No shit: Cheetah turned 74 on Tuesday.

Yes, that monkey, from the old John Weissmuller Tarzan movies.

(Hat tip, Ed Lambert, who probably should have been launching rockets into space or something when he sent me that item.)

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In the cooler months, I

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Glenn Reynolds looks at our immigration problem, and concludes:

The more I think about it, the more this looks like fertile ground for a third party to emerge. Who will it hurt more? The Republicans, or the Democrats? I’m not sure. Perhaps it will shake things up in general.

I

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The car thermometer read 83 degrees when I hit the McDonald

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“Back in Iraq” continues.

AKA, it sucks to be a Kurd in Turkey.

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InsideDefense (subscription required) reports that Washington finally undestands the Media War:

An influential advisory panel to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is exploring the military implications of powerful Internet search engines like Google, online journals and other new tools for accessing and distributing information.

Kenneth Krieg, under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, has directed the Defense Science Board to conduct a summer study examining

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The Officers’ Club is now Op-For. Adjust your bookmarks. Using whatever name or URL, John and Charlie have the best military blog in any town.

I’m proud as hell of them for making the leap.

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Going over all my tax stuff tonight. In a bit, I’ll write a large check and pour a stiff drink.

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More from Michael Totten’s second Iraq tour.

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Continued confusion in Italy:

Temporary stands were erected in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on Monday to celebrate Mr Prodi’s centre-left triumph foreshadowed both by opinion and exit polls. But the celebration was postponed.

Final results from the two-day vote indicated opposing factions will likely control the two houses of parliament, a recipe for political instability and paralysis that could force new elections.

The votes of Italians living outside Italy could be decisive for the Senate, but they were still not known last night. In the photo finish, Mr Prodi’s centre-left Union group won the House of Deputies. But the centre-right had one more seat in the Senate before the choice of the six senators elected outside Italy was known.

If the seven life senators, such as former prime minister Giulio Andreotti, exercise their right to vote, they could also change the balance of power in the Senate.

And Italy doesn’t even have a Florida.

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Whatever happened to the Irate Savant? The comments thread on his last post is worth a long look.

And is he perchance related to this guy?

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My beautiful son made me change my shirt three times in a single feeding on Saturday. Usually what happens is, a lot of food goes in, and then a little food comes right back out – oftentimes staining my shirt.

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If you haven’t already read this week’s Hitch, here’s the beef:

At a later 1995 U.N. special session on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Zahawie was the Iraqi delegate and spoke heatedly about the urgent need to counterbalance Israel’s nuclear capacity. At the time, most democratic countries did not have full diplomatic relations with Saddam’s regime, and there were few fully accredited Iraqi ambassadors overseas, Iraq’s interests often being represented by the genocidal Islamist government of Sudan (incidentally, yet another example of collusion between “secular” Baathists and the fundamentalists who were sheltering Osama Bin Laden). There was one exception

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There’s something important that needs to be said, but I haven’t read anywhere. Not even nearly five years after 9/11. But don’t worry – this won’t take long.

Every time a dictator is deposed, it’s a good thing. Every. Damn. Time.

That’s all.

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How we doin’ in Iraq? I guess that depends on whether or not you think numbers lie:

The anti-war movement views Iraqi civilians deaths as grist for the anti-American mill. Dead Sudanese are a statistic. Dead Iraqis before the war are a memory. Dead civilians in Iraq today are an exhilarating opportunity for the socialist left to undermine American liberty, power and society. This fuzzy math cannot stand. Logic Times will keep, from this day forward, the Iraq Survival Count.

Read the whole thing.

I’ll add that, so far, the numbers look pretty good. I’ll also add that I still don’t buy into the whole Body Count Calculus. And I’ll add finally that after reading posts like the one I just linked, I kind of wished I bought into it.

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Michael Totten “just had to” go back to Iraq.

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First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the airbrushed nekkid women and
hey, cut that out!

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The Neo-Neocon hit on some of the same ideas I did last week, and at almost exactly the same time.

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I’m guessing the only reason Steve hasn’t mentioned this yet would be (a) he’s sleeping off a weekend bender, or (b) Preston has him tied up in the basement because of too many creamed beets in his dinner, but either way, Martini Boy was the guest of honor for the inestimable Ed Driscoll’s first podcast.

Check it out, it’s good stuff, and I’m not just saying that because Steve went out of his way to say nice things about me during the interview (but speaking of which, the check’s in the mail). Heck of a start for Ed, and once again, I’m not just saying that because…

UPDATE: Steve here, cuttiing in on Will’s post. It seemed kind of silly to write a new post linking to the same thing. It also seemed rude to ignore Ed. Had a lot of fun talking to Ed, as always. And I should mention that when I first heard it, I had to ask him if he’s ever worked in broadcasting. Nice pipes.

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Science fiction author Dan Simmons received a visit from a time traveler. From the year 2106 or thereabouts, the Traveler is battle scarred, weary, and not very patient. Relating the ancient Peloponnesian War to our Current Mess, the Traveler warns:

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Carboard cutout children take on fascism – and win!

John Noonan reviewed the latest South Park, complete with some of the funniest lines you’ll see all season. Read it already.

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The Libertarian Party has driven away yet another member:

I’m a party-free kind of guy right now. I was a Libertarian, but have officially changed my party affiliation from that tribe of loser-savants to (I) for Independent. The Losertarian Party lost me when they suggested in the most recent issue of the Losertarian Paper that the United States Government engineered 9/11, that the buildings were control-detonated, and that unwieldy, bloated bueracracy somehow managed to gain enough competence to fake out the entire population of the world, who watched every second of it on TV.

Never mind that I saw the airliners crash into those buildings with my own eyes. Nevermind that Osama Bin Laden later accepted credit for this noble and humane deed. Nevermind that the actions of every one of the terrorists were documented by many non-government bodies, it’s the Republican’s fault!

Read the whole thing.

(Hat tip, David J.)

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Kevin Drum asks,

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My pretty new iMac is trouble. Thanks to everybody who told me how to get that right mouse button to work. I guess having it switched off by default is a nod to longtime Mac users

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My good friend Andy lost an old friend:

This morning, April 4, my friend Tom Vicker passed away, a victim of the ravages of cancer. Though a young man of only 40 years, relatively newly married, with fully half of his life ahead of him, Tom was diagnosed with Stage D Colorectal Cancer.

Andy wants to raise money for colorectal cancer research, and will match your donation, dollar for dollar. Click the link above to find out how to help.

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How does a smaller blogger get a link from a larger blogger? I’d say this guy has it figured out.

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An liberal American blogger looks at the French riots:

As Keelin McDonell put it last week in The New Republic, these protests expose “a French progressive movement on the brink of collapse,” a movement that is astoundingly conservative in its opposition to any and all change to the status quo of the French welfare state, a movement that “has become intellectually arid and xenophobic”. After all, just to take this case, neither students nor workers (nor their political representatives) have “put forward an alternate plan to boost employment and secure a place for France in the international economy”. I understand their concerns about globalization and the free market, and I share some of them myself, but I’m not sure how opposition to the new employment law and, indeed, opposition to all market-oriented reforms can be in any way productive. It seems to me that these protesters would rather the international economy didn’t exist, that they are living in some halcyon past that exists only in their imagination, in their own personal and political self-romanticization.

I’d quibble with one little word. The rioters aren’t conservative in their opposition to any kind of employment reform – they’re downright reactionary. Brown shirts with long hair.

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