YOU CAN SEE VIDEO of President Bush’s appearance at the White House Correspondents’ dinner here and here.

“ISLAM HAS NOT CONQUERED ARAB CULTURE — ARAB CULTURE HAS CONQUERED ISLAM:” I’m watching Irshad Manji on Tucker Carlson’s PBS show, plugging her book on the trouble with Islam. She’s quite impressive, and it will be interesting — and, I have to say, an exacting test of the “moderate muslims” we’ve heard more about than from, since 9/11 — to see how she’s received.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to her website.

LATIN AMERICA: The Community of Democracies vs. the “Axis of Subversion.”

PATTERICO: “Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.”

BLOGS AND IMPACT: An interesting report in The New York Times:

A blog rebellion among scientists and engineers at Los Alamos, the federal government’s premier nuclear weapons laboratory, is threatening to end the tenure of its director, G. Peter Nanos.

Four months of jeers, denunciations and defenses of Dr. Nanos’s management recently culminated in dozens of signed and anonymous messages concluding that his days were numbered. The postings to a public Web log conveyed a mood of self-congratulation tempered with sober discussion of what comes next.

Interesting. And, no doubt, worrisome to all sorts of people.

GIULIANA SGRENA UPDATE: Ed Morrissey reports:

CBS News reports that the American and Italian investigators looking into the death of Italian commando Nicola Calipari and wounding of hostage/journalist Giuliana Sgrena have evidence that Sgrena lied about the incident from the beginning. Sgrena has long insisted that the Italian driver slowed down to under 30 MPH before approaching the checkpoint, whereupon American soldiers opened fire without warning. However, CBS now claims that data from military satellites clearly showed the car traveling towards the checkpoint at over 60 MPH without slowing down at all, triggering the defensive response from the American soldiers.

Can’t say I’m surprised.

IMMIGRATION IS A BIG ISSUE, AND IT’S GETTING BIGGER: Arnold Schwarzenegger has weighed in on illegal immigration, and he doesn’t seem to be backing down:

On Thursday, Schwarzenegger said on a Los Angeles radio show that the Minuteman Project, which has been patrolling the Mexican border in Arizona in an attempt to prevent illegal crossings, has been doing “a terrific job,” and he credited the volunteers for reducing the flow of entries, though he provided no data.

Schwarzenegger, who immigrated to the United States from Austria more than 25 years ago, softened his comments only slightly Friday. He said he is a strong proponent of immigration, “but you’ve got to do it in a legal way.” He said he favors proposals for a guest worker program that would allow some Mexicans to work in the United States and an opportunity, over time, to apply for citizenship.

Neighborhood watch

But the governor again expressed support for the Minutemen, who have been denounced by some, including President Bush, as vigilantes trying to take the law into their own hands. Schwarzenegger compared them to neighborhood patrol groups, in which citizens work with police to prevent crimes.

As I mentioned before, I have several legal immigrants in my family, and they’re pretty resentful of illegals who ignore all the rules. I suspect that Arnold feels a bit that way himself, and I think he’s in a position to draw the distinction between legal and illegal immigration more clearly than many other politicians.

ELECTRIC HORSEMEN: Tom Maguire has further thoughts on Henninger’s comments about blogs and Mongols.

ROGER SIMON REPORTS on the progress of Pajamas Media.

REMEMBERING THE FALL OF SAIGON: And remember, too, that there are some people here who would like to see the same thing happen in Iraq.

STRATEGYPAGE NOTES THE MARCH OF DIPLOMACY:

Iraq’s neighbors are increasingly supporting the interim government and opposing the Sunni Arab and al Qaeda terrorists. Most of them are more or less are opposed to radical Islamist movements, so that is one thread linking them together. But there are also other issues affecting the stance taken by the various countries surrounding Iraq. Turkey seems in favor of a strong centralized Iraqi government so that the Iraqis can keep the Kurds under control. The Gulf Arabs want to see a strong Iraq as a counterbalance to Iran, though the Kuwaitis are somewhat concerned that a revived Iraqi military might threaten them. Jordan sees the potential need for a strong ally in the event of problems with Syria, while Syria seems inclined to support the new Iraqi regime if only as a way to improve ties with the U.S. Two countries are less committed to the new Iraqi government. Saudi Arabia is tentative about supporting Iraq, since it has to balance its brand of conservative Islam with the certainty that a successful democratic — or at least representative — government in Iraq will probably be strongly secular. The Iranians don’t want Iraq to fall under the control of either the Sunni Arab dominated Baath Party, or the Sunni Islamists (represented now by al Qaeda), both their blood enemies, but have reservations about a secular, democratic Iraq and about American influence in the region. The Iranian situation is complicated by the fact that their country is a clandestine conduit for the movement of Islamist personnel and money among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

I think this counts as progress.

