The Daily Top Five: February 9, 2007

1. Read a fantastic story of U.S. Ingenuity, a smart Marine and a small California company helping win the war against terror.

This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.

A great piece, along with an indictment of Pentagon procedures and the tying of soldiers hands by red tape.

2. Joanne Jacos brings us the story of a new Columbia Teachers College study on the cost of high school dropouts to taxpayers.

3. I am beginning to love Politico.com and it has now made my list of daily reading, a difficult task since I have little time for excess reading. This story about lobbying really caught my eye.

"We've had lobbying since the founding of the republic," he explained. "Lobbying is in our nation's blood and history. Lobbying is sanctioned by the Constitution. The First Amendment protects the right of the people to 'petition the government for redress of grievances.' "

The practice of wheeling and dealing with lawmakers has come a long way from the time of powdered wigs and three-cornered hats. Lobbying has grown from being a set of casual conversations and gentlemen's agreements to a well-organized, well-funded industry. It's here to stay, Zelizer said, despite the bad rap its practitioners have gotten thanks to disgraced influence peddlers such as Jack Abramoff.

As a former and probably future lobbyist, as well as ardent First Amendment Defender, I couldn't agree more.

4. Need proof that San Francisco is not like the rest of America, look no further than this post at the Foudation for Individual Rights in Education. The story is compelling and frighteningly true.

Now, it’s well-known to just about everyone with any knowledge of the First Amendment that burning an American flag is protected political expression. We have to assume that SFSU knows this too, and has managed to reason out that if you can cause whatever damage you like to an American flag, you can certainly do the same to the flags of Hamas, Hezbollah, or any other country or organization. So, when Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle asked SFSU spokesperson Ellen Griffin why the complaint was being pursued, she got this answer: "I don’t believe the complaint is about the desecration of the flag. I believe that the complaint is the desecration of Allah."

So John Edwards' bloggers demeaning the Pope is okay but insulting Allah is not.

Hmmm, it is spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y.

5. More on Marcotte and Edwards and the potential relationship with those of the religious persuastion.