JAMES FALLOWS: Life really is unfair. Plus, the upside to global warming!

JOHN FUND looks at Mike Huckabee.

AAUGH! It’s nearly Halloween, so it’s time for Christmas decorations to go up.

THANKS TO THE FOLKS WHO TESTED yesterday’s SSRN download. It seems like a user-friendliness issue — people didn’t know to click on the “download from SSRN” button at the bottom of the page instead of the confusing download button at the top of the page that just takes you to the bottom. But you do have to have cookies enabled.

IDEOLOGY doesn’t pay the rent at the NYT.

MELANIE SCARBOROUGH thinks D.C. cops are getting full of themselves: “Which statute requires law-abiding citizens to produce ID to walk down a sidewalk? What law says that citizens must explain to police where they are going and why?”

ETHICAL PARSING OF A LAWYER’S THREE-WAY: My prediction is that this will end up boosting law school applications.

MORE ON The New Republic, Beauchamp, and the Army, from Bob Owens. Including this observation: “As far as this story is concerned, it seems that only bloggers are doing the job that most journalists won’t do, such as sending emails, asking questions, and making phone calls to those involved in the still-developing story.”

HSUTZPAH.

BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD HOLLYWOOD: “t doesn’t matter how many Oscar winners are in front of or behind the camera — audiences are proving to be conscientious objectors when it comes to this fall’s surge of antiwar and anti-Bush films.”

J.D. JOHANNES REPORTS on the state of independent war reporting in 2007.

ERIC SCHEIE: ” I was thinking maybe the enema of your enemy, but whatever.”

MICKEY KAUS: “In a desperate bid for respectability, the struggling New York Times has begun an association with the prestigious bloggingheads.tv start-up.”

RUDY VS. HILLARY: A choice, not an echo! Or maybe not.

MORE ON THE MCCLATCHY – BAGHDAD STORY, at USA Today.

Plus, a defense of reporter Bobby Calvan, from a coworker.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY — and blogiversary — to Alphecca’s Jeff Soyer!

GOOD WAR NEWS FROM ATLANTA: I witnessed this very phenomenon myself, a few months ago.

“AN INSIDE JOB? HOW DARE YOU?” Bill Clinton takes on 9/11 conspiracists. Bravo.

THOUGHTS ON CHARITY and the Abrahamic religions.

WHY HAMPTON INN IS MUCH, MUCH BETTER THAN COMFORT INN.

THEY WAY THINGS HAVE BEEN WITH BUSH AND THE SAUDIS LATELY, we’re lucky it was just Laura and not George. . .

UPDATE: Charles Johnson is missing Orianna Fallaci.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ysabel Howard for First Lady!

STEPHEN GREEN explains the obvious. But note that no longer being a member of the Libertarian Party is hardly the same thing as not being a libertarian. If it were, there would be precious few libertarians left.

Meanwhile, I’m charged with destroying the conservative blogosphere via my seductive radical libertarian ways:

Rob Neppell (aka N.Z. Bear) made an astute point that the concerns of the largest blog on the Right—Instapundit—tends to drive our conversation. He pointed out for the audience that Reynolds was not a conservative but a self-professed libertarian who was once quoted as saying he’d be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons.”

The panelists chuckled; the audience didn’t seem as amused. The reaction speaks volumes. The fact that many center-right bloggers care more about getting linked by a radical libertarian than they do in discussing the concerns of their fellow conservatives is one of the primary reasons the Right blogosphere is a failing to have the same impact as the Left.

I can’t help being seductive — it’s just how I was made. But I don’t see my failure to lead a conservative blogging revolution as a failure at all, since I’m, you know, not a conservative. People who don’t like gay marriage can do their own blogging thing, and I’ll link to ’em sometimes — I do, after all — but not with approval. I’m not on board the anti-gay-marriage, anti-abortion train, and never have been.

UPDATE: Reader Tucker Goodrich emails:

It’d be nice one day if the Republicans could figure out what theLibertarians never will: libertarianism is far and away the predominant political philosophy in the US. Neither the Democrats, the Republicans, or, especially, the Libertarians can figure this out, but your success, as well as Reagan’s, are indicative of this fact.

Where Americans differ from the Libertarian party and the Democrats, is that they believe that they have a right to defend themselves. And this is such a critical issue, that the other differences really don’t matter. The Republicans agree with Americans on the right to defense, but fall short on moralizing bossiness, and, well, corruption.

Three items would make the Republicans the majority party forever: A strong defense of defense, a libertarian take on social issues, and a conservative approach to finance.

Hmm… Sounds like Guiliani.

I’m no Ronald Reagan. And Giuliani is no libertarian. But Goodrich is right about what would make the Republicans a majority party.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Thoughts from Don Surber.

U.S. OUT OF MONGOLIA — NOW!

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, our society would be riddled with anonymous informers who would rat out politically unacceptable thoughts to the authorities. And they were right!

IN SEARCH OF THE MYSTERIOUS skunk ape.