JOHN SCALZI’S NEW BOOK, The Sagan Diary, is out, and Helen read one chapter of the audiobook. You can hear that here.

And yes, this book is part of the Old Man’s War / Ghost Brigades sequence. You can hear our podcast interview with Scalzi, and Tim Minear of Firefly fame, right here.

UPDATE: Scalzi emails: “You might let folks know ‘TSD’ is a novelette (i.e. about 100 pages) not a full novel. I wouldn’t want people to make an order and then be confused when they get a little book instead of a big one.” Now that I know, I will!

SOME ADVICE TO SENATE STAFFERS on how to prepare for the war debate.

THE NEW YORK POST EDITORIALIZES:

Question: When is a U.S. military victory not a victory?

Answer: When it’s reported by The New York Times.

Read the account from Baghdad in the Jan. 30 Times about a battle the previous weekend in the city of Najaf – one of the biggest engagements of the war – and you’d think that U.S. and Iraqi forces had suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of what was described as “an obscure renegade militia.”

“Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity” of the fighters arrayed against them, read the piece by correspondent Marc Santora, who added, “They needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed.”

Not until the article’s sixth paragraph – 200 words into the 1,100-word piece – did this sentence appear: “The Iraqis and Americans eventually prevailed in the battle.”

Or, as Wellington said after defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, “It was a damned close-run thing” – but the good guys won.

So why wasn’t this the lead of the Times’ story? Given the way things have been going, it would seem to be an unusual enough development to warrant prominent attention.

Maybe because the Times doesn’t want America to win in Iraq.

Ouch. Read the whole thing. I should note that in our podcast interview, Michael Yon said that when he told a military briefer that he was rooting for our guys, the briefer was surprised, because he had never heard that from a press person before. To be fair, Yon says he thinks that the press in Iraq wants us to win — but it thinks it shouldn’t ever say anything that gives that impression. I’m pretty sure Ernie Pyle didn’t play by those rules.

JULES CRITTENDEN HAS the good news and the bad news.

RICHARD POSNER on global warming and discount rates.

THANKS TO ALL THE FOLKS who have ordered the paperback today. It’s rocketed right up in the rankings.

A BUDGET SURPLUS BY 2012? Well, possibly. Would you put money on it?

JAMES RUHLAND EMAILS FROM IRAQ: “You know, if you study hard and get good grades, you can do well in life. Otherwise you might end up in the Senate.” Heh.

UPDATE: Ruhland sends a correction: “I’m back from Iraq, though. Trying to go again, but I’m currently Stateside.”

“NASRALLAH DOESN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO TOMORROW:” Michael Tottten reports from Beirut.

A TERROR ARREST IN SPAIN: “Spanish authorities have announced the arrest in Catalonia of a Moroccan, Mbark El Jaafari, who was wanted in his home country for allegedly sending suicide bombers to Iraq. If the allegations surrounding Jaafari are true, it would represent an important arrest of a key operative. Jaafari is alleged to belong to GSPC, the Algerian-based terrorist group now pledged to Al Qaeda, for which he allegedly sent 32 suicide bombers to launch attacks in Iraq, with other operations planned in Morocco. He is also thought to trained in Al Qaeda’s Afghanistan camps in 2001 before the U.S. cleaned them out. For Jaafari to have been arrested in Spain is extremely troubling, indicating possible plans to carry out attacks there and in Europe and a network of supporters and sympathizers sufficient to support his presence there.”

IN THE MAIL: Jeffrey Rosen’s The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America.

VARIOUS GUN DISCUSSIONS HERE have led me to upload PDF copies of some of my law review writings on the Second Amendment. Here they are:

A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment: This paper surveys the literature on the individual rights and states’ rights theories of the Second Amendment, and synthesizes what has come to be known in some quarters as the “Standard Model” of individual rights scholarship.

