GLOOM FROM BRUCE FEIN: “The United States culture is decaying, growing steadily less capable of supporting a republican form of government.”

UPDATE: Reader John Schwab points out that Fein confuses Petrarch and Plutarch. Proving Fein’s point about the lack of classical education today!

TRIAL LAWYER — and Trent Lott’s brother-in-law — Dickie Scruggs indicted for conspiring to bribe a judge.

HEH.

LIVE-BLOGGING THE REPUBLICAN YOUTUBE DEBATE at Ann Althouse’s place.

And more from David Weigel.

UPDATE: Much more at RedState. And rare praise for McCain at The Corner.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Live-videoblogging at Team Thompson.

MORE: Liveblogging at the Bitch Girls, where the gun questions went over well.

STILL MORE: Dan Riehl thinks Huckabee is now in the top tier.

Say, didn’t the Huckabee surge start shortly after he did this interview? Yeah, that’s it. . . .

And here’s McCain video.

MORE STILL: D’oh! Stephen Green has been “drunkblogging.” How did I miss that?

STILL MORE: McCain gets off another one: “If we’d done what the Democrats wanted to do six months ago, Al Queda would be telling the world, ‘we beat America.'”

And SayUncle emails:

Line of the night from Fred Thompson on guns: I own a couple but I’m not gonna tell you what they are or where they are.

That’s an indication Fred knows guns.

It was better than Romney’s “I didn’t inhale” answer, too.

EVEN MORE: SayUncle follows up: “I was impressed that Giuliani really did his homework on Parker/Heller. He still seems to think there’s some urban exception to the Second Amendment. He didn’t convince me but he knew his stuff.”

And I love the Mars question.

FINALLY: Hillary manages to plant a question! Shockingly, it slipped past CNN’s google abilities.

And lots more observations from Bob Krumm.

HMM. I MENTIONED A WHILE BACK that the Houston police were secretly testing an unmanned aircraft. Now it turns out that the same aircraft is reportedly being used in Iraq.

UPDATE: Drones in Miami.

“KLUB KLIP” OR “CARRY-IT CLIP”? Explanation, and a poll, here. Klub Klip sounds more marketable, but I’d just market the same thing under each name to different demographics . . . .

WEIGHT LOSS AND the importance of puttering.

STEPHEN GREEN CONTRIBUTES YouTube questions for the Republican debate.

CRACKING THE CODE OF THE ZOMBIE. Zombies seem to be everywhere, but I mind this kind less than most . . . .

PADMA LAKSHMI: Tangy, tart, hot and sweet. And in the accompanying photo she looks to be all of those things herself . . . .

Plus, the joys of abandoning vegetarianism!

THE MAKERS OF TASER respond to the United Nations torture committee.

MICKEY KAUS: “The trouble for Hillary is that when it comes to sex rumors she and her husband (unlike, say, John Edwards and his wife) have no credibility. They threw that away when the philandering charges they righteously denounced in 1992 and 1998 turned out to be basically true.”

CAN’T ANYBODY PLAY THIS GAME? “The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove’s White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.”

A LOOK AT Hillary’s managerial experience. Plus, Fabio on politics and diplomacy!

AIR AMERICA:

The Air Force is looking for a few good men and women like Ms. Fauci: flight attendants who staff Air Force One and 16 other luxury planes that ferry government dignitaries around the globe.

It’s not as easy finding recruits as one might think. The 150 members of the Andrews-based group and about 70 others stationed elsewhere — all Air Force enlisted personnel, trained in survival skills, aircraft emergencies and the culinary arts — take on duties that would make commercial flight attendants want to pull the rip cord.

For security and historical reasons, it’s up to them to plan menus, buy food and supplies, prepare meals, load luggage into the cargo hold and then, dressed in understated navy suits, tend to powerful and demanding passengers on trips that can last weeks.

I wouldn’t want that job.

FOR THE U.N., “humiliation” over Darfur.

REWRITING HERSTORY?

MORE FROM ROGER SIMON on why Hollywood’s antiwar movies are bombs.

JOE KLEIN AND THE LEFTOSPHERE: I’ve been sort of vaguely aware of this dust-up, but haven’t really been paying attention.

ED DRISCOLL INTERVIEWS Liz Stephans and Scott Baker of Breitbart TV.

IN THE MAIL: Richard Epstein’s Supreme Neglect: How to Revive Constitutional Protection for Private Property.

THE FINAL VERSION OF MY Libel in the Blogosphere piece is now available online, as it appeared in the Washington University Law Review.

WHY VIOLENCE DROPPED IN IRAQ: Noah Shachtman writes that it turned out the critical networks were social, not electronic.

UPDATE: A predictable response to the good news.

A CLINTON flipflop on Iraq.

ANOTHER GRIM MILESTONE: Bank of America drops the New York Times to a “sell” rating. It’s an investor quagmire, with no exit plan. Er, except maybe for “Pinch” Sulzberger. . . .