A SECOND CAR BOMB IN LONDON.

UPDATE: This is pretty impressive: “Sky News sources say one of the first police officers on the scene of the Haymarket car bomb may have saved dozens of lives by defusing the explosives before the bomb squad arrived. It is believed the quick-thinking cop recognised that the car was wired to blow up, jumped in and disconnected the trigger device, thought to be a mobile phone.” (Via Will Collier).

OUR FIRST COPY OF Garden & Gun Magazine just showed up in the mail. Looks pretty cool.

THREE QUESTIONS FOR AL GORE: A video interview from Popular Mechanics.

WHAT’S MORE HYPOCRITICAL THAN THE WHITE HOUSE PORK I linked earlier today?

Ron Paul pork! Full list here. But to be fair, at least he’s disclosing it.

CATCH AND RELEASE in Britain?

POSTING FROM IRAQ, at The Mudville Gazette.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: It seems that we’re still a long way from transparency:

When it comes to elected officials and earmarks, the policy seems to be the less said the better.

This time the cold shoulder is coming from the Senate, which, like members of the House of Representatives, don’t want the public to know which pet projects they want taxpayers to fund.

Since Monday, CNN has called — or tried to call — all 100 senators, asking them if they would release their 2008 earmark requests. More often then not, calls were immediately sent to voice mail and never returned. (Watch how senators responded to questions about earmarks Video)

Only six senators gave us their requests and five said they made no earmark requests. Nineteen said they would not give us their requests and 70 did not return calls.

It’s not like they work for us, or anything.

DOGS that didn’t bark.

DON SURBER NOTES SOME INTERESTING NEWS:

A Muslim nation, Pakistan, and the United States worked together to head the drive to stop an effort to give nukes to Arabia — most likely Saudi Arabia, you know, the home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11.

He wonders why it’s not getting more attention.

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, and somber pants?

ADMITTING THE PROBLEM IS THE FIRST STEP:

I have been lying about my disinterest in the iPhone. When it was first announced I considered having my marriage annulled so I could be married to a picture of the iPhone, okay? I will be in line at the Apple Store at the Mall of America this afternoon, and will post an account tonight with pictures and video as soon as I have one in my hand. If blogging seems distracted and intermittent today, that’s why: I have a mission. I have a goal. I have a dream. I also have a contract with another cellular provider. It’s a sickness, I tell you. A sickness.

You know, I think it is.

MORE ON the London car bomb.

IN THE MAIL: Probably in response to our podcast on The Dangerous Book for Boys, a matched set: The Big Book of Girl Stuff and The Big Book of Boy Stuff.

“FLOP-SWEAT WAS EVERYWHERE.”

JOHN TAMMES EXPLAINS where to find information on operations in Afghanistan.

JOHN HINDERAKER: “The Democrats have handed conservatives a golden issue by attempting to bring down talk radio.”

MARK TAPSCOTT IS FEELING BETTER: “Winston Churchill once remarked that God takes care of drunks and the United States of America and so it seems to be as we approach the end of a remarkable week in which milestones of success for the conservative movement come one after another.”

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey: Great shooting, kid! Don’t get cocky!

BYRON YORK on the immigration deal’s collapse. Scroll down for my suggestions on how to do better next time.

And here’s Danny Glover’s roundup.

IF YOU CARE ABOUT HEALTH, THIS MATTERS: “America is the last refuge for pharmaceutical innovation. And the left wants to kill that off.”

I certainly care.

BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION? Hell, I’ve seen it done! “In that time, the bacteria have changed significantly. For one thing, they are bigger — twice as big on average as their common ancestor. They are also far better at reproducing in these flasks, dividing 70 percent faster than their ancestor. These changes have emerged through spontaneous mutations and natural selection, and Dr. Lenski and his colleagues have been able to watch them unfold. When Dr. Lenski began his experiment 18 years ago, only a few scientists believed they could observe evolution so closely. Today evolutionary experiments on microbes are under way in many laboratories.”

LOOK WHO doesn’t like blogs.

BOMB THREAT AVERTED: “British police said they discovered an explosive device in a car abandoned outside a nightclub in the West End theater and entertainment district of central London early today and began a terrorism investigation.”

UPDATE: Here’s a big roundup on the attack.

BUSH ON IMMIGRATION: A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER: “Bipartisanship! Indeed, the coalition opposing the bill was slightly more bipartisan than the coalition favoring the bill. In the crucial cloture vote, only 26% of the 46 Senators in the minority voting for the bill were Republicans, while fully 30% of the Senators in the majority voting against the bill were Democrats (or Vermont Socialists).”

UPDATE: Rich Lowry says the bill’s defeat was a victory for the techno-populists:

Once, the Senate leadership would have been able to lean on members opposed to the bill to do a dishonest two-step to pass it. First, vote for cloture to end debate over the bill, which requires 60 votes and was the toughest hurdle. Then, vote against it on final passage, which takes only 50 votes — so there would be more wiggle room for “no” votes. This way, the Senate leadership would have gotten its bill, and senators opposed to it could tell constituents back home that they had voted against it. But bloggers and talk-radio hosts blocked that dodge by sending up a cry, “A vote for cloture is a vote for amnesty.”

In the end, support for the bill literally collapsed. Even the imperious Voinovich voted against cloture. Now, there is really no such thing as an “inside game” anymore, since bloggers make sure it gets “outside.” Both the right and the left will take advantage of this, for good and ill policy ends. But it’s clearly an enhancement of democracy. Senators should get used to it, and buy more phone lines.

Read the whole thing.

PARIS HILTON VS. THE IPHONE: A PR smackdown.

PORK HYPOCRISY IN THE WHITE HOUSE? “Democratic and Republican appropriators are accusing President Bush of urging Congress to pack spending bills with pet projects despite his high-profile crackdown on earmarks this year. A House Appropriations Committee report accompanying legislation funding the Department of the Interior shows that Bush requested 93 of the 321 earmarks in the bill.” But read the whole thing, as the White House claims that the process is different.

UPDATE: Yeah: “Now, it may be that some of these projects are perfectly worthwhile, but, once again the president’s tin ear becomes all too visible. If the GOP is to make a serious effort to avoid disaster in 08, it will have to involve distancing itself from the “Washingtoness” epitomized by the earmarking process (it’s not so much the spending, as the way that that spending is decided) or, for that matter, procedural trickery such as the clay pigeon.
So long as it is the party of Lott or, for that matter, the party of Bush, the chances of that happening are, shall we say, remote.”