SOME Nifong/Spitzer questions.

A LOOK AT “EGO PORK” for members of Congress. “Name the pig after me!”

And the new Congress doesn’t seem any better: “The newest member of Congress, Representative Niki Tsongas, a Democrat, took the oath of office on Oct. 18, but has already won an earmark, to provide $240,000 for a community health center in her hometown, Lowell, Mass.”

FRANK BUCKLES: The last surviving American veteran of World War I.

MICHAEL TOTTEN GOES TO FALLUJAH, and his blog-partner stays at home and dodges shotgun-armed assault. Yes, the irony is noted.

A ROUNDUP OF battery-buying advice.

MR. MURDOCH, TEAR DOWN THAT WALL! Wall St. Journal going free.

Here, FYI, is our podcast interview with WSJ publisher Gordon Crovitz.

THE POLITICO: “As the congressional session lurches toward a close, Democrats are confronting some demoralizing arithmetic on Iraq. The numbers tell a story of political and substantive paralysis more starkly than most members are willing to acknowledge publicly, or perhaps even to themselves.” Fortunately, the war has gone well in the interim, the polls have turned around, and that may even turn out to be good for the Democrats. The system works!

LAW SCHOOLS THAT ARE ranked higher than their parent universities. I’m at one of ’em. It would be interesting to do this again, comparing law schools’ SSRN rankings with both their U.S. News rankings and their parent universities’ U.S. News rankings.

HOW TO LEAD A CARBON-FREE LIFESTYLE: “That means no flying to the US for $50,000 speeches.”

MORE ON DIGITAL CAMERAS FOR COMBAT, from Michael Yon.

SAMIZDATA: “The smoking ban was a mere tasty morsel. It has roused the appetite of the beast without bedding it back down again. The hungry beast has drawn blood and it wants more.”

I THOUGHT THE DEBATE ON GLOBAL WARMING WAS OVER, but The New York Times notices that it’s still going on.

SAY IT AIN’T SO: Selective reporting at the L.A. Times.

MORE SPITZER PROBLEMS: “Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to provide illegal immigrants with driver’s licenses has sunk his favorability rating to an all-time low of 41 percent, and has left only 25 percent of voters planning to re-elect him, according to a poll the Siena Research Institute released Tuesday.” That’s on top of the scandals I’ve linked earlier. He’s really gone down fast. Is he the East Coast answer to Gray Davis?

THREATENING Wolf Blitzer.

HAS IRAQ BECOME A forgotten war? Because, you know, it’s going well?

RICK MORAN looks at voter fraud.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, independent filmmakers whose documentaries threatened the established order would be silenced by the minions of the state. And they were right!

FRED THOMPSON SPOKE AT THE CITADEL JUST NOW, and his campaign sends some excerpts of his speech on national defense and the war on terror. Click “read more” to read them.

SOME PEOPLE ARE HAVING TROUBLE finding the discussion of the D.C. gun-ban case in the Cato article that I linked yesterday. Sorry — the article surveys a bunch of cases before the Supreme Court this term and you have to scroll down quite a bit. The discussion starts at p. 347 of the journal, which will be page 13 in your Adobe reader.

So far the Court hasn’t acted on the cert. petition. (Via Howard Bashman). As I mention in the piece, there are good reasons for them to not want to hear it.