YESTERDAY, I remarked that I wouldn’t mind being replaced by a robot. I should have noted that there’s a movie about just that.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, I hadn’t known about Jonathan Swift’s lost treatise on blogging. The things you learn on the Internet!

HERE’S ANOTHER MARINE who says that things in Iraq are better than the press makes them sound.

I don’t know, of course, but that doesn’t surprise me. After all, things in America are better than the press makes them sound.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

My son is a Cpl with the 3/23 Marines at Al Kut. I spoke to him Sunday and what he reports is essentially the same as LCPL. Guardiano. His unit has been mostly “humanitarian” work consisting of rebuilding, educating on self government and providing essential services. He attributes some of their uccess to the fact that as a reserve unit many of their members are police officers in civilian life and thus are better prepared for this type of duty.

I wonder why we don’t hear much about this? Maybe for the same reason we don’t hear about Al Jazeera paying people to shoot at Americans?

I DON’T QUITE UNDERSTAND THIS ARTICLE in Slate. The author doesn’t seem to distinguish between “mobile homes” and recreational vehicles, but they’re two rather different things, with very different demographics.

Interestingly, low interest rates have meant that you can buy a real house on a 30-year mortgage and have lower payments than a mobile home with a 10-year mortgage. This has hurt Knoxville’s mobile-home-manufacturing collossus, Clayton Homes, and led to a Warren Buffett takeover attempt that has now been blocked for fraud by a local judge. I don’t know if there’s anything to those charges or not.

DEFUNDING THE ENEMY — Amir Taheri reports:

August 19, 2003 — BARRING a last-minute miracle, the pan-Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party, one of Jordan’s oldest political organizations, is expected to file for bankruptcy within the next few weeks.

The party’s headquarters in Amman is a scene of daily demonstrations by creditors waving unpaid bills.

To make matters worse, the party has to finance the repatriation from Iraq of over 3,000 Jordanian and Palestinians students it had sponsored. The students were sent to Iraq with scholarships from the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad; Iraq paid the Jordanian party $600 a year for each student. But last month, the newly appointed Iraqi Governing Council scrapped the scheme as part of a broader de-Ba’athification program.

“We are in a tight spot,” says Ahmad al-Najdawi, a party leader. “People don’t understand that no more money is flowing [from Iraq].”

Jordan’s Ba’athists are not alone in facing bankruptcy.

Two prominent Lebanese pan-Arabists have fled to France to avoid paying the mobs they hired for pro-Saddam demonstrations in Beirut last winter. And other pro-Saddam Ba’athists are facing unpaid bills for anti-war demonstrations they organized in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt.

At the time, those efforts were seen in the West as a sign that the “Arab street” was about to explode against the U.S.-led coalition.

You mean those folks were bought-and-paid-for shills instead of serious patriots? Perish the thought. That’s not what the press told us at the time! But then, it wasn’t just the Arab Street that Saddam was paying for:

Documents now being studied by the Iraqi research group also reveal that Saddam had a network of support in several European countries, notably Britain, France and Austria.

At least three French political parties received financial contributions from Saddam between 1975 and 1990. Several prominent French politicians, including former Cabinet ministers, received money from Saddam. Several British politicians, including at least one member of parliament, were among the recipients of Saddam’s largesse.

Conducted by several groups, the current work on Saddam’s secret documents is largely chaotic. It is, perhaps, time for the Governing Council to take control of the project and make sure that the seized documents are not used, and abused, for selective leaks and the settling of personal scores.

The people of Iraq have a right to know exactly who worked for a regime that wrecked their country and ruined their lives for over three decades.

And not just the people of Iraq.

UPDATE: And not just defunding ’em, either, as U.S. forces have bagged Saddam’s Vice President.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hmm, of course it’s not just Saddam — here’s a report that Al Jazeera is paying people to protest, and encouraging them to act in ways that’ll cause U.S. troops to fire:

Any Credibility that Al Jazeera may have had before today has been smashed. Today a demonstration was to be held to demand the release of an Imam who was a close personal friend of Saddam and used his Mosque to store weapons and as a Refuge for Baath Party members. The Demonstration was to be broadcast live on the Arab News Network and they wanted to get real exclusive News. They wanted Americans to fire on the crowds. In order to ensure that we would, they PAID people to carry weapons in the crowd and to fire them at us in order to provoke a Violent Response from US troops.

