THIS PICTURE doesn’t look much like “Four Horsemen” — but I like it!

PRO-WAR SENTIMENT IS GROWING IN AUSTRALIA: Tim Blair credits Margo Kingston.

I have more thoughts on the growing pro-war movement over at GlennReynolds.com.

HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY TO LETTER FROM GOTHAM and Cut on the Bias.

What a long, strange year it’s been.

UPDATE: And Sean Kirby, too! Go say hi.

IS DELAY WORKING TO THE UNITED STATES’ ADVANTAGE? Not politically, but maybe militarily.

A USB toothbrush?

TONY ADRAGNA NOTES de Villepin’s admiration for tyrants and futility.

Explains a lot.

MY 3:30 FACULTY MEETING got put off until 4:00. It’s shocking how happy that makes me.

Well, partly because now I can post this link to photos of the Castel/Dodge blogger wedding. Drop by and leave ’em your best wishes!

WILLIAM SHAWCROSS WRITES on “Why Saddam Will Never Disarm:”

But the reality to remember is that Saddam will never voluntarily give up his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as resolution 1441 and 16 other resolutions demand. They are integral to his sense of his regime. His record shows that he considers no cost too high to retain his biological, chemical and whatever exists of his nuclear capability.

In 1991, the surrender agreement ending the war in Kuwait specifically guaranteed that Iraq would surrender its weapons of mass destruction within 15 days. Till then sanctions, imposed after his invasion of Kuwait, would remain. His refusal to do so has meant that the UN oil embargo has stayed for 12 years, costing Iraq more than $180 billion and its ordinary people great suffering. It is wrong to blame the West, or the UN, for the starvation and deaths of Iraqi children – Saddam is to blame and he considers it a small part of the price to pay for his proscribed weapons.

Saddam’s obsession with his WMD has deep roots at home as well as abroad. First, he sees the threat of such weapons as a means of internal control over the 60 per cent of Iraqis who are Shia. The use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1998 taught the Shia the dangers of revolt. In 1999 a Shia revolt in the town of Najaf was crushed by Saddam’s security forces accompanied by troops in white uniforms wearing gas masks. People were terrified that Saddam was about to gas them – with the weapons that Saddam denies having and for which the UN is still vainly searching. The Shia have been mostly cowed since.

WMD also helps to keep the regular armed forces in line.

Read it all. But here’s one more excerpt:

The inspectors may find some banned materials, by luck, perseverance and good intelligence – and because Saddam has made cunning tactical concessions. They will never find the bulk of the illegal weapons. But that is not their job. That is to monitor his voluntary disarmament. He is not doing that and he never will. He is in clear breach of resolution 1441 and he always will be. The decision the world faces is: will we let him get away with it again? George Bush and Tony Blair say No. They are right.

Keep this in mind: Saddam will do whatever he can get away with.

And France, Germany, and the “peace movement” want him to get away with everything, because — for reasons of their own that vary — they’d rather see that than a war.

Keep that in mind when you hear Chirac say that “inspections are working.” They are working — for Saddam, and for Chirac.

BILL WHITTLE HAS ANOTHER POST UP. That should be all I really need to say.

REPORT FROM THE NEW EUROPE:

WARSAW Waiting for a McKielbasa sandwich at an outlet in central Warsaw of the world’s most ubiquitous American fast food chain, the 29-year-old economist did not hesitate when asked where he would stand if asked to choose between the United States and Europe.

“America is a better partner for us and I trust America more than France or any other country,” said Maciek Wesolowski, joking that he was buying the McDonald’s sandwich, a Polish sausage on a hamburger bun, in honor of Polish-American friendship.

Poland, the largest and most economically promising of the 10 countries set to join the European Union next year, is unapologetic about its enthusiastic American allegiance and its vocal resistance to the current quest by traditional European powers, France and Germany, to establish their political independence from the United States. . . .

The Union now has 15 member nations, but with the addition next year of 10 mostly former Communist states, France and Germany may find their traditional dominance harder to maintain. Certainly, the very public admonition by President Jacques Chirac to the Central and East European candidate nations – who support the American position on war with Iraq – to keep silent rather than undermine European unity won France no friends in Poland.

“He is trying to treat the EU candidates as a French colony or a French suburb,” Wesolowski said over his McDonald’s sandwich.

Heh. Then there’s this:

Thanks from the United States to Poland for standing by us. Germany is living in a dream world on politics these days. I have urged President Bush and six American senators to move US troops out of Germany as much as possible and into countries like Poland and Hungary, if they would like that to happen.

Germany is simply too expensive to do business with these days. Its taxes, labour costs and consumer prices are all too high. Besides, the Middle East is the area of concern, and Poland and Hungary are closer anyway.

