HOURS OF FUN, from James Lileks.

PERRY DE HAVILLAND: “I have argued in the past that violent repression, gulags and mass murder are not in fact the defining characteristics for a state to be ‘totalitarian’. The defining characteristic is, as the word itself suggests, that control over people be pervasive and total… mass murderousness, goose-stepping troops, waving red (or whatever) flags are merely an incidental consequence.”

MICHAEL S. MALONE HAS THOUGHTS on free speech and net neutrality.

I SAW SOMEBODY IN A BLOG COMMENT-THREAD bragging that he’d bought a used Ferrari for less than I paid for my RX-8. That’s possible, I guess, but let’s see — I’ve had the RX-8 for 4 years now, and I’ve spent on maintenance . . . hmm . . . oh, yeah, absolutely nothing. For the used Ferraris, on the other hand, Autoblog observes: “Do bear in mind that a Ferrari is the gift that keeps on giving – to the dealership service department, from your wallet. The entry price might be reasonable enough (note the joke), but the maintenance costs are horrendous.”

MORE ON THE NEW REPUBLIC / BEAUCHAMP AFFAIR, in this column from Bob Owens.

A NEW SONY POCKETCAM that shoots at ISO 3200. That just might be my next purchase. Plus reports on all sorts of new photo gear, here and here.

DON SURBER WEIGHS IN on the McClatchy / Baghdad story.

WALTER OLSON, on Terry Collingsworth, Chevron, Ecuador, and the press.

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF FOOD: “Dewis and his colleagues work to analyze hundreds of thousands of substances and develop compounds that will please the buying public in four ways—through smell, taste, sensation and emotion. To do so, flavor scientists are homing in on molecules, receptors, brain structures and genetic code that will enable them to create flavors tailored to consumers’ palates, health condition, demographics, even genotype.” I’m guessing that Nina Planck wouldn’t approve.

DEXTER VAN ZILE: Hate at the Altar.

FRED THOMPSON: “This is not a pie-eating contest.”

I SUSPECT THAT PEOPLE WILL GET MORE EXCITED ABOUT this FBI raid than is really warranted. But I could be wrong.

ED DRISCOLL ON “Hollywood nihilism,” with some related thoughts by Roger Simon.

FREE SPEECH? NOT SO MUCH. Whistling for the media cops.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, academics would be silenced for offering unwelcome opinions. And they were right.

MICHAEL YON ON Beauchamp and the rules of second chances.

Plus, further thoughts on Beauchamp and Foer from Bruce Rolston: “As for Beauchamp, it’s really hard to destroy two careers at one stroke, but he seems to have done it. More shame on TNR, which was the only agency that could have prevented the young man’s self-immolation here. One last thing: anyone who thinks Beauchamp has been intimidated by the army really should read the transcript, which shows pretty graphically that Foer wasn’t above doing a fair bit of intimidating himself.”

Also this: “What was really striking to me about the transcript was the complete self-interest Foer and Scoblic show in talking with a Private in an austere combat zone. Can he fax his signature to his lawyer right away? Can he call his U.S. based lawyer within the hour? Look, I have trouble doing those sorts of things on demand from my office HERE IN TORONTO. To blithely assume that a private at a combat outpost in a warzone can easily do those things for them (instead of, you know, his job with the fighting and the shooting and the glavin) and that the infrastructure that would be needed to support that, assuming it exists, exists purely for their benefit, just typifies the whole TNR mindset during this whole episode to me.”

MORE: Major John Tammes emails: “It does appear that some good may come of this whole mess, at least for PVT Beauchamp and his squadmates. PVT Beauchamp’s command has been quite forgiving (a ‘local’ reprimand letter in file is quite merciful). However, I would hope that this second chance would include some sort of public clearing of his buddies’ names. While continuing to serve out his assignment is to Beauchamp’s credit, to leave the matter hanging (as it stands back in the US media) seems to make this an incomplete attempt to regain his comrades’ trust. I would advise PVT Beauchamp to publicly clear the men he served, and continues to serve, alongside.”

