CHARLTON HESTON has died. (Via the Insta-wife.)

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s the family’s statement, and here are some thoughts and reminiscences from Roger Simon.

JERRY POURNELLE WRITES:

It has been suggested by a couple of Platinum subscribers that I think about starting up the old monthly “A Step Farther Out” column; a general report on the sciences or some monthly science news, with an annual “State of the Sciences” essay. I confess I liked doing that.

It’s a good idea. I loved that column when I was a kid, in junior high and high school.

TAKING ON THE WORLD:

We are about to experience the greatest, and most culturally challenging, consumer expansion since the discovery of the New World. In his new book, “Jump Point,” Silicon Valley marketing veteran Tom Hayes reveals that the world’s leading cell phone companies predict the world market for Internet users is about to triple. What had been one billion wireless users just a few years ago jumped to two billion by the end of 2007 – and will jump again to three billion by 2011.

That timeline may be optimistic. But the U.S. needs to get its competitive house in order soon, or it will face a very tough world.

Read the whole thing.

NEW YORK TIMES: McCain Is Vocal on War, but Silent on Son’s Service:

Mr. McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, has staked his candidacy on the promise that American troops can bring stability to Iraq. What he almost never says is that one of them is his own son, who spent seven months patrolling Anbar Province and learned of his father’s New Hampshire victory in January while he was digging a stuck military vehicle out of the mud.

No doubt he can expect an endorsement from those antiwar types who have criticized the Bush daughters for not serving in Iraq.

“PINK SLIP NATION:”

Actually, though, the unemployment rate in November 1996, when Clinton rode a soaring economy to victory, was 5.4%. That’s right–three tenths of a percent higher than the “grim picture” of a “pink slip nation” painted by this month’s unemployment report.

That was different, because back then a man from Hope promised Change.

A LOOK AT the state of the bookstore business.

TOM MAGUIRE: “‘Rocky’ Was Just A Movie?”

I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED to hear of a Hillary healthcare lie misspeaking:

Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

No doubt if elected, she will be similarly scrupulous about the data on which her policies are based.

IN LIGHT OF EARLIER KNIFEBLOGGING, (also here and here) I note that prices have been slashed on Swiss Army knives. Heh. Slashed.

UPDATE: Boy, mention knives and the email pours in. What’s with that? Anyway, reader Peter Gookins writes:

RE: emergency knives for the car. Take a look at this.

“Not as threatening” as a regular large knife (which is something I don’t worry about) one hand opening, seatbelt cutter, tempered glass breaker. The glass breaker works by spring action – which may be handy if you’re injured and can’t swing a tool – I’ve had one in a nylon case wire-tied to the console shifter for years. We have lots of lakes, canals and retention ponds here in Florida; tying the case to the shifter keeps it centrally located so a passenger can reach it if necessary (the driver may be unconscious) and it will be in the same place even if the car is upside down. With your door pocket placement there may be other stuff placed on top of it, and if the car changes attitude severely enough there’s no telling where it may wind up.

And Col. Douglas Mortimer emails: “I have one of these with only a blade – none of the cool Swiss Army Knife type attachments. Pretty cool for a stag handled Czech switchblade.” Some people might find that threatening.

GODSPEED: Blogger Bob Krumm goes to Iraq.

AIRBRUSHED! A reader emails: “BBC article you mentioned was re-written to be more global warming friendly. The quotes you cited don’t seem to appear any longer.” Yes, if you go here and then follow the link you’ll see that the passage I cut and pasted is no longer there.

Where do they think they are, Australia?

UPDATE: Dale Amon comments:

Making changes in the first few minutes after publication in this fast paced world is necessary. Going back hours or days later and making wholesale rewrites to the public record is not.

One might also note an exception: if one finds they have issued a libellous statement or accidentally published proprietary information or totally false information that is of course grounds for pulling the whole article… or striking out the offending phrase and placing a note like this one underneath. This is what the BBC should have done if they believed they had published incorrect data.

