“I’M WEARING NANOPANTS AS WE SPEAK.”

KATIE COURIC APPARENTLY DOESN’T WATCH NBC, as she’s been recycling the exploded BBC story about the Lynch rescue being a sham, even though it was exploded, in no small part, by actual reporters at NBC.

Maybe she’s just constructing a more palatable (to her) version of reality.

WERE THE HUSSEIN BROTHERS’ DEATHS AN ILLEGAL ASSASSINATION? Rep. Charles Rangel suggests so, but this seems to me to be an example of (still more) hysterical overreaching by critics of the Administration, for reasons made clear in this post by Eugene Volokh.

OLIVER WILLIS IS FEATURED in a Boston Globe story on weblogs and politics.

Meanwhile, Carnival of the Vanities is up over at Da Goddess’ place.

DANIEL DREZNER HAS A ROUNDUP OF IRAQ NEWS — and it’s mostly good.

UPDATE: Meanwhile Steven Den Beste has a roundup of people who have reacted unfavorably to reports of the Hussein Brothers’ deaths. It’s about what you’d expect, but it’s worth reading anyway.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And Austin Bay writes on why Iraq isn’t Vietnam. Among other things, it’s far more important.

AIRBRUSH AWARD: Brian Carnell says the BBC is rewriting its own stories after the fact to avoid embarrassment. What would they say if Tony Blair revised his speeches after the fact with no explanation? Meanwhile the Los Angeles Times is recycling the discredited BBC story about PFC Lynch’s rescue. That’s absolutely pathetic.

And even Bill Clinton is defending Bush on the WMD front.

It’s a sad world when you can trust politicians (and Bill Clinton!) more than the media. But nowadays, well. . . .

Randy Barnett examines why we’re seeing so much lying.

UPDATE: The Daily Howler has more:

For reasons that are completely unclear, major parts of the Washington press corps have flipped on Bush in the past few weeks. But their dysfunctional culture lives; they continue to spin the basic facts to construct a sweet story which furthers their outlook. Their reports are full of spin and conflation. Can’t you hear what they’re saying? Hey, rubes!

Indeed.

TACITUS HAS AN EMAIL FROM A MARINE IN BAGHDAD covering the reception of the news of the Hussein Brothers’ recent demise.

Meanwhile, Bigwig offers a Saddam’s-eye view of events.

INSTAPUNDIT’S AFGHANISTAN CORRESPONDENT, Professor John Robert Kelly of Boston University, sends a lengthy report. Overall, the picture is better than media reports would suggest. Excerpt:

Despite dozens of missteps, made mostly with good intentions, it has been the understated but forceful American influence, not the UN and the hundreds of NGOs, that has taken the major gambles here. The Americans have displayed admirable flexibility in altering tactics and strategy when necessary and achieved this dicey, delicate transition.

But read the full report, below, for context.

(more…)

POLITICIZED SCIENCE AT BERKELEY. This sounds like an updated version of those psychology studies from the 1920s demonstrating the intellectual and moral inferiority of despised immigrants, and it’s just about as scientific. Your tax dollars at work.
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UPDATE: Here’s more on this absurd study. You know, a lot of people have complained, with some basis, that the Bush Administration doesn’t have enough respect for the opinions of scientists. But “studies” like this one may explain just why that is.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s another dissection of the study.

HERE’S A LIST OF BLOGS BLACKLISTED BY THE MULLARCHY IN IRAN. Miserable mullahs. The blogosphere will dance on your graves.

THIS ASSESSMENT OF WHAT’S GOING ON IN IRAQ from StrategyPage is worth reading. Excerpt:

What is really happening in Iraq? The media make it sound like another Vietnam is developing, with the Iraqi population sliding towards mass resistance as Iraqi society collapses in violent anarchy. But the reality is a lot different. Attacks on coalition troops are declining, the availability of public services is increasing and public opinion towards the coalition becomes more favorable each day. The gunmen who are attacking coalition troops are being hunted down and arrested, and huge arms caches found and destroyed. . . .

