ANOTHER ARAFAT BABY-WIPE SIGHTING. Seriously, what’s this about?

H.D. MILLER POSTS A LENGTHY FISKING of the World Wildlife Fund’s recent environmental report, and of Malthusianism in general.

UPDATE: Oops. The dreaded Blogger Archive Bug appears to have struck. Just go here and scroll.

READER MATT LIERMAN WRITES:

I wonder if you’ve had a chance to read the latest article to address “Arming America” in the most current issue of Playboy. The author basically trashes all of Bellesiles’ critics by suggesting that they are all gun rights nuts and that even if Bellesiles’ data is flawed, it only affects “five paragraphs” in the book.

Since you’re on top of the story, I thought you might be interested. It wouldn’t take much to knock the author’s assertions into the cheap seats.

Well, I don’t read Playboy, even for the articles (I haven’t even picked up a copy of the issue where my brother’s girlfriend posed), and I’m not sure if I want to shell out five bucks or whatever just to refute some already-discredited argument. Maybe it’ll be on NEXIS — I’ll try to check.

But for the record: Pretty much everybody in the legal-historical community (even, reportedly, Garry Wills though he’s said so only privately) now seems to agree that Bellesiles book is bogus, and that the fabrications and misrepresentations permeate the entire book, not just a few paragraphs. I have the advantage of having read the page proofs of James Lindgren’s meticulous dissection in the upcoming Yale Law Journal, and it’s just devastating beyond any hope of redemption, in my opinion. I’ll try to link to a PDF when it’s out — I think that Lindgren will have one on his website.

EL SUR HAS UPDATES ON VENEZUELA — including Hugo Chavez’s belief that Jimmy Carter will help him fend off the Organization of American States.

Jimmy Carter seems to have become a shill for dictators, doesn’t he? What’s going on?

THE HAUERWAS / FARRAKHAN CONNECTION: I’ve already mentioned Stanley Hauerwas’s prayer for America to be “humbled” by our enemies. Now Louis Farrakhan is in Baghdad saying much the same thing:

The official Iraqi News Agency, INA, said Farrakhan, on a “solidarity” visit to Iraq, held talks with Islamic Affairs Minister Abdul Munem Saleh on “ways to confront the American threats against Iraq.”

INA quoted the African-American Muslim leader as saying “the Muslim American people are praying to the almighty God to grant victory to Iraq.”

Funny. Stanley doesn’t look Muslim.

TENNESSEE’S INCOME TAX BATTLE: A lot of people have emailed to ask me what I think about it. Generally, I refer ’em to Bill Hobbs, who has been covering this issue like a blanket. (Just go there and start scrolling down).

I did write something about this issue for the Nando Times a few years back, and it has held up pretty well. (It’s gone from the Nando site, but thanks to the miracle of Google you can read it here.) The big problem is that Tennessee’s elected leaders have tried to address this problem by sleight-of-hand rather than persuasion. Every time they’ve done that, they’ve hurt their own credibility, and every time they’ve hurt their own credibility, they’ve reduced their ability to sell it in an aboveboard fashion.

It’s a bipartisan problem. Ned Ray McWherter, our last governor, was a Democrat — and perhaps the sharpest Tennessee politician in my lifetime. Don Sundquist, the current governor, is a Republican (and, ahem, not quite as politically sharp as McWherter).

Neither tried running on a pro-income tax platform; both said they were against it until they were in their second and final term, at which point they came out in favor of the tax. (In Sundquist’s case, he was giving anti-income tax speeches until just weeks before he decided to support the tax).

Had someone started pushing an income tax back ten years ago, been consistent about it, and run candidates on it, they might have changed some minds. Instead, all they’ve done is harden the opposition. Sure, they might have lost some elections — but how can you ask the voters to sacrifice when you’re not willing to take any risks yourself?

This ties in with what I say about Karl Rove’s too-clever machinations, below. When people aren’t paying attention, and don’t care much anyway (which is most of the time in politics) you can get away with a lot. But when people do care, and do pay attention — as with the war, or the income tax — then you have to be straightforward and honest or you’ll pay a steep price. Sundquist, who is now despised by almost everyone (a newspaper asked me to write an oped a few weeks ago on the subject of who should hate Sundquist more: the anti-tax people or the pro-tax people) has paid that price.

Bush had better keep Rove on a short leash or he’ll wind up in the same boat.

UPDATE: If you want to know more, visit Frank Cagle’s site. He’s a great source for Tennessee political news generally.

STEPHEN GREEN, who picks up the blogging slack while I sleep, has some interesting thoughts on the upcoming military campaign. For what it’s worth, I think it’s already started, in ways that aren’t too obvious yet.

“EIN VOLK, EIN REICH, EIN EURO:” Here’s a commercial that has the Eurocrats up in arms.

STANLEY KURTZ says that he’s been smeared by the Chronicle of Higher Education. In general, I’ve found them to be reasonably fair — but that’s not to say that their reporters are always agenda-free.

STILL PLAYING CATCH-UP, I just ran across this appreciation of Canada by John Scalzi.