“IF YOU DON’T REMEMBER HIM, Gary Hart is the Democrat who cheated on his wife with a skinny girl.” Jay Leno, just now. The joke didn’t get a very big laugh.

THE NEW SMARTER HARPER’S INDEX is up! Don’t miss it.

TONY ADRAGNA is fact-checking TAPPED.

UPDATE: Well, it appears to be more complex than Adragna thought, though apparently it’s more complex than TAPPED thought, too. Does anybody know what’s going on there?

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT! No, really, that’s what it is.

HEY! There might be hope for Robert Fisk yet! Okay, cuteness aside, this story about a reattached head (yes, that’s what I said) is pretty cool.

IBERIAN NOTES HAS MORE ON THE SPANISH AL-QAEDA ARRESTS:

The Al Qaeda arrests here in Barcelona (see below) are significant news. They are solid proof that Al Qaeda is a threat to the civilized world. They planned to commit acts of terrorism, apparently using chemicals, right here. And in London, Paris, and Strasbourg. If this doesn’t convince Europeans, including those in France, for God’s sake, that it’s time to draw a line in the sand and say “Take your stand. You’re either with us and against the terrorists, and we mean all the terrorists; you’re neutral and will enjoy the advantages and also suffer the drawbacks of having been a fence-sitter; or you’re on their side. Which is it?”–then I don’t know what will. And if anyone doesn’t see by now that Al Qaeda is in cahoots with Hezbollah, Al Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and all those other flaming bags of shit, you are willfully ignoring the obvious. And where do those people get their money, weapons, and support? Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Algeria. AND certain people, some highly placed, in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and everywhere else in the Arab / Muslim world and a lot of places outside it.

What I find amazing are all the educated, intelligent people who are perfectly willing to believe that mobile phones fry their brains, that Monsanto is trying to take over the world, that the CIA or the Mafia or the Teamsters killed Kennedy, that there’s a conspiracy between the government, the referees, and some obscure figures with “muchos intereses” to screw FC Barcelona out of the League again this year, that opening the window when it’s hot outside is bad for you, that you can catch a cold if the wind blows on you, that crystals have a lot of power and so do pyramids and that everyone has an energy field (and that mine is negative), that feng fuckin’ shui is something more than a millenarian superstition, that electric power lines give off radiation, that there are people out there who pay untold sums of money to watch snuff movies, that there are Satanic cults sacrificing babies infiltrating our nursery schools, that it’s possible to lose weight without eating less, exercising more, or both, that AIDS is a plot by the federal government to exterminate blacks or gays or both, that the CIA was running drugs from Nicaragua into the USA to fund the contras, that you can learn a foreign language by paying thousands of dollars and sitting at a computer terminal, that the US Army had hit squads to kill deserters in Vietnam, that O.J.’s son was the one who really did it, or that this whole war thing is a devilish plot cooked up between the oil companies, the Pentagon, the arms manufacturers, Dick Cheney, and the Bavarian Fuckin’ Illuminati, yet they are unwilling to believe that there are governments and organizations out there that are working together with the goal of destroying everything that we all cherish about our Western society and that maybe we ought to take action against them now while we still can rather than wait until we can’t anymore.

Indeed. Scroll down for quite a lot of detailed information on who these Algerian Al Qaeda sympathizers are.

LAW PROFESSOR BLOGGER ERIC MULLER has more thoughts on Korematsu.

GOOD GRIEF! Traffic’s already over 100K, again! Hmm. I blame the cold weather, keeping people close to their nice, warm computers. . . .

UPDATE: At 11:45, it’s 111, 449 — a new record by a mile. Must be damn cold out there.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Adam Woolcock emails: “Don’t credit the cold weather for all your hits! Here in Melbourne, Australia it was 43d celcius here today (109 fahrenheit). If any of your readers want to swap and come live in this inferno i’ll be happy to take offers.”

Er, well, in your case maybe it’s the nice, air-conditioned computer room. . . .

ANOTHER MAN IMPRISONED FOR EXERCISING HIS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. I assume the ACLU will be all over this one.

TONY ADRAGNA OBSERVES: “Problem with the French is that they need a reminder ’bout how everytime the Germans exert influence on the Continent things invariably end up worse.”

You’d think they’d have learned by now.

A MAJOR DROPPED BALL in Defense Department computer security. Jeez.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC will be doing a swimsuit issue, next month. Hmm. Maybe I should do an InstaPundit swimsuit issue!

Maybe I shouldn’t.

KEN LAYNE EXPLAINS HOW TO FIX SALON: Someone should listen.

UPDATE: John Scalzi is dissing Salon’s business model and also points out that InstaPundit gets as many daily uniques as Salon has subscribers. On the one hand, well, that’s true, but I don’t charge people thirty bucks a year. On the other hand, I haven’t burned though tens of millions of dollars of other people’s money by funding lavish offices, wild parties, and absurd vanity ventures.