A lot of the “combat” is now taking place in the shadows. Special Forces, Delta Force and SEALs are doing what they’ve been doing since before the war began; sorting out the Iraqi underground. This mélange of criminals, Saddam’s secret police and various Baath Party big shots (including Saddam and his sons) terrorized and plundered Iraq and are trying to get back to the good old days now that the war’s over. While it was widely reported that the Baath Party stalwarts and secret police were fleeing from the south and north to Baghdad during the war, few journalists asked the question; “where are these guys doing now.” Technically, the ones who were on the government payroll are now unemployed. But this is where reporting, real investigative reporting, gets tough. The Special Forces are a notoriously tight mouthed bunch. Same with Delta and the SEALs. These troops have been chasing the bad guys, but aren’t talking. And for good reason, as these fellows rely on surprise and superior information to obtain a lifesaving edge in combat. They don’t talk because they want to survive their next encounter with the bad guys. However, it’s no secret that few of the many intelligence units were sent home. The intel troops are now working on tracking down Saddam’s unemployed thugs.

Read the whole thing, which was posted yesterday, but which seems all the more newsworthy today, for obvious reasons. This piece on how to interrogate Iraqis is also a must-read:

Thousands of Baath Party members, secret policemen, and other Saddam supporters have been interrogated since the war in Iraq began. Getting some of these guys to talk has been a challenge, because many of them really believe that it’s only a matter of time before they will be back in power. Several gambits have proven useful in loosening tongues. Many of these people have Iraqi blood on their hands, and they do fear retribution from the families of their victims. So much effort has gone into identifying who did what to whom when Saddam was in power. With this information in hand, the interrogator mentions that the Iraqi judicial system will soon be functioning again, and, hey, weren’t you in Basra in 1993 when a lot of Shiites “disappeared.” Perhaps we should take you back there and, hey, do you know what a “line up” is? That gets a lot of people to talk. Another scary gambit is mentioning a transfer to Guantanamo. The Arab media has been conjuring up all manner of fantasies about Guantanamo, and to many of the currently unindicted, being sent there is seen as tantamount to a death sentence, or worse.

Heh. Mary Robinson et al. — Donald Rumsfeld’s useful idiots. (Via ChicagoBoyz). This post from Stephen Green also offers some useful historical perspective on the end-phases of other wars, which weren’t as neat as some imagine today.

UPDATE: Meanwhile Phil Carter issues a useful “don’t get cocky” warning.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, Ralph Peters says that the death of Uday and Qusay is more important than the fall of Baghdad.

HENRY HANKS HAS MOVED — check out his new digs.

REASONABLE REGULATION OF GUNS: Randy Barnett has a lengthy post on this subject over at GlennReynolds.com.

CATS AND DOGS, LIVING TOGETHER (CONT’D): The Daily Howler says that Ralph Reed is more accurate than the mainstream media where the Niger uranium story is concerned.

I HOPE IT’S TRUE, but I’ll wait for the confirmation: According to Reuters, Uday and Qusay Hussein may have been found.

Off to a session on new legislation. Have a nice day.

UPDATE: Seems to be true:

Widespread and sporadic gunfire crackled across Baghdad after dark Tuesday as word spread that Saddam’s feared and hated sons might have been killed.

“It’s celebration. People have heard about what happened,” a U.S. military spokesman told Reuters.

The house in Mosul was burned to the ground after a loud, four-hour gunbattle between the people inside and soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division.

Good news. Andrew Sullivan has more. [LATER: Sylvain Galineau is skeptical of the letter that Andrew reprints. I can’t vouch for its authenticity, of course, but it’s consistent with other things I’ve gotten. I consider it as reliable as a BBC report, anyway. . . .]

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqis and their fates. 34 are dead or captured. And Steven Den Beste offers some perspective:

The fact that someone was willing to finger Qusay and Uday for us is significant. It would obviously make them a prime target for an extremely slow and brutal death if the Baathists regain power. Or if there’s an organized underground, they might get a brutal death anyway. So it indicates that they think the chance of that is very low, and that they’re willing to take the risk.

