HELPING WOMEN IN PAKISTAN: Matoko Kusanagi sends this link on efforts to pass legislation in Pakistan.

BLOGGING CAN GET YOU INTO TROUBLE:

A blog has apparently led to the firing of a staffer in the Ben Cardin for Senate campaign.

According to the Washington Times Insider Politics blog, a person labeling herself the ‘Persuasionatrix’ wrote that she was on the staff of a high profile, contested Senate campaign and was based in Baltimore.

Persuasionatrix wrote that staffers should pose holding Oreo brand cookies under the caption ‘devouring the competition.’

Cardin, the ten-term white Congressman from the Baltimore area, is the Democratic candidate facing black Lieutenant Governor and Republican candidate Michael Steele. . . .

The Cardin staffer also allegedly posted statements on her blog about not being able to fire a subordinate whose performance was inadequate because the junior worker was black.

It’s kind of like Dog Days, only without the sex.

DAVID CORN DENIES charges that he outed Valerie Plame.

UPDATE: Cliff May isn’t convinced. And Bill Hobbs says he was way ahead of this story.

MORE: Related developments here.

MODERN FEMINISM DEFIES GENDER STEREOTYPES with statements like “Ann Althouse is a nasty old crone.”

One might almost think that feminism has become nothing more than a subset of the Democratic Party’s activist base. Actually, that has become so obvious that even Maureen Dowd managed to figure it out when she famously commented: “Feminism died in 1998 when Hillary allowed henchlings and Democrats to demonize Monica as an unbalanced stalker, and when Gloria Steinem defended Mr. Clinton against Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones.”

It’s all about supporting the right people politically, even if it turns you into a groper’s support group. Which was, of course, the point of Althouse’s post.

UPDATE: Reader Patrick Kelly emails:

I think it is now safe to say, after hundreds of comments at Ann Althouses’s blog, Feminisitng, TalkLeft, your wife’s, many others, and your post, that Jessica Lindstrom has the most famous breasts in the portion of the blogosphere to which I admit visiting.

On a related note, I find it appalling that anyone would find it acceptable to dine with a former President in clothes as casual as those in the picture. To paraphrase Kos “would it kill you to wear a jacket?”

I agree with Kos on that. [LATER: I’m not the only one: “I find myself in surprised agreement with Markos Moulitsas: it wouldn’t have killed those people to have all dressed more formally. I’d wear a suit and tie if I was meeting former President Clinton. Heck, I’d wear a suit and tie if I was meeting former President Carter. For my own pride’s sake, if nothing else.”]

MORE: Matt Sherman looks at making the personal political. And vice versa, these days.

STILL MORE: The left blogosphere is starting to sound unhinged over this one. In the comments at Helen’s they’re calling us “Taliban Republicans.” Er, yeah, because we’re like, anti-sex and stuff. Riiiight. Tell it to Richard Bennett and Ben Domenech. [Wait, I thought you were libertarian hedonists? — ed. That would be closer.]

And if Atrios thinks that publishing this photo is embarrassing to either of us, well it just proves he’s missing the point as usual. Jeez.

Meanwhile, over at the National Journal’s Beltway Blogroll Daniel Glover is calling the Clinton lunch the “the blog lunch that backfired.” Yeah, you can’t take these people anywhere.

Plus, ouch.

FINALLY: Pretty much the last word: “We thought we were the movers and shakers, so how come everybody is laughing at us?”

THINKPROGRESS’S STORY THAT AIR AMERICA IS GOING BANKRUPT appears to have been too far ahead of the news cycle to be, um, true.

TIGERHAWK looks at The Times, the Pope, and Muslim rage.

Frankly, I’m pretty tired of “Muslim rage.” If they’re that insecure about their religion, maybe the problem isn’t with the critics. I’m also pretty unimpressed with Western commentators who serve as enablers to such juvenile and destructive behavior.

“Baptist rage” certainly wouldn’t get this kind of slack from the Times.

UPDATE: John Hinderaker: “The Pope can perhaps be excused for thinking that Islam can be associated with violence. He probably took it personally when an Islamic terrorist group plotted to assassinate his predecessor. If the Vatican ever starts assassinating imams, then they’ll really have something to protest.”