The Second Amendment and States Rights: A Thought Experiment (With Don Kates): Responding to collective-rights claims that the Second Amendment protects only a state right to have militias (or, as Warren Burger called them in Parade Magazine, “state armies”) this paper looks at the constitutional consequences of taking such an approach seriously, and suggests that they are farther reaching than many proponents suppose.

Telling Miller’s Tale (with Brannon Denning): A look at the 1939 case of United States v. Miller, which is often — erroneously — said to support a states’ right interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Download ’em, enjoy ’em, share ’em with your friends!

UPDATE: I’ve linked this one before, but just so they’ll be together in one post, here’s a link to It Takes a Militia: A Communitarian Case for Compulsory Arms Bearing. And here’s my oped on the same topic from the New York Times. And go here and scroll down to see a related oped that was in the Boston Globe a while back.

IS OBAMA BLACK ENOUGH?

As much as his biracial identity has helped Obama build a sizable following in middle America, it’s also opened a gap for others to question his authenticity as a black man. In calling Obama the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” the implication was that the black people who are regularly seen by whites — or at least those who aspire to the highest office in the land — are none of these things. But give Biden credit — at least he acknowledged Obama’s identity.

The same can’t be said for others. “Obama’s mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan,” Stanley Crouch recently sniffed in a New York Daily News column entitled “What Obama Isn’t: Black Like Me.” “Black, in our political and social vocabulary, means those descended from West African slaves,” wrote Debra Dickerson on the liberal website Salon. Writers like TIME and New Republic columnist Peter Beinart have argued that Obama is seen as a “good black,” and thus has less of following among black people. Meanwhile, agitators like Al Sharpton are seen as the authentic “bad blacks.” Obama’s trouble, asserted Beinart, is that he will have to prove his loyalty to The People in a way that “bad blacks” never have to.

I had an Ethiopian friend in law school who was told that he was a less attractive applicant for a job because they were looking for a “real” black person, not an African. He was not amused.

THE BURDEN of information. Ignorance is strength!

EMBEDDED BLOGGER BILL ARDOLINO reports from a night raid with the Iraqi Army.

In our podcast interview yesterday, Michael Yon said that the Iraqi Army has made dramatic improvements since last year. This would seem to support that, though he also notes some remaining issues. And have you noticed how much firsthand Iraq reporting we’re getting from bloggers these days?

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch emails: “Funny thing, bloggers also seem to find sources that don’t work for the insurgency. I wonder how they manage that?”

THE PAPERBACK VERSION OF AN ARMY OF DAVIDS is now shipping. Buy one today. Heck, buy twelve today!

It’s certainly well-blurbed . . . .

THE DEMOCRATS’ VICTORY does not seem to have ended the culture of corruption in Congress.

THAT’S WHAT WE GET FOR LISTENING TO THE SENATE: Iraqis blame U.S. for delaying surge. War rewards decisiveness; the Senate is about deliberation. That’s why we have a unitary executive. Of course, it’s the executive who chose to proceed this way . . . .

BETTER FIRE UP THAT DRAFTNADER.COM SITE:

Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Sunday left the door open for another possible White House bid in 2008 and criticized Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton as “a panderer and a flatterer.”

Asked on CNN’s Late Edition news program if he would run in 2008, the lawyer and consumer activist said, “It’s really too early to say. … I’ll consider it later in the year.”

I think Ralph would bring something to the election that no one else will.

A TRADITION OF COMPETENCE IN FLORIDA:

Gov. Charlie Crist handled the first natural disaster since taking office quickly and compassionately, and his concern and leadership in the wake of a deadly tornado earned him respect from other officials Saturday.

Crist took office Jan. 2, replacing Gov. Jeb Bush, who was universally praised in Florida for the way he guided the state through eight hurricanes in two years. Now Crist is responding to his first major weather-related test, a tornado that struck early Friday and killed at least 20 and destroyed or severely damaged about 1,500 homes.

Louisiana, not so much.