MORE BUZZ on a Fred Thompson candidacy.

DOCTOR WHO MEETS THE BEATLES (Via BoingBoing).

EUGENE VOLOKH LOOKS AT overheated judicial rhetoric. It doesn’t produce great confidence in the judiciary.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE GOOD NEWS: Taliban flee Afghan-led NATO offensive:

Complete success is being claimed for the largest Afghan-led operation yet against the Taliban.

Afghan army forces and police have now purged the Nad Ali district of Helmand of 400 Taliban fighters, following a series of chaotic battles.

Allied commanders estimated 70 Taliban fighters were killed in the fighting, while many others fled or gave up their weapons.

Locals said that the dead included at least one senior commander, Mullah Abdul Bary.

“Of course there are some Taliban left in here, but they have dropped their weapons and they are hiding,” said Colonel Rasoul, the commander of the 3rd Kandak, the best regular army unit in the fledgling Afghan security forces.

I hope the news stays good.

DER SPIEGEL:

The Germans have believed in many things in the course of their recent history. They’ve believed in colonies in Africa and in the Kaiser. They even believed in the Kaiser when he told them that there would be no more political parties, only soldiers on the front.

Not too long afterwards, they believed that Jews should be placed into ghettos and concentration camps because they were the enemies of the people. Then they believed in the autobahn and that the Third Reich would ultimately be victorious. A few years later, they believed in the Deutsche mark. They believed that the Berlin Wall would be there forever and that their pensions were safe. They believed in recycling as well as in cheap jet travel. They even believed in a German victory at the soccer World Cup.

Now they believe that the United States is a greater threat to world peace than Iran. This was the by-no-means-surprising result of a Forsa opinion poll commissioned by Stern magazine. Young Germans in particular — 57 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds, to be precise — said they considered the United States more dangerous than the religious regime in Iran.

The German political establishment, which will no doubt loudly lament the result of the poll, is largely responsible for this wave of anti-Americanism. For years the country’s foreign ministers fed the Germans the fairy tale of what they called a “critical dialogue” between Europe and Iran. It went something like this: If we are nice to the ayatollahs, cuddle up to them a bit and occasionally wag our fingers at them when they’ve been naughty, they’ll stop condemning their women to death for “unchaste behavior” and they’ll stop building the atom bomb.

That plan failed at some point — an outcome, incidentally, that Washington had long anticipated. Iran continues to work away unhindered on its nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reacts to UN demands with an ostentatious show of ignorance. The UN gets upset and drafts a resolution.

Read the whole thing, which also has some interesting thoughts on German anti-Americanism and its dangers.

DIVINE: My not so subtle begging did the trick, as a big box of chocolate-covered cherries showed up in the mail today. They’re beautiful — and delicious!

MARINES UNFAZED BY CHLORINE GAS. Bill Ardolino reports.

UPDATE: John Weidner has some perspective.

A BLOGGING FIRST: Captain Ed is liveblogging his wife’s kidney transplant. Send your prayers and best wishes.

WE HAVEN’T HEARD MUCH OF THIS, but finally someone is complaining that the Iranians are violating international law by parading prisoners on TV.

International law is rapidly becoming a joke because of double standards. And, as noted, because of its enforcement problem. At a guess, we’re likely heading toward a regime of strict reciprocity, as that’s all that can work in such a degraded environment.

UPDATE: A few emailers are suggesting that there’s some sort of contradiction here in my pointing this out, as if I’d never discussed the Geneva Conventions before. But, of course, the point is the double standard: the Geneva Conventions never seem to do our guys any good. Our enemies don’t obey them, and our critics use them — even when they don’t apply — as a way to call American troops and their friends torturers and war criminals. That’s what I meant by “degraded environment,” which aptly describes the political and intellectual environment in which such critics operate. As I’ve observed in the past, we don’t operate in an environment of reciprocity now. As Professor Kenneth Anderson has noted, the Geneva Conventions tend to serve more as a source of urban legends for anti-American and anti-Bush writers who often don’t even know, or care, what the Conventions say.

A LOOK AT YOUR IMMINENT ROBOTIC FUTURE, from Daniel Wilson. Upside: Less dog poo!

ANDY BOWERS, ET AL., review Rudy Giuliani’s first campaign ad.

COOKWARE UPDATE: I mentioned this nonstick pan that’s cheap and allegedly metal-utensil safe a while back. Months later, it remains unscratched despite the Insta-Wife’s regular use. That’s pretty much a miracle, so I thought I’d note it.

HEH: A look at the RIAA’s lawsuit decision matrix.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE:

The federal agency that tracked pork-barrel spending during the 12 years of the Republican congressional majority has discontinued the practice since Democrats took power, riling lawmakers suspicious of the timing and concerned about the pace of fat being added to bills.

“To me, something doesn’t smell right,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican. “I just hope no one is pressuring” the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

While not blaming the Democratic leadership, Mr. DeMint added: “I guess if you’re looking for a motive, you’d have to look in that direction.”

CRS, a nonpartisan agency of the Library of Congress created to conduct research for members of Congress on legislative issues, changed its policy in February — a month after Democrats took control of the Congress and vowed to curb the number of special-interest projects inserted into spending bills or even reports that don’t require a vote.

Seems pretty fishy to me, and I wonder why it’s not getting more attention.

MORE GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS, from Jules Crittenden.

A ROSIE O’DONNELL MELTDOWN: “I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the video against which all future Rosie clips will be compared.”

CRITICISM OF KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON’S BILL to repeal the D.C. gun ban.

THE LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA NEWSPAPER ASKS: “Tell us, Sen. Webb, do you pack heat on the floor?”

Would a “yes” really hurt him with voters? I doubt it . . . .

JOHN TAMMES ROUNDS UP more news from Afghanistan that you may have missed.

“PRISSY AND PURITANICAL.” Best line in the comments: “If they were only drunks, at least a few of them would become more pleasant.”

IF THIS IS TRUE, IS THE BLOGOSPHERE DOOMED? “Nobody wants to read a fisk of a fisk, I assume.”

MICHAEL TOTTEN MEETS UP with Iran’s revolutionary liberals.

JAMES JOYNER: “Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies* has announced the results of a telephone survey conducted for the Republican National Committee of 800 registered voters from March 25-27, 2007. They found a majority opposed to the provisions of the Iraq War Supplemental Spending bill that just passed both Houses of Congress but faces an almost certain veto by President Bush.”

AUSTIN BAY ON IRAN’S KEYSTONE KOPS MOMENT: “Iran initially gave coordinates (the correct coordinates) that placed the action in Iraqi waters. Iran later provided new coordinates, conveniently inside Iranian territory.”

IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL . . . er, until the long haul actually, you know, happens. Here’s what Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden said in 2002:

Although no one doubts our forces will prevail over Saddam Hussein’s, key regional leaders confirm what the Foreign Relations Committee emphasized in its Iraq hearings last summer: The most challenging phase will likely be the day after — or, more accurately, the decade after — Saddam Hussein.

Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill.

So, it was a project for a decade then. But now it’s cut-and-run. (Via The Corner).