MICHAEL BARONE on law schools and affirmative action.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT LIVEJOURNAL CLUELESSNESS, as well as complaints about TypePad. Say what you will about Blogger/Blogspot, but it’s free.

THOUGHTS ON the media and foreign policy.

GETTING VIETNAM RIGHT.

MICHAEL VICK HAS NOTHING ON FRANK J., who’s been caught running a vicious dog quiz ring.

THE YANGTZE RIVER DOLPHIN appears not to be extinct after all.

MORE ON THE NORMAN HSU CAMPAIGN DONATION SCANDAL, from TigerHawk: “The substance of the story remains fairly thin, even if embarrassing for Democrats. . . . The facts reported so far can be assembled into quite different malign and benign stories, both of which are essentially speculation.”

THE WORLD’S FASTEST barbecue pit.

But can it outrun the world’s fastest port-a-potty?

FARMING THE GOVERNMENT: Planting long green. It’s worse than even the critics thought.

MARINE TO SUE MURTHA, over irresponsible Haditha accusations. The story does seem to have withered.

LOOKING IRAQIS in the eye.

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND: At the United Nations? “ABCNews has learned that United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York Thursday morning.” And yes, I know that phosgene isn’t a nerve gas. So does ABC, but you have to read farther. Give ’em a break — this was rushed.

UPDATE: Ouch: “Aren’t these the guys who are supposed to be keeping track of Iranian uranium enrichment?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: If the Foreign Policy folks had taken the time to read this post closely, they’d have realized that I was being snide, not “breathless.” Breathlessness is not my, er [Idiom, sir? — ed. Yes, that’s it.] idiom. Continuing in that vein, I should note that it’s a different bunch of hapless weapons inspectors who are in charge of the Iranian nukes. And a bang-up job they’re doing, too . . . .

A GUN CONTROL QUESTION for the Republican YouTube debate.

IN THE MAIL: Tony Kronman’s new book, Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life.

It looks like a very interesting and important book.

ACTUALLY, THIS WILL PREPARE THEM FOR THE REAL WORLD: High school journalism students graded on ad revenue: “The syllabus says $600 will get you an A, $500 will get you a B, $400 gets a C, $300 gets a D and less than $300 worth of ads sold will earn a student an F on the assignment.” (Via Romenesko).

GHOSTS OF ANBAR, PART 3: Another dispatch from Michael Yon.

MORE ON HIGHER WAGES WORLDWIDE, from Megan McArdle: “There’s a lovely psychic benefit to thinking of Chinese workers getting wealthier, happier and healthier, all while supplying us affordable HDTVs. Some analysts, however, are worried that this benefit will come at a stiff cost to us: inflationary pressure from Chinese exports.”

And some related thoughts here:

I spent a significant part of the last three years working in India training derivative traders and I saw the same phenomenon ocurring as described in the Times article. Wages rising fast but, more importantly a shortage of truly qualified workers. India has an enormous population of uneducated lower class workers. Those workers however need a great deal of education before they can step in and work in the call centers or programming shops. The cheap cheap labor era is over in India. The same appears to be ocurring in China. The impact will be higher inflation in the developed world than we have seen in the past decade.

Hmm. That doesn’t sound good.

THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL HAS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST, and is asking bloggers for help.

WALT MOSSBERG LOVES THE NEW YAHOO MAIL and says it’s better than Gmail. “I’ve been testing the new Yahoo Mail on both Windows and Macintosh computers. It has some downsides, but it beats Gmail, in my view, both in terms of features and in terms of its ability to act like a standard computer program rather than a Web page, something for which Gmail often gets more credit.” And unlike Gmail it supports folders for sorting messages. I like Gmail, but maybe I’ll give it a try.

THE NEW YORK TIMES’ EDITORS think that the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is in the Constitution. But then, they believe many things that are demonstrably untrue.

UPDATE: More questions about the NYT’s constitutional scholarship.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Further thoughts here: “So, when you spend a great deal of time touting your authority based on the unique advantages of editors, the question must be asked, who reviews the views and claims of the editors?” And the suggestion that they bring in Randy Barnett as a tutor — boy, he’ll be awfully busy if everyone accepts the blogosphere’s recommendations where he’s concerned!

MORE: “Oy vey.”

J.D. JOHANNES posts a bit of combat video from his forthcoming documentary. Plus, thoughts about Katie Couric.

MICHAEL YON EMAILS to recommend this piece at Small Wars Journal from Dave Kilcullen. Yon writes: “Everything in this latest rings true from what I have seen in Iraq.”

FUNDRAISER NORMAN HSU: A wanted man.

KAZAKHSTAN SETS FOOT IN THE E.U.: “But is the Kazakh ‘president for life,’ Nursultan Nazarbaev, really an alternative to Putin?”

MICKEY KAUS: “The strongest argument I can see against Rendell being the Dem’s vice-presidential candidate is that he should be the presidential candidate.” I’m not a Rendell fan myself. But that doesn’t mean that Mickey is wrong.

Plus, next year’s political bathroom bust, today!