IN THE MAIL: Mark Tushnet’s Out of Range: Why the Constitution Can’t End the Battle over Guns.

CHRYSLER SETS UP A NEW DIVISION dedicated to hybrid and electric vehicles.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Hire back Chemerinsky.

IT’S ALBERTO GONZALES’ last day as Attorney General.

IN DEFENSE OF ugly cars.

VIRGINIA IS FOR BLOGGERS.

BOMBINGS BY THE “POPULAR REVOLUTIONARY ARMY” IN MEXICO have idled a number of automobile plants. Show your solidarity with the workers — put them out of a job!

What do you think the chances are that this ultimately traces back to Hugo Chavez?

LEE SMITH REVIEWS WALT AND MEARSHEIMER: “If it weren’t for its support for Israel, the United States would have gotten along just fine with Saddam Hussein and have warm ties with Iran and enjoy popularity across the Middle East… right?”

THE BLACK-EYED PEAS love Israel.

ANOTHER Google / blog freedom row.

TED FRANK: Should trial lawyers make terror policy?

MEGAN MCARDLE: “I’m so proud to have voted for a party that thinks that retroactive taxes on ‘excess’ profits are a good way to deal with high prices. After all, it worked terribly well in the 1970’s and 1980’s. I bet that will teach those nasty oil companies that there are penalties for producing a highly desireable product!”

GOOGLE FUNDS a $25 million lunar X-Prize:

The X Prize Foundation saw the new contest as one of “the grand challenges of our time that we can use to move people forward,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and C.E.O. of the foundation.

The prize for reaching the moon and completing the basic tasks of roving and sending video and data will bring the winner $20 million, according to the contest rules. An additional $5 million would be awarded for other tasks that include roving more than 5,500 yards or sending back images of artifacts like lunar landers from the Apollo program.

Carnegie-Mellon is already in the game, and more will follow. But not everyone is excited. Rand Simberg writes: “I just can’t get as excited about it as I was supposed to be, based on all the pre-announcement hype. I’m just not that into space science, or robots on other planets. I was hoping that it would be something that would further drive down the cost of space passenger travel. But hey, it’s Google’s money.” He rounds up a lot of other reactions.

Meanwhile, David Nolan wonders who, if anyone, will play the Burt Rutan role this time around.

APPARENTLY, NOT JUST ANYONE can get the enviable treatment that MoveOn got from The New York Times‘ advertising department.

BILL QUICK ADMIRES John McCain’s brilliance.

Meanwhile, Extreme Mortman offers this question: “Who would have thought John Kerry would remain the sole marquee Democrat with the courage to denounce MoveOn?”

SEPARATED AT BIRTH? Norman Hsu and Zeno the Artificial Boy.

Thanks to reader Robert Arvanitis for pointing out the uncanny resemblance.

UPDATE: It’s a small world. Reader Tony Daniel — author of Superluminal and Metaplanetary — emails:

I wrote the content for Zeno the Robot Boy – the stuff Zeno says – under the direction of David Hanson, the robot boy’s creator, of course.

One of the many freelance gigs a mid-list SF writer must take – but a particularly fun one in this case.

Norman Hsu had other programmers…

I’ll bet their stories aren’t as good, either.

BLOGGING THE Sumatran earthquake.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE GOOD NEWS: “The federal deficit is running sharply lower than last year even though spending in August set an all-time high, the government reported Thursday. The Treasury Department said that the deficit through the first 11 months of this budget year totaled $274.4 billion, down 9.8 percent from the same period a year ago. Analysts believe the deficit for all of 2007 will actually be even lower because they are forecasting a sizable surplus in the final month. . . . The administration is projecting that the government’s books will be in surplus by 2012 if Congress follows Bush’s recommendations on spending restraint. However, the Democratic-controlled Congress is pushing for higher spending for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. Bush has pledged to veto spending bills that exceed his requests.”

VIA EMAIL, the full text of Bush’s speech. Click “read more” to read it.

UPDATE: So I watched the speech. It was okay — an average performance for Bush, not especially good or bad — but I’m not sure it really added much, post-Petraeus. It will, however, probably pull a response from MoveOn, which based on this week’s experience can only help the Bush Administration.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, I watched the Democratic response from Sen. Jack Reed, which seemed calculated to make Bush’s speech seem lively by comparison. Not much there, either. I’m pretty sure political oratory is at a historical low point.

MORE: The Democrats in a box? “The real interesting thing to watch for in the coming months is how the Democrats will act as they are clearly unable to force a withdrawal. What further fissures will we see between the anti-war radicals and the Democrats?”

MORE: Allah has video of John Edwards’ response.

THOUGHTS ON dogs and free will.

UPDATE: From the comments: “Dogs have free will. But cats use free will.”

THE $52,000 ugly purse.

TRYING TO PREVENT FURTHER HSUNANIGANS: “The political and legal demise of major Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu is casting attention beyond Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, which earlier this week made the decision to return all of the $850,000 Hsu raised this year, even as he was a fugitive from a 15-year-old criminal case in California. At least two of Clinton’s rivals have also been dealing with questions about their fundraising but have stopped short of Clinton’s dramatic remedy so far. Shortly before Hsu’s controversial efforts came to light last month, trial lawyer Geoffrey Feiger, one of the big bundlers for John Edwards’ past presidential campaign, was indicted on federal charges he conspired to route more than $125,000 in illegal contributions to Edwards’ 2004 bid .”

And Paul Kiel of TPM Muckraker observes: “The going suspicion in Washington has always been that politicians are not prone to ask too many questions of contributors as long as the checks keep coming. But never has a contributor’s hidden past blown up in a campaign’s face quite like it has for the Clinton campaign in the case of Norman Hsu. . . . Despite all the scrutiny of Hsu, a number of mysteries remain, the main one being what Hsu was after, another being where all this money came from. Hsu managed to raise the staggering sum of $850,000 in just the last eight months for Clinton from some 260 contributors, and that’s not counting the money he’s delivered for a long list of other Democrats since 2004.”

So are there more guys like him out there, or was he flying Hsulo?

“RETURN ON SUCCESS:” Just got an email from the White House with excerpts from Bush’s speech. Click “read more” to read them.

AUSTIN BAY doesn’t like Obama’s plan.

FRED-O-RAMA: Thompson on Terri Schiavo: “No role for the federal government to play.” I agree.

Plus, Thompson slams MoveOn.