THE BENNETT AMENDMENT has passed the Senate, which I believe puts an end — for the moment — to worries that bloggers will be treated as lobbyists. Note the party breakdown. (Via Jason Pye).

UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge thinks those worries were bogus all along.

HMM. I LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS: “BAGHDAD, Iraq – Mahdi Army fighters said Thursday they were under siege in their Sadr City stronghold as U.S. and Iraqi troops killed or seized key commanders in pinpoint nighttime raids. Two commanders of the Shiite militia said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stopped protecting the group under pressure from Washington and threats from Sunni Muslim Arab governments.” Let’s see if it pans out.

MICHELLE MALKIN: “Bush administration = Lucy. Bush administration defenders = Charlie Brown. Argh.”

STRATEGYPAGE:

Let’s destroy a myth. In this case that sending more American troops to Iraq will “break the army.” In reality, it works like this.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: James Ruhland did, and emails:

Very good overall, but one caveat because it keeps coming up, about the military wanting to arrange things so that troops spend one year on deployment and two years at home.

So far, it hasn’t worked that way in reality: At least for the units I’m familiar with. 4th ID, which I am in, was back for a year. 1st Cav, also out of Fort Hood, relieved us. Then we went over, a bit over a year after 4th ID had come back. We got relieved by 1st Cav. – so they had only been back for slightly over a year.

In the meantime, in betweentime, 3rd ID was in the mix both times. From my rough calculations, they were also deployed for a year and home for ~1.5- years.

I know they want to give people more time home, but for a variety of reasons it doesn’t generally work out the way it does “on paper”, with a 1:2 deployed:home ratio.

A lot of people don’t mind that – indeed, at the moment I’m trying to get sent back over right now, having just been back for a couple months. But, then, I’m single. For others it’s a much greater sacrifice.

In that sense, those who call for “more sacrifice” have a point. But not the one they mean to make. I don’t *think* they mean we should expand the ground forces (Army & Marines) up to the size they were in the ’80s by cutting other Federal spending programs (including subsidies of various kinds) that perhaps aren’t a priority in time of war. That kind of sacrifice, which would affect their wants and needs, isn’t what they mean (they mean that *others* should sacrifice: surprisingly, the same people they target whether there’s a war on or not!)

We have a 90s “peace dividend” military fighting what is supposedly the biggest struggle of our time, and not enough people see the disconnect. Indeed, too often they paint a Panglossian picture of things simply because there are so many (so few, but proud) people willing to shoulder the burden the country puts on them, somewhat cavalierly. And those are the better people (the worst people devote all their energy fighting fiercely against their domestic political opponents, rather than our country’s foreign enemies, and see the war not as an American problem but “Bush’s” or “the Republicans”).

For “sacrifice,” I think that incumbent politicians should term limit themselves to a single additional term. Also, there should be a ban on private non-commercial jet travel, and limousine service in large metro areas, for the duration of the war. And a 100% excise tax on movie tickets and DVDs . . .

What? That’s not what they mean?

AS AN INSTAPUNDIT PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER^TM you’re entitled to an advance look at the Pajamas Media Presidential straw poll. Vote early and vote often!

THE MYSTERY OF THE BLINKING PLAYSTATION THREE: Turns out it’s a lame copy-protection issue. More at the link, including video.

AUSTIN BAY’S BLOG is back up. And he’s just published a new dictionary of milspeak.

PROBLEMS for Ahmadinejad.

Plus he’s got those pesky UFO reports to worry about . . . .

REMEMBERING the “Fairness Doctrine” and the crushing of dissent.

CALL IT “THE PELOSI BOOM!” Consumer spending jumps 6.9%!

It certainly beats the Bush debacle.

YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO CALL THEM “NEW YORK MONEY PEOPLE:” Complaining to the Justice Department about the “Jewish Lobby.”

UPDATE: See this followup post.

