AMERICAN TOURISM TO FRANCE has fallen off massively, and the French are unhappy. Steven Den Beste has a link-rich essay on the subject: “Americans are holding an ongoing plebiscite on the question of French friendship, and they are voting with dollars.”

MORE BLOG MOVIE BLURBS:

I guess it’s partly my fault that unoriginal movies are successful because I see an awful lot of them. . . . Hollywood can keep blowing things up, I’ll be there! — Up for Anything

Slap that one on the posters and watch the crowds pour in!

ANOTHER FIRSTHAND REPORT FROM IRAQ. One thing this suggests is that the Pentagon is learning from blogs.

THE CALIFORNIA RECALL AND IMMIGRATION: Mickey Kaus has been saying that it would be an issue, and Matt Welch writes in the Los Angeles Daily News on what’s happening so far.

UPDATE: CalBlog has more on this. And in a not-entirely-related development, Mark Steyn reflects on Schwarzenegger as Hamlet. Er, sort of. Best bit:

Okay, Arnold’s not a Nazi. He was born in the Austrian town of Thal, but not until 1947, and thus was technically unable to join the Nazi Party no matter how much he may have wanted to. But he certainly has family ties to the Nazis. His wife’s grandfather, Joe Kennedy, was one of America’s most prominent Nazi sympathisers.

Oh, wait. That’s not the Nazi family ties the Dems had in mind?

The recall thing will be worth it just for the deliciously nasty Steyn columns it will produce.

Finally, Tony Adragna is comparing California to France.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Colby Cosh:

Anyway, what could they really bushwhack him with, exactly? The immigration issue? You ask Arnold about immigration, he’s going to give you his speech about how an Austrian farm boy can come to the U.S.A. with two and a half pfennigs in his pocket and become the biggest box-office star in the world and blah blah blah… he’s never, ever going to have to get around to actually answering a question on that subject.

D’ya think?

ATTACKS ON U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ: Directed by a Saudi? Who’d have thought that possible?

LAW-PROFESSOR BLOGGER ERIC MULLER points out a serious factual error in a New York Times editorial on Ashcroft and federal sentencing:

I said it before, but now that it’s in the Times I’ll say it again: this is a factually false depiction of the federal appellate system. And it’s not just a little detail; it goes to the heart of the criticism the Times is making of Ashcroft’s plan.

Right now, individual prosecutors do not decide when to appeal a judge’s sentence. The Solicitor General of the United States does, after multiple rounds of independent evaluations and recommendations by attorneys in the Appellate Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and by at least one attorney in the Solicitor General’s Office (in addition to the Solicitor General himself). No local prosecutor has the power to file an appeal without review and explicit approval from Washington. The most that this plan does is to get information about sentencing leniency to Washington more quickly, so that (in theory at least) lawyers in the Appellate Section of the Criminal Division could order a local office to appeal a sentence that the local office was not inclined to appeal, or perhaps (though this would tax the Appellate Section’s manpower beyond the breaking point) so that the Appellate Section lawyers could take the appeal themselves.

So yes, Mr. Ashcroft does “seem to want [the sentencing appeal] decision to be made after a review from Washington.” But that’s the way the decision has always been made.

It is surprising to see this sort of factually erroneous assertion on the Editorial Page of the New York Times. They should correct it, and temper their criticism accordingly.

I wonder if a correction will be forthcoming?

UPDATE: And here’s another claim of a monumental, uncorrected Times error.

MOST PEOPLE (INCLUDING NICK) would regard Nick Denton as well to my left, to the extent that such terms still have meaning. But his advice to the Democrats sounds a lot like mine:

All this is standard practice in American presidential elections: win the primaries on the flank, and come back to the center for the main contest. But it leaves one feeling like a kibitzer at a chess game: the lethal move is so obvious, but your guy just can’t see it. The Democratic candidate for president should appropriate the traditional Republican values of limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal responsibility.

Yep. Unfortunately, Nick’s right about this part, too:

I am convinced that a candidate running against Bush on this platform could win the coasts, a large slice of the American West, and maybe even some of the New South. There’s only one problem: he would not survive the Democratic primary.

And that goes to institutional problems that the Democrats haven’t even addressed, much less solved. And, of course, the Republicans have similar institutional problems, which is why they’ve drifted from that traditional message. For both parties, the question is why uphold values that, whatever their virtue, don’t produce much in the way of graft, if there’s not a competitor who will make you do so.

CHRIS SUELLENTROP:

Perhaps most worrisome, Nigeria combines several aspects that are familiar from countries in the Middle East: an abundance of oil, a young population, economic stagnation, a corrupt elite, a legacy of colonialism, a vision of itself as a superpower that is in decline, and a rise in Islamic radicalism.

Yes. Of course, many of Nigeria’s characteristics — including a prior tradition of much mellower Islam, which has not vanished — mean that it could be a very valuable ally. Which is another reason why it matters.

