UNSCAM UPDATE:

In his interim report on corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food program, Paul Volcker found there wasn’t enough evidence to prove U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan steered contracts to a Swiss firm that employed his son. That was enough for Annan to declare Volcker “has cleared me of any wrongdoing.”

That view isn’t universally shared.

“We did not exonerate Kofi Annan,” Swiss organized crime expert Mark Pieth, one of Volcker’s three investigators, told The Associated Press.

The Scotsman newspaper noted that Volcker faulted Annan for an “inadequate” inquiry when the oil-for-food scandal first broke.

“Under Mr. Annan, the U.N. allowed the food-for-oil program to degenerate into a corrupt empire in which Saddam Hussein bribed numerous U.N. and other diplomats to turn their backs while he looted his country and starved its people,” the Scotsman said in an editorial.

In an editorial headlined: “Report Spells the End of Kofi Annan,” the Montreal Gazette noted that Annan’s then executive assistant destroyed three years worth of files on Oil for Food the day after the Security Council passed a resolution authorizing Volcker’s inquiry.

“Just connect the dots,” the newspaper said. “What a damning picture it is. Its reputation already in tatters, the U.N. stands today weaker than it ever was. Only major governance reforms can save the world body now, and the first order of reform business needs to be finding a credible replacement for Annan.”

Volcker did his level best not to connect the dots.

Ouch.

STILL DIGGING for those hidden weapons.

DAVID BERNSTEIN has some thoughts on law school affirmative action, and who pays the cost.

BIG BROTHER MOVES TO THE SUBURBS: “Bellwood’s mayor said he welcomed the suggestion that his town might be considered something akin to a Big Brother-land. ‘I wish we could create that image. I would love that,’ Mayor Frank Pasquale said with a chuckle.”

JEFF SOYER IS SHOCKED to find the New York Times running a surprisingly positive story about civilian gun-carrying.

MICHAEL TOTTEN IS LANDING IN BEIRUT — and by a curious coincidence, Syria is bugging out. Heh. To paraphrase Yoda, they should be afraid . . .

THIS TELLS YOU WHAT THEY’RE AFRAID OF: And it’s free speech.

San Francisco wants to regulate blogs.

Of course they do.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Still more oil-for-food scandal news over at Roger Simon’s.

ON BEING “THE OTHER:” Another example of academia’s diversity problem:

“So what’s it like to teach in a uniform?” asked the Post-Colonialist as he turned ever so slightly, revealing UC-Whatever on his nametag.

“Gee, I guess I’ve never thought about it. You first; what’s it like to teach in jeans and Birkenstocks?”

Silence (and no more Camembert on the plate); he has no answer simply because there could be no answer to such an inane question. Obviously the Post-Colonialist links his professional persona to his teaching and his research, not to his wardrobe. Who among us does not?

But the professional activity of academics that teach at a military school always comes second — if at all — to curiosity about the institutional aspects of our positions, especially in juxtaposition with the accepted archetype of the American professor, molded by the political activity of the sixties and cultivated by the visibility of the left-wing power structure within higher education.

“I think it would be far too stressful for me to teach children of Republicans,” the Multiculturalist commented over cappuccino in Padua, after expounding on profiling as a bigoted, narrow-minded policy of Eurocentrists.

Yeah, we wouldn’t want to stereotype people or anything.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, never a man afraid to speak ill of the dead, remembers John Paul II less fondly than most.

UPDATE: Jon Henke, meanwhile, is not afraid to speak ill of Hitchens.

FRANK CAGLE looks at blogs and politics, and predicts a big role in 2006.

PUBLIUS: “Freedom House does an annual list of the world’s most oppressive regimes. To some of us, it doesn’t come as a surprise that six of the 18 nations on the list are members of the UN Commission on Human Rights.”

UNSCAM UPDATE: LOTS MORE OIL-FOR-FOOD NEWS at Roger Simon’s place.

USEFUL MANAGEMENT LESSONS over at Winds of Change.

WAS NIGHTLINE BAD FOR AMERICA? Michael Socolow looks at the program’s history and legacy:

The initial popularity of “Nightline” was due to the sensational nature of the Iranian hostage crisis. Throughout 1979 to 1980, the American public watched infuriating pictures from Iran on a daily basis. The video emphasized America’s global weakness; the crisis made the United States appear a helpless giant. . . .

The mob’s media savvy was so sophisticated that chants would be rendered in English, Persian and, occasionally, for the benefit of Canadian and French television, in French. The students clearly understood how to exploit the independent, non-governmental nature of American broadcasting. They also knew that reaching the American public was relatively easy, as there existed only three American broadcast networks, and all of them dedicated enormous time and resources to coverage of the story.

