In a 20/20 interview, Bill O’Reilly claims that the FBI informed him that he is on an al Qaeda “death list.”
Undoubtedly, in al Qaeda’s campaign to end the global power of the United States, Mr. O’Reilly ranks near the top of the list of high value targets.
This reminds me of the war “freedom” blogggers who have publicly worried about the danger of al Qaeda using computer attacks to shut down their blogs.

USA Today:

When it comes to President Bush’s approval rating — the number that measures his political health — one factor seems more powerful than any Oval Office address or legislative initiative.
It’s the price of a gallon of gas.
Statisticians who have compared changes in gas prices and Bush’s ratings through his presidency have found a steady relationship: As gas prices rise, his ratings fall. As gas prices fall, his ratings rise.
. . .
A statistical analysis by Doug Henwood, editor of the liberal newsletter Left Business Observer, found that an “uncanny” 78% of the movement in Bush’s ratings could be correlated with changes in gas prices. Based on trends in crude oil prices, Henwood predicted last Thursday that it “wouldn’t be surprising to see his approval numbers rise into the mid-40s.”
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, Bush’s rating rose to 44%, his highest in a year. Average gas prices, which peaked at more than $3 a gallon in August, had dropped under $2.50, the lowest since March.

Interesting how “supply and demand” is working.

• Thai coup: Earlier this year Joshua Kurlantzick wrote a piece which provides background for what’s happening in Thailand. He notes how the (past?) prime minister’s strong-arm tactics have apparently backfired:
  

  Terrorism and insurgencies provide elected officials with an opportunity to exploit an inherent weakness of democracies–the willingness, even eagerness, of their citizens to hand near-authoritarian powers to strong leaders in return for the promise of security. But the lesson of the last five years is that authoritarian tactics tend not to quell insurgencies, but to make them worse. And when that happens, democracies exhibit an inherent strength: their tendency to demand accountability.

  Apparently, that’s what we saw yesterday, though not in the most democratic of processes.
  Billmon wonders how the Bush administration will respond to the coup:

  Either way, though, I’m guessing the “principles of democracy” will be plenty flexible enough to allow Shrub to give the new military government his tacit blessing.
  That is, assuming the generals don’t support Roe v. Wade or stem cell research or anything Satanic like that. I mean, Thailand may be important, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.

  Funny how the world usually doesn’t work out to be as black and white as “freedom” versus “the evildoers.”

• Filibuster for torture: Senator Frist threatens a filibuster against an anti-torture bill. Makes one proud to be a Tennessean, doesn’t it?
• Housing starts: Professor Hamilton examines the data and concludes that it’s been 40 years since housing has taken a comparable slide to our current one without producing a corresponding recession.
• Double standard: Female substitute teacher who had sex with a minor isn’t sentenced to jail time. During sentencing, the judge noted that a male defendant would probably have been incarcerated.
• Bluegrass State turning orange: Amid much fanfare, Maysville, KY, gives Coach Bruce Pearl the keys to the city and makes him an honorary Kentucky Colonel.

President Bush treats the United Nations with a little irony this morning:

Freedom, by its nature, cannot be imposed — it must be chosen.

I guess you could say we have 130,000 American choosers camped in Iraq.

This graph shows there is a disturbingly close correlation between gasoline prices and President Bush’s approval rate. I’m not a statistician, but a glance at the chart reveals that the two largely parallel each other.
This doesn’t prove that there’s a causal relationship, as other factors are at work. For instance, after September 11, Bush’s approval ratings didn’t shoot up because gas prices dropped (which they did because of reduced demand), but rather because America had been attacked.
Still, the two plots are close enough that it makes me wonder if many Americans base their world/political view based on gas prices. Given the reports I see in the news whenever gas prices rise, I suspect there is something to this.
Obviously, it’s a lame approval barometer. The president has very little control over gas prices. And even if he could control them, why should gas prices be the ultimate factor? Why not health care expenses or housing expenses, which for most people are a more significant cost? Or more pointedly, why not the Iraq War, Katrina response, immigration, or budget policy? These are things a president has far greater impact on.
It’s a weird way of viewing the world.