HERE’S MORE ON “PATRIOT ACT II” — some astounding provisions . . . .

ON A MORE HOPEFUL NOTE, there’s this story.

CRUSHING DISSENT — AND LOVING IT! Eugene Volokh takes the New York Sun to task for its apparent approval of New York City’s efforts to forestall an antiwar protest. He’s right, and the Sun is wrong. And the Sun should know that it’s wrong — and, worse, probably does.

THIS IS INTERESTING:

Morale was very low, he said, both among his fellow conscripts and among civilians. “We want America to attack because of the bad situation in our country. But we don’t want America to launch air strikes against Iraqi soldiers because we are forced to shoot and defend. We are also victims in this situation.” . . .

The soldiers Abbas left behind, meanwhile, sit in their hilltop bunkers, pondering an unenviable fate. “We are all very tired,” Abbas said. “I haven’t heard of Tony Blair. But if George Bush wants to give us freedom then we will welcome it.”

Credible? I report. You decide.

BUT I DIDN’T LIKE THE FIRST ONE! There’s talk now of a “Patriot Act II” and I don’t like it. Read more about it here, here, and here.

Jeez. We need this like we need “Dude, Where’s My Car? II.”

A POODLE WITH TEETH: Jim Bennett writes:

The true peculiarity of the Bush-Blair relationship lies in the fact that the two share one important characteristic, albeit understood in different ways, while differing in another extremely important way. This creates a tension between cooperation and conflict that has characterized, and will probably continue to characterize, this peculiar instance of the Special relationship.

The shared characteristic is that Bush and Blair, almost alone of the world’s leaders, genuinely believe that they are facing not merely opposition, but evil. The unshared characteristic is that for Blair, one of the principal aspects of Saddam Hussein’s evil is his defiance of international law. Blair is not only a Gladstonian internationalist, but a robust internationalist, who believes that international order must be backed with effective action.

When words fail, Gladstonians, like Wilsonians, are willing to bring out the guns. In the Web logs, there is much talk about the rousing of the Jacksonian spirit in America. A careful reading of history would warn foreigners that the truly dangerous situation comes when the Wilsonians are aroused as well.

One of the many ironies in this situation is that here Blair is being a more consistent backer of the international order and the United Nations than his critics on the left, and on the European Continent. It is exactly the same motivation that leads Blair to criticize America for failing to ratify Kyoto that causes him to support Bush on Iraq.

Interesting.

FIRST THE COOKEVILLE DOG SHOOTING, NOW THIS. Jeez.

IT JUST GETS WORSE:

Gun control groups are downplaying questions about plagiarism after one organization issued a statement to the media containing language that is, in some instances, identical to passages in a copyrighted news report published four days earlier by the Associated Press.

Leah Barrett, executive director of Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse (MAHA), denied any wrongdoing in issuing a statement Monday that contained numerous statements that were mirror images of portions of an AP article that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and other media outlets Jan. 30. . . .

Barrett issued a statement to CNSNews.com Feb. 3 in response to an inquiry for a news article being prepared about the Department of Justice taking over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), confirming that the statement was sent by her exclusively to the Internet news wire in response to its inquiry.

“The rabid NRA has no better ally in Washington than Attorney General John Ashcroft, once featured in a National Rifle Association magazine cover story as ‘a breath of fresh air’ in the capital,” read a portion of Barrett’s statement.

In a Jan. 30 AP article about gun control, reporter Curt Anderson wrote: “Gun owners may have no better ally in Washington than Attorney General John Ashcroft, once featured in a National Rifle Association magazine cover story as ‘a breath of fresh air’ in the capital.'”

Barrett’s Feb. 3 statement contained other passages that were identical to parts of Anderson’s AP article.

Of course, as the reader who sent this link noted, it’s really the Associated Press who should be embarrassed — for publishing a news story that could be turned into an advocacy-group press release with only a few words being altered.

Conspiracy theory of the week: this is proof that the American gun-control movement is a tool of British intelligence. Lyndon Larouche, call your office!

UPDATE: Reader Drew Kelley emails: “My question Glenn, is: How do we know that the original AP news story wasn’t just a reworked press release from one of the gun-control groups?”

CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER: Readers of The Guardian are supporting war, according to this poll.