The Al Qaeda leadership has repeatedly emphasized this lesson to its followers. Reminding its followers of the Tet offensive, the Tehran crisis and the disastrous Somalia mission, Al Qaeda statements reveal the belief that it is far easier to demoralize Americans than to defeat its armed forces. For this reason, beheading videos have become an important strategic tool in Al Qaeda’s arsenal.

Yet America’s enemies fail to understand that the power of network journalism to structure the public sphere has been significantly lessened. The era of the big three network news divisions is over.

Perhaps that’s why we’re winning this war.

UPDATE: A somewhat contrary view here. And The Fearless Critic observes:

[J]ournalists should understand that this is how much of America views them — as a propaganda tool used masterfully by the enemies of our country.

Most journalists and academics I know think this is hogwash. Perhaps it is, but there’s nothing changing the fact that a good chunk of the population believes this to be true. We should start trying to figure out why.

That shouldn’t be hard.

SOME ADVICE ON WHAT TO LOOK FOR in news coverage.

MUCH MORE ON THE CANADIAN SCANDALS here, from Ed Morrissey.

UPDATE: Other Canadian scandals here. Extra credit if you can tie these together . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: More, including a helpful diagram, at the Canada Free Press.

MEGAN MCARDLE has thoughts on marriage.

POPE JOHN PAUL II HAS DIED, according to Fox News. (Via BNN, which reports that he declined further medical treatment last night).

UPDATE: Ann Althouse: “Such a well-lived life!”

The Anchoress has the whole story covered.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Teaching Company has made two lectures on the papal succession process available for free online.

Similar material in text form, here. (Via Hugh Hewitt).

Video of President Bush’s remarks, here. “The world has lost a champion of human freedom.”

MORE: Power Line’s John Hinderaker finds something truly amusing in the New York Times’ coverage — be sure to check out the screenshot he saved. Heh.

Johnathan Pearce: ” Pope John Paul II was one of the great figures of our age. However controversial a figure he may have been for his views on issues like abortion, birth control and capitalism, the late Pope was, in my eyes, a hero for playing a part in giving people in Eastern Europe the confidence to bring the Soviet Empire down.”

MORE STILL: Stephen Bainbridge, Jay Solo, and Gerard Van der Leun have posts.

So does Donald Sensing. And Arthur Chrenkoff.

From the comments at Tim Blair’s:

Final score for the 20th century:

Ordinary Poles, 2.
German intellectuals, 0.

Heh.

STILL MORE: Larry Kudlow has a long, and deeply personal, reflection.

HANG ON TO THAT TAMIFLU:

President Bush signed an executive order yesterday authorizing the government to impose a quarantine to deal with any outbreak of a particularly lethal variation of influenza now found in Southeast Asia.

The order is intended to deal with a type of influenza commonly referred to as bird flu. Since January 2004, an estimated 69 persons, primarily in Vietnam, have contracted the disease. But Dr. Keiji Fukuda, a flu expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said he suspects there are more cases.

I hope we’ll dodge this bullet, but most experts seem to think it’s just a matter of when, not if, this strain of flu makes the jump to general human transmission.

UPDATE: It’s not directly related, but Angola’s outbreak of the Marburg virus (which inspired The Andromeda Strain) has now set a record for the number of fatalities.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A report on the progress of a bird flu vaccine, here, and more on Tamiflu and the avian flu here.

ZIMBABWE’S OPPOSITION IS CONTESTING THE ELECTION: Fraud by Mugabe? Who would have thought it?

I’VE LISTENED TO THE NEW WEBB WILDER CD, and here, as promised, is a brief review.

In short, it’s classic Webb. If you like Webb already, you won’t be disappointed in this — he hasn’t lost his touch in the too-many years since the last album. In fact, I’d say that his songwriting and vocal chops have only improved.

If you’re not familiar with Webb, well, you’ve missed something. When I moved to Nashville to clerk for Judge Merritt after law school, I had an idea of the kind of music I hoped to hear — rock and roll with plenty of twang and tremolo, and a none-too-serious attitude. I was literally walking past the Exit/In one night when I heard Webb’s music coming out of the door, and said ‘yeah, that’s it!”

I became a regular fan (you can hear me screaming in the background on some of the live cuts on It Came From Nashville) and I’ve followed him since. If this sounds like the sort of thing you’d like, you should check it out.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Elliott emails:

We are simpatico, my friend; Webb Wilder rules! Seen him many times at the Rock Island Brewing Company (Hey, Rock Island, IL. Isn’t that’s where Jake Blues is from?). Shared a brew or two with him and HE is the real thing. He is the “Webb-ster”, the “Webb-instein”, the “Webb-omatic”.

He is Webb Wilder. Lesser musicians/ artists, behold Him and tremble.

Yes. And many live by his simple, yet affecting credo. He also offers advice that should be taken to heart in the blogosphere: “You’re never too small to hit the big time.”

WILL FRANKLIN has more on Zimbabwe.

