TEDDY BEARS, PARKED CARS, AND MORAL EQUIVALENCE: “As though Christians, Hindus, Buddhists or Jews were imprisoning people over teddy bears’ names, or flogging women for the ‘crime’ of being raped!”

CHAVEZ DEFEATED? I thought his victory was inevitable. But stay tuned. Gateway Pundit is following the story. Here’s the latest at the NYT. More here.

LONDON TIMES: France stunned by rioters’ savagery.

As Illy tried to reassure the gang that there would be an investigation into the deaths of two teenagers whose motorbike had just collided with a police car, he heard a voice shouting: “Somebody must pay for this. Some pigs must die tonight!”

The 43-year-old commissaire realised it was time to leave, but that was not possible: they set his car ablaze. He stood as the mob closed in on him, parrying the first few baseball bat blows with his arms. An iron bar in the face knocked him down.

“I tried to roll myself into a ball on the ground,” said Illy from his hospital bed. He was breathing with difficulty because several of his ribs had been broken and one had punctured his lung.

His bruised and bloodied face signalled a worrying new level of barbarity in the mainly Muslim banlieues, where organised gangs of rioters used guns against police in a two-day rampage of looting and burning last week.

Not far from where Illy was lying was a policeman who lost his right eye after being hit by pellets from a shotgun. Another policeman displayed a hole the size of a 10p coin in his shoulder where a bullet had passed through his body armour.

Altogether 130 policemen were injured, dozens by shotgun pellets and shells packed with nails that were fired from a homemade bazooka. It prompted talk of urban “guerrilla warfare” being waged on French streets against the forces of law and order.

Writing in The Spectator the other day, Clive Davis seemed to think that I was crazy for suggesting that the French weren’t paying enough attention to this problem. I beg to differ.

I THINK SOMEONE WAS SAYING THIS AT COLUMBIA NOT LONG AGO: “Muslim fags don’t exist.”

SO I WATCHED ALL OF the 2001: A Space Odyssey Blu-Ray disc I mentioned in my post the other day. The HD transfer was indeed excellent and though I mentioned that a few of the special effects showed their age, in fact most of them look really good. (Better than some of the CGI stuff you see today, in fact.) The movie itself — which I hadn’t seen in years — held up better than I expected, too.

OVEREXCITED ABOUT OPENNESS: Brendan Nyhan is unimpressed with Obama’s latest proposal. “Most government meetings are already a waste of time, but making them public would completely destroy any hope of real business being done. Has anyone seen footage of the ridiculous Cabinet meetings that take place in front of the cameras? They’re bad political theater where nothing of substance is accomplished. Why would we want every department and agency meeting to be stripped of the possibility for candor or frank discussion?”

CNN’S Virtual Reality. “Just imagine, for giggles alone, if Fox had run a YouTube debate and it was revealed that Republican activists passed themselves off as, say, a hodge-podge of patchouli-soaked hemptivists, Hugo Chavez-loving limousine liberals and gay interior decorators who asked why we can’t give peace a chance and buy the world a Coke. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, Fox would come under some criticism?”

Not from the Columbia Journalism Review!

JOEL KOTKIN AND FRED SIEGEL ON the Gentry Liberals: “Over the last half a century, liberals have moved from strong support for basic middle-class concerns — epitomized by the New Deal and the G.I. Bill — to policies that reflect the concerns and prejudices of ever more elite interests. As a result, neither party speaks for broad middle class concerns.”

And Lou Dobbs slouches nearer, his moment come ’round at last . . . .

K.C. JOHNSON’S book on the Duke fake-rape debacle gets a strong review from Harvard economist George Borjas.

IOWA: Poll puts Huckabee and Obama out front in Iowa.

WHAT IF THEY HAD A TV DEBATE and nobody could watch it?

HEH: “We went in with too few auditors, but maybe it is not too late for an international Coalition of the Billing to sort this out.”

THIS SOUNDS LIKE A SALABLE IDEA! Putting the IRS in a key role in your health care plan. I mean, the negative ads just write themselves.

A NEW BOOK LOOKS AT Saddam’s terror documents. (Via LGF). Haven’t seen it, but I’m guessing that nothing they say could possibly get much press until after the election.

VARIOUS PEOPLE HAVE EMAILED TO COMPLAIN about the horn-honking ad on the site. It should be gone now. I never heard it — my browser blocks that stuff.

THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT: Spying on journalists.

CHAVEZ IS claiming victory.

Huge roundup here.

ONE CURE FOR ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM is to let people experience it. The trouble, most of us have figured, is that it takes decades. But maybe not — maybe the Feiler Faster Thesis applies here, too. Recently we’ve seen declining enthusiasm for strict Sharia in Nigeria and in Indonesia. And now we’re seeing upbeat messages from Muslim televangelists.

A Muslim televangelist not much older than herself, in a stylish goatee and Western clothes, Masoud, 29, was preaching about Islam in youthful Arabic slang.

He said imams who outlawed art and music were misinterpreting their faith. He talked about love and relationships, the need to be compassionate toward homosexuals and tolerant of non-Muslims. Leboudy had never heard a Muslim preacher speak that way.

“Moez helps us understand everything about our religion — not from 1,400 years ago, but the way we live now,” said Leboudy, wearing a scarlet hijab over her hair.

She said she still plans a career in medicine, but she’s also starting classes in film directing. “After I heard Moez,” she said, “I decided to be the one who tries to change things.”

Masoud is one of a growing number of young Muslim preachers who are using satellite television to promote an upbeat and tolerant brand of Islam.

Hmm. Perhaps this is a good sign.

A SCIENCE CHALLENGE FOR REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES: “The Medical Marijuana Project, a group advocating the use of medical marijuana, will be in New Hampshire on Monday with a mobile billboard offering to contribute $10,000 to the campaigns of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain or Mitt Romney if any of the candidates can substantiate their statements about medical marijuana.”

CHAVEZ’S CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE is behind in the polls. Creative vote-counting can fix that, though!

BMW PUTS INTERNET PROTOCOL under the hood.

WHY SPEAK ENGLISH in America?

SOME HOLIDAY kitchen recommendations, from Art Smith.

THE UNION LEADER endorses McCain.

UPDATE: Carl Cameron thinks this is a big deal.

A NINETIES NOSTALGIA LINK: Expect to hear a lot more about this stuff if Hillary is nominated. If that’s not a reason to vote for Obama, I don’t know what is . . . .