WAITING FOR THE IPHONE: Megan McArdle is liveblogging from the line.

THIS IS INTERESTING: Nevada ACLU Breaks With National on Guns. I wonder if more chapters will follow suit.

I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE QUESTIONING statins for children.

MASS TRANSIT IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE:

MBTA general manager Dan Grabauskas is spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars urging suburban commuters to “Dump the Pump,” brave the heat and take the T, yet the transit boss continues to drive to work from Ipswich to Boston in the cool comfort of his T-owned SUV. . . .

As for driving to Lowell to promote his Dump the Pump campaign, Grabauskas said taking the commuter train there and back to Ipswich would have taken too long. The message of Dump the Pump, he added, is to encourage people with less demanding schedules to take the T.

Your political class at work!

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

THE END OF BRITAIN: An ongoing series.

AIRPORT SECURITY SOLVED: Fly Naked, and buy all your clothes at your destination.

“WHY SHOULD I HELP YOU EMBARRASS ME?” You’re doing just fine on your own, Congressman.

THE NEW YORK TIMES — only one day behind InstaPundit.

JAWS turns real?

MICKEY KAUS: “According to Rasmussen, voters reject Obama’s Scarsdale Bien Pensant Dinner Party Lecture about bilingualism by, oh, 83% to 13%.”

UPDATE: Barack Obama’s four languages. I don’t think there’s any scandal here. I could, with some plausibility, claim three languages besides English, but in fact couldn’t carry on a conversation in any of them without some tooling-up time. What German I had (my dad taught at Heidelberg when I was a kid) is completely gone, when I was in Mexico a few years ago I could function somewhat in Spanish but awfully marginally considering how many years I studied it, and, well — who ever carries on a conversation in Latin, anyway? But I couldn’t do so if called upon; I doubt I could translate Caesar on the Gallic Wars, as they made us do in high school. And by “doubt” I mean I’m aware that there’s no possibility. . . . This is a problem for Americans with foreign languages in general — English works so well in so many places that it’s hard to stay tooled up.

J.D. JOHANNES on real combat vs. staged combat.

MORE DIPLOMATIC NEWS: “An ex-diplomat convicted of having sex with teenage girls in the Congo and Brazil and taping the encounters is asking a judge for leniency, claiming that cultural differences in those countries make sex with girls more acceptable.” He may find some support in surprising quarters.

HYBRID NEWS: Toyota will start making hybrid Prius in US. Wish they’d make a plug-in. Hey, they’re the hot rods of the 21st Century.

TOO MUCH “SELF-REGARD?” “Oh, no! He’s losing Andrew Sullivan!” I do agree that Obama’s concession of poor judgment is striking. Do we want a President who gets carried away in the moment?

DON SURBER: Why Carla Bruni-Sarkozy will get along just fine with Cindy McCain.

A NATION OF WHINERS: Phil Gramm tells the truth, with predictable consequences.

UPDATE: Dean Barnett disagrees and offers advice for the McCain campaign. “So where does this week of living foolishly leave the McCain campaign? I say the following as someone who very much wants to see McCain win – he and his team have to do better.”

AN IRAN-ENHANCING PHOTOSHOP CONTEST AT GIZMODO: “Your challege, Gizmodians, is to use Photoshop to create some sweet Iranian propaganda, showing their technological advancements that are heretofore unseen.”

I do like the super-sized Ahmadinejad towering over the Manhattan skyline while shooting laser beams from his eyes. Looks a little too realistic for the Iranian news agency, or Reuters, though. . .

UPDATE: Heh.

WORLD WAR III announced by spam: “Hackers are deluging web users with malware-laden spam claiming that World War III has started following a US invasion of Iran. Security experts warned [yesterday] that spam emails with subject lines including ‘Third World War has begun,’ ‘20000 US Soldiers in Iran,’ and ‘US Army crossed Iran’s borders’ have been intercepted. The emails contain links to a malicious webpage that displays what appears to be a video player showing the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion.”

A BUNCH OF NEW Blu-Ray releases. Meanwhile, Doug Weinstein complains that HD-DVD discs have become extremely scarce even though millions of people, like him, have perfectly functional HD-DVD players.

ED DRISCOLL ON the semiotics of the “Jackson Grab.”

A PERVERSELY SATISFYING NOTION: Is pollution slowing global warming?

UPDATE: Reader Karim Fattah emails: “Every time I read one of these Global Warming/Cooling articles, I suddenly hear the lyrics ‘History shows again and again, how Nature points out the folly of Men’ from Blue Oyster Cult’s classic song ‘Godzilla’. Maybe it’s just me..” Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Global warming causing California glacier to grow, scientists say.

WHEN A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SHOWS HIS AGE ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, the press is not gentle. Well, mostly they are, actually.

THE FANNIE MAE / FREDDIE MAC DOOMSDAY SCENARIO. Related item — including the Jim Johnson / Obama connection — from Mickey Kaus.

UPDATE: Reader Nick Foresta emails:

The failure of Fannie and Freddie would be a new paradigm. These entities would create a trickle down effect and it’s not only mortgage bonds and CDO’s that would be effected. European banks are coming to terms with their own structured credit problems in the form of SIV’s (Structured Investment Vehicles). These bonds are basically derivatives of other credit instruments but the banks that sell them retain a portion of the downside risk. If the agencies defaulted, several banks would be almost immediately insolvent. Credit would tighten further, the banks left standing would have a hard time lending money to anyone as their balance sheets deteriorated. Companies and individuals would cause a run on banks and the whole system would be in danger of collapse. Scary but true. The markets are not capable of bailing out these two behemoths. The real problem is this. These guys own a good deal of the most toxic mortgage bonds. Those bonds are booked at face value now but we all know they’re close to worthless. The agencies are hoping the market rebounds and they can get at least part of their money back but they’ve been waiting for that rebound for nearly a year and the situation hasn’t improved. They will have never be able to sell those bonds into a market that’s collapsing. What will they do? They will offload some of that bad debt to a fund that will include wall street and fed money. It’s the only real option.

So I guess I should be investing in shotgun shells and canned goods. . . . ?

MAKING BICYCLING GREENER. Plus safety tips for biking with your dog. Call me crazy, but the bicycle dog leash in the photo doesn’t look all that safe to me.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Smith emails: “I’m the editor of three national dog magazines, and I’ve written nine books about dogs, including one that sold 300,000 copies, biggest seller for a dog breed book. Not bragging, just showing you I have the right to comment about your observation about if the leash is safe: It ain’t.” It sure looks iffy to me. Not that making it longer would necessarily be an improvement. I think the idea of leashing an animal to a light but fast vehicle is just a bad idea for all concerned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Iain Bruce writes: “You are correct: the dog leash on the bike is unsafe. I bicycle over 7000 miles a year. Trust me here, tieing a dog to your bike is monumentally unsafe for the dog, for you, and for everybody around you. It is just plain nuts. Walk with your dog. Run with your dog. But show your dog enough respect to leave him safe at home when you ride your bike.”

Like I say, it sure looks unsafe to me.

MORE: Reader Ed Blum emails: “Reference the bicycle dog leash article. I have used this product for over five years with three different Golden Retrievers. I have had no problems whatsoever. At first, the two males tried to pull me along rather than pace along side of the bicycle. However I was able to quickly break them of that practice. I would caution a user not to use it on a wet pavement. With a dry surface, there is enough friction to keep you upright. My dogs love it, and it ‘s certainly easier on me. Love your website.”

NOW THIS IS THE KIND OF HEADLINE I EXPECTED IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Astronauts handling explosives on daring spacewalk.