DAVE KOPEL HAS BEEN WATCHING THE TIME TUNNEL, which I remember watching in reruns as a kid. He says it holds up better than lots of 1960s TV shows.

THE OTHER HSU DROPS: “This is getting fun.”

Puns are supposed to be the lowest form of humor. But not lower than my standards!

ANOTHER HSU PUN: The Norman Evasion: “Demo fundraiser skips court hearing, whereabouts unknown.” The pun headline appears only on the SFGate front page, though.

A CLASSIC “OOPS” STORY: “The officers said the nuclear warheads should have been removed before the missiles were mounted onto pylons under the bomber’s wings for the Aug. 30 flight from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.”

UNDERCOVER in Little Morocco.

MORE CHINESE-MADE TOYS with lead problems.

IT’S NOT JUST THE G.O.P.: “If you thought conservatives were unhappy with ‘Rudy McRomney’, you might want to pay attention to growing netroots frustration with ‘Edwama’.”

A BOY NAMED HSU: A roundup of blog reactions.

NOW THINGS ARE REALLY SERIOUS: Defective Chinese condoms.

UPDATE: Reader Fred Boness emails: “This may explain why there are so many Chinese.”

MORE CHARGES OF Potemkin journalism.

FLUNKING PHYSICS at the movies.

HSU-HSU-HSUDDIO: “Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy said Tuesday he’s not returning $6,600 in donations he got from Norman Hsu, a prominent Democratic donor whose criminal past was recently revealed.”

Pecunia non olet, as they say.

TONY BLANKLEY IS LESS GLOOMY THAN SOME about the GOP’s prospects:

My hunch is that the next election may well come down to what the public thinks of “Bush’s War” in Iraq — and also which party is seen as more able on the war on terror generally.

The public view of Iraq will be event-driven — either it will be working or it won’t be. Neither malicious mainstream media badnewsing, nor White House happy talk will be able to trump reality. The progress in Iraq over the last six months has broken through the media’s cordon dissanitaire. That is why the defeatist Democratic leaders and presidential candidates have felt forced to concede at least “short-term military” success.

If the military success and the growing political success at the local and provincial level with the Sunni tribal leaders continues and expands its effect to the national Baghdad government and we have both military calm and maturing pro-American governance in Iraq, Democrats from presidential candidate to city council will be in an awful state.

The Republican National Committee doubtless has stored all the video of Democratic defeatism from this spring and early summer uttered not only in Washington but by their local state legislators and city officials. (From what I saw this spring, the national Democratic Party defeatism talking points were being picked up by Democratic Party congressional wannabees across the country.) This spring the Democrats pushed all their chips in for defeat in Iraq.

They can’t retrieve those chips now.

Which puts them in an awkward position if things go well, sure enough.

L.A. TIMES: IS CLINTON’S CANDIDACY blocking The Path to 9/11?

Among the nearly two dozen television DVDs slated for nationwide release on Sept. 11 is the second season of “Bones,” the third season of “Grey’s Anatomy” and the miniseries “The Starter Wife” that aired earlier this year. Not on the list on that day or any other in the near future is last year’s highly controversial “The Path to 9/11.”

The $40-million, five-hour ABC miniseries, which recently received seven Emmy nominations and drew a combined two-night audience of more than 25 million viewers, is for now on the path to nowhere. Its Amazon page reads: “Currently unavailable. We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.” . . .

Nowrasteh, also one of the miniseries’ many producers, said he was told by a top executive at ABC Studios that “if Hillary weren’t running for president, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

Maybe we can get some Chinese pirate DVDs . . . . And it’s more evidence that Republicans were fools not to take on Big Entertainment back when they had the chance.

SAVE FUEL: Shorten politicians’ motorcades. And make ’em all drive Priuses. If we’re going to save the planet, they need to set an example.

BEATING BACK OPPRESSION, one child’s game at a time.

RUNNING HSU: “Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu failed to appear Wednesday for a bail hearing and a judge issued a new warrant for his arrest. Hsu forfeits the $2 million bail he posted last week.” Yeah, I linked a different report on this earlier, but that was before reader Vic Havens suggested the “running Hsu” pun.

KATIE COURIC: The Anti-Cronkite?

CONGRESSMAN PAUL GILLMOR has died.

ONLINE: A new Bruce Springsteen video from his forthcoming album Magic. Somehow the opening made me think of Blue Oyster Cult, but the mood quickly changes.

UPDATE: Reader Adam Kwiatkowski emails:

Springsteen’s new song doesn’t sound like Blue Oyster Cult. It sounds like 867-5309/Jenny.

If you sing “eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-ni-ee-ine” when the vocals start, and at the chorus, you’ll be amazed at how well it fits.

You know, he’s right. Tommy Tutone, call your office! And hope this doesn’t breathe new life into the Jenny Scan. (bumped)

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here. I hope the rest of the album is a bit less derivative.

LIVEBLOGGING the new iPod announcement.

NO-SHOW HSU: Democratic mystery donor Norman Hsu skipped his bail hearing this morning. His lawyer doesn’t know where he is.

IS THE D.C. GUN BAN UNCONSTITUTIONAL? The Washington Post Express has an online poll. At the moment, 65% of respondents think the ban violates the Constitution.

FRED THOMPSON WANTS YOUR QUESTIONS: Jon Henke emails:

We’d like to have Fred Thompson give video responses to questions from the general public. It seems likely to be more genuine, and probably more substantive, than the brief soundbites typical in televised debates. . . . So we’ve decided we’ll ask some blogs to solicit questions from readers, then select the top 4-5 questions the blogger thinks should be answered by Thompson and pass them to us. We’ll have him answer, on video, as many of the questions as we possibly can.

So if you’ve got a question, email me and put “Question for Fred” in the subject line. I’ll sort through ’em and pass 4 or 5 on.

UPDATE: Okay, I’ve sent ’em on. No more email, please!

IN THE MAIL: The FBI: A History, by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones.