OUCH: Obama behind the French, on Iraq.

But Obama has been trying to walk back his pessimism.

YVES ST. LAURENT has died.

TAKING ON PUTIN AND HIS SATRAPS: Russian gays defy ban, more arrests at Moscow protests.

ALTERNATE HISTORY: Hopkins Slams FDR in New Book.

JEFF JARVIS: The day the Democrats lost it. Yeah, they could’ve at least given them 3/5 of a vote . . . .

REPORTING ON SPACE ELEVATORS at the ISDC.

AT SLASHDOT, they’re talking about how to set up a home lab/shop for kids. I had a somewhat related discussion here a while back.

OUCH: “So, when does the racial reconciliation begin – Obama promises to sprinkle his pixie dust and bring this nation together while taking his kids to a church where they are taught to hate whitey. And the two angriest, most unreconciled people we have met in this campaign are Obama’s wife and minister. Maybe he could spare some pixie dust for them.”

WHERE’S VOLOKH.COM? I emailed Eugene and he responded: “Thanks for asking . . . our hosting provider has had a fire, but it looks like we’ll be up late tonight or early tomorrow. If you could post something about that, that would be great.” Done!

MORE ON SEGREGATION AMONG THE NETROOTS: “Perhaps the lesson is that the proggosphere is so enmeshed in identity politics that black bloggers get taken for granted — much the way the Democratic party takes black voters for granted. Given the Democrats’ support for racial preferences, it is odd that the DNC blew the call in credentialing black bloggers to the convention planning to nominate Barack Obama as its standard bearer.”

HILLARY WINS BIG IN PUERTO RICO.

UPDATE: More from The Politico:

The cable networks called the island territory for Clinton the instant polls closed at 3:00 p.m., indicating a landslide; exit polls showed her winning virtually every group, including young voters typically loyal to nomination rival Barack Obama.

“I am overwhelmed by this vote today,” Clinton said in her victory speech. She used the speech to press the case that she’s proven her superior electability by pulling more popular votes than Obama.

She said more people have voted for her “than for any candidate in the history of presidential primaries. We are winning the popular vote.”

The argument is directed at the uncommitted superdelegates who will decide the nomination and Clinton spoke directly to them in her speech.

“I do not envy the decision you must make, but a decision has to be made,” she said. She asked them to consider three questions in making up their mind.

This speech would be more effective if some new Obama scandal just happened to appear in the next day or two. But what are the odds of that?

ANOTHER UPDATE: TalkLeft looks at popular vote totals.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ENGLAND: “A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. . . . The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a ‘hate crime’ and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that ‘no-go areas’ for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year.”

I THINK THEY SHOULD DONATE A FEW KEGS TO NEXT YEAR’S ISDC: Sapporo introduces “Space Beer.”

Taking beer-making to a whole new sphere, Japan’s famous Sapporo Holdings Ltd. plans to launch a beer in November that’s literally from out of this world. The brewery will collaborate with scientists at the Okayama University in Japan to concoct this unearthly beverage from a third generation of barley grains that spent five months on the International Space Station in 2006.

Slogan: “Take me to your liter”!

SEEN IN THE HOTEL GIFT SHOP: Evidence of the fleetingness of political fortune. . .

CAR LUST: Remembering the Mustang Boss 302.

Plus, when car lust goes too far. Remember, it’s only supposed to be a metaphor.

MICHAEL SILENCE PROFILES my favorite member of the blogosphere.

THE LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION IS soliciting donations. It’s a worthy cause.

THE SELF-INVENTION OF TYRA BANKS:

When she was 20, she wrote in one of her notebooks: “If Michael Jordan can sell tennis shoes and Magic Johnson can sell cars, I can sell cornflakes. I can and I will. So just sit back and relax because here I come. . . . I’m going to hurt and abuse.” Banks looked pleased when she read that passage aloud. “It was a moment,” she said now. “When I showed that to my mom the other day, she said, ‘You didn’t just happen overnight.’ ”

Not many do. But “hurt and abuse”? Still, you have to love this bit: “We were in Rome for ‘America’s Next Top Model’ and I said to my v.p. at Bankable: ‘Look at this gorgeous architecture! But if there was a Wendy’s and a Wal-Mart right in the middle of it — bam! It would be even more gorgeous.’ ”

On the other hand, there’s this:

She studied another photo. “This girl is a bombshell,” she said. “Is she Southern?”

“Yes,” Mok said. “I wonder if she’s bigoted. That could be interesting.”

Well, somebody’s got a touch of bigotry there.

A CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED Puerto Rico primary roundup.

THOSE HATERS ARE EVERYWHERE! More Clinton-bashing from Father Pfleger.

THE CARNIVAL OF CARS IS UP!

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES: Why do I fight? He points to this photo essay of Iraqi life in Basra, from the Washington Post.

IN THE MAIL: A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, by Tony Horwitz. I liked his Confederates in the Attic. Reading the jacket copy, however, I wonder if the “conventional” middle-school history against which Horwitz is apparently reacting exists any more. At least, my daughter tells me that in her history classes it’s all Native Americans and African Americans, with the European settlers mostly as foils and backdrops. No doubt some future Horwitz will rediscover cowboys and Zebulon Pike . . . .

RASMUSSEN POLL: McCain Trusted More Than Obama on Economy, Iraq, National Security. As I said before, a lot of Republicans don’t like McCain, but it seems clear that the GOP primary process nominated the one candidate with a decent chance of winning in November. If Democrats respond to this year’s primary debacle by revising their procedures, they should probably conside adoptingr a winner-take-all primary, too. Of course, that approach on the Dem side would have produced a Hillary nomination. . . .