DON SURBER: Saving our coasts by ravaging Nigeria. Plus this proposal: “Slap a dollar-a-gallon tax on residents of any coastal state that bans drilling in the Pacific or Atlantic, and give that money to people who live within a mile of a coal-fired power plant.”

IN THE MAIL: Neal Asher’s Shadow of the Scorpion: A Novel of the Polity.

ORIN KERR on Justice Breyer and the culture wars.

“YEAH, I DON’T DO COWERING.”

“So let’s see – Obama’s FISA flip-flop was not cowering it was, uhh, tacking to the bipartisan center!”

A MCCAIN-CORKER TICKET?

ZIMBABWE UPDATE: Robert Mugabe Runs For President Unopposed.

POLICE HARASSING a Belfast blogger?

YOU WON! NOW WHAT? I’ve got a column on the Heller decision in today’s Post.

SANDY LEVINSON: Some Preliminary Reflections on Heller. ” What is especially ironic is that the strongest support for Scalia’s position comes from acknowledging that the Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, has been ‘dynamically’ interpreted and has taken on some quite different meanings from those it originally had. Whatever might have been the case in 1787 with regard the linkage of guns to service in militias—and the historical record is far more mixed on this point than either Scalia or Stevens is willing to acknowledge—there can be almost no doubt that by the mid-19th century, an individual right to bear arms was widely accepted as a basic attribute of American citizenship. One of the reasons that the Court in Dred Scott denied that blacks could be citizens was precisely that Chief Justice Taney recognized that citizens could carry guns, and it was basically unthinkable that blacks could do so.”

LONDON TIMES: Cheer up. We’re winning this War on Terror.

And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier’s dictum: “Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let’s retreat!”

Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it’s worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years.

Read the whole thing.

IS THE AXIS OF EVIL DOWN TO ONE? “In a gesture demonstrating its commitment to halt its nuclear weapons program, North Korea blew up the most visible symbol of its plutonium production Friday, South Korean media reported from the site. The 60-foot cooling tower at the North’s main nuclear power plant was demolished on Friday, as promised by the North Korean government. The collapse of the concrete structure, the most conspicuous part of the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, bore witness to the incremental progress that has been made in American-led multilateral efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.”

I’VE SAID BEFORE THAT BOBBY JINDAL ISN’T READY to run on a national ticket. Here’s some supporting evidence.

MORE ON HELLER: “WASHINGTON will become a safer place to live and work, thanks to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling against DC’s absolute ban on handguns. The court ruled that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms is an individual right, striking down one of the nation’s toughest anti-gun laws. As someone who lived in DC when it imposed its ban 32 years ago, I say it’s about time.”

UPDATE: More thoughts from Randy Barnett in the Wall Street Journal. Title: “News Flash: The Constitution Means What It Says.”

AT REASON, a panel discussion on Heller, including yours truly along with many more eminent folks.

UPDATE: More reactions here.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Guns Are A Feminist Issue: “I’m hardly the first person to make this observation, but I don’t know why it isn’t noted more often: guns are the only weapon that equalizes strength between attacker and attacked. It’s the only time when men’s greater speed, strength, and longer reach make no difference; if you pull the trigger first, you win. This is an enormous social advance.”

MICHAEL TOTTEN: How Kosovo Created Its Own Liberal Islam.

ILYA SOMIN: Lessons for gun rights supporters from the property-rights experience.

WHAT’S COMING POST-HELLER: “On the heels of the Supreme Court ruling, the NRA and other groups prepare to challenge gun laws in California and other states.”

TENNESSEE CONGRESSMAN UNDER INVESTIGATION: “Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper is under FBI investigation on charges of unauthorized entrance to a cooperative electric trade group’s website. That is a rather interesting way of gathering information for congressional hearings.”

UPDATE: Note the defenses of Cooper in the comments.

JIM LINDGREN ON THE DEATH PENALTY AND CHILD RAPE:

Yet the Court shouldn’t talk about following a “national consensus” on an issue on which in 1997 only 31% of the American public agreed with the Court and 65% of the public opposed the Court’s view. The justices should admit that they follow ELITE opinion, not the views and morality of the ordinary public. If they can’t go that far, they should at least stop preaching to us about a “national consensus” that is little more than a fig leaf for their own (often quite reasonable) policy preferences.

Indeed. Or we should go whole-hog and just start electing Supreme Court Justices. Then they’d actually have the democratic legitimacy they’re claiming with talk of consensus.

TOM MAGUIRE: Score one for David Brooks.

SAYUNCLE ON HELLER: “5-4 was bit too close for comfort in my opinion. I was figuring on 6-3 or 7-2, honestly. Sure, this quiz was pass/fail but we were only one heart attack away, my friends. I hate to say it but that one reason is why I’ll hold my nose, get good and hammered, and pull the lever for John McCain.”

GLENN GREENWALD DISCOVERS SOMETHING ABOUT KEITH OLBERMANN that the rest of us already knew. “Strong and righteous words indeed. But that was five whole months ago, when George Bush was urging enactment of a law with retroactive immunity and a lessening of FISA protections. Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing — and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists — everything has changed. . . . What’s much more notable is Olbermann’s full-scale reversal on how he talks about these measures now that Obama — rather than George Bush — supports them.” Do tell. It’s as if Olbermann were some sort of dishonest hack or something.

UPDATE: Don Surber:

It’s the Trotskyites vs. the Stalinists.

Like Olbermann, my money is on Stalinists.

I do believe he’s right about Olbermann.

MORE THOUGHTS ON HELLER, from Prof. Mike O’Shea. “The imposition by the U.S. government of a U.K.-style system of sweeping gun bans and prohibitions on armed self-defense is now off the table. Such laws are a violation of the U.S. Constitution.” Actually, they always were.