Not much time today...

but here are a few links to keep you busy.

For an update on the opposition Arlen Specter's prospective Senate Judiciary Committee chairmanship, visit NotSpecter.com. There's more not to like about Specter than just his position on abortion -- he's wrong on tort reform, equal opportunity, and countless other legal issues where he lines up with the forces that have been turning our judiciary into a swamp of subjectivity and anti-democratic arrogance.

Tim Carney, formerly with the Evans and Novak Political Report, is a frequent contributor to NotSpecter.com. I met him during the Republican National Convention, and he was following the Oklahoma Senate race closely. He's got a column worth reading that puts Coburn's victory and the Specter controversy into context.

Yasser Arafat, world's oldest terrorist, is fully and utterly dead, to the delight of millions, including Roger L. Simon, who has apt comments here and here. Rather than reading the nauseating encomiums of Jimmy Carter and his ilk, take time to remember one of Arafat's victims, an American teenager named Abigail Litle.

Heard Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune on KFAQ this morning. This is the second week in a row that he's come on at 8:45 on Friday, which means no time for rebuttal before the weekend -- he gets the last word. He spoke about several city vacancies: an airport board member, airport director, airport legal counsel, and the deputy mayor. He also reaffirmed his support for Jim Cameron and Lou Reynolds on the water board, and reaffirmed his opposition to recall of Councilors Jim Mautino and Chris Medlock. I'm hoping to have time to get into all that this weekend.

Another thing I hope to get to -- at a Tulsa City Council committee meeting on Tuesday, Josh Fowler, a Broken Arrow resident and executive director for the Homebuilders Association, expressed the radical view that there should be no land use regulation at all. As a conservative, I'm sympathetic to leaving the free market as unburdened as possible, but as the saying goes, "My liberty to swing my fist ends where your nose begins." So I hope to write about the philosophical basis for land use regulation and what kind of system we ought to have.