A REPORT FROM THE chaotic post-feminist dating scene.

I GUESS ALL THOSE PEOPLE BUYING GUNS AREN’T CRAZY:  Trying to bring back the assault weapons ban already.

FROM TYPEPAD, a journalist bailout program.

Pay no attention to any weirdness on the site. We’re switching over to WordPress and there will be a few glitches.

MORE ON THE COUNTRYWIDE SCANDALS:

While Congress has done nothing to look into sweetheart deals provided by Countrywide Financial to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, the Postal Service is starting a serious investigation of one of its own.

The service has hired an outside investigator to examine a deal between the mortgage giant and Postmaster General John Potter. It reportedly included a reduced interest rate and waived fees on Potter’s $322,000 loan.

And much like Senators Dodd and Conrad, Potter says he was unaware of any preferential treatment.

But we reported earlier this month that Robert Feinberg, the former Countrywide loan officer who handled the VIP mortgages, says despite their denials, it was part of his job to make sure his clients were fully aware they were getting special deals.

Sounds questionable.

BUSH CRITICS ARE BACKPEDALING ON THE TERROR WAR NOW THAT OBAMA IS PRESIDENT:

Even some liberals are arguing that to deal realistically with terrorism, the new administration should seek Congressional authority for preventive detention of terrorism suspects deemed too dangerous to release even if they cannot be successfully prosecuted.

“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration. . . . Benjamin Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, argued in a book published in June that Americans needed to cross a “psychological Rubicon” and accept the idea that preventive detention was a necessary tool for fighting terrorism.

“I’m afraid of people getting released in the name of human rights and doing terrible things,” Mr. Wittes said in an interview.

He said debates over Guantánamo had created a mythology that American law permitted detention only upon conviction of a crime. Locking up mentally ill people who are deemed dangerous, he noted, is an accepted American legal practice.

Expect to hear more of this kind of thing, since Democratic Presidents get far less scrutiny on civil liberties than Republicans do.

JACK DUNPHY: LAPD Treat Gay Marriage Protests With Kid Gloves. Well, it does seem that well-off white protesters are getting a pass here.

A NEW TRAILER FOR Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

STEPHEN GREEN: “Here we finally have a technology giving presidents the power to peer outside their protective bubble. And what do we do? We take it away amidst worries about security and lawsuits.”

WELL, HE WAS RIGHT, wasn’t he?

JON HENKE: “Rightroots” key to G.O.P. Revival.

INTERVIEW: Michael Yon on Iraq and Afghanistan.

IMPROVING WIND POWER with a variable input electric generator.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: “The Ohio House is preparing legislation aimed at making sure other Ohioans don’t face the kind of government snooping that Samuel Joseph – ‘Joe the Plumber’ – Wurzelbacher was subjected to during the presidential campaign.”

The ACLU is complaining, too.

TESTING THE EFFECTS OF HIGHER CO₂ LEVELS on tree growth.

A LOOK AT Indonesia’s new tsunami warning system.

A COLLECTION OF green toys for the holidays.

SUING STUDENTS over charges of racism in the classroom. “Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the Peltz case was typical of many that come to FIRE in that they involve professors accused of racism or sexism based on statements or views that some students find objectionable. He said that college leaders are responsible for situations like the one faced by Peltz by not defending professors whose views are unpopular.”

I should note that FIRE does good work, and if you’re looking to make an end of the year charitable donation, you could do a lot worse than sending some cash their way.

RAND SIMBERG: “Want Change? Let’s Try Truly Free Markets.”

In her seminal book, The Future and Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel writes about the real political divide – not left versus right, but what she calls stasists versus dynamists. The former fear change and want to use government power to minimize it, if not eliminate it. The latter accept that improvements in the human condition require change by definition, and understand that the best way to ensure it is to allow individuals the freedom to make choices, with consequences, both good and ill, to be borne by them.

By these definitions, both presidential candidates in this election were largely stasists.

Read the whole thing.

THE PRESS ON OBAMA: Howard Kurtz says it’s showing “a giddy sense of boosterism.” Indeed.

KEN ANDERSON ON SOMALI PIRATES: “Might piracy be a relatively easy place for the Obama administration to demonstrate its approach to use of force, multilateralism, and international law?”

RANKING LAW SCHOOLS based on lawyer ratings.

OVERPAID C.E.O.s? Several presidents of private colleges earn more than $1 million. “News of the increase comes amid concerns that the economic downturn and skyrocketing tuition costs could put a college diploma further out of reach for many students.”

THOUGHTS ON LOGISTICS and a Surge in Afghanistan.

A LOOK AT public support for nanotechnology.