PARENTS MAKE A SHOCKING DISCOVERY: Children are not decor. Some priceless lines follow.

JOHN HINDERAKER SAYS that Congress is not serious about national security.

SO FAR IT’S A DIVERSE GROUP: Last week, I was “Yalie of the Week.” This week, it’s Eleanor Holmes Norton.

WILL THIS ELECTION BE DECIDED BY Angry White Men? That’s not what most of the pundits are saying.

DEMOCRATS FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE:

A plan introduced Thursday by U.S. Rep. Mike Ross to encourage alternative and renewable energy relies on oil drilling in Arctic wildlife lands and the Gulf of Mexico to meet its goals.

Ross’ bill, the “American-Made Energy Act of 2008,” also would create tax credits to build new nuclear power plants throughout the United States, with an aim of having 40 percent of the nation’s power come from nuclear sources.

Ross, a leader of a group of fiscally conservative Democrats known as the Blue Dog Coalition, is a co-sponsor on the bill with Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Ross told reporters on a conference call Thursday that technology would allow companies to drill for oil without endangering the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska.

Good for them.

I DUNNO, WHAT THIS GUY IS SAYING doesn’t seem all that different from what Mearsheimer and Walt have been saying . . . .

MICKEY KAUS thinks Mark Halperin’s language is the story. To me the story is the absurdity of John Edwards, of all people, attacking Obama for being insufficiently manly. I don’t think Obama’s worried about that one . . . .

Anyway, Halperin could have used a worse word on the air . . . .

“KEEP YOUR BURQA, I’ll keep my clitoris.” Admirable sentiment.

SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS: “What is ironic about the gyrations of the Clinton team in trying to argue against the will of the voters in the Democratic nomination process is that Hillary was part of the McGovern team back in 1972, and it was the McGovern Commission that wrote the rules that created the contemporary primary-based nomination system.”

IF YOU MISSED PJM POLITICAL on XM Satellite Radio tonight, you can listen to a special pimped-out edition online now.

WE SHALL BE OVERCOME?

MEGAN GARBER IN CJR: The press hearts Obama. But is it toxic?

SOME MORE ANALYSIS on that satellite “shoot down” effort.

HERE’S A ROUNDUP on that shooting at Northern Illinois University. I’m pretty sure that this will turn out to be yet another mass shooting in a “gun free zone.”

UPDATE: Yep.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here, including a report that there were no fatalities other than the shooter, according to the hospital. Stay tuned and things will no doubt clear up.

MORE: Local newspaper site here. It says 5 confirmed dead.

THE ROWAN WILLIAMS STORY still has legs.

More here: “Rowan Williams has shown us one thing – why multiculturalism must be abandoned.”

A SKEPTICAL LOOK at Obama’s Global Poverty Act. See, I told you he’d be getting more scrutiny as Hillary weakened. . . .

GUNS IN SPACE.

THE RISKY PROFESSION of psychology.

HOSPITAL CARE: Worse on weekends? Apparently, it’s not just a myth.

DALE CARPENTER on gay rights and gun rights.

DANIEL HENNINGER says that when you look past the presentation, Obama’s speeches are downers. Ann Althouse wonders if anyone is listening that closely.

Nick Gillespie, meanwhile, has started paying attention to Obama’s pronouncements and isn’t that happy: “I smell…intervention in the economy.” And still more Obama-parsing here: “I think that’s the kind of uniter that Obama wants to be. He wants to be an outflanker, not a synthesizer or a moderate in the typical senses of those terms.” I guess he’ll be getting a lot more close attention now that the shield of Hillary’s supposed inevitability has disintegrated.

THE REPUBLICANS DON’T NEED THIS NOW: Charges of betrayal on gun rights:

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) previously stated position is that the Second Amendment secures a right of individuals not restricted to militia service. But astonishingly, the Justice Department now recommends an elastic standard for determining whether a handgun ban is reasonable. . . . In effect, a conservative administration has thrown a lifeline to gun controllers. Following the DOJ blueprint, they can pay lip service to an individual right while simultaneously stripping it of any real meaning. After all, if the D.C. ban can survive judicial scrutiny, it is difficult to imagine a regulation that would not. . . . Supporters of the Constitution can only hope that the Supreme Court will embrace an individual-rights view of the Second Amendment while rejecting the notion that legislatures can treat the amendment as if it did not exist. Regrettably, the Bush administration — supposed proponent of gun rights and devotee of the Constitution — has added one more breach of promise to its growing list.

Read the whole thing.

SOME INTERESTING poll data from Wisconsin.

UPDATE: Some related thoughts at The American Thinker.

HARVESTING ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY FUEL FROM THE AIR, with clean, nuclear power! “Scientists there say they have developed a way to produce truly carbon-neutral fuel and useful organic chemicals at large scale using water and carbon dioxide removed from the air as raw materials.” Those lovely, clean nukes. Too bad stooges for Big Oil managed to monkeywrench nuclear power for several decades in the 20th century.

ROMNEY WILL endorse McCain today.