YESTERDAY’S DECK CHAIR POST produced some emails suggesting a cheaper version available at Lowe’s. I don’t know if it’s the same chair — it looks more like this chair, I think — but reader C.G. Browning says he bought one and liked it enough that he went back and bought more. And at less than half the price, it might be worth a try.

BATTLING REVIEWERS: Now this is kind of cool. Frank Wilson, who reviewed An Army of Davids for the Philadelphia Inquirer when it first came out, has now posted a response to the TNR review by Christine Rosen that I mentioned earlier this week.

It occurs to me that TNR has managed to attack both me and Kos from the right this week, which is no small achievement. Hey, maybe Kos is telling the truth about them going all conservative . . . .

A NICE ARTICLE ON THE MICKEY KAUS /ROBERT WRIGHT Bloggingheads.tv vehicle, from Jon Fine in Business Week. “It turns out that the nontheatrical is theatrical, and a serious political conversation between two poorly dressed bloggers is, yes, weirdly compelling.” (Via the Huffington Post).

A KELO-RELATED Executive Order: “It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.”

I’M ON HUGH HEWITT’S SHOW with Ed Morrissey, talking about the New York Times’ latest publication of classified information. You can listen live here.

Nobody from The Times was willing to talk, but you can see what others are saying here.

UPDATE: A reader who has lots of experience working for SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transfers, the entity involved in the financial surveillance program in question) emails:

What has not been stressed is that SWIFT is not used for individuals. It is used for processing money transfers, stock transfers and bond transfers from companies, governments, banks, insurance companies and NGO’s. What we essentially had on file was the holdings for almost all our clients and the clearance data for these transactions dating back for years. We had to keep all this on file to satisfy all the governmental regulations on taxations, etc.

What the NY Times has essentially done is open up to the terrorists the trails of all their transactions and how the banking procedures of money laundering was done for them by the system. They have essentially stopped dead the ability to track this money and keep it from being put in the hands of our worst enemies. Whether the terrorists might have guessed that their money was being transferred is a moot point. The NY Times had told them that their worst fears have been realized and that they need to find another way to move money around the world. They know it for sure now. Thank you, Bill Keller, and when the nice young man or woman from down the street is killed by one of these terrorists I can thank you for that as well.

When big companies dump toxic waste into rivers to enrich themselves, they’re criticized by the press. But this is the same kind of thing — self-serving profiteering at the public’s expense.

Meanwhile, a humorous take: “If anti-terror officials are allowed to access banking records now, then how long before the IRS has access to them as well?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: King Banaian has a much more thorough description of what’s going on with SWIFT.

THE TRUTH IS OUT: I’m a Leninist ally of Hillary Clinton.

And I tried so hard to conceal it!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More on Mollohan:

Representative Alan Mollohan helped funnel at least $179 million in U.S. government contracts over the last six years to companies that gave to the West Virginia Democrat’s family-run charity, tax records and other documents show.

The money went to 21 companies and nonprofit groups that contributed $225,427 to the Robert H. Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation in 2004 — almost half of the charity’s revenue, according to the documents. The congressman, an Appropriations Committee member whose finances are under federal investigation, is the secretary of the foundation, which is named for his father.

The charity, which distributes scholarships to West Virginia students, raises most of its money from corporate sponsors of an annual golf tournament attended by Mollohan, 63. The event gives company executives an opportunity to meet with him in a casual setting without having to report the donations as lobbying expenses.

“They are buying time, they are buying access, they are buying goodwill for their particular corporate needs,” said Rick Cohen, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a Washington-based group that advocates strict ethical standards for charities.

(Via PorkBusters.org).

THE MIAMI TERROR ARRESTS are apparently all about changing the focus from John Kerry.

You need a reason to change the focus from John Kerry?

I’M BEING CRITICIZED FROM THE LEFT for being insufficiently suspicious of the Clintons.

This really is the week where I just can’t please anybody.

UPDATE: No, really, I can’t.

TIM CHAPMAN has a new blog.

THIS WEEK’S BLOG WEEK IN REVIEW PODCAST is up over at Pajamas Media, with Austin Bay, Marc Cooper, Neo-Neocon, and me.

BLOGNITIVE DISSONANCE: I’m not sure what it means, but it sounds cool . . . .

