STEPHEN SCHWARTZ: All politics is local, even in Lebanon.

JAMES LILEKS: “Then you go outside and have a cigar with a cheerleader, which reminds you how things can change.”

AN ARMY OF DAVIDS REVIEW, at Albion’s Seedlings.

Kinda late to the game, but I’m certainly not complaining. Plus, nanotechnology in India.

EDUTOPIA: A podcast interview with Michael Schrage of the MIT Media Lab, at PoliticsCentral.

HEH: “During the recent Senate hearings on video game violence, one expert claimed that the ESRB underrated violent games. They went on to say that Pacman was 64% violent. To some, this means you shouldn’t play Pacman; to others, it highlights what’s wrong with Senate hearings.”

UPDATE: Freeman Hunt: “Awful! Plus, given the current epidemic of childhood obesity, is it really okay to show a heroic character who eats everywhere he travels and receives bonus points for consuming delicious fruits as large as his body? Good thing the Senate is working to protect us from this sort of villainy.”

AT IMAO, a call for an end to sock-puppetry is met with a chorus of approval from, er, all sorts of people.

WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO COPS that they can’t arrest people for photographing them?

The family of Neftaly Cruz said police had no right to come onto their property and arrest their 21-year-old son simply because he was using his cell phone’s camera. They told their story to Harry Hairston and the NBC 10 Investigators. . . .

Cruz, 21, told the NBC 10 Investigators that police arrested him last Wednesday for taking a picture of police activity with his cell phone.

Police at the 35th district said they were in Cruz’s neighborhood that night arresting a drug dealer.

Cruz said that when he heard a commotion, he walked out of his back door with his cell phone to see what was happening. He said that when he saw the street lined with police cars, he decided to take a picture of the scene.

“I opened (the phone) and took a shot,” Cruz said.

Moments later, Cruz said he got the shock of his life when an officer came to his back yard gate.

“He opened the gate and took me by my right hand,” Cruz said.

Cruz said the officer threw him onto a police car, cuffed him and took him to jail.

I think we need civil rights legislation making this kind of arrest illegal. Treble damages, plus the right to civil forfeiture of any police property or equipment used in the arrest. Oh, and respondeat superior liability against supervisors.

Well, we do need something , even if it’s unlikely that we’ll get it. Though a law defending ordinary citizens’ right to take pictures in public places seems like it might be a good campaign issue.

UPDATE: At Spleenville, skepticism and a claim that I am excessively libertarian. Hmm.

PR EMAIL OF THE DAY: A link to the Dollywood Mystery Mine Rollercoaster website. “It’s like being swallowed by the jaws of a beast.”

AN UGLY GRAPH of the Los Angeles Times’ circulation over the past decades. Big Media is looking more and more like the Big Three automakers.

TOM MAGUIRE on The New York Times and Ned Lamont.

TIM CHAPMAN DECRIES left-right pigeonholing.

BELTWAY BLOGROLL looks at the Cynthia McKinney / Hank Johnson runoff blog-battle in Georgia.

AN AUTOMOTIVE X-PRIZE, “will invite teams from around the world to focus on a single goal: design, build and sell super-efficient cars that people want to buy.”

Bring it on! (Via Ben Stewart).

Related post from David Adesnik. And note these comments on hybrids from Autopia.

DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE at the United Nations.

Plus, Kofi’s claims unravel.

FACT-CHECKING from Eugene Volokh, and a surprising response.

UPDATE: Doug Weinstein consults a transcriptionist.

ERIC SCHEIE: “I am still confused. Unless Howard Dean is covertly suggesting that anti-Semitism is a White House talking point, something does not make sense.”

MICHAEL TOTTEN has a long and thoughtful, if somewhat depressing, post on Lebanon.

KATRINA UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal reports on what went wrong, and publishes a free chapter of Chris Cooper and Robert Block’s new book on the subject, Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security. All links are free to non-subscribers.

Cooper and Block’s reporting does seem to suggest that this column may have been right about the focus on terrorism and its effect on our ability to respond to natural disasters.

GOOD QUESTION: “Is anyone thinking about the next Hezbollah, and the one after that?”

A BAD CASE OF the Nasrallah blues.

ATC LOOKS AT the latest Brookings numbers from Iraq.

<a href=”http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1199″BRUSSELS JOURNAL ON EUROPE: “The less control the authorities have with Muslims, the more control they want to exercise over non-Muslims. As problems in Europe get worse, which they will, the EU will move in an increasingly repressive direction until it either becomes a true, totalitarian entity or falls apart.”

Claire Berlinski worries about the same thing. I hope they’re wrong, but I fear they’re right.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Here’s a worthy venture. “435 districts, 435 blogs against pork!” Andy Roth writes:

Thanks to Congressman Jeff Flake’s 19 anti-pork amendments, we now have every House member on record regarding their positions on earmarks. Before now, House members have been able to avoid scrutiny because their pork was co-mingled with other projects and tucked into the dark corners of big spending bills. Or they were able to withstand the scrutiny because they were attacked as a whole chamber and not directly attacked themselves.

But because of Flake’s amendments, they were recently forced to cast up-or-down votes on specific projects. They could no longer deflect attention. Below is a summary scorecard of how they voted (below the scorecard are the vote descriptions). If you want an itemized list, you can click on any one of the following PDFs. A “YES” vote on any of the Flake amendments is a good, anti-pork vote. A “NO” vote is a bad, pro-pork vote.

So what can we do with this information? If you are a blogger, find your local congressman and blog about him. We have the votes, we have the members on record…now we just need to put some sunlight on the situation. Once you’ve blogged about a particular lawmaker, let me know. I’ll post a link to your blog on the list below. My email address is aroth at clubforgrowth dot org.

Follow the link for more information, and to sign up.

JASON LEOPOLD won’t go away. He really should.

UPDATE: This latest affair certainly makes the Greenwald sock-puppetry incident look harmless. As it was.

A NEW ZAWAHIRI TAPE, and much more, at the Counterterrorism Blog.

Together with the Truth Laid Bear aggregator, and the Pajamas Media coverage, this should be a regular stop if you’re interested in what’s going on with the war on terror.