UNCONFIRMED REPORTS of a North Korean nuclear test.

UPDATE: Tentative confirmation from South Korea. And a claim from North Korea. (Thanks to Dan Riehl for the links).

On Fox News however, the USGS is saying it hasn’t detected any unusual seismic activity in Korea.

More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Wretchard interviews Dr. Robert Ayson of the Graduate Studies in Strategy and Defence at the Australian National University on the subject of how Australia and Japan might react.

And here’s a big roundup from Pajamas Media.

TIGERHAWK LOOKS AT POPULATION AND WARMAKING:

In 1967, at the height of the battle for Vietnam in the middle of World War III,1 we had 1.7% of our population under arms, or approximately 3.4 million people. Today, while waging two wars in Asia at what many of us fear is not the height of World War IV, we have less than 0.5% of our population under arms. Point is, the present conflict may be pushing the limits of our existing military, but it has barely burdened us a society. With our modern willingness to open virtually all missions to women and recognize the value of soldiers in their “late youth,” we obviously could build a much larger military if we wanted to.2

The other circled table, relating to the cost of gasoline, is typical New York Times legerdemain. The Times has chosen to show us a two-month old price of gasoline ($3.07), so it has grossly distorted the real increase in gasoline prices in the last 40 years. In fact, the average price of gasoline at the pump was only $2.31 as of October 2, the last week that government data are available. That would have shown very little difference in real terms from 1967, only about 15% over 40 years. Given the massive expansion of world oil consumption in that period, that small real increase reveals the extraordinary productivity of the oil industry, which is driven primarily by technology from American companies such as, er, Halliburton. In any case, cynics will speculate that the Times chose to husband the resources of its graphic arts department rather than correct the chart because the facts undermine the NYT’s political objectives.

Heh. There’s a lot of that going on lately.

UPDATE: Related post here.

MOMENTUM IN THE WAR: An interesting discussion in the comments, here.

SUPPORTING THE CANADIAN TROOPS: Well, it’s better than nothing.

DEAN BARNETT sends a link to what he says will be his last Foleygate post. In his email, he comments: “I can’t stand it any more. Remember when sex scandals actually involved sex? I miss Clinton!”

Enough to make Barnett miss Clinton? Ah, the pieces are all coming together now . . . .

UPDATE: Tom Maguire has lots of posts. Just keep scrolling.

ANOTHER UPDATE: William Beutler has the best-titled post so far.

And various readers quibble on whether the Clinton scandals involved sex, both from the Left (variations on the old Arkansas saw, “Eatin’ ain’t cheatin'”) and from the Right (“it was about perjury.”) Whatever, it was juicier than this one by an Arkansas mile.

HMM. I’m not sure my sardonic approach came through in this article on website valuations. Not that the quote was inaccurate, or anything — it’s exactly as I said it. Oh, well.

MORE UNREST IN IRAN:

An Iranian cleric, Mohammed Kazemeini Boroujerdi, has been arrested amid clashes between his supporters and police outside his house in Teheran.

Police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of his followers, who had formed a cordon around his residence.

In his sermons Mr Boroujerdi advocated a traditional interpretation of Islam which separates religion from politics. He is accused of misinterpreting Islam.

However, his supporters see him as a religious leader with spiritual powers.

I hope that this backfires on the Iranian authorities in a big way. That’s more hope than expectation at this point, alas.

PUTIN GROWS EVER MORE THUGGISH:

She was a fearless critic of President Putin and chronicler of atrocities in Russia’s long war with its breakaway republic of Chechnya. One of those concerns may have cost Anna Politkovskaya her life.

The most famous investigative journalist in Russia was shot dead by an assassin on Saturday, Mr Putin’s 54th birthday, as she stepped from the lift of her Moscow apartment building to collect shopping from her car. The murder bore the hallmarks of a contract killing. . . .

Hundreds of people gathered in Pushkin Square to light candles in her memory, many accusing the authorities of complicity. One poster read: “The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech.”

Valeri Borshchev, of the liberal Yabloko party, said: “This is a political killing, and the authorities are mixed up in this.”

I hope that this will get the reaction it deserves from the international community, but I’m afraid my faith in the international community isn’t what it once was.

UPDATE: Ivan Lenin thinks it’s unfair to blame Putin: “Those who ordered this murder were most likely politically motivated, and it’s very possible they are pretty high up in Putin’s administration. But this event is so much more likely to destabilize Putin’s regime than strengthen it.”

On the other hand, here’s more thuggishness from Putin.