More and more we are seeing growing anti-German and anti-France views here and for good reason. I hope Poland and Hungary take up the slack as American consumers are quietly moving to boycott German and French products.

I think it’s the McDonald’s reference that will upset Chirac the most, though.

KAIMI WENGER found something interesting at the New York Times website, and now Mickey Kaus is picking up on it:

“The stimulant ephedra is banned from Olympic sports, college sports and the N.F.L.,” wrote George Vecsey in the NYT last week. “It may soon be banned from sale in Suffolk County on Long Island. But it was not banned from the locker of the late Steve Bechler.” And, Vecsey might have added, it’s not banned from the NYT’s web site, which still runs ads for “Ephedra Super Caps: 850 mg. pure ephedra extract.” …

Heh.

REGIS DEBRAY’S DUMB OPED from the New York Times didn’t attract as much attention in the Blogosphere as it might have.

That’s because we were all waiting for James Lileks to administer this righteous Fisking, which renders anything we might have said surplusage anyway.

PICTURES FROM THE L.A. BLOG CONFERENCE can be found here. Welch looks as if he’s been partaking.

THERE WILL BE A LIVE WEBCAST AT 9 AM to discuss the outcome of AIDSVax clinical trials. Follow this link for more. Hope we’ll find out that it works!

IRELAND’S FOREIGN MINISTER is denouncing anti-Americanism by the Irish left. And Ireland’s Justice Minister adds that he’s “totally amazed” that people on the left would prefer Saddam Hussein to the United States.

IRAQIS DEMAND WAR NOW: You’d think that this story would merit more attention, wouldn’t you?

SCHROEDER MAY BE A FECKLESS LOSER, but no one ever said that German auto executives were stupid:

MUNICH — German auto executives are keeping a wary eye on the United States, fearing a boycott over the German government’s opposition to war with Iraq. . . .

Industrialists are so concerned that the Atlantic-Bruecke (means Atlantic Bridge) group, which calls itself the oldest German-American friendship organization, ran an ad in The New York Times on Feb. 16. The ad emphasized the 50-year bond between the United States and Germany.

So far, it says, they’re not hearing a lot from American consumers.

UPDATE: Maybe people are voting with their pocketbooks, rather than emailing. Reader Ann Ellwood sends this:

I am in the market for a new car–I am buying one in March. I was considering either the Mini (bought by BMW), the Bug, or the Chrysler Sebring–but no more. I am now looking at other alternatives. I am not going to the dealers and telling them this–so how would they know? It is not a “boycott,” but why should I spend my hard earned dollars supporting an economy whose workers think that I am worse than Saddam Hussein?

I have to say, I’ve felt the same way.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Robert Denton emails:

Reading today’s post about possible German products boycott and wanted to mention my action. I own two 1996 cars and intend to replace them soon enough. I have been looking at Jetta Turbo or Passat for one, and if our Jeep can stand the wait I wanted to get a VW Microbus (2005 release) as its replacement.

I wrote a letter to the best email contact I could at VW’s web site telling them I can not buy their products as long as the strong anti-American sentiments are boiling over as the predominant attitude in Deutschland.

Someone in one German company knows the sentiment.

Meanwhile another reader sends this:

Mr. Pundit, I am in the market for a new car and have long desired a BMW for the amazing driving experience they provide. However the astounding degree of anti-Americanism issuing forth from Europe, and especially Germany, makes it impossible for me to prop up their ridiculous stance with my hard earned money. Instead I will take delivery of a brand new Nissan 350Z from our steadfast ally, Japan. German business does well to be concerned, people in the market for high end cars are likely well informed as to current events. It will not take many to make a noticable dent in sales.

I still haven’t driven a 350Z, but they look awfully sharp.

UPDATE: D’oh! Several readers remind me that Nissan is now a Renault property, making it worse than German — French! And I say remind, because I knew that but forgot, which makes me doubly stupid. Or something. There’s always the Mazda RX-8.

ANDREW SULLIVAN on being named one of the “Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse”: “For the record, if I ever ride into the apocalypse, I’d rather just prance around and have a serf banging coconut shells behind me.”

WE’RE GOING ABOUT IT ALL WRONG! If we’re going to invade Iraq, we’re supposed to impose our films first.

Hmm. Well, maybe this one.

EVERYBODY’S HAVING FUN WITH PHOTOSHOP.

HERE’S A REPORT OF AN ANTI-IRAQ PROTEST at Northwestern.

MATT CRANDALL is predicting disaster for France.

I MEANT TO LINK THIS EARLIER: Talking Dog’s annotated guide to the blogosphere. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to keep it up to date!

FOLLOW THE MONEY: Byron York looks at where Not In Our Name gets its funding.

JOSHUA CLAYBOURN EXAMINES ANTI-AMERICANISM IN EUROPE as a function of extreme anti-American slant in European media.