ROGER SIMON has more thoughts on Kofi Annan’s Meet the Press appearance today, and observes:

Meanwhile, the whole world’s media, Internet and otherwise, are justifiably upset by the behavior of some US and British soldiers and (probably) their superiors in and out of intelligence. And let’s hope they are all punished for what they did. But bad as it is, it is not nearly as bad as what was done in the name of the United Nations and the whole world. Billions of dollars were made keeping a homicidal maniac dictator in office who, as state policy, dropped his adversaries (or anybody he just didn’t like) in paper shredders or simply shot them or pushed them off buildings, leaving behind 300,000 unmarked graves and counting. We’re all concerned that one Iraqi prisoner died from interrogation. Not good at all, but let’s keep it in perspective. The real crimes are on a mass level — Iraq and Rwanda where well over a million died en toto. And we all know who looked the other way on both of them. The Secretary General of the United Nations.

Indeed. Kofi’s misbehavior doesn’t excuse the misbehavior of the guards. But neither does their misbehavior excuse his. More on Kofi’s appearance here.

FOR SALE, REALLY CHEAP! (Background here, in case you missed it.)

THE GOOD NEWS: Kerry wasn’t hurt when he fell off his bike. The bad news: this photo made the papers.

If I were running his campaign, I don’t think I’d let him get into these situations. Though goofy photos are becoming something of a campaign theme, which I’m told is important. . . .

[LATER: "If I were running this campaign, I'd question the 'sunburst' color theme."]

UPDATE: On a much more substantive level, here’s a lengthy interview with Kerry from the Wall St. Journal, which they’re making available to nonsubscribers for free.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Filling our enemies with fear? Could be!

How come there’s nothing about this on Bill Hobbs’ new cycling blog?

MORE: A reader observes: “His level of physical activity seems to be a constant theme, second only to Vietnam. Until his medical records are released in their entirety I’ll harbor Tsongas concerns. Next week mountain climbing, then a summer of surfing? At least he’s not blaming the secret service this time around.”

Hard to believe that someone would conceal a serious health problem in this context — but then, Kerry has lied about his health before.

STILL MORE: Hobbs comments — but not on the cycling blog.

GOOD NEWS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES: If you can find it. Hey, more people probably read the sports section than, say, the oped pages anyway. . . .

UPDATE: Or, in the Los Angeles Times, the comics section. Sheesh.

BRYAN PRESTON files a firsthand report from the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner: “To see the press assembled in one place and on full display is to have peered over Han Solo’s shoulder as he piloted the Millennium Falcon near the Death Star. To wander among them is to appreciate the enormity of the task we bloggers have set for ourselves.”

VARIOUS BLOGGERS have noted this story about the Army recalling some loaned howitzers from ski resorts. The idea that these are needed in Iraq or Afghanistan doesn’t make much sense though — we’re not calling a lot of fire missions there, and tend to rely on air power.

So where might we actually need these? Korea?

UPDATE: A knowledgeable reader emails:

The howitzers they are calling in are probably needed because of the current TOE (table of equipment) that the military was moving to. The military was looking to standardize all artillery to 155mm howitzers, phasing out the smaller 88mm and 105mm howitzers which are not produced any further for the US Army. However, in Afghanistan these caliber of guns are needed because of the mobile/moutainous nature of this war. A 155 cannot easily be transported around the mountainous terrain, while the smaller calibers can- forcing a rethink for the Army’s artillery. The smaller caliber cannons had probably been donated to these resorts in the expectation the Army would never have use of them, yet, lo and behold they do now and are recalled. There actually was an excellent article in the professional magazine of artillerymen detailing this tactic shift in Afghanistan where they actually load the smaller cannons onboard helicopters so as to conceal/transport them instead of the traditional slingloading method.

We do call a lot of air- but air’s reponse time is measured in minutes, while artillery’s is in seconds. For this reason, and its immediate availability in all weather as well, if you can get it, Artillery is the weapon of choice…. Thanks for your time and all the hard work you do!

Interesting. And, thanks for all the hard work you do, which dwarfs mine in significance.

READER TUCKER GOODRICH notes something interesting from the transcript of Kofi Annan’s oil-for-food interview on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: Someone also very close to you has alleged involvement in this scandal. This is how The San Diego Union Tribune wrote about it. “What particularly troubles are revelations that several hundred individuals, political entities and companies from more than 45 countries profited from doing illicit business with Saddam, accepting his oil contracts and paying the murderous dictator secret kick-backs. That included, according to Iraqi Oil Minister records, U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benon Sevan, executive director of the oil-for-food program, who received a vouch for 11.5 million barrels of oil through the program, enough to turn a profit as much as $3.5 million.”

Now, Mr. Sevan has denied that allegation.

SEC’Y-GEN. ANNAN: Yes, sir.

MR. RUSSERT: But NBC News has obtained this letter that was sent on his stationery on April 14. This is just two weeks ago. “I refer to your e-mail … regarding a request by `a Governmental Authority’ for reports … relating to the Oil-for-Food Programme. … While we understand Saybolt’s”–that’s a company–”desire to be cooperative with bodies looking into the Programme … we would ask that Saybolt address any further requests for documentation or information concerning these matters to us …”

So Mr. Sevan, who’s being investigated, is telling a company that’s also being investigated, “Don’t cooperate with government authorities unless you clear it with me.” Why is he still involved in the investigation?

SEC’Y-GEN. ANNAN: Right. No, I wasn’t aware of this confess for–Benon has worked with the U.N. for several decades, and I will be surprised if he’s guilty of these accusations.

I wasn’t aware of this confess — er, document, either. And as Goodrich notes:

This is particularly interesting since Sevan has been on “vacation” since mid-March in Australia, and is supposed to stay on vacation until he retires. . . . Guess it’s a working vacation. Poor guy, can’t catch a break; or maybe he just doesn’t know how to delegate.

Heh.

MARK STEYN ON TED KOPPEL:

As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy, 1 million is a statistic. The fact that America’s dead in Iraq are not yet statistics, that they’re still small enough in number to be individual tragedies Ted can milk for his show tells you the real cost of this war. In Afghanistan, the numbers are even lower, which is why ”Nightline” hasn’t bothered pulling this stunt with America’s other war. . . .

Here’s where it’s worth considering the cost of Ted Koppel in the broader sense. Our enemies have made a bet — that the West in general and America in particular are soft and decadent and have no attention span; that the ”sleeping giant” Admiral Yamamoto feared he’d wakened at Pearl Harbor can no longer be roused. . . .

It’s unbecoming to a great power, and very perilous. The cost of war is the cost of losing it measured against the cost of winning it. We can reach our own conclusions about which the coalition’s dead would opt for.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: ABC also seems to have double-counted.

