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.

Go read it.

The Obama Paradox   (Victor Davis Hanson)

"The more a coy Obama speaks to enthusiastic crowds and gives soundbites and photo-ops to slavish reporters, the more everyone wants more of a piece of him, especially in interviews and press conferences.

But the more he dispenses his impromptu wisdom, the more he sounds like, well, a rookie senator whose collective experience derives from the utopianism of The Harvard Law Review, the gravy-train of Chicago entitlement politics, and the world view of Trinity Church.

Yet, the more his handlers treat him like fossilized amber, the less experience he gains, guaranteeing that on almost every rare ex tempore moment he will suggest something that doesn't compute—that he might be president for 10 years, or that we need a civilian version of the Pentagon with the same $500 billion annual budget, or that someone like a Centcom commander like Petraeus doesn't have his strategic comprehensive view, or that the Anbar awakening and the Surge were not, at least in part, connected (as if the signal that we were not pulling out, [as Obama advocated] or that we were changing tactics to ensure the safety of those in the neighborhoods who would help us, did not reassure tired Sunnis to join with us in expelling al Qaeda.)

For someone who has made the case that Bush in general is responsible for everything from the mortgage to energy crises, it's jarring to hear such particularism and contextualization about the surge's irrelevance."

The United Nations vs. the Second Amendment:

Despite protestations to the contrary, the U.N. remains quite interested in constricting lawful gun ownership. Consider, for example, the United Nations Disarmament Programme's publication, How to Guide: The Small Arms and Light Weapons Legislation. The publication touts the importance of international "harmonisation" of gun laws. According to the United Nations:

Citizens should only be allowed to own guns if they are given a government permit, and the permit should only be issued if there is a "good reason" for posssession or or "genuine need." In particular, permits to own guns for self defense should not be issued unless the applicant proves taht he is in immediate danger.

The law require "safe storage", which means that firearms should be disassembled and the ammunition ammo stored separately.

There should be frequent renewal procedures to assure the owner's continued eligibility. A good example is provided by Australia, which for most gun owners (except farmers) requires membership in a sports club, and participation in a minimum number of shooting events annually.

A firearms license should be contingent on the consent of the person's spouse or former partner.

All firearms should be registered on a centralized computer system.

The home and vehicles of a gun owner should be subject to official inspection "at will."

It's a quick read.  Go read the whole thing.

mush:

"The day after Barack Obama said that the troop surge in Iraq has worked but that he was right to oppose it because “we had to change the political debate,” Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post proclaims that Obama has, by virtue of his trip to the Middle East, demonstrated his “gravitas.” Obama did so, according to Cillizza, at a press conference in Jordan, which Cillizza chooses to designate “perhaps the major moment of the trip.”

But one man’s mush can be a fawning MSM member’s indicia of gravitas, so let’s examine the statements that Cillizza claims are so impressive. Here’s one:

Regardless of who becomes next president we are going to have to strip away ideology, strip away the politics.

Gee, I never heard that from Obama before.

Here’s another:

The next president is going to have to make a series of very difficult judgments.

Heavy.

Cillizza also was impressed that Obama “took the high road” by explaining that he was not interested in having a "colloquy" with John McCain about Iraq because that is not in the best interests of the country. Some might think that invoking the national interest as a basis for refusing to engage your opponent is just another instance of Obama’s "new" politics. Cillizza treats it as statesmanship.

Finally, Cillizza finds evidence of Obama’s profundity in the candidate’s rejection of the view that there are only two possible positions about Iraq and his insistence on the need for “flexibility.” But Obama has long understood that there are more than two possible positions on Iraq, having personally embraced many more than that number. Obama has been nothing if not “flexible” when it comes to Iraq.

Obama’s lack of experience in foreign affairs is exceeded only by his cynicism and inconstancy. Both have been on display throughout Obama’s current trip, most grotesquely in his admission that he places concern over “the political debate” ahead of implementing the policy that helped us avert defeat in Iraq.

Obama’s inexperience, cynicism, and inconstancy represent the major, and perhaps the only, barrier to his quest for the presidency. So it’s not surprising when reporters like Cillizza attempt to create a different narrative, even when they have only the candidate's platitudes to rely on."

1976 Revisited

McCain needs to run a "turn the corner" campaign.

By Michael Barone

Canada Charges Comedian with Not Being Funny

The Canadian Human Rights Commission hits a

new low by investigating a stand-up comic who heckled hecklers.

"The Tautology of Hope"

Most likely Photoshopped, but excellent nonetheless:

How a Young Lawyer Saved the Second Amendment.

Oil Prices. 

How they work.

Explained by Economist Robert P. Murphy.

Long article but excellent.

Throwing Gas on the Oil Fire

Bipartisanship at its worst.

By Jonah Goldberg

Contrary to nearly all received wisdom in Washington, not to mention the rhetoric of the presumptive nominees of both major parties, the scariest moments in American politics are often its most bipartisan. Some would say this was demonstrated in the wake of 9/11, when all those allegedly terrible national security laws were enacted by both parties, or in the run-up to war, when Democrats and Republicans united to topple Saddam Hussein. But I find it is most true when Washington takes a populist turn, which it is doing now with pugnacious stupidity, attacking that classic populist boogeyman: the “oil speculator.”

Sen. John McCain has declared the profits of American oil companies “obscene” and wants to hunt down “speculators” with congressional investigations. Sen. Barack Obama also sees “speculation” as the culprit behind our energy woes. Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) blames Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street star chambers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warns that “we are putting oil speculators on notice.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to “end speculation on the oil markets.” Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — who actually knows how markets work and is better at explaining them than any other politician today — says we have to “punish the speculators” for “betting against America.”

Et tu, Newt?

Is trying to anticipate the correct price of a commodity now un-American — an act the United States government should seek to punish?

It seems that whenever things go bad and government is largely to blame, politicians look for villains other than themselves.

In 1892, the Populist-party platform warned of “a vast conspiracy against mankind” run by gold bugs, bankers and, yes, “speculators.” American populists joined the fascists and socialists of Europe in calling for the heads of those who produced nothing while making vast sums from moving numbers around. The German Workers-party platform promised in 1920 to abolish “incomes unearned by work.”

Intellectuals, too, have always had contempt for the men who made money on that bourgeois horror, the market. “His name was George F. Babbitt,” wrote left-wing novelist Sinclair Lewis. “He was 46 years old now, in April 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.”

And so it goes today. Never mind that there’s no evidence “speculators” — i.e. commodity traders — are doing anything to increase the price of oil. They aren’t hoarding it. No one’s cornering the market. The speculators make money when the price goes down, and they make money when it goes up. In short, they don’t care if oil prices are high or low as long as they guessed correctly.

And that may be the most infuriating part of all this. The speculators don’t want high oil prices, but Washington does.

Page 2, here.