JOHN LOTT UPDATE: My last post on John Lott produced a criticical email from Ben Zycher, an economist at RAND who thought I was being unfair to Lott. I offered Zycher space to respond, and what he sent is set out below (click “more” to read it). I was hoping for something that went into more detail regarding the statistical issues involved, but . . . .

In a related development, Clayton Cramer responds to an email from Tim Lambert regarding Lott.

UPDATE: Another economist has emailed in with comments. Click “More” to read them, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: James Lindgren has emailed a lengthy response to Zycher’s comments, also reachable by clicking “more.” There’s also more from Tim Lambert, and an update from Lindgren, below now.

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SOUNDS LIKE THEY FOUND SOME WMDS:

Kuwaiti security authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads from Iraq to an unnamed European country, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Wednesday.

Let’s see if this pans out.

UPDATE: Howard Owens emails:

I don’t know what this means, if anything … but that story you link to is bylined Associated Press.

It’s not on our wire.

I also can’t find any other version of that story on Google News, either.

You’d think that this would get more attention. Reader Dexter Van Zile speculates that it’s not getting attention because it’s bogus. Could be — in fact, that’s the most likely answer, of course. Google News says it’s four hours old. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Justin Katz has sensible comments: “don’t commit yourself emotionally either way.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More, at The Indepundit.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Looks like “bogus” wins. There are two possibilities — it’s bogus, or it’s being covered up. I can’t imagine why it would be covered up, so I’m voting for “bogus.” Winds of Change notes that it seems to have come from the official Kuwaiti news agency originally, but disappeared from their website.

MORE ON SECRET SOURCES, over at GlennReynolds.com.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis observes:

Just for the fun of it, let’s compare and contrast two scandals:

: In the U.K., someone — Dr. David Kelly — had unauthorized and possibly illegal contact with the press regarding confidential, classified government information on weapons in Iraq. The government reveals his name. He kills himself. The government gets hell for it. Revealing the name of the person is considered a scandal.

: In the U.S., someone, unknown, had unauthorized and possibly illegal contact with the press regarding confidential, classified government information on a CIA agent’s identity. The government is under pressure to find and identify and prosecute the person. Not revealing the name of the person is a scandal.
Hmmmm.

Hmm, indeed.

NBC WON’T REPORT VALERIE PLAME’S NAME — but in a nugget from today’s Robert Novak column that I haven’t seen noted elsewhere (though I’ve been surfing a lot less than usual) we learn that it’s listed in Who’s Who. And, of course, it’s been all over the papers for days.

Is this barn-door idiocy on the part of the press, or an attempt to make this seem like a bigger deal than it is? I mean, this story could still amount to something — and I still don’t know enough to say — but this just seems silly. Once you say it’s Wilson’s spouse, it seems to me that you’ve given the game away.

UPDATE: I’m wrong. At least, reader Derek Willis sends this plausible argument:

Is this barn-door idiocy? No. NBC won’t report the name for the same reason that the Washington Post won’t – both have internal policies against naming covert CIA employees, whether operatives or analysts (see WP writer Vernon Loeb’s comment here: link). This is a fairly common practice, although it obviously is not held by everyone – and that’s a choice for each media outlet to make. But sticking to an internal policy – especially as it related to naming intelligence agency employees – isn’t idiocy at all. Once people in government suspect that a newspaper or TV station might not be consistent in disclosing names, it could have a chilling factor in their decisions to talk to the press. Sources and reporters have to know where each other stand on these types of things.

Seems a bit late in the day, but if everyone followed this principle I imagine we’d be better off.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Washington Post agrees that the horse has left the barn:

Why is the Washington Post publishing Plame’s name?

An intelligence official told The Post on Sept. 27 that no further harm would come from repeating Plame’s name.

Makes sense to me.

MORE THOUGHTS on federalism for Iraq, and some interesting cautionary observations in the comments.

AUSTIN BAY has the first of a series of columns dealing with intelligence failures that’s worth reading.