MORE LOST CREDIBILITY FOR KOFI ANNAN — but maybe it doesn’t matter:

That is the culture of the UN: believe the best of barbarians, do nothing to provoke controversy among superiors, and let others be the butt of criticism afterwards. Even subsequent revelations about Annan’s responsibility for the disasters in Rwanda and Bosnia did not affect his standing. On the contrary, he was unanimously re-elected and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. . . .

Annan had at his disposal all the instruments of power and opinion Wallenberg lacked. Yet, when thousands or hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to mortal threats he had the authority and duty to avert, alleviate, or at least announce, he failed.

Now, despite revelations about bribery in the UN’s oil-for-food program for Iraq, the world is clamouring to entrust Annan with the future of more than 20 million Iraqis who survived Saddam Hussein dictatorship. That is because of who Annan is and what the UN has become: an institution in which no shortcoming, it seems, goes unrewarded.

Read the whole, damning thing.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Roger Simon notes reports that journalists were being bought off, too. Imagine.

LYING LIARS AGAINST THE WAR: That would be antiwar activist and fake military veteran Micah Wright, whom the Washington Post describes thusly:

In the Style section last summer we profiled a Los Angeles writer named Micah Ian Wright, who’d just published a shrill antiwar poster book called “You Back the Attack! We’ll Bomb Who We Want!” In his book, he described himself as a veteran of combat, a former Army Ranger whose experiences during the 1989 invasion of Panama turned him into a peacenik. In interviews with The Post and other media, he played up that background.

Wright, it turns out, is a liar. He never served in the military — and confessed that last week to his publisher, Seven Stories Press, after we insisted on evidence of his service. Pursuing a tip from real Rangers who’d never heard of Wright, we filed three Freedom of Information Act requests with separate Army commands — and last month finally confirmed that Wright never served.

Military blogger Greyhawk has observations:

Say whatever you will about the war, war is a brutal endeavor and no one desires peace more than the soldier. Say what you will about the president, by virtue of birth in America you have the freedom of speech that so many GIs have died to give you. But don’t you dare claim brotherhood with me, and don’t presume to speak on my behalf, or on that of any imaginary GI you believe thinks like you do.

Michele Catalano is less gentle. And she and Greyhawk are running a contest. Also, Jim Treacher offers a lesson.

UPDATE: Interestingly, a blogger was on this story back in July.

TAXBLOGGING: TaxProf has a Kerry art-deal roundup here, and also an item on tax questions the candidates don’t want you to ask.

PETRODOLLAR DIPLOMACY:

Some of the most prominent former diplomats who condemned Tony Blair’s policies in the Middle East have business links with Arab governments, The Telegraph can reveal.

In a letter published last week, 52 former British diplomats condemned the invasion of Iraq and the Government’s support for Israel.

The letter failed to disclose, however, that several of the key signatories, including Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador to Libya who instigated the letter, are paid by pro-Arab organisations.

Some of the others hold positions in companies seeking lucrative Middle East contracts, while others have unpaid positions with pro-Arab organisations.

The disclosure last night prompted allegations – denied by the diplomats – that they were merely promoting the interests of their clients. Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP for Hendon, said: “If an MP had made statements like these without declaring an interest in the subject they would have been before the standards and privileges committee we would have had their guts for garters.

“This casts a very different light on what the former diplomats have said.”

(Emphasis added.) Yes, it does. And I suspect that this merely scratches the surface where former diplomats — and, perhaps, current diplomats and journalists — are concerned. I’m also pleased to see that the phrase “have their guts for garters” is still in general usage in Britain, something I didn’t realize.

AMERICAN HOSTAGE HAMILL escapes from captors. Cool.

I’M A DAY LATE, but this May Day memorial post from Catallarchy is well worth your attention. Be sure to follow the links.

UPDATE: Jay Solo has more thoughts.

UN SLEAZEFEST DOUBLEHEADER: First this:

Kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein’s regime on contracts signed under the United Nations’ oil-for-food programme were far higher than the 10 per cent rake-off previously assumed to be the norm. . . .

Joseph Christoff, a GAO official, said that the audits were shown routinely only to Benon Sevan, the UN Under Secretary General who ran the programme whose name was on a list of 270 companies and individuals who allegedly received vouchers.

Then there’s this not very promising sign of the U.N.’s attitude toward housecleaning:

The United Nations has threatened to fire two officials who wrote an expose of sleaze and corruption during its peacekeeping missions of the 1990s.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, is understood to have favoured an attempt to block publication of the memoir, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures, a True Story from Hell on Earth, due to be published next month.

Still reeling from the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, officials in the upper echelons of the UN are alarmed by the promised revelations of wild sex parties, petty corruption, and drug use – diversions that helped the peacekeepers to cope with alternating states of terror and boredom.

This is why I find John Kerry’s involve-the-United-Nations approach implausible.

UPDATE: Jan Haugland notes that Kojo Annan’s company is popping up again. And reader Tucker Goodrich emails:

Kofi is self-destructing on Meet The Press… This guy’s so complicit, it’s unbelievable.

I missed that, but I’ll look at the transcript.

BELMONT CLUB POSTS more thoughts on what’s going on in Fallujah: “The Corps, besides incorporating the Chinese word Gung Ho into its vocabulary, may have finally proved to the Arabs that they can out-hudna anyone who ever stood on a patch of sand.”

Read the whole thing, which is quite interesting and suggests that blogospheric calls for a more, um, forthright approach were possibly misguided.

UPDATE: Belmont Club has a followup post. I hope that this analysis is right, and that what’s going on is clever negotiations and divide-and-conquer of the sort that the Marines are good at. I just can’t tell from here.

And here’s some useful perspective, noting that Fallujah isn’t Iraq, much less a proxy for the entire war on terror. That’s certainly true, and it’s interesting that it’s getting so much attention. It’s almost as if it’s meant to distract everyone.

CATHY SEIPP’S MONTHLY REVIEW OF MAUREEN DOWD is up. In this installment, she explains why Dowd’s columns remind her of soft porn.

JEFF JARVIS REVIEWS TED KOPPEL:

To put this another way: The device presents those listed as victims. That is how the device has been used in print with the dead in Vietnam, from AIDS, from urban crime, 9/11 and other acts of terrorism, and so on. Victims. And where there are victims, there is a wrong done to them — by man or nature.

But these are not victims. They are soldiers who went to do a job and did so valiently. But that is not how I saw them presented last night on Nightline. I did not see a tribute. I saw victims. And that is the problem I have with using that device now.

UPDATE:” Jay Rosen says, of course, Koppel was making a political statement — and so what?

I agree with that… except.

Koppel says he wasn’t making a political statement. That’s what’s dishonest about it. He was making a political statement and that would be OK if he’d level with us about it.

He’s trying to be “political” and “objective” at the same time and that doesn’t work. It’s an on-off switch and he’s trying to put the switch in the middle. And it’s arcing.

