PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Meet the new boss, yada yada.

House Democratic leaders pushing a promised lobbying overhaul are facing resistance from balky lawmakers and fending off accusations that a prominent member is flouting new ethics rules.

The Democratic leaders were forced to scrap a promise to double the current one-year lobbying ban after lawmakers leave office. Now, they are struggling to pass legislation requiring lobbyists to disclose the campaign contributions they “bundle” — collect and deliver — to lawmakers. Failing to deliver on both measures would endanger similar provisions already passed by the Senate.

Other House rules changes this year appear to have done little to alter business as usual on Capitol Hill. House Democrats voted along party lines on Tuesday to block the censure of one of their most powerful members, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania. He was accused of violating a new ethics rule that prohibits lawmakers from swapping pork for votes.

Still to come is a long-overdue report by a House committee considering the creation of an independent watchdog to monitor compliance with ethics rules. Democrats say the House is unlikely to endorse the idea, which the Senate has already rejected. . . . Some newly elected Democrats say they worry about potential perceptions that their party has failed to deliver its promised cleanup. “Many of the freshmen ran on a campaign of, as Speaker Pelosi would say, ‘draining the swamp,’ on ethics and ethics enforcement,” said Representative Ed Perlmutter, a first-term Colorado Democrat.

Those promises to produce the most ethical Congress in history are looking lamer and lamer. I’m beginning to think they never meant it at all. . . .

THERE ARE TWO AMERICAS: Those who are consistent on the War on Terror, and those who are not.

JEFF EMANUEL looks at embedded journalists in Iraq:

While embedding may be decried by some for causing journalists, who claim the utopian titles of “objective” and “neutral” for their reportage, to lose their cold detachment and actually begin to see the soldiers they live alongside as humans, it is that very quality that makes the practice of embedding reporters with military units so beneficial to both parties. Rather than observing events from a safely detached distance–and thus being able to remove the human element from the equation–embedded reporters are forced to face up to the humanity of their subjects, and to share common experiences–often of the life-and-death variety–with those they are covering.

The military should encourage a lot more of this.

BLOGGING FROM IRAQ, J.D. Johannes reports on the cellular battlespace.

IMPERIAL OVERSTRETCH AT GOOGLE?

Google’s ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.

Sounds a bit . . . intrusive. Maybe Ask.com’s new competitive strategy should involve respecting people’s privacy!

THERE ARE TWO AMERICAS: Those with pirate booty, and those without. My campaign slogan will be “Booty for everyone!”

NOAH POLLAK: Who is responsible for Gaza? A reply to Matthew Yglesias.

I blame John Ashcroft! Oh, wait. . . .

UPDATE: Related item here.

REGINA LYNN HAS THOUGHTS ON sex in space.

I’VE GOT A REVIEW of John Robb’s Brave New War over at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal website. You can read it here.

POPULAR MECHANICS looks at an oncoming Very Light Jet revolution.

Plus, a roundup of new VLJs, and video.

Oh, and here are some thoughts of mine on what this may mean.

THE CONSTITUTION AS AN “INFINITELY MALLEABLE SCHMOO:” Now, see, this is what happens when you allow yourself to move away from doctrinal analysis . . . .

PHOTOBLOGGING THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE, at InstaPunk.

THERE ARE TWO AMERICAS: One with good PR skills, and one with a talent for self-destruction.

THIS LOOKS INTERESTING: Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound.

Blurb: “This well-reported assessment of democracy manipulated by powerful federal, state and local insiders, and other not-in-my-backyard shenanigans surrounding plans for a wind farm five miles off Cape Cod, is certainly upfront about its bias. Williams, a former journalist-in-residence at Duke University, and Whitcomb, editorial page editor of the Providence Journal, jauntily champion the cause of energy entrepreneur Jim Gordon’s ‘bold idea’ to plant 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound—a project still snared in a regulatory maze as this peppery account went to press. The authors decry what they call fear-mongering by Gordon’s well-funded opponents (2005 contributions: $3.3 million) and are particularly peeved by the obstructionism of Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose behind-the-scenes maneuvering is highlighted, as are the fulminations verging “on the incoherent” by environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr.—normally an outspoken opponent of coal-powered energy generation and a vigorous supporter of alternative energy sources. The Kennedys’ stubborn opposition is shared by such moneyed neighbors as Listerine heiress Bunny Mellon and coal, oil and gas magnate William Koch, who are depicted as plutocratic bullies in this rambunctious, unsparing dissection of ruling-class abuse.”

Reader-review flamewar starts in 3. . 2 . . 1 . . .

SECOND AMENDMENT UPDATE: Brian Frye looks at the history of U.S. v. Miller.

