THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE REELECTED, jack-booted thugs would be dropping the hammer on anyone deemed guilty of lese majeste. And they were right!

I’M NOT DEAD YET . . . I’M FEELING BETTER . . . I THINK I’LL GO FOR A WALK: The Death of Blogs.

CHRIS SUELLENTROP: “How poorly is John Edwards faring in his bid to become president of the United States?”

BLOGS ON BURMA: A big roundup at Slate.

PUNS: HSUPER? OR HSTUPID? A reader emails: “Ok enough with the puns on Hsu’s name please.”

On the other hand, people keep mailing in suggestions. So it’s time for a poll!

UPDATE: Okay, we’ve broken the 2,000-vote mark and Hsu-puns are winning by better than 2-1. That’s a hstupendous margin!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More questions about porkmeister Don Young:

Hopefully we’re about to get closer to learning how Rep. Don Young’s (R-AK) $10 million Coconut Road earmark made its famous post-vote change. A Washington watchdog group filed a complaint today with the House ethics committee asking for an investigation into the drastic edit, calling it “an extraordinary case of the House of Representatives’ integrity being undermined.” . . .

Initially, Congress approved a bill that would have given Florida $10 million for a highway widening project, but as we’ve explained before, during a 13-day window between the bill passing Congress and the President signing it into law, the earmark changed. It was the only such change among 6,000 earmarks in a pork-filled bill. The new Coconut Road wording redirected the money to a project that would be a boon to a real estate developer and major campaign contributor of Young’s.

Read the whole thing.

A CHEMERINSKY FOLLOWUP from Jon Wiener: “The fact is that we still don’t really know the sources of the pressure that led Drake to act against his newly-appointed dean. And at this point, with Chemerinsky himself calling for a focus on the future, it seems unlikely we will ever know.”

CALLING IN THE BOMB SQUAD: To protect bridges from terrorists.

“SOFT FASCISM” in Britain?

LOOKING TOWARD CHRISTMAS (already?) a roundup of favorite toys.

SECRETS OF PRODUCTIVITY, from Vincent Van Gogh. Okay, I don’t smoke a pipe, but otherwise, yeah.

LOSING WEIGHT the Castro Way!

VIOLENT CLASHES IN BURMA: And here’s something on China’s role in propping up the junta.

SOME INTERESTING AHMADINEJAD VIDEO from Andrew Marcus.

341-79: House condemns MoveOn “Betrayus” ad. Plus, a Joe McCarthy comparison from David Obey.

THE NEFARIOUS “WE.” But don’t question their patriotism!

LA SHAWN BARBER ON CNN: Ian Schwartz has the video. La Shawn observes: “That was fun!”

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS about the Tesla Roadster.

IN THE MAIL: Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes’ The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country–and Why it Can Again.

IS DICK CHENEY UNCONSTITUTIONAL? I don’t usually put pieces on SSRN until they’re published, but a colleague suggested posting this one now. So I have — you can download a copy here. It’s an essay, quite short by law review standards.

UPDATE: SSRN was having server problems earlier, but everything seems to be working fine now.

THOUGHTS ON WHAT TO DO about private military companies like Blackwater.

WHY SOME PEOPLE fear bloggers.

NYT CYA.

LEARNING ABOUT LEGAL ETHICS from a lawyer convicted of assisting terrorists.

It’s a bad month for higher education. As one commentator says, “you can’t make this stuff up.” Sadly, you don’t have to.

UPDATE: More on Stewart here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More discussion at the WSJ Law Blog.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: “Look, there are bad people out there. The folks who run Iran would be at or near the top of my list. But divestment is a bad solution to the problem.”

Plus, thoughts on the UAW strike.

UPDATE: The strike is over.