OUCH.

HUGH HEWITT INTERVIEWS ROBERT KAPLAN about his new book, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground.

BOB OWENS: “Today is the two-month anniversary of Franklin Foer claiming that he and The New Republic would run an honest investigation into the claims made in a story written by Scott Thomas Beauchamp. . . . Since that time, a few things have happened.” Yeah, but not that honest investigation.

TOM GOLDSTEIN LOOKS AT the next Supreme Court term.

Paul Mirengoff is unhappy.

LUNAR PARKING PERMITS: A pretty decent little space law summary, from Slate.

THOUGHTS ON mandatory attendance in law school classes.

PROTECTING AHMADINEJAD — a novel angle:

Here’s a weird scenario: presumably, the American security agents have to liaise with their Iranian counterparts, most of whom are probably connected in some way or another with the Iranian central intelligence and security agency.

So how does the Service [prevent] the Iranians from gaining detailed knowledge of protective methods and coded radio frequencies?

Good question.

UPDATE: I’m sure that nothing like this will be permitted, much less a bunch of “students” taking Ahmadinejad hostage.

MEL WEISS INDICTED: “A federal grand jury has indicted Mel Weiss for his involvement in an alleged class-action kickback scheme that has led to the indictment of the firm he co-founded in 1972. If convicted of the four counts in the second superseding indictment, Weiss faces up to 40 years in prison.” Indictment and press release at the link.

COLUMBIA: Cancelling, then un-cancelling, Ahmadinejad?

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

FINALLY: Michael Barone emails:

Just a random thought on Ahmedinejad speaking at Columbia.

Columbia doesn’t host ROTC or (I think) military recruiters on campus, because it would be just too offensive to do so, because the military obeys the law passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by Bill Clinton which bars open homosexuals from serving in the military. OK.

But Columbia does host Ahmedinejad who heads a government which executes homosexuals for the crime of being homosexuals.

So it’s obnoxious beyond belief to exclude homosexuals from military service, but it’s not obnoxious beyond belief to hang them from the neck until dead.

I’m inclined to think that Congress and the military should rethink their policy of barring homosexuals from military service. It’s a long argument, which I’ll omit from this post. But I don’t have any trouble joining the 99.99% of Americans who oppose execution of homosexuals for homosexual acts. And who think it’s a barbaric act, incapable of being supported by any decent argument.

Why does Lee Bollinger think a man who heads a regime that executes homosexuals–not just excludes them from military service, but hangs them by the neck until dead, in public ceremony– should be honored with an invitation to speak at Columbia?

Because Ahmadinejad doesn’t like Bush, and that covers all sins?

JAMES LILEKS: “They can make me take a vacation, but let’s see them try to enforce it.” Yeah, James. Stick it to The Man!

A LOOK AT SOME unlikely environmental heroes.

THE DAM BURSTS at the Al Dura trial.

JOE LIEBERMAN SLAMS AHMADINEJAD: Ian Schwartz has the video.

MICHELLE RHEE on education in D.C.

STEPHEN GREEN LOVES HIS IPHONE: I mean, a lot.

AT PAM’S HOUSE BLEND, a complaint about a lack of attention from “progressive” bloggers to the Jena 6.

Far be it from me to speak for the progressive blogosphere, but — as I was discussing with a colleague whose work on the “school-to-jail pipeline” has had him following the case closely — one big problem is that the facts have trickled out, and it was hard to get a clear narrative that made sense of what was going on. The signal-to-noise ratio wasn’t that good. Contrast this to the Cory Maye case, where Radley Balko made things quite clear early on. We’ve seen this in cases involving foreign bloggers in trouble, too, where people wonder why some get a lot more attention than others. Almost always it involves whether there’s a clear story online that someone can link to, and people who can get the story out to bloggers with an explanation of why it’s important. My Jena 6 email all seemed to be in media res, which is why I consulted Radley Balko. The email conveyed that people were upset, but that’s not enough — in the blogosphere, people are always upset!

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Orin Kerr.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Unconvinced.

BRAD DELONG, ALAN GREENSPAN, AND PERICLEAN ATHENS: I think, actually, that the Clinton economic-policy shop was a good one. And don’t forget Gene Sperling’s role, while you’re at it.

RUDY GIULIANI with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and Margaret Thatcher.

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THEM BITCHING ABOUT “EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE,” EITHER:

All 13 members of Congress subpoenaed in the Duke Cunningham investigation have refused to turn over documents and testimony, citing congressional privilege. This was under advice from the House general counsel.

Keep in mind, this is the same Congress that, when questioned by Major League Baseball over its constitutional authority to investigate the steroid scandal, replied that its jurisdiction extended to “any time” and “on any matter.”

So while they seem to think their subpoena power is universal, don’t expect them to be held accountable themselves.

Pretty brave talk from an institution whose approval ratings are where they are.

ARNOLD KLING LOOKS AT AUBREY DE GREY’S NEW BOOK, ENDING AGING: “Too often, academics use their credentials to spit out biased polemics dressed up as science. Ending Aging is the opposite. It is a crash course in state-of-the-art science dressed up as a polemic. De Grey wears his passion for undertaking a war on aging on his sleeve, yet most of the book consists of scientific analysis that, although simplified to enable a layman to follow, is conscientious in reporting doubts and objections to the author’s point of view.”

Kling is more optimistic about a scientific revolution, though, than about a paradigm-shift in government institutions, which seems right to me.

HOW TO eat sushi.

GOOD NEWS FOR FRED THOMPSON: James Dobson doesn’t like him. That’s gotta be worth, what, five percent?

INFLUENCE-BUYING: Well, that’s what they’d call it if the NRA did it, anyway.

SENATE CONDEMNS THE “BETRAYUS” AD, 72-25: Hillary Clinton voted against condemning the ad. More here including this observation: “Some of the senators who won the greatest support from the netroots in the last election, like McCaskill, Tester, Klobuchar, and Webb, voted to condemn the ad.”

WILL THE HSUTH COME OUT AT LAST? “Lawsuit may show where Hsu got his money for campaign contributions.” (Via NewsAlert).

Plus this: “Justice Department officials in New York will announce criminal charges against Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu today for allegedly orchestrating a $60 million fraud scheme and committing related federal campaign finance crimes.”