AUSTIN BAY looks at oil prices.

SUNDAY IS A GLOBAL DAY FOR DARFUR.

TOP TEN THINGS ABOUT GUANTANAMO: Al Kamen has a column, and you can see the whole list here. Though, weirdly, it’s in Word format.

JOSH MANCHESTER HAS THOUGHTS on counterinsurgency and democracy.

TIM BLAIR: “The International Solidarity Movement denied three years ago it had any connection to Tel Aviv suicide bombers. That denial might be a little harder to believe now that ISM activists have been photographed clowning around with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.”

They’re not anti-war. They’re just on the other side.

NEW FRIENDS:

Mona Nagger reports on an embarrassing letter of solidarity that Günter Grass received from 46 Arab intellectuals. “The signatories see in Grass’ confession to having been a member of the Waffen SS (more here) a sign of courage that deserves respect and recognition. The critique of Grass is being interpreted as a campaign ‘aimed at diverting attention from the Israeli crimes against Palestine and Lebanon.’ The Israelis are depicted as ‘Neonazis’: ‘They kill Palestinians and Israelis, destroy their countries, build a dividing wall around them and put them in camps.’ The tone recalls quite clearly the language of the Iranian president Ahmadinejad.” Nagger’s conclusion: “The document says a lot about the sensitivities of many Arab intellectuals. They live in a world of conspiracy theories, far removed form reality; they mistake populist slogans and rhetoric for intellectual discourse and they see no need to take a serious look at the Holocaust and Nazi crimes.”

You’re welcome to ’em, Günter.

COLOR ME UNIMPRESSED — WITH THE FCC: “The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.”

UPDATE: James Ruhland emails: “I for one wonder how anything could make local TV news coverage any worse. I mean, other than new insect overlords.”

GOOGLE IS HIRING A BUNCH OF LOBBYISTS: I’d rather they just quit kissing up to China.

BILL FRIST has done great service on the anti-pork cause, but I can’t imagine what he’s thinking with this: “Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is trying use a bill authorizing U.S. military operations, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, to prohibit people from using credit cards to settle Internet gambling debts.”

Internet gambling seems pretty lame to me, but if people want to do something as dumb as that, well, it’s their money. I don’t think Washington should tell them what to do. And, for that matter, I don’t think that this should be attached to a defense bill.

I SAID EARLIER that this was an excellent day, and it just got more excellent with the birth of my new niece, Ojie Lorraine Reynolds. She’s 21″, 7 lbs 14 ounces, and she wasn’t born yesterday — she was born today! She came a bit earlier than we had expected, so I wasn’t able to be there for the birth, but I look forward to meeting her soon.

I WAS HAPPY that Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN) wound up voting for the earmark reform rule today. Like Georgia blogger Jason Pye, I’m unhappy that Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) voted against it. Kingston has reached out to the blogosphere repeatedly, but this vote shows that he hasn’t fully imbibed its spirit.

UPDATE: Kingston should have paid attention to Jeff Flake.

GIZMODO has a post, and video, on how to steal an election with a Diebold voting machine.

While I think that most of the “stolen election” claims are a mix of sour grapes and conspiracy theory, I think that we’d be much better off going to a more secure voting method, in order to forestall such corrosive charges. This isn’t perfect, as there are other ways to steal an election, but it can’t hurt.

UPDATE: Aziz Poonawalla: “My WordPress blogs have better security than this.”

A COUPLE OF RIGHT CHICKS SITTING AROUND TALKING: Michelle Malkin and Mary Katharine Ham offer an alternative version of The View.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: THE EARMARK-REFORM RULES CHANGE has passed the House 245-171. This is an excellent day.

Neither this, nor the passage of S. 2590 this week, means that the problem of wasteful — and often corrupt — pork has been solved. But it does mean that a much greater dose of transparency has been applied, and I think that’s likely to make a very significant difference.

How big a difference, of course, will depend on the extent to which people continue to pay attention.

UPDATE: Here’s a list of how they voted. You might want to let your Rep. know how you feel about his/her vote.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The White House has issued a statement from President Bush on the reform:

I applaud the House of Representatives for voting again this week in support of greater transparency and accountability in government. H.R. 1000 would shine a brighter light on earmarks by requiring disclosure of the sponsors of each provision. This reform would help improve the legislative process by making sure both lawmakers and the public are better informed before Congress votes to spend the taxpayers’ money.

I’m told the White House regards this as “a good first step.” Indeed.

OVER AT THE CLUB FOR GROWTH BLOG, they’re rounding up Congressional statements on the House earmark-reform rule change.

I’VE BEEN CALLING THE TENNESSEE SENATE RACE CLOSE for a while, and Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin, writing in Slate, agree.

