BOB HERBERT: Automatic for the people.

LOS ANGELES PROTEST CROWDS: Not as big as predicted:

Pro-illegal immigrant protests that organizers and Spanish-language radio stations hoped would attract a crippling percentage of Southern California’s several million Latinos have been large and loud but not record-breaking — and were closer in size to throngs that celebrated the Lakers three-peat in 2002. By 4:30 pm, KABC TalkRadio’s reporters in the field were noting that crowds had dwindled to 60,000.

Well, a three-peat is a pretty big deal.

UPDATE: More reporting and photos here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: People are talking about backlash, and how these rallies are counterproductive. That’s probably right, but I think that’s what the A.N.S.W.E.R. folks are hoping for. Right now you have lots of immigrants who want to be part of America. The A.N.S.W.E.R. people have been stoking these demonstrations not because they want to help illegal immigrants, but because they hope to provoke a backlash that will make them angry at America instead. They don’t have short-term ameliorative political goals — they want shock troops for the revolution.

MORE: Reader Richard Palmer emails: “The protests were designed to create a backlash. Remember, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier it meant the end for the Negro Leagues. Just consider who organized these marches and why.”

STEPHEN SPRUIELL: “As regards the firing of CIA official Mary McCarthy, the Washington Post is in the same untenable position that the New York Times was in during the Judith Miller episode — the editors know something they’re not telling, but they go on reporting the story as if they don’t know.”

CORY MAYE UPDATE: “A man’s life hangs in the balance. Whose judgment do you trust, twelve duly appointed jurors or one lone blogger?”

VIRGINIA POSTREL: “Liberals who support immigration should rethink their love of progressive income taxes.”

DAVID BERNSTEIN has the latest, plus a roundup, on the Penn State censorship scandal.

MEN LIVING LONGER, women hardest hit.

TIM WU WRITES IN SLATE on why you should care about Net Neutrality:

The Internet is largely meritocratic in its design. If people like instapundit.com better than cnn.com, that’s where they’ll go. If they like the search engine A9 better than Google, they vote with their clicks. Is it a problem, then, if the gatekeepers of the Internet (in most places, a duopoly of the local phone and cable companies) discriminate between favored and disfavored uses of the Internet? To take a strong example, would it be a problem if AT&T makes it slower and harder to reach Gmail and quicker and easier to reach Yahoo! mail?

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: A contrary view here.

VIDEO: MEXICAN POLICE SHOOT AT STRIKING MINERS (Via BoingBoing).

MARC COOPER on today’s illegal-immigrant amnesty marches:

There is a definite time and place for this sort of tactic, and it isn’t here or now. Boycotts are powerful and volatile weapons used as a last resort to bust open dams of dogged resistance. You don’t use them when the political tide is even vaguely flowing in your direction. . . .

It’s no accident that those pushing hardest for the May 1 boycott, many of them marginal protest groups such as ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), have never shown much concern for real-world results, preferring to act out their ideological impulses.

That’s why the larger institutional players in the pro-immigrant movement prefer an after-school (and after-work) rally over an intentionally punitive boycott and walkout. They argue that such an escalation could alienate lawmakers and the public just when political sentiment is shifting more toward immigrants. The positive message of demanding inclusion in the United States would be replaced by a more negative and divisive signal.

Read the whole thing. Also read this post on Publius, which offers a cautionary note. Meanwhile, there’s this report from L.A.:

With large crowds of illegal immigrants gathering at two locations in Los Angeles, extensive backroom planning to avoid offending U.S. citizens appeared to have failed: crowds are carrying about 60% Mexican flags, just 40% U.S. or other flags. KABC TalkRadio reported “there’s not a sign out there saying they want a ‘guest worker’ program — they all say they want full amnesty.”

I predict that neither party will be able to maintain a successful straddle on this issue for long. Here’s some evidence:

California’s two best-known Latino politicians had difficult mornings on Southern California news broadcasts. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa struggled to explain to KFWB News 980 why he is attending a late-afternoon pro-illegal immigration protest, and California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez offered KNX 1070 NewsRadio a tortured definition of amnesty while insisting he does not support amnesty.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: More here from the Pajamas Media crew covering the marches in L.A.:

We were immediately engulfed by a gigantic crowd. It is impossible to say how many from our perspectives, but these are the things we can report – they were joyful, they were non-violent (at least as far as we could see) and they were well-organized. A lot of the organization from the downtown demonstration came, alas, from ANSWER and their extremist ilk, but that didn’t stop us from being moved by the demonstrators and their earnest desire to be Americans and to find honest work here. Nevertheless, there were some among them who wanted, unfortunately, the whole enchilada, the return of California to Mexico. But when you interview these people (you will see the results later), you find some are more confused than anything else. For the most part, they just want to work and raise families. They are being exploited by leaders singing a very old and tired song.