WILL THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT FALL? There’s a scandal, kept quiet by a publication ban. But some people, Kate McMillan reports, are publishing anyway.

More here:

The possible collapse of the Liberal minority government is once again a hot topic on Parliament Hill, fuelled by reports of explosive new testimony at the sponsorship inquiry.

Although exact details of the testimony cannot be revealed due to a publication ban, there are reports its disclosure would prove so devastating that Paul Martin’s Liberal minority could fall if it became public.

Watching developments in Ottawa Friday night, CTV’s Mike Duffy says the capital is buzzing with speculation the opposition will confront the Liberals with some of that testimony next week.

“It’s probably going to be raised here on Monday by the opposition,” Duffy told CTV News.

“Because MPs have privilege on the floor of the House of Commons it is conceivable that the Bloc Quebecois could get up and run some information from behind the closed doors” at the Gomery inquiry, he said.

A publication ban. How . . . Canadian.

UPDATE: Canadian reader Patrick Brown emails:

I think you may have the wrong impression about the publication ban on evidence at the Gomery inquiry in Canada – the one where apparently Liberal-damning evidence may be given next week. The inquiry is generally open, and televised, and one of the most-watched programs in Quebec, where the corrupt practices were concentrated. 3 men facing multiple criminal counts of fraud and conspiracy asked the Judge running the inquiry (Judge Gomery) for a publication ban on their upcoming testimony and the testimony of other witnesses that may bear on their conduct until after their criminal trials which begin the week of May 2nd and will last about 4-6 weeks.

In a ruling that has been hailed by a National Post editorial, Judge Gomery agreed to a partial publication ban, on the testimony of the 3 men, but not of any other witness, until the moment their juries are sequestered. Television
images of the testimony will be captured and sent to the media room as usual, but not published until the ban is lifted. The decision is available here:

Link

I am no fan of the Liberal government and it looks like there is plenty of corruption to be found, but Judge Gomery is doing a good job with this inquiry and I am confident that the delay in publication will be short and is justified. This is not a case of a pet judge being given the job of whitewashing the government. It probably doesn’t even matter what his final report says – the proceedings are televised and the banned material will be also at some point. People are making up their own minds in Quebec, and the polls show it’s costing the Liberals bigtime.

Okay, I stand corrected if I gave the wrong impression. But the notion of a publication ban that’s good against the world — which is how the order reads — seems quite consistent with Canada’s reputation as a “pleasantly authoritarian country.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Time for a ‘Maple Leaf Revolution,’ eh?”

ACADEMIC DIVERSITY and a baseball analogy: Some thoughts from K.C. Johnson in Inside Higher Education.

WELCOME HOME, Marines.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Roger Simon reports on corruption in the Palace of Justice.

CHARLES STROSS attains posthuman status. There were warning signs that this was coming . . . .

AUSTIN BAY WRITES that the Volcker Report is the beginning, not the end of U.N. reform:

The scandal has deeply damaged the United Nations as an institution. For many critics, this doesn’t matter. They already argue the United Nations is a facade masking coalitions of the corrupt — a forum where cynical international elites romp in a champagne sewer greased by the planet’s Saddams, mafia thugs and rogue corporations. They point to the United Nations’ dismal record in Bosnia, the Congo and Sudan’s Darfur.

Why should such an organization continue to suck dollars and dither?

Such an organization shouldn’t — that’s why it needs massive reform.

Or, perhaps, it can just be allowed to twist in the wind.

HUGH HEWITT ON THE POPE:

With Reagan and Solzhenitsyn, John Paul II represents the three forces of opposition to communism that shattered the evil empire, the Soviet Union –the American-led West, the Eastern European resistance, and the Russian dissident movement. They also represented the three spheres of opposition: political, artistic and spiritual. Each man came into the field of his greatness later in life, and each has endured hard circumstances in their later years. I hope Solzhenitisyn is able to and inclined to write about his colleagues in the struggle that triumphed.

Video here.

LANCE FRIZZELL has a must-read report from Iraq.

NATIONAL JOURNAL: “‘Blog Swarm’ Stings the FEC.” Nice roundup of the issue, and it’s a free link.

CONTEXT AND HISTORY: John Cole has a Sandy Berger roundup.

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ:

Another major Shia religious festival, which lasted from 29-31 March, ended without incident. The government made a major effort to provide security for the large gatherings of Shia Arabs attending religious ceremonies. Sunni Arab terrorists, especially al Qaeda, consider these ceremonies a major insult to Sunni religious beliefs. The government deployed a security effort on the same level as the one rolled out for the January elections. Coalition troops deployed mostly as back up and quick reaction forces. Al Qaeda tried to use suicide car bombers, but none of them got through to large assemblies of Shia Arabs. In one incident, a car bomb went off and killed five people, which was the most any of the attacks were able to do.

