IF YOU LIKE THE GLENN AND HELEN SHOW, you’ll be able to catch us, along with others, on XM Radio’s new POTUS ’08 channel, starting tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern, XM channel 130.

TAMMY BRUCE vs “the Gestapo.” I’m betting on Tammy.

LEAKED IRAQ MEMO doesn’t say what the critics think.

JEFF EMANUEL ON DEVELOPING IRAQI POLICE FORCES: “A Long, Difficult, and Dangerous Process – But Not a Hopeless One.”

LOOKING AT THE NEW YORK TIMES’ ARTICLE ON BLACKWATER, A SURPRISING DISCOVERY: Iraq is a lot safer that you might think:

I don’t know about you, but I find those figures – both for Blackwater and DynCorp – staggering, even allowing for the fact that there must be other incidents where convoys come under attack, but keep going without returning fire.

I was under the impression that every time a convoy left the Green Zone it was like the scene in Mad Max II where the fuel tanker (no spoilers in case you haven’t seen it) driven by Max leaves the good guys’ compound. I pictured insurgents leaping off buildings on to the roofs of SUVs, IEDs going off left, right and centre, and suicide car bombs and RPGs coming from every direction.

Where did I get this impression? From watching the TV news and reading the mainstream news websites. It’s almost as if… as if… the media is exaggerating how bad things are in Iraq!

Read the whole thing. It reminds me of when the Soviets used to show newsreels of Vietnam protests as evidence of how bad things were in America, only to have the audience think, “hey, everybody in these films has new shoes!“

BEING Evo Morales’ monkey.

UPDATE: More, including video of Jon Stewart and Morales, here.

ILYA SOMIN on regulatory takings and the poor.

SURGING BEFORE the surge was cool.

MORE ON USMANOV VS. THE BLOGGERS.

It’s not like he wasn’t warned.

DANIEL GROSS says that the housing bubble is a good thing.

I remember reading somewhere that pulsating ecosystems use resources more efficiently. I don’t know if that applies to economies. Gross, of course, has a book on bubbles.

BURMESE MILITARY raids monasteries.

Why am I calling it Burma and not Myanmar? James Fallows explains.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

THE BIG NEWS from last night’s Democratic debate: “The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.”

Will this give the Draft Nader movement a boost? It’s certainly got to be a disappointment to the MoveOn/Netroots crowd.

LAW SCHOOL AS A SORTING HAT.

HSUT DOWN: “A judge has frozen bank accounts and sealed the Manhattan apartment of Norman Hsu at the request of investors who say the jailed political fundraiser stole $40 million from them. . . . After being a fugitive for about 15 years, Hsu made a name for himself as a political fundraiser for Democrats. He was arrested about three weeks ago and now faces new federal charges in New York of bilking investors out of $60 million. Investigators say he donated some of that money to numerous Democratic candidates and causes.”

More here, including this tidbit: “Minkoff asked the judge to issue attachment orders on donations Hsu made to Sen. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Spitzer and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who have either returned the money or put it in escrow.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: “There’s new evidence the Saudis aren’t cooperating in our battle to eradicate terrorists or those who bankroll them. Their negligence is shocking even to cynics.” I’d say calling it negligence is kind.

THIS POST on Blackwater, is considerably less well-informed than this post on Blackwater. And the difference in the comments is even more striking.

ANDREW BREITBART: “A Brokeback mountain of lies.”

DISAPPEARING TRUSTEES at Columbia?

THOUGHTS ON TRUSTWORTHINESS in media and government. Not a lot to go around . . . .

MORE THOUGHTS ON journalists and the blogosphere.

NOAH SHACHTMAN: The Soldier of the Future gets his gear on.

POLLYANNAISH ME: At the University of Chicago Law Faculty Blog.

BLOGGERS VS. AN UZBEK BILLIONAIRE: Go bloggers!

Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has vowed to carry on making allegations against billionaire Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov, despite attempts to silence him and his supporters.

Murray told The Reg: “If the man believes he was libelled then he should take me to court.” . . .

Murray’s blog was deleted by its host on Friday after threats from Usmanov’s UK legal team. It’s expected to reappear in the early hours of tomorrow on an overseas server, and will repeat the charges that drew heavy fire from specialist libel firm Schillings.

The ex-diplomat says he has contacted Schillings to ask for clarification of which specific aspect of his allegations they contest, but has not received a response. “They say my book [Murder in Samarkand] is ‘grossly libellous and defamatory’, yet it has been widely available for a year and has sold 25,000 copies, without their actually taking any legal action,” he added.

Murray’s criticism of Usmanov stems from his rise in Uzbekistan following the collapse of communism to become one of Russia’s richest men. He denies the accusations. His profile in the UK has skyrocketed since he followed Chelsea chairman and fellow oligarch Roman Abramovich into football investment.

(Via Slashdot, where Usmanov isn’t getting much sympathy.)

NPR TURNS DOWN AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT BUSH: Hey, he’s welcome to do the Glenn and Helen Show if he likes!

But what is NPR thinking?

OOPS: David Shuster’s cheap shot backfires. Will an apology be forthcoming?

UPDATE: An apology: Follow the link for details and video. It’s a pretty grudging apology, though, leaving out the cheap-shot angle. Would Shuster have asked Hillary that question?

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

MORE: A reader asks why it’s a cheap shot to ask a member of Congress to name the last casualty from his/her district? That would seem to answer itself. But — as noted plainly above — I strongly doubt that Shuster would have asked Hillary that question, even though she voted for the war. It was a trap.

Interestingly, though, it’s a trap that, in its nature, underscores how historically low casualties are in this war. You wouldn’t have heard that question in World War II, not only because the press would have been ashamed to ask it, but because casualties then were such that nobody could possibly keep track. That it can be asked in this war demonstrates not only the cheap-shot tendencies of a hopelessly partisan press, but also the small scale of the actual warfare.