SUMAN PALIT IS UP IN ARMS about Kofi Annan’s international gun-control agenda.

UPDATE: Rachel Lucas tells Kofi that he’ll get her gun when he pries it from her cold, dead fingers.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Clayton Cramer says this isn’t the first time this approach has been tried.

APPARENTLY, TED BARLOW IS TAKING the long way home. Come back, Ted — we miss you!

Maybe he’s just having a beer with Edward Boyd and Ginger Stampley.

TNR’S BLOG BIDS a not-so-fond adieu to Robert Torricelli: “Rarely is there ever more cause for public glee than when a scoundrel gets his due. In Trenton this afternoon, the Senate’s most loathsome character got his.”

UPDATE: Rich Galen won’t miss him either: “Bob Torricelli’s career is over. It came to an abrupt and undignified end, which is fitting. Bob Torricelli is an abrupt and undignified person.”

Excerpts from The Torch’s undignified, but sadly not abrupt, farewell speech are here.

A NON-WAR PLAN to bring down Saddam. Donald Sensing offers one, which is more than most war critics have done.

NICE ARTICLE ON ROBOTS and humanity, on Alternet. Personally, I say, “Do not rage against the machine — embrace the machine!” (Okay, actually it’s Ngozi Uti who says that.)

Or as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots says: “Robots are people too! Or at least they will be, someday.”

AN UNSYMPATHETIC ACCOUNT of this weekend’s protests in Washington, from a blog run by students at GWU and elsewhere.

COLLIN MAY, who works in Geneva for a big NGO, explains his view of the EU mindset.

“IF NEW JERSEY HAD BETTER BEACHES, it would almost be Florida.” Jeez. If the first time was farce, what will it be this time?

HASHEMITE UPDATE: Here’s more on a Hashemite role in Iraq. Sounds like the idea is being taken quite seriously in some circles.

I can imagine a role for a transitional monarchy (think Juan Carlos) in Iraq, though I don’t see a Hashemite Restoration as a long-term option there. Besides, the Hashemites will be busy enough in Saudi Arabia. Though the Saudis sure have gotten more cooperative lately. It’s almost as if they were worried about something along those lines . . . .

READER ABHIJIT JAIN SENDS this link to an “unbelievably xenophobic” article from the Arab News denouncing guest workers, who now have the temerity to actually bargain for wages:

As if it were not enough for them to drain the resources of this country by sending millions of riyals annually to their home countries while spending very little locally, foreign workers have now learned the technique of bargaining. They bargain in order to satisfy their strong desire for wealth. In doing so, they outsmart even the most talented and able managers.

This doesn’t say much for Saudi managers, that they can invariably be outsmarted. But those “greedy expatriates” are all looking for work, and they want to be paid. The horror. Yeah, it’s xenophobic, but it’s mostly just clueless.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS WAS INTERVIEWED FOR A SALON PIECE, but he’s not very happy about the way it turned out.

FISKING A WOULD-BE FISKER OF FISKING? Sometimes the Blogosphere really does get a bit self-referential.

RAZIB K SAYS WE’RE CONDUCTING A GIANT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT the likes of which have never been attempted before. So far, so good, as best I can tell.

ROSENBERG ON “that other Senator Schumer” and what he apparently believes.

Hey, maybe Schumer is another victim of a Tikkun-like campaign to discredit him!

TIKKUN IS REPORTING that someone is sending out emails in their name designed to make them look stupid. Rishawn Biddle has more, but without the snarky comments that this seems to call for.

THE REAL TORRICELLI SCANDAL, according to John Cole.

READER TUCKER GOODRICH WRITES:

Let’s review: The record companies complain to Congress that their revenues are down because people are stealing music from them. Meanwhile, they’re no longer allowed to fix prices.

Could it be that’s the reason revenues are down? No more price fixing allowed? The whole piracy thing is a just a lie to coverup a revenue decline? Nah, they’d never do that.

The amazing thing is that revenues weren’t down more…

Interesting observation.

JAMES LILEKS DISSES JESSE VENTURA AND CASTRO SUCKUPISM GENERALLY:

But the Castro-worship just fascinates me. Why? Some applaud the way he thumbs his nose at the US, which always strikes a certain crowd as the hallmark of integrity; if you wrap your derision in the big red flag you’ll always have a claque of bootlickers eager to excuse whatever you do. (The enemy of my enemy is my President for Life.) . . . .

My favorite defense, though, is “free health care” and “literacy.”

Take the second one first. There’s no excuse for not being literate in America. Oh, we could impose literacy on the illiterate here, but it wouldn’t be pretty. We could make English proficiency a requirement for jobs, institute nationwide standards for graduation that mandated a high degree of literacy – and made the students’ fulfillment of those standards a criterion for advancement in the educational establishment.

Let us pause to cogitate how well that would go over.

Health care: supposedly, it’s universal; supposedly, it’s high quality. Egalitarian. (muffled laugh.) Ask yourself this. You’re poor. You have a heart attack. Do you want to be in Havana or New York? Which phone system summons the EMTs faster? Which emergency response team is better equipped? Which hospital is better staffed with highly-paid doctors who have come from all over the world to work here?

Somehow I suspect that a heart attack in Havana at 3 AM means bundling Uncle Raul into your block captain’s ‘57 Belair and hoping it doesn’t break down before you get to the hospital.

But let’s assume that health care in Cuba is the equal of health care in America. If this is the reason to admire Cuba, then this is what some American citizens believe is more important than anything else. Free health care. They will give up elections, the free press, the freedom to travel, the freedom to dissent, the freedom to own a personal computer, for heaven’s sake – they’ve been banned for personal use. But for some, all of those freedoms are negotiable. They’ll give it all up for free health care. That’s their price. . . .

The same people who lecture me about the dark reign of oppression Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft are wreaking on the land are often the same who’d love to meet Castro. They pride themselves on being the champions of freedom, but they celebrate a man whose hands hold the reins of power so tightly they’ll have to saw them off at the wrist when he dies.

Oh, hell, read it all before I wind up excerpting the whole thing. That’s what I hate about Lileks. You excerpt a sentence or two because they’re gems, then you notice that the next sentence or two are gems, too, and then, well, the game’s over, you might as well just give up.

ALTERMAN’S GONNA LOVE THIS: A potential replacement for The Torch.

I STILL CAN’T GET OVER having the Tennessee Attorney General’s office refer me to BlogCritics for more information.

THE EUROPEANS WOULD HAVE MORE CREDIBILITY ON SANCTIONS if it weren’t for things like this:

In response to the increasingly dictatorial nature of the Zimbabwe regime, the European Union early this year enacted a number of sanctions against Zimbabwe, including a ban on travel by members of Zimbabwe’s government.

But, of course, they didn’t mean it. This month Zimbabwe’s Trade Minister was allowed to travel to Brussels, Belgium — which houses the headquarters for the European Union — for a series of talks related to issues in developing nations (previously Zimbabwean officials made trips to France and Italy).

Striking the right pose is what matters. Results are for those crass Americans.

IOWA BLOGGER DAVID HOGBERG says that TAPPED has the Harkin scandal all wrong.

HOW TO CRITICIZE ISRAEL WITHOUT BEING ANTI-SEMITIC: Mike Silverman observes that a lot of people seem to need help in this department, and generously offers some advice.

WELL, I GUESS WE ALL SAW THIS COMING.

UPDATE: Heh. Pretty interesting in conjunction with this speculation. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh noooo. . .

THE AMERICAN PROSPECT IS all over the antiglobalization protests, and they don’t like them much.