Hmm. And too bad — it sounds like it would have been fun!

STEVEN DEN BESTE LAYS IT ON THE LINE WITH A PREDICTION:

The Anglo-American conquest of Iraq will be seen in history as what historians like to call a turning point. It will mean the end of the UN as anything even remotely resembling a meaningful international body. It will also mean the practical end of NATO, which just refused a request that it move forces to protect its member Turkey from any Iraqi punishing attack north. It will totally alter the world diplomatic situation, with many bilateral relationships becoming stronger and others becoming much more cool and the reputations of some nations rising and those of others dropping through the floor. And it’s going to end up changing the political dynamic inside Europe which has until now fed the process of formation and expansion of the EU.

The conquest of Iraq will wipe away any remaining traces of the international diplomatic order left over from the Cold War.

And it’s going to happen and no amount of vocal opposition and diplomatic grandstanding is capable now of forcing Bush to involuntarily refrain from ordering the attack.

I think he’s probably right. And I think that a reformed Iraq has the potential to lead to regime change throughout the region — something that the various leaders have been worried about, as have their patrons (and clients?) elsewhere.

UPDATE: The Pontificator says I’m wrong to want regime change throughout the region, since it might be bloody and chaotic.

Bloody might be okay, if it’s the right people. I’m perfectly happy to see the last emir strangled with the entrails of the last mullah, if it comes to that. But it probably won’t, or at least it need not. After all, you could have made (and people did make) the same kind of predictions about the fall of the Soviet Union, and it didn’t turn out that way.

At any rate, regime change will come anyway, sooner or later, because it’s a region of weak states, unhappy citizens, and strong outside interest. I think this is a better context for regime change than we’re likely to find otherwise. And, as I said earlier:

I don’t pretend to offer guarantees that American intervention in the region will make life better for the people who live there. I think it will, I hope it will, and I think we should do our best to make that so. But those are secondary objectives. The primary objective is to make clear to leaders that if their country threatens America, they, the rulers, will be out of power at best, and dead along with all their family and friends at worst. Is that “nice?” No. I don’t care.

This is also why I prefer a Mussolini-style ending in which Saddam is lynched by his own people to exile, or even a trial. I think that would provide a valuable lesson.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ann Haker emails:

If Saudi subjects now see that their neighbor, Iraq, is using its oil wealth to build a dynamic and vibrant economy, while their own leaders have lavished most of the oil revenues on themselves and their Swiss bank accounts, they wil begin to demand that the oil wealth of the Arabian Peninsula be used for their benefit, not the benefit of the al Saud family.

That’s what the Saudi family must fear most.

Well, maybe not most, but yes, I think the “trust” move was a diplomatic stroke that hit several targets at once.

BOY, THE U.S. / EUROPE DIVIDE HAS GOTTEN BAD: Rand Simberg has found contingency planning for a U.S. invasion.

A LOT OF PEOPLE SEEMED TO LIKE my Neal Stephenson-inspired post on Athena, Ares and war. So quite a few may also be interested in this review by Lynne Kiesling of Joel Mokyr’s The Gifts of Athena.

A PACK, NOT A HERD:

A Far North Dallas man who shot and killed two would-be burglars Thursday morning probably will not face charges, according to Dallas police and legal experts.

About 9 a.m. Thursday, the 29-year-old man was at home with his wife and three young children when a man knocked on the side door and asked for someone the resident did not know, police said.

One or both suspects then forced their way into the apartment, shooting the resident once in the arm, police said. The resident retreated to his bedroom, retrieved a gun, and a shootout ensued in the living room on Knoll Trail Drive near the Dallas North Tollway, police said. . . .

“In Texas, we maximize the idea of your home is your castle, and if intruders break in, they do so at their own peril,” said Jerry Dowling, a criminal law professor at Sam Houston State University.

Somebody send this guy to Britain. Or Brooklyn.

SOME FOLKS ARE ANGRY about the whole “Axis of Weasel” thing, and are demanding to be called something else.

UPDATE: Then, in the mean-but-funny category, we find this, and this.

STEPHEN GREEN is back and blogging. He poses this question:

French soldiers and ships helped bring us victory in our Revolution. French farmers gave us brie and crème fraîche and the wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux. French thinkers gave us Voltaire and Victor Hugo. France stands second to only the United Kingdom as the European nation contributing most to Western Civilization.

But after WWI, France went as bad as potato salad left out at a sunny summer picnic.

From victory at the Marne to occupation after Ardennes in ’40. Defeat in Vietnam. Defeat in Algeria. From confidence against rising German power to subsuming to it under the EU. From a muscular foreign policy to carping from the sidelines.

What the hell went wrong?

I blame an insufficiency of healthy lycopene, but Stephen has a different explanation.

