AN AMUSING (IN A DEPRESSING KIND OF WAY) FAMILY STORY, from Orchid. Gratitude is the least trustworthy of emotions.

But of course, Americans know that. We just have to look at the French.

WIN FITZPATRICK feels that President Bush isn’t taking the war seriously enough.

This is perhaps unfair: I can do a lot of my work from almost anywhere now (and though I’ve never done it, I know people who have taught their classes via an internet video hookup), and I don’t have access to the communications network that serves a President. Demanding that Bush be at his desk in the Oval Office seems to me to be either out of date, or (in the case of some critics) disingenuous point-scoring. I seem to recall that Roosevelt managed to visit Warm Springs during World War Two, after all.

Of course, the presence of visible progress elsewhere might cause Fitzpatrick to feel more favorably toward Bush’s vacation. It’s possible that we’re making lots of progress that’s not visible at the moment — in fact, I can think of a couple of examples best left unmentioned here — but that’s not much help for Bush’s political position, which I see as somewhat fragile once you get beneath the surface. His approval is still high, and the financial scandals haven’t really had much effect. But the rapid victory in Afghanistan, though impressive, was only the opening round and there hasn’t been a lot of visible follow through. If there’s not much progress soon, Bush may lose the benefit of the doubt. I think the obvious and widely-appreciated absurdities of Homeland Security are already starting to bite; he’ll be in real trouble if the whole war effort starts to be viewed through that lens.

ARE MEDICAL VISAS being abused as a way to end-run the new anti-terror restrictions on immigration? Sydney Smith points to a piece from The New York Sun that suggests the answer is yes:

As Mr. Fishman of Sloan-Kettering said of the INS and the State Department, “There’s no cross-collaboration between the two of them now. Should someone be approved for a visa and not keep an appointment, we don’t know what happens to them afterward.”

In the 1990s, facing a managed care revolution that restricted the flow of patients, hospitals in New York City and around the country began aggressive marketing overseas, creating alliances with far-flung medical centers from Bahrain to Bangkok, in an effort to lure patients.

The efforts paid off and soon foreign patients nation-wide became a $2 billion to $3 billion a year industry, said Mr. O’Kelly. New York Hospital was particularly aggressive in pursuing foreign patients and created a division that attracted patients such as Arab businessmen, who were able to pay cash for high-tech medical intervention.

But as the nation’s immigration net tightens, Mr. O’Kelly fears that his program is being exploited and said he had seen a worrying increase in treatment seekers from countries such as Pakistan. He added that if terrorists should strike again, “The last thing I want to do is wind up on Nightline explaining how it happened.”

We don’t want that either.

SILFLAY HRAKA got a lot of criticism for the middle-east solution mentioned below. He has replied to the critics.

I DON’T KNOW ENOUGH to have an opinion on this L.A. Weekly story about the FBI and efforts to shut down reports of middle eastern involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing (among other things). But there has certainly seemed to be a powerful desire not to talk about that stuff.

I DIDN’T REALIZE THAT MICHEL FOUCAULT had written about the Iranian Revolution. Boy did he get it wrong.

MORE REASON TO DOUBT HOMELAND SECURITY: Trivial Bob has found that they’re trying a bit too hard to get all their hires done.

DEATH CULT UPDATE: See, he’s not hypocritical. Just a good, loyal psychotic death cult member.

THE NATIONAL JOURNAL has a pretty good article on weblogs. Do you guys get tired of hearing about these? There have been a lot now, but by posting them, I at least keep a record in my archives. It’s like an extended memory bank.

JOSH CHAFETZ HAS AN ANTITERRORISM PLAN that seems like a great idea to me.

THERE’S YET ANOTHER new, Sekimori-designed weblog out there, this one with a strong feminist design theme. Nice. I like the “Happenings In The Blogosphere” idea. We need a community newspaper. Er, newsblog.

ANOTHER TERRORIST ARRESTED, APPARENTLY:

ST. CATHARINES, Ontario, Aug. 1 — A Canadian man accused of organizing a plot to blow up U.S. and Israeli embassies in Singapore is being held in a secret location in the United States, where he is cooperating and revealing information about terrorists’ plans, U.S. officials said.

The man, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, 20, a native of Kuwait, was arrested in the Persian Gulf state of Oman and is being held at a military base in the northeastern United States as a material witness, U.S. officials said. Prosecutors are considering filing charges against him in connection with the Singapore operation.

My first thought was that this was Kuwaiti ingratitude, but it’s mostly bad writing. Jabarah grew up in Canada; his family (and apparently him, too) moved to Kuwait last December.