Thing is, this isn’t the first time Al Jazeera has PAID for the spreading of Anti-American Sentiments in this country or even this city. And these people are so desperate for money right now that they will do anything for it. A little boy who used to hang out at the Gate of the Civilian/Miltary Operations Center (C-MOC) and has since we occupied the building was given money and photos of Saddam Hussein and told to run through the streets shouting Anti-American slogans. Now, this boy had until that day been at the C-Moc every day, hanging out with American Soldiers who treated him pretty well. When stopped by us and asked why he was shouting such things, he replied that two men had paid him to do so. … The two men turned out to be Local Al Jazeera correspondents.

Sounds like a security issue for CentCom to me.

EXPLOSION AT U.N. HEADQUARTERS IN BAGHDAD: Hmm. The problem is that everyone in Iraq, both pro- and anti-Saddam, has a reason to dislike the U.N., which makes assigning responsibility tricky. Put this together with the mortar attack on (presumably pro-Saddam) Iraqi prisoners the other day and it almost makes me wonder if there’s a third force at work here. Follow the link for updates as they come in — The Command Post is all over this story.

UPDATE: Maybe the bomb was planted by environmentalists, angry at the U.N.’s complicity in ecological devastation under Saddam:

An expedition by Duke University wetlands expert Curtis Richardson to evaluate damage to Iraq’s storied Mesopotamian Marshlands revealed an environmental disaster of vast proportions. However, he also found the potential for restoring a significant portion of the marshes and with them the Marsh Arab culture.

On his June 16-26 trip, he encountered dust-bowl-level desiccation within the former wetlands, a destroyed date palm industry, a drinking water crisis, wrecked laboratories, and a pressing need to train a new generation of environmental researchers. . . .

“Saddam Hussein was a master ‘brown field generator,'” said Richardson, referring to a term for environmental decimation. “He churned that country upside down. It looks like you let a child loose in a sand box with hand grenades.”

I don’t remember Kofi Annan speaking about about this stuff, do you?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Beets says the Dream Palace of the UN just collapsed, as the above-the-fray mentality of internationals proves unequal to reality, again.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Nord agrees:

I’m sure someone else has raised this point, but it seems that the bombing of the UN compound would be something of a wakeup call to the naifs out there who somehow believe that this battle is just between the U.S. and the Islamic fanatics. One anchor on CNN, believe it or not, seemed mystified at the attack, noting that the UN “has been a part of Iraq for years.” She was implying that the fanatics were supposed to respect the “neutral” UN and only go after the Americans. How naive! These nuts are attacking anyone and everyone who gets in their way. They’re not going to spare someone because he has a blue UN flag on his shirt. Their goal is to create chaos and anger.

I know it’s terribly naive of President Bush to say it, but these are, you know, bad people.

Rand Simberg, meanwhile, says that the U.N. should start asking “why do they hate us?”

Meanwhile Trent Telenko says that “combat journalists” are clueless about real combat. And see this post relating to Trent’s. Note the photo.

MORE: Kate points out that the U.N. rejected security measures aimed at preventing this sort of thing because it wanted to present a friendly image to Iraqis. Except, of course, that it’s likely not Iraqis who are behind this. (Tony Adragna thinks he knows who is.)

There’s more on this here. This event seems to be inducing an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance in lefty antiwar bloggers, who are responding — as always — by blaming the messenger. I guess it’s like the Hitler/Stalin pact all over again, or something. . . . Get over it guys. You may hate Bush — but it’s not about Bush, and you’re trying to make it about Bush so that you don’t have to face what it’s really about — people who want you just as dead as they want John Ashcroft, and don’t see any difference anyway, except that you might serve their cause as useful idiots, for a while, before they kill you, too.

JIM DUNNIGAN writes on North Korea. A lot of people think that we’re closer to war with North Korea than the general tenor of media coverage would indicate. I wonder if the White House and Pentagon haven’t been focusing more on Korea than is obvious, which might explain, well, a lot of things.

LILEKS ON THE FRONT PAGE:

Newspaper people love movies like this; it makes their profession seem so roguish. And indeed it was, once; decent people did not enter the newspaper profession anymore than they took jobs as harlot wranglers. But we love ’em now, because they make us look colorful. Alas: these archetypes we revere wouldn’t last a day in a modern newspaper – they were profane, drunken, nihilistic fabulists more concerned with the cards in their hands than the truth on the page. They’re fifty years and a billion miles from the cautious, comfy sorts who fill newspaper offices today, peering at their monitors and spending 30 minutes buffing a simile. My God, if I pulled a bottle of scotch out of my desk and screwed a cigar in my mug they’d take me to a conference room for an intervention.

