A COUPLE OF AMUSING READER OBSERVATIONS on the suicide-bomber portrait. Check ’em out.

DODGEBLOG REFUGEE MOMMABEAR has moved to new digs. Drop by with a casserole.

ANDREW SULLIVAN writes that Saddam is getting nervous.

WHY THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY: Heather Hurlburt explains, in the Washington Monthly.

DAVE TROWBRIDGE WONDERS if Osama bin Laden has pulled a Hari Seldon:

What if bin Laden recorded a series of “gloats” about various operations (planned, desired, or even merely likely) that, in the event of his death, could be hacked together to give the impression that he was still alive? Certainly the rhetoric wouldn’t change, just the names of the countries and the types of operations, both of which are not that large a set of possibilities. It seems to me that with a little imagination and not much more time expended, a set of recordings could have been produced that could keep Osama alive for years beyond his actual death, rendering him, in effect, undefeatable.

This wouldn’t surprise me at all.

UPDATE: This is old news to the blogosphere, but if you missed it earlier, here’s a story on the peculiar bin Laden / Asimov link.

WHAT ARE INTELLECTUALS GOOD FOR? Yale Kramer tells a story that suggests “not much.”

On the other hand, I could have passed his little test with ease. I’ve got proof.

AIRBRUSH AWARD: Rachel Lucas reports that Michael Moore has scuttled the page on his website that proclaimed election day would be “payback Tuesday.” Reports Rachel: “Well the link to it is gone now. Not even in the archives.” She’s still got it, though.

THE MISS CLEO / AL JAZEERA CONNECTION: No, really, that’s what it’s about.

HANS LABOHM writes that Western imperialism is generating a backlash in the Third World. “Ecoimperialism,” that is.

UPDATE: Suman Palit had a post on this a while back, too.

MICHELLE MALKIN REPORTS that the INS does little to stand in the way of terrorists. Meanwhile Matt Welch and Dr. Frank report that it does its best to hassle harmless people. I suspect that both stories are true.

DEMOCRATS ARE CLAIMING “CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BIAS:” Ed Driscoll isn’t persuaded.

UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus has uncovered a media conspiracy so vast. . . Well, so vast that Bob Scheer is in on it, and he’s the last to hear about everything.

HARRY W. POTTER: Last week, Chris Suellentrop of Slate angered a lot of fans with a rather negative assessment of Harry Potter. Potter, wrote Suellentrop, is no hero, but a pampered jock who inherited his powers and enjoys unwarranted public acclaim while others — like sidekicks Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Cedric Diggory — do the heavy lifting of fighting evil.

Of course, Suellentrop is wrong. It’s true that Potter inherited his powers (as with “The Force” in the Star Wars universe, magical potency is mostly inherited, for some reason). But Potter in fact brings a lot more to the table than Suellentrop gives him credit for. Sure, Hermione is smarter, Ron is better at chess, and Cedric is braver and better-looking (he’s “extremely handsome,” we’re told). But Harry Potter is the keystone, the essential element. Without him, the fight against Voldemort would be lost before it was begun. In fact, it wouldn’t be begun at all.

What he brings to the table are personal qualities rather than talents. He’s loyal, and more importantly he inspires loyalty. And he has a clear vision of what matters. Everyone else is able to forget, or to convince themselves to ignore, the threat posed by Voldemort. Harry, on the other hand, never forgets. Potter even has to deal with purblind Eurocrats, like Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic:

Look, I saw Voldemort come back!” Harry shouted. . . . “I saw the Death Eaters! I can give you their names. . .”

“You are merely repeating the names of those who were acquitted of being death eaters thirteen years ago!” said Fudge, angrily. . .

“You fool!” Professor McGonagall cried. “Cedric Diggory! Mr. Crouch!” These deaths were not the random work of a lunatic!”

