JUST LANDED IN LAS VEGAS, for Blog World Expo. Continental got me here on time with no hassle. Maybe the air-travel curse is broken.

REPORTING ON the health risks of not drinking.

Stay safe out there!

PJM POLITICAL will be on XM Satellite Radio’s Potus ’08 channel (130) at 6 p.m. Eastern tonight. Or you can listen online here.

CASUALTIES OF THE TV writers’ strike.

WILLIAM GIBSON INTERVIEWED:

I find myself less pessimistic than I sometimes imagine I should be. When I started to write science fiction, the intelligent and informed position on humanity’s future was that it wasn’t going to have one at all. We’ve forgotten that a whole lot of smart people used to wake up every day thinking that that day could well be the day the world ended. So when I started writing what people saw as this grisly dystopian, punky science fiction, I actually felt that I was being wildly optimistic: “Hey, look — you do have a future. It’s kind of harsh, but here it is.” I wasn’t going the post-apocalyptic route, which, as a regular civilian walking around the world, was pretty much what I expected to happen myself.

Read the whole thing.

DANIEL PIPES on Saddam’s Damn Dam. “Since April 2003, I have argued that this shouldering of responsibility for Iraq’s domestic life has harmed both Americans and Iraqis. It yokes Americans with unwanted and unnecessary loss of life, financial obligations, and political burdens. For Iraqis, as the dam example suggests, it encourages an irresponsibility with potentially ruinous consequences.”

GEORGE W. HAIG?

NO LOVE for Hollywood:

Wagner described Hollywood as one of the oldest “closed clubs” existing, an industry ruled by lawyers and unions that fight technological and other sorts of progress at every turn. Typical of the mindset, he recalled, was Jack Valenti’s 1980s statement that “the VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler was to women.”

Heh.

“THE FUTURE BELONGS to those who show up.”

IN THE MAIL: Carole Platt Liebau’s Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!). I would venture that the real problem isn’t sex as such, but the puerile way it’s treated in pop culture. I think actual porn is more honest and healthy than the pop-culture treatment of the subject.

CONGRESS AND BLOG BANS: “Conspiratorial rumors of blog bans have finally made their way to Congress — and have been quickly shot down just like similar rumors that have surfaced periodically in federal and state agencies.”

IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO vote for InstaPundit in the Weblog Awards “Best Individual Blogger” category.

SO I GOT MY NEPHEW the Fisher-Price Smart Cycle that I blogged about a while back, for his third birthday. My brother reports that it was a hit: “William is pedaling away on his Smart Cycle right now… giggling maniacally all the while.” Good.

SARKOZY’S SPEECH IS PLAYING BETTER IN AMERICA than it is with the French media.

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES returns to active duty.

SCHOOL DISTRICT threatens blogger.

CHINA: No binding emissions limits: “China will reject any agreement that calls for binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, an EU official said Wednesday.” China’s now the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, which makes this pretty important.

UPDATE: MARK STEYN: “It’s fascinating to observe how almost any old totalitarian racket becomes respectable once it’s cloaked in enviro-hooey. For example, restrictions on freedom of movement were previously the mark of the Soviet Union et al. But in Britain, they’re proposing limits on your right to take airline flights to other countries – and, as it’s in the name of environmental responsibility, everyone thinks it’s a grand idea.”

I’ll buy it when they stop jetting off for global-warming conferences in Bali. As I’ve said before, I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who keep telling me it’s a crisis start acting as if it’s a crisis.

SPACE EXPLORATION: The next generation.

GREAT:: “The former director of President Bush’s flagship democracy program for the Middle East is saying that the State Department has ‘effectively killed’ a program to disburse millions of dollars to Iran’s liberal opposition.”

Instead, we get mass graves.

“INCREASINGLY EFFECTIVE:” Indeed.

UPDATE: This sounds like good news: “A rare visit by a delegation representing Sunni tribes in the Province of Anbar to the predominantly Shiite Province of Qadissiya is yet another signal that Iraqis are keen to put an end to sectarian strife.” (Via ATC).

THANKS AND PRAISE: Michael Yon emails: “I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from ‘Chosen’ Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope. The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ the people were saying. One man said, ‘Thank you for peace.’ Another man, a Muslim, said ‘All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.’ The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. (Videotape to follow.)”

Let’s hope these sentiments continue to spread.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg: “If things continue to go well, this photo should win a Pulitzer.”

Plus some further thoughts at The Belmont Club.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Ramsay sees a poignant contrast with this picture.

MORE: Excellent move: “Michael Yon is making this photograph available to media outlets, such as print publications and cable and television news broadcasts, at no cost for a limited period of time. For more information, please contact us here.”

STILL MORE: “An iconic image of hope and unity.” Plus this: “Thanks to the lens of Michael Yon, we can see a fuller, truer picture of Iraq than the ‘grim milestone’-driven legacy media lens allows us to see. That deserves thanks and praise, too.”

And reader James Mabry emails: ‘If you are game for another update to your post, please consider an encouragement to readers to spread the news to their local media outlets. Thanks.” Good idea.

Some additional photo thoughts here.

And The Anchoress offers some musings of her own.

Plus, observations from Bob Krumm. And, finally, “The silence from the left has been absolutely deafening.” Plus, a cautionary note. (Bumped to top.)

HEH:

Two holders of concealed-weapons permits surprised armed thugs who approached them in west Orlando this week.

Both men opened fire rather than surrender their wallets. The robbers beat it.

“They left with broken egos. They didn’t get nothing from us,” Juan Amezaga said Tuesday. “If more people stood up for themselves, a lot of crime could be prevented. And the concealed-weapons permit, that’s great.”

Don Surber calls it “the feel-good story of the day.”

UPDATE: This, on the other hand, seems like an improper use of firearms: “Lamentably, I killed your cat.”

MOHAMMED FADHIL DOUBTS that we’ll see an awakening in Southern Iraq.

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: “Worker productivity surged in the summer at the fastest pace in four years while wage pressures eased. The Labor Department reported that productivity — the amount of output per hour of work — jumped at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the July-September quarter. That was more than twice the 2.2 percent rise in the second quarter and was the fastest surge in worker efficiency since 2003.”

GUNMEN OPEN FIRE ON Venezuelan protestors.