CLAYTON CRAMER IS SAYING “I told you so.”

STEVEN CHAPMAN observes the gap between claims about surveillance cameras’ ability to protect people, and the reality thereof.

INTERESTING PIECE ON THE LINK between Al Qaeda and Chechnya — and on why Russia’s experience in dealing with the Chechens may hold lessons for us.

HARRY BELAFONTE will be speaking at a Charles Schwab conference next week, and some people are unhappy about it in light of his nasty remarks about Colin Powell.

THE MORE THAT EUROPEANS TALK ABOUT MORALITY, writes Cornell professor Barry Strauss, the more likely it is that they’re really talking about power:

When it comes to the possibility of war in Iraq, for example, the main theme sounded in the European media these days is that Europe opposes American power. You know the refrain: unlike ignorant and arrogant Americans, Europeans know the true price of war. American intellectuals concur, but our mandarins have always been eager to embrace the argument that their countrymen are a bunch of spitball-throwing hayseeds while the Europeans recite Homer before breakfast.

So, let’s ask: What would Europe replace American power with — Kantian morality? Nope, the replacement would be European power. American unilateralism is what Europe fears most; the rights and wrong of war with Iraq are a secondary issue. “No to War, Yes to A European Voice,” is the way that one poster in Rome recently summed things up.

Indeed.

THE INDEPUNDIT is back on the case. And Justin Katz has some thoughts on profiling.

MORE ON IRAN. I agree that the press is shamefully neglecting this subject.

NEW YORK WANTS TO BAN TOY GUNS. Here’s the “money quote:”

“Our legislation seeks to remedy the constant deadly results that happen because of toy guns,” said Vann, a Brooklyn Democrat. “Whether the gun is real or not, a death is still taking place, and that is unfortunate.”

As someone once said, what a terrible thing is is to lose one’s mind, or to waste a mind, or to never have a mind at all.

UPDATE: And they’re missing the lifesaving uses to which toy guns can be put!

TOM MAGUIRE thinks he’s found an example of media bias. The Ville calls it a cover-up.

JOHN CASEY argues for a Hashemite restoration in Iraq — in The Guardian. Personally, I think the Hashemites will be too busy running Hashemite Arabia, or at least part of it, to worry about Iraq. . . .

THEY’VE ARRESTED THE TWO GUYS wanted in the sniper case, after witnesses spotted them sleeping in a car at a rest stop. Other accounts suggest that they were “sympathetic” to Al Qaeda. This story reports:

Several federal sources said Muhammad and Malvo may have been motivated by anti-American sentiments in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Both were known to speak sympathetically about the men who attacked the United States, the sources said.

So much for the “white supremacist” theory. James Morrow has some questions. And reader Michelle Malkin emails this link on the training camp and wonders if there’s a connection to the Al Fuqra group.

The TV people are still playing this as “a new kind of serial killer” — but it’s not. It’s terrorism. It may be terrorism of the “leaderless resistance” variety — or not — but unless this is a huge screwup by the authorities it’s pretty obviously Islamic terrorism, and neither the authorities nor the media commentators are enhancing their credibility by pretending otherwise.

UPDATE: James Lileks has some thoughts on what this might mean. And QuasiPundit, which featured all-night updates, has more too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The training camp in Alabama denies any Al Qaeda connection. And this story supports the denial, more or less.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: This story links the camp with James Ujaama.

DAVID FRUM quotes an anonymous “internet essayist” on America becoming the designated driver for the planet. I think he means John Hawkins’ “Confessions of an Isolationist Wannabe,” where the same language appears.

UPDATE: Frum emails:

Thanks for the ID on that essay. The one bad thing about the blogger phenom is that things show up in one’s email unattributed – and it’s hard to know even how to begin finding out who the author was. So my hat is off to John Hawkins for his eloquent words – and my apologies to him for not quoting him by name. I’ll see if I can correct at least the electronic version of the Telegraph.

That’s very handsome. Advice to blog readers — when you forward somebody something like this include the link, or at least the name of the weblog where you found it.

JEFFREY ROSEN IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT in this piece on Eldred v. Ashcroft:

But although they recognized it as a bad law, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his colleagues expressed skepticism about the constitutional basis for striking down this flamboyant piece of special interest legislation. “We’ve said there was a general grant” of power to Congress “and that Congress was free to run with it in many respects,” Rehnquist told Lessig in an uncharacteristic burst of deference to Congress. In fact, the constitutional arguments against the CTEA are the same ones Rehnquist has made the centerpiece of his judicial legacy: that the Constitution grants Congress limited powers, which may only be exercised for carefully enumerated purposes. Seen in this light, the case for striking down the CTEA is actually stronger than the case for striking down the Violence Against Women Act, the Brady Bill, the Gun-Free School Zones Act, and other federal laws that Rehnquist and his conservative colleagues have held exceed Congress’s enumerated powers. If the Court upholds the CTEA while continuing to strike down far less objectionable statutes in the name of limited federal government, Rehnquist’s crusade to limit Congress’s power will be clearly revealed to be based not on devotion to constitutional text and history but on the political and economic interests that a given law serves.

Actually, Rehnquist’s statement isn’t even consistent with existing precedent. You can read more along these lines here.

SOMEONE EMAILED to ask why I didn’t blog more about Paul Krugman’s piece on income inequality. There are lots of reasons — I’m not deeply interested in the topic, to put it mildly, and I’m not a Krugmanblogger. (I mostly leave that to Kaus and Sullivan). Besides, this post and this post, are better than what I would have done anyway.

HMM. THIS IS SOUNDING LIKE A TERRORISM INVESTIGATION. And on FoxNews TV they’re saying that there will be more searches in multiple locations around the country, while members of “immigrant” communities are promised amnesty if they come forward with information. I guess this could still be an investigation into the work of a lone nut, but. . . .

Meanwhile Will Vehrs worries about the response in the D.C. area so far, saying: “I fear that the way we have reacted to this threat–a very limited threat, in many statistical ways–will come back to haunt us as cretins and creeps of all kinds see the power of random violence and chilling threats.” Yep.

What would I do? Will has some good suggestions. And I’d recruit a couple of dozen expert bowhunters (so law enforcement and others who glimpsed them wouldn’t mistake them for the sniper) and put them in tree stands in some likely locations. I’ll bet they could get volunteers without any trouble.

UPDATE: John Bono writes that the FBI is searching locations in Washington state and Alabama where Al Qaeda training camps were already known to have existed. And here’s more from Robin Goodfellow, who lives near the scene of the action in Washington State.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Just heard on TV that they’re looking for two guys named Lee Malvo and John Mohammad. Hmm. CNN is calling the training camp in Alabama a militia camp, but John Mohammad doesn’t sound very militia-like, and here’s a story about the camp from July that says it was used by Al Qaeda sympathizers.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Justin Katz admits it’s a stretch, but notices a coincidence.

ONE MORE: Supposedly there’s a photo of John Mohammad, who now has a warrant out for his arrest, here but at the moment the site’s slashdotted. I’m putting up the link anyway in the expectation that it’ll become available shortly.

THERE MUST BE MUCH GNASHING OF TEETH AT THE VIOLENCE POLICY CENTER and the Brady Campaign over this Gallup poll:

PRINCETON, NJ — The ongoing sniper rampage outside of Washington D.C. has dominated news coverage across America since the first deadly shooting spree on Oct. 3, and has perhaps exposed the limits of law enforcement to the public in a stark new way. However, despite the frightful nature of these events, and the fact that the sniper (or snipers) remains at large, a Gallup Poll conducted Oct. 14-17, finds no evident change in public attitudes about gun ownership. . . .

There has also been no change in the percentage of Americans claiming to purchase guns for their own security. What has changed is public confidence in the police. Although a majority of Americans continue to express high confidence in the police to protect them from violent crime, this figure is down somewhat compared to October 2001.

So much for their efforts to politicize this issue, so far: “Public attitudes today about the strength of gun laws are almost exactly the same as they were a year ago, in October 2001.” There’s more, and it’s all pretty interesting. What’s most interesting (scroll down) is the steady decline (of over 33% from the high in 1990) over the past decade in the number of people who think gun laws should be “more strict.”

Of course, gun laws have become more strict over the past ten years, so maybe a lot of people (excluding those at VPC, Brady, and other anti-gun groups, of course) just got what they wanted and don’t want any more.

RADLEY BALKO WRITES about a ballot initiative that hasn’t gotten much attention (though it’s been blogged here a time or two):

Massachusetts voters face a rare opportunity this election cycle. There is, believe it or not, an issue on the ballot that would dramatically reduce the scope and size of the Bay State’s government. The Small Government Act, “Ballot Initiative 1,” would end the state’s income tax.

Just like that.

Overnight, government officials would have no choice but to jettison bureaucratic waste. Beacon Hill legislators would be forced to make tough decisions about what state programs are absolutely necessary and what programs are extraneous. The measure would eliminate pork spending, corporate welfare and wasteful grants to well-connected research groups, all in one fell swoop. . . .

Not surprisingly, because the measure would transfer power from the Massachusetts government to the Massachusetts people, neither candidate for governor supports it. Neither do either of the state’s two major political parties. No major state officeholder supports it. And, here’s a shocker: Few if any of the state’s most powerful interest groups support it.

Nevertheless, the measure is polling at about 40 percent, a remarkable number given the state’s leftist political proclivities. But now that the measure carries some small chance of passing, big government advocates are amassing troops and funds to ensure its defeat.

I don’t expect that this will pass, but if it even gets double-digits in Massachussetts, of all places, it’ll be the political event of the season. Bet it won’t get much attention, though.