Another reason the attacks were not successful was that, in the days before March 29th, police arrested hundreds of Sunni Arabs and foreigners suspected of being terrorists. Many were, and this is because an increasing number of Sunni Arab religious leaders have changed their minds about armed resistance to democracy, and coalition forces. This has made it easier for Sunni Arabs to pass on information to the police. The Sunni religious leaders have done the math and concluded that they were backing the losing side.

This sounds like a major success, and one that deserves a lot of attention.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

THE NEW WEBB WILDER CD has arrived. I’ll post a review later.

RYAN SAGER writes that libertarians have been cuckolded by conservatives.

UPDATE: John Weidner responds.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Interesting discussion in Weidner’s comment thread, one that would make interesting fodder for any journalist/pundit writing on this topic. Lots of small-l libertarians and fiscal-conservative types feeling left out, and lots of social-conservative types delighting in heaping scorn on them, which strikes me as a poor way to maintain a coalition.

PUBLIUS has a Zimbabwe roundup.

SANDY BERGER UPDATE: Really, a rather sordid story of deliberate misconduct that deserves close attention:

The terms of Berger’s agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.

The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an “after-action review” prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration’s actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration’s awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil. . . .

Berger’s archives visit occurred as he was reviewing materials as a designated representative of the Clinton administration to the national commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The question of what Clinton knew and did about the emerging al Qaeda threat before leaving office in January 2001 was acutely sensitive, as suggested by Berger’s determination to spend hours poring over the Clarke report before his testimony.

So Berger stole, and destroyed, classified documents as part of a politically motivated coverup. Let’s just be clear about that. Criminal penalties, aside, the man’s career in public life should be over, and he certainly should never have access to classified documents again. Unfortunately, the penalty he’ll actually receive looks rather light — certainly lighter than most folks who stole and destroyed classified documents would undergo. That makes it all the more important that the details of his misbehavior get plenty of attention, and that they’re remembered long-term. (Via Expertise).

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Why did Martha Stewart go to jail for lying to investigators?

Berger now admits he did exactly the same thing. But he’ll get off with a fine and an admission of “his mistakes”.

Can one honestly say Martha’s lies were more damaging than Bergers? I don’t think so.

There are differences, I guess, but the big one is that Berger’s one of the insiders. Still, Jim Geraghty is right to ask: ” Just what do you have to do to get your clearance pulled permanently?”

He also wonders: “Do any Democrats want to confront the unpleasant truths of how the Clinton White House handled terrorism? Because there were some facts out there that were so damning, Sandy Berger was willing to break the law to make sure the public never saw them.”

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Patrick Hynes emails:

Berger did not destroy (or even attempt to AFAIK) all of the copies of the Clarke report, so what he was trying to expunge can’t be anything Clarke said in the report. Must it not be true that Berger was after the marginal notations made on the report by officials who read the particular copies of the Clarke report Berger shredded? Do we know which officials reviewed the copies Berger destroyed? Can Archives tell us?

Someone should ask them.

SANDY BERGER’S GUILTY PLEA leaves some people unsatisfied.

TODD ZYWICKI offers thoughts on why campus intellectual diversity matters.

TOUR THE INDIAN BLOGOSPHERE: This week’s Blog Mela is up!

READER STEVE OR TANYA — it’s one of those joint email accounts, so I don’t know which one sent it — writes:

I was looking forward to your perspective on the death of Terry Schiavo. Are you feeling uncomfortable with your previous ideas regarding her situation?

Although I’ve always tried to be pleasant to the Christian Right folks even where we disagree, I really think it’s best if I don’t weigh in right now. I turned down a slot on Hugh Hewitt tonight because I was afraid I’d use words that would get him an FCC fine. But I’ll refer interested readers to this post-mortem at Blogs4God, and these thoughts on federalism from Right-Thinking. And Bill Ardolino is right about the Hillary 2008! implications of a lot of this stuff. And, if you’ve got a strong stomach, you can read this.

UPDATE: But here’s the good side, from reader David Prentice:

I saw you on Kudlow’s show with Hugh H. and John H. last week and had intended to write earlier. I have just learned about your hate mail (and your wife’s) from some the right and wanted to give you some encouragement and thank you for what you do.

After I watched the show I had wanted to say how much I appreciated the dialogue you all had on that show because it showed by example how you could debate very opposite sides of an issue without rancor and bring light to it. I am what Andrew Sullivan would derisively call a right wing religious zealot. Full disclosure: I disagreed with your position on this matter, but I do so appreciate your spirit in putting forth your ideas, I always have appreciated your writings even when I disagree.

I love your blog, have been reading it for about a year now along with Powerline and Hugh Hewitt (You are my bookmarked 3!). I appreciate all of your view points and most of all your civility and the ability to find good information.

