PLAYING INTO BUSH’S HANDS:

BAGHDAD — Serious doubts surfaced over the surprise nature of new arms inspections in Iraq when a United Nations spokesman admitted the head of a suspected weapons site had been given advance warning of the visit by the UN experts to his facility on Saturday.

You can trust the U.N. — to do stuff like this every time.

YESTERDAY I suggested that “Buy Nothing Day” was looking like a flop. I seem to have been right.

FUNNY — I haven’t heard Noam Chomsky, or Marc Herold, or Germaine Greer, or Robert Fisk talking about these villagers whose lives were shattered by a bombing attack:

“I don’t know why this happened to us or what we will do,” said Walinki, her voice shaking. “There are dozens of children who don’t have parents now. We have no one to support them.”

With that, she watched as the grave-diggers continued their work. This is not a place where grave-diggers are hired, where there are gated cemeteries. People dig the graves for their own relatives and bury them next to the huts where they live.

Not a word. Strange. . . .

GENE SPERLING ADVISES Democrats to push for a freeze on tax cuts.

THE STORY THAT WON’T DIE: More on the Saudi funding of 9/11 hijackers, in the Washington Post.

THE CATO INSTITUTE IS CHALLENGING D.C.’S GUN-CONTROL LAWS as violative of the Second Amendment. Cato is reportedly about to file suit.

READER JACOB SEGAL sends this article as an example of right-wing bias at the New York Times. What do you think?

A DICK-TRACY-STYLE two-way wrist radio, for under fifty bucks! Is this a great century, or what? Now if the Diet Smith Corporation would just get to work on those moon colonies. (Via Gizmodo).

WHEN PROFESSORS ATTACK — they often make fools of themselves. Another riff on the Kirstein affair.

LAME. (Via Fraters Libertas).

THE TREASON OF THE INTELLECTUALS:

Behind both kinds of treason there lurks an ugly fact: second-rate intellectuals, feeling themselves powerless, tend to worship power. The Marxist intellectuals who shilled for Stalin and the postmodernists who shill for Osama bin Laden are one of a kind — they identify with a tyrant’s or terrorist’s vision of transforming the world through violence because they know they are incapable of making any difference themselves. This is why you find academic apologists disproportionately in the humanities departments and the soft sciences; physicists and engineers and the like have more constructive ways of engaging the world.

Le Corbusier dedicated a book “To Authority.” I can think of some others who might as well have.

THE HEAD OF THE ARAB EUROPEAN LEAGUE HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH INCITING RIOTS in Antwerp last week:

The authorities were shocked by the targeted nature of vandalism this week. Flemish pubs and black-owned businesses in the Borgerhout district were attacked, but shops displaying AEL stickers were spared.

Belgium’s liberal media agreed yesterday that the country’s experiment with tolerant multiculturalism had totally broken down.

The Flemish newspaper De Morgen said: “For a decade, the immigrant quarters of this country have turned into reservoirs of frustration, even hate. They have found a voice in Abou Jahjah.”

Abou Jahjah rejects assimilation, demanding segregated schools and self-governing, Arab-speaking ghettos.

(Via LGF).

I SAW LEON FUERTH on FoxNews yesterday. I tuned in midway through, and the discussion seemed to have degenerated — I didn’t get much from the conversation except that Leon was pissed with the interviewer.

What did strike me, though, is how good he looked. I’ve noticed this phenomenon a lot — get people out of the White House, or off the Hill, and they just look so much better. Clearer eyes, better color, the sleep-deprivation-induced puffiness gone from their faces, the stress-induced overtones gone from their voices. You see the same transition in the other direction when they go in, but the breakdown is usually more gradual than the recovery, so it’s not as dramatic. It kind of makes you wonder why people want those jobs, though.

JACK O’TOOLE RESPONDS to the suggestions by Al From and Bruce Reed that I mentioned yesterday: “That’s true, and it’s good advice, but the Democrats probably need to lose another election before they’ll be ready to listen.”

MORE ON THE EURO-AMERICAN DIVIDE:

To my knowledge I was the only American participating. This was an occasion for Europeans–Germans especially–to talk frankly to other Europeans. The panel on which I spoke was chaired by Reiner Pommerin, a professor at the University of Dresden, colonel in the German air force reserves, and advisor to the German Ministry of Defense. My fellow speakers included Germany’s former ambassador to the U.K., the current German ambassador to Poland, a DaimlerChrysler managing director, and a professor from Britain. We were to focus on transatlantic relations.

Throughout the two days, Pommerin set the tone with an aggressively antagonistic attitude toward all things American. “Thank God we had the 11th of September,” he declared–for this showed the U.S. how it feels to be humbled. Herr professor-colonel went on to suggest that Americans often feel nostalgic for the “good old days of slavery in the nineteenth century.” He told ludicrous stories about seeing empty bottles and litter piled “one meter deep” along roadsides in America, illustrating our environmental slovenliness. He insisted the seemingly mighty U.S. military was now a hollow force, all flash and no substance. . . .