One of Jeff Goldstein’s commenters observes:

Watched it. Thought it was sad, moving, tasteful.

This is bias I began with, but the program left me with a desire, more visceral than before, to make sure our soldiers didn’t die for nothing, to finish the job.

What Lincoln said at Gettysburg is still true, and that is the lesson I hope our leaders on both sides take from seeing the faces of the fallen.

There are some other interesting comments.

MY BROTHER’S IN TOWN, and blogging will be light this weekend. But I want to be sure to recommend Ron Rosenbaum’s new book, Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism, a collection of essays and excerpts from all sorts of people including David Brooks, Frank Rich, Barbara Amiel, Larry Summers, Nat Hentoff, et al. My copy showed up in yesterday’s mail, and it was immediately seized by the Insta-Wife (this happens often) but she pronounces it excellent, and it looks that way to me, too, based on what I could tell before she got hold of it.

I also notice that the book includes a chapter by Laurie Zoloth on the anti-semitic riot at San Francisco State University, which I wrote about here a couple of years ago. There seems little question to me that anti-semitism is undergoing a major revival, and I’m glad that this book is addressing it.

IF A BUTTERFLY BALLOT FLAPS ITS WINGS, does it lead to volcanoes and tidal waves? In Hollywood, yes.

UPDATE: More here:

Hollywood has never been known to let scientific fact get in the way of a good story, and recent releases provide plenty examples in which a filmmaker will rely on technical fudgery so as not to bore an audience. In Godsend, for instance, the parents of an eight-year-old car accident victim employ some technologically dicey methods to clone their son after his death. Last month’s Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carrey plays a man who erases all memory of his ex-girlfriend from his brain, intentionally glosses over the neurological aspects of such a procedure, preserving a sense of possibility without the burden of scientific realism. It should come as no surprise, then, that Fox’s upcoming The Day After Tomorrow might not offer an entirely accurate portrayal of global warming. . . .

What one might not expect, however, is seeing well-known environmental policy advocates rally behind the erroneous earth science upon which Day After Tomorrow is founded. Yet this is exactly what they plan to do. In a “town hall” meeting scheduled for the same night as and literally down the street from the premiere of the movie, Al Gore, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and MoveOn.org will use the film to draw attention to Bush’s record on environmental abuse. “The Day After Tomorrow presents us with a great opportunity to talk about the scientific realities of climate change,” Gore said to Variety. “Millions of people will be . . . asking the question, ‘Could this really happen?’” In true Hollywood cliffhanger fashion, the former Vice President offered no answer, implying that the voters will have to tune in to find out.

I’ll spare you the suspense: The answer is “no.”

SOME GOOD STUFF FROM KERRY: “I believe that failure is not an option in Iraq.”

Unfortunately, I don’t see the multilateralism he champions as viable.

KERRY = GORE: That’s the fear of leading Democrats like Tony Coelho and Donna Brazile.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: The Ted Koppel Interview. Again, as reliable as Maureen Dowd — but much more amusing!

UPDATE: An interesting bit of historical perspective on war casualties and the reporting thereof.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Vecchione emails with a point that many readers have made:

If it wasn’t a political stunt to show disapproval of the Iraqi invasion why aren’t the names of those soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Kosovo (two the other day) being listed? Because Koppel doesn’t have a problem with those fights.

Seems that way to me.

THE TORTURE INCIDENT: I don’t have a lot to add to what Kim Du Toit says:

If they’re found guilty, I hope these assholes go to jail.

Because when the Islamist pricks do this kind of thing to our soldiers, I want to be able to go after them with a vengeful spirit.

Of course, it’s not the same as Saddam’s torture — which was a matter of top-down policy, not the result of assholes who deserve jail or execution, and will probably get one or both. As with other reported misbehavior, it should be dealt with very, very harshly. But those who would — as Senator Kerry did after Vietnam — make such behavior emblematic of our effort, instead of recognizing it as an abandonment of our principles — are mere opportunists.

LT Smash has more thoughts:

THE UGLY TRUTH of warfare is that there are no “knights in shining armor” who will always fight for Good. Evil lurks deep in the hearts of all men, and it doesn’t care what flag you wear on your sleeve. We are most vulnerable when we suffer under the burden of tremendous stress – but the ultimate responsibility to resist Evil lies with every individual.

Our soldiers sometimes do horrible things. Disgusting things. Cruel things.

When they do, we must not hide from the truth. Those repsonsible must be identified, prosecuted, and punished appropriately. There must be a public accounting for these crimes.

Because we are a civilized society, we must never give in to the temptation to brush aside such atrocities as “the way things are in war.” For if we fail in this responsibility, we will ultimately become no better than those we are fighting.

And that would be the greatest tragedy of all.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg:

This needs to be investigated and prosecuted. If there’s more to the story — whatever that could conceivably be — let’s find out. But if the story is as it appears, there has to be accountability, punishment and disclosure. Indeed, even if this turned out to be a prank, too much damage has already been done and someone needs to be punished.

Under Saddam torturers were rewarded and promoted. In America they must be held to account.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Several readers point out that California Attorney General Bill Lockyer probably wouldn’t see a problem here. But let’s not let our standards fall so low.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “what they have done is tantamount to treason, in that they have certainly given aid to our enemies, in the form of propaganda fodder, during a time of war.”

Sgt. Stryker is equally harsh: “Every single angle of this story is disgusting and infuriating.” Read the whole thing, which gets much harsher.

MORE: Will Collier emails (and, though his email didn’t say so, posts):

What’s the difference between what this small group US guys did in Iraq and what Saddam (and every other Arab state) has been doing for years?

In our case, the people who did this will spend most, if not the rest of their lives in Kansas making small rocks out of big rocks.

In every other case, they¹d be promoted.

End of comparison.

Indeed. Which isn’t a reason to ignore it, but which is relevant to the lessons people might tend to draw.

STILL MORE: Greyhawk notes an unsung hero: “Does anyone out there think 60 Minutes exposed this story? They didn’t. (but they want you to think they did.) This was a case of a courageous individual stepping forward and enabling the Army to police itself.”

Read the whole thing.

ISN’T THIS A BIT INCONSISTENT with earlier stuff that Joe Wilson has said?

It was Saddam Hussein’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as “Baghdad Bob,” who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade — an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.

That’s according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy enriched “yellowcake” uranium. Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source.

Hmm. Maybe this is why we haven’t heard much on this topic lately.

UPDATE: Matthew Hoy has more thoughts on this.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

April 30, 2004 — WASHINGTON – The State Department’s No. 2 official said yesterday that those guilty of corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program “ought to hang.”

The blunt remarks by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to a House subcommittee were the strongest comments the Bush administration has made since accusations surfaced in January that Saddam Hussein ripped off $10 billion from the program.

