TAKING DOWN terrorist websites.

Plus, behind enemy lines with a suburban counterterrorist. Somebody ought to write a book about this stuff. Oh, wait . . . .

JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS! James Lileks’ new book, Gastroanomalies: Questionable Culinary Creations from the Golden Age of American Cookery. I love the cover art.

JOHN FUND says that renewed interest in the “Fairness” Doctrine is all about liberals’ failure to compete in talk radio:

The stakes are high. “Lovers of liberty must expose calls to restore the Fairness Doctrine for the fraudulent power-grab that they plainly are,” writes Brian Anderson, editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

That’s because the attempts to control the airwaves won’t stop with so-called equal time rules. Al Franken, the liberal former Air America host who is now running for the Senate in Minnesota, is already slipping into the role of potential legislative censor of his old industry. “You shouldn’t be able to lie on the air,” he told Newsweek’s Mr. Fineman earlier this year. “You can’t utter obscenities in a broadcast, so why should you be able to lie? You should be fined for lying.”

In fact, you can be “fined” for lying, if the person you lie about successfully sues for defamation. But the First Amendment makes it exceedingly difficult for defamation plaintiffs to prevail, especially if they are public figures–and for good reason.

Given how things are going at The New Republic, the “fines for lying” idea seems a risky move.

WALTER SHAPIRO wonders which Republican presidential candidate is most macho.

Among the Democrats, of course, it’s not even a contest . . . .

THE MOTHER OF ALL TAX HIKES. Funny how Saddam’s little turn of phrase has outlasted Saddam by a sizable margin.

GOODBYE RON PAUL EXPERIMENT. Hello Stephen Colbert experiment.

BILL HOBBS HAS TAKEN THE BOEING.

Me, I’d settle for a membership in JumpJet.

WHAT’S AL QAEDA GOT TO DO with the California fires?

UPDATE: Related item.

A POINT OF HONOR: Bob Owens gets serious about The New Republic.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY SPLIT OVER WAR grows deeper and angrier.

THIS PROPOSAL is likely to do as well as the boffo Jimmy Carter documentary: “Hollywood now proposes that in a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line, Joe’s — well, ‘G.I.’ — identity needs to be replaced by membership in an ‘international force based in Brussels.'”

RUDY CRITICIZES HILLARY for interfering with U.S. diplomacy.

A LOOK AT political correctness in Imperial Rome.

STILL NO WINNER IN THE LUNAR LANDER PRIZE, which means that the entire two million is still on the table.