ANOTHER FEDERAL JUDGE ON IRAQ: Here’s an article from the Tennessee Bar Journal quoting U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Gilbert Merritt (for whom I clerked) on his trip to Iraq:

Securing facilities is a first step. Merritt is aware it will take much more to put in place an independent judiciary in Iraq. As anyone who watches the news knows, the country is under attack from terrorists and is still torn by rival religious and ethnic groups.

Still, Merritt is optimistic. From his time in Iraq, he has come to believe that the overwhelming majority of people there support the reconstruction. Baghdad has been a center of education and culture in the region for thousands of years, and its population is well educated – especially the lawyers, who Merritt says are among the most westernized and among the best educated people in the country. They could be strong leaders in the rebuilding of the government and in the development of a new constitution, he says. . . .

An early opponent of the U.S. invasion, Merritt now says he saw a different dimension of Iraq while there and believes the United States was right to lead the coalition’s campaign to oust Saddam.

The current situation is an opportunity for the United States to put a constitutional democracy in place in Iraq, he says, and a chance to make up for some of the suffering the people there have felt since the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

For those who keep track of such things, Merritt was a Carter appointee.

UPDATE: Here’s a piece on the hidden stories of Iraq, from the Kansas City Star.

I’M GOING TO BE KIND OF BUSY TODAY, so blogging may be lighter than usual. Check out Tom Maguire for the latest on Plame/Wilson. And in a Kausfiles/Weintraub footrace, the unedited blog won by several lengths. Meanwhile lots of stuff is happening in Venezuela, largely under the radar — but not the Blogdar, as Miguel Octavio has things covered. And Alphecca’s weekly chart of gun bias in the media is up. And scroll down for updates on some earlier posts. Back later.

Oh, and don’t miss Frontline Voices, the new weblog featuring reports from troops overseas. It’s a must-read.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan is doing rare morning-blogging on the Plame affair.

I ALREADY KNEW, but for those who didn’t, LT Smash has come out of the closet and revealed his true identity.

IT’S NOT A REVIEW, but today’s TechCentralStation column is about Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver.

EARLIER I MENTIONED THIS POST by Eugene Volokh, on other people’s insistence that he blog topics of interest to them, regardless of whether they were of interest to him. (Pejman also weighs in on this, offering to blog anything the demanders demand, for an adequate fee: “Kids, I’m a lawyer. I’m trained to do this kind of thing!” That’s why I quit practicing law, Pej.)

I don’t have much trouble resisting people’s efforts to bully me into advancing their agendas. What worries me more, in a way, are the friendly emails from people saying that they get all their news from InstaPundit.

Don’t do that! It’s “InstaPundit,” not “InstaNews Service.” And this is, as Eugene properly notes, an amateur activity. I don’t even get to blog all the stuff that interests me — I’ve really fallen behind on space, guns, and even nanotechnology lately– much less stuff that’s important, but that doesn’t interest me.

What you get here — as with any blog — is my idiosyncratic selection of things that interest me, as I have time to note them, with my own idiosyncratic comments. What’s more, to the (large) extent that it’s shaped by my effort to play up stories that Big Media are ignoring, it’s even more idiosyncratic. I hope you like it, but making it your sole source of news is probably not a good idea. It’s like living solely on appetizers and desserts: there’s no “four food groups” approach here. [Maybe InstaPundit is more like a dietary supplement — providing essential nutrients, not basic sustenance? — Ed. That’s it: “InstaPundit: The Cod Liver Oil of the Media World!” Actually, now that I think about it, I like the dessert analogy better. –Ed.]

MATT WELCH CONTINUES in his role as scourge of the ombudsmen.

VICTORY BY THE NUMBERS? Dale Amon says we’re winning. Within the context of the overly-narrow concept of victory involved, I think he’s right.

I’VE GOT MORE ON THE MEDIA AND IRAQ over at GlennReynolds.com — a post that I wrote in the lovely Starbucks-catered “Study Room” in the University’s main library. Free wi-fi, overstuffed chairs, and foamy cappucino. Today’s students have it pretty good.

