(RADIO) FRANCE SURRENDERS! Franco-blogger Emmanuelle Richard organized a worldwide strike and won a swift victory. It’s all because of the Internet, too, she reports:

The 56 strikers of Spartacus (I’m among them), from Bangkok to Rio to Athens, are very excited they could gather by e-mail and launch a strike that is paving the way for a better treatment of the correspondents in this great public service radio station.

You go, girl.

ABC NEWS is reporting that Crossgates Mall plans to drop trespassing charges in the t-shirt case.

(Via Naked Writing).

Meanwhile I’ve got some discussion of the First Amendment issues — and more — involved over at GlennReynolds.com.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs calls this a success story for “collaborative peer-reviewed journalism” aka the blogosphere.

EUGENE VOLOKH has a report from the pro-war demonstration at UCLA.

KEN LAYNE seems a little more enthusiastic about his move to Reno than does GirlVinyl. I guess it’s all a question of what you’re looking for.

Meanwhile, here’s the perfect job for Layne — serving as Jesse Ventura’s foil on MSNBC. The article suggests that Jesse needs a Stephanopoulos type, but I think that he needs someone a bit, well, more rough-and-ready. Layne’s perfect.

I’M NOT VERY ENTHUSIASTIC about UCITA. Neither is John Dvorak.

TIM BLAIR is Fisking Fidel.

IS OSAMA NEXT? Here’s a story suggesting that he may be in Baluchistan, and on the verge of capture. I’m somewhat skeptical, since I still think he’s probably dead, but some other folks seem to think that this story may be true. Could it be that the interminable delays on the war have been caused by efforts to round up top Al Qaeda leaders first? Could it even be that, as Austin Bay suggests, the war buildup has been, in part, designed to smoke out Al Qaeda?

Meanwhile Gotham seems to have confirmed Salam Pax’s report from Baghdad that Uday Hussein (Saddam’s son) is in Belarus.

UPDATE: Hmm. I wonder if this means we’ve got him?

ANOTHER UPDATE: &c rounds up the evidence pro and con. I remain skeptical, but we’ll know soon enough.

KARL ROVE’S AGENTS PROVOCATEURS have apparently been earning their money.

ON BEING GEEK — an essay that’s worth reading.

Geeks have a lot more status than they (“They?” — Ed. Okay, okay: we — now get back to Kaus’s page where you belong!) used to, but not as much as is deserved. The modern world and economy would stop running without geeks. In fact, they would come damn close to stopping if geeks just quit giving away their time and expertise for free.

A READER SENDS THIS LINK and opines that Marcy Kaptur hasn’t learned from Patty Murray:

When America “cast off monarchical Britain” in 1776, it involved the help of many religious people who had fled repression in other countries, the 11-term Toledo congressman said. Among the nontraditional American revolutionaries were the Green Mountain Boys, a patriot militia organized in 1770 in Bennington, Vt., to confront British forces, she said.

“One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown,” Miss Kaptur said.

Yes, I remember Ethan Allen and Johnny Stark blowing up buildings full of civilians as their key tactic. Jeez, how pathetic. But then, we heard Mao and Ho Chi Minh compared to America’s founders once, too.

But there were two rather crucial differences, then and now: their tactics, and their goals. The tactical difference is obvious. But you’re not a freedom fighter unless you’re actually fighting for freedom, a distinction that appears to elude many on the left. Bin Laden, like Mao and Ho, wanted to create a variety of strongman theocracy with himself at the head. That was hardly the goal of America’s founders. Those who can’t tell the difference don’t belong in politics. Neither do those who can tell the difference, but who choose to ignore it.

UPDATE: Clayton Cramer offers a rather more extensive historical critique of Kaptur’s statement. It’s worth reading.

JEFF JARVIS has done a vlog on what he’d say to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

BILL FRIST IS RUNNING AN ONLINE POLL regarding war with Iraq. Meanwhile Lee Harris is sticking up for Neville Chamberlain.

THE GOVERNMENT’S NEW ANTI-COUNTERFEITING STRATEGY seems to involve making the money so damn ugly that people will be embarrassed to make copies.

NOTE TO PROTESTERS: If you’re going to have a naked protest, you need to actually get naked. Otherwise it’s just pathetic. Someone sent me an email about a similar debacle in Asheville, but I can’t find it now.

JOE KATZMAN HAS A ROUNDUP on the case of Maine teachers harrassing the kids of military folks — and some similar incidents elsewhere.

AUSTIN BAY LOOKS AT THE NEAR FUTURE. He’s got some good observations.

STILL MORE ON WHY Gerhard Schroeder is trying to focus on war and America instead of the German economy. Germany is called an economic “dead weight.”

THERE WAS ANOTHER PROTEST AT THE FRENCH EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON today. Report:

Oddly enough, local Georgetown residents didn’t seem too receptive to our message. On the other hand, truck drivers and construction workers passing by exhibited a decidedly more positive response. Whoda thunk it?

Yeah, go figure. There’s a photo gallery with lots of pictures here.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Emmanuelle Richard has brought Radio France to its knees! No, really. Even the French bloggers are giving the French fits. . . .

VIDEO BLOGS AND TOOLS THAT WORK: They’re discussed over at GlennReynolds.com today.

IT OUGHT TO BE ABOUT OIL, writes Duke University’s Professor Joseph Grieco:

Oil resources located in the Middle East are vital not just to the prosperity of rich countries, but for the prospects of growth in developing nations. According to the IEA, future increases in demand for oil will come largely not from the world’s rich countries, but from fast-growing developing countries, especially China.

This trend highlights a link between oil access and world peace. According to the IEA, China over the next 30 years will become a “strategic buyer” in international energy markets. If those markets are periodically thrown into turmoil because of supply disruptions in the Middle East, China might decide to take control of the oil reserves thought to be under the South China Sea. That would bring it into serious conflict with such neighbors as Vietnam and Indonesia, and ultimately with the United States.

War: It’s for the children!

AMERICAN TROOPS are honoring Martin Sheen.

ANIMATED OPINIONS is a political cartoon site that’s worth checking out.

ASPARAGIRL ain’t Lysistrata.

DON WILLIAMS writes that the Army’s Center for Military History needs to be saved. The Army wants to contract it out to academics; Williams fears that they’ll be Bellesilesean academics.

OKAY, ON THE TORTURE QUESTION, this certainly seems like a good approach. . . .