This should have some people worrying.

Meanwhile, the U.N.’s reputation has gotten so bad that even the Canadians are jumping ship:

WASHINGTON — With yesterday’s landmark speech, Paul Martin tacitly acknowledged what Canada’s foreign policy establishment has refused to accept for decades: that the United Nations is a failure, for which there is no solution.

The Prime Minister’s proposed alternative is a new international body, the G-20 summit of world leaders, representative of North and South, developed and developing, rich and poor: a working group unfettered by the UN’s bureaucracy and its anachronistic Security Council.

What hath Kofi wrought?

THE NATIONAL DEBATE says that Ted Koppel’s excuses are wearing thin.

I’d still like to see Nightline present the names of all the oil-for-food money recipients. And maybe of a few Iraqi kids who died because of the fraud’s keeping them from getting medicine. And maybe an interview with Kofi Annan’s son, Kojo, about his role. . . .

Just in the name of balance, you know.

MAINSTREAM JOURNALISTS sometimes complain that bloggers don’t do enough original reporting. Well, here’s some. With photos! It would be interesting to see more of this sort of reporting in the mainstream media.

And here’s some more, though I think that this particular specimen is about as reliable as the Bush quotes in a Maureen Dowd column. But it’s more amusing.

HEY, MAYBE IT’S WORKING! Both CNN and the BBC report that terror attacks are at their lowest level in 30 years.

UPDATE: Allen S. Thorpe emails:

I hope somebody is writing a history of the secret war that’s going on now but can’t be reported. You can’t have the same kind of news coverage for a war on terror as you can for a ground war like Iraq, Vietnam or WWII, but we need history.

I keep hearing the press complain that they’re not getting enough information, but when I hear the questions they ask, I’m amazed anybody talks to them at all.

Indeed.

HELP WANTED AD: “Experience in blogging is a plus.” But of course!

SOUTHKNOXBUBBA gets a mention in Sports Illustrated.

LAST NIGHT I finished reading Robert Silverberg’s latest, Roma Eterna, an alternative-history novel in which Rome never fell (Moses got stopped before he reached the Red Sea). An interesting book, tracing two alternative millennia via a series of interleaved short stories, essentially. If you like alt-history, I think you’ll like it.

I DON’T HAVE MUCH TO SAY about the Google IPO. But Venturpreneur has multiple posts on the subject — just keep scrolling.

DANIEL HENNINGER REPORTS on Spirit of America’s fundraising drive, which has exceeded goals 15-fold.

BJORN STAERK NOTES high-level antisemitism in Norway.

ARE WE GOING TOO SOFT IN IRAQ? Some people think so. It seems that way to me, too, though I’m reluctant to make a judgment at this distance. But in my lifetime, at least, the United States has generally erred by not being violent enough, rather than by being too brutal.

UPDATE: “Too soft” seems to be the consensus around the blogosphere. And maybe it’s true — though it’s worth remembering that the daily reports of “explosions in Fallujah” for the past few weeks didn’t involve very much of our stuff being blown up, and that the amount of damage done to the enemy there is probably greater than news accounts suggest — but reader Tucker Goodrich emails:

After reading the article below, one can also interpret this as the Iraqis finally starting to take responsibility for the state of their country.

They don’t like us doing it, but they don’t want these people to succeed. That leaves them with one real choice, and it’s one we have to encourage if our experiment in Iraq is going to succeed. That sounds like the Marines’ attitude.

That’s right. As I say, I’m reluctant to second-guess the Marines on the scene with regard to this sort of thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Barbara Lerner says that it was Rumsfeld’s war, but it’s been Powell’s occupation.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jim Hohnbaum emails:

I was an officer in the military, and I’ve known a lot of Marines, and I don’t believe for a second that letting the Iraquis handle it was the Marines’ idea. I believe if they had their way they would have gone in weeks ago rather than calling it off and letting the insurgents dig in and set booby traps. To me this whole thing stinks of a real Vietnam analogy: the lack of political will in Washington to let the troops win the war. This is supposed to be a war on terror, and we have a lot of terrorists surrounded. Don’t tell me the Marines just want to walk away, because I don’t believe it.

Dang. I hope that’s wrong.

UPLOADED SOME NEW PICTURES to the Exposure Manager gallery for anyone who’s interested.

The picture to the right is Ozone Falls, which is less than an hour from my house. It’s a “natural area,” which means there are no trails, and you just scramble down a less-steep part of the cliff to get to the falls. There’s a sign and a pull-off, but I was the only one around the whole time I was there.

I’ve really enjoyed cruising around the backroads with car and camera lately. And it’s reminded me just how terrific this part of the country is. There are lots of hidden gems like this one all over the place, with most people (even people who live around here) barely aware that they exist.

It’s also a pleasure to meet people all over. Everyone I’ve met has been friendly, and happy to chat, or offer directions. Whenever I travel around the United States I’m always amazed at that. Wherever you go, people think that folks elsewhere are less friendly, but they’re mostly wrong.

HUGH HEWITT has advice for Michael Kinsley.

RYAN BOOTS has his weekly roundup of the Iraqi blogs, which he’s calling the Carnival of the Liberated. It’s a must-read.

ART AND TAXES? Some questions for Kerry.

UPDATE: Accountant reader David Walser says something’s wrong here. Click “more” to read his take.

Continue reading ‘ART AND TAXES? Some questions for Kerry.

UPDATE: Accountant reader David Walser says something’s …’ »

MAX BOOT WRITES that Kerry should base his campaign on the muscle gap.

THE BLOGOSPHERE IS MOVING FAST to help the Marines combat Al Jazeera’s propaganda, with the first shipment of television equipment bought with blog-readers’ donations going out just 23 days after it started. It’s enough to outfit eight independent Iraqi television stations. Bravo to the blogosphere!

But the real question is why this is being addressed via private donations a year after Saddam fell?

UPDATE: Reader Joe Zwers offers a positive take:

And the real answer is that central planning always leaves something out. The Soviets five year plans consistently failed. China’s Great Leap Forward was a disaster. North Korea was once the more prosperous and industrialized part of that peninsula. Now it can’t feed its own people, even with massive food aid, while the south prospers.

So, the U.S. did plan many things properly in the Iraq war, but there were clearly some omissions. This is to be expected. In World War II, I believe it was, people were knitting socks for the troops since the Army didn’t have an adequate supply. What this does show, however, is that because this country is not as rigid as other societies, it can quickly respond to needs on a voluntary basis. That is why a free societies triumph over the long run, despite the supposed efficiencies of more structured ones.

Um, okay, but I still think that they should have thought of this sooner.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Gerard van der Leun reports from Camp Pendleton.

And here’s a photo gallery posted by Donovan Janus of Exposure Manager.

