TRAFFIC’S UP TO A 12-MONTH RECORD, which is odd for August. I don’t know where it’s all coming from, but thanks for coming by!

STAND BY THE MISSION: A petition to support the surge.

NORMAN HSU UPDATE: “A top Democratic fundraiser wanted as a fugitive in California turned himself in Friday to face a grand theft charge. San Mateo County Superior Court Judge H. James Ellis ordered Norman Hsu handcuffed and held on $2 million bond. A bail hearing was scheduled for Sept. 5, at which the judge will consider reducing his bail to $1 million. . . . On Friday, Hsu, who has an apparel business in New York, also resigned from the board of trustees of The New School and from the board of governors of The New School’s Eugene Lang College. The college received a federal appropriation secured by Clinton last year, but a spokesman for the school said Hsu was not involved in seeking money for the school.”

OFF TO JAIL: Nifong held in criminal contempt.

K.C. Johnson has more, and is no doubt pleased that this denouement is just in time for the release of his book on the case, which comes out on Tuesday.

MICHIGAN MAKES ITS MOVE “Breaking news from Michigan: there won’t be a Democratic caucus in Michigan. There will be a Democratic Primary on Jan. 15. The Michigan Democratic Party will resubmit its delegate selection plan to the DNC. The DNC will find the plan in non-compliance and strip Michigan of its delegates. The candidates will then have to decide whether to compete there.”

LARRY CRAIG WILL resign tomorrow.

WELL, SUMMER’S ALMOST OVER ANYWAY: “There will be no summer of love in Iowa.”

ERIC SCHEIE IS DISAPPOINTED WITH THE LARRY CRAIG SCANDAL:

I realize that there are things missing in this analysis, and of course the biggest problem is that it does not involve actual sex, but the perception of sex. In that respect, Craig’s “sex” is like the nonexistent sex of Mark Foley, whose crime was not sex, but sending suggestive emails. (Or Vitter, whose name was found in an address book.) . . .

What is it with these guys that they can’t even run a proper sex scandal?

Who ever heard of sex scandals without sex?

At least when the Democrats have a sex scandal, it involves real, honest to goodness sex. Yeah, I know, Bill Clinton said the sex wasn’t sex. But let’s face it, it was. Had Bill tapped Monica’s foot, the most he’d have been accused of was playing footsie, and there’d have been little to no outcry, much less an impeachment. And as Matthew Sheffield makes clear, the double standard is appalling; Democrats keep their jobs after drowning women in cars or keeping male brothels, while Republicans are hounded out of office for sex scandals without even the component of sex.

If I were the American people, I’d be totally sick of sexless Republican sex scandals by now.

The GOP needs to shape up.

It is pretty thin gruel.

HOW ABOUT A MOVIE WHERE HOLLYWOOD FILMMAKERS TAKE MONEY FROM AMERICA’S ENEMIES TO UNDERMINE MORALE? It wouldn’t be any more dishonest than Brian de Palma’s latest.

Here’s more on Hollywood’s missing movies. Instead of the predictable propaganda they actually make. Plus, how Hollywood screenwriters engage in “literary guerrilla warfare.”

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Factchecking DePalma.

IS THE LED ZEPPELIN taking off?

THIS WOULD SEEM TO NARROW JOSH MARSHALL’S CORRUPTION GAP:

Eliot Spitzer’s fall from grace is extraordinary. A mere seven months into his term after a landslide victory, the Empire State’s brash new governor is openly ridiculed as a liar and worse. An astonishing 80 percent of respondents tell pollsters they want the governor to testify under oath to prove his claim that he had nothing to do with “troopergate,” a dirty-tricks plot to smear Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, a Republican rival.

His fellow Democratic pols are largely abandoning him. After two investigations found that his top aides used the state police for a political hit job, and with four more probes gearing up, one of which could bring indictments, Spitzer is suddenly a lonely man. As one prominent supporter put it, “nobody believes him when he says he didn’t know.”

Spitzer has always struck me as a phony.

“PIGGLY,” INDEED: Financing a grocery store’s renovations with federal money.

THOUGHTS ON MANAGING THE INEVITABLE DECLINE of the newspaper industry.

WHAT DO THEY TEACH THEM IN SCHOOL NOWADAYS? Reader Bo McIlvain notes that Newsweek calls Bjorn Lomborg “the anti-Cassandra.” But as McIlvain points out: “I guess no one at Newsweek remembers that Cassandra’s curse wasn’t just that she was always right, she was NEVER BELIEVED. So, it’s more apt to call Gore the ‘Anti-Cassandra’.” Yes, the term “Cassandra” as synonym for “doomsayer” is a popular trope, but it does betray unfamiliarity with the story on which it’s based.

JOHN HARWOOD: Why Bush stepped into the subprime meltdown.

VIACOM CHARGES MAN WITH VIOLATING HIS OWN COPYRIGHT, after he YouTubed their program that used his video.

POISON GAS AND COUNTERFEIT CASH: A look at the United Nations’ inventory problems.

A SHOCKING LAPSE IN JUDGMENT: This story on fugitive campaign donor Norman Hsu contains a passage that’s not about politics, and that reflects badly on academia:

Mr. Kerrey said he was introduced to Mr. Hsu about two years ago, and shortly thereafter Mr. Hsu joined the board of governors at the Eugene Lang College for liberal arts at the New School. He joined the university’s board of trustees last July.

“So much of the university is about the immigrant culture, and I liked his personal story, coming from China, and he had an interest in fashion as well,” Mr. Kerrey said. “It all intrigued me.”

He said that the university did not do background checks of prospective trustees, and that he saw no reason to ask Mr. Hsu to resign from its board.

This is probably not that unusual — guy seems nice, has a lot of money to donate, and the diversity factor is a plus. So why look deeper? But it’s wrong. Universities are, in fact, large and wealthy corporations possessing special legal status and imbued with public trust. Their boards oversee large expenditures in a fiduciary capacity. It’s true that university administrators prefer for the boards to be mere rubber-stamps, but the management of most corporations would prefer less oversight from the board, too. We’ve moved away from that in the for-profit sector, but nonprofits haven’t caught up. They need to, because there’s a lot of money in the nonprofit sector now, and nowhere near the scrutiny over where it goes, either internally or externally.

JOHN WARNER IS RETIRING: Marc Ambinder looks at the impact. Will Virginia’s next Senator be named Warner, too?

GOOSE CREEK UPDATE:

Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida were indicted Friday on charges of carrying explosive materials across states lines and one was accused of teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism-related charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

He and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, an engineering student, were stopped for speeding Aug. 4 in Goose Creek, S.C., where they have been held on state charges. A federal grand jury in Tampa handed up the indictment.

Seems that there was something to this story after all.

UPDATE: A roundup from Dan Riehl. And much more here, including a link to the indictment.

NOT THAT THERE’S anything wrong with that!

A ROUNDUP OF NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ, from the Iraq-bound Major John Tammes.

WAS A CRIME COMMITTED IN HADITHA? Jim Hanson doesn’t think so.

THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM: At Captain’s Journal, a look at rules of engagement.

“IF YOU THINK GOVERNMENT IS FAIR, go to the grocery store and buy me a six-pack.”