THOUGHTS ON the D.C. gun ban case.

THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT corrects the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, on what seems like a fairly elementary point of firearms law.

LAW TALK: A new podcast at Concurring Opinions.

THOUGHTS ON karma and dogma.

IF THE HSU FITS: The Examiner editorializes:

Hsu’s case raises so many disturbing questions that it is difficult to know where best to begin. But let’s start with this: Where was the U.S. Department of Justice for the past 15 years? Hsu’s plea was to California charges, but pleading no contest to charges of running a Ponzi scheme designed to defraud investors of $1 million and then disappearing overseas surely merited federal attention. Did California authorities fail to inform the feds? Or did the feds just look the other way? Somebody in California and Washington needs to step forward to answer these questions.

Then there is the question of what Hsu has actually been doing for these many years on the lam.

Apparently, something lucrative enough to pay for all those donations.

WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH? “Depends on whose fatigue is more indefatigable!”

TED KENNEDY FACES BLOWBACK:

Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism.

In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish “Daily Show” on Comedy Central makes fun of him.

The source of unhappiness is Kennedy’s efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New Englanders. Polls show 84 percent of Massachusetts residents in favor. But now it appears that America’s first offshore wind farm will be near Galveston, Texas. . . . “But don’t you realize — that’s where I sail!” may stand as Kennedy’s most self-incriminating quote.

Well, he deserves it.

BRIING IT ON: “Cardiac patients in Britain may soon be getting replacement heart valves grown from their own adult stem cells. . . . Yacoub’s team has an even bigger goal that such research makes possible — growing an entire human heart in the lab.” (Via NewsBeat 1).

ANOTHER FOILED TERROR PLOT, this time in Germany:

Three suspected Islamic militants were arrested for allegedly plotting “imminent” and “massive” attacks on the Ramstein Air Base, a major U.S. and NATO military hub, and Frankfurt’s busy international airport, German authorities said Wednesday.

German federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three – two of whom were German converts to Islam – had trained at terror camps in Pakistan and procured some 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives. And a top legislator said the group could have struck “in a few days,” noting a “sensitive period” that includes the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Keep looking guys — there are probably more out there. (Video report here).

UPDATE: More here.

WHY SHOULD LARRY CRAIG resign?

IS AMERICA GONE? “I mean, I’ve heard of codependency, but I’ve never heard of a thing called ‘comegalomania.'”

I have heard of a thing called bad speechwriting, though.

GUNS DON’T CAUSE CRIME, GUN CONTROL CAUSES CRIME: Or at least, anti-gun law enforcement officers seem to have legal problems a lot.

Meanwhile, another chance to play name that party!

OUTGOING: Sent out my new article to law reviews (entitled Is Dick Cheney Unconstitutional? it’s about Cheney’s claim to be a legislator and what it means if it’s true). Reviewed page proofs for another piece, which was fast — just sent it to the law review a month ago. By contrast, got page proofs for a different piece I sent off nearly a year ago. Law reviews aren’t as fast as blogging. . . .

THE ITUNES STORE: With subscriptions?

MY EARLIER REMARKS ON TAR AND FEATHERS have generated some interesting email. And they actually sprang from a conversation I had with colleagues a while back. Traditionally, Anglo-American political philosophy allowed for what Gordon Wood called “out of doors political activity” — behavior that was extralegal, but not exactly unlawful, in response to overreaching by authorities. Pauline Maier’s excellent book, From Resistance to Revolution, documents this during the colonial and revolutionary eras, but it actually persisted for some time afterward. The thinking was that government officials couldn’t always be checked via law, because they controlled the law and its administration — thus the need for citizens to (in the words of the Tennessee Supreme Court) “keep in awe those who are in power.” The out-of-doors activity wasn’t necessarily violent: generally, property was targeted first (think Boston Tea Party), and efforts against officials were generally designed to be embarrassing or humiliating rather than seriously dangerous. (Actually, back in the days when tar had to be heated over a fire, tarring and feathering was more serious than it is today, toward the end of the spectrum rather than the beginning.)

In my conversation with colleagues, we speculated that the Internet takes on part of this role, with humorous photoshops and YouTube parodies — along with the ability to simply repeatedly criticize government officials by name (think Mike Nifong) undercutting the usual bureaucratic diffusion of responsibility — taking the place of some of the older techniques. The response to that, of course, might be efforts to shut down Internet criticism. But that might simply encourage a return to older techniques. . . .