JIM BENNETT WRITES THAT IT’S CRUNCH TIME FOR AUSTRALIA:

Australia’s options are permanently connected to the fate of Indonesia. For the foreseeable future, Australia will have as its closest major neighbor a state that is vastly more populous, vastly poorer, riven by religious factionalism and ethnic separatism, and burdened in its quest for development by a weak civil society.

An Indonesia fragmented by religious and ethnic struggle would be a source of masses of desperate refugees. An Indonesia dominated by radical Islamists would be a nightmare. Consider the words of one of Indonesia’s radical Islamist leaders, Abu Bakar Baasyir. Asked if there was anything he wanted to say to families who lost relatives in the Bali bomb attack, he said: “My message to the families is please convert to Islam as soon as possible.”

In its current situation, Australia has fewer choices than its intellectuals believe. Their preferred choice, appeasement of the radical Islamists, will be not only ineffective but counterproductive: it will teach the lesson that killing Australians is the way to control Australia.

There is in fact little Australia can do to please or accommodate the radical Islamists of Indonesia, since their goals are primarily aimed at turning Indonesia into a Taliban-like Islamist state. Terror against non-Muslim Indonesians and foreign travelers in Indonesia is part of their campaign, and there is nothing that will stop them short of rendering them ineffective.

My preference is for rendering them permanently ineffective.

BELLESILES UPDATE: A positive review of Arming America has been retracted.

YOU KNOW, this looks like more evidence of the Nick Denton terrorists-are-idiots theory:

Gunmen claiming to be Chechen rebels seized a crowded Moscow theater Wednesday night, firing their weapons and taking hundreds in the audience hostage. Police and security forces surrounded the building.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported the men were laying mines inside the theater. The report was based on a witness report to police and could not be independently verified. . . .

The Interfax news agency reported some children and Muslims in the audience had been freed. A boy who was let out told a radio interviewer the gunmen were from the Caucasus region, spoke in one of the languages of southern Russia and demanded an end to Russia’s war against Chechnya.

I think that Russian opposition to American war efforts is likely to drop, in exchange for us keeping quiet about what they’re about to do in Chechnya.

UPDATE: Here’s another story.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Clayton Cramer writes: “al-Qaida wants an all-out war, a Manichean struggle between Good and Evil. They are just a little confused about which side they are on.”

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Eric Olsen has noticed what’s missing from the reports.

A READER WRITES:

I was in Indonesia earlier this year too. Two (of the very many) things that stuck out: First, a muslim man there told me that the US should send troops to close down the Laskar Jihad training camps. He was quite pissed off at LJ–and didn’t expect I’s military to do anything. Second, in Jakarta I saw several people wearing t-shirts of the American flag. No one paid any greater attention to them than to the people wearing Nike t-shirts. The general sense I got was that Indonesians are really excited about having coming out from under Suharto. They don’t want some stupid freaks–who don’t drink!–to ruin it. They’re scared of just that though.

Hmm. Well, those sentiments would explain this.

YOU KNOW, THIS LOOKS LIKE A PARODY — right down to the picture accompanying the column. And it is. It’s just an unintentional one.

UPDATE: Reader Chris Hall writes:

It looks like Daniel is taking the President’s successful handling of the War on Terror even harder than the recent break-up of Phish, which was admittedly a blow for me as well.

MathGirl, who is about Daniel’s age, I believe, is less charitable:

I’m sure that you have noticed the seemingly endless articles by leftist authors which begin,”There’s a madman with weapons of mass destruction, intent on destroying civilization with a unilateralist war. He has already committed genocide against thousands, if not millions of helpless women and children. He respects no U.N. sanction or international law. The world community must act to stop this dictator immediately! Saddam Hussein? No, George W. Bush!”

Given the number of times that the left has trotted out this chestnut in the last nine months, shouldn’t someone in the blogosphere attach a name to this type of slander? Anticlimax and bathos just don’t seem to cut it.

I suppose it’s a little uncharitable to pick on a young pseudo-intellectual such as Daniel Moore, but I surely wouldn’t go to a psychologist who posits wild and unsubstantiated theories about the metal state of someone he’s never even met while making up biographical details to support them.

Me neither. Finally, reader Matt Sitar sends this link and notes:

“Undeclared” was a short-lived TV show about a group of first year college students. Daniel Moore seems to bear more than a passing resemblance to the character ‘Marshall’ on the show (third pic on the top row). Marshall would best be described as a lovable doofus.

Not sure what to make of this one.

The unfortunate thing is that, thanks to the web, when you write sophomoric drivel for your college paper people all over the world can make fun of it. And via the magic of Google’s cache, it lasts forever. Oops.

THE BOSNIAN SERB GOVERNMENT admits to selling weapons to Iraq. This is creating a political scandal there.

(Links via Hesiod).

MORE TROUBLE for the Euro.

ACCORDING TO A STUDY BY HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading Internet censor. Probably trying to keep their people from reading Charles Johnson’s site.

Or maybe they don’t want them to see stuff like this, and this.

UPDATE: Here’s something else they may want to censor: a report from the IMF saying the Saudi economy is headed south.