ED CONE WRITES: “Money talks, which is why every presidential aspirant is suddenly listening to weblogs.”

LONEWACKO HAS A FIRSTHAND REPORT OF LAST-MINUTE FILINGS in the California governor’s race. He’s got pictures, too!

SEXISM IN THE Cités:

An unnamed 15-year-old girl is assaulted by 18 boys, most of them not much older than she is. Sonia, also 15, is raped by seven of her supposed friends in the basement of her apartment building. Sheherezade, 11, is beaten and raped repeatedly over the course of a year by 12 different boys.

GRIM AS SUCH crimes may be, they’re becoming commonplace in the police ledgers of Paris, Lyons or Toulouse. The scene is almost always the same: the housing projects called cites on the outskirts of France’s major cities. Built by socially progressive governments in the 1960s, they’ve since been taken over by a generation of mostly Arab immigrants—impoverished, cut off from their native lands and culture, ghettoized. Here, young men try to rule their families and neighbors under a macho code drawn partly from Muslim tradition, partly from the violence and porn in the media. Women submit to men, they say. Good girls, good sisters, cover themselves and stay home. Otherwise they are putes, whores, who can be used and abused even if they say no.

Such stories, then, are not just about urban crime and rough neighborhoods. They reflect a core issue of Muslim integration in Europe.

And, unfortunately, dumb ideas about multiculturalism make such integration much harder than it should be.

MATT WELCH HAS A COLUMN ON SCHWARZENEGGER AND THE CALIFORNIA RECALL in the National Post today. Don’t miss it — it’s Welch!

DANG. I was going to label InstaPundit “100% Kobe-Free” the way I advertised it as “100% C*ndit-free” back in the Gary Condit days, but I see that Lonewacko has beaten me to that.

THE “PEACE” MOVEMENT CONTINUES TO DECLINE, from hundreds of thousands six months ago to, well:

A group of about 600 peace activists and veterans marched through the streets of San Francisco today demanding that the U.S. government pull all its troops out of Iraq immediately.

Another reason why the Vietnam analogy doesn’t hold.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: SOCCER MOM? That’s what PoliPundit says:

Your prototypical Soccer Mom isn’t a hate-the-greedy-corporations Democrat. Heck, her husband is probably a middle manager at Procter & Gamble. She’s a “fiscal conservative,” in the sense that she doesn’t want more taxes and regulation. She doesn’t like affirmative action either, since it goes against her sense of fairness and threatens her childrens’ future.

On the other hand, she doesn’t want to be seen as a meanie. She thinks Republicans are too hard-edged on some issues. She wishes they were more “tolerant” of minority groups like gays and blacks. She’s pro-choice, although she doesn’t want abortion to be a widespread practice. She is, of course, an “environmentalist.” And she’s not averse to Big Government programs like Medicare and Social Security. An easy way to win her vote is to claim that some big-spending entitlement is “for the children.” She doesn’t see why ordinary people need assault rifles, but she can see why pilots should have pistols.

Now look at Arnold’s stated beliefs – vague as they are – and see how they dovetail nicely with Soccer Mom values.

Democrats, PoliPundit concludes, “should be scared.”

THIS SEEMS LIKE NEWS:

A HIGH-RANKING al-Qaeda operative in custody disclosed that Iraq supplied the Islamist militant group with material to build chemical and biological weapons, the White House said today.

“A senior al-Qaeda terrorist, now detained, who had been responsible for al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, reports that al-Qaeda was intent on obtaining (weapons of mass destruction) assistance from Iraq,” the White House said in a report. The 25 page document was released as US President George W Bush holidayed at his Texas ranch.

The Bush administration cited links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Baath party regime as justification for attacking Iraq to oust Saddam. The administration also insisted Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons.

The report quoted the unnamed prisoner as saying al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden turned to Iraq after concluding his group could not produce chemical or biological weapons on its own in Afghanistan.

Doesn’t seem to be getting much attention, though. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

UPDATE: Hmm. Robert Novak reports:

Former international weapons inspector David Kay, now seeking Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the Pentagon, has privately reported successes that are planned to be revealed to the public in mid-September.

Kay has told his superiors he has found substantial evidence of biological weapons in Iraq, plus considerable missile development. He has been less successful in locating chemical weapons, and has not yet begun a substantial effort to locate progress toward nuclear arms.

Senior officials in the Bush administration believe Kay’s weapons discoveries should have been revealed as they were made. However, a decision, approved by President Bush, was made to wait until more was discovered and then announce it — probably in September.

If true, this would tend to support the “rope-a-dope” theory that Bush is letting his critics make a big deal out of WMD, so that he can completely undercut them by producing the weapons at a politically opportune moment. I’ve been skeptical of that theory, but, well, this is some degree of support for it.

ANOTHER CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY:

LANSING — The Michigan Court of Appeals has thrown out lawsuits filed by the city of Detroit and Wayne County against more than 30 gun manufacturers and dealers.