More later. I just spoke with Roger Simon on the phone and he says the size of the crowd is unbelievable.

MORE: Here’s a report from San Diego.

ADVICE TO RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS: Act violent, get your way.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This sounds promising:

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn this week will continue to raise havoc on the Senate floor. The Senate is still debating its emergency supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Katrina.

Coburn filed an amendment and then used parliamentary tools to split it into 19 seperate amendments attacking non-emergency pork spending projects in the bill. Last week he had some modest success, and looks to capitalize on that momentum this week.

Tomorrow, the Senate will vote for cloture — to limit debate — on the spending bill. Because Coburn crafted his amendment strategy with precise language all of his amendments will be germaine post cloture. In other words, limiting debate on the bill will in no way affect the good Doctor’s ability to raise heck on the Senate floor this week.

Expect Coburn to receive votes on many of his remaining amendments that would save the taxpayers billions.

There are rumors floating around the Hill that last week the GOP conference began to come to grips with the fact that they have been spending the people’s money carelessly. The way the Senate votes on many of Coburn’s amendments this week will prove those rumors true or false.

Keep your fingers crossed. And perhaps give your Senators a call: (202) 224-3121.

AT CATALLARCHY, a day of remembrance for victims of communism.

MICHAEL TOTTEN CONTINUES TO REPORT from the Israeli / Lebanese border, where things are, he says, about to explode. Excerpt:

It’s a lot easier to hate people when you don’t know them personally, when you can’t work together, when you can’t hang out and talk, when you can’t wave hello. The vitriolic and eliminationist propaganda from Iran and Hezbollah is instantly proven abject and stupid upon contact with average Israelis. An open border and a free exchange of thoughts and ideas is Hezbollah’s worst nightmare.

“What do you want to see happen here, Eitan?” I said.

“I wish we could have peace and an open border,” he said. “Like a normal country. Like it is between Oregon and California. Right now we call the Lebanese enemies. But they are not really enemies. I know them. Some are my friends. The only enemy is Hezbollah.”

Read the whole thing. Lots of photos, too.

DAVE SIFRY HAS MORE on the state of the blogosphere.

THE WALT/MEARSHEIMER PAPER: A “nasty piece of work.”

THE CARNIVAL OF BLOG COVERAGE is up!

SOME SQUIRREL-BLOGGING COMPETITION for Ann Althouse.

Plus, spider-blogging!

A DARFUR SOLUTION: Mercenaries?

COFFEEMAKER BLEG: My old Braun coffeemaker was great. It died, so I bought this Braun coffeemaker, which seemed to be pretty similar. It sucks. The coffee’s good, but it’s not quite hot enough, and the machine already leaks and drips after just a few months. Plus, the pot dribbles when you pour, which the old one didn’t. How can they get that wrong?

The beach house we had last year had this Cuisinart and it was good except that I seem to recall it beeping annoyingly when the coffee is done. (Message to appliance makers — if it beeps, provide a switch to make it not beep. I could post an extended rant on that topic, but not at the moment.) My brother went through a whole bunch of coffeemakers that sucked before finding a Bunn that he likes, except that it’s hard to make the coffee really strong because it pours the water through so fast.

I want a coffeemaker that (1) doesn’t leak, and doesn’t dribble — as my new Braun does and my old Krups did — when you pour from the carafe; (2) makes strong coffee; (3) keeps it hot enough; (4) doesn’t beep; and (5) has a timer. Is that so much to ask? Any suggestions will be welcomed.

RAJAN RISHYAKARAN REPORTS ON massive opposition demonstrations in Singapore.

OVER AT CATO UNBOUND, a look at the Republicans’ lost opportunities. ” It’s one thing to try to slow down opponents as they try to enact their vision of society into law. It’s a very different thing to have a vision of one’s own. And the day in which we could look to the GOP to have an affirmative small-government vision of its own has I think definitively passed.”

A LOOK AT who reads blogs.

IN BUSINESS WEEK, a rather skeptical look at ethanol as an alternative fuel.

SOME PEOPLE thought I was too easy on Michael Hiltzik when I was on Reliable Sources yesterday, but Patterico agrees with my position.