IT’S PLEDGE WEEK at DailyPundit.

TIM BLAIR: Green role model.

MICKEY KAUS and his evil ways. He’s subtle, our Mickey.

GARRETT EPPS, at the Washington Post’s “PostGlobal” blog:

The Chinese government, which already severely curtails free expression, is about to pass a law forbidding media in China from reporting “sudden events” such as industrial accidents, natural disasters or public health emergencies in any way that displeases local or national authorities. Americans may be tempted to dismiss the issue as simply a minor tweaking of a foreign authoritarian system, but this would be a grave mistake. All of us — investors, workers and consumers — have a stake in the Chinese media’s fight for independence.

I agree. Read the whole thing.

A MANUFACTURED OPPOSITION PARTY IN RUSSIA? Designed, apparently, to give the appearance of vigorous opposition while remaining generally ineffectual and self-defeating. If this happened here, could we tell the difference?

THE SUGGESTION, which doesn’t seem to be tongue-in-cheek though it’s not clearly serious either, that Cheney and Rumsfeld are sabotaging democracy in Iraq so that they’ll have a free hand to level Iran with no pesky nation-building, seems pretty out-there to me. Bush’s critics are one of his greatest assets, as C.J. Burch said a while back. After I referred to that the other day, Burch emailed: “If the left doesn’t shut up the Republicans will be able to continue acting like this and still get themselves elected…God help us all.” And that goes for Bush’s over-the-top critics on the non-left, too.

I know that conspiracy theory is all the rage now, but I don’t see how this leads to a healthy politics.

UPDATE: Check out this poll!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Where does the Neueschwabenland Campaign fit in? I’m guessing that Cheney had a finger in this pie.

AUSTIN BAY TURNS LITERARY CRITIC, and looks at fellow novelist Gunter Grass: “Grass has imposed a guilt-trip on the rest of us to mask his own guilty past.”

“MORAL VICTORY” IN SIGHT? “U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a three-term Democrat now running as an independent candidate, leads the man who beat him in last week’s primary vote by 12 points in a three-way race, a poll released on Thursday shows.”

RUDY GIULIANI IN SOUTH CAROLINA: Ryan Sager reports:

Addressing roughly 75 supporters of Republican congressional candidate Ralph Norman — a business-oriented, conservative state representative running to unseat a Democratic incumbent — Mr. Giuliani gave an instructive preview of how he might try to sell himself to skeptical Southern primary voters.

The 2000 election, Mr. Giuliani said, had taught him just how important politics really is. While the election had seemed a relatively frivolous one at the time, suddenly — on September 11, 2001 — it mattered a great deal who was in the White House. “Sometimes, elections are more important than we realize when we’re in them,” he said.

While he tied that argument to the 2006 midterm elections, the real message was clear: The coming presidential election isn’t about the Confederate flag, it’s not about Roe v. Wade, it’s not about whether New York’s former mayor has had some marital troubles — it’s about who will lead America in the War on Terror. Some conservatives might not see eye-to-eye with this Blue-stater on social issues, but this is a new world we live in.

Read the whole thing. (Link was wrong at first; fixed now. Sorry!)

UPDATE: Kaus has more thoughts.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT IN BRITAIN: If you treat modest joking as racism, you’ll wind up with a nasty backlash. Though this seems to prove the point of the joke, doesn’t it?

UPDATE: Perry de Havilland is very unhappy.

A MAJOR DEFEAT FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION in the NSA communications intercept case, as District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor finds the program unconstitutional. No doubt it will be appealed, but the Bush Administration, in its usual summer slump, doesn’t need any more bad news right now.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh offers a somewhat skeptical take on the opinion. And several readers think that the timing is actually good for the Bush Administration, as it brings this issue front-and-center during the runup to the elections.

OBJECTIVE REPORTING: Another Reuters scandal, in Cuba? Compare with these journalists in Cuba.

UPDATE: More on Reuters reporter Marc Frank, here.

NABBED: “A senior al Qaeda commander allegedly tied to the London airplane bomb plot has been arrested in Pakistan, Pakistani intelligence and law enforcement officials have told ABC News. Matiur Rehman, one of the most wanted men in Pakistan, is known to have met with the alleged plot ringleader Rashid Rauf, according to the officials.”

THE INSTA-DAUGHTER STARTED MIDDLE SCHOOL THIS WEEK, and her grandmother gave her a copy of A Smart Girl’s Guide to Starting Middle School: Everything You Need to Know About Juggling More Homework, More Teachers, and More Friends, which comes from the “American Girl” people. Unlike most of their products, it’s reasonably priced. . . .

