MARY KATHARINE HAM rounds up stories of female self-defense.

AIR TRAVEL SUCKS: So now I’m stuck at the airport with a flight that’s delayed until 5. I nearly drove to DC instead of flying, and I’m already wishing that I had. . . .

QUESTIONING THE TIMING of pre-election CIA leaks.

EN ROUTE TO DC for the National Press Club event on partisanship and politics. I’ll also be at the White House for tomorrow’s Porkbusters bill signing. I’ll report on all of that but blogging may be light for a bit as I travel.

ABC NEWS: “Dozens of Foreign Pilots Training Illegally at US Flight Schools.”

THE ALLEN CAMPAIGN is calling foul on Salon.

PATRICK HYNES WRITES that conservatives did not distinguish themselves during the torture debate.

HOW WRONG WAS JOSH MARSHALL? A Plame-affair retrospective.

UPDATE: Some related gloating from Tom Maguire.

IN THE MAIL: Jennifer Weber’s Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North. Seems very interesting and relevant.

HEH: “Bin Laden apparently died after eating E.coli tainted spinach that had been given to him as part of a cunning assassination plot spearheaded by the CIA. While the CIA won’t publicly take credit for Bin Laden’s death there has apparently been much celebration in Langley.”

EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH A RANKING HIERARCHY FOR LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP have reached a logical end-point.

TIME ASKS if the Netroots have hit their limit. I’d say no, but we’ll have a good empirical test of Netroots power in November.

UPDATE: Dean Barnett says that Time has missed the story: “The Netroots attempt to set the Democratic Party’s agenda, and their effectiveness is only growing. This is something that pleases both me and Markos, albeit for quite different reasons. . . . The fact that not a single Democrats has pursued his (or her) Sister Soldjah moment at the Netroots’ expense is rather telling.”

MORE CLINTON-FLAP FALLOUT: Howard Kurtz calls it “Clinton’s finger-wagging moment.” And Mickey Kaus fact-checks and observes: “Clinton was winning before he plowed on into paranoia about Rupert Murdoch and Fox.”

I know that people think this is some sort of clever strategic move by the Clintons, but it seems to me to be another such effort that has backfired.

PLUG-IN HYBRIDS: Good for reducing oil dependency, but only marginal in reducing overall pollution. We could fix that, though, if we got more electricity from nice, clean nuclear plants.

ADVICE TO HOWARD DEAN from Kevin Drum: “Know your audience. This is Persuasion 101. Can’t anybody play this game anymore?”

It’s good advice.

MARK STEYN: “It may be news to the Council of Foreign Relations types and the Dems, but the U.N. demonstrated this last week that it is utterly incapable of reform. Indeed, any reforms would be more likely to upgrade and enhance the cliques of thugs and despots than of the few states willing to stand up to them. The most sensible proposal this week came from Chavez, who demanded the U.N. relocate to Venezuela.”

DEFENSE TECH’S David Axe is going back to Iraq.