Meanwhile, Tom Smith offers a lengthy excerpt from the Pope’s speech and comments: “The Pope can apologize if he wants to, but I certainly don’t think he has anything to apologize for. I suppose he could explain that when he quotes a dialog between a 14th century Byzantine emperor and an educated Persian, he does not therefore endorse the views of either interlocutor. He might even quote something in order to ask, as he does, what are we to make of this? Obviously, the Pope was just putting in context the question the emperor was posing, and that has been posed for a long time, since 1391 anyway — whether forced religious conversions are religiously justified.”

Professor Bainbridge has further thoughts. (And scroll down for several other posts).

And Jacob T. Levy (yes, he’s blogging again, now at TNR) says that people are inappropriately treating the Pope as a political, rather than a religious, figure: “surely religious believers are in the business of drawing distinctions with, and denying the truth of, other religions. . . . I don’t expect Catholics to take their theology less seriously than Muslims do; I certainly don’t expect the Pope to take his theology anything less than wholly seriously. And what is a Catholic, committed to the truth of Catholicism, to think of Mohammed’s additions to and transformations of the Christian bible?”

Ed Morrissey sees an imbalance: “People use words to criticize Islam; Muslims use stones, fire, and eventually bombs to protest back. When was the last time Christians threw firebombs at a mosque to protest Muslim imams characterizing Christianity as polytheistic? When have we seen Jews firebomb mosques for Muslim leaders calling them the descendants of pigs and monkeys, a common insult from both religious and secular Muslims in the Middle East? Muslims have proven Benedict prophetic, and don’t think for a moment that this wave of violence has peaked.”

The Anchoress thinks that Benedict has them exactly where he wants them: “Benedict has managed – in his very scholarly fashion – to apply a very hot drawing poultice to the enormous and festering boils of both radical Islamism and rampant secularism.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Shiite Muslim IraqPundit opines:

I can think of a lot more pressing matters for Muslims to be angry about. How about taking to the street over the murderers who have been disgracing our religion by shedding oceans of innocent blood in its name? On Thursday, a car bomb blew up outside a Baghdad orphanage. In all the wide sweep of the Muslim Street, is there no one sufficiently disgusted to raise his voice over such a thing? It should be easy enough, especially since a common excuse has been that the perpetrators of such evil cannot be Muslims. Surely, if such “non-Muslims” are killing Iraqi Muslims in great numbers, it’s worth the attention of the pious.

You’d think.

But was the Pope Dowdified? Plus, much more, here.

REP. JACK KINGSTON (R-GA) replies to his critics in the blogosphere.

Georgia blogger Jason Pye fires back: “Do you realize that you voted with Jim Moran?”

MALARIA UPDATE:

The World Health Organization on Friday called on more developing countries, particularly in Africa, to begin spraying the controversial pesticide DDT to fight malaria.

The difference: DDT, longed banned in the United States because of environmental damage, is no longer sprayed outdoors. Instead it’s used to coat the inside walls of mud huts or other dwellings and kill mosquitoes waiting to bite families as they sleep. . . .

“We must take a position based on the science and the data,” said Dr. Arata Kochi, the WHO’s malaria chief. “One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual house spraying. Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT.”

“It’s a big change,” said biologist Amir Attaran of Canada’s University of Ottawa, who has long pushed for the guidelines and described a recent draft. “There has been a lot of resistance to using insecticides to control malaria, and one insecticide especially. … That will have to be re-evaluated by a lot of people.”

The U.S. government already has decided to pay for DDT and other indoor insecticide use as part of President Bush’s $1.2 billion, five-year initiative to control malaria in Africa.

The cost of malaria in Africa is enormous — it’s hard to do much beyond bare survival when you’re sick all the time. Plus, the noneconomic costs are very high, as life sucks when you’re sick all the time, too . . . .

I highly recommend this piece by Malcolm Gladwell on DDT, malaria, and mosquitoes. And here’s a piece by Ron Bailey on the ongoing political battles over DDT, which tend to pit green correctness against the lives of poor people in the Third World. And yes, this has been an InstaPundit topic for a long time.

