportionately Comes Slowly to Big Apple and Elsewhere

New York City’s Women’s Restroom Equity Bill, which went into effect one year ago, has provided ripples rather than gushers of relief to women in the Big Apple weary of waiting in long restroom lines, but it has also focused attention on the problem and triggered legislation both here and abroad, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, whom the media has dubbed “the father of potty parity.”

Zarqawi’s dead, but life goes on. And “Potty Parity” should have gotten more attention, on Women’s Confidence Day!

DEAR HOME FRONT: Letters from Iraq.

MORE ON ZARQAWI and a host of other topics, at the Pajamas Media blog week in review podcast, with Austin Bay, Richard (“Wretchard”) Fernandez, Eric Umansky, and Tammy Bruce.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This sounds worse than embarrassing:

A political fundraising committee headed by a defense contractor has paid thousands of dollars in fees to the stepdaughter of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) at a time when the contractor has been lobbying Congress for funding.

Lewis’ stepdaughter, Julia Willis-Leon, has been paid more than $42,000 by the Small Biz Tech Political Action Committee, according to campaign finance records. The PAC is led by Nicholas Karangelen, founder and president of Trident Systems Inc.

Records show the company received at least $11.7 million in earmarked funds in recent defense spending bills over which Lewis’ committee has jurisdiction.

But read the whole thing, as it gets worse.

FLIPPING THE BIG BIRD: Extreme Mortman on the Democrats and PBS.

RYAN SAGER IS AT YEARLYKOS, listening to people talk about how to spin Zarqawi’s death.

QUOTE OF THE CENTURY? Maybe not. But funny.

MICHAEL YON ON ZARQAWI’S DEATH:

By his own account, al-Zarqawi is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and many Coalition forces and contractors. An acolyte of Osama Bin Laden, al-Zarqawi was, to many, the face of terrorism in Iraq. This was partly the result of Bin Laden’s annointment of him as chief deputy there, but more so because of his sophisticated manipulation of the media and internet. His slick campaign videos, widely distributed and broadcast by media outlets around the world, depicted al-Zarqawi as a hands-on, stealthy military leader; but clearly, he was not a tactical genius. His greatest victories were public relation coups that catapulted him into the role of figurehead for terrorists. Our courageous friends in Jordan, who have also suffered at the hands of al-Zarqawi, are said to have aided in his destruction.

Terrorism is an information operation disguised as a military one. Zarqawi was better at the former than the latter.

DANIEL DREZNER: “Is Mark Malloch Brown really a diplomat?”

I wager to say that Bolton is hopping mad about this. How do I know? Because I, a lowly blogger, was e-mailed this story by Bolton’s deputy press secretary. And I’m guessing others were as well.

Bolton might be mad, but he’s also right — the speech will hurt the UN more than it will help it in this country. Brown’s speech will do for U.S. attitudes towards the UN what Mearsheimer and Walt’s “Israel Lobby” article did towards elite attitudes towards U.S. policy towards the Middle East — it will roil everyone up, but the kernels of insight contained in the speech (Brown makes a good point about the merits of UN peacekeeping) will be safely ignored because of the rhetorical and conceptual overkill.

There is one big difference, however — Mearsheimer and Walt were academics trying to be provocative — Brown is ostensibly a UN diplomat. He says his speech was meant as, “a sincere and constructive critique of US policy towards the UN by a friend and admirer,” but in characterizing Middle America as moronic xenophobes, he’s creating the very attitude he seeks to change.

I think that Brown should address “root causes.” Perhaps an end to rampant corruption and incompetence — and puerile anti-Americanism — at the United Nations would do some good. But how likely is that?

UPDATE: A Malloch Brown Fisking at L’Ombre de l’Olivier.

PERRY DE HAVILLAND looks at Kos’s “libertarian Democrats” approach.

UNTIL I NOTICED THIS ZARQAWI AIRSTRIKE VIDEO REMIX, it hadn’t occurred to me that the Bush Administration probably scheduled Zarqawi’s death so as to distract the media from YearlyKos! But now I’m questioning the timing.

UPDATE: More timing questions.

ROBIN HANSON: Forget the “creative class” — intelligent machines are coming!

THE AKAKA LEGISLATION WAS DEFEATED IN THE SENATE: Bill Frist blogs about why.

ZARQAWI’S DEATH: IraqPundit has thoughts on what it means for Iraq.