SEXISM AND THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT: A damning indictment.

THE POWER OF THE BLOGOSPHERE: Bill Quick has an example.

STEPHEN LABATON isn’t recycling Democratic press releases in his New York Times “news analysis” pieces, says Mickey Kaus. Because, according to Kaus, the DNC press releases aren’t that crudely partisan!

ARNOLD KLING JOINS IN THE HOMELAND SECURITY PILE-ON:

One difference between The Homeland Security Department and the AOL-TimeWarner merger is that today we have weblogs that allow skeptics to raise our voices. . . .

Anyone who has ever worked in a large organization has to confront the issue that the organization as a whole seems dumber than its individual members. That is why so many of us are trying to use the Internet as our vessel to immigrate to Free Agent Nation.

So now we have an organization that can protect us from terrorism by engaging in massive exercises in team-building, obtaining buy-in, diagramming its processes, and so forth. We’re going to fight Al Qaeda with Dilbert.

I think he’s right with this point, too:

My guess is that somewhere, in some random agency far removed from the Department of Homeland Security, there is a skunkworks of fewer than 300 people that is going to defeat violent Islamic extremists operating in the United States. If not, then we are in big trouble.

I hope that Congress is keeping this in mind.

A SOLUTION TO SUICIDE BOMBINGS, from Silflay Hraka. Armed Liberal likes the idea, but I’m not so sure myself.

BAD NEWS FOR SERIAL KILLERS: The Governor of Louisiana, in response to a serial killer, is advising women to carry guns.

As I recall, a similar program in Gainesville some years ago had a dramatic effect.

TOREN SMITH says that the stock market is a bad issue for the Democrats.

MICHELLE COTTLE DEBUNKS the hysteria over child kidnappings. Just another wave of media hype. Imagine that! Next she’ll be telling us that last summer’s hysteria over shark attacks was bogus. (Via Howard Kurtz.)

I can’t help but note that many of the legacy-media critics of weblogging say that the blogosphere will be prone to waves of hysteria because it lacks the steadying hand of editors and producers. To which I reply: Nyah, nyah!

READER THOMAS ASCH WRITES:

I saw this item at instapundit:

“LAS VEGAS (AP) – A presidential advisor encouraged the nation’s top computer security professionals and hackers Wednesday to try to break computer programs, but said they might need protection from the legal wrath of software makers.”

and wondered if the a little-used congressional power in Article I, Section 8 might be applicable, specifically the power to “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” It seems to me that this suggestion seeks to create “privateers” on the high seas of the Internet. Since the possession of such letters changes acts that would otherwise be piracy into legal acts, it would seem that on the Internet it would change acts that would violate Internet and communications laws into legal acts. While there is no great body of constitutional law on this clause (if any), arguably the Congress has the power to grant private individuals war-making powers in cyberspace. Is this reasoning a violation of original intent because the Internet did not exist in the time of the framers or are the words “Letters of Marque and Reprisal” broad enough to encompass this power?A related question is whether there are any international treaties or agreements that outlaw privateering, and if so, is the specific language such that it would prohibit use of Letters of Marque on the Internet?

Well, I don’t think he had privateering in mind — more like checking doors to make sure they’re locked. But we’ve already seen some private activity against al-Qaeda websites, and I think we could have a lot more with a bit of encouragement. That would be compu-privateering for real — especially if it went further and involved assaults on financial infrastructure, etc. I seem to recall that the US isn’t a party to the anti-privateering treaty anyway. Otherwise I’d have to give this some thought. The biggest issue is immunizing U.S. white-hat hackers from criminal liability in other nations, or under state law. The latter is pretty easy; the former probably would be too. Interesting idea.

MICKEY KAUS says the New York Times is engaged in selective non-reporting in order to downplay the dangers of Iraqi nuclear weapons, all in support of its anti-war agenda.

UPDATE: Here’s another, and pretty damning, example.

Why, exactly, does the New York Times feel obliged to distort its reporting to keep barbarians from looking as barbaric as they are?

I’VE DONE A TERRIBLE JOB of covering the whole Internet Radio fiasco. But Doc Searls has done a great job. Go read this piece and then write your congresscritters.

SCHOOLGIRLS IN TEHRAN will be shedding their veils and wearing more colorful clothing. Hardliners don’t like it. They say it will lead to a “culture of nudity.”

And they say it like that’s a bad thing.

FACT-CHECKING THEIR ASSES, IN PERSON: Tony Woodlief reports on his experience leading an airport revolt against dumb security.

We’re likely to see more of this. I hope.