OVER A YEAR AGO, I called stuff like this “pure political poison” in terms of our relations with the Muslim world. It still is.

UPDATE: A lot of readers disagree with me here, pointing out that Nazism has a lot of adherents in the Arab world, etc., etc. That’s certainly true, but I don’t think it really addresses the point. Justin Katz writes that efforts to compare this with A.N.S.W.E.R. suggest “desperation” on the part of liberals. Well, that’s right. For it to compare with A.N.S.W.E.R., it would have to be a pro-Nazi sticker, sold by organizers who proudly shared its sentiments.

VENEZUELANS ARE MARCHING FOR PRESS FREEDOM in response to Hugo Chavez’s effort to shut down opposition TV stations.

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE OOOIIILLL — IT’S ABOUT THE ALIENS!

It is allegedly said that the craft crashed during the Gulf War (1990-1991), or more recently (probably in December 1998). This became some kind of Iraq’s Rosewell. The USA is currently reverse-engineering the Rosewell craft and fears that Saddam’s scientists may become even more successful than Americans in this or that sphere. It was said that these researches may give Iraq a considerable advance and even make it a leading super power.

UFO Roungup’s Arab journalists failed either to confirm or to deny these rumors.

Silly me, I thought it was about the antigravity. I’ll see if I can “roungup” some more news on this subject.

JUST RAN ACROSS CAROL JOHNSON’S open letter to her party, the Democrats:

I am a dyed-in-the-wool Republican-hater, coming from a long line of Democratic Party supporters, and YOU ARE LOSING ME. I am a white, not-quite-40 mother of three who lives in the suburbs, and YOU ARE LOSING ME. I care about Education, Social Welfare, and the Environment, and YOU ARE LOSING ME.

The war is involved.

UPDATE: And here’s one they’ve already lost.

GO EAST, UNCLE SAM: Here’s more evidence, from Sofia Sideshow.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS is back from hiatus.

“GERMANS GUILTY IN IRAQ SUPERGUN CASE:”

A court in the German city of Mannheim has convicted two businessmen of supplying weapons-making equipment to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions.

Engineer Bernd Schompeter was sentenced to five years and three months for dealing in drills that can be used for boring tubes for long-range cannons, capable of launching nuclear, chemical or biological warheads.

At a guess, this is the tip of the iceberg.

I’M WATCHING PHIL DONAHUE AND NEAL BOORTZ ON MSNBC NOW — and it’s obvious why Boortz has Donahue beat hollow in ratings. Donahue keeps accusing Boortz of being “thunderous,” but Donahue’s critique is idea-free and sneering, while Boortz is talking about actual ideas. “Why does Donahue have a show?” asks my wife.

Beats me.

JACOB T. LEVY WRITES IN THE NEW REPUBLIC:

In its dollar magnitude, it’s almost certainly the biggest case of financial mismanagement in U.S. history. While a final tally is years away, in part because of suspiciously lost or missing documents, there’s good reason to think that the dollar figures will dwarf WorldCom’s $9 billion. It’s a scandal that crosses partisan lines and reaches into high levels of both the Clinton and the Bush administrations. And it’s got nothing to do with Wall Street. . . .

And yet, thanks to a combination of convoluted detail, media bias, and ideological blindness, most Americans have never even heard about it.

Wonder why Howell Raines hasn’t made it a priority?

IS BLOGGING VOLUME AN economic indicator? Well, there do seem to be a lot of unemployed bloggers. . . .

YOU’LL NOTICE YOU NEVER SEE RUMSFELD AND STRYKER PHOTOGRAPHED TOGETHER.

RAND SIMBERG has published a glossary that will help in decoding New York Times editorials and the like. Excerpt:

“going it alone”:

Meaning 1: Taking action in concert with numerous European and Middle Eastern nations, and others around the globe, but without France and Germany.

Read the whole thing.

RACHEL LUCAS says that Nelson Mandela has exhausted his moral capital.

Well, his intellectual capital has certainly run dry.

MATERIAL BREACH (AGAIN) — the United States will release intercepted Iraqi communications that show deliberate deception. My prediction: they will be denounced as fakes by Saddam and his supporters.

HERE’S MORE ON THE DEMISE OF BROBECK, PHLEGER — a law firm that fell victim to the dot-com bust. Well, sort of.

AT LEAST THEY’RE NOT ALGERIANS, THIS TIME:

NAPLES (Reuters) – Italian police have arrested 28 Pakistani men suspected of links to al Qaeda in one of the biggest anti-terrorism operations Italy has seen since the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Military police burst into an apartment in central Naples on Wednesday night as part of a routine sweep against illegal immigration and ended up discovering enough explosives to blow up a three-story building, officials said on Friday.

They arrested all 28 men staying in the apartment after finding 800 grams (28 ounces) of explosives, 230 feet of fuse and various electronic detonators crammed behind a false wall.

Islamic religious texts, photos of “jihad” (holy war) martyrs, piles of false documents, maps of the Naples area, addresses of contacts around the world and more than 100 mobile telephones were also found in the run-down lodgings, police said.

A judicial source said the maps had various targets marked out on them including the headquarters of NATO’s southern European command, the U.S. consulate in Naples and a U.S. naval base at Capodichino, just outside the port city.

As Austin Bay has already pointed out, the war buildup isn’t “distracting” from the hunt for Al Qaeda. It’s flushing Al Qaeda from its holes, and making its operatives easier to catch.

DAVE WINER: “AOL was the finger in the dyke of the Internet.”

Nope, not going there.

BUSH’S REAL MOTIVE FOR GOING TO WAR: Revealed at last!

MORE ON THIS WEEK IN DIPLOMACY, over at GlennReynolds.com — and Frank Sinatra makes a guest appearance. Well, sort of.

GUNS FOR TOTS: Dr. Manhattan points to a charity drive in New York that’s worth getting behind.

LESSONS FROM THE RICHARD REID PROSECUTION: TalkLeft notes:

The lesson is this: Our federal courts and our criminal justice system are well equipped to handle terror cases. There is no need to keep the suspects in military custody, cut off from lawyers –or to try them in secret military tribunals. Reid pleaded guilty to all counts and received no promises of leniency or other sentence concessions. Reid had excellent appointed counsel and a U.S. District Court Judge presiding over his case. The proceedings were open to the media and public. Important court filings by both the Prosecution and the Defense were available on the Internet. The Government got the conviction and the life sentence it sought.

For terrorists of the Richard Reid variety, I think this is right. I think, though, that it’s perfectly appropriate to deal with terrorists who are still an active threat via, say, Hellfire missiles.

GOODBYE TO “OLD EUROPE?” Here’s a report that there’s talk about U.S. bases moving from Germany to Poland. The information isn’t enormously solid, but it’s interesting that such rumors are spreading — and they may, themselves, be part of the diplomatic campaign.

ACCORDING TO A source who will remain undisclosed, the White House is emailing out Andrew Sullivan’s “Fisking” of the New York Times’ war coverage to rather a lot of journalists. Heh.

AIRBRUSH AWARD: Look at what Daimler-Chrysler did to this famous Bill Mauldin cartoon. Jeez. I blame the Germans.

“AXIS OF WEASELS” UPDATE: Now it’s in The Economist.

Last week, Germany sandbagged the secretary of state when it said it would not vote for war on Iraq at any price. The French foreign minister then insisted that “nothing” justified war now. This Franco-German grandstanding—the pair were promptly dubbed the “axis of weasels” by Americans—was a personal embarrassment for Mr Powell, the administration’s strongest proponent of seeking UN backing for American policy.

Heh. I think Powell’s getting his revenge. (And see the map below).