THE IRANIAN LABOR MOVEMENT: “Heroic and ignored.”

“SWEET BUT ILLEGAL:” A look at portable cellphone jammers:

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius.

“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.”

I can imagine some downsides, though. As the article notes, these have considerable utility for terrorists or criminals. And even a non-criminal could accidentally block a vital call.

If you want to prank annoying things in public spaces, consider TV-zapping instead. But as I’ve noted before, even there, there are questions about ethics.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ken Johnson explains another problem:

My wife has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition with which I believe you are familiar. For 30 years, she been slowly losing her battle with the disease and is now on the list to receive a heart transplant.

Neither she nor I had a cellphone when she went on the list. We purchased two of those cheap, pay-as-you-go phones so the hospital can contact us if a heart becomes available.

Basically, we’re waiting for one life-changing phone call — and if we’re sitting next to one of these lawbreaking, self-righteous jerks when it comes, we’ll miss it.

Who the hell do these people think they are that they imagine they have a right to interfere with the communications infrastructure in the United States?

Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I meant.

A BIG ROUNDUP ON Pakistan’s state of emergency.

And here’s more on the subject from Jonathan Foreman, who notes that India is being surprisingly quiet.

IS THAT A LOUD ZIPPER, or are you just happy to see me?

What is it with these guys?

UPDATE: Obviously, we need more research to understand this problem.

A PREDICTION: “Expect much more nuanced, even handed treatments of the past, now that Democrats seek to take over the Executive, rediscover the need to preserve and protect National Security and the National Interest, and seek to nurture a more grown-up view of the best intentions of their one-time (political) enemies.”

We can hope.

IS THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION creating monopolies?

HEY, I DIDN’T NOTICE IT BEFORE, but the Glenn and Helen Show has been nominated for best podcast at the Weblog Awards. Vote early and often!

MORE NON-PITY for ambitious young strivers who want to change the world while earning large salaries. “In fact, one of my biggest mistakes in life was not recognizing early that the most effective way to achieve my goals would have been to get wealthy first, then to apply that wealth toward them, as Elon Musk, John Carmack, Jeff Bezos and others have done. . . . But their fundamental premise is flawed. Who is it that really changes the world, and for the better?” Read the whole thing.

DAVID HARSANYI WAS ON NBC NEWS talking about his new book, Nanny State.

(Via the Insta-Wife.)

TRAFFIC IN OCTOBER was over 7 million pageviews, continuing an upward trend that’s gone on all year. Thanks for coming by!

I FOUND AN ISLAND IN YOUR ARMS, A COUNTRY IN YOUR EYES: But I’m still not naming my kid after you.

STATING THE OBVIOUS: Corruption, not Iraq, will be the GOP’s problem in 2008.

DO NOT TRUST CONTENT FROM ANDREW SULLIVAN: I can’t go around answering all of Andrew Sullivan’s misrepresentations, but it’s telling that he can’t seem to criticize me without misrepresenting what I’ve said. In this post he links to a truncated version of my views on the torture debate on another blog. Why?

Probably because if he linked to my actual post it would reveal some uncomfortable things. First, that I’m not pro-torture despite Andrew’s pathetic eagerness to find me so, and second, that I was criticizing the Democrats’ inconsistency on the subject. Oh, and third, it appears that waterboarding, over which Andrew has exercised himself so much in recent years, and upon which he has staked his many, many, many, many claims to moral supremacy, actually stopped in 2003 — ironically, just as Andrew executed his pivot against Bush and the war — and was only used three times. This seems pretty consistent with my view of torture, which is that I’m against it, but that it’s not quite the issue Andrew wants it — perhaps I should say needs it — to be. Rather, especially for the Democrats, the torture debate has been a political tool, applied in an “any weapon to hand” fashion when politics dictate, but abandoned when they feel the need to talk tough on terrorism.

Meanwhile, at the Cato Institute, a correction to John Quiggin, who was led into error by foolishly relying on Andrew’s representations that I had renounced libertarianism.

INFLATABLE solar arrays.

DAVE KOPEL: Fred Thompson 1, United Nations 0. Plus this: “It’s been a long time since a major presidential candidate quoted Grotius, and my view is the more Grotius in America’s public debates, the better. I hope Pufendorf starts to get some attention too.” Apparently, Thompson was listening in law school. Plus, this observation: “It’s rather telling that the UN’s American defenders fail to directly address an indisputable fact: U.N. Human Rights Council’s subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has endorsed a report denying the existence of a human right of self-defense.”

JOE GANDELMAN on Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California fires.

A SHARANSKY INTERVIEW by Matthew Kaminski: “Natan Sharansky’s passion for democracy isn’t always welcome in the West.”

Makes sense. Western political leaders aren’t especially enthusiastic even about democracy at home . . . .

THOUGHTS ON capital markets and the U.S. legal system.

GOING DRINKING WITH The Drinkboy. And playing stump-the-bartender. Sounds like somebody Stephen Green should get to know. But is “cocktailing” a word?

L.A. TIMES: Mukasey all but a shoo-in for approval.

Washington Post: Democratic Defections Clear Path For Mukasey.

TONY SNOW ON the news industry’s decline: “There’s an old boast in the business — that the job of a journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The thing is, we never realized that we were becoming The Comfortable.”

JULES CRITTENDEN: “Even the Brits, who are barely in Iraq anymore, are noticing how unsporting the Iraq coverage is.”

GOOD POINT ON THE MURTHA SCANDALS: “Just imagine for a moment if this had been Newt Gingrich.” Think we would have heard more?

JUST IN TIME FOR THE FORESIGHT VISION WEEKEND, Phil Bowermaster has some thoughts on transformation.

“DENTAL JOURNALISM” — where getting the actual facts is like pulling teeth.