I looked through it and it’s good. (Hey, my mom’s a children’s librarian, so it should be). I wish they’d had books like this for boys when I was that age.

PAUL MIRENGOFF: “The magnitude of Israel’s failure in Lebanon becomes clearer every day.”

UPDATE: Noah Pollak offers one cheer for the cease-fire.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile, Tammy Bruce is down on Condi Rice.

FAKE NEWS:

The Federal Communications Commission has mailed letters to the owners of 77 television stations inquiring about their use of video news releases, a type of programming critics refer to as”fake news.”

Video news releases are packaged news stories that usually employ actors to portray reporters who are paid by commercial or government groups.

The letters were sparked by allegations that television stations have been airing the videos as part of their news programs without telling viewers who paid for them.

This phenomenon isn’t new — in fact, Peter Morgan and I covered it in our 1997 book, in a chapter that you can read for free online here — but it’s worth keeping this in mind whenever Big Media folks criticize blogs’ journalistic standards.

DEEP REBREATHING: I’ve got a piece on rebreathers — complete with above- and underwater video — over at the Popular Mechanics website. It was fun!

UPDATE: Yeah, I should have smiled more for the video. What can I say, I’ve got the look for . . . radio.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Washington Post reports:

A coalition of odd bedfellows is trying to bring more transparency to earmarking by encouraging citizens to get involved in tracking who is trying to get what money for which special interest. And all of this will be online and available to the public.

The coalition includes the Sunlight Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, Porkbusters.org, Human Events Online and the Washington Examiner newspaper. They created a single database of earmarks, but each organization is presenting the database on its own Web site and asking the public to participate in different ways. Generally, however, they are asking citizens to investigate the earmarks that grab their attention, then report back. They plan to share their information with each other.

Nice to see that people are noticing. There’s more information here. Dig in!

PorkBusters is also trying to find out who’s behind the “secret hold” on the Coburn/Obama earmark reform legislation. I’m guessing that it won’t stay secret.

UPDATE: Reader Thomas Enright emails:

I was “polled” last night via telephone regarding our local congressional race. Republican incumbent Joe Knollenberg is taking on Democrat Nancy Skinner. I was presented a series of issue and asked if the candidates” stand on that issue would make me less, more or leave unchanged the likelihood that I would vote for him or her. I was asked about abortion, tariffs, etc. but included in there was “Joe Knollenberg voted to fund the ‘bridge to nowhere.’ Would this make you less likely, more likely to vote for him? Or do you have no opinion”

Now, I know all about the bridge because I have the good sense to read instapundit, however, the average voter? If they go to the trouble to include such a question it must be assumed to have some impact.

Interesting. Anybody else getting questions like this?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s more on “Earmark Forensics,” from Marketplace.

HURRAY FOR HOLLYWOOD:

NICOLE Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.

The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today’s Los Angeles Times newspaper.

It specifically targets “terrorist organisations” such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

“We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” the ad reads.

“If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.

“We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs.”

Indeed. (Thanks to Jules Crittenden for the link).

ALAN BOYLE reports on a new lunar race developments. “Four teams say they’ll be competing for $2 million in the NASA-backed Lunar Lander Challenge at the X Prize Cup rocket festival in October. Two of those teams are already well-known, while the other two are dark horses in this race. ”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: The New Orleans gun confiscation was halted by a federal court, but victims are still suing the city:

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier denied a motion by the city of New Orleans to dismiss a suit by the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation. The gun-rights groups sued Mayor Ray Nagin and New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley over the confiscation of guns following Hurricane Katrina.

The city asked the judge to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, saying “the states, and by extension their political subdivisions, are free to proscribe the possession of firearms.”

The court rejected the motion, ruling the city did nothing to back up “the brazen assertion” that the second amendment did not apply.

“I’m delighted to see that the second amendment still applies in Louisiana,” said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA.

The suit says that during and after the Aug. 29 storm, “Mayor Nagin ordered the New Orleans police and other law enforcement entities under his authority to evict persons from their homes and to confiscate the lawfully possessed firearms.”

By pursuing it, the NRA hopes to prevent any such action in the future, LaPierre said. The organization also hopes the court will order police to return guns in their possession to the rightful owners, he said.

Seems only fair. (Via Cam Edwards, who reports: “By the way, attorney Steven Halbrook, who’s representing the gun owners, will be on NRAnews.com at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight.”)

