POLITICO: Giuliani playing well with young voters.

IN THE MAIL: Richard North Patterson’s election novel, The Race.

JOHN MCCAIN IS saying “I told you so.”

UPDATE: Rand Simberg comments. And don’t miss this skeptical media account!

PREJUDICE AGAINST SOUTHERNERS, in New Hampshire?

RADLEY BALKO OBSERVES THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY of the Kathryn Johnston raid in Atlanta:

Shortly after the shooting, the police alleged that they had paid an informant to buy drugs from Ms. Johnston’s home. They said she fired at them first, and wounded two officers. And they alleged they found marijuana in her home.

We now know that these were all lies. In fact, everything about the Kathryn Johnston murder was corrupt. The initial arrest of the ex-con came via trumped-up charges. The police then invented an informant for the search warrant, and lied about overseeing a drug buy from Johnston’s home.

Ms. Johnston didn’t actually wound any of the officers. They were wounded by fragments of ricochet from their own storm of bullets. And there was no marijuana. Once they realized their mistake, the officers handcuffed Ms. Johnston and left her to bleed and die on the floor of her own home while they planted marijuana in her basement. . . . If any good has come of this, it’s that the media coverage surrounding Kathryn Johnston’s death has at least exposed the country to the widespread use of “dynamic entry” tactics for routine service of drug warrants, and the rather predictable problems that come with armed police breaking into someone’s home.

Your drug-war tax dollars at work. Sadly, incidents like this are all too common.

MORE ON BLOOMBERG: Mayor Becomes Entangled by Gun Lawsuits.

A STEM-CELL BREAKTHROUGH? “Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.” Bring it on!

UPDATE: Here’s more from the Wall Street Journal. If this pans out, it’s the biggest story of the year.

I BLOGGED ABOUT BEING CALLED BY A POLLSTER a while ago. The Polling Project aims to systematize that phenomenon: “We’re asking everyone to share their polling experiences with us via a simple form (linked below), telling us exactly how they have been polled. For too long, the polling industry has had the luxury of operating largely under-the-radar. The Polling Project aims to move polling from under-the-radar to under the microscope.”

NEWS OR PROPAGANDA: You decide.

PROGRESS ON METAL STORM: “After years of development, a new class of weapon that uses computer-controlled electronic ignition instead of primers to fire projectiles may be finally taking its much coveted place in the U.S. military inventory. . . . How astounding? Try 1 million rounds per minute.”

GOVERNOR SPITZER LAWYERS UP? (Via JWF).

SINCE I’VE BEEN DOING A LOT OF GUNBLOGGING LATELY, here’s a link to Jeffrey Snyder’s famous essay, A Nation of Cowards. Worth a read, if you haven’t seen it before.

UDPATE: SayUncle emails: “Since you’re gunblogging: Acting ATF Director Sullivan has responded to allegations of abuse against firearms licensees by ATF. He notes there is no correlation between the dramatic decrease of nearly 150,000 licensees and ATF revocation actions. I don’t think he’s paying attention.”

ON THE ONE HAND, THIS IS GOOD NEWS: “The United Nations’ top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement.” On the other hand, it’s a major error, and calls into question other alarmist scientific statements from the same source. Money quote — er, literally — “There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda.”

OBAMA PULLS AHEAD in Iowa. People want “change,” and apparently don’t see Hillary as representing something new.

UPDATE: Taegan Goddard criticizes the way the poll was reported. [LATER: Actually, the piece is by Stuart Rothenberg, at Taegan Goddard’s political wire. Sorry for the confusion — Taegan emailed me the link and I didn’t notice the different authorship.]

BAGHDAD BY NIGHT.

IN LIGHT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’ REPORTING OF PROGRESS IN BAGHDAD, Ed Morrissey thinks they owe Petraeus an apology:

Let’s put the Times report into context. Just two months ago, the paper gave MoveOn a price break to run an ad that accused General David Petraeus of treason and perjury even before he testified about the security improvements. The editorial board called Petraeus’ testimony “empty calories” and complained of his “broken promises and false claims of success” and asserted that Petraeus had not given an “honest accounting” in his Congressional briefings.