In an unanimous decision released Friday, the appellate court said a state law approved in 2000 prohibits such lawsuits although the city and county filed their suits in April 1999.

A rejection on the basis of the Second Amendment would be better still, of course.

SKBUBBA IS CONTINUING TO PROVE that local-blogging has something to offer.

NANOTECHNOLOGY? This is close:

“It’s the smallest synthetic motor that’s ever been made,” Alexander Zettl of the University of California at Berkeley said in a statement released last week. “Nature is still a little bit ahead of us — there are biological motors that are equal or slightly smaller in size — but we are catching up.”

The device measures about 500 nanometers across, which is about 300 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. The rotor is between 100 and 300 nanometers long, while the carbon shaft is just a few atoms across.

Interesting.

“DEMOCRACY MEANS FORCING PEOPLE TO PAY FOR MEDIA that they would not pay for or consume if left to their own choices.” Stefan Sharkansky takes on an advocate of BBC-style media in the United States.

I’VE SEEN THE PICTURES, and I don’t think that this smear campaign aimed at James Lileks is going to hurt his reputation one bit.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN THE 9/11 PANEL: And it’s a doozy. Dwight Meredith is right: this is unacceptable.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire thinks that Jamie Gorelick is politically unassailable, and that as a result nothing will come of this.

LIMBAUGH VS. THE BLOGGERS: Limbaugh’s take doesn’t impress me:

In the audio links below, I treat you to my analysis of pollster Dr. David Hill’s column headlined “Bloggers Won’t Match Limbaugh.” A blogger is a citizen who gets a website and just opines on various topics unrealted to politics. A friend of mine defined the term, derived from “web log,” as “a nerd with a journalist degree and no social life who spends most days and all nights writing e-mails to himself and his friends in hopes of attracting attention from traditional media outlets.” Andrew Sullivan is perhaps the best-known political blogger.

Hmm. I don’t know if Sullivan has “no social life” — seems to me I’ve heard some controversy about his having too much of one — and I’m pretty sure that most of his posts are “realted to politics” in some fashion or other. Heck, they’re even related to politics. Seems to me that Limbaugh has failed this part of his own proclaimed formula for success, here: #2: “Master production technique.” You know, like spelling and research, and having one sentence relate to the next . . . .

Donald Sensing has more on this, including some advice to Limbaugh: “You don’t understand what blogging is all about and what it does.” Nope. Obviously not. What’s funny is that Limbaugh obviously feels the need to put down blogs, and to build himself up at their expense. What’s he scared of? Blogs surely aren’t cutting into his market share. (No Gulfstream jets to bigshot celebrity events here, or elsewhere in the blogosphere!) Are they just making him feel as if he’s behind the curve? This grandpa-Lou stuff won’t help that.

UPDATE: Bill Quick writes: “Limbaugh is nowhere near as stupidly irritating as those of the Michael Savage school of Republican Radio Broadcasters, but every once in a while he does show his age, and his cluelessness about some of the subjects on which he opines.” That seems about right. It’s okay. He’ll catch on eventually.

Meanwhile Daniel Drezner has the answer.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mitch Berg, who used to work in talk radio, thinks he knows what Limbaugh’s about. Makes sense to me.

STILL MORE: I’m getting various emails pro and con on Limbaugh. I’m no ditto head, but I have no real beef with him either. He’s very good at what he does — just listen to, well, most other talk radio to see just how good — and, really, what he does seems a lot like what bloggers do. It’s striking to me that this rather artificial one-two assault on bloggers in relation to Limbaugh took place, and I wonder what he’s reacting to.

I (no surprise) think blogs are great, and I think that the blogosphere punches way above its weight thanks to its ability to move fast, incorporate lots of minds, and attract “opinion leader” readers and bloggers. But it’s a very different kind of medium than talk radio, and comparisons seem silly to me. I just wonder why Rush is so anxious to make them.

TERROR ATTACK IN KANSAS CITY? Jay Manifold thinks maybe so, though official reports say otherwise. Beats me.

UPDATE: Jay has a followup post, with math.

GUN CONTROL IS A POLITICAL LOSER NOW, according to USA Today:

That longtime party dilemma came into sharp focus after Democrat Al Gore, a supporter of gun controls, lost the key states of Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia en route to his narrow defeat in the 2000 presidential election. Some Democrats believe Gore’s stance on guns was to blame.

Democrats became even more reticent after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made improving security a national priority.

When Republican pollster David Winston asked Americans about plans to allow pilots to carry guns in the cockpit, he found that married women with children — traditionally the strongest voices favoring gun control — were among the biggest supporters.

“The soccer mom who wants to gets guns off the playgrounds through gun control is the same mom who wants pilots to be armed ” he said. “The dynamic has changed. . . . It’s putting it in the context of safety.”

That’s no surprise to InstaPundit readers.