“I see no evidence to the contrary!” shouted Fudge, now matching her anger, his face purpling. “It seems to me that you are all determined to start a panic that will destabilize everything we have worked for these last thirteen years!”

Harry couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had always thought of Fudge as a kindly figure, a little blustering, a little pompous, but essentially good-natured. But now a short, angry wizard stood before him, refusing, point-blank, to accept the prospect of disruption in his comfortable and ordered world — to believe that Voldemort could have risen.

Hmm. This sounds kind of like someone else whose warnings of “evil” are sometimes mocked, and who is often underestimated by journalists. George W. Potter? Or Harry W. Bush?

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Not only is Suellentrop wrong, he’s unoriginal. I mean, isn’t this exactly Snape’s refrain, for the past four books?” Hmm. Severus Suellentrop? No, . . .

WEAR BLACKFACE AND YOU GET SUSPENDED: Paint something that people find offensive on other grounds and you win an award:

The 4-foot-by-6-foot oil painting by Cong Lu, 24, depicts a young Asian man pulling up his shirt to reveal explosives strapped around his midsection. A pistol is tucked into his waistband. The piece is entitled, Self Portrait of a Martyr.

The painting, one of 78 works on exhibit at the school through December, hangs in the building’s main lobby at 200 Grant St. The piece was awarded Student Best of Show, and the artist received a $1,300 Allied Arts Award, given yearly to an outstanding young artist.

But a handful of students have complained about the painting, which they interpret as hostile, anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian. They also object to the title, which equates suicide bombers with martyrs.

Leona Lazar, executive director of the ASLD, said she understands why people find the painting so troubling – but that’s no reason to remove it or banish it to a less-visible position.

“Art is subjective,” she said. “Used as a metaphor or presented as the artist’s personal statement, every opinion is valid and every viewer is entitled to his or her own interpretation.”

I guess the guys at Kappa Sigma should have tried that argument. More proof of Dale Amon’s point about the unevenness of these standards.

UPDATE: From the “maybe it is subjective” department, a reader writes:

Without knowing anything about Cong Lu or his painting, I can’t help but see parody in it. The suicide bombers believe they are on a divine mission, presumably; Cong Lu has borrowed their trappings and title for a preening and arguable homoerotic exercise in narcissism. Maybe that’s not what he intends, but that’s what I see. I think it’s hilarious.

Heh.

UPDATE: Reader Laurence Rothenberg writes: “What would happen if someone painted, ‘Self-portrait in Blackface?'”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ben Gibson writes (as did several others) “Why does the painting of the “martyr” have breasts? If it is supposed to be a man, well, that is a nice set of hooters. It does not look like a gal other than the prominent breasts. Perhaps this martyr guy has some issues.”

Actually, I think it’s just bad technique, with those meant to be bulging, manly pecs. But since we’re informed that this is all subjective anyway, I’m going to say “nice rack on that suicide bomber!” Another (female) reader noted where the pistol is pointing and said “he’d better be careful or he’ll blow off his tiny little suicide-bomber penis!”

ONE MORE UPDATE: Reader Ken Summers says this reminds him of the line from Fun with Dick and Jane: “Don’t go off half-cocked.” And Tucker Goodrich reports:

Just got back from Boston, where I saw the following bumper sticker:

“Martyrdom is for Suckers”

Indeed it is. Somebody should translate that into Arabic.

TORA! TORA! TORA! UPDATE:

They had survived bombs at Pearl Harbor and torpedoes across the Pacific — but say they were nearly sunk by political correctness in the city of Los Angeles.

City officials who had barred veterans of Pearl Harbor from commemorating the attack on Dec. 7 by attending a showing of the 1970 film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” at a city-owned movie theater did an about-face Wednesday.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who Tuesday said “I wanted to be very sensitive to the Japanese-American community,” changed her mind Wednesday in the face of outrage from veterans’ groups and called for “disciplinary action” against theater officials for discriminating against veterans.

