SAY, WHO DO YOU THINK THIS is talking about?

Another official circulated an internet page with a picture of M Chirac looking surprised. Captions were invited below. Among the more printable were: “Jacques Chirac works hard on his look of utter disbelief, preparing for the announcement of the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in liberated Iraq.”

Whoever could they mean?

UPDATE: In a related development, I certainly hope that today’s New York Post is widely distributed at the U.N.

HEH HEH.

UPDATE: Some related observations.

LOTS OF GOOD STUFF OVER AT SILENT RUNNING and Rantburg. Go see. And read this prediction by Steven Den Beste regarding how the war will go.

DIANE E. on Saturday’s protests in New York, and the plans of the usual idiots to ensure that they reflect badly on the antiwar movement.

THE VIEW FROM PRAGUE:

On the one hand the left espouses equal rights for women, minorities and homosexuals; it lauds free speech and a vibrant independent press as essentials of civil society. The left is a guardian of the separation of church and state and a watchdog of the judicial process. So it finds itself in diametrical opposition to the nature of most Arab societies. But in the wake of this opposition, the left simply sticks its head in the sand rather than confront the reality that as globalization integrates the world order ever closer, we are hurtling toward a clash of civilizations unless the world comes to some sort of agreement on universal values. The left has failed to say that it will not stand for the oppression of women, the vicious repression of human rights and suppression of democratic principles. The only thing it can articulate is a naive and dangerous blame-America-first rhetoric as the root of all problems in the world today.

This hypocrisy is at its zenith in the case of Iraq. For years the left criticized the UN sanctions against Iraq. These sanctions left the Iraqi population debased and demoralized, with dismal health care and a falling standard of living. Though this decay of Iraqi society was due explicitly to Saddam Hussein’s exploitation of the sanctions to enrich himself on the lucrative oil black market while he ignored the suffering of his own people, the left called the UN’s attempts to contain Hussein genocide. Now, as America moves toward confronting Iraq over its failure to disarm, those same voices from the left praise those sanctions, speaking about them with a degree of reverence as the most intrusive and effective sanctions in history.

Read the whole thing. It’s all the more impressive because the writer is no Bush fan.

MORE TROUBLE FOR SCHROEDER? Reader Casey Carrow emails from Mainz:

Thought I’d send you a photo panorama that you may be interested in seeing. It is a photo of an estimated 10,000 policemen and firemen in Mainz, Germany (where I live) demonstrating a recent proposal by the beloved Gerhard Schroeder that their retirement age be changed from 60 to 65. Rather than cheer and clap for their succession of speakers, they blew cheap plastic whistles that could be heard over two kilometers away!

Click on the picture for a larger image. Gee, you’d think Schroeder would try to distract people from stuff like this by ginning up some sort of phony foreign relations issue or something, wouldn’t you?

UPDATE: It’s not working. Heh.

THE EARTH FIRST! PROTEST AGAINST WAR that I reported below drew a spontaneous counterprotest, described by reader John Jenkins who was kind enough to send along a photo:

Thought you’d be interested – it appears that someone decided to “liberate” a half-dozen or so of the Earth First group’s NO WAR IN IRAQ signs that they had out today.

A few hours later, they were returned to their original locations, but with a few changes… This was done to the sounds of honking and cheering from many others in vehicles along Kingston Pike and down the ramp to Interstate 40. I saw much of this while driving by, and my friend was quick enough to get a picture of one of the signs.

Ordinarily I would disapprove of such behavior, but as Earth First! was willing to appropriate someone else’s sign for its protest, I guess this sort of turnabout counts as fair play.

THOMAS NEPHEW has changed his mind and come out in favor of war with Iraq.

GARY HART UPDATE: Jeralyn Merritt of Talkleft got an exclusive interview with Hart today, and reports on the controversy, and his response.

UPDATE: Here’s a rather more critical take, from NRO.

As I said on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show last night, I think that the “anti-semitism” issue is entirely bogus. A bigger question is whether Hart will be able to articulate a foreign policy that is different from the Administration’s, but not wimpish or overly idealistic. That’s possible — I could do it — but Hart hasn’t done it yet.

COLLIN MAY has advice for European leaders.

WHAT WILL FRANCE AND GERMANY SAY?

Japan has warned it would launch a pre-emptive military action against North Korea if it had firm evidence Pyongyang was planning a missile attack.

Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it would be “a self-defence measure” if North Korea was going to “resort to arms against Japan”.

Mr Ishiba said it would be too late if a North Korean missile was already on its way.

Where are the condemnations of “unilateralism” and “preemption”?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS writes that the United Nations is playing Saddam’s game.

THE FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION reports that Shaw University has fired a professor, and evicted a student, for “disloyalty.”

WORRIED ABOUT A CHEMICAL ATTACK? Apparently, some people really are. Here’s an item that circulated a lot last year.

Meanwhile, here’s a column I wrote a while back on what you can do to protect yourself, and others.

UPDATE: Apparently, the story in the first link is bogus:

The reference to the accounting firm giving out survival kits is completely fabricated. You can see my email is at PwC also, and sitting in the office all day, all I got was free coffee.