It might profitably be read along with this article that Brannon Denning and I wrote on the Miller case.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Good grief, did somebody declare this “Make a mockery of Democratic promises for reform” week?

The House Appropriations Committee has decided to insert earmarks into all of the FY08 spending bills during the conferencing committees, instead of during the initial House-only process.

This will prevent lawmakers like Jeff Flake from offering amendments to strip out wasteful pork projects…which is EXACTLY why David Obey, the Approps Chairman, is changing the rules. In defending his move, Obey said ($),

“It’s my job to protect the committee.”

Apparently, Obey’s job to protect the American taxpayer is a lower priority. In a recent press release, Flake said, “This is a huge step backwards on earmark reform. As bad as the earmark process is now, this would make it immensely worse.”

On this, the porkbusting blogosphere should raise its alert status to DEFCON 1. First the Murtha debacle and now this? Things are getting out of control.

Actually, they’re getting back under the control of the same old bunch of sleazoids. Meet the new boss, yada yada.

UPDATE: And the new guys aren’t helping: Freshmen fail ethics test. Congratulations to Jim Cooper, though, for doing the right thing.

MORE OPPOSITION TO THE IDIOTIC INCANDESCENT BULB BAN PROPOSAL, which typically is being sponsored by nanny-in-chief Mike Bloomberg:

The anti-light-bulb campaign isn’t creeping socialism—it’s nanny-state capitalism: a cross-ideological alliance to force-market lousy products to the public. The left gets to see environmental virtue written into law; the right gets to see the negative consequences of that law fall on individual consumers, rather than, say, the power industry.

I’m happy to use CFLs, and to encourage other people to try them. (I’m writing this in a room lit entirely by CFLs, and the light’s fine.) But people whose first instinct is to force this kind of change are people who have a serious character disorder.

MORE ON DDT AND MALARIA.

JOSE GUARDIA spots a metaphor for the Iraq war.

MORE PEACEKEEPING SCANDALS:

Pakistani UN peacekeeping troops have traded in gold and sold weapons to Congolese militia groups they were meant to disarm, the BBC has learnt.

These militia groups were guilty of some of the worst human rights abuses during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s long civil war.

The trading went on in 2005. A UN investigative team sent to gather evidence was obstructed and threatened.

The team’s report was buried by the UN itself to “avoid political fallout”.

Typical. (Via Gateway Pundit).

OH, JEEZ, GET A SENSE OF HUMOR:

The retail chain has been promoting a £30 sex toy called the iGasm, a device which connects to any music player and offers users an erotic vibrating treat in time to the beat.

A News of the World report claims Apple is furious about Ann Summer’s promotion of the device, and is demanding all posters for the gadget be taken down, under threat of court action.

This seriously conflicts with Apple’s young, hip, carefree marketing, er, vibe.

UPDATE: “Apple isn’t fun any more.”

WOW, LOOK AT WHAT ONE GUY CAN DO:

Lots of people run Web sites by themselves. But it’s likely that no other solo venture runs at the scale of PlentyOfFish. For the week ended April 28, it was the 96th-busiest Web site in the U.S., according to the HitWise tracking service. That means it has more traffic than some of the Net’s best-known destinations, such as Apple.com.

Busy Web sites like these usually require scores of people: technicians, certainly, to keep the servers running, but also programmers, marketers and the rest. Mr. Frind says people often don’t believe him when he says PlentyOfFish is all his. . . . Mr. Frind says the site brings in between $5 million and $10 million a year; lest even more competitors get onto his success, he declines to be more specific. That puts him ahead of some of the Web’s best: Last year, each Google employee generated an average $1 million in sales.

PlentyOfFish is the success that it is because of several converging Web trends. Servers and server software have become simple and reliable enough that they can run on their own, without a lot of babysitting. What’s more, a remarkably sophisticated economic infrastructure now exists that allows busy Web sites to make lots of money, certainly enough for one person to live very well.

Somebody should write a book on this trend!

WENDY KAMINER says that the ACLU is becoming steadily more partisan.

USING SOMEONE’S WIRELESS NETWORK WITHOUT PERMISSION IS LIKE . . . . Wired’s Threat Level blog is looking for analogies.

I’d say it’s like sniffing the flowers by your neighbor’s mailbox without permission. Other, no doubt better, analogies at the link.

LEV GROSSMAN: “Seriously, I should be beyond surprise at this point, but it’s still stunning to me the callousness with which Hollywood can treat the gems of geek culture. Neuromancer is the jewel in the crown of contemporary sci-fi. The Sprawl Trilogy should be SF’s answer to The Lord of the Rings movies. It needs a Peter Jackson at the bare minimum. It does not need Joey Torque.”