Heh. That’s quite an “about-face” indeed. But that’s the thing about the PC crowd: in their hearts, they know they’re wrong.

SECULAR MARTYRDOM IN IRAN:

It’s a pity that so much of the attention given to the Islamic world is lavished on its thugs and psychopaths; a pity because its men and women of courage are largely overlooked.

The case of Iranian academic Hashem Aghajari is a striking example. Dr. Aghajari gave a public lecture in June calling for political reform and “religious renewal,” and challenging his fellow Iranians not to “blindly follow religious leaders.” The result was that he was charged in Iran’s religious courts with apostasy, where he was found guilty Nov. 6 in a closed-door trial. He is to be hanged. . . .

Aghajari has the right to appeal his verdict, presumably allowing a deal to be worked out that could defuse the crisis. (Similar death sentences have been reduced on appeal.) But his lawyer now says that Aghajari doesn’t want to appeal. According to the lawyer, Aghajari says that “those who have issued this verdict have to implement it if they think it is right or else the Judiciary has to handle it.” He thus appears to be risking his life so as to force Iran’s judicial establishment to confront its own barbarity.

Read the whole thing.

IRAQI SOLDIERS are shown practicing for a U.S. invasion in this rare undercover photo.

IS IT JUST ME? Or is this new logo for the “Information Awareness Program” that will track all sorts of personal information about Americans just a wee bit creepy?

Oh, graphically it’s okay. But it looks like something that would be painted on the elevator doors in a bearded-Spock world, or in some bad Colossus-knockoff movie. And it’s not as creepy as its British counterpart. But still. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Dave Lane says he’s willing to live in the bearded-Spock world, so long as women’s fashion follows along. All I can say to that observation is that now I’m really worried. I mean really worried.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And a more substantive one. . . . Henry Hanks emails that Rush Limbaugh just came out against the Information Awareness Program: “He reiterated his statement from Sep. 12, ’01 about not sacrificing liberty… he said the database to which Safire refers is unnecessary and probably won’t become a reality.” Good.

THE INDEPUNDIT WONDERS WHY THE ANTI-WAR CROWD ISN’T CELEBRATING the return of inspectors to Iraq. He has a number of other questions, too. Pat Buchanan is involved.

HERE’S A FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT of Scott Ritter’s speech at CalTech last night:

Next someone asked Ritter how his story had changed since 1998. “It hasn’t changed; it’s evolved.”

There’s much more.

UAVS IN CIVILIAN LIFE: It’s not just the military that’s using unmanned aircraft, as Noah Shachtman reports in The New York Times. It sounds, though, as if the bureaucracy is having trouble keeping up with the technology:

Jim Brass, a colleague of Mr. Herwitz at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., sought to use a drone last November to look at a forest fire in the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles.

But the Federal Aviation Administration refused to let the drone fly. Getting to the fire, a “controlled burn” begun by the Forest Service to thin trees, would have involved flying through the approach to the suburban airport in Ontario, Calif., and the F.A.A. did not want a drone in crowded airspace.

It is a common problem for civilian drones. A small, piloted airplane can operate pretty much anywhere with little or no notification. But flying a drone means filing for a certificate of authorization, a narrowly drawn permission slip from the F.A.A. to roam a small strip of the skies. Getting the certificate takes months.

“We aren’t pursuing commercial applications over America because U.A.V. flights are so restricted by the F.A.A.,” Mr. Sliwa said, reflecting a common approach in the industry. The agency has yet to issue minimum standards for the drones’ hardware and software. There are no guidelines on how the drones’ human operators should be trained.

The fact that the pilot of a small plane is likely to share the fate of his/her craft is, of course, an added spur to responsibility — and one that isn’t present with unmanned aircraft. But nonetheless, it seems as if the FAA needs to catch up with the times.

