POLITICAL SELF-MARGINALIZATION? Hmm. Let’s see if Moore is welcome at the 2008 Democratic Convention before concluding that he’s marginalized himself.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll looks at political starmaking.

USING ISLAMIC THEOLOGY to examine the latest Osama video.

IS SAUDI ARABIA the real problem?

UPDATE: Hmm. The fact that so many of the terrorists we’re killing in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia seems, on reflection, more like a feature than a bug. Saudi Arabia’s role in promoting worldwide jihadism is what led me to prioritize Saudi Arabia ahead of Iraq back in 2002. But invading Saudi Arabia would have generated a lot more problems internationally than invading Iraq, so if we can do the latter while still killing off the Saudi jihadists in large numbers maybe we’re displaying more metis than I thought . . . .

THOUGHTS ON GENDER AND IMAGE, from Eric Scheie.

UPDATE: Best line from the comments: “No one questions Bugs Bunny’s masculinity, and he dresses in drag all the time.”

SAVING AFRICA:

This is the West’s new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help. . . .

The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and “civilization.”

Read the whole thing.

FROM GLOBAL WARMING TO LOCAL WARMING: Keep those limos idling!

PARIS LIGHTS: Reality Show in Ra’anana.

DOES THE SPREAD OF CELLPHONES UNDERMINE TRADITIONAL POLLING? Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com has posts on this topic, here and here.

DAVE KOPEL ON Bill O’ Reilly and the Boulder sex-ed case.

FREE BEER:

At an eco-festival at a park on the East River in Manhattan, men and women mostly too young to recall the “Keep America Beautiful” Indian came across an aqua-blue sign that spelled it out in no uncertain terms: “Sign up for clean energy and drink free beer.”

Those who signed up for electricity from Community Energy, which owns three wind farms in New York and Pennsylvania, received tickets for four pints of Brooklyn Lager at the third annual Citysol festival in Stuyvesant Cove Park, at the end of 23rd Street. (Brooklyn Brewery is powered by Community Energy windmills.)

“It’s a fun, easy incentive” to switch to clean energy, said Chris Neidl, who came up with the idea. “And it chips away at the holier-than-thou reputation of the environmental movement.”

Avoiding “hairshirt environmentalism” is a good strategy.

MICKEY KAUS: “I wouldn’t claim that the political ads made by unofficial lone amateur YouTube propagandists are better than the ads made by professionals.** But unofficial designs for the rumored Ferrari Dino from lone, amateur auto stylists–one Turkish, one Portuguese–are almost certainly better than any design Ferrari will actually produce, judging from its recent products.”

MICHAEL BARONE: “The way we pick Vice Presidents is crazy.”

ADRIANA LUKAS looks at media ideology and government responses.

IRAN IN IRAQ: “According to an announcement on Saturday night, US troops in Iraq uncovered a field containing 50 Iranian-made rocket launchers, all aimed at a US army base.”

UPDATE: More here.

GREG MANKIW ON WHAT IS A “FAIR” TAX? Read the whole thing.

And there’s always this one.

A NEW OSAMA VIDEO: “It seems to be from a video shot in 2001 or 2002. If that is correct, then I would draw two conclusions: first, that it is additional confirmation that he is dead. (If he were alive, they could do a new one, right?) And second, that this is a sign of panic, a poorly manufactured pseudo-blockbuster appearance designed to rally the troops, who must be getting fairly discouraged these days.”

We haven’t seen any undisputably up-to-date Osama video in an awfully long time.

UPDATE: And this one appears to be old.

FROM POPULAR MECHANICS, a slideshow from the Greenburg, Kansas tornado disaster. I haven’t seen it yet, but the new issue is full of stuff on disaster preparedness. Meanwhile, these photos make me glad I’ve got one of these.

DESIGN FOR AN environmentally friendly laptop.

DAN RIEHL: A video about progress in Iraq.

SKILL SET: How to be a better painter.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGE MCGOVERN!

Meanwhile, Nixon’s house is for sale. It’s a nice house.

I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED TO HEAR THIS:

By a 39% to 20% margin, American adults believe that the three major broadcast networks deliver news with a bias in favor of liberals. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 25% believe that ABC, CBS, and NBC deliver the news without any bias.

Similar results are found for CNN and National Public Radio (NPR).

Oh, well — they’re doing better than professors!

NEW RESEARCH DEBUNKS public health claims about obesity.

SIX MONTHS ON, Vista users are still griping.

A SIXTY WATT solar power kit. Mostly good for keeping batteries charged in RVs, etc., but string a few of these together and . . . no, I won’t do it. I have enough hobbies.