MICHAEL MALONE on living in a surveillance society. That’s the topic of my next Popular Mechanics column, too.

JIHAD made in Britain.

ADVICE TO ALUMNI: “Donors — Remember Princeton.”

MUST OUR NEXT PRESIDENT BE scientifically literate? It wouldn’t hurt.

SOME CHRISTMAS, ER, CHEER. Courtesy of Dan Collins, who clearly has too much time on his hands.

A PRE-OSCAR ROUNDUP of best -film picks from the National Board of Review. Hollywood’s antiwar flood doesn’t do very well.

BRIAN APPLEYARD on the virtues of science fiction.

IN THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, some recommended books for kids.

More kids’ book recommendations here.

FRANK WARNER on Iran, the N.I.E., and fissile material.

STANDING UP for political free speech. “The new organization, SpeechNow.org, is asking the Federal Election Commission for permission to accept donations of more than $5,000 a person, which is the current limit for federal political action committees. The group says it wants to use the funds to take out political advertising in support of candidates who favor less campaign finance regulation and in opposition to those who favor tighter fund-raising rules.”

A NEW HUCKABEE IMMIGRATION PLAN.

DUMB LEGISLATION ALERT:

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.

That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection.

This is stupid, unworkable, and betrays a deep ignorance about how these things — especially wi-fi spots — actually work. Which makes it a fit product for this Congress. . . .

HINT: IT’S NOT WALMART. What’s killing small business? “Local officials who simultaneously decry big box stores and national chains while doling out burdensome regulatory structures and complicated permit processes should understand that regulatory burdens hit the smaller, independent places hardest.”

QUAGMIRE ALERT, as we see the grim toll mount: “NBC boss Jeff Zucker is expected to make big cuts on the newsgathering and operational side of the company’s news division, including eliminating an entire level of MSNBC’s management team, in a bid to save between $20 million and $40 million.” Of course, cutting newsgathering means eliminating their big advantage over new media with less infrastructure. As I’ve said before, hard news is the killer-app for Big Media, but they seem curiously uninterested in playing to their strength.

BILL BUCKLEY ENCOUNTERS Godwin’s Law. It’s not pretty.

BLOGGING? IN COLLEGE? Consider the 2008 AFF College Blogging Contest. There’s a $10,000 cash prize.

IN THE MAIL: Jed Babbin’s In the Words of Our Enemies.

ROMNEY’S SPEECH: Ed Morrissey thought it was pretty good. Mona Charen really liked it.

UPDATE: Ed Cone comments. Full text ,and more thoughts, at Power Line.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Podhoretz thinks the speech was a flop.

DON SURBER: The war is twice as popular as Congress.

I TOLD YOU SO: Gary Milhollin and Valerie Lincy write in the New York Times: “We should be suspicious of any document that suddenly gives the Bush administration a pass on a big national security problem it won’t solve during its remaining year in office.”

Gee, do you think?

I HADN’T PAID MUCH ATTENTION to the Bush White House / Blogger kerfuffle — Danny Glover has a roundup here — until I got an email from CBS public eye asking my opinion. Here’s my response:

It reads like wishful thinking to me. The White House — like the GOP generally — has been extremely lame in dealing with the blogosphere, which is why the left blogosphere has done better since 2004. I get the usual PR stuff, but if they’re doing anything more blog-sensitive than that, I haven’t been seeing it.

Further proof of their ineptitude, of course, is present in the very bragging that is at issue.

IT WOULD BE A NICE CHANGE: Can a pork-busting Randian lead the GOP?

HOW CONVENIENT: “Just in time for the election, Michael Newdow’s ‘Under God’ lawsuit is back, along with a challenge to ‘In God We Trust’ on U.S. currency.”

JOSH ZADER POSTS December movie trailer reviews.

THIS SHOULD MAKE THE U.N. BUREAUCRATS IN BALI CHEER: Flying more to reduce global warming.