AXIS OF WEASELS UPDATE: Reader Scott Hanson emails from Germany that it’s being reported there:

The Axis of Weasels is getting coverage even in the German media. NDRInfo, the regional news radio station, was interviewing their Washington correspondent about the ‘old Europe’ flap. When asked how Americans were reacting, he pointed out the ‘Axis of Weasel’ headline from the NY Post. Of course, he had to explain what ‘weasel’ meant in this context, since ‘Axis of Small Mammals’ doesn’t exactly convey the correct meaning.

Heh.

It’s been a good week for ScrappleFace, as this Best of the Web item notes:

ScrappleFace: Tomorrow’s News Today

“U.N. Tells Blix ‘Stop Looking for Smoking Guns’ “–headline, ScrappleFace.com, Jan. 9

“US Tells Blix Not to Look for ‘Smoking Gun’ “–headline, Australian Broadcasting Corp. Web site, Jan. 24

“Rumsfeld Sorry for ‘Axis of Weasels’ Remark”–headline, ScrappleFace.com, Jan. 22

“AXIS OF WEASELS: Germany and France Wimp Out on Iraq”–front-page headline, New York Post, Jan. 24

If I were Scott Ott, I’d be saying “Buwahahaha!” Something he wrote on his computer yesterday is giving French and German diplomats heartburn today. If that’s not the American Dream come true, I don’t know what is.

HMM: This must be the “New Europe:”

Czech soldiers who accepted an offer to return home from Kuwait if they “did not feel ready” for a US-led war against Iraq have come in for huge public criticism.

Nobody expected any of the 250-strong Nuclear, Biological and Chemical unit to take up the offer from a defence minister hoping to illustrate his soldiers’ dedication. But when 27 of them did – with seven of them flying straight home – national pride was severely dented.

Such was the opprobrium that the remaining 20 are thinking of staying on. The army reports that soldiers, stung by the reaction, are volunteering by the dozen and another 130 will be on their way to Kuwait this weekend.

“I don’t want to be called a coward, that’s why I’ve stayed,” said one soldier. “We’ve already stayed two months over our time.”

“I don’t want to be called a coward.” And a public willing to do it. It’s hard to imagine this happening with, say, French troops. . ..

(Via Porphyrogenitus, who notes that the New York Times needs to get around a bit more and move beyond the sclerotic Eurocracy when it reports on European attitudes and events.)

SO WHO’S RIGHT ABOUT WHAT’S RUINING AMERICA? Walter Olson, or Arianna Huffington? I address this question over at GlennReynolds.com.

MORE ALGERIANS arrested in Spain.

UPDATE: Here’s more.

THE “AXIS OF WEASELS” MEME IS SPREADING: A reader emails:

Just heard “axis of weasel” comment on MSNBC. This was in their top of the hour ‘straight news’ segment, not a commentator.

Heh. Fox is one thing, but this proves that it’s really spreading. Why, it’s even been picked up in France. And then, of course, there’s this headline from the New York Post. Heh.

Forget the “heh.” This is a full-scale “chortle!”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Mattehews emails:

Just before 9 AM EST CNN reported that a viewer had responded via e-mail to its Axes of Weasels story.

The viewer suggested Saddam be forced into exile in Germany; allowed to take it over; and then invade France.

Yeah, well, don’t call us when it happens, guys. That account is way overdrawn. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Juan Gato links to this New York Times article on European attitudes and observes:

Notice, carefully there, what the US was supposed to learn from September 11th. Not that we were at war. Not that there are a bunch of toedick fuckwads who want to kill us. No, the US was supposed to learn humility. All that supposed European sympathy was a front for a smug, “That’ll learn ’em. Sad it had to be like that, but that’ll learn ’em.”

Well, we learned something, all right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Paul Havemann emails:

It’s kind of amusing to see the French and the Germans go into high-dudgeon mode over the “insult” of being labelled as “old Europe.” The axis of weasels has never hesitated to malign the US as “cowboys” and worse — but boil with simulated outrage when *we* call ’em as we see ’em.

They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. Weasels *and* wimps.

Yes, and the “cowboy” thing is kind of old. What’s funny is, when you read the Times story you see a lot of nasty comments about Bush’s “culture” and “religion” that European leaders would be far too P.C. to make in talking about, say, radical Islamists.

STILL MORE: A reader emails:

You’re right. And the NY Times itself is too PC to make such references to Islamists.

Also, the Times treats all Bush bashing or America blaming from Germany or France as worthy of enshrinement at the National Archives.

Rand Simberg meanwhile, notes via email that when the French call us “cowboys,” most Americans (though, um, not those resident at the New York Times), respond “damn straight!” He suspects that the French won’t feel the same about the term “weasel.”

NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION HERE! And we’ll use them if you attack!

UPDATE: And here it is from Uday Hussein.