This simple reality needs to be faced squarely by Americans: In a great variety of areas–foreign policy, demography, religion, economics–Americans and Europeans are growing apart. While the September 11 attacks deepened American sobriety, patriotic feeling, and national resolution, in Europe they merely created one more flashpoint for division. European elites, already worried they won’t be able to keep up with America over the next generation, are now approaching panic as the U.S. coalesces, during its September 11 recovery, into an even steelier and more determined colossus.

Some Europeans complain that the U.S. is more and more heading off on its own without them. They are right. America’s psychic link with Europe, I suggest, is fading extremely rapidly. Keep in mind that there are currently 32 million people living in the U.S. who were born abroad, and very few of these new Americans are from Europe. For two generations now, the new blood flowing into the U.S. has come primarily from Asia, Central and South America, the Near East, and the Caribbean. America is becoming a cosmic nation, comprised of all peoples, rather than just an offshoot of Europe.

I think this may be true — though if the United States breaks with Europe it will be more a result of a European push than an immigrant pull.

CHRIS MOONEY SHARES A FIRSTHAND ALIEN VISITATION REPORT. Well, sort of.

A FEW MONTHS AGO I WROTE THIS:

I predict that within the next year we’ll see major and intrusive efforts to protect Big Entertainment and Big Software, disguised as efforts to protect us against hostile hackers.

Now there’s this on Slashdot:

Now this article tells about Longhorn’s new filesystem being based on the the future Yukon server. And surprise it will only work with new hardware, which they want to be Palladium enabled. And all pitched to you under the rubric of Security & Efficency. For years MS has been accused of only wanting people to run MS Software. Now according to the article, ‘Microsoft doesn’t think computer users should have to use one program to read and write a word-processing file, another to use a spreadsheet, and a third to correspond via e-mail. Rather, the company thinks, a single program should handle it all.’ One program to rule them all, one program to bind them, indeed.

Eternal vigilance.

MINNESOTA BLOGGER MITCH BERG has some thoughts on the Nazi-defaced Norm Coleman billboard and the climate of hatred that leads to such acts.

THEY’RE CALLING IT A SECOND IRANIAN REVOLUTION: Hope it works out better than the first one. But it would pretty much have to. I’m surprised we’re not hearing more about this, but then I’ve been surprised all along:

The fierce dedication to Islam, the Iraq-Iran war, and the 1979 revolution once made Bolooki’s family quintessential supporters of Iran’s conservative clerics. But their desire for reform is indicative of a significant change below the surface of the political battle now playing itself out in Tehran.

“It’s like a volcano coming up, which you can’t see until it blows.” says one Iranian analyst here.

Hardline supporters of the regime vow to bring five million militants onto the streets today, in a climactic show of strength designed to counter 10 days of prodemocracy student protests this month.

More Iranians are choosing sides in an explosive debate that pits Islamic rule – defined by Iran’s unelected conservatives, who have held key levers of power since the Islamic revolution – against popular democracy. . . .

A Western diplomat says that the current regime “is under more pressure than at any time since the revolution. Something has to give,” he says. “Reformers are no longer prepared to compromise. [President Mohamad] Khatami is still regarded as the only one who can peacefully bring about change, and that’s what people really want.”

“If [the system] survives the next year intact, I think it will survive,” says the diplomat, adding that the conservative camp may not grasp the changes afoot. “It’s the same with all dictators – they do not see their own demise.”

Well, I hope to see their demise soon.

DOES THE KORAN PROVE THAT MUSLIMS ARE VIOLENT? Jacob Sullum examines the debate, and Razib K. responds.

KENYAN BOMBING BACKFIRES: “We love America. Go away Al Qaeda!” shouted Kenyans.

Hmm. Will “Al Qaeda go home!” graffiti be next? Why not? They are the imperialist aggressors, after all, in the most literal sense.

THE NEW SMARTERHARPERSINDEX IS UP.

WAR AND PEACE, PACIFISM AND SIN: Donald Sensing has some observations.

BLOGROLL UPDATES: The blogroll is huge. It’s almost beyond my control to keep updated (but Matthew Yglesias’s link finally goes to his new site!). I do my best, though. I’ve added a few new ones, too. In response to popular demand (well, several emails) I’ve moved a few people up from the general blogroll to the big-journalism section, where they’re easier to find and probably really belong. (What, Postrel writes for the New York Times and isn’t “big journalism?” asks a reader. Good point.) If you notice any errors, let me know.

WHY AM I BLOGGING SO MUCH? My daughter (whose computer is in my study) has a new computer game, and she’s so into it I don’t want to make her quit.