ARE TECH COMPANIES FINALLY STANDING UP TO CENSORSHIP by Chinese and other authorities?

Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Vodaphone are now committed publicly to a process “which aims to produce a set of principles guiding company behavior when faced with laws, regulations and policies that interfere with the achievement of human rights.” As BSR’s CEO Aron Cramer put it: “This important dialogue reflects a shared commitment to maximize the information available via the internet on the basis of global principles protecting free expression and privacy.”

A number of other companies had the opportunity to join this process – including one of the four companies called on the carpet before Congress last year – but they have lacked cojones. Maybe the first-movers will help them find some?

Rebecca MacKinnon has more at the link.

FLIP. FLOP:

On Dec. 5, Newsweek magazine touted an interview with then-incoming House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes as an “exclusive.” And for good reason.

“In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq,” the story began, Mr. Reyes “said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a ‘stepped up effort to dismantle the militias.’ ”

“We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq,” the Texas Democrat said to the surprise of many, “I would say 20,000 to 30,000.”

Then came President Bush’s expected announcement last week, virtually matching Mr. Reyes’ recommendation and argument word-for-word — albeit the president proposed only 21,500 troops.

Wouldn’t you know, hours after Mr. Bush announced his proposal, Mr. Reyes told the El Paso Times that such a troop buildup was unthinkable.

Go figure. Maybe it had something to do with that Sunni/Shiite confusion thing.

VIDEO: Mary Katharine Ham on Congress, and what it takes to make her “a happy chick,” on MSNBC.

LEGAL TROUBLES FOR NEW ORLEANS’ Mayor Nagin over his illegal gun confiscation program?

Background here and here.

JAMIL HUSSEIN UPDATE: Heh.

THE SILICON BULLET: Will the Internet kill the NLRA?

JOHN BELLINGER, THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S TOP LEGAL OFFICER, is blogging at Opinio Juris this week. Lots of discussion on unlawful combatants, the Geneva Conventions, the laws of war, etc.

APPROPRIATELY ENOUGH, the online Britannica has made its entry on libertarianism — authored by David Boaz — available for free.

LOTS OF LIBBY COVERAGE, over at JustOneMinute. Murray Waas takes a shot: “it is very hard to defend Mr. Waas on this, since he surely knows better.”

UPDATE: Meanwhile, is Richard Armitage leaking again?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Apparently not — at least the BBC attributes the story to Lawrence Wilkerson. Thanks to reader Michael Ware for pointing that out.

HARRY REID INTRODUCES BILL TO REGISTER BLOGGERS? Hmm.

Put this together with a move toward the reintroduction of the inaptly named “fairness doctrine” and it’s starting to look like a rather heavyhanded effort to silence critics.

UPDATE: Much more here, including the revelation that — surprise, surprise — Trent Lott is on board.

DON SURBER:

Big Pharma update. Big Pharma develops a vaccine for a virus that causes 70% of the cervical cancer in the world. Liberals in the West Virginia Legislature stop clubbing Big Pharma long enough to notice this development and to push for a bill requiring girls get vaccinated.

The conservative Daily Mail endorses the idea.

But liberals already are back to clubbing Big Pharma. It is Luddite liberalism.

Puts a different shine on this report:

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

I hope it pans out, but if it does people will probably find a way to bash the drug companies over it.

NEWSPAPER BLOGS triple readership.

IN THE MAIL: Frank Luntz’s book on communication, Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear. He must be good — check out the blurbs!

Plus, Richard Fenno’s Congressional Travels.

SO I JUST FINISHED READING Larry Solum’s article on open access and legal scholarship and the influence of the Web and the blogosphere on legal academia, and it’s really quite good. I touched on a few of these ideas several years ago, but Larry’s treatment is much more up to date and thorough. I’m on a faculty committee that’s looking at changes in legal scholarship in recent years, and Solum’s piece is right on target with the sorts of things we’ve been discussing.