IN THE MAIL: From Lisa Bloom, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World.

SO I’M OFF, AND OFF THE NET, FOR A WHILE: I’ve left a few scheduled posts, and there will be a fabulous crew of guestbloggers coming in: Profs. Kenneth Anderson and Ann Althouse, as well as Ed Driscoll, Michael Totten, and Megan McArdle. Don’t expect me to be responding much to email, or anything, as I intend to be as thoroughly offline as possible. Have a nice week in my absence! I need these annual breaks to clear my mind, and in my opinion, the blog gets better with the guestbloggers anyway. InstaPundit was originally meant to be a group blog, you know . . . .

SUSANNAH BRESLIN: How Your Journalism Sausage Gets Made, Part Six.

Plus, more advice on how to get ahead in media. “Being a journalist isn’t easy. Especially if you’re freelance. You’re sort of a lone wolf. Also, most writers are prone to depression and anxiety.”

PHIL BOWERMASTER: How Google Does It.

AMERICA’S LEAST EXCITING RESTAURANT: I have to say that when I see a Sbarro in a train station or rest stop, like the one in Penn Station, I think “bottom tier.” But the one at my local mall is better than those, perhaps because it has better staff.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

HAPPY MILITARY SPOUSE APPRECIATION DAY!

CALIFORNIA’S SECRET GOVERNMENT.

NOW OUT: Daniel Solove’s new book, Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security.

OLD MEDIA IS DYING because it feels dead.

BLACKFIVE: The NYT Tries To Revive The “Crazy Vet” Meme. And gets a royal Fisking instead.

If the NYT keeps doing stuff like this, they’ll risk losing their reputation for fairness . . . .

AND NOW HE’S BACK-PEDALING: GE’s Immelt wishes he had soft-pedaled green talk.

Funny, this about-face comes just a week after the Utah Tea Party protested at the G.E. shareholders meeting. I’m just sayin’ . . . .

PRIVACY: IRS made 7.1 billion disclosures of tax return information to federal and state agencies.

J.D. JOHANNES reports from Afghanistan.

CLAIRE BERLINSKI: August 22: The Day the Internet Will Die in Turkey?

BRITISH ELECTIONS: Liberal Dems Suffer Worst Losses In A Generation.

More here.

BOB OWENS ON THE ATF GUNRUNNING SCANDAL: The U.S. government has effectively allowed weaponry to reach Mexican drug cartels, and now uses the violence they helped cause as a gun control argument..

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: These Posts Are Writing Themselves Now.

BIN LADEN’S POSTHUMOUS FANS: “As for photos, those who believe that bin Laden isn’t dead won’t be convinced by photos. Ironically, many of them will simultaneously say that the United States didn’t kill bin Laden but the fact that the United States killed bin Laden is a crime for which revenge should be taken. We should have learned this from September 11, since many say that al-Qaeda wasn’t responsible and it was done by the U.S. government and Israel while, at the same time, saying that it was an operation that made Muslims and Arabs feel proud and America deserved it. Welcome to the Middle East!”

THE BELMONT CLUB: Sh** Happens. “Laboratory tests have confirmed that Nepalese UN Peacekeepers accidentally caused the death of 5,000 Haitians from cholera. . . . They came to help and wound up killing thousands. The incident highlights the fragility of an impoverished society. Human communities which live upon the knife’s edge, on the margins of nutrition, with barely adequate medical treatment, with no resources to even track down disease vectors can be blown down by the first perturbation. The Greenies have it wrong. It is not resource abundance but poverty which is unsustainable.”

UPDATE: A reader emails: “The UN isn’t the only problem in Haiti. We tried to build an orphanage there with our lightweight concrete panels and the Haitian government demanded a 200% import duty on the building. We declined to pay–and stayed home, donating our time and money in other places. Unfortunately, poverty is sustainable–by corrupt governments all across the world.”

TAXPAYER FUNDED NPR hires firm to lobby for its taxpayer funding.

MICKEY KAUS: Your GM Profit Hype Antidote. “Sales and prices are up recently in part only because competing Japanese car suppliers have been crippled by the earthquake and tsunami. GM’s stock fell today and is still below the initial IPO price.”

PHIL BOWERMASTER: In The Future, Everyone Gets A Batting Average.

PROF. JACOBSON: Feds Ignoring Greatest Threat to Dunes Sagebrush Lizard.

IS A DOUBLE-DIP RECESSION now undeniable?