I am very disturbed to hear about the mail you have received from others who believe as I do. It is shameful and despicable and belies what they (myself included) claim to believe. I apologize for their horrible judgment, and want to encourage you to keep your weblog going strong in spite of all the nastiness.

Thank you again, you are appreciated by some of us “religious zealots” out there.

Well, I always hope that people can disagree without being disagreeable. The people who can’t usually wind up losing. Some people certainly get this: Hugh does, and John Hinderaker — who’s been the target of moonbat assaults from the Left himself — certainly understands the difference. Not everyone does. Those people are the fringey minority, for the most part, though I have to say that I was taken aback, and disappointed, by the Jonathan Last assault I mention below.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I’ve gotten a whole lot more emails along the lines of David Prentice’s, for which I’m quite grateful. You know that the nasty folks are unrepresentative, but they’re so damned energetic about it that it’s hard to keep that in mind at times.

IT’S PAYBACK TIME for Megan McArdle.

MOLECULAR MANUFACTURING, step-by-step: The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology notes that it’s closer to reality than we might think.

A SANDY BERGER GUILTY PLEA:

WASHINGTON — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger (search) will plead guilty to taking classified material from the National Archives, a misdemeanor, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Berger is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Friday, said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.

(Via Joe’s Dartblog).

IN THE MAIL: No god but God, by Reza Aslan. Looks interesting, though it will no doubt be controversial.

I’M ON THE RADIO WITH JEFF & BILL NOW.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CLEARS SELF OF ANTISEMITISM: But this doesn’t sound kosher:

In an effort to manage favorable coverage of its investigation into the complaints, the university disclosed a summary of the committee’s report only to the Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper, and the New York Times. Those newspapers, sources indicated to The New York Sun last night, made an agreement with the central administration that they would not speak to the students who made the complaints against the professors.

The Sun obtained a copy of the report without the permission of the university administration. Last night, when a reporter from the Sun came to Low Library, the central administration building, for a copy of the report, a security guard threatened to arrest the reporter if she did not leave the building.

According to one student, senior Ariel Beery, one of the campus’s most outspoken critics of the professors, a Columbia spokeswoman told him that students were not being shown the report yesterday “for your own good.”

That’s not very impressive.

UPDATE: The Columbia Spectator story — at least the one that’s on the web now — does quote some of the students.

I’LL BE INTERVIEWED ON THE RADIO by Jeff Goldstein and Bill Ardolino in just about an hour — it’s supposed to start at 3:10 Eastern. Details here. It should be a subdued and decorous affair, with those two in charge.

UPDATE: Gerard van der Leun has liveblogged it, “Without Any Regard for Accuracy.” Looks fairly accurate to me, actually, with due allowance for snarkiness — but the Godwin’s Law violation didn’t originate with me; I was responding to one.

HANDING OUT CHEESE, BRATWURST, AND KRINGLE: But what about beer?

I’M SHOWING THIS FILM in my Constitutional Law class today. I don’t generally like to show films, but as I noted last year, unlike most movies involving the law, this one does a surprisingly good job of capturing the legal issues, and strategies, involved. I wish there were more like it.

I COULD SCREAM is a new blog looking at the plight of Islamic women.

MORE ON CENTRAL ASIA: StrategyPage is not optimistic:

Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazabayev are concerned that they will be overthrown like Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have both been plundered by their presidential families. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan all suffer corruption, unemployment and sluggish economies. All three conditions are linked by the greed of the presidential families and the politicians that support them. In all three countries, the support for the leadership is so narrow, that the police and army cannot be trusted to open fire on large demonstrations of angry citizens. But first, Kyrgyzstan has to sort out who is in charge. If this is done in such a way that most corrupt politicians are out of work, then Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan could be next. But for the moment, a lot of the crooked Kyrgyz bureaucrats may be able to buy their way out of this mess, and the “Tulip Revolution” may end up on the mulch pile.

Stay tuned.

LASHAWN BARBER IS EVERYWHERE! I mean, everywhere!

ZIMBABWE ELECTIONS: Publius has a roundup of news on how things are going. And Will Franklin has photos. Meanwhile, Zimbabwean bloggers report goalpost-moving:

Reports reaching us from a number of activists in different locations around the country indicate that, contrary to the electoral ground rules set down by zanu-pf, presiding officers are now being instructed not to publish the results of poll immediately following the completion of the vote count at each polling station. Instead presiding officers are now under instructions to convey the results to the constituency centers and to await authorization from the Harare command center before releasing the results to the public.

Our informant in Binga reports that presiding officers in that constituency have been ordered to lock the polling stations at the close of polling and withdraw all means of communication from agents to ensure that nothing is communicated. This means that the results will not be published at the polling stations when the vote has been completed. The presiding officers are under instructions not to communicate any information about the poll until the consolidated result for the whole constituency has been verified and announced centrally. This is a major departure from the electoral procedures laid down by law.

