THE TROOPS DON’T SEEM TO LIKE THE ARMY’S NEW “LAND WARRIOR” GEAR: And based on this story by Noah Shachtman, there’s reason. A mature version of this stuff would be great, but climbing the learning curve is hard.

DAVE WINER to NBC: Free the video!

NO SECRET HOLD AFTER ALL? See the update to my earlier post.

IT’S CALLED A “THINK TANK,” NOT A “KNOWLEDGE TANK:” But Kenneth Weinstein of the Hudson Institute doesn’t know enough about guns to be offering an opinion:

Monday’s carnage might possibly have been limited through a number of policy options [such as] greater controls on the sale of automatic weapons, which are almost impossible for victims to defend against and have no justifiable use for hunting;

Er, except that no “automatic weapons” were used in Monday’s shooting. Does this guy not know the difference? Obviously not. So why is he opining in the Washington Post? (Via Countertop). Ignorance about firearms is standard in the press, but I’d expect better from the Hudson Institute.

MORE THOUGHTS ON GUN-FREE ZONES from Jacob Sullum at Reason.

UPDATE: Read this from Investor’s Business Daily.

ZIGGURAT CON will be the first Dungeons and Dragons convention / tournament held in Iraq. (Via Boing Boing).

A REPORT ON THE TOUR DE FRED: “The conservatives say he checks the boxes but he also transcends our party. He reaches out to the middle. He brings Reagan Democrats back to our party. He has appeal that other candidates simply don’t have. . . . The man that came to see us today, in my view, is preparing to run for president.”

MARK STEYN: A Culture of Passivity.

UPDATE: Wanted: A Culture of Self-Defense.

RICH LITTLE gets a new fan.

THE VICTORY CAUCUS IS INCORPORATING as a 501(c)(4), and is looking for donors.

MICHAEL EISNER: It’s time to get the public emotional about gun control. Follow the link for video.

Watch out for another one of those media-activist political partnerships like the one that brought us campaign finance “reform.”

A REPORT ON THE BLACKBERRY BLACKOUT — and its devastating psychological toll.

The photo is heartrending.

(Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!)

WISHING FOR CHENEY’S DEATH AT THE WASHINGTON POST: It was a mistake to pick a fight with Charles Johnson on the topic of comments.

STILL MORE ON FEDERALISM AND PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION, from Ilya Somin.

Earlier post here.

HILLARY PLUNGING IN THE POLLS? “A majority of Americans have an unfavorable image of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton’s current 45% favorable rating with the American public is her third consecutive reading below 50% in the past two months, and is one of the lowest Gallup has measured for her since 1993.”

I wonder why that’s happened? Other than a bit of waffling on the war, I can’t think of anything new that she’s done in that time to push her polls down.

UPDATE: Some positive spin: “Hillary is already looking Presidential in the polls!” Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Frank Newport, who knows more about polling than I ever will, is mystified, too: “This is not a one-poll phenomenon. The pattern is fairly linear and persistent. . . . But so far, as others have noted as well, there is no one explanation which can be successfully defended with the available data.”

Numerous InstaPundit readers suggest that it’s not anything in particular, it’s just that she’s been campaigning and that’s focused people’s thinking on what they like, and don’t like, about her.

LANNY DAVIS: Who cares about the “fundraising primary?”

NEW YORK NANNYISM: Eliot Spitzer is going after violent videogames. (Via Slashdot, whose denizens aren’t overjoyed).

For a contrary view, read this: Porn and Violence: Good for America’s Children?

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Hey, it’s another secret hold in the Senate!

Yet again an anonymous Senator has placed a secret hold on legislation that would increase transparency. This time a secret hold has been placed on a bill, S. 223, that would mandate that Senators file their campaign finance reports electronically. This process would not only make these reports more readily available to the public but would also save money and resources. Yesterday this bill was blocked by an anonymous Senator who placed a secret hold on the bill. Secret holds are so looked down on these days that earlier this year the Senate itself banned the practice, although the bill containing that provision has yet to become law. But until secrets holds are banished forever, we need your help in exposing the culprit who is blocking consideration of the electronic filing requirement for Senate campaign finance reports. We need your help to find out who placed this secret hold! Call your Senators and ask them if they are the one with the secret hold on S. 223. Then report back here in the comments with your findings or email us at .

Follow the link for contact information.

