GERARD VANDERLEUN interviews Mary Cheney.

SOME OF THE EGYPTIAN BLOGGERS WERE RELEASED, but Alaa is still in jail:

Reporters Without Borders noted the release on 4 June of bloggers Malek Mostafa and Asmaa Ali. Mostafa was arrested on 26 April while Ali was arrested on 7 May. The authorities have meanwhile ordered that three other bloggers – Alaa Abd El-Fatah, Mohamed Sharkawy and Karim El-Shaer – should be held for two more weeks. All five were arrested for taking part in demonstrations.

Big Pharaoh has more.

AN EMAIL FROM AFGHANISTAN, at Pereiraville.

MORE REPORTS OF UNREST IN IRAN: I’m really surprised this isn’t getting more media attention.

GOOD NEWS FOR WOMEN? ER, OR FOR MEN? “An alcoholic drink a day can significantly reduce the risk for heart disease in men, a new study finds, but women get almost the same benefit with only one drink a week.”

WILLIAM JEFFERSON UPDATE:

Nigeria’s vice president sought up to $500,000 and a stake in a technology venture in his country, according to statements Rep. William Jefferson made to an FBI informant that were detailed in court documents filed in a bribery probe of the congressman.

Jefferson allegedly told the FBI informant that he had delivered “African art,” which authorities believe was code for cash, to the Potomac, Md., home of the wife of Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar at midnight last July 31.

Details of the alleged deal were included in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court to secure a warrant to search Abubakar’s house in Potomac. The affidavit was unsealed Monday by the federal court in Greenbelt.

The affidavit says delivery of the money came shortly after Jefferson allegedly received $100,000 in cash from the FBI informant that was supposed to help smooth the way for a Kentucky telecommunications company, iGate Inc., to conduct business in Nigeria.

I think this case will continue to get more interesting.

AUSTIN BAY looks at Mexican politics.

ALWAYS THE BEHEADING WITH THESE PEOPLE:

One of the suspects in a Toronto terror plot is accused of wanting to behead Canada’s prime minister, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Lawyer Gary Batasar says the allegations against his client are very serious and include his personal threat against the prime minister.

Steven Chand is also accused of plotting to storm and bomb various buildings, he says.

Jeez.

UPDATE: A Canadian blogger asks:

Where are the urgent cries from our Muslims to disband the virulent terror blog sites, or to investigate the anti-western rhetoric flowing out of their mosques and education (indoctrination) centers? Or even for a call to Muslims to end their self-imposed exile from mainstream Canadian attitudes? What we are getting instead is this self-serving pap about Canadian racism and Islamophobia. Meanwhile Fahim Bukari, the Director of the Missasauga Islamic Center admitted that Qayyam Jamal, a volunteer there, was a close friend of five of the arrested youths. He had been warned by numerous people, including a Liberal MP, that the man was dangerous radical. Bukari admitted he wasn’t surprised by the raid and Mr. Jamal’s role in it. Yet no attempt was made to ban him from the center. Rather suspicious behaviour for a director who claims to be a moderate.

Indeed.

REMEMBERING D-DAY: At BlackFive.

BACK FROM AFGHANISTAN, Barry McCaffrey reports.

APPARENTLY, I’m the Antichrist.

You’d think it would pay better.

THE STANFORD LAW REVIEW’S symposium on Justices Rehnquist and O’Connor includes Rehnquist’s 1948 thesis on Contemporary Theories of Rights.

IT’S 6/6/6, and Ann Coulter has a new book out. Coincidence?

CATHY YOUNG LOOKS AT antisemitism, academic boycotts of Israel, and the American Association of University Professors.

UPDATE: A version with hyperlinks can be found here.

STRATEGYPAGE: A win for Al Qaeda in Somalia.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: “Today, we are seeing mistakes in lawyerly overreach on the part of the Bush Administration.”

“A VERY FRUSTRATING AND INFORMATIVE EXERCISE IN COALITION BUILDING:” Daniel Glover reports on how Online Integrity — a left-right initiative encouraging bloggers to respect personal privacy — worked out.