So are the foreign election observers complaining? Hmm. Stay tuned.

AMBER ALERT: Jason van Steenwyk notes another missing headline.

LA VIDA ROBOT: This is a great article from Wired about “How four underdogs from the mean streets of Phoenix took on the best from M.I.T. in the national underwater bot championship.”

HERE’S A LIST OF BLOGNASHVILLE REGISTRANTS: It’s not too late to register yourself.

HANGING UP THE BLOG: I’m not in this place, but I understand. When it’s not fun anymore, it’s time to quit.

HERE’S A NEW POLL showing Iraqis rejecting theocracy. Good for them.

TINA BROWN joins the Stasi.

ON THE EVE OF ELECTIONS, Zimbabwe’s opposition is acting optimistic:

Supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change now openly flash their party’s salute in many places across the country. And yellow MDC T-shirts abound. MDC candidates have held hundreds of public rallies – a first – and have even had some access to state-controlled media. It’s all part of an election campaign that has been relatively calm – despite previous years marred by political oppression, including beatings, and even murders. Ndira himself has been been arrested 19 times and was once beaten so badly he nearly lost his arm. . . .

But opposition members and diplomats are hopeful that, win or lose, the election will hasten the end of the Mugabe regime. So for now, “There’s jubilation everywhere,” Ndira says.

I certainly hope it works out that way. I’d like to see more vocal support for democracy in Zimbabwe from South Africa and from Western nations.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ARTHUR CHRENKOFF, who just celebrated his first anniversary blogging — and who has accomplished quite a lot in that year.

HOW SAD HAVE THINGS GOTTEN? The New York Post cries enough. Robert George writes on hate mail and death threats on both sides of the Schiavo business, and says it’s the worst acrimony he’s ever experienced in decades of dealing with controversial issues. Meanwhile, Bryan Preston of Junkyard Blog emailed me the text of this post with the observation: “I obviously expect that the JYB has enjoyed its last instalanche, so this email isn’t a troll for a link.”

Well, JYB has been a bit mean to me, and doesn’t seem to grasp the point of my argument — which has been that passing Congressional legislation designed to influence the outcome of a particular case doesn’t fit well with notions of federalism. Mickey Kaus can airily say “federalism, schmederalism” and note that if it were up to him he’d get rid of states and divide the country into ten convenient administrative districts, but one doesn’t expect to hear similar sentiments from conservatives. Bryan sees this as libertarians telling conservatives what to believe, but I think it’s more a case of libertarians being disappointed to see that what they thought of as common ground wasn’t so common after all. It’s not hypocritical for liberals like Kaus, or Bill Clinton, to ignore federalism, because they’ve never cared about it. I thought that conservatives did.

As for the rest of the personal attacks in the earlier post, well, they’re not worthy of Bryan, but this is one of those episodes that seems to bring out the worst in people. That’s why I didn’t really want to weigh in to begin with — I knew that I was unlikely to persuade anyone, because very few people seem to care about the facts, or about arguments.

That Bryan thinks that he’s somehow now under some sort of lifetime link-ban simply illustrates how inflamed this has become. But I’ve tried to keep my head, even as those around me are, all too often, losing theirs. How well I’ve succeeded is for readers to judge.

UPDATE: Nice observations here and here from Soxblog.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I have more thoughts in this column — though I’m labelled a “conservative,” which is a misnomer, and more obviously so these days.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Patterico emails to ask if I’m saying that people who disagree with me can’t handle facts or logic. No — though if you read the incredibly nasty emails I’ve gotten the last few days, hoping for the InstaWife to suffer Terri Schiavo’s fate, etc. — you might forgive me for taking that position. But I know that emailers aren’t a representative sample: The best may not lack all conviction, but the worst are always full of passionate intensity.

However, the fact that so few have bothered to read what I’ve actually written is disturbing. I’ve been accused of wanting to see Terri Schiavo die out of some twisted love for death, when I actually wrote that if it was up to me I might well put the tube in and turn her over to the family. But what I’ve been writing about isn’t outcomes, it’s about process — and contempt for the Constitution and the responsibilities of different branches of government — and I’m absolutely appalled at the people who posit deeply implausible judicial conspiracies, or say that they don’t care about the Constitution if it stands in the way of getting what they want. I’m not prone to hold grudges of the sort that Bryan fears, but I’m deeply disappointed to hear a lot of folks acting like the lefties they usually complain about.