CNN called to ask if I’d debate this topic on Paula Zahn’s show tonight, but I suggested that they call Jeff Jarvis or Jay Rosen instead. I haven’t heard back, so I guess one or the other will be on (8:30 ET, I think), no doubt doing a better job than I would have.

UPDATE: They wound up with John Leo, who seemed to me to be too much of a gentleman in his dealings with Michael Wolff of New York magazine, who was the classic TV Shouting Head, interrupting and spouting non sequiturs. The result was that the show — which the producers wanted to be conflict-ridden so as to produce excitement — was actually quite dull, and very little that was new got said. That’s too bad, as the topic was important — but in a way, the formula, and its failure, illustrates the point.

COULD ROBERT NOVAK BE FORCED TO REVEAL HIS SOURCES? Yes, writes Eugene Volokh. Volokh is more of a First Amendment expert than I am — I teach it, and I’ve written a couple of articles, but he’s got a well-regarded book — but I agree with his analysis.

UPDATE: Am I serious? Why not? Subpoena him and the other reporters. Find out what happened. If somebody leaked, fire ’em. It’s easy and it’s fast, and it’s legal. What’s wrong with this idea? Why have a special rule for the press? Who else is allowed to go around saying that they have knowledge of a crime but won’t talk?

You can’t have a special rule on this for journalists, because journalists don’t have special First Amendment rights, and anyway everyone is a journalist now, thanks to the Internet. This will be disturbing to professional journalists, but I don’t see an alternative. And this is a national security leak, in wartime, right?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Surprisingly little negative reaction to the above. Except for this. Heh.

THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson’s views with an important mission.

Regardless of the rest of the story, heads should roll for that.

UPDATE: Darren Kaplan wonders if Wilson’s hiring was legal in light of anti-nepotism laws. I don’t know, but surely his publicly expressed views made him unsuitable regardless of his relations.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Randy Paul emails to suggest that I’m “smearing” Wilson above. But it’s an attack on the competence of the White House, not on Wilson. Wilson’s free to hold those views. But only an idiot would pick someone like that for a politically sensitive mission of great importance. Either (1) Wilson had a sudden epiphany on the war, which I strongly doubt; or (2) He felt this way when they picked him, and they either didn’t know (bad) or didn’t care (bad). Regardless, this reflects very badly on the White House’s judgment. And unlike other parts of this affair, we don’t need additional facts to figure it out.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Simon agrees:

Who were the Adminstration leakers but, more importantly, who in the CIA authorized Wilson’s strange, off-budget, journey to Niger and why? Why is this more important? Because it could show people in our own intelligence agencies working against the wishes of our government, not just standard-issue partisan battling that goes on every day inside the Beltway.

Indeed.

COLBY COSH is right to condemn this latest bit of drug-war stupidity.

IS THE SENATE UNDERMINING IRAQI RECONSTRUCTION? Sure looks like it.

If things go badly as a result, I promise to publish the pictures, names — and home phone numbers, if I can get ’em — of the Senators voting for this bill.

I’ll also publish weblinks so that people can give money to their opponents, regardless of party. This is near-criminal stupidity.

DAVE KOPEL WRITES that Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals his ignorance of gun laws when he talks about the subject. He appears, in fact, to be shaky on the state/federal distinction.

MORE ON THE HUGO CHAVEZ / TERRORIST CONNECTIONS:

Middle Eastern terrorist groups are operating support cells in Venezuela and other locations in the Andean region. A two-month review by U.S. News, including interviews with dozens of U.S. and Latin American sources, confirms the terrorist activity. In particular, the magazine has learned that thousands of Venezuelan identity documents are being distributed to foreigners from Middle Eastern nations, including Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, and Lebanon.

No big surprise, to those who have been paying attention.

UPDATE: Winds of Change’s Latin America roundup has more on Chavez.

