SELLING THE STAR TRIBUNE OFF, dirt cheap. Further thoughts here.

MASS PROTEST IN BRITAIN:

Record numbers of hunt supporters gathered at Boxing Day events across the country in defiance of Labour’s ban on hunting with hounds.

Organisers claimed that hunting was more popular than ever and that more than 300,000 braved the cold to enjoy their favourite pastime.

The Countryside Alliance said that the record turnout proved the two-year ban on the blood sport was irrelevant and called for the law to be changed.

If that many British Muslims turned out to protest interference with their customs, the Blair government would be bending over backward to please them. (Via Brits at Their Best).

TIGERHAWK remembers Gerald Ford. Personally, I think that Chevy Chase cost Ford the 1976 election. Well, part of it, anyway.

BEACH READING: Finished S.M. Stirling’s new novel, The Sky People, and enjoyed it. Earlier mention and summary here.

THOUGHTS ON FEDERALISM, STATES RIGHTS, AND RACE, from Eugene Volokh and Ilya Somin.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “I also suspect that the Democrats’ talk about ‘fiscal responsibility’ is just a setup to demagogue about the war.”

MICKEY KAUS keeps looking at Barack Obama:

Obama listens to Samantha Power and Susan Rice on human rights, Gerstein reports. He wants to talk to Iran, he discounts the Chinese military threat but surprisingly, for an early Iraq war opponent, he has said he’d favor “launching some missile strikes into Iran” if that was the only way to stop “having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons.” (Does Iowa know this?)

It will, no doubt.

DAVID BRIN: “SINGULARITIES AND NIGHTMARES: EXTREMES OF OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM ABOUT THE HUMAN FUTURE:” It’s a must-read if you’re interested in this stuff. And you should be.

DEAN BARNETT looks at Christmas, the meaning of life, and the power of muddling through.

AN ARGUMENT FOR A BIGGER ARMY: “The bottom line is that the stress of combat has a cumulative psychological effect on soldiers. Today, after about 300 days of action, it’s time to put that soldier into a non-combat job. . . . The army wants to give the troops 2-3 years between combat tours, but there are not enough combat brigades to do that at current force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus the army will have to be increased in size, or the number of troops reduced in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Note that this is distinct from, but related to, the question of whether we should have more troops in Iraq or Afghanistan now.

UPDATE: Somewhat related post on the latter topic from Mike Rappaport.

GOOD NEWS: “An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling to execute deposed leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity and said he could hang within 30 days.” Couldn’t happen too soon.

Meanwhile, the Iranians are whining about U.N. sanctions.

OMAR FADHIL OF IRAQ THE MODEL writes in The Wall Street Journal on how to beat Iraq’s Shiite extremists.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Am I the only who noticed that Omar’s up-graded blog post made the WSJ op/ed page with better placement than Joseph Rago’s ‘blog rabble’ op/ed of last week? Irony is delicious.”

More on that theme here.

DON SURBER HAS MORE THOUGHTS ON THE MURTHA STORY mentioned below. “It is called tribute. Barbary pirates demanded it 200 years ago and Tommy Jefferson said no, launching the nation’s first pre-emptive war. Congressmen have refined the act. None dare tell them no.”

He also emails:

I too thought the Washington Post might have delayed the Murtha story for the smallest crowd of the year, but then I remembered that explanation that city editors used to give me on occasion:

“We held your story so we could put it on Page One”

You have to have something worthy of Page One every freaking day. Sometimes you hold a better story than what you have out there simply because it can hold

I give the Post the benefit of the doubt because it actually is going after Nancy’s right-hand man.

Good point.

MICHAEL LEDEEN says we’re dropping the ball where Iran is concerned.

MILITARY LESSONS from the Ethiopians.

Plus, more thoughts from Austin Bay.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I’m a Major serving in a combat battalion in Iraq right now. I’m a believer in the overall mission, etc, etc, which I presume Cliff May is if he writes for National Review. Having said that, I think his comment is asinine. It’s like saying, “The New York Mets blew out the Atlanta Braves, how come the Knicks can’t beat the Hawks by the same margin?” Completely different sports, completely different conflicts.

It’s true that they’re different conflicts. It’s also true, though, that the tactics of insurgency work mostly against Western armies with lots of press coverage and antiwar agitation at home, and not so much against armies that are unconcerned with looking bad when they kill the enemy. I think that was part of May’s point.

GRAND ROUNDS is up!

THOUGHTS ON FEDERALISM at The Volokh Conspiracy.

LAWRENCE ALTMAN looks at advances in medicine. “Few people appreciate that medicine has advanced more since World War II than in all of earlier history.”

Things must be going well — you can now buy longevity insurance! Or maybe that means that the insurance companies think we’re hitting a plateau.

ROGER SIMON REVIEWS Babel and The Pursuit of Happyness.

ONE MIGHT ALMOST SUSPECT THAT THIS STORY WAS TIMED for when it would get the least possible attention: Nonprofit Connects Murtha, Lobbyists. Excerpt:

But the group serves another function as well. PAID has become a gathering point for defense contractors and lobbyists with business before Murtha’s defense appropriations subcommittee, and for Pennsylvania businesses and universities that have thrived on federal money obtained by Murtha.

Lobbyists and corporate officials serve as directors on the nonprofit group’s board, where they help raise money and find jobs for Johnstown’s disabled workers. Some of those lobbyists have served as intermediaries between the defense contractors and businessmen on the board, and Murtha and his aides.

That arrangement over the years has yielded millions of dollars in federal support for the contractors, businesses and universities, and hundreds of thousands in consulting and lobbying fees to Murtha’s favored lobbying shops, according to Federal Election Commission records and lobbying disclosure forms. In turn, many of PAID’s directors have kept Murtha’s campaigns flush with cash.

When the Democrats take control of Congress on Jan. 4, ethics and budget restructuring will be the first orders of business. Among the provisions in the Democrats’ ethics package are demands for more transparency in the doling out of federal funds to home-district projects and a required pledge that no earmarks benefit a member of Congress personally. That could put an uncomfortable spotlight on lawmakers such as Murtha.

Sounds like he needs to be spotlighted. And not just on Christmas Day.

A JAMIL HUSSEIN CORRECTION, but alas from Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert, not the AP.

IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, a look at the changing status of blogs and the new media.

VIRTUAL INCOME? Why not virtual taxes?

WE’VE HAD A NICE CHRISTMAS: I’ve never done the island Christmas before — this was something my sister came up with as a way of celebrating my brother-in-law’s successful completion of chemo — but I have to say that it’s been pretty nice. We’re cooking a leg of lamb and turkey as usual, though I marinated the lamb in jerk seasoning this time, just to get into the island spirit.

Hope you’re having a good Christmas too!

CASUS BELLI?

The American military is holding at least four Iranians in Iraq, including men the Bush administration called senior military officials, who were seized in a pair of raids late last week aimed at people suspected of conducting attacks on Iraqi security forces, according to senior Iraqi and American officials in Baghdad and Washington. . . .

Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said two Iranian diplomats were among those initially detained in the raids. The two had papers showing that they were accredited to work in Iraq, and he said they were turned over to the Iraqi authorities and released. He confirmed that a group of other Iranians, including the military officials, remained in custody while an investigation continued, and he said, “We continue to work with the government of Iraq on the status of the detainees.”

Or something else to be swept under the rug? That rug’s getting pretty lumpy by now.

Plus, the status of Syria.