IN THE MAIL: The Road to Martyrs’ Square: A Journey into the World of the Suicide Bomber.

MORE ON THE WRITERS’ STRIKE: A producer makes a donation to the writers. Plus, plutocrats feeling betrayed:

I’m told that the Hollywood/Big Media moguls were pissed as hell that Barack Obama got out in front of the other Democratic presidential candidates and issued what they considered “a totally knee-jerk response” taking the writers’ side. And they let him know it, too. I can’t believe the CEOs are naive enough to think that just because they’ve been hosting political fundraisers and giving donations to him that gives them any clout. UPDATE: Obama’s LA staff and volunteers will be joining the strikers tomorrow.

Lots more at the link.

GOOGLE observes Veterans’ Day. Plus, some thoughts from Andrew Bolt.

More thoughts here, from a veteran, and Extreme Mortman comments on Vietnam vets and the welcome they deserved.

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

THE NEW YORK TIMES is down on the Democrats over Mukasey:

It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senate confirmation process. As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of “advice and consent” is the “consent” part.

Actually, it’s been that way for a while, and I’ve had some thoughts on what to do about it. But not much will happen when you can just buy the votes of key Democrats with pork.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, blame-shifting on the left over the poor performance of the current Congress?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader William Casey emails: ‘I just finished reading your paper, “Taking Advice Seriously,….” and I agree with you that it is advice that should be considered. It’s getting ridiculous. The Democrats pound Mukasey on waterboarding but when they had a chance in 2006 to make it illegal, they refused.” As Dan Rather used to say, “Courage!”

MICKEY KAUS: “Are Hollywood’s Iraq dramas bombing because a) people don’t want to hear about Iraq or b) people don’t want to hear about Iraq from Hollywood liberals?”

Plus, a tabloid monopoly! Shouldn’t someone tell the Antitrust Division?

TRYING TO PREDICT THE ELECTION by taking MRIs of voters’ brains. Hmm.

AUSTIN BAY RECOUNTS a conversation in Bagram.

On the desk was a picture of a young US Army second lieutenant. The pilot picked it up. “That’s my son. He just finished armor officers basic.”

I recognized the patch on the young man’s shoulder. Thirty years ago I served in the same division.

“Some day I may be flying strikes to support my son,” the pilot said, his voice soft steel.

I choked up. So did he.

“Thank you for what you do,” I said. “And for producing a son like that.”

Indeed. But read the whole thing.

BRAD DELONG: Can we retire Bob Herbert? I think this is a proposal on which the blogosphere can unite.

OOPS: “For the second time in as many days, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has had to deal with accusations of planting questions during public appearances . . . . In a telephone interview Saturday, Geoffrey Mitchell, 32, said he was approached by Clinton campaign worker Chris Hayler to ask a question about how she was standing up to President Bush on the question on funding the Iraq war and a troop withdrawal timeline.”

UPDATE: Tom Maguire: “The latest Hillarity about planted questions has me wondering what will happen to Hillary after she manages to lose the aura of inevitability.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh: “She would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those darn kids!”

WHAT HAPPENS when the neighborhood association doesn’t like you:

Former Sunni insurgents asked the U.S. to stay away, then ambushed members of al-Qaida in Iraq, killing 18 in a battle that raged for hours north of Baghdad, an ex-insurgent leader and Iraqi police said Saturday.

More like this, please.

UPDATE: More on this from Donald Sensing: “Not content with losing the logistics war, now al Qaeda is just plain losing the war. . . . Well, when it rains, it pours.”

J.D. JOHANNES on why the anti-war movies are flopping.

OR MAYBE IT’S AN EMERGENT A.I.: “Some experts have put the number of Storm-infected PCs at close to 10 million, but most estimates are more conservative, pegging the infected pool at between a few hundred thousand and a million or so machines. . . . Some observers have estimated that Storm may have as much as a petabyte of memory at its disposal. The human brain may have as much as a petabyte of storage available to it.” If so, I hope it’s a friendly one.

TOM MAGUIRE: How gullible are the Kossacks? “Rahm Emanuel wasn’t so stupid in 2006 when he helped the Democrats reclaim the House. Maybe he is not so stupid now. As to the gullibility of the Kossacks – in 493 comments no one has provided the completed Potts quote.”

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Meet the new boss, yada yada:

While conservative senators have boasted recently about ditching the $1 million “hippie museum” earmark from a recent spending bill, they didn’t bother touching billions for Louisiana.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), in fact, put out a press release late last night declaring Thursday as “our $12 billion day.” Indeed, Louisiana received $3 billion in home reconstruction aid that was dropped into the Defense spending bill late in negotiations. That bill cleared the Senate on Thursday. Louisiana will receive $7 billion of the $23 billion water resources development act money thanks to the resounding override of President Bush’s veto of that bill. And the Pelican State will receive $2 billion in defense funds for various military projects and installations in that state under the Pentagon spending bill.

But she got her pork the old-fashioned way, as the price for supporting Mukasey.

TIM WU, freedom fighter.

JUAN CARLOS TO HUGO CHAVEZ: “Why don’t you shut up?”

More here.

DON SURBER: “What broken fences?”

A THANKSGIVING RECIPE FROM BOB KRUMM: Duct tape is involved.

THE GREATEST CAR COMMERCIAL EVER? A Corvette is involved.

SOME GOOD NEWS ON DISCRETIONARY INCOME that you may have missed.

REMEMBERING NORMAN MAILER: Fondly, and not-so-fondly.

UPDATE: Roger Simon weighs in.

BIRTH CONTROL PILLS and heart attacks.

CASUALTIES OF ANTIWAR: “Why Hollywood’s anti-war movies are tanking at the box office.

Plus, “‘Lions’ lie down with lambs and nearly talk them to death.”

WELL, THEY CALL HER THE FRONTRUNNER: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has won tens of millions of dollars more in federal earmarks this year than her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though two of them have significantly more Senate seniority. A review of the first three appropriations conference reports finished by Senate and House negotiators shows that Clinton has successfully requested at least $530 million worth of projects.” This’ll make it kind of hard for her to take advantage of the Republicans’ vulnerability on pork, though.