ANA MARIE COX visits Darkest Kosistan. Excerpt:

The left lacks many telegenic spokespeople, he says, “It’s the difference between the Fox News anchors — you know, blond, put-together — and our people. It’s like, ‘You know, lady, put on a bra. Would it kill you to put on a bra?'” Moulistas is sponsoring a media training session at Yearly Kos; one can only hope that Maidenform is on the agenda.

Though the Maidenform-free approach can have its charms.

LONDON BOMBING UPDATE:

Flawed emergency planning and communications breakdowns, including jammed cell phone networks and radio failures, hampered rescuers’ response to London’s deadly transit bombings last year, an inquiry said Monday.

The official report highlighted confusion in response to the July 7 bombings after cellular networks became overloaded and radio communications from street level to rescue workers in the subway failed. The attacks killed 52 commuters and four bombers, and injured about 700 people.

Some hospitals had to rely on staff running to and from bomb sites to gather information, according to the 700-page report, published by the London Assembly’s July 7 review committee, one of several inquiries into the attacks.

Hardened and interoperable communications systems — as we learned on 9/11, in the NYC blackout, during Katrina, and in London — are both very important to disaster response and not really extant in many places.

NEW ORLEANS, NINE MONTHS LATER: A lengthy, and not very pretty, photo essay from Duane “Radioblogger” Patterson. Note the house with the Allstate banner — not very good PR.

VARIFRANK IS DRAWING CONNECTIONS between the Canadian terror arrests and various other incidents.

UPDATE: Also, Dan Riehl has more — including video — on the Washago terrorist training camp.

Meanwhile, Andrew McCarthy examines the media template for covering stories of this sort.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis: “Maybe we need a nickname for terrorists to get around the new PC effort not to offend anyone except Americans.”

I don’t think that his proposal will fly at either Times though.

WILD ANIMALS: My sister lives on Knoxville’s eastern fringe, almost in Sevier County. She says that just in the past year the number of coyotes, wild turkeys, and deer has exploded. People are also reporting bears.

That seems to be a trend. This article from the Wall Street Journal reports:

Nationwide, however, the real things — wild animals and birds of many species, including such people-shy critters as bears, coyotes, moose, elk, cougars and turkeys — are multiplying, spreading and learning to live near people. Conflicts are on the rise.

The cause, many people think, is sprawl encroaching into wild habitat. That’s true only in part, say wildlife biologists. While sprawl is moving out, the forests in which many species once flourished is moving in, covering over millions of acres of abandoned farmland that once served as a buffer. Also, much modern sprawl is built, unconsciously, to be wildlife-friendly — what wildlife biologists call “enhanced habitat,” with more food, shelter, water, hiding places and protection from predators than exist in the wild.

People, meanwhile, make sprawl even more inviting, wittingly and unwittingly. They’re increasingly ignorant of how wild nature works — what author Richard Louv calls “nature-deficit disorder.” Just as they treat pets as children, so to do many treat wild animals as pets, leaving out birdseed and pet food, tossing a cookie to a backyard bear.

We have a problem with bears leaving the Big South Fork and showing up at people’s homes, too. I’ve written about this stuff before, (also here) and I highly recommend David Baron’s The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator’s Deadly Return to Suburban America, which reads like a thriller novel even though it’s nonfiction.

Plus, there’s this essay from Kirsten Mortenson, which defends animal rights. Specifically, the right of animals to be thought of as animals.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from John Hinderaker.

And Tom Spaulding certainly encountered plenty of wildlife.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here, from not far from the setting for Baron’s book. My advice: Buy a gun, make a rug. (Via ChicagoBoyz).

JIM GERAGHTY: “The mainstream media has lost interest in the war on terror.”

That must mean that we’re winning.

VIRGINIA POSTREL has more on organ donation incentives.

HAS GOOGLE PEAKED? Some thoughts at GlennReynolds.com.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Ed Driscoll: “General Motors thought they were invulnerable, too.”