MATT DRUDGE: “I don’t appreciate being called a blog.” Video here.

I don’t appreciate being called a drudge. But, then, both of us should admit that there’s a certain amount of truth to those comments . . . .

“SCHOOL MISTAKES HUGE BURRITO FOR WEAPON:” I’ve encountered some that were pretty close to deadly.

TURNING THE TABLES ON THE GUARDIAN by sending emails to British voters? Let’s hope it works out better than it did for The Guardian . . . .

SOME READERS ARE OBJECTING to Daniel Henninger’s characterization of bloggers as a virtual Mongol horde, but I think it’s a compliment, and dead-accurate.

Mongols drove all their enemies before them, feared nothing but lightning, and were so much faster than their opponents that they could ride around the outside of a besieged fortress faster than the defenders could redeploy on the inside. Sound familiar?

UPDATE: Tom Maguire emails that some of us have reason to fear the lightning. . . . But we don’t let it stop us.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF CORDITE IS UP, featuring, er, loads of gun-related posts.

IF YOU’RE A BLOGGER, and you haven’t read this post by Roger Simon on Pajamas Media, then you probably should.

PUT DOWN THAT DOUGHNUT: Guestblogging over at GlennReynolds.com, Tom Maguire looks at fat and longevity.

WITH WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY COMING UP, Austin Bay surveys press freedom in the former Soviet Union, and is less than fully impressed.

BLOGGING FROM THE SPACE ACCESS CONFERENCE, Rand Simberg reports some very interesting news:

What’s different now? We have supportive national policy, including the words “public space travel” in the Space Transportation Policy for the first time in history, with responsibility falling on Secs of Commerce and Transportation to carry that out. We have realistic objectives this time: no technology breakthroughs required, suborbital trajectories with primary emphasis on passengers, using available technologies. We also are seeing non-federal funding become available from numerous wealthy individuals, as well as good support by state and local governments. Prizes are helping as well. The regulatory framework is in place with the Commercial Spacelaunch Amendments Act, which puts Congress and administration on the record as supporting human spaceflight.

FAA has a very ambitious homework assignment to write the regulations for passengers, experimental permits, and license requirements, which will result in a Notification of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in a year or two.

They’re hoping for input from the public, too.

MICHAEL TOTTEN IS DECLARING VICTORY FOR THE CEDAR REVOLUTION: That’s absolutely terrific news. But remember: Democratization is a process, not an event.

AND WITH PLENTY OF TIME BEFORE DINNER: This week’s Carnival of the Recipes is up.

JAMES PINKERTON writes that videogames may be killing the media stars:

Applying Marxist terminology (all those years in lefty schools in the ’70s ought to be put to some good use!) to this situation, we might say that while the economic substrate for videogames is larger than that of movies, videogames’ cultural superstructure is still dwarfed by the flicks’ superstructure. And yet if we are going to be good materialists, we must believe that situation determines consciousness. Or, to put it another way, the media phylum with the greater mode of production will ultimately produce the greater superstructure. Therefore, according to the dialectical laws of history, this anomalous situation will be reconciled, as videogames empower many a flower of the new super-culture.

In the meantime, another interesting question is this: Why has Hollywood proven to be so far behind the cutting edge of entertainment?

I think that the structure of videogames is inherently more positive than movies. In movies the actors are on the screen. In a videogame, the true actor — the one who acts — is the “consumer,” who is also the producer of the entertainment in a very real way. This is something I’ve written about before, and I think it’s significant. Movies encourage passive titillation; videogames encourage active involvement, and often present consequences as well.

And maybe that’s Hollywood’s problem. A culture built around passive titillation isn’t likely to view its audience in ways that facilitate active engagement.

WANT BASKETBALL BLOGGING? Then you’ve come to the wrong blog! But the Carnival of the NBA has loads of posts by people who care about basketball in a way that I, sadly, just don’t.

MICHAEL SILENCE points to this Gallup poll on what Americans would ask President Bush if they had 15 minutes, and observes:

Scroll way down the page and you’ll find moral issues just got a response of 6 percent, and just 1 percent mentioned the courts and judicial system.

The war in Iraq, the economy and Social Security topped the list.

I’m not surprised by that, but some people will be.