KEITH HENSON HAS BEEN released from jail. I assume it’s unconnected with these legal problems for Scientology, though they certainly don’t need the bad press.

A LOOK AT the mathematics of kidney-transplant matching.

KATIE COURIC REPORTS ">progress in Iraq. Tom Smith comments. And Petraeus is talking about a troop reduction by March, though he’s been saying that for a while. Still, this has got to be depressing for those who were hoping for bad news.

UPDATE: Didn’t I criticize Warner for recommending what Petraeus is doing? Yes, because we already knew that. Here’s what I said: “Petraeus has talked about a troop pulldown already too. This looks like Warner trying to take credit for something that will probably happen anyway. In other words, Washington as usual.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Advisers tell Bush to stand pat on Iraq. Not that there’s much doubt that he’ll do that. I’m finding it hard to get as excited as I should about this, as I think Bush can run out the clock on Congress and keep the Petraeus plan going through the end of his term anyway. And the next President, Democrat or Republican, will do what looks right in January of 2009, not what he or she is saying now. (That’s why I kind of like Bill Richardson even though I think his current stance on the war is very poor). By January of 2009, I expect that things in Iraq will look very different. If they don’t, then the new President will do something very different.

MORE: Heh.

RESPONDING TO D.C.’S MAYOR ON GUNS:

Countless lives? D.C. is consistently at the top of the U.S. murder rate rankings. Was the gun ban saving “countless lives” in 1991, when the rate peaked at 80 murders per 100,000 people? Would the number have otherwise been even higher? Is it still saving “countless lives” when our murder rate for 2005, at its 20-year low, was still five times that of New York City?

If I’m not mistaken, Fenty and Singer appear to be suggesting that their city is so totally lawless that only a total deprivation of Constitutional rights can make it moderately liveable. I wonder how they feel about wiretapping?

Decades of corrupt, incompetent government and law enforcement have cost more lives in DC than guns. How about let’s do something about that problem, first

BJORN LOMBORG’S NEW BOOK ON GLOBAL WARMING, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming, gets a review by Jonathan Adler in NRO.

NEWSWEEK: “Was the Duke Rape Case ‘Academic McCarthyism’?” A piece on K.C. Johnson & Stuart Taylor’s new book.

The book was featured on Good Morning America today — video here — and you can read a chapter from the book online here.

THE NEW YORK TIMES calls the District of Columbia school system a “national disgrace.” They also criticize “lax management and cronyism.” Ron Bailey has thoughts.

TAKING FLAK:

Congressman Brian Baird, D-Wash, was kidding when he said he brought his flak jacket back with him after visiting Iraq a few weeks ago.

Maybe he should have.

Baird, who initially opposed the war and as recently as May voted to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces, now says President Bush’s military surge is showing signs of working and that current troops levels should be maintained until at least spring.

Baird’s newfound support for the war further exposed the increasingly deep divisions and passions over U.S. policies in Iraq and underscored how Iraq continues to overshadow every other issue as Congress returns from its month long summer recess. . . .

Baird said he hasn’t so much changed his position on Iraq as “adjusted” his thinking after two trips to Iraq in the past four months.

While acknowledging that the Iraq government is “dysfunctional” and the Iraqi people have little confidence in their leaders, Baird said “the (military) situation on the ground is showing signs of improvement.”

Baird said Iraqi, Jordanian and Egyptian leaders warned him in private discussions that the region would descend into chaos if the United States withdrew its forces from Iraq. Baird also said talk of a U.S. pullout has allowed Iraqi leaders to “retrench” and consolidate their power rather than reach out to competing groups and seek a stable common ground..

So much for the theory that talk of U.S. withdrawal would pressure Iraqi politicans to reach a political settlement.

IN PRAISE OF THE GREATEST COLA EVER: “RC Cola lives in a magical taste palace somewhere between Pepsiland and Cokeville. Like Pepsi, it’s sweeter than Coke, but it isn’t as overpoweringly sweet. And like Coke, it has a fuller ‘cola’ flavor than Pepsi, but doesn’t have that lingering stale cola aftertaste.” And yes, it does go better with moon pies.

BOB OWENS: Choose your own narrative, but quit attacking the troops.

UPDATE: A cautionary note from Dan Riehl.