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Thanks to the vigilant Iconoclast for noting this story in the Morning News on a lawsuit filed against the city of Siloam Springs. Its cops apparently have been doing strip- and body-cavity searches of people arrested for minor offenses. Blanket strip search policies, without reasonable cause, are unconstitutional, if you didn't know.

The Iconoclast comments: "Siloam has given a new meaning to rectitude."

A House committee thinks not. It votes to hold him in contempt for thumbing his nose at a subpoena.

He may yet be frogmarched. Waterboarding would be wrong, even though he and his White House colleagues endorse it.

Ludacris does a pro-Obama ditty. "Obama is here" is the refrain. Sample line:

Hillary hated on you, so that bitch is irrelevant.

Also:

McCain don't belong in any chair unless he's paralyzed.

Michael Nelson, a Rhodes College professor and author of a book about the political dimension of the South's growing love of lotteries, blogs on the Chronicle of Higher Education about getting crosswise with wannabe Gov. Bill Halter over lottery issues.

He recounts the key points he made in a recent talk at the Clinton School and the typically over-the-top retort from Halter's bumptious lottery mouthpiece.

UPDATE: A Halter camp response.

On the jump, an LRPD report on the arrest of three car burglars, WLR teens all, and a car full of their booty from some 25 car break-ins over a two-night span.

Good news. But, please, folks. If you don't leave anything in your car overnight, there's  nothing for criminals to steal. It's Crime Prevention 101.

More on former LR journalist Ron Fournier, journalism, politics, etc. (After you read this, imagine for a moment that the report had emerged in February and the names Clinton or Obama were substituted for McCain.) From Editor and Publisher:

NEW YORK Ron Fournier, the former top Associated Press reporter returned to AP in March 2007 and now serves as D.C. bureau chief, where he directs coverage of the 2008 campaign. But before he took that job, Politico.com revealed tonight, he considered taking a job as a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.

A source said that he had been approached for this job in October 2006 and in the following months talked to several top McCain advisers about it.

Earlier this month, Fournier was criticized over what some saw as an overly-friendly email ("Keep up the fight") to Karl Rove in 2004.

When reached by Politico by phone Monday, Fournier declined to comment, but referred the matter to AP spokesman Paul Colford, who issued a statement: "It is not uncommon for journalists to be approached by political campaigns, elected officials and government agencies about possible job opportunities. Ron Fournier was approached by the McCain campaign and decided he wasn't interested in working for a political campaign, months before he rejoined AP in March 2007."

Here's the Politico link. Knowing Ron, I still believe he's capable of being an equal opportunity scold. He was looking for work at the time. He didn't take the job. But .... the leftosphere will be howling. Arkie angle: A number of Arkansas journalists have spun through the revolving door to politics and sometimes back to journalism again. Right, Rex?

Desperate for traction, John McCain has gone sharply negative and Rovian. NY Times claims some Republicans worry about the tactic. Hard to believe, since negativity has been the mother's milk of the GOP for so many years. But if you read closely you find that what they mean is that McCain should pretend to be a nice guy and let others do the slashing. Oh.

NY Times editorializes on the nasty turn of events.

PS -- Dems should not take heart from this. Negative has worked before. And there are signs aplenty that Obama hasn't closed the deal with swing voters.

You've perhaps noticed by now that Gov. Mike Beebe has made it clear he believes Game and Fish should share some of its gas riches with other state agencies -- most particularly the environmental stewards already woefully understaffed, even if they were inclined, to vigorously protect natural resources from the inevitable damage caused by massive exploration. Unless he gets some gas money for state agencies, other revenues will have to be supplied. He'll win at least a limited victory for the simple reason mentioned here yesterday and repeated by Beebe -- though Game and Fish has constitutional independence, it can't spend a dime not appropriated by the legislature, no matter how much cash it piles up.

I do think Beebe was being overly generous in this quote about G&FC, however:

"I think the Game and Fish Commission is very sensitive to the fact that their resources don't really belong to them but belong to all the people of Arkansas," Beebe said, adding that he expected the commission to work with his office and the Legislature.

If they really thought that, the proceeds of leasing public land would benefit all public efforts equally. It's a classic example of Beebe's historic ability to find bridges between opposite viewpoints, however. I wish he could inject a little of that into Game and Fish's obsession with the game and fish portion of its charge. Even Texas has bowed to devoting significant attention to the broader interests of wildlife preservation and enjoyment in its regulatory agency. Not Arkansas.

A New York jewelry wholesaler was robbed at gunpoint just moments before he was to pay a call at a Cantrell Road jeweler shortly before 1 p.m. today.

The salesman had flown into Little Rock today to make calls on several stores. Shortly after parking to visit Kenneth Edwards Fine Jewelers at 7811 Cantrell, a masked gunman who'd apparently been following him smashed the windows on the driver's side of his car and demanded his jewel case. He threatened to kill the salesman, who turned over the jewels and the keys to his Chrysler. The man was gone in minutes.  The salesman then went inside and told store owner Ken Shelton what had happened.

"It was heart-breaking," Shelton said. "All he could do was express the fact that he had three small children at home and he could have been killed. He was very shaken."

Shelton said he had no idea the value of jewels that were stolen, but said wholesalers often transport substantial amounts. Police said the crime was similar to recent jewel robberies in other cities, but Shelton said the man robbed today was a wholesaler, not a courier delivering purchased jewels to customers.

Ernie Dumas and I have been trading notes today about the legal authority by which the state Game and Fish Commission claims dominion over mineral rights on its land in the recent leasing of acreage for gas exploration. It's a cash-laden agency already thanks to the "conservation" sales tax, so awash in money it has more vehicles than employees.

Game and Fish cites the broad language of Amendment 35 to trump any efforts to claim mineral rights to state lands that should benefit all of Arkansas, not just hunters and anglers. (Remember, though wildlife conservation is a broad charge, Game and Fish is operated almost solely for the hooks and bullets crowd.) Game and Fish is willing to turn over a little money for environmental efforts, but not a dime for general revenue.

Dumas remembered when in olden days a committee of state officials oversaw leasing of public lands and the proceeds went to the general fund. The land commissioner now oversees that effort, but apparently it made no effort to intercede with Game and Fish.

At least one legislator isn't happy about the grab and is already talking a constitutional amendment to overcome Game and Fish if there's no other way to share the wealth. There are complications, however. It could be that federal money used to acquire some wildlife management acreage might require that mineral rights remain with the land for wildlife purposes. It's an issue that will get some serious exploring and worthy discussion. Game and Fish is constitutionally independent, but it must work with the legislature, which appropriates its money.

Greg McKendry, the church member who was killed after he put himself between a shotgun-wielding man and a Unitarian congregation in Knoxville, Tenn., on Sunday, was a former Arkansas resident.

According to Sandra Brand, editor of the weekly Osceola Times, he'd been plant manager for Viskase Corp. in Osceola from November of 1987 to July of 1994.

He is remembered fondly by several commenters on this Osceola-related forum and Brand's paper will have an article on him in this week's edition, on the web Friday. He was a wonderful person, in addition to being one of Sunday's heroes,  it sounds like.

It's bad enough being upside down on your gas-guzzling SUV. But what about being upside down on your house? Didn't everybody say you NEVER lose money in real estate?

Think again. A national survey says home prices were down on average in May by 15.8 percent, worst drop ever. Could be worse. You could live in LA, where the drop was 24.5 percent. It was worse still in Las Vegas, Miami and Phoenix. But no place is worse today than LA, which, after recent wild fires, was just hit by a 5.8 earthquake.