IS THE WASHINGTON POST’S CHANDRA LEVY FASCINATION RACIST? Nonsense. Gary Condit was a Republican.

UPDATE: Oops, my mistake. Condit was a Democrat, as numerous readers point out. In that case, it must be racism!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Don Surber emails, “You’ve been reading A.P.” And sure enough, the story says, “Condit, a former Republican congressman from California’s Central Valley, has denied any involvement in or knowledge of Levy’s May 2001 disappearance at age 24, or her death. However, he acknowledged to investigators that they had an intimate relationship.”

DETECTING MOTION in simple nanotech machines.

PUT YOUR HANDS UP FOR DETROIT: Obama pledges $4b in aid for Detroit automakers.

HURRICANE DOLLY IS STRENGTHENING RAPIDLY, or maybe not. Either way, Brendan Loy’s on it.

IN THE MAIL: Ishmael Jones’ The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture.

TEST-DRIVING A POWER-ASSISTED BICYCLE. “The Twist Freedom DX doesn’t perform in any out-of-the-ordinary manner until you hit an incline. But the second you do, the motor adds power to your wheels, and your feet suddenly feel like they’re, well, flying. The process is very seamless, and actually quite fun.”

THE GANG THAT CAN’T GOOGLE STRAIGHT: HuffPo “investigates” Ed Morrissey. Hilarity ensues.

AT BLACKFIVE: Foreign Relations: Mailiki and the U.S. “The real issue is whether Iraq is a genuinely sovereign power, with the full authority to negotiate its interests as an equal with America. It is vitally important to our counterinsurgency efforts that the answer to that question be ‘Yes.'”

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, jack-booted thugs would raid the homes of people who criticized our leaders. And they were right! “An outspoken Long Island gun owner’s home was raided by Nassau County detectives, who seized two dozen weapons he lawfully owns just one day after Rep. Carolyn McCarthy’s office made a 911 call about him. Freeport resident Gabriel Razzano claims he was targeted in the spring raid for his ‘unpopular’ political beliefs.”

A MICKEY KAUS VICTORY LAP on the John Edwards / Rielle Hunter story:

Will this be the first presidential-contender level scandal to occur completely in the undernews, without ever being reported in the cautious, respectable MSM? . . . You’d think MSM reporters would resent being played for chumps by Mudcat Sanders, et. al.

Being played for chumps by Dem operatives seems their preferred role this year.

HE’S NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, he’s running for President of Earth. “Obama Campaign Prints German-language Flyers for Berlin Rally.”

GUN PROHBITION NOW, GUN PROHIBITION TOMORROW, GUN PROHIBITION FOREVER: Jacob Sullum on Washington D.C.’s massive resistance to the Supreme Court’s Heller decision. “D.C.’s political leaders know they are inviting another Second Amendment lawsuit, but they are determined to defy the Supreme Court and the Constitution for as long as possible.”

THE GOOD-NEWS STORY FROM BASRA:

There is an interesting piece of graffiti on a bridge near Basra. A fleeing militiaman has scrawled “We’ll be back”; underneath an Iraqi soldier has scribbled in reply “And we’ll be waiting for you”.

Funny how you get this kind of thing in the London Times but not the New York Times.

RASMUSSEN: “Over half of American voters (51%) now believe the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror, the highest figure recorded in nearly four years by Rasmussen Reports in a nationwide survey. . . . Last July, just 36% thought the U.S. and its allies were winning. At that time, an equal number—36%–thought the terrorists were ahead.” I suspect this is a testament to the power of alternative media, since (until it became convenient for the Obama message this week) that’s hardly been a theme of the legacy media.

A BIMODAL DISTRIBUTION for starting salaries in law? More thoughts here.

GAS TAXES FOR THEE, but not for me. “The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city’s gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. ‘There’s something there that just doesn’t seem right to me because, in a sense, you’re saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me,’ Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said.”

Plus, the free car washes: “”Why are we washing cars in the middle of a drought? . . . Where are the green police when we need them? Are they poking around restaurants to see that nobody fries food?”

THE LAW MARCHES ON: “A South Carolina breast-cancer survivor has beaten the State Department and convinced judges in Washington that the inability to have sex is a disability protected under federal anti-discrimination laws. . . . In its 2-1 decision, issued Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Adams has a case against the State Department. Most significantly, the influential D.C. circuit court ruled for its first time that laws that protect people with disabilities from discrimination cover ‘sexual relations.'”

IS THE MEDIA GLOW STARTING TO FADE? More criticism of Obama on Iraq from the Washington Post.

The initial media coverage of Barack Obama’s visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama’s own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq’s principal political leaders actually support his strategy. . . .

Mr. Obama’s account of his strategic vision remains eccentric. He insists that Afghanistan is “the central front” for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country’s strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world’s largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama’s antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

Indeed.

UPDATE: “When is a withdrawal not a withdrawal?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “That was counterterrorism, Senator.”

HEH: Money does buy happiness or at least satisfaction. Chinese 83% satisfied with direction of China.

FREEMAN DYSON: Let’s look for life in the outer Solar System. (Via Frank Wilson).

ALL I AM SAYING, IS GIVE CHICAGO A CHANCE: “The disproportionate number of YLS grads entering law teaching is clearly having a deleterious effect on scholarship and the academy.”

SLASHDOT: “A US federal appeals court today struck down COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, a Clinton-era censorship law that the Justice Department has been struggling to get implemented for a decade.”

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: Investor’s Business Daily editorializes:

If you doubt the media are in the tank for Obama, doubt no more. The refusal of the New York Times to print McCain’s op-ed on Obama after an Obama piece was published has nothing to do with editorial judgment and everything to do with protecting the media’s heartthrob.

Indeed.

IT’S THAT OBVIOUS: “Is the media trying to elect Obama? Even Former Clinton spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers knows the answer is ‘yes.'”