Yeah. It’s like the difference between Lou Grant and, well, Ed Asner.

ED ASNER LINKS SADDAM AND AL QAEDA? That’s what reader Franco Aleman emails:

Was channel surfing this morning during breakfast and landed at Fox News (I’m writing from Spain, but you get it here on satellite). Hannity & Colmes were interviewing Ed Asner, and he said “George Bush always needs an enemy. He gets hit by Osama. He can’t find Osama, so he goes after the guy behind him.” (emphasis added)

Two things:

– It’s as if Osama had hit GWB only, and as if he then started some kind of personal revenge. As if there were no victims in the WTC and the Pentagon attacks, or as if the job of the President of the USA didn’t include to defend the population from terrorism and to strike back against the terrorists and the ones who harbor them.

– He didn’t explicitely use the word “Saddam”, but he couldn’t be referring to anyone else when talking about the guy behind Osama.

I’m quoting by memory but it was such a short and clear sentence that I think that if I’m not 100% accurate, I’m not far from it; neither of the two hosts, in the middle of the lively discussion they were having, apparently got the detail so they didn’t dig further.

Aleman says he emailed to ask for the transcript. I’ll see if I can find it online later.

UPDATE: Reader Karl Stewart emails with a different interpretation:

I think by “behind”, Asner simply meant “next in line behind” Osama, or “next biggest fish” after Osama.

As for Asner’s “He gets hit by Osama” statement, this is just another illustration of an ugliness on the left that should be unspeakable but is not. If not for their extreme hatred of Bush, I think many on the left would support, at least lukewarmly, the war against terrorism, and perhaps even the toppling of Saddam. But Bush angers them more than mass-murder and the threat of same. Ugh. Makes me want to take a long, hot shower.

Hmm. I’d have to see it in context to know which was right. Of course, Franco Aleman did see it in context, and we know how he interpreted it. Anyone else catch this?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Wendy Cook emails:

I tuned in just long enough to catch Asner’s “man behind him” comment. It caught my attention too, but I think Asner did mean something like “the next guy in line.” He couldn’t have meant to link Osama and Saddam since his point was that the war in Iraq was Bush’s attempt to divert attention away from our inability to capture Osama. (See why I lost interest?)

But however one interprets it, both your readers had far more compelling responses to Asner’s clumsy comment than either host, neither of whom challenged the comment at all.

Me, too. But then, I never liked Asner. I did like Lou Grant, though. I guess that’s proof that Asner can act, anyway.

I’M NOT SURE IF I LIVE IN A NERDISTAN or not. Actually, I like to think that it’s Nerdistan wherever I hang my hat. . . .

THE NEW GEORGEWBUSH.COM SITE has a “donor lookup” tab, which is a nice nod to transparency — but no weblog.

UPDATE: D’oh! I was still on my first sips of coffee as I posted this. Here’s the right link. Sorry. And they’ve emailed that a weblog is coming.

IT’S CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS VS. EDWARD SAID, and Roger Simon awards game, set and match to Hitchens.

FUNNY THAT THIS REUTERS MEMO didn’t come out until Reuters-nemesis James Taranto was on vacation. I, er, smell a conspiracy!

PHIL BOWERMASTER NOTICES THAT a lot of people are calling for “Apollo-style projects” these days.

NOTE TO ERIC ALTERMAN: Do not read this post by Tony Pierce. It will make you angry, or sad, or both.

O’REILLY VS. FRANKEN — A FISKING: Excerpt: “for someone who bitches all the time about the nefarious influence of ‘the trial lawyers,’ O’Reilly sure seems to sue people an awful lot.”

Indeed.

UPDATE: Bill Quick comments: “Sorry, Bill, but now you just sound like a big fat whiner.”

Note to O’Reilly — you’re in a hole. Stop digging.

WINDS OF CHANGE has lots of interesting posts today, as usual. Check ’em out.

HMM — This looks pretty embarrassing for the “Internet Candidate:”

Howard Dean’s presidential campaign acknowledged on Monday that it had spammed an undisclosed number of people with unsolicited political advertisements. The campaign said Dean, the former Democratic governor of Vermont, remained opposed to unsolicited bulk e-mail and blamed the spamming on two contractors who had promised to contact only people who had specifically requested to receive the advertisements.