Among those I’d include Jonathan Last, who accuses me of a campaign for Terri’s death, and of agreeing with Andrew Sullivan about the threat of “theocrats” even though I explicitly posted my disagreement with Andrew on that point. Hugh Hewitt, whom Last quotes, seems to understand the concept of “cordial disagreements among friends.” But to some others, any disagreement on any part of the party line makes you one of the enemy, it seems. As I say, a lot of people are acting like the worst of the Left on this one. I think that Jonah Goldberg, et al., are whistling in the dark when they say there’s no crackup here. Will it last? That depends on how people act afterward, I guess. [LATER: How off-base is Last? Far enough that Bryan Preston is defending me against Last's charges.]

FINALLY: Heh. This seems about right:

DON’T MISS this week’s Carnival of Education.

MORE LEAKAGE FROM THE VOLCKER COMMITTEE: The case of the Main Mentor.

IT’S BLOGGERRIFFIC! This week’s Carnival of the Vanities is up!

NORM GERAS has a firsthand report from inside Zimbabwe. Things aren’t pretty.

And I’ve got more on Zimbabwe’s upcoming elections over at GlennReynolds.com.

RAND SIMBERG has thoughts on arms control in outer space. I wrote something on that topic myself, a while back.

KIM DU TOIT is a proud winner. But, really, it’s an honor just to be nominated. After that it’s just a popularity contest. . . .

BLOGGING LEGISLATOR UPSETS LEADERSHIP: I’m guessing, though, that overall the leadership has more to lose here.

ONE OF THE SIDE EFFECTS OF THE RAZORBLOGGING is that lots of purists have been telling me that I absolutely must get one of these for my lawn. It’s safer than a straight razor!

RUMORS OF CIVIL WAR IN VENEZUELA:

The army is unhappy about the cozy relationship between Chavez and leftist rebel groups in neighboring Colombia. Venezuelan troops have been operating more aggressively along the Colombian border. This is officially a crackdown on the smugglers who always have operated there. But the Venezuelan troops are accused to really going after the Colombian rebels, or supporting them. Take your pick. No one is sure exactly what is going on.

To top it all off, Chavez is now organizing a new army, one loyal to him personally. This is part of his plan create “Bolivarian Circles of Venezuela Frontline Defense for National Democratic Revolution.” These are political clubs all over the country, particularly in poor areas, where Chavez has the most support. Chavez expects to have 2.2 million members, who will be the backbone of the “democratic revolution unfolding in Venezuela.” What upsets the armed forces is Chavezs decision to pass out infantry weapons to these political clubs, so that his new political clubs can use force to “defend the revolution.” There are believed to be Cuban advisors involved in this effort. This sort of mass organization has been used before in Latin America, by both leftist and rightist dictators (pro-fascist Juan Peron of Argentina, and communist Fidel Castro of Cuba.) But by passing out guns to his most dedicated followers, Chavez is angering the military, making the middle class even more nervous, and setting the stage for a bloody civil war.

We’ve heard this story before, and it never ends well.

DEMOCRACY IN BHUTAN: Everybody Wangchuk tonight!

GREG SCOBLETE does a New York Times compare-and-contrast exercise, looking at the treatment of Enron vs. Oil-for-Food.

VERIZON WIRELESS UPDATE: I like the go-anywhere quality of the Verizon EVDO data card. But when I signed up in November, the salesman told me that we’d go from the 122kbps “National Access” service to the 512kbps “Broadband Access” service by the end of the first quarter of 2005. They’ve got one day left, and there’s no sign of it happening. That’s a bit irritating.

OXBLOG looks at media-approved police brutality.

NASA PODCASTS: Cool. (Via Space Law Probe).

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: “I had sincerely intended to be the only scribbler in America who stayed out of this most stupid and degrading argument. . . . But, once you engage for even an instant, you are drawn into a vortex of irrationality and nastiness that generates its own energy.”

Indeed.

On the other hand, John Hawkins has put together a Terry Schiavo FAQ that is neither nasty nor irrational.

DON’T RAGE AGAINST THE BLOG: Embrace the blog! Advice for Big Media folks, over at GlennReynolds.com.

IS THERE HOPE FOR NASA? My TechCentralStation column is up.

MORE PROTESTS FOR DEMOCRACY in the Arab world:

In this roiling political spring of protest and debate about democracy in repressive Arab countries, cell phone text messaging has become a powerful underground channel of free and often impolite speech, especially in the oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies, where mobile phones are common but candid public talk about politics is not.

Demonstrators use text messaging to mobilize followers, dodge authorities and swarm quickly to protest sites. Candidates organizing for the region’s limited elections use text services to call supporters to the polls or slyly circulate candidate slates in countries that supposedly ban political groupings. And through it all, anonymous activists blast their adversaries with thousands of jokes, insults and political limericks.

Ah yes: “There once was a man from Yemen . . .”

VARIOUS PEOPLE have been demanding spring-weather pictures from Knoxville, but I’ve been — alas — too busy to take any. I managed to take a few on the way across campus today, though, so here you are.

UPDATE: Moved to the “extended entry” area to speed page loads.

