BLAME AMERICA FIRST SECOND: China ‘now top carbon polluter’.

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

BARACK OBAMA among friends.

On the other hand, there’s this: AP Asks Democratic Frontrunner About “Obama bin Laden.” Hey, even Ted Kennedy can’t keep things straight.

OBAMA’S TRADE PRIORITIES, explained.

A CALL TO CENSURE JIMMY CARTER. Plus, from Jerry Pournelle, this troubling prediction: “Jimmy Carter, you have much to answer for. Alas, I suspect you will rack up even more reasons to deserve obloquy before you go to your reward.”

MORE FROM THE CANADIAN PRESS on censorship in the name of “human rights.” Plus, more from Mark Steyn.

E.J. DIONNE: “The Democratic presidential candidates are doing a splendid job of helping John McCain get to the White House.”

HESITATING TO SAY that Obama’s a Marxist. Well, that’s a comfort. The hesitating, I mean. Plus, thoughts on the Overclass.

INSTAPUNDIT IRAQ CORRESPONDENT MAJOR JOHN TAMMES EMAILS:

The sweeps through Basrah continue. I am often at locations where Iraqi Army troops are returning, or heading out to the city. I have attached a couple of photos of them.

During my work, I watch them to gauge their mood/morale and the state of their equipment and can say that it is “so far, so good”. The next days and weeks will be a good measure of the progress the IA has made – can they sustain operations, not just conduct them. We will learn an awful lot about where our Iraqi allies are in terms of their logistical progress. They seem to have the political will, and I hope they have the physical means to continue forward.

Stay tuned.

REAL INFLATION: Education costs vs. gas prices.

DALE CARPENTER DEFENDS JOHN YOO from something that looks very much like a witch hunt. (Funny how those are increasingly carried out in the name of “human rights.”) So does Brian Leiter. (“Are we really to believe–fifty years after the McCarthyist witch hunts!–that academics should be punished because their bad ideas are then used by bad people to do bad things?”) Who can stand against the wind that will blow if that becomes the rule . . . .?

At any rate, the likely consequence of such witch hunts is to discourage law professors from taking jobs in the government, thus increasing the legal academy’s already considerable self-marginalization. Some, I suppose, will say that’s not a bug, but a feature. Rest assured, however, that members of any future Democratic administration will not escape, now that this precedent has been established. Who knows who else might someday be persecuted for proposing theories of aggrandized executive power?

USERS FIGHT TO SAVE WINDOWS XP.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bid to stall the Colombia free-trade pact into oblivion is a card she has played before. This time it won’t fool anyone. In fact, it may backfire.”

She’s just clinging bitterly to her anti-trade stance because she resents . . . well, not having more power, mostly, I guess.

BITTER RELIGIONISM: “Well, I do go a-churchin’ every Sunday with a bunch of bitter folks who complain about how the government is evil and screws them over, and we yell an’ whoop it up when the preacher rails against them Italians and Jews, an’ then we …

“Oops, wait a minute, that’s not me, that’s Barack Obama. “

GUILTY BEFORE PROVEN INNOCENT: “How police harassment, jailhouse snitches, and a runaway war on drugs imprisoned an innocent family.”

BERLUSCONI’S WIN IN ITALY IS NEWS, but it’s not really big news. On the other hand, I didn’t know this:

The big news is that the Communists are gone, for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Really gone. They didn’t win a single seat in either chamber.

That’s big news. And good news.

THOUGHTS ON POLICING IN BRITAIN, and the policies of New Labour. British police as the “paramilitary wing of the Guardian newspaper”?

SOME HISTORY ON THE Olympic Torch.

I’VE ALWAYS WONDERED ABOUT THAT MYSELF: How the Asians became “White.”

MORE BAD NEWS FOR ALL THOSE ROBOPHOBES OUT THERE:

This week, engineers, psychologists and computer scientists from across Europe will begin a major project that aims to develop the first robot personalities.

“What we’re looking at here is long-term interactions between people and robots in real situations,” said Peter McOwan of Queen Mary, University of London, coordinator of the £6.6m, EU-funded Lirec project. “The big question is: what sort of properties does a synthetic companion need to have so that you feel you want to engage in a relationship with it over an extended period of time?”

Nobody tell Matt Yglesias.

SALON ON THE GENDER DIVIDE: Young women are growing increasingly frustrated with the fanatical support of Barack and gleeful bashing of Hillary.

Best quote: “Have you seen their eyes? It’s this faraway look. It’s scary”

Second best: “I pinpoint sexism for a living. You’d think I’d be able to find an example. And I hate to rely on this hokey notion that there’s some woman’s way of knowing, and that I just f*cking know. But I do. I just know.”

Honorable mention: “That does not mean that all privileged white male Democrats are sexist, anymore than it would be true to suggest that all working-class white Democrats (the segment of the party that is breaking for Clinton) are racist.”

UPDATE: Matt Sherman emails:

Glenn, that Salon article to which you linked has plenty of interesting things about it — the sheer cut-it-with-a-knife density of identity politics was extraordinary — but what I found most notable was this: It appears that, to a person, none of the people the author quoted is in a wealth-creating job.

This may simply have been a choice of the author as to what constitutes a typical voice in on this topic. But doesn’t that say something?

What, “pinpointing sexism for a living” doesn’t count as wealth-producing?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Matt Carden emails: “Would you say lawyers are ‘wealth producing’?” Sometimes.

MORE: “I love this primary.”

JUST BECAUSE: Webb Wilder’s video of Too Much to Dream Last Night.

JAMES TARANTO: What do Barack Obama and Ayn Rand have in common? . . . “Workers of the world, unite!” meets “The Virtue of Selfishness.”

THE GOOD NEWS FOR OBAMA: Maybe this bit from the Rezko trial will distract people from his remarks about gun-loving, churchgoing bitter Americans.