I WAS WONDERING ABOUT THE IRAQI OIL TRUST IDEA, and this WSJ editorial contains the following nugget:

Plans are also well under way to give all Iraqis a stake in the success of their new society through the creation of an oil trust, some of which would go to fund public goods like education and some of which would be paid out directly to individuals on a regular basis (in a version of the Alaska oil trust). That strikes us as an enlightened way to show Iraqis that they have a stake in this transition to self-rule.

I’d like to read more about this.

UPDATE: Well, in the paper edition of the Wall Street Journal, there’s a bit more, in the form of an oped by Fareed Yasseen. He’s critical of the oil trust idea, on the plausible grounds that (1) it’s a disincentive to work; and (2) it will, in effect, enhance the power of patriarchs and clan leaders.

These are plausible objections, though I don’t know if they should carry the day. But that I’m reading about this — really important — stuff on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal and not in news accounts that instead stress the latest pinprick attack by Saddam’s holdouts (and miss the real story even there) simply illustrates what a dreadful job the press is doing in reporting what’s going on in Iraq.

Yasseen also thinks that Bremer is pushing privatization too fast. This is a real issue. In a place like Iraq, there are two kinds of people likely to be able to buy privatized assets: Baathist leftovers and collaborators, and foreigners. Both pose problems — though the Iraqi expatriate community, which I think should be given preferential treatment, is a different kettle of fish.

Again, why isn’t this kind of stuff getting the above-the-fold treatment? Because it matters.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Weidner thinks Iraq needs a good dose of federalism, along the Swiss model. Are they talking about it in Iraq?

I’d like to know.

DANIEL DREZNER HAS MORE on Wilson/Plame, and quotes some pretty strong words from The Note about prejudgement.

Meanwhile Howard Kurtz notes that the press isn’t looking too good, and quotes a reader:

“Do the reporters, Andrea Mitchell and five others, who were contacted by the two ‘Bush senior administartion officials’ have any obligations to these sources since they did not report the story about Joseph Wilson’s wife? Would it be unethical for them to comment about which ‘Bush senior administration officials’ contacted them about stories that were not reported?”

“Why is it that lower echelon reporters like Jayson Blair at the New York Times get fired for plagiarism, but at the same time syndicated columnists like Robert Novak, and by complicity Fred Hiatt, your editorial page director, can destroy a career and risk a life with impunity?”

It is a bit odd to see journalists running around pronouncing a scandal and — by implication, and sometimes explicitly — calling for an investigation when they know the truth and won’t report it. Isn’t it? And Roger Simon is worried:

If you think I’m wrong, just reflect for a second on all the yelling and screaming about this matter that appeared in the media and on the Internet yesterday, and from politicians of course, before any of them knew the facts. Imagine what will happen when they think they do.

I think that was what The Note was getting at, too.

WESLEY CLARK ON TIME TRAVEL: I’m with him on this. And against the critics I invoke Clarke’s (not Clark’s) Law.

On the other hand, there’s still Niven’s Law to contend with.

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SPINSANITY says that ad hominem attacks on Ashcroft are unfair, but widespread among Democrats.

I don’t think that ad hominem attacks on Ashcroft are inherently unfair: when you have an executive official of power and discretion, questions of character matter. (Ad hominem arguments may be logically invalid, but that’s a different topic.) The real problem with the attacks on Ashcroft — whom I don’t especially like myself, to be honest — is that they’re absurdly over the top. He’s not Torquemada, pace Walter Cronkite. He’s not even Janet Reno, whose record on civil liberties was dreadful but who got a pass because she was a woman appointed by a Democrat.

In fact, what’s interesting is that Democrats can — and Clinton did — get away with far worse civil liberties assaults, while Republicans can (and Bush is) get away with spending far more money, because the pigeonholes used by the press include “Republicans who hate civil liberties” and “Democrats who are wasteful spenders,” but not the reverse.

WOULD ARNOLD BE GOOD FOR SILICON VALLEY? Beats me. But Sonia Arrison has some thoughts.