This doesn’t necessarily indicate support for our occupation, as such, but it shows an increasing belief among Iraqis that the US is completely serious and doesn’t intend to give up. That, by itself, is a very good thing, because it means that they are increasingly convinced that the forces resisting us are not going to win. Irrespective of whether they believe that our occupation is good or bad, they are coming to believe that it’s permanent, and that is a victory for us. It means that we’re redeeming the failure of 1991, and gaining the trust of the Iraqi people. (Note that you can trust someone you hate; trust and support are not the same thing.)

And the deaths of Qusay and Uday are symbolic events which show how serious we actually are, and will show our commitment to continuing to hunt down and destroy the remnants of the Baathist power structure which went into hiding. I don’t know that there’s any particularly good reason to publish photographs of the corpses for the world, but I sincerely hope that pictures of them are widely distributed in Iraq itself, in order to increase the propaganda effect. (And if that happens, they’ll be available to the world too. So watch for them.)

Read the whole thing.

SAUDI ARABIA AND ISLAMIC TERRORISM: The connection still isn’t getting enough attention:

According to Newsweek, a congressional joint intelligence inquiry has concluded that Saudi Arabia was deeply implicated in the attacks of September 11. A close associate of the al-Qa’eda hijackers, Omar al-Bayoumi, is alleged to have been working as a Saudi agent, operating from the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles.

The Bush administration has censored an entire section from the report, detailing the Saudi role in the events leading up to the attacks. These suppressed passages are said to explain how Saudi diplomats provided financial and logistical support for the terrorists. Leading American senators, such as Bob Graham and Richard Shelby, have pointed the finger at Riyadh.

What is the link between the twin towers of New York and the minarets of Mecca? The men who mounted the most devastating act of terrorism in modern times, the al-Qa’eda organisation for which they worked, and the Taliban regime that gave them sanctuary, all emerged from a single Islamic fundamentalist movement. That movement – Wahhabism – originated in Saudi Arabia.

Yep.

LOW-POWER RADIO, THE FCC, AND A CHALLENGE TO MICHAEL POWELL: My TechCentralStation column is up.

And for more on the perils of monopoly media, read this on the further unravelling of the BBC. As Howard Kurtz writes: “Make no mistake: the BBC’s credibility is at stake here.”

And Roger Simon looks at parallels between the BBC and the Jayson Blair scandal.

UPDATE: Here’s some research on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan’s blogging career, and what it reveals about his reportorial biases, such as “Gilligan’s sourcing seems a little dodgy,” and “Gilligan never apologises.”

I’M STAYING AT A MUCH BETTER JOINT THAN LILEKS IS. And thank God for that.

The Insta-Daughter learned to swim today. By the evening she was doing laps across the pool, underwater. I imagine I’ll be spending a lot of swimming-pool time for the rest of the summer.

YEAH, I KNOW I’M POSTING A LOT LESS THIS WEEK — but at least I’m not blaming defenseless vegetables.

ONE INTERESTING SIDE EFFECT of the Jayson Blair scandal may be the raising of standards for TV journalism — especially in terms of crediting print journalists for story ideas.

And maybe even crediting bloggers? Well, I guess I shouldn’t ask for the moon.

FASHION TIPS for bloggers. . . .

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS has started a blog.

RANDY BARNETT HAS MORE ON THE RIGHT TO ARMS over at GlennReynolds.com.

JEFF JARVIS SAYS THAT the BBC scandal is looking more like the New York Times scandal all the time. Keep scrolling on his page for more.

And, not surprisingly, Andrew Sullivan is all over this story. So is Biased BBC, which notes that the BBC is now sounding rather paranoid.

I’M ONLINE DOWNLOADING SOME IMAGES FOR MY TALK (wrong laptop! d’oh!) but I got an email saying that Judge Merritt, who reported on documents connecting Saddam with Osama from Baghdad, then complained about being “gagged” by the U.S. government, will be on O’Reilly tonight.