Message to candidates — those people who email you and offer “opt-in” lists are usually lying. . . . .

UPDATE: Blogs were on this story before MSNBC — or I — knew about it. Here’s a post with the actual Dean spam.

ALGERIAN TOURIST UPDATE: They’re free — and notice who turns out to have been holding them:

Islamic extremists freed 14 European tourists on Monday, six months after they were kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked group in the Sahara Desert. . . .

Algerian authorities say the kidnappers are linked to the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, generally seen as the less bloody of two main Islamic extremist movements behind a more than decade-long insurgency in Algeria.

The Salafist group has been linked to the al-Qaida terror organization.

I hope somebody pays close attention to what else is going on in that area.

MATT WELCH IS FACT-CHECKING ARIANNA HUFFINGTON’S ASS: And said fact-checking reveals her to be, well, pretty much a complete, lying hypocrite.

UPDATE: Read the comments, where some people are suggesting she’s just an airhead. But note this key bit:

Either she voted for it or she didn’t. If she voted for it, then she lied to Paul Begala about not having done so. If she didn’t vote for it, then she was being deceitful in 1994 about the virtues of Prop 187. Unless of course, she is willing to admit that she often votes against good policies. In which case, I’m not sure she should be governor.

Not that her chances are especially good anyway.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Matt Welch has more Arianna now-and-then over at his blog. Heh.

I’LL GIVE UP MY WORDPERFECT when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Here’s another reason why.

UPDATE: This post from The Comedian points out that .pdf format isn’t as secure as some seem to think.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Matt Sitar notices something:

Your link to The Comedian highlighted a rather peculiar omission from the BBC article about Word. Both links mention the sniper letter from the Washington Post, but the BBC article failed to mention that the document was released in PDF format. As the UK government is planning to move to Acrobat (according to the article), this would seem an important detail.

Yeah, it would.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT, thankfully unsuccessful this time, is reported by Eugene Volokh.

GOOD NEWS ABOUT SMALLPOX SHOTS:

THE VACCINE HAS been assumed to offer its best protection for from three to five years.

However, according to a paper scheduled for the September edition of the journal Nature Medicine, lab tests can detect immune response in 90 percent of vaccinated people for many years, some for up to 75 years.

It’s still not clear just how much protection old vaccinations offer, but it seems likely that they provide some benefit for a long time.

THE MULLARCHY OF IRAN, WHERE A SERIAL KILLER CAN BE A HERO:

When the drought ended and the rains came, Saeed Hanaei believed that it was a sign from God that his killing spree had divine approval. “I realised God looked favourably on me. That he had taken notice of my work,” Hanaei said. With 12 prostitutes already dead by his hands, Hanaei carried on his “work” and strangled at least four more women after luring them to his house in the Iranian city of Mashhad. . . .

The case provoked a debate between reformers who condemned the authorities for failing to catch him earlier and some conservatives who shared the killer’s disgust with a rise in prostitution.

“Who is to be judged?” wrote the conservative newspaper Jomhuri Islami. “Those who look to eradicate the sickness or those who stand at the root of the corruption?” Such sentiments are expressed by the killer’s merchant friends at the Mashhad bazaar, one of whom says with a laugh: “He did the right thing. He should have continued.”

Don’t expect me to shed a tear for these guys if they wind up hanging from lampposts. Any more than I am for this guy.

UPDATE: I’m reminded of this story from Paris. Is there a pattern here?

ANOTHER UPDATE: A couple of readers point out that at least this is “controversial” in Iran, while in most Arab countries it wouldn’t be.

HERE’S SOME GOOD NEWS:

KABUL, Aug. 18 (Xinhuanet) — Afghanistan’s economy saw a marvelous growth of 30 percent in the first year after the Taliban’s ouster, mainly due to the return of refugees and an end of lingering drought, a spokesman said on Monday.

“According to reports by the Finance Ministry and the central bank, the economic growth in last fiscal year was over 30 percent,” presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin told reporters at a routine press conference here.

The British weekly Economist has also reported a similar growthof the Afghan economy based on its independent estimates, he said.

(Via Bill Quick).

ALGERIAN TOURIST UPDATE: A reader emails that the AP wire is reporting their release. I can’t find a link on it yet.