FRED THOMPSON ANSWERS A QUESTION from InstaPundit reader Joel Anderson.

MORE BLOG SHENANIGANS at the Los Angeles Times.

DOUBTS ABOUT GEORGE CLOONEY’S DRAWING POWER.

MAN SHOOTS, KILLS INTRUDER AFTER parrot’s alert.

SAY WHAT YOU WILL, but in at least one respect the Bush years have been a libertarian dream: “Bush’s job approval rating fell to 24 percent from last month’s record low for a Zogby poll of 29 percent. A paltry 11 percent gave Congress a positive grade, tying last month’s record low.”

Related thoughts here.

PUNDITS’ SPIRITS LIFT: Will ’08 Actually Be Competitive?

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

FISA BILL PULLED: “The House’s Democratic leaders pulled the bill after discovering that Republicans planned to offer a motion that politically vulnerable Democrats would have a hard time voting against.” The netroots are likely to be unhappy.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY and Stanley Fish. “There are other points made by Professor Fish that I could quibble with, but I don’t want to spend too much time arguing with someone who says I have ‘lean boyish looks that could earn [me] a role in Oceans 14 alongside Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.'”

Plus, Soviet-style psychology at Hamline University.

MORE ON MILBERG, WEISS, in The New York Times. “Last year, the firm was indicted on federal charges of fraud and bribery. But the political partnership has not been entirely severed. Since the indictment, 26 Democrats around the country, including four presidential candidates, have accepted $150,000 in campaign contributions from people connected to Milberg Weiss, according to state and federal campaign finance records. And some Democrats have taken public actions that potentially helped the firm or its former partners. . . . Beyond campaign contributions, Milberg Weiss became deeply ingrained in the financial firmament of the Democratic Party in other ways. Members of the firm gave $500,000 toward construction of a new Democratic National Committee headquarters, and some of them became partners in a private investment venture with several prominent Democrats. They included former Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey, who is a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, and Leonard Barrack, a Philadelphia trial lawyer who was once the national fund-raising chairman for the Democratic Party. . . . The firm found a friend in President Bill Clinton, who, a few days after being seen chatting and shaking hands with Mr. Lerach at a White House dinner in 1995, vetoed legislation to make it more difficult to sue for damages in injury cases. Congress overrode the veto, but the image remained of a close relationship between the president and Mr. Lerach, a Lincoln Bedroom guest during the Clinton presidency who donated more than $100,000 to Mr. Clinton’s presidential library.”

BLACKWATER MEETS THE leftist-Islamist convergence? “I’m not passing judgment on the merits of the Blackwater case, yet it’s worth noting just who is going after them.”

HARRY POTTER AND THE REORDER OF THE ARTISTS: A comparison of “moral rights” and the RIAA and MPAA to J.K. Rowling’s goblins.

Personally, I think that’s unfair to the goblins.

UPDATE: I posted this, and then SSRN went down for most of the afternoon, so I’m bumping it back up to the top.

“MAN HACKS 911 SYSTEM, sends SWAT on bogus raid.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, STILL A JOKE: “A Mexican national infected with a highly contagious form of tuberculosis crossed the U.S. border 76 times and took multiple domestic flights in the last year, according to Customs and Border Protection interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency was warned by health officials on April 16 that the frequent traveler was infected, but it took the Homeland Security officials more than six weeks to issue a May 31 alert to warn its own border inspectors, according to Homeland Security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Homeland Security took one more week to tell its own Transportation Security Agency.”

I remain surprised that the Democrats haven’t made more of an issue out of Homeland Security incompetence.

A LOOK AT anticompetitive practices in the real estate industry. It’s a field that’s overdue for a reshuffling.

GOOGLE / MOVEON FALLOUT? Reader Bill Smith emails:

After reading your post from yesterday where a reader described yanking 50% of their advertising, I decided to yank 100% my company’s advertising from Google. This has been bothering me for years. I wrote an email to Google telling them essentially that a company of their size should show some maturity and leave the sophomoric behavior to the political operatives. If enough CEOs, Presidents and senior executives do the same, Google will take notice and decide to limit the partisan politics to personal contributions.

With Google’s dominant market position, a perception of partisanship could be quite dangerous. It could certainly cost ad money, and also accelerate tendencies toward antitrust regulation.

UPDATE: Some related thoughts from Ron Coleman.

WOMAN CHARGED FOR YELLING AT OVERFLOWING TOILET — in her own home. “I think it’s pretty clear that Herb isn’t guilty of disorderly conduct. Herb and her daughter were at home, and it sounds like the neighbor was the only one else around. Annoying your neighbor by being really noisy may be inconsiderate. But it’s not the crime of disorderly conduct, even if your annoyed neighbor happens to be a police officer.”

The proper response is a lawsuit, and every other form of legal torment than can be visited upon the neighbor. At least, that’s what I’d do in that situation.

UPDATE: Reader David Gulliver is confused, and it’s my fault:

No, the proper response is offering to help your next door neighbor instead of complaining about it. If the cop had offered to bring over a mop and help, the problem would never have existed.

This is why I hate lawyers.

The “neighbor” I was talking about suing was the cop. Set the law on me, and I’ll return the favor. Likewise if you show up with a mop.

MICHAEL BARONE: Is the tax issue coming back?

I’d like to see tax day changed from April 15th to the first Tuesday in November. . . .

EVAN COYNE MALONEY’S FILM, INDOCTRINATE U., is touring America now — and in a way that may be revolutionary: “Something very interesting is happening here. The producers of Indoctrinate U are promising to arrange local screenings in areas where enough people express interest at their website. And now they’re holding a local screening. The idea of a local screening tour for politically incorrect films could become the cinematic equivalent of the internet–a way around the mainstream Hollywood blockade. And with luck, strong local interest might even break the Hollywood blockade and prompt a distributor to actually offer Indoctrinate U in commercial theaters.”

Go here to watch a trailer and to sign up for a screening in your area.

AT HARDEE’S, a 920-calorie breakfast burrito. Yum.

THE MICROSOFTING of Google.

CAMERAS, CROOKS, AND DETERRENCE: “Constant surveillance seems to have had little effect on Britain’s sky-high crime.”

HEH: “Thanks to George Bush’s amazing deficit reduction plan, the budget deficit is now only 1.2% of GDP. If this trend continues, by the time George Bush leaves office, the budget will be within a hair’s breath of being balanced. I can only hope that Democrats don’t squander this precious legacy of fiscal responsibility.”

MORE HSUNANIGANS: “Virtually none of Hsu’s bundlees re-donate to Hillary.”

I think the whole thing was a hsam all along.

NBC’S GLOBAL WARMING BLITZ: It’ll seem kind of ironic if the sun goes out . . . .

TYLER COWEN: How to debate health care spending.