Links and Minifeatures 10 17 Monday

Iraq the Model has various items on the Iraqi election. From what I can see of his coverage, turnout was perhaps not as high as expected.



(later)Captain's Quarters seems to have had concrete results and good interpretations first. There is a limit to how far a minority can or should distort the process, and a good portion of the Sunnis seem to realize they've passed that level. Those Sunni-majority provinces seem to have actually gone for the constitution. On the other hand, those provinces most heavily invested in the old regime voted it down, but there were only two of them and rejection required three provinces do so.



Iraw the Model has video of a celebration of the election.



Justus for All has an op-ed with which I agree. It's hard not to get the same sense of history being made. Actually, it's stronger - this entire area of the world has no democratic tradition whatsoever.



On the other hand, Decision '08 reports on a possible area of 99 % turnout. If True: Houston, we have a problem...

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Carnival of Personal Finance is up. Recommended: Old Niu's Blog.



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RINO Sightings is also up. Recommended: Don Surber.



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Captain's Quarters reports that Tom Delay has done an about face on whether there is fat in the budget. Who ya gonna call? PORKBUSTERS! This is a severely good sign for the country as a whole and a sadly neglected part of the Elephant base. It also means that they're competing more strongly for the votes of Libertarians such as myself.



Q and O has some good ideas on a less radical restructuring of the budget process than the one I favor (basically, deciding on the total budget first, set 10 percent aside for emergencies. Then the remaining 90 percent gets budgeted. Some is mandatory (interest on the debt), some nearly so (retirement payments that existing retirees were led to expect), and the rest is pure discretion. Emergencies require an act of Congress to validate, and anything left over goes to pay down the debt or (when that's done) actually create a national investment fund to get us money. This forces those who want us to spend to tell us why this or that is more important than necessary defense spending or foreign embassies or national parks, a much higher barrier than "It's only $1.50 per person," which works out to $450 million dollars every time somebody says it - and it gets said a lot. $450 million here and $450 million there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money. It would likely force non-essential government functions to pay more of their own tab, as well. Finally, it would give those of us who want government spending minimized a real objective we can attack instead of spreading our energy everywhere.



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Michelle Malkin has a great article on how the Wall Street Journal, which should know better, misrepresented the bogging that has gone on about the University of Oklahoma bomber, Joel Hinrichs.



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Armies of Liberation notes that even Saudi Arabia is getting annoyed at Yemen, having gone so far as to deny hajj visas!



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Countertop Chronicles tells us that National Zoo has copied the tradition of Panda Cam!



The original San Diego Zoo Panda Cam is where we watched Hua Mei, Mei Sheng, and will watch the still unnamed 3rd cub grow up.



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Check back bright and early tomorrow for Carnival of Liberty Number XVI! I'll set it to autopost for 6:00 AM Eastern before I go to be tonight.