MINNESOTA BLOGGER MITCH BERG HAS THIS TO SAY about Garrison Keillor, in response to Keillor’s latest in Salon:

Keillor is a funny man, a generally superb humorist, and Prairie Home Companion is a weekly ritual – even my children (9 and 11) love it. But Keillor is in his entirety a creation of the public sector. And like any public institution, he suffers the public with the same grace as do the cashiers at the Department of Public Safety. Having known, socially and professionally, many who’d worked with him, having met many more who’d dealt with him in a variety of capacities, one notes this: Keillor treats those he perceives as superiors with unvarnished obsequeity; Peers, he addresses with a veneer of respect; underlings, he treats like cat litter, to be rubbed underfoot and…well, you know how it ends, right? Having known a few people who’d worked on PHC, the metaphor basically fits.

Keillor is reacting to a Republican sweep the same way the Teacher’s union, or the National Orgization of Women, do; with doomsday rhetoric, with chicken-little doommongering, with nasty, defensive slurs – and the added fun of lots of personal slurs against “the enemy.”

Following these observations is a point-by-point Fisking of Keillor’s assertions that, if there were any justice, would have Keillor apologizing profusely and begging forgiveness.

But there isn’t any justice where the likes of Keillor are concerned. Except that provided by the Blogosphere.

UPDATE: Tacitus has some interesting observations on Keillor, and a comparison of Keillor with Lewis Lapham.

LIVING BY PERMISSION: Arthur Silber agrees with William Safire that the homeland security bill is a bad idea. And reader Howard Veit has this to say about the Poindexter plan:

I don’t think there is even a remote chance the Republicans would have carried the day last week if people knew this guy was still in government AND working for the Bush Administration. I am stunned by this. He almost wrecked Reagan, and Bush sure ain’t no Ronnie.

Bad news. Worse news is that the Democrats are so stupid they didn’t think to make an issue of this. I guess “stupid” is the wrong word here, but so self absorbed in their PC petty agenda politics it didn’t seem important.

Yeah. Here’s what I wrote a while back. Here’s another item on the subject. Also here, and, well, here. Meanwhile, here is the sort of thing we ought to be doing instead.

UPDATE: TalkLeft has picked up on my Homeland Security proposal, though some of the commentators there seem mired in rather silly concerns about “vigilantism.” But SKBubba likes the idea! But scroll down for his rather negative take on the Homeland Security bill.

The Yale Weblog Conference page has been updated, with a cool new graphic. It’s always nice to see Ivy League people not taking themselves too seriously! And, yes, it’s open to the public, though of course security will be tight and it may move to a secure, undisclosed location at the last minute.

HAROLD FORD makes a promise that Nancy Pelosi probably won’t match: “If I cannot lead Democrats to the majority in two years, I will step down in favor of someone who can.”

Ford also observes:

Although Democrats have traditionally sought the upper hand on domestic issues, we now live in a post-9/11 world. If we want the American people to trust us to govern, we cannot take a dismissive or defeatist attitude toward issues of national security.

One area of stark contrast between my opponent and me is Iraq. Rep. Pelosi opposed the president and voted against the resolution. I worked with Republicans and Democrats to pass a narrowly tailored resolution and joined Democrats and Republicans in voting for it. Ultimately, congressional support helped the administration negotiate a strong resolution that won the unanimous approval of the U.N. Security Council.

But no matter how individual members voted on the resolution, our problem as a party in this most recent election was that we raised objections rather than offered solutions. Many Americans may be apprehensive about the president’s national security strategy, but they understand that he has one, and that the Democrats don’t.

He also suggests that Democrats could learn a lot from Phil Bredesen’s successful campaign for governor, which I’ve said as well. I know some other members of the Ford family somewhat, but I’ve never met Harold. By all accounts, though, he’s sharp — and this would seem to prove it. The Democrats could do worse. In fact, they almost certainly will.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, here’s some advice for the Republicans that they’d do well to think about.

MERDE IN FRANCE is a bilingual Paris-based weblog that’s very much worth checking out.