Of course, this report could be bogus. Maybe the emailer is lying for fear that Tom Daschle will find out about the glowsticks and bottled water, and have ’em prosecuted.

NOW IT’S OLIVER WILLIS WHO’S VLOGGING. The man was made for TV. This is more like radio-with-pictures, though. Somebody buy him a webcam.

HERE’S AN ARTICLE ON WEBLOGS, and here’s another.

NICK DENTON’S RESPONSE to the Columbia disaster? Militarize space.

He’s such a warmonger, our Nick.

THE SCOURGE OF RICHARD COHEN: No, it’s not Charles Austin this time, but Tony Adragna, who writes that Cohen selectively misquotes Osama.

HERE’S A U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT STORY on the John Lott affair, in which Lott comes off fairly well, though he does not emerge unscathed. Jacob Levy reports on an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, too, but it’s subscriber-only on their website, and I couldn’t find it on Nexis; guess it’s not up yet. Meanwhile this somewhat snarky item from the Washington Post has garnered a number of letters (reproduced here) in support of Lott’s computer-crash story. Those have some probative value, though they don’t actually prove that he did the survey in question, of course — only that he’s telling the truth about the computer crash.

UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive. Quite a few people emailed me copies of the Chronicle article. Nothing really new there, though it’s a good summary of the affair so far.

FROM THE MAILBAG (real mail, not email):

An AP-release appeared in today’s Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL newspaper entitled “UT’s InstaPundit.” You apparently are the essence of “political correctness.”

Yep, that’s me, buddy. PC all the way, and damn proud of it. The letter goes on to explain that I’m a tool of “international Jewry” and suggests that I’m getting rich off that. Alas, no. Sadly, the International Zionist Conspiracy doesn’t pay us politically-correct types like it used to.

Here’s the article that inspired this epistle.

IS SONY RUNNING ANTI-WAR ADS? That’s what EuroGamer reports. They’ve got a link to the (rather lame) ad, which you can see directly here.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Preface here, I’m in the industry.

Honestly, I don’t know but I find it hard to believe that’s a real Sony ad. First, it’s shoddily produced. Second no fat logo with tag line. And the biggie, it’s political. Big companies always stay away from real controversy. (Companies often like trite controversy.)

Possible that it’s put out by a distributor. Let us know if you hear from Sony.

I will.

UPDATE: Here’s someone else who thinks it’s a fake, though also based only on supposition.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Aaron Watson writes:

Another consideration: if the ad is faked, it could be someone at or connected to EuroGamer with an agenda, trying to further popularize the antiwar movement by getting a media source to report a falsehood like that.

Hmm. Well, being of the essence of political correctness myself, I guess I shouldn’t mind being used that way. . . .

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael Gebert writes:

As someone in the ad biz I can tell you that the boom in PC moviemaking has resulted in lots of fake ads using real product names. Some are done by creatives or production companies that want to show off what they could do on a real assignment, some are just parodies or amateurs screwing around. Lots of things about this spot, such as the deeply unfashionable font used for “No war, please” and the bad kerning (space between letters), suggest that it belongs to the “amateur-screwing-around” category.

Hmm. I took its general lameness as evidence of authenticity — most Euro-commercials seem that way to me.

A MAN WITH A GRENADE has been arrested at Gatwick airport in London. Official comment:

The home secretary’s spokesman said people should not “jump to conclusions” about the significance of the arrest.

“It is not uncommon for people in airports to be discovered with some form of weaponry. It doesn’t mean they are all al-Qaeda terrorists,” he said.

Well, that’s a relief.

UPDATE: Here’s another report. Note that both stories also say that two men were arrested at Heathrow in a separate incident. Coincidence? Most likely.

SEVERAL READERS report that they emailed Daimler-Chrysler to express their unhappiness with Gerhard Schroeder’s anti-American tilt. Here’s the rather unsatisfactory reply they’ve been getting:

Thank you for providing us with your thoughts on U.S./German relations.

We recognize your concerns, and assure you they are shared by all of us both here in the U.S. and at our headquarters in Germany.

You may be interested to know that during a speech to metalworking companies in Germany last year, Daimler Chrysler Chairman and CEO, Juergen Schrempp, expressed the following sentiments: “The USA and Germany have always been historically closely connected with each other both through trade and capital, as well as through culture and society. And, this I say as chairman of a German-American corporation — we will do everything to promote and foster this friendship.”

We apologize for any distress this situation causes and hope that you continue to look upon your Daimler-Chrysler ownership with pride.

I wonder how much they’re paying the PR genius who drafted this reply?

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh writes that this response is appropriately “mealy mouthed.” Well, it’s also ahistorical. The reference to the close connection between Germany and America omits important stuff like U-boats and B-24s. I don’t blame Daimler for not wanting to bring it up, but, well, they’ve brought up the history so now they look dishonest. In Bogart’s phrase, it’s “poor salesmanship.”

COMING SOON: A positive message from Germany.

ARMED LIBERAL is offering dating advice in observation of Valentine’s day. I think it’s good.