SPACE PROPERTY RIGHTS CLAIM DISMISSED: The link is to a District Court opinion. This opinion underscores my position that some sort of actual possession, and not simply the making of a claim, is essential to the creation of a property interest in an asteroid or other space real estate.

STEVEN DEN BESTE IS IRRITATED. As usual, a long and interesting post results.

JAN HAUGLAND says that Al Jazeera is an enemy combatant.

THE 9/11 COMMISSION IS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING — how else do you explain this:

The commission of five Republicans and five Democrats issued a statement saying Bush and Cheney had been “forthcoming and candid” and their input would be of great assistance as it looks to complete a final report by July 26.

Two Democrats on the panel, Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton and former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, left the session about an hour early. Hamilton, a former congressman from Indiana, was said to have had a prior commitment to introduce visiting Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at a lunch

If it’s worth ditching the President’s testimony for a luncheon introduction, the whole enterprise can’t amount to much. (Emphasis added).

ROGER SIMON HAS MORE ON UNSCAM, and how even people who admit the existence of the scandal seem unwilling to admit the implications.

Sadly, Tom Lantos, who usually knows better, appears to be among those in denial.

Sorry, but what this scandal reveals is that the United Nations can’t be trusted, on grounds of either integrity or competence, to discharge its alleged mission of promoting human rights and world peace.

IF YOU TOOK VIDEO OF THE “MARCH FOR WOMEN’S LIVES” Evan Coyne Maloney would like a copy.

I GUESS THIS IS ASYMMETRICAL ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE:

Mystery group wage war on Sadr’s militia

In a deadly expression of feelings that until now were kept quiet, a group representing local residents is said to have killed at least five militiamen in the last four days.

The murders are the first sign of organised Iraqi opposition to Sadr’s presence and come amid simmering discontent at the havoc their lawless presence has wreaked.

The group calls itself the Thulfiqar Army, after a twin-bladed sword said to be used by the Shiite martyr Imam Ali, to whom Najaf’s vast central mosque is dedicated.

Residents say leaflets bearing that name have been circulated in the city in the last week, urging Sadr’s al-Mahdi army to leave immediately or face imminent death. . . .

“It has got some of the Mahdi guys quite worried, I tell you. They are banding together more, when normally you would see them happily walking on the streets alone. I think their commanders have ordered them to do that.”

Heh.

IT’S PROBABLY UNCOLLEGIAL OF ME to pick on Douglas Brinkley — I think that he and I have chapters in the same book coming out this summer — but his flacking for Kerry has gotten so bad that even lefty columnists are calling him on it:

These days Brinkley is acting a lot less like a historian and a lot more like a PR flack for John Kerry, the subject of Brinkley’s flattering bestseller “Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War.” Brinkley proclaims his independence from the Kerry campaign — “This is my book, not his,” he writes in “Tour” — but he’s become a major player in the Kerry agitprop machine.

On television, in magazines, and on Kerry’s website, Brinkley functions as a dependable surrogate for the candidate, quick to testify to Kerry’s unflinching qualities of heroism and leadership. . . .

It gets worse. After the Kerry campaign learned that the Globe had interviewed Gardner for its Kerry biography, Brinkley called Gardner. The presidential historian — Brinkley has written about Franklin Roosevelt and is a disciple of the late historian and biographer Stephen Ambrose — warned Gardner of a “firestorm” if the vet went public with his doubts about Kerry, and then hacked out an article attacking the former gunner’s mate on Time magazine’s website!

Hilariously, Kerry declined to talk to the Globe about Gardner’s criticisms, but graced Brinkley with his opinion — uncritically relayed by the historian — that Gardner’s stories were “made up.”

Who needs opposition research when Doug Brinkley is on the case?

Ouch.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

Dozens of internal United Nations audits of the troubled oil-for-food program in Iraq were routinely shown only to the U.N. official now at the center of an international scandal over kickbacks from the regime of Saddam Hussein, a congressional investigator said yesterday.

Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office, told a House hearing that U.N. auditors had refused to release the internal audits to GAO investigators probing the scandal that poured an estimated $10.1 billion from secret oil sales and inflated contracts into Saddam’s coffers under the U.N. program.

Stonewalling. Imagine that!

UPDATE: Then there’s the this:

April 29, 2004 — WASHINGTON – The vast majority of the United Nations’ oil-for-food contracts in Iraq have mysteriously vanished, crippling investigators trying to uncover fraud in the program, a government report charged yesterday.

It’s not so mysterious, really. . . .

If this doesn’t prove that the United Nations isn’t up to the job, I don’t know what does. It’s time for a top-to-bottom housecleaning, but it won’t happen. There are too many people with their hand in the till, and too many politicians with a vested interest in pretending that the United Nations is something like the United Federation of Planets, instead of the corrupt-yet-inept dictators’ defense fund that it really is.

FRITZ SCHRANCK has some firsthand observations on the state of the economy. Some of his reporting is from Pawley’s Island, a place where my family used to vacation regularly.

UPDATE: Fritz is certainly clearer than the guys at CBS Marketwatch, where the headline says “U.S. Growth Cools” — but the story tells us that GDP grew 4.2% last quarter as opposed to 4.1% the quarter before. That’s cooling? Apparently it is, when “economists, on average, had been expecting slightly stronger growth.” Sheesh. I don’t think this is political slant or anything. It’s just bad.

ALGERIA AGAIN:

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security is investigating whether Islamic extremists infiltrated the nation by stowing away on Algerian liquefied natural gas tankers that docked in the Port of Boston and has concluded several stowaways may have had links to indicted Al Qaeda terrorists, officials disclosed yesterday.

Hmm. Given the enormous destructive potential of liquefied natural gas tankers, I hope we’re taking a very, very close look at these.

JAMES LILEKS:

In the future, I think, newspapers will become almost entirely devoted to local news and happy fluff, like me. I depend on my paper for local news, because I don’t watch TV news. . . .

That’s the niche that waits for them. The internet will swamp their ability to sum up the daily state of the world, because a) there’s so much available on the net from the big dogs, and b) small little-noted institutional biases in the paper’s selection of news stories will kill their credibility with those who sample from many sources.

Indeed.

A MARINE IN IRAQ is asking for your help.

JAY REDING:

Compare the silence on the UN scandal with the cacophony of stories on Enron, WorldCom, and Martha Stewart. There is a clear double standard at play here. When a corrupt CEO loses billions of dollars, it’s all over the news for weeks. When a member of the UN does it, it’s as though it never happened.

Well, there has been some coverage — but not that much, and certainly nothing like the drumbeat of stories we got on Enron when it first broke. Of course, some people thought that the Enron scandal would knock Bush out of office, while this scandal merely has the potential to undercut John Kerry’s multilateral approach to foreign policy and cost him the election. So there’s nothing to see here. . . .