A “BIZARRE CALUMNY” at Crooked Timber. I know the feeling.

K.C. JOHNSON has much more on the Duke lacrosse case.

And read this post, too. While the national media seem to have mostly lost interest in this case, K.C. has continued to follow it in detail.

PATTERICO REPORTS that Oklahoma Attorney Stephen Jones is trying to silence a blogger.

That never seems to work out for people, and often backfires. Before proceeding, maybe Jones should read this article. And this one.

AUSTIN BAY LOOKS AT the trouble on the North Korea / Chinese border.

Perhaps Kim Jong Il wants nuclear weapons as much to deter the Chinese as to deter the United States.

MICKEY KAUS WONDERS if Bush will pocket-veto the border fence bill. He will, if he wants a Democratic majority in Congress.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Ed Morrissey, who thinks that a pocket veto is unlikely.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO DONATE to the blogger Boobiethon for breast cancer.

Did I mention it’s got boobies? Lots of them! (But the page I’m sending you to is work-safe.)

PRESTON TAYLOR HOLMES issued a challenge.

Mary Katharine Ham responded.

Now it’s time to pay the piper.

And Ali Bubba is offering wardrobe advice.

CLERICAL CLASHES IN IRAN:

Several hundred supporters of an outspoken cleric in Tehran, Ayatollah Kazemeyni Boroujerdi, gathered today in the streets around his house to protest what they described as violation of “freedom of religion.”

Protesters told Radio Farda that they were trying to prevent the arrest of Boroujerdi by security forces. Boroujerdi advocates the separation of religion from politics.

One of his supporters told Radio Farda that during the past two months there have been several attempts to arrest the ayatollah.

“[Security forces] took away his daughter and 38 others two months ago, they’ve freed them but they came this morning to take away [Boroujerdi] but the neighbors didn’t give in,” the man said. “They came again later to arrest him but his supporters have gathered here and will resist. Thank God, we’re many, about 2,000 to 3,000.”

Seems like this is a guy I could grow to like.

HERE’S MUCH MORE on the Gloria Wise / Air America financial scandal, including questions about favoritism from Eliot Spitzer.

RAND SIMBERG looks at some interesting goings-on in the aerospace field.

A LOOK AT International Law, firearms regulation, and human rights.

KATE WRITES: “By the time you read this, seven more women will most likely have been stoned to death after being convicted of committing adultery.”

MORE ON LIBERTARIAN DEMOCRATS, from Ilya Somin and Megan McArdle.

I’m sufficiently unhappy with the GOP that I wish the Democrats would show me something. So far, though, not much.

LIEBERMAN NOW 20 POINTS AHEAD OF LAMONT? Wow.

MICKEY KAUS: “Immigration is big! It’s the fence that got smaller!”

DAVE KOPEL WRITES ON SCHOOL SHOOTINGS AND PRESS-INSPIRED COPYCATS:

Copycat violence from media sensationalism dates back at least to 1888, when Jack the Ripper mutilated and murdered five prostitutes in London. Improvements in printing technology, such as typesetting machines, had led to the creation of low-cost, mass-market daily newspapers – “the penny press” – which thrived on lurid crime reporting. The immense publicity given to Jack the Ripper led to many copycat murders and rapes.

Although Coleman does not explicitly say so, his evidence suggests that a Chinese-style system of strict and comprehensive censorship would deprive would-be copycats of inspiration.

However, censoring the American media to prevent school shootings runs into the same problem as banning guns in order to prevent school shootings. An effective gun ban – including confiscation of the more than 200 million guns currently in private hands – would drastically reduce mass murders at schools, since there are no other weapons which are so easy to use and which allow one person to control a crowd at a distance. But it is unrealistic to believe that a gun ban would actually prevent guns from being plentiful on the black market, just as legally prohibited drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin are plentifully supplied on a black market that even a high school student can reach.

Similarly, it is difficult to believe that an official system of censorship in the U.S. could prevent the informal spread of news about school shootings – especially in an era when everyone has cell phones and e-mail. Moreover, official censorship would inadvertently give credibility to false rumors and hoaxes about shootings. (Of course there would also be insurmountable constitutional problems with censorship or gun bans.) . . .Because of the First Amendment, it is up to the media themselves, and not government, to search for ways to reduce the media’s role the vicious cycle of copycat murders and suicides. But the evidence produced by Cramer and Coleman suggests that it is long past time for the media to begin the necessary self-examination.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Here’s the article Kopel refers to, in the Journal of Mass Media Ethics.

TIGERHAWK is running a straw poll on the economy.