UPDATE: Reader Dexter Van Zile emails:

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa in the 1980s.

I served in Zaire (know the DRC).

I got malaria numerous times.

It sucks. I really sucks.

The headache, the exhaustion, the fever are unbelievably debilitating.

If DDT works, use it, use it, use it.

My sentiments exactly.

CLINTON TAKES A LESSON FROM REAGAN:

On Wednesday, more than 1,000 people will gather in New York at the second annual Clinton Global Initiative, a project led by former President Clinton, to tackle problems involving global health, poverty, religious strife and threats to the environment.

Setting the meeting apart from other gabfests, in part, is its steep price: An admission ticket costs $15,000. More than that, most participants — who include government leaders, corporate executives, heads of nonprofit organizations and an array of big names like Christiane Amanpour, Shimon Peres, Katie Couric and Rupert Murdoch — must pledge to fund and carry out an initiative to help address one of the problems. And therein lies a dilemma.

A few participants at last year’s fest “pledged” to carry out programs that already were under way. In other words, the initiatives weren’t specifically generated by the CGI. Moreover, not all participants followed through on their commitments. That’s a no-no.

So this year, the Clinton folks have adopted a Reaganesque principle: Trust but verify. “We have an even greater focus on ensuring that the commitments are specifically for CGI and that the commitments are real,” says spokesman Jay Carson.

That seems wise.

EARLIER REPORTS of the capture of Afghan terror leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar turn out to be incorrect: “The capture suspect is a high level commander in Hezb-i-Islami, and is said to be a dead ringer for Hekmatyar.”

OVER AT OP-FOR, a look at the currently-deteriorating situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some thoughts on how to respond.

Plus, a look at the fall of Waziristan.

I MENTIONED DIANE DUANE EARLIER, and she emailed to tell me that she’s got a blog now.

MORE RESTAURANT-BLOGGING FROM DANNY GLOVER:

Last week, I talked about the menu at Ruby Tuesday’s. This week, I’ll tackle the heady subject of kids’ meals at McDonald’s.

Our 6-year-old son, Anthony, was quite thrilled when Ronald and company decided to feature Hummers in the meals this summer. But environmental bloggers were offended by the promotion of the gas-guzzling vehicles, so they want McDonald’s to feature hybrid vehicles in future kids’ meals.

I don’t own a Hummer, and I don’t want one, in part for the very reason that environmentalists hate them. But I also think it’s a bit silly to protest the toys in kids’ meals. So here’s what I think: Hummer owners should unite for one day and conduct drive-through events at their local McDonald’s restaurants.

Now that gas prices are down, they might be able to afford to . . . .

ANN ALTHOUSE: “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts.”

Meanwhile, Extreme Mortman looks at another photograph.

UPDATE: There’s a Carnival of the Boobies?

ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s a support group!

Plus, a further look at double standards in political sensitivity.

MORE: Somehow, this item from The Onion seems to fit.

MICHAEL LEDEEN remembers Oriana Fallaci.

JONAH GOLDBERG isn’t sure it would be so bad if the Republicans lost control of Congress:

The rub of it, from a conservative perspective, is that Republican control of the House doesn’t equal conservative control. It may not seem that way to liberals who think Joe Lieberman is right wing, but from the vantage point of the conservative movement, GOP dominance has been an enormous disappointment . . . . This may be why some of us aren’t contemplating the possible, if not probable, Democratic takeover of the House with too much dread.

If it weren’t for the war, and the Democrats’ fecklessness on national security, I wouldn’t dread it either.

UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge: “Republicans deserve to lose, but the Democrats don’t deserve to win.”

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN EMAILING ME THE POLLS, but I haven’t been linking them because polls are dubious and tend to fluctuate. But now Chris Bowers writes: “Bush’s approval is up. Fortunately, it still isn’t very good, but you would have to be in denial at this point to not notice the upward trend.”

Yes, it’s noticeably up from where it was. The question is whether the trend will continue. I suspect that it’ll matter less anyway after the ’06 elections, when everyone is looking at ’08.

