PERHAPS THE WORST NEWS OF THE WEEK MONTH YEAR: “By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president.” A general opposition to free trade will be terrible for the U.S. — and the global — economy. I hope that this anti-free-trade sentiment is aimed only at new agreements, and doesn’t extend to a rollback of existing free trade, but I’m not that optimistic.

50 YEARS LATER: It’s Sputnikmania!

JIMMY CARTER LEARNS SOMETHING: “Guns trump sanctimonious handwringing.”

ANTONIN SCALIA, bleeding-heart liberal: “This is another situation, like the debate over the president’s detention powers, where Antonin Scalia belies the left-liberal caricature of him as an authoritarian ogre and sees eye to eye with the ACLU. He is the Court’s leading advocate of the Sixth Amendment argument that juries, not judges, must determine facts that trigger enhanced penalties, which was the rationale for making the sentencing guidelines advisory. His main opponent on this issue is Stephen Breyer (not coincidentally, an architect of the guidelines as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission), a Clinton appointee whom leftish Court observers tend to view more favorably than Scalia.”

TAX AND FEND?

Plus, the world of compassionate head-tilts.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES courts Filipino outrage.

GREG GRANSDEN EMAILS: “Could you suggest a website that rates and evaluates camcorders, for someone who’s in the market to buy one?”

I don’t know of a camcorder site that’s as good as, say, DP Review is for still cameras. Any suggestions?

ANOTHER FAKE WAR HERO:

ATLANTIC CITY – Where’s the mayor?

Not since “Where’s Waldo?” and “Where’s the Beef?” has such a query caused such a stir.

In this resort, where the streets are literally paved by gambling revenues, they’re taking bets on what might have become of Mayor Bob Levy and whether his disappearance signals another impending scandal involving the city’s top job.

Amid reports of a federal probe into false claims that Levy admits he made regarding his Vietnam military service, the mayor drove off last Wednesday in a silver, city-owned Dodge Durango and has not officially been heard from since.

More here.

FRED THOMPSON AND JAMES DOBSON: Byron York notices the same thing I did.

J.D. JOHANNES: “I consider myself a subject matter expert on real and phony soldiers.”

A somewhat related item from The American Thinker, here. And G.M. Roper has some thoughts, too.

Plus, read this piece from Robert Kaplan.

ED MORRISSEY ON McCarthyism without McCarthy.

MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS will vote on carrying guns on campus.

UPDATE: Voted down by student government.

JOHN KERRY NATION: “Waffles: They’re not just for politicians any more.”

THOUGHTS ON THE SUPREME COURT AND ORIGINALISM, from Steven Calabresi.

He’s also got a new book out on the subject, Originalism: A Quarter Century of Debate, though I haven’t read it yet.

UPDATE: You can also buy the book directly from the Federalist Society.

GOD AND MAN at Dartmouth.

AND HERE I THOUGHT THEY JUST RANDOMLY SHOT PEOPLE: Blackwater copter rescues Polish Ambassador.

I GUESS THIS WOULD BE GOOD NEWS: “Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al-Asheikh – the most senior Wahhabi cleric in Saudi Arabia — released a rather surprising religious edict. In this fatwa, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia instructed Saudis not to leave the Kingdom to participate in jihad – a statement directed primarily at those considering going to Iraq.”

I guess the Saudis figure we’ve killed enough in Iraq already that they can deal with the ones who are left at home.

IN BRITAIN, incitement to violence.

BEYOND LIMBAUGH AND O’REILLY: Going after talk radio in general?

NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: Who are you calling “Heterodox?”

BARBARA OAKLEY’S NEW BOOK, Evil Genes, is out — and with a blurb from the Insta-Wife, along with Steven Pinker, Gavin de Becker, and Orson Scott Card. (Bumped).

ADVICE FOR REPUBLICANS, from Tony Blankley: “Every faction within the GOP coalition should agree immediately to make no further demands of their party. Just as the liberals did in 1991 and 1992, the conservatives of 2007 and 2008 simply should let their strongest candidate campaign in a way most likely to gain victory. Every conservative principle thereby would be safer than if heavy demands yield a Hillary presidency.”

AN OIL-FOR-FOOD EXPOSE: “When Saddam’s regime systematized its Oil for Food kickback demands across the board in 2000, keeping track of the graft flowing into Saddam’s secret coffers became a job so extensive that the marketing arm of Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, known as SOMO (State Oil Marketing Organization) developed an electronic database to track the flow of the “surcharges,” as they were called. . . . As it is, the U.S. stands almost alone in prosecuting the culprits and sending the guilty to prison. In Russia, China, Syria, Cyprus, Yemen, Egypt, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Jordan — to name a few significant players — there has been no such summons to justice. In Switzerland, home to a cosmopolitan nest of Oil for Food fronts, a number of companies have paid fines to federal and local authorities, but their names and the details have been kept confidential.”

JACOB SULLUM: “President Bush exercised the fourth veto of his administration today, and it’s the first one I like: He nixed an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that would rely on an unfair, highly regressive cigarette tax increase while extending benefits to families that are far from poor.”

QUESTION OF THE DAY: “Does anti-drug education work? It’s not as if schools are attempting to counteract all the attractive ads from the Mexican Amphetamine Promotion League (‘It’s Basement Fresh!’) with their cool Joe Meth character. No one ever hears anything good about meth.”