STRATEGYPAGE: “The kind of terror we associate with Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia can show up a lot closer to home. Take, for example, the recent ‘Tamaulipas Drug War’ just south of the U.S. border in Mexico. In an era of ‘small war,’ what amounts to a major battle took place on January 7th, in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. “

BLOOMBERG IN THE HOT SEAT:

Mayor Bloomberg has been asked many times whether he harbors presidential aspirations. Yesterday may be the first time he was asked the question under oath.

Mr. Bloomberg spent the day sitting for a deposition in a civil lawsuit, the first time he has done so as mayor. The defamation case against the mayor was brought by a South Carolina gun salesman who claims the mayor spoke ill of him in the press. The deposition lasted the entire workday, and the topics ranged from Mr. Bloomberg’s views on the Second Amendment to whether he intended to run for president.

Read the whole thing. (Via SayUncle).

TAKE THAT, TROLLS! (CONT’D): Jonah Goldberg’s book is now up to #8 #7 #6.

And, if you somehow missed it, our podcast interview with Jonah is here.

UPDATE: Reader Chris Nath emails:

I just went to the local Barnes & Noble where I found Keith Olberman’s “Truth and Consequences” prominently displayed on a middle of the aisle table – impossible to miss. Curious, I went in search of Jonah Goldberg’s book and where did I find it? A single copy languished on the bottom row of the current events rack with just the binding end of the book showing. Coincidence?

I’m sure. (Bumped).

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Steve L. emails:

I live in the East Bay (about 30 minutes from San Fran) I went to my local Barnes and Noble and was unable to find a single copy of the book. I asked customer service and was told that the store didn’t bother to order any. Not only that, but the nearest *FIVE* Barnes and Noble stores had ordered a total of ZERO copies. I went down the street to Borders, saw them prominently displayed on the front table and bought 2 copies.

Good for them. And there’s always Amazon. I wrote a column on this phenomenon a while back. And reader Chris Green writes:

The fact that (as Chris Nash’s email suggests) certain booksellers are tucking Goldberg’s book away in obscure places has probably boosted Amazon sales and the book’s rating on Amazon.

Where else to you get the book if you can’t find it at the bookstore?

Indeed.

WEIRD ATTACKS ON John Edwards.

UPDATE: “Shut up, Larry.” Plus, this: Does Chris Matthews Have a Problem With Women?

ILYA SOMIN: The opportunity cost of Ron Paul: “One of the main points cited by Ron Paul’s libertarian defenders is his fundraising prowess. And it is indeed true that Paul has succeeded in raising far more money than most political observers would have expected. As of October 29, the Paul campaign had raised some 8.3 million dollars, and no doubt it has taken in more since then. However, now that it’s clear that his candidacy is both a flop politically and likely to damage the image of libertarianism, this fundraising success turns out to be a double-edged sword. The millions of dollars spent on Paul’s candidacy could surely have instead been spent in other ways that do far more to promote libertarian causes.”

This may or may not be true in practice — would the money have actually gone to the Institute for Justice, or just been spent on beer and skittles? But Ron Paul wasn’t a very attractive face for libertarianism. As I’ve said before, that in some senses was a good thing, since it illustrated the power of the message over the messenger. I fear, however, that he’ll wind up doing more harm than good to the image of libertariansm. But perhaps not. To some degree the Big Media folks seem to be giving him a pass on the racism issue, perhaps on the theory that no one who’s anti-Bush can really count as racist . . . .

NEW YORK’S CONSERVATIVE PARTY endorses Fred Thompson.

UPDATE: Bill Quick: “I think we’re about to see what will later be described as an ‘amazing turnaround’ for Fred in South Carolina.”

EMBARRASSMENT FOR INTERPOL:

South Africa’s police chief Jackie Selebi is to be charged with corruption and “defeating the ends of justice”, state prosecutors say.

A court on Friday rejected an urgent application by Mr Selebi, who is also the president of Interpol, to try to stop the prosecution.

He is alleged to have received at least $170,000 (£90,000) from a convicted criminal over a five-year period.

