RAPING CONDI RICE: It’s all in good fun, since she’s a Republican.

I predict nothing like an Imus moment here. Because black Republican women deserve it. They’re traitors to their race and gender.

Probable Rice response: “Opie and Anthony? I crap bigger than them.”

2700 ACTIVE DUTY SERVICEMEMBERS PETITION CONGRESS ON THE WAR: It’s not news. If they’d taken the other side, it would be the story of the week month.

MICHAEL MALONE looks at newspapers’ sheer stupidity.

BEN SMITH: “Forget television executives and the FEC. The new regulators of political speech are Sergey Brin, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg -the chieftains of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, respectively.” This is a reason for avoiding concentration, or dependence on a small number of Web entities.

IS THERE A PLACE FOR THE FCC IN THE 21ST CENTURY? I say no, Bob McChesney says yes, in the Los Angeles Times. Though with defenders like Bob, the FCC shouldn’t sleep soundly: “The FCC is the poster child for corrupt policy making.”

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING DEFICIT? May it continue to get smaller.

COMMITTEE HEARINGS ON YOUTUBE.

SURVIVORS SLAM SEBELIUS for politicizing tragedy.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

After the Virginia Tech tragedy, even talking about concealed carry is grounds for suspension.

They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we’d see Americans punished for expressing their ideas. I guess they were right!

A LOSS FOR ELLIOT SPITZER:

One of the cases that former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer might have expected to be a slam dunk was his six charges against former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso. . . .

A New York appeals court, however, said earlier this week that Spitzer lacked authority under state law to bring the suit. In a lengthy decision that threw out four of Spitzer’s six charges against Grasso, the court said “the authority to bring suit in what the attorney general perceives to be the interest of the state cannot trump contrary determinations about the public interest made by the legislature.’’ In other words, Spitzer was not at liberty as attorney general to decide on his own what is in the public interest.

It got him to the Governor’s Mansion, so it accomplished his goals.

BECAUSE IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY, APPARENTLY: Obama readying a TV ad blitz?

A PACK, NOT A HERD: “A male employee who works at Circuit City behind the Moorestown Mall is the unsung hero that first enabled authorities to foil the Fort Dix terror plot.” So long after 9/11, it’s nice that people are still paying attention.

And apparently it made a difference: “Federal authorities said Wednesday that six Muslim men suspected of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were on the verge of carrying out the attack when they were arrested this week.”

ROGER SIMON, who knows something about movies, saw the canned PBS documentary Islam vs. Islamism and posts a review.

A TENNESSEE POLITICAL HERO:

State Rep. Joe McCord, R-Maryville, has resurrected his bill to regulate red-light cameras in hopes of preventing an expansion of their use.

McCord’s House Bill 0698, as originally written, would have prohibited local governments from entering into profit-sharing arrangements with private companies that install and operate the cameras.

The bill, however, failed to pass the Public Safety and Rural Roads Subcommittee.

Now, McCord is trying again with language that would codify current practices.

“They can still go ahead and have cameras at red lights, but it will put into code that it shall be charged as a nonmoving violation,” he said. “Yes, you’ll still have to pay a $50 fee, but it does not go against your insurance record or against the points on your driver’s license.”

I think the original bill — which I believe also set minimum yellow-light times because cities appear to be manipulating those to create more revenue — was better, but the Knoxville political establishment responded to that so hysterically that it makes me suspicious of what’s really going on here.

More on the problems with traffic cameras here.

AT PATTERICO, a post on the dysfunctional LAPD, by one of his readers. I guess things there were never as good as they looked on Adam 12.

BILL ROGGIO:

In March, we noted the successful model of the Anbar Salvation Council will very likely be replicated elsewhere in regions where al Qaeda has established bases of operation. We singled out Diyala in particular, as al Qaeda’s campaign of murder and intimidation was beginning to anger the tribes much as it did in Anbar province. Al Qaeda’s establishment of its Islamic State of Iraq, with its capital in Baqubah made the province ripe for a major Coalition operation in the region. In early March, Al Sabaah reported the local sheikhs in Diyala were organizing against al-Qaeda and its Islamic State of Iraq, “which [is] spreading corruption in the province districts.” Today, the speculation has become a reality, as “Arab tribesmen in Baqubah have said they will form a tribal alliance to cleanse the Diyala province of foreign fighters and those of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq.”

We need more of this sort of progress.

BILL GATES thinks the traditional ad business is over: “Microsoft thinks the advertising business model for traditional media — those venues where advertisers still channel most of their spending — will fall apart faster in the coming five years as the kind of interactive, targeted advertising that is defining the Web comes to the fore.”

Our podcast a bit later today will look at this very phenomenon.

REPUBLICAN MODERATES getting restive on the war. I think this is shortsighted and wrong and likely to hurt the country. On the other hand, for the Bush Administration it’s a reality. I’ve mentioned the three-year-rule before, but we’re now past the four-year mark (five if you count Afghanistan). If Bush were a great communicator, he’d be able to help himself some, but I doubt Reagan could have held things together a whole lot better. The White House and Pentagon need to be figuring out how to deal with this, and what constructive fallback positions they can prepare.

UPDATE: On the other hand, John Aravosis is unhappy to hear that conservative Democrats will support the President. His take: “It’s time to replace some conservative Democrats in Washington, DC.” Hey, electing guys like that is how you took back the Congress. . . . .

AS THE SCANDALS SWIRL IN ALASKA, Republicans might want to think of a plan B in case Ted Stevens has to go.

I’M OFF FOR A JACOB T. LEVY-STYLE WAXING: More blogging later!

ABANDON RED TO GO GREEN:

Wouldn’t we save a lot of gasoline quickly and cheaply if we replaced most of our “STOP” signs with “YIELD” signs?

Well, we would if most people didn’t treat ’em that way already.

FRED THOMPSON: “Oh, to be sure, the French media hates us, but there are a lot of people who say ours does too. Regardless, Sarkozy’s victory has sent shock waves through the world’s media centers.”

GIULIANI’S ABORTION STRATEGY, explained.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) has placed a professor on forced administrative leave and has recommended that he be terminated for e-mailing a Thanksgiving message to his colleagues last November. On the day before Thanksgiving, Professor Walter Kehowski sent out the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” and a link to the webpage where he’d found it—on Pat Buchanan’s web log. After several recipients complained of being offended by the e-mail, MCCCD found Kehowski guilty of violating the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy and technology usage standards. Kehowski then contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

“It simply boggles the mind that a professor could find himself facing termination simply for e-mailing the Thanksgiving address of our first president,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “This situation is an embarrassment to MCCCD and would be laughable if a professor’s most basic rights and very livelihood weren’t on the line.”

You know, people told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we’d see professors fired over trumped up charges of ideological nonconformity. And it looks like they were right!