BLOGOMETER REPORTS on the latest PorkBusters effort:

8/16 is yet another example of the trend as a broad coalition of conservative bloggers and other established institutions join forces to promote an anti-pork spending project that, since the GOP’s in power, ought to bring embarrassment to GOP lawmakers in the midst of a tough cycle. With their current belief in partisanship at all costs (see CT SEN), would lefty bloggers ever put forward such an effort that had the potential to hurt so many Dems?

In a word, no. The Sunlight Foundation, however, is not on the right, but the left, lest anyone be confused.

UPDATE: Randy Walker emails: “What? After Joe just lost a primary? What are you smoking (can I get some)? Exactly how many Republicans have been kicked out of office because of Pork Busters? When it comes to political pressure on your own party, I believe the score is left 1, right 0. I love pork busters but your are way out to sea on this one.”

Hmm. Well, that’s fair, I guess — except that the Blogometer point, and mine, was not about individual elections, but rather about things that give one side or another a structural advantage. As Josh Marshall and Mickey Kaus noted on Bloggingheads.tv, the “K Street strategy” seems to be working for the Republicans, but a lot of GOP-leaning bloggers are still attacking it. That’s a bit different from trying to replace one Democrat with a different Democrat.

That said, I hope that by 2008 — it’s too late for this election cycle, alas — we’ll see anti-pork forces supporting anti-pork primary challengers.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oops, I gave Randy Walker too much credit. Reader Kurt Dykstra emails:

Um, perhaps Joe Schwarz (MI-7) counts? At least the Club for Growth
(www.clubforgrowth.org) folks — which is identified as among the group of “Other Porkbusters” on the porkbusters.org website — seem to think it had something to do with this incumbent’s loss in the Republican primary . . .

That had slipped my mind, somehow.

MORE: Randy Walker follows up:

Thanks but I had missed Joe Schwaz too. Lets see, left wing Sunlight Foundation working the same soil as right wing Pork Busters, incumbents on both sides getting defeated in primaries, cats and dogs living together…..

If I did not know any better I would swear something big is going on. From now on I am going to be very suspicious of anybody who tries to spin this election in terms of “left vs. right”. This is “us vs. them”.

I’d like that to be true. I hope it is.

IN THE GUARDIAN, HAROLD EVANS ON BRITAIN, MUSLIMS AND TERROR:

The civil rights lobbies are working from a passé play book. They are blind to the lethal nature of the new Salafist totalitarianism. They won’t recognize that we are facing an irrationalist movement immune to compromise and dedicated to achieve its ends of controlling every aspect of daily life, every process of the mind, through indiscriminate mass slaughter. It is a culture obsessed with death, a culture that despises women, a culture devoted to mad hatreds not just of Americans and Jews everywhere, but of Muslims anywhere who embrace a less totalitarian, less radical, more humane view of Islam. These Muslims are to be murdered, and have been in their thousands, along with “the pigs of Jews, the monkeys of Christians” and all the “dirty infidels”.

Nor is the repellent language of hate limited to recognized terrorist groups like al-Qaida, Hizbullah and Hamas. It is in the school textbooks in Palestine and in the schools of our “ally”, Saudi Arabia. They promised to clean them up but a recent Washington Post investigation showed the books still tell the young they have a religious obligation to wage jihad against not only Christians and Jews but also Muslims who do not follow the xenophobic Wahabi doctrine. . . .

These are historic fault lines. The right tolerated fascism in the thirties, the left Soviet Communism in the fifties. Of course these two earlier totalitarian movements were different in nature and our response when it came was not always well judged – the tendency is to think first of the excesses of the right typified by the witch hunts of the odious McCarthy, but we should remember, too, that the Democratic party in the immediate postwar years of Henry Wallace would have abandoned Europe just as the left in the eighties would have left Europe at the mercy of the new Soviet missiles.

The apologists for the Islamo-fascists – an accurate term – leave millions around the world exposed to a less obvious but more insidious barbarism.

It’s only less obvious if you’re not paying attention. (Via Jeff Jarvis).

NELSON ASCHER WRITES on the uses of anti-semitism. “Instead of trying to understand ‘why they hate us’ and why they (and many others) hate the Jews (something I hope we’ll be discussing for several generations), what we have to understand right now is: what is anti-Semitism good for? . . . Hatred of the Jews and of Israel is the loaded weapon the Jihadis are putting in the hands of a civilization that’s willing (again) to commit suicide.”

A LOOK AT Mexico’s next government.