NORM MINETA RESIGNS: And I’m taking credit. Sure, it’s been like three or four years since I called for him to step down — but I was just “ahead of the news cycle,” as they say. I think it’s just the Laura Crane breast incident coming home to roost at last.

ROVE AND SATAN: Together again! I guess now that he doesn’t have that indictment hanging over his head, it’s safe . . . .

UPDATE: Reader Ryan Hamilton emails: “The fact that they’ve been seen together is going to disappoint a lot of people who had insisted that Rove IS Satan.”

Nah. If he were Satan, he’d have better hair.

SCALIA INVERTS CRIMINOLOGY RESEARCH in the Hudson case.

I’ve never been a Scalia fan, and this certainly doesn’t improve my opinion.

THE KOSOLA SCANDAL is all part of Hillary Clinton’s cunning plan. I should have known! (Via TTLB).

UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias is taking a let’s you and him fight approach.

Meanwhile, Dean Esmay comments: “This all SO reminds me of the ‘Buchanan Brigades’ on the internet, circa 1992-1996. I seem to be the only one left who remembers Pat Buchanan’s internet-based political campaign, and how exactly they acted like the Kos-ites act now.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “If you strike me down, Lord Vader, I shall only become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

Although I can imagine an awful lot.

MORE: A suggestion that I should have invoked a different movie.

How about this line: “He saw Jedi 17 times, eh.”

MORE STILL: Yep, somebody got the reference.

THE NOTE:

The Democrats’ Iraq policy is NOT “cut and run” (Reed and Kerry), NOT “irresponsible” or “unpatriotic” (Reid), and NOT based on “political considerations,” (Feingold).

Glad that’s cleared up.

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER ALAA has been released from prison.

SO THE BEACH HOUSE WE RENTED came with this cool deck chair, which everybody loved. I liked it so much that I wrote down the name, searched it on the Web, and ordered one from Amazon. It reclines kind of like one of those zero-gravity recliner chairs, and even though it folds up neatly for storage, it’s not rickety like most folding deck chairs. Downside — it’s not especially cheap. But given my unsatisfactory experiences with its predecessors, I’m happy.

Perhaps it will encourage me to spend more time on the deck drinking beer, and less time at the computer . . . .

WHAT HATH KIM JONG IL WROUGHT?

Many Japanese in the aftermath of the Cold War seriously questioned their country’s security alliance with the United States. A decade later, those voices are a lot softer, and one nation deserves much of the credit: North Korea.

The fears this week that the mercurial communist regime is preparing for its first test of a long-range missile since 1998 have again illustrated one of the premier rationales for Tokyo’s enduring partnership with Washington.

Military ties between the two are already tight.

Another reason, you’d think, why the Chinese would want to keep the North Koreans on a shorter leash. And there’s this:

Japan and Washington agreed Friday to strengthen cooperation on missile defense amid concerns of a possible long-range rocket launch by North Korea, as U.S. forces wrapped up massive Pacific war games in a show of military might.

The five days of exercises _ the largest in the Pacific since the Vietnam War _ brought together three aircraft carriers along with 22,000 troops and 280 warplanes off Guam in the western Pacific.

The exercise “was a demonstration of the U.S. Pacific Command’s ability to quickly amass a force … and project peace, power and presence in the region,” Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula told The Associated Press.

Like I said.

DENNIS HASTERT HAS UNLEASHED HIS LAWYERS ON THE SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION, regarding his real estate / earmarking scandal. Their legal argument seems rather unimpressive to me, and the move seems guaranteed mostly to ensure more publicity, and more people looking into Hastert’s affairs.

My thoughts on blogs and libel, along with cautionary advice for public-figure plaintiffs, can be found here.

JOHN TAMMES ROUNDS UP news from Afghanistan that you may have missed.

WHAT IF YOU HAD A GITMO PROTEST and only seven people showed up? All of them working for the organizers.

Why, you’d get major media coverage, of course!

AUSTIN BAY looks at Iran vs. Iraq, and the Iraqi government’s peace offer to the Sunnis. “Maliki’s amnesty looks very similar to the program Allawi wanted to implement. The difference is Maliki has the political power of a democratically-elected national unity government behind him. The Sunnis holdouts have also suffered another two years of defeat.”

A PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS MUIR AND MICHAEL YON, over at TCS Daily.