I JUST GOT AN EMAIL claiming that Harold Ford, Jr. plans to vote against the earmark transparency rules change mentioned below. I just called his office and was told that he hasn’t made up his mind yet.

It seems like a no-brainer to me, and he certainly spoke in favor of transparency in the podcast interview we conducted a few months back.

UPDATE: Ed Frank emails: “CQ reporter Liriel Higa just repeated on C-Span that Harold Ford and Dennis Cardoza told her earlier today that they plan to vote against the earmark-reform package.”

That’s a big disappointment to me, and I suspect it’s a big campaign-issue opportunity for Bob Corker.

ANOTHER UPDATE: As it turned out, Ford voted for the rule change. I’m delighted to discover that, as I found it hard to reconcile his enthusiasm for transparency when we spoke with a “no” vote on this measure.

MEGAN MCARDLE AND STUART BUCK have an op-ed in The Examiner on media coverage of the economy:

It often gets dicey for readers when journalists, who are rarely math majors, play with numbers and then publish misleading or mistaken conclusions. It happened Labor Day when the Detroit Free Press published a horrifying map showing huge losses in household income across America. Horrifying and totally wrong, that is.

Read the whole thing.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The earmark reform legislation has passed the House and Senate, but there’s also an important House rules change up for a vote today, and House Appropriators are balking because it is likely to undercut their power by making them more accountable.

Tim Chapman has some background on this, and House Majority Leader John Boehner has a post on this stuff, over at RedState.

Meanwhile, I’m told by the folks at Americans for Prosperity that these members of Congress ought to hear from concerned constituents on the subject. You can call (202) 224-3121 and ask for them by name if you’re from their district:

Jerry Lewis, CA (R – Chairman)
C. W. Bill Young, FL (R)
Ralph Regula, OH (R)
Harold Rogers, KY (R)
Frank R. Wolf, VA (R)
Jim Kolbe, AZ (R)
James Walsh, NY (R)
Charles H. Taylor, NC (R)
David L. Hobson, OH (R)
Ernest J. Istook, Jr., OK (R)
Henry Bonilla, TX (R)
Joe Knollenberg, MI (R)
Jack Kingston, GA (R)
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, NJ (R)
Roger F. Wicker, MS (R)
Todd Tiahrt, KS (R)
Zach Wamp, TN (R)
Tom Latham, IA (R)
Anne Northup, KY (R)
Robert Aderholt, AL (R)
Jo Ann Emerson, MO (R)
Kay Granger, TX (R)
John E. Peterson, PA (R)
Virgil Goode, VA (R)
John Doolittle, CA (R)
Ray LaHood, IL (R)
John Sweeney, NY (R)
Don Sherwood, PA (R)
Dave Weldon, FL (R)
Michael K. Simpson, ID (R)
John Abney Culberson, TX (R)
Ander Crenshaw, FL (R)
Dennis R. Rehberg, MT (R)
John Carter, TX (R)
Rodney Alexander, LA (R)

If one of ’em is yours, you might want to let them know how you feel.

UPDATE: Here’s more on the various earmark reform efforts. And here are some photos and video from yesterday’s anti-pork rally on Capitol Hill.

A MAN-BITES-DOG STORY THAT SHOULD BE A DOG-BITES-MAN STORY: “Amnesty International has announced that in its opinion, Hezbollah is guilty of war crimes. Hezbollah purposefully and indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilians.”

JOHN MCCAIN will back the RightRoots campaign.

ALAN DOWD: “NATO is learning that Afghanistan is not a peacekeeping mission in Europe.”

AMIT VARMA DISCOVERS SOMETHING INTERESTING about the Montreal school shooting.

UPDATE: Gunblogger Tamara from Coal Creek Armory says “I ain’t goin’ out like that.”

Additional background here.

INTERESTING, how things often look different from a different perspective:

At the imposition of the UN Security Council cease-fire resolution, the West almost unanimously considered the war in Lebanon a disaster for Israel. Most analysts insisted that Israel’s failure to destroy Hezbollah amounted to a humiliation and worried about the energizing Seffect Hassan Nasrallah’s victory would have on radical Islam’s popularity in the region. These analysts would be surprised to learn that Arabs increasingly view Hezbollah’s war as a disaster as well — but a disaster for Arabs. . . .Western commentators and no shortage of Israeli pundits pointed to Nasrallah’s claims to have prevailed as a devastating propaganda offensive that would make Israel and the West look weaker than ever. Arabs have taken a more realistic view of the war’s results, including the fact that Nasrallah has to make those claims from undisclosed locations to this day.

Some of us had noted the problem with the whole undisclosed-location thing ourselves. Of course, there’s no reason why it can’t be bad for both. But there’s a good point about Western journalists being rather credulous with regard to Hezbollah’s propaganda.