PHOTOBLOGGING: Here’s a gallery of beautiful photos from Vietnam.

HUGH HEWITT played an embarrassing speech by Frank Lautenberg on his show today:

How to explain the Lautenberg melt-down? Well, many, many callers and e-mailers who heard me play the speech think he was drunk. I don’t.

Read the whole thing.

WHY NOT? EVERYBODY ELSE IS: Frank J. is offering advice to John Kerry. Sadly, some of it may actually be better than the advice he’s getting from the campaign staff. . .

WELL, THIS IS A TRADITIONAL METHOD of supporting the troops.

(Via who else?)

NANOTECHNOLOGY: A CAUTIONARY TALE. Best caveat: “Perhaps the most unlikely thing about this tale is the possibility of the side without a nanofactory being victorious in war.”

CATHY SEIPP HAS THE SCOOP ON THE SPIN SISTERS: The comments about bias and clueless elitism in women’s magazines sound like something the InstaWife might say.

I’LL NEVER TRUST NIGHTLINE AGAIN — because its producer, Leroy Sievers, claims to be unaware of when ratings sweeps take place:

Koppel, also in the announcement, acknowledged that Memorial Day might have been “the most logical occasion” to do the program. Ya think?

“But we felt that the impact would actually be greater on a day when the entire nation is not focused on war dead,” he said.

Ah yes, and, of course, Memorial Day falls outside the May sweeps, when viewer levels are used by the networks to set advertising rates. Memorial Day is also traditionally a day of very low television viewing. He forgot to mention that stuff.

Sievers and others we spoke with at ABC News insisted they did not realize that the May sweeps start tomorrow.

So Nightline is staffed by either clueless idiots unfit to work in TV, or by shameless liars who think we’ll fall for anything. Which is it?

Who cares?

UPDATE: Reader David Whidden asks: “Did Ted Koppel ever read the names of the 3,000 people who died on September 11? Just wondering.”

Not to my knowledge.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Laurence Simon emails:

I worked at an ABC O&O down here in Houston for four and a half years. For anyone in ABC to say that they have no idea when sweeps starts, from the CEO down to a security guard, is quite possibly the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.

If he’s telling the truth, then it’s proof of why ABC is in fourth place out of the Big Three.

If he’s lying, then he’s got a bright future as a potential head of ABC News.

Heh. Meanwhile reader David Walser emails: “Maybe Ted could read the names of those Saddam would have killed, raped, or tortured had he remained in power.”

I’d settle for him reading the names of the people who got oil-money from Saddam as part of the oil-for-food scandal. . . .

MORE: Ted Koppel: “When we began taking our journalism more lightly, people began taking us less seriously.”

Well said!

STILL MORE: Reader John Reandeau emails:

If Nightline’s stunt is news and not a political statement, then why are they leaving out the names of those who have died in Operation Enduring Freedom? As Pat Tillman made us aware, we still have Americans fighting and dying in Afghanistan as well. The deliberate separation of Iraq from the rest of the War on Terror is agenda journalism at its best. I love the idea of remembering and naming our military dead. But I detest the way Koppel intends to exploit them.

-John
PS – If I had a Neilsen diary, I wouldn’t be watching.

Me neither.

BLACKFIVE brings us thoughts of a sort quite alien to Michael Moore.

GROWING ANTI-MULLAH SENTIMENT IN IRAN? Stephen Green posts a lengthy and detailed report.

SPOONS HAS THE UNSCAM COVERAGE ALL FIGURED OUT: And with a handy chart!

A CAUTIONARY NOTE: Kerry’s various gaffes have got Bush supporters feeling pretty good this week. But I don’t think that the Kerry campaign’s misfortunes will continue forever, and the Bush people need to recognize that his campaign has its own issues. He’s entirely capable of losing this election, despite all the help he’s currently getting from the Kerry campaign’s screwups.

In particular, I still think that they should get rid of Cheney in favor of Condi Rice. Cheney’s contribution to the ticket the first time around was (as we heard over and over again) gravitas. Bush doesn’t need him for that now. Cheney also has a lot of baggage, which Bush also doesn’t need. And his role in the Administration is open to question — I’ve recently spoken to a couple of current and former Administration folks, with no particular axes to grind, who think that Cheney’s doing considerably more harm than good.

Of course, if they were planning a move like that, it would be smart to wait until later to announce it. . . .

UPDATE: On the other hand, Daniel Drezner has a piece in TNR that explains Kerry’s problems well: “The problem is not that Bush is unbeatable; the problem is that he seems unbeatable when compared to Kerry.”

I think he’s onto something in his analysis, which isn’t as snarky as that sentence standing alone makes it sound.

THANKS! For some reason, a bunch of people hit the Amazon and PayPal donation buttons yesterday. Or maybe for no reason at all. (Hey, who needs a reason?)

Anyway, thanks a lot. It’s a much appreciated antidote to the hatemail. For some reason, the hatemailers seldom send money.

ANOTHER PHOTO REPORT FROM INDC, this one from the anti-IMF protests.

UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein’s description of this report is, um, much more colorful than the one above.

Yeah, like that’s a surprise.

IT SEEMS I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE to make a Kerry-Dole comparison.

JEFF JARVIS HAS A ROUNDUP OF IRAQI BLOG POSTS: The UN and USA Today are getting criticized, though for different reasons.

MORE ON UNSCAM:

Why did France and Russia oppose efforts to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime? And why did they press constantly, throughout the ’90s, for an expansion of Iraqi oil sales? Was it their empathy for the starving children of that impoverished nation? Their desire to stop the United States from arrogantly imposing its vision upon the Middle East?

It now looks like they it was simply because they were on the take. Saddam was their cash cow. If President Bush has suffered some discredit over his apparently false – but not disingenuous – claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the lapse is minor compared to the outright personal selfishness and criminality that appears to have motivated many of those who opposed his efforts to rid the world of one of its worst dictators. . . .

The defect of international coalitions is that they include the just and the unjust, the bribed and the honest, the democratic and the autocratic. And their members cannot be trusted equally. The group that stood up and backed the invasion of Iraq was nicknamed “the Coalition of the Willing.” Now it appears it was also “the Coalition of the Honest.”

The press’s relative lack of interest in this colossal scandal — which dwarfs anything involving Enron or Martha Stewart — is hard to explain. As reader Brian Naughton writes:

With the UNscam story unravelling almost daily, no one seems to be talking about the CEO of UN Inc. I’m referring, of course to Kofi Annan. If this guy isn’t complicit in these crimes he would have to be the most astoundingly incompetent CEO in recent history, perhaps ever!

Yes. It’s interesting that he’s not getting the kind of treatment that corporate CEO’s get, notwithstanding that this is likely the biggest financial-fraud scandal in history.