To the extent that Bush has improved, I do think that it has to do with security voters, giving more support to Jim Geraghty’s thesis. (Rasmussen says that Bush’s increase stems from returning base members, though he doesn’t make clear if they’re “security voters.” Seems likely, though, given that it’s the week of 9/11 and Bush made a big issue of that). Bush is, however, not doing as well with the “war base” as he was a couple of years ago because he doesn’t seem to be pressing as vigorously as Jacksonian voters would prefer.

Bowers, on the other hand, thinks it’s all about gas prices. In which case Bush’s approval may rise some more, if forecasts are correct.

JAMES SWANSON EMAILS that his book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer has been nominated for a Quill Award.

You can hear our podcast interview with Swanson here, and you can vote on the Quill Awards here.

I should note that Doktor Frank’s novel, King Dork, has also been nominated. You can vote on that here and here.

TOM MAGUIRE has more on Armitage, Plame, and Libby.

MAYOR RICHARD DALEY plays ’em like a fish.

REMEMBERING ORIANA FALLACI.

A DEBATE ON THE NEW NUCLEAR POWER, at Popular Mechanics.

THE BLOGGING FOR BOLTON VENTURE seems to be generating quite a lot of phone calls.

I USED TO KNOW DIANE DUANE back in the old days of the CompuServe science fiction forum, and I got her book So You Want to Be a Wizard, (a sort of proto-Harry Potter) for the Insta-Daughter. But the Insta-Daughter has been reading Jane Eyre, so I started reading Wizard myself. It’s as good as I expected.

UPDATE: Reader Heather Chambers emails:

I loved her entire young wizard series. My son, now 18 yrs old, still enjoys re-reading them. – We are taking him off to UC San Diego this weekend to begin his freshman year. If he doesn’t take them with him, I guarentee he will reread each of them over the 1 month Christmas break. (Sleep is somewhat optional at 18). Each of us read at least 5 books a week. I like the fact that the kids accept consequences for their actions and recognize the profound implications for others. Excellent introduction to philosophy and ethics for teens. Congrats on your niece! Terry Pratchett has a Disc World series. Some of them are written for kids and are exceptional as well. Wee Free Men and its sequel Hat Full of Sky – same theme of choosing to fight evil and to protect others without being preachy or syrupy.

I haven’t read those, but I’ll check them out.

A NEW JERSEY SWITCHEROO:

For pure entertainment value, not much can compete with the blood sport of New Jersey politics. Last week federal investigators launched a probe into whether U.S. Senator Robert Menendez illegally benefited to the tune of more than $300,000 from a rental-income deal he had with a nonprofit agency that received millions of dollars in federal contracts. Even liberal good government groups agree that the relationship may have violated congressional conflict-of-interest rules.

The allegations have sparked a mini-panic among state Democratic operatives, who not so long ago thought Mr. Menendez — who was appointed by Jon Corzine to complete his Senate term after being elected Governor in 2005 — had the November election in the bag. Now they see Republican Tom Kean Jr. surging into a lead. If Republicans were to pick up a seat in this deep blue state, Democrats’ chances of winning control of the Senate would be all but slammed shut.

That’s why, as reported by the Newark Star-Ledger, there’s now widespread speculation that the party brass may decide to throw Mr. Menendez overboard and replace him with an alternative — nine-term Rep. Rob Andrews, perhaps — who is regarded as more electable. This has become a familiar practice in the Garden State and has become known derisively as the New Jersey Switcheroo. . . .

If this story seems like déjà vu all over again, it should. This isn’t the first time New Jersey Democrats have nominated ethically challenged candidates for high office. Last year Jim McGreevey resigned the governorship after he hired his gay lover as the state’s national security director. In 2002, Senator Robert Torricelli was implicated in a bribery and campaign finance scandal, prompting the party oligarchs to throw him off the ballot and handpick Frank Lautenberg as his replacement on the ticket. Never mind that the deadline for ballot changes had passed. Senator Lautenberg kept the Senate seat from falling into Republican hands.

You’d think that the Jersey Democrats might try nominating people who aren’t crooks.