I'm rushed today, so a few links:

• Ben Stein proposes a new way of arranging for government activities to be funded by rich citizens: sell titles of nobility. Sure, we'd need to change the constitution, which would be difficult and problematic. But the alternative -- taxing them -- is clearly just unthinkable.
• Juan Cole reports developments in the case of outed al-Qaeda mole Naeem Noor Khan; briefly, the U.S. and Pakistani governments are now blaming each other for the leak, and it's not clear who's lying. He also notes reports that the current fighting in Najaf (where our present options are a truce that will be taken as a defeat, or an utterly Pyrrhic victory) was initiated by Marines on their own, without talking to anyone in Washington.
• And Digby (via Jeanne D'arc) let's us know how Americans these days respect the human rights of Iraqis: the soldiers who committed the Abu Ghraib abuses (many of whom had no business being near prisoners at all -- Lynndie England was a file clerk) are being celebrated by their friends and neighbors at home, while Joseph Darby, who reported their abuses, and his family are languishing in protective custody, having heard a few too many casual death threats.

A Norweigian righty blogger recently posted an entry (via Belle at Crooked Timber) suggesting that calls for the complete elimination of the Muslim faith might be just a little bit extreme. He got pilloried in comments. And why not? That stuff doesn't look all that much less sensible than the rest of the news...