FRANK J.: It’s up to me to save the world. Which is a pretty sure sign that the world is in big trouble.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION UPDATE:

She may have defaulted on mortgages and lost a home in foreclosure, but that hasn’t stopped Long Beach Rep. Laura Richardson from driving in style and at great expense, courtesy of the taxpayer. The lease on Richardson’s 2007 Lincoln Town Car costs about $1,300 a month — the most expensive lease of any member of the House of Representatives, reports the Daily Breeze. Richardson’s monthly lease, paid by the federal government, is much larger than the $400 to $800 a month that other House members pay, according to a taxpayer group.

While Richardson has leased the vehicle only since last fall, it already been involved in one traffic accident while being driven by a staff member. In addition, Long Beach police ticketed the car in January for illegal parking, a ticket that has gone unpaid.

But that’s not all. Read the whole thing. And try to guess her (unmentioned) political affiliation . . . .

PHILIP KLEIN: Obama vs. His Website on Iraq.

UPDATE: Is Google blocking The Spectator?

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE WANTS TO HAVE OBAMA OVER FOR BARBECUE: If Obama is smart, he’ll take him up on it!

IN THE MAIL: Daniel Silva’s Moscow Rules. It was immediately and eagerly borrowed by my colleague Dean Rivkin, who’s a big Silva fan. I’ll let you know what he thinks.

FLASHBACK: Wesley Clark, Then and Now. Plus, dodging missiles.

NEWS I CAN USE! Phil Bowermaster on how to be marginally less dorky.

THOMAS MADDEN: America’s Days Aren’t Numbered.

Nonsense. America is doomed to go down any day now, and it has been ever since I was a kid. At least if you judge by bestselling books . . . . Some earlier thoughts on this subject here.

UPDATE: Of course, if you disagree with me, you could always be bringing your child up to survive the next World War.

But following one of his recommended links I get this customer review: “A ‘MUST-READ’ to prepare for Y2K Transition!” I wonder what that guy thinks now. Hey, just because all the earlier apocalyptic predictions have been wrong doesn’t mean the new ones have to be. And I’m all for disaster preparedness. Just with, you know, a little perspective.

LIKE A STAR TREK CONVENTION for Dukes of Hazzard fans.

FULL TIME FRIDAY: In Class From 8 a.m. to 9:50 p.m.

A HEDGE-FUND READER EMAILS:

Does this (the Dow since early May)…

have anything to do with this (Obama/inTrade) ?

It’s the correlation that no one in polite company is discussing.

Luckily, we’re not so polite here. It’s certainly suggestive.

UPDATE: Hey, maybe this is why Obama is talking so much economic nonsense. By doing so, he drives the stock market down, which makes life harder on the Republicans . . . .

POLLING ON IRAQ:

We also found, however, that more Americans — 57% — think we’re winning in Iraq vs. 51% when we last asked the question in November. One of the biggest changes was among Democrats, 45% of whom now think we’re winning vs. 34% last fall.

Which makes us wonder what the percentages would be if the coverage was just a little more balanced.

We’ll never know. But this prepares the ground for the Obama pivot on Iraq.

COMMON SENSE PREVAILS: “Under increasing public pressure over its decision to temporarily halt all new solar development on public land, the Bureau of Land Management said Wednesday that it was lifting the freeze, barely a month after it was put into effect. The bureau had announced on May 29 that it was no longer processing new applications to build solar power plants on land it oversees in six Western states after federal officials said they needed first to study the environmental effects of solar energy, a process that would take two years.”

Now how about dropping the barriers to developing other sources of energy, too, while we’re at it?

WHO HAS MET MORE CONGRESSIONAL GOALS: Iraq, or the U.S. Congress?

HEH: “You can’t please everybody, and if you want to be President, you really can’t please Greenwald, Hamsher, and Kos.”

CHINA AND THE INTERNET:

A recent analysis of web sites pushing malware (software that helps hackers steal data) revealed that half of them are connected with just ten ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and six of those ISPs are in China. This came as no surprise, as China has become the favorite hideout for Internet criminals.

There’s just one catch. The Chinese Internet is highly policed by a special force of 30,000 secret police technicians. On the Chinese Internet, you don’t do something the government does not want, at least not for long. So how do these criminals manage to survive on such a heavily policed portion of the Internet? It’s no secret that a lot of Internet mischief comes out of China, with the tacit approval of the Chinese government.

Indeed.

FIVE VULNERABLE NODES in the global energy network. The logical response to such vulnerability, and a fear that disruption might be imminent, say because of something involving Iran, would be to build stockpiles. But if people started doing that, oil prices would rise to record levels. Probably even at a time when the economy was slowing.

Meanwhile, from the comments:

My two cents of logic.

1. As oil prices rise higher, more and more sustainable energy solutions become financially viable.

2. Sustainable energy helps cool the earth thus solving the problem of global warming and saving the planet.

3. Greenpeace supports saving the earth.

4.Any attack on Iran would cause the price of oil to spike.

My conclusion – Greenpeace supports an attack on Iran (at least in concept).

You can’t argue with logic like that.

HELLER AND NEW YORK: “In a sign that federal courts here in New York will defend New York City’s restrictive gun regulations, a judge is allowing the city to strip a disabled Vietnam War veteran of his gun license.”

Some constitutional rights are less equal than others.

ERIC S. RAYMOND: “OK, I’ll admit it: six months ago I was very near buying into the whole Obama thing. That was when he was in his post-racial phase — before Jeremiah Wright, back when voting for Obama seemed like a way of putting an end to the unhealthy obsessiveness about race that disfigures liberal politics.”

MICKEY KAUS: “The whole point of last week is that McCain’s dropping the ‘first’ from ‘security first.'”

CLIFFORD SHOEMAKER, THE LAWYER who subpoenaed blogger Kathy Seidel, got spanked by the judge for his efforts. “I find that Clifford Shoemaker violated Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1) and Rule 45(c)(1)…. The 11(b)(1) violation may also violate Virginia’s Rules of Professional Conduct …. Clifford J. Shoemaker’s action is an abuse of legal process, a waste of judicial resources and an unnecessary waste of the time and expense to the purported deponent.” Read the whole thing. Worse yet, everyone who googles him will find out about this — and that he lost a motion to quash to a blogger acting pro se. Ouch!

JONATHAN CARD is setting up a Space Law Wiki.

BECAUSE WHO NEEDS NEWS, ANYWAY: LA Times to cut 250 jobs, including 150 news jobs. Earlier discussion of newspapers’ economic travails is here.

Meanwhile, reader Joseph Beaulieu writes:

If only AP was as skeptical of the L.A. Times as it is of the Bush Administration …it wouldn’t have left this uncommented upon:

“The number one reason that people cancel the L.A. Times is, they tell us, they don’t have enough time to read the paper that we give them every day,” Stanton said. “We’re going to be more picky about the stories we choose to write long and a lot more picky about the ones we write shorter.”

Yeah, that’s it. People are complaining about too much news. They’re doing too good a job! That’s their problem!

UPDATE: The LAT’s appeal isn’t shrinking — it’s just becoming more selective!

ANOTHER GROSS FACTUAL ERROR AT THE SUPREME COURT. Following up on similar huge errors from Justice Stevens in Heller. Plus, another Stevens Heller error here. What gives?