The Times waited until the success of Petraeus could no longer be denied to publish the truth. With every other news agency in the world reporting on the drop in violence, the rise in commerce, the flight of the militias even from Baghdad, and the unifying efforts such as the rebuilding of St. John’s Catholic Church in the heart of the capital, the Times has no other choice but to rescue its credibility with an acknowledgment of reality. . . .

Now that the Times has finally acknowledged the success of the surge and the reality of Petraeus’ testimony, will they apologize for disparaging the American commander so viciously? Will they retract their political hitpiece of an editorial of September 11th? Don’t bet on it.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Maybe the editors don’t make it to page 14! Maybe that’s why reporters can get away with putting good news there . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire emails: “Regarding the NY Times story about improvement in Baghdad – Since you twice link to Don Surber’s post noting the Wash Post placement on p. 14, it is possible that folks will get confused and think the Times put it there also (unlike the WaPo, online Times stories don’t include info about the page on which they ran.) That said, dedicated link-followers will see that Captain Ed noted it as a front page story.” And that’s what we have here! But just in case, I’m including this clarification.

TIGERHAWK: “Two stories today make me wonder whether our governmental institutions are finally, genuinely, learning to fight this war.”

IS STANFORD violating the Solomon Amendment? If so, would a False Claims Act action be viable here?

IT’S A JUSTICE SYSTEM PARALYZED BY TERROR:

In cities struggling with gang-related crimes, like Trenton and Newark, detectives said that even on the infrequent occasions when they find civilian witnesses who might be willing to testify, investigators are wary about pressuring them to appear in court. That reluctance is based on a fear that the authorities might not be able to protect witnesses from retaliation.

In the New Jersey State Police gang unit, the approach is so common that detectives have made hundreds of cases during the past five years, but used civilian testimony fewer than a dozen times, investigators said. . . . No one much disputes that the strategy amounts to something of a retreat for law enforcement in New Jersey. . . . Some state officials who support Mr. Corzine’s proposals said that New Jersey’s witness intimidation problem had grown so complex and severe that it would take a broader effort, from both government and community leaders, to combat it.

“The bad guys are willing to use tactics that the good guys haven’t yet figured out how to deal with,” said State Senator John H. Adler, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

It’s a quagmire, the local political system is inept, and the corruption and terror will never end. U.S. out of New Jersey now!

UPDATE: Professor Joseph Olson emails:

From your blog: ““The bad guys are willing to use tactics that the good guys haven’t yet figured out how to deal with,” said State Senator John H. Adler, chairman of the [New Jersey] Judiciary Committee.”

The good guys know what to do, you protect yourself. But NJ bad guys have the advantage of government assistance because the NJ legislature has made certain that all potential victims will be defenseless by enacting a discretionary handgun carry permit law (under which only the politically connected and those guarding other people’s money can protect themselves). A police promise to draw a nice chalk line around your dead body doesn’t provide much in the way of “protect and serve.” No wonder no one will testify. I wouldn’t.

BTW, NJ also bans civilian use of hollowpoint bullets that effectively stop attackers.

Better working conditions for criminals yield more crime. Natch!

Yeah, go figure.

GIULIANI: The new ideas candidate?

MORE GUN DEALERS are suing Mike Bloomberg.

OBAMA: Clintons trying to establish a dynasty.

IN THE SPACE REVIEW, Jonathan Card on space property rights.

NOT THAT MANY hate crimes against Muslims. A lot more hate crimes against Jews.

BOSTON GLOBE: “Effectiveness of D.C. gun ban still a mystery.”

“One of the difficult things is, you can’t measure what didn’t happen,” Singer said. “You can’t measure how many guns didn’t come into the District because we have this law.”

But you can measure the violence that did occur, using the bellwether offense of homicide to chart the ebb and flow of crime in the District since the ban was enacted. And the violence here over those years was worse than in most other big cities, many of them in states with far less restrictive gun laws. . . . Yet the gun culture on the city’s mean streets during the crack epidemic has not abated, police statistics show. Even as the homicide toll declined in D.C. after 1991, the percentage of killings committed with firearms remained far higher than it was when the ban was passed.

“Mystery?” By any reasonable measure, it was a failure. And a predictable one, since gun control hasn’t done much for crime anywhere in the United States.