A GROWING NUMBER OF anti-Islam protests in Europe.

NASA: Giant Waves Over Iowa.

THE HENRY REED CAUCUS: Right-to-lifers want some comfort from Rudy Giuliani about abortion; I want some comfort on this vital issue.

A MAN OF HSUPERIOR TASTE:

Disgraced Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu had a well-known affection for fine living and all things Clinton. And his collector’s taste and eye were on display Wednesday, when federal authorities unsealed documents showing they had seized more than 180 bottles of pricey wine from Hsu’s New York apartment, as well as a saxophone believed to have been autographed by President Clinton.

Experts valued the wine collection — which includes dozens of bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild and vintage Cristal champagne, as well as California wines such as Opus One — at up to $100,000.

“I wish I had this collection,” said Robert Yetman, a wine-industry consultant and professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. “It’s a little showy, but nice.”

Per Holmberg, director of acquisitions for Vinfolio, a San Francisco company that sells fine wine to collectors, called Hsu’s selections classic — the choices of “a true bon vivant.”

Until recently, Hsu, 56, traveled in glittering circles as one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prolific supporters, raising more than $1.2 million for the New York Democrat and other Democratic candidates in the last three years.

Still not much evidence as to where his money came from, though.

UPDATE: Bill Quick finds Hsu’s taste a bit nouveau:

This “collection” sounds like something thrown together by a guy who walks into BevMo and says, “What’s the most expensive champagne you got? Cristal? Great. Gimme a couple of cases. And some of that Rothschild stuff, I hear about that all the time. How about domestic red wines? Opus One? Fine. Three cases of that, too.”

Ouch.

ANOTHER SHOE DROPS: Former Duke Lacrosse Coach Sues School.

ANOTHER SHOE DROPS: Former Duke Lacrosse Coach Sues School.

MY EARLIER MENTION OF DORIS LESSING’S NOBEL PRIZE prompted readers to recall this column of hers on political correctness and communism’s legacy in language, and that reminded me of this commentary by Lessing on the gender wars, linked in the very earliest days of InstaPundit. And — alas behind a subscription wall — this scathing piece on Robert Mugabe.

MICHAEL BARONE LOOKS AT FIVE BOOKS ON AMERICA AND BRITAIN: Two of them are books mentioned here more than once: David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed, and James Bennett’s The Anglosphere Challenge.

MY MUNCHKIN’S BETTER THAN your munchkin.

UNFIT TO PRINT? It’s all about the narrative.

THE U.S. SENATE: UNITERS, NOT DIVIDERS! A reader sends this summary, not available online as far as I know:

* Iraqi Figures Launch Campaign Against US Senate Resolution

Iraqi political and religious figures in addition to Arab figures have launched a campaign to collect the signatures of one million people, who oppose the US Senate resolution on partitioning Iraq into federal regions on sectarian bases. A conference was held in Amman to this effect, during which the participants, who represent various sects, called on the Arab countries to stand by Iraq and condemn this resolution.

(Dubai Al-Sharqiyah Television in Arabic — Independent, private news and entertainment channel focusing on Iraq, run by Sa’d al-Bazzaz, publisher of the Arabic-language daily Al-Zaman)

Soon, the U.S. Senate will be held in as much esteem in Iraq as it is in America.

I DON’T DO FACEBOOK, but I like this.

FREE TV ONLINE: Including the new reality show, The Search for the Next Elvira, though that one inspired this review: “This show actually made me a fan of the current Elvira.”

Plus, uncensored South Park.

IOWAHAWK: You may already be a winner!

UPDATE: Oops. Wrong link above — though it’s funny too. I meant to link to this IowaHawk parody, and instead linked to That Darn Sandy!

MAKING DUKE AND DURHAM LOOK LIKE PIKERS: “The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.”

THE CARNIVAL OF CARS IS UP: Including immunization advice for car fans visiting our nation’s capital.

BRUCE KESLER ALSO NOTICED what the media reports left out regarding General Sanchez’s speech.

UPDATE: Sanchez echoing Rumsfeld.

And Captain Ed observes: “It seems that half of the message retired General Richard Sanchez intended to deliver missed the cut at most newsrooms, and with most bloggers. . . . Why? Well, it turns out that Sanchez considered his first target the media itself, which he blames for a large part of the problems he sees in Iraq . . . . Given that, it seems highly ironic that the journalists covering the story attempted to cover up the acidic, biting, and mostly accurate criticisms of their own performance in this war while giving front-page treatment to Sanchez’ criticisms of the political structure at the same time. If Sanchez has such credibility and standing to bring this kind of criticism to bear on Washington, why didn’t the Post and other news agencies give the same level of exposure to his media criticisms as well? He basically accuses them of cynically selling out the soldiers to defeat American efforts to win the war, and made sure that those accusations came first before his assessment of the political failures, but you’d never know that from the Post.”

THIS LOOKS COOL: McIlhenny’s Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire. There are lots of hot sauces I like, but Tabasco remains the gold standard.

OKAY, THIS IS BIZARRE: After one county web page in California was hacked and redirected to a porn site, the GSA — which controls everything ending in .gov, including state and local websites — shut down access across the state of California:

They used a shotgun to kill a flea,” state spokesman Jim Hanacek said on Friday.

Federal authorities, who have ultimate authority over most local and state Web sites, attempted to block all domains ending in ca.gov Tuesday, Hanacek said.

State agencies across California experienced rolling e-mail and Web site outages for about seven hours, and Internet users had trouble pulling up some state Web sites, he said.

The General Services Administration, which shut down the sites, apologized for the inconvenience on Thursday and said it would try to find a more targeted solution for similar problems in the future.

Jeez. (Via Kevin Drum).

HOMEOWNER VS. BURGLARS: “When you hear a pump shotgun click, it makes everyone think twice.” Video here.

GOOD THING I’M NOT ONE, THEN: “Good Catholics support government-run health care.”

VIDEO: Doris Lessing learns of her Nobel prize and displays a proper level of enthusiasm.

ALL ABOARD THE Smooth-talk Express!

JAMES LILEKS: “Leave it to a guy to invent reversible underwear.”

OUCH: “Writing for CNN today, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, and Harvey Wasserman share some thoughts about nuclear power (Note: Don’t think about that last sentence too hard. You’ll hurt your head or bring on the apocalypse or something). They’re worried that the siren song of cheap, clean energy will seduce us once again, when we should be rightfully seduced only by Bonnie’s dulcet tones.”