UPDATE: A persnickety reader emails with this shocking news:

When a web site invites people to participate in a “poll”, it is not actually a poll. The missing ingredient is representative sampling. In a self-selecting group, the results will be biased toward those who feel the strongest, or at least strongly enough to participate. For this reason, they cannot be deemed representative of the population as a whole. I suspect you already knew this.

You may have noticed disclaimers to this effect issued by reputable journalistic organisations engaged in such “polling”. I noticed that such a remark was omitted from your blog, but (as you have said) you are not a journalist.

Well, duh. No, unlike “journalists,” I assume that my readers aren’t idiots, and know that an online poll isn’t a scientific sampling.

I also assume that a sampling of Guardian readers, even if unscientific, is interesting when it goes in such an unexpected direction. Either (1) Guardian readers as a whole are persuaded, which isn’t implausible (I mean, if Mary McGrory is persuadable, there’s hope for anyone short of Noam Chomsky); or (2) pro-war people are so numerous and well-organized that they can flood a Guardian poll and overwhelm its natural tendency to go the other way, which is news in itself, no?

And — unlike those “journalists” you invoke — I think my readers are smart enough to figure this out on their own. But that’s where blogging differs from journalism, I guess.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The poll has swung the other way now, so I guess this has become a dog-bites-man story. Suspiciously, however, it wouldn’t let me vote.

NEW YORK POLITICIAN’S RACIST REMARKS GO UNREPORTED: I wonder why?

UPDATE: This isn’t very impressive, either:

O’REILLY: We’d save lives because Mexican wetbacks, whatever you want to call them, the coyotes — they’re not going to do what they’re doing now, so people aren’t going to die in the desert. So we save lives, all right, and we seal it down and make it 100 times harder to come across.

Ouch.

I GUESS THAT THE “ANALBRENDA” CHARACTER who’s been spamming the WarbloggerWatch list is really a warblogger herself. Heh.

UPDATE: Yep. Gotta be.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Just to be clear, the first link is to Susannah Breslin’s blog, but I’m not suggesting that she is the porn-spammer.

I’VE MENTIONED NEW STUDENT GROUPS AT YALE AND OXFORD: Now there’s one at Brandeis, too. Three instances constitute a trend, right?

UPDATE: Here’s a similar group at Columbia — “Students United for Victory.” They’re trying to bring back ROTC, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: There’s also the Princeton Committee Against Terrorism.

SOME THOUGHTS ON AMERICA from Shanti Mangala — part of an ongoing discussion in the Indian portion of the Blogosphere.

TRUTH, LIES, AND WAR: All discussed over at GlennReynolds.com for your reading pleasure.

EAMONN FITZGERALD is blogging from the Munich Conference on Security Policy. Apparently, the choice of Munich for the conference was, well, appropriate. . . .

ERIC MULLER is fact-checking Howard Coble’s ass.

THERE’S AN INTERESTING DIALOGUE on the future of the space program over at Slate. Start here.

EARLIER, I BLOGGED ABOUT YALE COLLEGE STUDENTS FOR DEMOCRACY (essentially a pro-democracy, anti-dictator — and hence pro-war — student organization), and now there’s already a sister organization starting at Oxford. Maybe we’ve got a movement going here.

SHUTTLE WING DAMAGE HAS BEEN CONFIRMED by Air Force cameras:

High-resolution images taken from a ground-based Air Force tracking camera in southwestern U.S. show serious structural damage to the inboard leading edge of Columbia’s left wing, as the crippled orbiter flew overhead about 60 sec. before the vehicle broke up over Texas killing the seven astronauts on board Feb. 1.

According to sources close to the investigation, the images, under analysis at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, show a jagged edge on the left inboard wing structure near where the wing begins to intersect the fuselage. They also show the orbiter’s right aft yaw thrusters firing, trying to correct the vehicle’s attitude that was being adversely affected by the left wing damage. Columbia’s fuselage and right wing appear normal. Unlike the damaged and jagged left wing section, the right wing appears smooth along its entire length. The imagery is consistent with telemetry.

It’s still not clear what caused it, though.

UPDATE: This story is interesting, as is this earlier story, on upper-atmosphere electrical phenomena known as blue jets, elves, and sprites. (Also interesting — these phenomena were reported by pilots for years but the reports were dismised before scientists realized that they were real.)