UPDATE: Mystery writer Roger Simon is looking for this scandal’s Mr. Big.

MORE KERRY WORRIES:

In recent appearances, Mr. Kerry’s digressions and obfuscations about whether he threw a war medal or a ribbon on the White House lawn in 1971—or whether the young Mr. Kerry should have used the word “war crimes” to describe actions in Vietnam—have obscured the candidate. At every turn, he has managed to turn the TV screen into smoked glass: He’s right in front of you, but you can’t … quite … make … him … out. With his morose patrician mien and robotic delivery—parodied with precision by Jon Stewart on the Monday, April 24, Daily Show, surely not a good thing for the candidate—Mr. Kerry’s TV performances are sounding a gut-level alarm about his ability to inspire confidence in the electorate. . . .

“I’m not sure what the message is—that may be the essence of the problem,” said Joe McGinniss, the author of The Selling of the President, the best-seller that detailed Richard M. Nixon’s media strategy. As a Massachusetts resident, Mr. McGinniss said he had never seen Mr. Kerry do well on TV—or even in public, for that matter.

I’m pretty sure that if John Edwards were the presumptive nominee, we wouldn’t be hearing so much voters’ remorse from Democrats. This sounds like Bob Dole all over again: He can’t connect with the public, he’s unappealing on TV, but we’ll nominate him anyway! Did we mention he’s a war hero? They always win!

DONALD RUMSFELD ON BIAS FROM THE PRESS:

There are two ways, I suppose, one could inform readers of the Geneva Convention stipulation against using places of worship to conduct military attacks. One might be to headline saying that Terrorists Attack Coalition Forces From Mosques. That would be one way to present the information.

Another might be to say: Mosques Targeted in Fallujah. That was the Los Angeles Times headline this morning.

Ouch. (Via CPT Patti).

RISKS TO NANOTECHNOLOGY INVESTORS: My TechCentralStation column is up.

DAVID ADESNIK makes clear why Wesley Clark isn’t the nominee. Ouch.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Claudia Rosett writes:

It’s looking more and more as if one of the best reasons to get rid of Saddam Hussein was that it was probably the only way to get rid of Oil-for-Food. The problem wasn’t simply that this huge United Nations relief program for Iraq became a gala of graft, theft, fraud, palace-building and global influence-peddling–though all that was quite bad enough. The picture now emerging is that under U.N. management the Oil-for-Food program, which ran from 1996-2003, served as a cover not only for Saddam’s regime to cheat the Iraqi people, but to set up a vast and intricate global network of illicit finance. . . .

In Oil-for-Food, “Every contract tells a story,” says John Fawcett, a financial investigator with the New York law firm of Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, which has sued the financial sponsors of Sept. 11 on behalf of the victims and their families. In an interview, Mr. Fawcett and his colleague, Christine Negroni, run down the lists of Oil-for-Food authorized oil buyers and relief suppliers, pointing out likely terrorist connections. One authorized oil buyer, they note, was a remnant of the defunct global criminal bank, BCCI. Another was close to the Taliban while Osama bin Laden was on the rise in Afghanistan; a third was linked to a bank in the Bahamas involved in al Qaeda’s financial network; a fourth had a close connection to one of Saddam’s would-be nuclear-bomb makers. . . .

In a world beset right now by terrorist threats–which depend on terrorist financing–it’s time to acknowledge that the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food program was worse than simply a case of grand larceny. Given Saddam’s proclivities for deceit and violence, Oil-for-Food was also a menace to security.

Indeed.

HUGH HEWITT:

Just watched John Kerry on Hardball. Incredibly, although Chris Matthews asked not a single hard question, Kerry managed to hurt himself badly on at least three occasions, and I didn’t hear the entire interview.

Yes, that’s the campaign in a nutshell, at the moment.

Message to Republicans: Don’t get cocky. Kerry can’t possibly do this badly for the entire campaign.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Chris Matthews should be worried. Will Collier says he’s going home to Mama.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch — tough crowd in Will Collier’s comment section:

You know Matthews is slipping when he’s the guy Democrats go to in order to recover from the tough questioning on Good Morning America.

Did I say ouch? I’ll say it again. Ouch!

OXBLOG HAS A ROUNDUP of various people’s thoughts on what we should be doing in Iraq.

KENNETH TIMMERMAN SAYS that Saddam’s WMD have been found. Given the way this week has been going for John Kerry, he’s probably right. . . .

OVER AT FRAGMENTS FROM FLOYD, the Nikon D70 is getting a good review. I certainly like mine.

UNSCAM UPDATE: James Morrow has a column in The Australian on the oil-for-food scandal:

Those named include not just Sevan but a vast array of Russian politicians, close friends of French President Jacques Chirac (including France’s former minister of the interior), British Labour MP George Galloway, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and, closer to home, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

In short, it’s a who’s who list of high-profile anti-war and anti-sanctions voices, all revealed to be shills for Saddam.

But by far the biggest recipient of Saddam’s largesse was the UN. During the program’s existence, more than $US1 billion was kept by the organisation as a fee for administering the program. As one senior UN diplomat recently told London’s Daily Telegraph: “The UN was not doing this work just for the good of Iraq. Cash from Saddam’s government was keeping the UN going for a few years.”

Amazingly, though, it has taken an incredible amount of time for this story to get what little traction it has so far gained in the media. (Certainly the anti-war Left, which is happy to believe that George W. Bush toppled Saddam to kick a few contracts to Dick Cheney’s old pals at Halliburton, has been deafeningly silent on the topic.)

Perhaps because of all the DIY international lawyering engaged in by the world press corps in the run-up to Iraq’s invasion, many journalists are reluctant to admit that the UN they put so much faith in was many times more corrupt than they could imagine the Bush White House being.

Or maybe they just don’t want to admit that so many of the anti-war voices they used to support their stories were bought and paid for with money belonging to the long-suffering, if little-mentioned, Iraqi people.

But the naive belief among journalists with little or no international law background that no military action is legitimate without the UN’s seal of approval is one thing. The continued fetishistic belief of politicians and opinion-makers in the supposed good intentions of the UN is another — and it is something that needs to end immediately.

It’s ended here.

FROM THE VILLAGE VOICE:

WASHINGTON, D.C.— With the air gushing out of John Kerry’s balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn’t have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party’s got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can’t exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.

With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton’s triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.

Is resurrecting John Edwards the answer? I doubt it, though I liked him better than Kerry. Lots of people on the right, meanwhile, are predicting a last-minute appearance by Hillary Clinton. This sounds like the stuff of pundit dreams more than reality (though she’d probably be better on the war than Kerry — say what you will about Hillary, but nobody’s ever accused her of being wimpish or indecisive). It’s not too late for Kerry’s campaign to hit its stride. But all this wheel-spinning isn’t helping.