I think that’s right. It seems a bit pretentious to me to add an update noting every minor change made after hitting “publish,” but my general rule is not to make changes that are big enough, or late enough, that they’d make someone’s post linking to me wrong. That’s what the BBC did here, by eliminating the passage I quoted.

THOMAS EDSALL: What Did Bill Clinton Do To Get $15M From Ron Burkle? (Via Memeorandum).

3 A.M.: Another sleepless night for Hillary. “Jeepers, will all business during this Clinton administration be transacted at 3 a.m.? Is it some union-negotiated flex-time deal?”

PINCHED TO DEATH at The New York Times. (Via Memeorandum).

HILLARY CALLS FOR POVERTY CZAR: And the idea gets praise from Dan Collins: “History has shown that Czars are excellent at perpetuating poverty.”

Okay, not exactly praise.

RUNNING AS A GROWNUP: An idea so crazy it just might work!

And the timing is certainly good.

THIS WOULD DEFY ALL CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, OF COURSE: Basra offensive a key step towards reconciliation?

Plus, this is what political progress looks like.

TRASH, COMPACTED: Walls close in on Phelpses.

UPDATE: Reader M. Simon emails: “No mention of the fact that Phelps was active in Democrat Party political activities. Why? You don’t have to answer. :-)” And reader Chris Smith writes: “So now, if Phelps trots out some jeremiads of the Wright sort, will he get media sympathy?” It’s doubtful. He lacks proper heritage.

INDEED: “One of the striking features of my current troubles with Canada’s ‘Human Rights’ Commissions is the way, in the name of ersatz ‘human rights’, these pseudo-courts trample on one of the bedrock human rights: the presumption of innocence.”

Plus, shocking charges that Australian human rights commissioner Tom Calma is racist. I encourage anyone with similar concerns to file complaints immediately. Make your voice heard for human rights!

WELL, THE GOOD NEWS FOR OBAMA is that this might distract people from the John McCain “warmonger” slur and the Phil Gramm “terrorist” slur: Obama Denies KKK Funding Charges.

OKAY, I LINKED THIS ED MORRISSEY POST on the Obama/McCain “warmonger” issue in passing earlier, but this bit is worth quoting separately:

Contrast this with John McCain’s reaction to the introduction given him by Bill Cunningham in Ohio. When McCain found out that Cunningham repeatedly used Obama’s middle name in the preceding speech, he didn’t wait for the media to ask about it. He apologized, repudiated the comments, and promised to conduct a high-road campaign. And that was just for using Obama’s actual middle name.

Does Obama believe in reciprocity? Apparently not. Obama lets his surrogates do the namecalling at his events, and then comes on stage himself to blather about setting a new tone in politics and uplifting the level of discourse in DC. He has a fabulous start on it thus far, having his campaign events serve as a springboard for slurs against McCain — a man with one son already in this conflict and another about to begin a tour shortly.

Obama heralds himself as the candidate of change. So far, we’re just seeing the same tired, hysterical anti-war rhetoric coming from his events, delivered by a classless Air America host. If Obama wants to embrace that, then voters will understand which candidate talks about changing the level of discourse, and which candidate actually works to change it. Just as with most of Obama’s policies, it’s all talk and no action.

Really, he’s not even close to living up to the rhetoric.

PHIL GRAMM: Terrorist! Boy, this whole hope-and-unity thing sure is taking hold all over.

DIANA HSIEH GETS email from a critic.

APPRECIATING BOB SOMERBY: He has been on a roll lately.

MIXED MESSAGES CONTINUE:

This afternoon Obama says McCain “wants to continue this war in Iraq maybe for another 100 years,” and his traveling press secretary says “John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such.”

Obama really needs to quit with that “continue this war for 100 years” line. He’s been busted repeatedly on it. Is that a new kind of politics — to keep repeating a falsehood even after it’s been exposed?