Sigh.

LARRY KUDLOW: Are we all Democrats now? I’m pretty sure Fred Thompson isn’t.

UPDATE: No, really: “Taxes get so depressed when they hear Fred Thompson is in charge that they cut themselves.”

COULD WE HAVE SOME MORE OF THOSE, PLEASE? Senators for the Second Amendment.

“YOU MIGHT BE ASKING, ‘What the heck is a sport activity coupe?’” “I am asking.” “And well you might.”

“GALL AND GULLIBILITY:” The combination is sort of a trademark, really. But — at the risk of sounding like Brit Hume to Ron Paul last night — it’s funny to me that folks on the left want so badly to create a Gulf of Tonkin out of an incident in which the U.S. Navy did nothing. Sixties nostalgia runs rampant.

UPDATE: Related item here.

POLITICO: Racial tensions roil Democratic race.

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT UP!

HERE’S A STORY I MISSED YESTERDAY: “A federal judge Thursday rejected a request by war-on-terror detainees in Guantanamo who sought a hearing on the destruction of videotapes showing CIA interrogations of terror suspects, a court source said. . . . He said that while a ruling he issued in 2005 ‘prohibits respondents from destroying evidence regarding any torture, mistreatment, or abuse of detainees that occurred at Guantanamo Bay … (the) petitioners do not assert that the destroyed tapes depict interrogations that occurred at Guantanamo Bay and respondents have represented to the court that the interrogations depicted on the tapes did not occur there.'” Apparently, most folks missed this.

IT’S A TASER! IT’S AN MP3 PLAYER! And it comes in leopard-skin finish!

CHEAP, ACCESSIBLE HEALTHCARE: To be banned in Boston?

These kinds of clinics are getting good reviews elsewhere. Is it too cynical to suspect that the real opposition stems from fears that they will make national healthcare seem less urgent?

IN BILLBOARD, JOHN ONDRASIK WRITES about his CD for soldiers project.

UPDATE: Oh, in case you missed it, here’s our Ondrasik podcast interview from last year.

STILL MORE EVIDENCE THAT claims of a vaccine/autism connection are bogus.

THE D.C. CIRCUIT on interrogations:

Ruling in a case of four Britons who formerly were detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the D.C. Circuit Court decided Friday that the prisoners have no right to sue top Pentagon officials and military officers for allegedly torturing them and defiling their religious beliefs while they were held at the military prison. The Court applied several different legal theories in rejecting all of the claims of abuse and arbitrary imprisonment, but the end result was that there was nothing left of the detainees’ legal challenge.

In a second ruling Friday affecting individuals captured during the “war on terrorism,” the Circuit Court decided that the Pentagon has no legal duty to release to the public the opinions or advice that outsiders gave to the government on the creation of “military commissions” to try war crimes charges against detainees.

Follow the link for more. (Thanks to reader Sean Sirrine for the link).

SOME POST-C.E.S. THOUGHTS from Michael S. Malone.

DON’T WE CARE ABOUT THE EARTH? “Most of France’s electricity has been generated by nuclear power for years, and now Great Britain is again looking to atomic energy. Why can’t we increase nuclear output in this country?”

ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS. I want a robot.

NOT ALL WOMEN ARE ROLE MODELS, at Ms Magazine. Israeli women don’t count, apparently.

UPDATE: More here.

A LOOK AT BARACK OBAMA’S SPACE POLICY.

Mark Whittington has some thoughts. “Unfortunately it constitutes a return to the 1990s during which astronauts flew in circles in low Earth orbit and commercial space was ignored.”

UPDATE: A reader emails: “I tried to follow the Obama space policy back to find the original position paper on the Obama website. There doesn’t appear to be one. Furthermore, it looks like everybody who’s commenting on the piece points at the same link you did. I wonder if this is bogus?”

Seems unlikely, but I couldn’t find it on the site either, though I found the site somewhat hard to navigate. Any Obama campaign folks want to respond?

CAN YOU SUE IF a computer reads your email?