Continue reading ‘VARIOUS PEOPLE have been demanding spring-weather pictures from Knoxville, but I’ve been — alas — …’ »

AN ITEM I LINKED TO EARLIER, suggesting that the WSJ should have credited Roger Simon, was in error, as was I. As Roger notes, the WSJ says they got the same information independently.

SOME THOUGHTS on military nanotechnology.

SHOCKWAVES AND ECHOES:

The shock waves from Kyrgyzstan’s lightning revolution are spreading around the former Soviet Union – and into the heart of Russia – leading analysts to wonder which regimes might be next to face the peoples’ wrath.
Recent days have seen a spate of copycat protests launched by opposition groups that were perhaps hoping their own local authorities might fold and flee under pressure, as did Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev when demonstrators stormed his Bishkek complex last week. . . .

Two Russian ethnic republics, Ingushetia and Bashkortostan, have seen mass street demonstrations this week directed against Kremlin-installed leaders. Even in remote Mongolia, the former USSR’s Asian satellite, hundreds of protesters gathered last week to “congratulate our Kyrgyz brothers” and demand a rerun of last June’s disputed parliamentary polls.

Some experts see a common thread among these upheavals that began 17 months ago when Georgians overthrew Eduard Shevardnadze in a peaceful revolt and continued with Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” late last year.

“Every situation is different, but a single process is unfolding,” says Valentin Bogatyrov, a former Akayev adviser and director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Bishkek. “Kyrgyzstan is a kind of trigger that will spread this unrest to our neighbors, and beyond. We are witnessing the second breakup of the Soviet Union.”

Putin can’t like this. Here’s more on Ingushetia, including the observation that it’s “on the brink of revolution.” I don’t know if that’s true, but clearly there are a lot of people interested in democracy.

MORE ON THE U.N.’S AMBITION TO REGULATE THE INTERNET:

In a series of speeches over the last year, Zhao has suggested that the ITU could become involved in everything from security and spam to managing how Internet Protocol addresses are assigned. The ITU also is looking into some aspects of voice over Internet Protocol–VoIP–communications, another potential area for expansion.

“Countering spam is just one of many elements of protecting the Internet that include availability during emergencies and supporting public safety and law enforcement officials,” Zhao wrote in December. Also, he wrote, the ITU “would take care of other work, such as work on Internet exchange points, Internet interconnection charging regimes, and methods to provide authenticated directories that meet national privacy regimes.”

Gee, do you think any of that stuff could be used for censorship or something?

LOTS MORE NEWS FROM LEBANON: Heads are (figuratively) rolling. And they’re the right heads.

I’LL BE ON MSNBC’S CONNECTED COAST TO COAST at about 5:15 eastern.

UPDATE: You can see video here and here.

HERE’S MORE on Higher Education’s diversity problem, which is much worse than I had realized. I wouldn’t support quotas as a remedy. But perhaps “goals and timetables,” which are not quotas of course, might be considered.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT: But people are pushing back.

I WONDER WHY THIS A.P. STORY on the non-combat death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq features a picture of George and Laura Bush, who have nothing to do with the story?

I sat on this for a couple of hours, thinking that it was just a glitch, but the picture switched from one of Laura to one of George and Laura.

UPDATE: A reader who works at Yahoo!, where the story is hosted, emails:

In this particual case, the picture points to a Yahoo! slide show about the military, and that happens to be the first photo in the slide show. I don’t think there was any intent here of kind of thing that I know what you’re alluding to. It was a military story that linked to a military slide show, that’s all. BTW, the photo is a Reuters pic on a AP story.

However, this one is a bit more ummm, well…you decide.

Purely accidental, I’m sure.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hmm. The picture’s different now.

ROGER SIMON has been reading the latest report on the Oil-for-food scandal, and has some observations. It’s a must-read.

I’VE BEEN HEARING ABOUT THIS GADGET, but I had no idea how easy it is to buy — or how cheap! Subverting the dominant paradigm, with help from Target . . . .

UPDATE: Two posts on the ethics of TV-zapping, here and here.

IN THE MAIL: Stephen Hicks’ Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Not my area, but the reader reviews look good.

Also, a copy of Norman Abrams’ Anti-Terrorism and Criminal Enforcement, which looks as if it would make a good supplementary text for my National Security Law class, and a useful shelf-reference for a lot of people interested in these topics.

CARNIVAL OF CANADIANS: This week’s Red Ensign standard is up.

I HAD NO IDEA that sexual harassment was so widespread.

HEALTH CARE BLOGGING, and a discussion of what happens when gorilla penises attack (or did I read that wrong?), all over at this week’s Grand Rounds.

NOT CREDITING BLOGGERS: The Wall Street Journal. Of course, Claudia Rosett has been working on this story, too. Still.

UPDATE: Roger Simon reports that the WSJ got its information independently, though different channels.