Shield law gets a hearing: The Senate Judiciary Committee "generally positive reception" yesterday to proposed legislation that would shield journalists from divulge confidential sources, but the Justice department thinks near-blanket protection is a bad, bad idea and undercuts the notion of grand jury secrecy. The focus is on concerns with giving journalists too much discretion to keep things secret, not with these confidential sources using the shield law protecting their anonymity to lob salvos at political opponents with relative impunity. Which reminds me of British House of Lords justice Lord Denning's famous quote about how promissory estoppel "should be used as a shield, not a sword." (That one's for the geeky lawyers out there. Hello!) But to me that seems to be the main issue: not whether or not to have the shield, but how it may be used - and by whom. [NYT]

Glamouristas, Scientologistas: Everything sounds better looking when you add "ista" to it (how do you do, I'm a bloggerista). But there's nothing glamorous about brain-washing, threat-mongering and Thetan-expunging, which is probably why reps from Scientology aren't keen on Glamour's upcoming expose on the church. According to Page Six, the notion of a September story about a woman who fled from her husband, mother and Scientology minders prompted two Scientologists to show up at Conde Nast "demanding to see the story" (they were refused). Seriously, does it get any weirder than this? Wait, don't answer that. [NYP]

Jeff Bercovici almost gets us to write a headline we'd regret: WWD columnist Jeff Bercovici throws the gauntlet down on the new-lad-mag story with the header "Cocked and Loaded" and we were almost tempted to shoot off with some half-cocked headline raising the bar but we decided to refrain, though it's very, very hard. Apparently Hearst is getting set to launch a new weekly men's mag called Bullet, which features "photos of scantily clad women, real-life action stories, sports news and TV listings." The project is being helmed by former Maxim editor Keith Blanchard and assisted by Todd Detweiler, another Maxim vet whose shares a surname with the evil Nazi officer from "The Sound of Music" but we're sure is much more pleasant. [WWD]