BASED ON A RECOMMENDATION OVER AT SAMIZDATA, I ordered Lee Child’s Killing Floor and I thought it was quite good. I liked all the blues references, too.

MY EARLIER BORK POST raised some questions on what I think we ought to do about the confirmation mess. Actually, I’ve had some thoughts on that very subject, and you can read them here. I made them a while ago, but since they were never adopted, and since the problem has gotten worse, they’re actually even more timely than when I first made them! Er, or something like that, anyway.

UPDATE: Reader Bill McConnell emails: “I don’t know why you bother with those links to SSRN. I have never been able to read any of your work on that site. Apparently it is subscription only.” I don’t think there should be a problem — I tested one at the Apple Store, and I’m pretty sure they’re not an SSRN member. Can most folks out there download these? Give it a try and let me know.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Eric Wilner emails:

The layout of the page is confusing at first; my first couple of visits (however long ago that was), I didn’t pick up on the “scroll down to the bottom to find the download-the-PDF link” aspect, and got the idea it was a subscription site. Perhaps your reader is having the same difficulty?

Hmm. I dunno. When I click on the “download” button at the top, it bounces me to the bottom of the page where the download buttons are. And reader Tom Paine (real name? who knows?) emails: “I just downloaded (for the first time) one of your papers (Bork confirmation) from ssrn with no difficulties. I was leery of downloading them before, but maybe now I’ll download more articles in the future. Thanks for all your work.”

Thanks, Tom. It seems to be working for most people who are trying it. Let me know if you experience difficulties. It may matter if you have cookies enabled; I’m not sure.

MORE: This seems to mostly be a user-friendliness issue, with people not realizing that the download buttons are at the bottom of the page. (Where it says “Download the Document from: Social Science Research Network.”) Apparently, however, you do have to have cookies enabled.

FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

AND THAT’S WHAT’S UNFORGIVABLE: “He has said things about Cuba that you will never hear from the major university faculties, or the major newspapers, or the major movie studios.”

U.S.-MADE CENSORWARE sold to dictators in Burma and elsewhere. This is a disgrace.

I PREFER THE MOPTOPS, but now it’s British Invasion II! Plus this observation, which is really rather damning:

The White House, amazingly, does not have a staffer dedicated to the international press. That was unforgivable with the international press being so important for winning hearts and minds in the war on terror. Now that the British media is set to become a big player within the US population it’s poor domestic politics, too.

The White House’s press operation has never been very good.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now.

CONFESSIONS OF A former card-carrying Libertarian. I’m one of those, myself. Takeaway line: “From here, it looks as if the Republicans have become wrong and corrupt, the Democrats are stupid and corrupt, and the Libertarians have gone plain crazy.”

UPDATE: Bill Quick: “Do I ever understand where Steve is coming from, because I live in the same damned place.”

ED MORRISSEY: “I find it hilariously ironic that Foer refuses to defend himself and TNR in his own magazine, but instead goes whining to Howard Kurtz — at the newspaper that he demanded Beauchamp refuse to engage. I wonder why Kurtz didn’t ask him about that, and ask Foer why he was talking to the Post when he didn’t want Beauchamp to do so.”

UPDATE: John Tabin notes something interesting in the Kurtz interview: “Wait — back up there. Foer had another conversation with Beauchamp? Is there a recording? Are there notes? What exactly was said? What parts of the story did Beauchamp defend? Did he answer specific questions about the articles? Why hasn’t TNR felt the need to tell their readers of this conversation? And why did Kurtz stick this bit of news at the end of paragraph seven, without any further explanation?”

Maybe Kurtz missed the significance. I did, until Tabin and several readers pointed it out.

VIDEO: Michael Moynihan interviews Putin opponent Garry Kasparov.