STOLEN VOTE INVESTIGATION BEGINS: “Nine months after Democrats allegedly stole a parliamentary vote in the House, the long-running ‘Select Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 2, 2007’ will haul House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer to the witness stand today for what Republicans insist will be the Maryland Democrat’s comeuppance.” Seems like a bigger story than page A13, and if the parties were reversed I’m sure it would be.

BARACK OBAMA: Christianist? They’re everywhere!

REVIEWING THE REVIEWERS: A roundup of book reviews from the weekend’s newspapers.

THE LATEST SILICON GRAFFITI IS UP!

BUDGET CUTS IN TENNESSEE: It’s more about priorities than a recession. Related thoughts here.

MMM. Bacon.

GOOD NEWS: NASA Makes Space U-Turn, Opening Arms to Private Industry.

SOME NICE PICTURES FROM CADES COVE, by Jim Fletcher.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON BOBBY JINDAL: I agree that he shouldn’t be McCain’s running mate. And I think he should start pumping some iron: “He looks like the president of the high school chess club . . . But he’s a hell of a talker, and most of what he says actually makes sense.”

BLOGGING AN EARTHQUAKE, live from Chengdu.

PATROLLING THE SHORJA MARKET WITH THE SONS OF IRAQ: A report and photo slideshow from Bill Ardolino.

ANN ALTHOUSE is blogging before blogging. Forward, into the past!

TALKLEFT: 64% of Dems want Hillary to stay in the race.

JAMES KIRCHICK: South Africa’s unseemly alliance with Mugabe. “Appalling as it may seem, post-apartheid South Africa maintains a firm military relationship with the Mugabe regime.” But the political alliance is even more appalling.

SPEAKING UP AGAINST ANTI-APPALACHIAN BIGOTRY AT THE DAILY KOS:

Over the last week or so, I’ve heard a lot of kossacks writing off West Virginia, making fun of West Virginia, and even saying West Virginia doesn’t matter. Some have painted all of Appalachia as racist homophobes who will never change. Some even said that Obama is in mortal danger there. Some have suggested that we revert to Clinton-style “states that matter” campaigning, leaving West Virginia and Kentucky behind altogether. . . . I want to talk about stereotypes because so far in this diary, I’ve talked about the ignorant because that’s the stereotype that many kossacks have of Appalachians. But West Virginia and other places like it are not as monolithic as many believe. Sure, they are more skewed to the conservative, but you will find a wide range of people.

Read the whole thing. (Via KnoxViews).

MATT WELCH on why D.C. has money for stadiums but not for killing rats.

Washington, D.C., is lousy with rats, and not just of the human variety. I knew that before moving here—you’d always see them scampering around sidewalks and alleys when walking around town—but it took living full-time in the city to appreciate both the awe-inspiring magnitude of the infestation and the jaw-dropping indifference of a municipal government more focused on giving free money to billionaires than addressing the capital’s legendary civic rot.

Read the whole thing. D.C. is the only city under the complete control of the United States Congress. Wouldn’t it be great if all of America worked as well? Well, they’re working on it elsewhere:

Unfortunately for the rest of you, the chasm between unsexy nuts-and-bolts services and dazzling new municipal-built edifices is the rule, not the exception, of big-city governance. In Los Angeles, my former city representative, Tom LaBonge, was tolerated as an eccentric for being the only member of the 15-member City Council to express genuine interest in street repairs (though the road in front of my house still had craters large enough to hide a baby). When a coalition of black, brown, and lefty-white politicians took over city government early this decade, one local alternative weekly urged the council to “think big” and not get bogged down in mere “pothole politics.”

If you can’t even fix my potholes, don’t bother thinking “big.”

KATIE GRANJU ROUNDS UP PHOTOS from two big political-family weddings.

DUDE, WHERE’S MY RECESSION? Well, if Playboy is in trouble, maybe there really is a recession underway. . . . or maybe it’s just Internet competition.

SUSAN ESTRICH: Obama is no Dukakis. She should know. But if you have to point that out, well, you’ve got some kind of a problem . . . .

SPECIFIC KINDS OF BUSINESSES you can start from home.

SPECIFIC KINDS OF BUSINESSES you can start from home.

ABC NEWS: THE BUCK STOPS ELSEWHERE: Obama’s Inability to Hire Good Help Rears Its Head … Again.

SO MUCH FOR A Southern Strategy for Clinton.

A CERTAIN KIND OF ACADEMIC MINDSET: Sounds like a hostile environment to me . . . .

DOING A DNS MOVE ON INSTAPUNDIT. The transition should be pretty seamless, but if you need to email me the pundit / instapundit address may not work. Try emailing directly to mail4instapundit –at– gmail dot com.