CLARICE FELDMAN: HOW RICH IS THIS IRONY? “The NY Post article discussed here indicates the maid who accused Srauss-Kahn of rape was part of a prostitution/illegal immigrant ring in which the union which placed members at the Sofitel was intimately (pardon the expression) involved. I assume that union is the New York Hotel Workers’ Union, which makes this editorial titled ‘New York is the wrong place to prey on hotel workers..’ on their website too rich in irony.”

PROGRESS: Rinderpest, Scourge of Cattle, Is Vanquished. “The long but little-known campaign to conquer rinderpest is a tribute to the skill and bravery of ‘big animal’ veterinarians, who fought the disease in remote and sometimes war-torn areas — across arid stretches of Africa bigger than Europe, in the Arabian desert and on the Mongolian steppes.”

STANDING UP FOR FREEDOM: Virginia Tea Party organization fights planning commision issuance of search warrants for suspected “code violations.”

In a semi-related matter, reader Damian Burch emails: “I was about to e-mail you to suggest that you post something about Cory Maye, but I see that you already have. Now I have a question for you: Is there a (reputable) charity that we can donate to which supports citizens whose homes have been erroneously invaded by the government?” I don’t know. Any suggestions?

UPDATE: Pima County GOP Establishment Backing Sherriff Dupnik over botched no-knock raid?

Pima County Republican Party leaders voted late Thursday to take away party chairman Brian Miller’s keys to the GOP headquarters and called a special meeting to try to remove him from his post.

Miller has been under fire from party stalwarts for the past month, with meetings called in recent weeks after he criticized a SWAT raid in May that resulted in the shooting death of a man law enforcement officers suspected of involvement in drug trafficking.

Several elected officials and party leaders have complained his comments pitted the party against law enforcement at a time when city elections are looming and candidates are gearing up for bigger 2012 races.

In other words, they value political alliances with government employees over the constitutional rights of constituents. Nice to hear them make that clear.

Response: “They asked for my resignation on grounds that it is the right thing to do for the party because… well, because they say so. I declined.”

Tucson Tea Partier Robert Mayer adds: “Pima GOP chairman Brian Miller, who leans libertarian as we do, criticized the raid. Now, the old guard GOP that makes up the executive committee has voted to take away his credit card, keys to the office, and forbids him to speak as chairman. They are planning a change to the county bylaws to allow for them to remove him from office. The president of the AZ police union also called up every Republican candidate and elected official in the state telling them ‘you’re fucked’ if you don’t condemn Brian Miller.”

Another reason why police unions shouldn’t be allowed, as if we needed one after their politicization in the Wisconsin fracas.

A THOUGHT-PROVOKING LOOK at independent agencies.

WASHINGTON POST FACT CHECK: Barbara Boxer’s blatant rewriting of history. “This is more than just spin; it is a rewriting of history that borders on the absurd.”

UPDATE: Yes, yes, it’s true: You’d never catch Senator Mickey Kaus (D-CA) doing this. Sigh.

REMEMBERING when cigarettes were glamorous.

AIRPLANES CAUSE accidental cloud seeding.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Magazine Store.

ANN ALTHOUSE: “The message is clear. The liberal media want Ruth Bader Ginsburg out now.”

Plus this: “Abortion and affirmative action. Abortion and affirmative action. That’s the fixed point in constitutional law for a lot of people: it must work out in favor of abortion and affirmative action.”

JOSEPH BAST: My eight years as an undergraduate.

TARA SMITH REVIEWS Sonia Shah’s The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years. With a brief interruption, courtesy of DDT.

AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN Prisoners Of War.

RECOVERY BUMMER (CONT’D): Auto Sales Weak For Second Month In A Row. “These car prices have really gone up an awful lot.” Stagflation!

RED WINE: Exercise In A Bottle?

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D JUST BE BOMBING VILLAGES WILLY-NILLY AROUND THE WORLD. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! U.S. Expands Its Drone War Into Somalia.

WHY NORTH DAKOTA has 3.2 percent unemployment.

DAN COLLINS EMAILS: “Since you’re writing about beach books, could you plug Ric Locke’s Temporary Duty at Amazon?” Done! It’s proved popular with InstaPundit readers already.

THE ECONOMIC “RECOVERY” TURNS 2: Feel Better Yet? “Unemployment has never been so high — 9.1 percent — this long after any recession since World War II. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent. The average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, were 1.6 percent lower in May than a year earlier. Rising gasoline and food prices have devoured any pay raises for most Americans.”

Related: Here Is Your Lost Decade.

HOW CHINA kills creativity.

CELEBRATING KHOMEINI in Kansas City?

IN THE MAIL: From Andre Norton, Deadly Dreams.

NOW THAT’S JUST SAD: RightHaven Lawyer Says Browser Ate His Homework.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Failure Of Al Gore, Part Three: Singing The Climate Blues.

My interest in the decay of the former vice president’s public position is partly because — like Jimmy Carter — he has had such an active post-Washington career. Not even Ronald Reagan won an Oscar, and Reagan (though he deserved it) never got a Nobel. Gore’s signature issue, the climate, is a major one, and Al Gore has been at the center of the most important movement of international civil society since the Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s.

The serial rise and fall of these vacuous civil society movements and the peculiar grip they exercise over the minds of some otherwise intelligent people is an important subject: why do so many people who want to help solve global problems waste so much time and money and, sometimes, do so much harm?

Read the whole thing.

RECOVERY BUMMER (CONT’D): Older interns signal gloomy labor market. “Once the domain of high school and college students, internships are more common among older Americans who are struggling to find jobs and keep their skills up to date in the worst labor market in decades.”

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Arbitrator: University Can’t Fire Professor Convicted of Exposing Himself.