AIRPORT SECURITY:

Someone attempting an exact replay of the 9/11 attacks today would likely be beaten to within an inch of death – and I wouldn’t take that inch for granted – by passengers with nothing to lose. Even if the terrorists managed get to the cockpit, physical locks and airline policy would make it impossible to take control of the plane. They could kill everyone on board and blow up the airplane, but that makes this kind of attack identical in effect to the “bombing” type. The “hijacking” category, at least for commercial passenger flights, has been largely negated. “Never again” is not just a solemn vow here. It is a statement of fact.

Why, then, do I still have to surrender my nail clippers, take off my belt and wait three quarters of an hour to go through a metal detector honed to such a level of sensitivity that the steak taco I had for lunch sets it wailing? What harm could I inflict with a one inch piece of flimsy metal on a hundred instant air marshals, a bank-vault quality door and pilots specifically trained to never give up control of the airplane? Why is our still-recovering economy being subjected to this level of delay and inefficiency? More importantly, why are our dramatically finite security dollars being spent here as opposed to on other, largely unsolved, problems – like the other three types of threats outlined above? Are these measures effective security, or are they primarily meant to comfort us?

I think we know the answer.

PAMELA BONE:

I am sent a newsletter from a women’s rights group in Pakistan, which lists items from Pakistani newspapers. The following is a recent selection (I checked the items on the newspapers’ websites):

Lahore: A girl, Kauser, 17, was strangled by her elder brother because she had married of her own will. She returned home and asked her family to forgive her but her brother strangled her with a piece of cloth. – The Daily Times.

Ghotki district: Two women were killed over Karo-Kari (honour killing). One Nihar Jatoi tied his wife to a bed and electrocuted her. One Bachal axed his wife Salma to death and fled. No arrests were reported. – The News.

Sargodha: A woman is in hospital after having both legs amputated because of severe injuries inflicted by her brother-in-law and mother-in-law, who clubbed her for her alleged illicit affairs. The woman, who was fighting for life, said the real reason was that her brother-in-law was trying to force her to arrange his marriage to her younger sister, but her sister had instead eloped with her paramour. – Dawn.

What chance of this woman becoming an international symbol, as has the boy who so tragically lost his arms during the invasion of Iraq?

Why is international public opinion not outraged at the treatment of women in Islamic fundamentalist societies? Why is it easier for millions of people around the world to see America as the great evil, rather than the countries in which governments ignore such horrific abuses of women?

Because elites around the world see American culture as a more immediate threat to their power than Islamic fundamentalism.

THIS suggests that they need remedial civics lessons for the Times editorial board:

An editorial on Saturday about citizenship testing referred to a question about voting rights that many people get wrong — and gave the wrong answer. The Constitution does not specify a “right to vote.” Four Amendments, the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th, forbid denying or abridging the right to vote on account of such things as race and sex. The Seventh Amendment, mentioned in the editorial, deals with the right to have a lawsuit tried by a jury.

Indeed.

SOUTH DAKOTA’S POLITICAL SOAP OPERA continues to unfold.

I DON’T KNOW WHETHER Amazon is going to replace brick-and-mortar merchants, but I notice that I’m buying more and more stuff from them. And in a related development, my wife heard from a real-estate person that small commercial-office space is in a glut because a lot of people are running their businesses out of their home, given the ease of doing so that comes from the combination of Internet, cellphones, and UPS. I suspect that there’s more of this kind of thing going on under the radar.

TRADITIONAL MEDIA MARKETING “is crumbling, just crumbling.”

JOHN KERRY — the next Wesley Clark?

I don’t know if things are as bad for Kerry as this makes him sound. But his campaign is definitely not ready for primetime, and the election season is pretty far along.

UPDATE: Thomas Oliphant: “I watched Kerry throw his war decorations.”

John Podhoretz: “Kerry is a terrible, terrible, terrible candidate.”

All campaigns have their ups and downs, and Kerry may find his stride. But it does seem to be true that his best week so far was the week he took off.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kerry still has Adam Nagourney on his side! It’s like stepping into a parallel universe where the Kerry campaign is a well-oiled machine. Hey, look, Spock has a beard!

(Not this one.)

STEPHEN BAINBRIDGE ON PROFESSIONAL TRAVEL:

Traveling to attend academic conferences or to give faculty workshops has definite benefits. You raise your visibility in the profession. You meet interesting people and see old friends. Often, you learn stuff and/or get valuable feedback on a project.

The costs are escalating, however. Security hassles. Long lines. Delays. Cancelled flights. Grungy airplanes. Lousy food. Surly service. Disrupted sleep patterns. Lately, moreover, I seem to come down with a cold – or something worse – after roughly every other flight.

I enjoyed my trip to Chicago, but on balance it just isn’t worth it anymore.

Yeah, I often enjoy those trips, but overall, professional travel is more of a “have to” than a “get to.”

BUY AN AD on Al Jazeera? Why not?

JAMES LILEKS: “This may be the one thing that makes the Arab Street rise up: it gets leveled, by Arabs.”

HMM:

Sudan has ordered the removal of Syrian missiles and weapons of mass destruction out of the African country.

Arab diplomatic and Sudanese government sources said the regime of Sudanese President Omar Bashir has ordered that Syria remove its Scud C and Scud D medium-range ballistic missiles as well as components for chemical weapons stored in warehouses in Khartoum. The sources said the Sudanese demand was issued after the Defense Ministry and Interior Ministry confirmed a report published earlier this month that Syria has been secretly flying Scud-class missiles and WMD components to Khartoum.

Very interesting. And I wonder where Syria got them?

DON’T MISS THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLOGGER ROUNDUP. Also, Alphecca has posted its weekly roundup of gun bias in the media, and don’t miss this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists.

Yeah, I’ve been busy today, and I’m behind.

GIVE ME A BREAK: Just saw Linda Ellerbee running a pathetically slanted anti-Bush “kids’ news” item on the economy, on Nickelodeon. Sheesh.

UNSCAM UPDATE: H.D. Miller asks “who is Javier Robert?” I hope that lots of people will want to investigate this. (Via Friends of Saddam).

MICHAEL TOTTEN offers advice for John Kerry on the medals flap:

Here you go, senator. Say this on the TV: “Today’s more strident anti-war activists remind me of my own immature self back in 1971.” It will kill two proverbial birds with a single figurative stone. It will play well among people who matter. And you’ll feel a lot better.

Better advice than he’s been getting, it would seem.

UPDATE: Yes, definitely — Powerline has noticed airbrushing at the Kerry website and has the screenshots that show it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Is it a meltdown?

SOME INTERESTING NUMBERS ON TROOP MORALE IN IRAQ: Generally quite positive, but I think that we do need to stress long-term efforts to ensure that the current good numbers on recruiting and retention persist.