ANN ALTHOUSE: “At what point do you stop romanticizing another culture and start to see child abuse and plain violations of compulsory schooling laws? Surely, a Christian private school that dispensed with academic study (or threw in two hours) would catch hell.”

IN THE MAIL: Arianna Huffington’s new book, On Becoming Fearless . . . in Love, Work, and Life.

THE DEBUNKING 9/11 MYTHS book that Helen and I featured in our last podcast is also the subject of a column by Austin Bay. Bay calls it “a handy antidote to the conspiracy theorists’ more noxious rhetorical poisons.” And James Lileks writes: “I read the entire book. Sane, logical, unemotional, sensible, comprehensive. There: I’m now officially part of the conspiracy. My membership card should arrive in two weeks. I understand we get 10% off at Denny’s.” Well, yeah.

And note that the book has its own blog.

YES, MCCAIN-FEINGOLD IS PROPERLY DESCRIBED as an “incumbent protection act.” And I think it’s one reason why McCain is polling the way he is in the blogosphere.

DEREK LOWE on Ray Kurzweil.

MICHAEL BARONE HAS THOUGHTS on the future of the war, while Josh Manchester is looking for a man-sized microwave.

OVER AT CATO UNBOUND, Richard Rodriguez looks at Mexicans in America, and Victor Davis Hanson replies.

WHICH IS BETTER? “Tax benefits,” or “tax incentives?” The future of America hangs in the balance . . .

MICKEY KAUS hopes that World Trade Center turns out to be a flop. Judging by the audience reviews, I don’t think it’ll work out that way.

A LIBERTARIAN PURGE? “Splitters!”

UPDATE: No, I don’t think that “libertarian Mona” is a Glenn Greenwald sock puppet. Though I can see why people would wonder!

STRATEGYPAGE ON LEBANON:

The success of the ceasefire in Lebanon hinges on a condition that Lebanon and Hizbollah both insist will not happen. Hizbollah is supposed to disarm, but says bluntly that it will not do so. The Lebanese government says it will not force Hizbollah to disarm. So what’s going to happen? . . .

The Israeli strategy appears to be to allow the UN deal to self-destruct. If the UN peacekeepers can disarm Hizbollah, fine. If not, Israeli ground troops will come back in and clear everyone out of southern Lebanon. At that point, it will be obvious that no one else is willing, or able, to deal with the outlaw “state-within-a-state” that Hizbollah represents. Hizbollah will still exist after being thrown out of southern Lebanon, and it will be up to the majority of Lebanese, and the rest of the Arab world, to deal with Hizbollah and radical Shias.

Read the whole thing.

A MASSIVE DELL BATTERY RECALL: I’m happy to say that mine’s not affected, but you can follow the link if you own a Dell to see if you’re as lucky.

MORE PLAME FALLOUT? “A federal judge told two San Francisco Chronicle reporters they must comply with a subpoena and tell a grand jury who leaked them secret testimony of Barry Bonds and other elite athletes ensnared in the government’s steroid probe.”

COFFEE AS A HEALTH DRINK: No, really.

THE GUARDIAN reports that the British terror plot was stopped, in part, by information extracted via Pakistani torture. Karol Sheinin thinks that’s okay. So does LaShawn Barber, suggesting that the “bellicose woman” demographic is still around. My less-bellicose thoughts on the subject can be found here and here.

UPDATE: Orin Kerr notes the real lesson of the London terror plots.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ace dismisses my concerns: “frankly, he’s a law professor. That’s the sort of thing they say.” Ouch!

GET THIS MAN a Toyota Highlander hybrid. Or maybe he’s worried about being denounced by environmentalists if he buys one . . . .

MICHAEL TOTTEN posts more reporting from the Israeli/Lebanese border.

MICHAEL SILENCE reminds me of a sage observation that I had forgotten: “I grow more and more convinced the Republican majority will end itself by 2006 if the Left will just shut up for five minutes.”

TALKING TO THE TROOPS, at Hot Air.

JAY ROSEN LOOKS AT PORKBUSTERS and sees the beginning of an era of networked journalism.

ROBERT COX thinks that Joe Lieberman may be onto something.

IS THE GEORGE ALLEN CAMPAIGN IN TROUBLE? If so, the fault is George Allen’s.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl say reports of Allen’s remarks are distorted.

Jeff Taylor: “George Allen does not have the wattage to man a deep fryer support line in Bangalore, let alone serve responsibly in the U.S. Senate.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: I have to say that I don’t agree that the Webb campaign was engaging in a “dirty trick” by sending a volunteer to videotape all of Allen’s events. What’s dirty about that? Seems like good guerrilla campaigning.

Meanwhile, TigerHawk writes: “I don’t know whether George Allen’s campaign is in jeopardy, but I do know that I very much hope the Republicans do not nominate him in 2008.”

MORE: Advice for Allen: “Get a blog.”

JUST GOT BACK from visiting my brother-in-law, who’s undergoing another round of chemo. He’s doing pretty well — his appetite’s good enough that he’s complaining about the hospital food, so we took him a pizza from the Mellow Mushroom — but the unpleasantness of the hospital setting just reminded me of this column from last year.

I’ve pretty much quit blogging family health developments, because I think it gets old fast. But they’re ongoing alas, on a number of fronts. If people have wondered about slower email response times or occasional interludes of light blogging, that’s usually the reason.

LAMONT/LIEBERMAN: “Deep down, it’s shallow.”