UPDATE: A reader who works in the Senate says that there’s no secret hold: “Yesterday, somebody attempted to move the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act up on the schedule by asking for Unanimous Consent. One or more Senators objected to an immediate Unanimous Consent to give themselves time to review the legislation. The legislation is not blocked from receiving its regular consideration; it simply did not receive an early Unanimous Consent vote. The bill will come up in regular order.”

DILIGENT CORRECTIONS at The Washington Post. Okay, it’s not important, but I’m glad they fixed it.

IN THE MAIL: David Linden’s The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God. Neo-neocon should like the cover photo . . . .

PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN UPHELD. I believe that the ban should have been struck down on commerce clause grounds as outside Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. Interestingly, the opinion contains this observation from Justice Thomas:

I also note that whether the Act constitutes a permissible exercise of Congress’Â’ power under the Commerce Clause is not before the Court. The parties did not raise or brief that issue; it is outside the question presented; and the lower courts did not address it.

I hope that it is raised in a future case.

UPDATE: Brendan Loy notes confusion at the AP.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Avoid the rush! Get your abortion now! Hmm.

And yes, I realize that under Raich the argument above has less strength, but I think that Raich was wrongly decided. More here.

TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE, with reservations.

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AS JUNIOR HIGH:

RUSSIA’S sense of self-esteem has long been inseparable from its relationship with America. To have America as an enemy during the Cold War gave the Soviet Union a sense of urgency and of purpose: America took Russia seriously!

The end of the cold war deprived Russia briefly of a vital adversary. It is only logical now that, as Russia tries to reassert itself on the world stage, and restore its sense of greatness, it is returning to the sort of sparring with America that it found—perversely—so comforting before.

No television chat show in Russia passes without a bout of America-bashing. Russia does not mind being resented by America. What it does mind is being ignored.

Can we set up a sort of Potemkin foreign-policy to meet the apparently inexhaustible worldwide need to be taken seriously? Kind of like a global self-esteem camp? I thought that was what the U.N. was for. . . .

A CALL FOR “SENSIBLE RESTRICTIONS” ON PRESS FREEDOM:

A practical, commonsense way of reducing gun violence — especially in the schools — would be a federal law prohibiting, or at least seriously limiting, the interstate reporting of sensational gun crimes like Virginia Tech for five working days.

Such a law would not affect local coverage, where there is a need for the immediate dissemination of information, but would make the event ‘old news’ when it was finally reported nationally and therefore unlikely to get the massive publicity that invites further, copycat violence. Even a small reduction in today’s intense coverage of such events might, by not stimulating some potential gunman to action, save lives.

While ‘gun’ laws are hard to enforce because of the easy concealment of firearms, the public nature of ‘news’ would make enforcement of this law virtually automatic.

Because the delay would be short and serve a compelling government interest, it should pass constitutional muster; the Brady law serves admirably as a precedent here. While First Amendment absolutists will cavil, the simple fact is that it is as wrong to hold that the Press Clause protects a media ‘right’ to lethally endanger the public as it would be to hold that the Religion Clause protects human sacrifice.

He leaves out the argument that “if it saves just one life, it’s worth it,” though. Plus, no explicit appeal on behalf of “the children.” Also, no claim that we shouldn’t let Big News profit from higher ratings even as it contributes to more violence, and hence more profits! But I give it a B+.

UPDATE: Reader Stephen Hill emails: “How about a news story buy-back? There are plenty I’d like to return…”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A few readers seem to be mistaking the above for a serious proposal, rather than a mockery of gun-controllers’ constitutional style. Then again, today’s politics are pretty much beyond parody . . . .

But SayUncle gets it.

BLOGGERS IN EGYPT:

THEY call themselves pyjamahideen. Instead of galloping off to fight holy wars, they stay at home, meaning, often as not, in their parents’ houses, and clatter about computer keyboards. Their activity is not as explosive as the self-styled jihadists who trouble regimes in the region, and they come in all stripes, secular liberal as well as radical Islamist. But like Gulliver’s Lilliputians, youthful denizens of the internet are chipping away at the overweening dominance of Arab governments.

In Egypt, for instance, blogging has evolved within the past year from a narcissistic parlour sport to a shaper of the political agenda. By simply posting embarrassing video footage, small-time bloggers have blown open scandals over such issues as torture and women’s harassment on the streets of Cairo.

Somebody should write a book about this phenomenon. But there’s pushback. Read the whole thing.