JACK BALKIN ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT:

Although I enjoy making sport of the Justices as much as anyone, the question of whether the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right, including a right to self defense, is not that difficult, at least to me. The framers of the 14th amendment assumed that it was one of the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. And if a right is a privilege or immunity of citizens of the United States, it hard for me to conclude that it does not bind the United States as well as the individual states.

Now, as a unreconstructed liberal (I’ll show you pictures of my bleeding heart), I don’t particularly like this result. But it follows sufficiently strongly from other commitments I have about the Constitution that I must accept it.

But read the whole thing.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: How to be a blogging star. Including my advice on time management, and this important caveat: “Don’t expect to get rich.”

TAX PREP SOFTWARE SHOOTOUT: Turbo Tax takes the number one slot.

THE POLITICS OF the Obama predicament. “I think the “O’Mentum” has been stopped dead in its tracks.”

Weirdly, the “O’Mentum” ceased on St. Patrick’s day . . . .

CHINA: Tibet protests have spread: “China acknowledged Thursday that anti-government riots have spread to other provinces since sweeping through Tibet last week, as communist authorities announced the first group of arrests for the violence. . . . The protests have been the biggest challenge in almost two decades to Chinese rule in Tibet, a Himalayan region that the People’s Liberation Army occupied in 1950 after several decades of effective independence.”

REMEMBERING the golden age, at The Mudville Gazette. It may not even be past!

BANG THE DUMB slowly. No, it’s not about Alexandra Dupre.

NPR ON Global Warming’s missing heat. “Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren’t quite understanding what their robots are telling them.”

I blame the Bush Administration.

SIZING UP SACRIFICE: Gateway Pundit compares the Iraq War death toll with some battles from World War II.

OBAMA MEETS Ahmadinejad.

Plus, from bully pulpit to pulpit bullies. “As for ‘the soul of our nation,’ we have heard a lot of late about America’s need for racial reconciliation. Thanks to the Obama-Wright episode, we also have learned that racial antagonism and anti-Americanism are much more common than we would have guessed among predominantly black congregations in America.”

ADVENTURES IN BLOGGING ABOUT AMAZON: “this morning there was a message on my answering machine, from an Amazon.com Vice President, asking me to call him in relation to this post.”

UH OH: “A new and virulent wheat fungus, previously found in East Africa and Yemen, has moved to major wheat growing areas in Iran, reports the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization. The fungus is capable of wreaking havoc to wheat production by destroying entire fields.” More here. Keep an eye on this one.

PHIL BREDESEN’S MODEST superdelegate proposal.

A REALITY CHECK: “Mere mortals, and we can now count Obama among them, don’t get elected to national office by eschewing cliches, pandering and condescension. I did a show last night on New England Cable News with a black preacher from Boston and a black Obama supporter. Both thought the speech was magnificent because Obama spoke the truth, and the woman thought that Obama had finally laid to rest her fears that Obama didn’t see himself as part of the civil rights struggle. Geez, I can’t think of a worse outcome for the first ‘post-racial’ candidate.”

MICHAEL TOTTEN: What Iraqis want you to hear.

LOTS AND LOTS OF New York Auto Show coverage, from the Popular Mechanics folks.

A BIG ROUNDUP OF Arthur C. Clarke remembrances. Plus, a look at his writing.

ABC NEWS: Buried in Eloquence, Obama Contradictions About Pastor.

Not buried deep enough, it seems: “Buried in his eloquent, highly praised speech on America’s racial divide, Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons.”

BOINGBOING TV: Technology and the Iraq War.

Plus, Iraq: Five Years On.

HERE’S A ROUNDUP of all the Heller coverage at ScotusBlog.

OLYMPIC THOUGHTS:

At the Olympics, the Maoists will be dealing with free people from free nations, and there is only so much they can do to control them. It’s not clear they understand this. They’ve been living for decades in a bubble of unchallenged power, and are not very imaginative. The opportunities for embarrassment are endless, and the prospect of it very delicious to anyone who loves liberty. Personally, I hope their stinking Olympics is a huge fiasco, and I see encouraging signs it may be.

Works for me.

AN ARTHUR C. CLARKE ROUNDUP, from Clark Lindsey.

IN THE MAIL: James Gustave Speth’s The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. One of a sudden huge wave of lefty books. Is it an election year? Interestingly, though, the accompanying promotional material tends to spin the books as farther-left and more anti-Bush than they really are. What does that say about their target audience?

Of course, some of them don’t need any spinning.

IT DOESN’T MATTER, except when it does:

“Race doesn’t matter,” the crowd chanted after Sen. Barack Obama’s sweeping victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary, made possible by heavy black support and a solid showing among white voters.

But in the seven weeks since, race has mattered more and more in his presidential struggle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, threatening to dent his lead.

Indeed.

SHOULD MAC USERS run antivirus software?