ARNOLD KLING IS DRAWING PARALLELS between supply-siders and hippies.

I JUST BECAME A JEAN-PAUL GAULTIER FAN.

TIM BLAIR is denouncing web porn — which he’s found in a surprising place.

DAVID WARREN WRITES:

The French et al. smell blood, they are not going to back off now when they see the prospect of doing real damage. Their strategy was from the beginning to split the British from the Americans by humbling Mr. Blair, to delay the inevitable full-scale attack into the Iraqi hot season, when the fighting would be more difficult and thus the casualties higher; to isolate the U.S. diplomatically; to galvanize the international peace movement against the Bush administration; and to improve Saddam’s prospects for creating a catastrophe when war comes.

The French betrayal is as total as it was surprising, after earnest promises from President Chirac to support the U.S. in return for elaborate concessions on U.N. Resolution 1441. They think they now have President Bush in a fox-trap: from which he cannot escape without chewing off a leg. They may be right: he may now have no choice but to chew off the British leg.

But whether they are right or not, they will now reap the whirlwind.

Yes, the end result is likely to be uglier because of the French government’s backstabbing and appeasement. As usual. This time, we need to be sure that it ends up uglier for the French leaders, too.

I MADE “FRESH AIR” TONIGHT. Go here and follow the link for the Geoffrey Nunberg piece. The relevant part starts at about 3:30. It’s a fairly interesting piece, despite Nunberg’s semi-sloppiness in labeling me a “conservative.” Guess he doesn’t read InstaPundit all that much.

Nunberg has a problem with the term “pro-war protesters.” He thinks that you’re not protesting unless you’re stickin’ it to da man. What he doesn’t realize is that a lot of people who march in these rallies feel that they’re doing just that. Yesterday’s protesters, after all, are today’s establishment. (Especially at NPR?)

You can read more about it here.

VEGARD VALBERG is back!

AMILAND HAS SOME DAMNING EVIDENCE of German trade with Iraq. Read the post, and you’ll see more support for the Den Beste theory that Germany and France are trying block war in order to cover up the extent of their support.

SORRY FOR THE LIGHT POSTINGS: It was a busy day, and after I got home with takeout sushi (and managed to squeeze in the brief post below) I had to go back out and pick up and then deliver some prescriptions for my mother-in-law.

But what made me late getting home originally was a field trip with my Advanced Constitutional Law seminar. We’ve been doing the right to keep and bear arms, so I arranged a field trip to Guncraft Sports, which has an excellent indoor range and instructional facilities.

We compared the differences in guns protected and unprotected under the Tennessee Constitution’s right to arms provision with the difference between legal and banned weapons under the federal assault weapons ban, with examples. (Guncraft also sells used guns, and therefore had grandfathered pre-ban weapons). The Tennessee rule is functional: guns that are the “ordinary military equipment” are protected. (The Tennessee right to arms, according to the Tennessee Supreme Court, exists “to keep in awe those who are in power” by making a revolution possible. Read a long treatment here, or a shorter one here.) Those that are only useful for crime — chiefly derringers and the like — are not.

The federal “assault weapon” ban, on the other hand, is basically cosmetic, as illustrated by the comparison of an semiautomatic “assault weapon” in .223 caliber with flash hider, pistol grip, and bayonet lug and a traditional Ruger Mini-14 semiautomatic rifle in .223 without those features. Functionally, they’re identical: both will shoot the same bullets as fast as you pull the trigger, and there aren’t any drive-by bayonetings. The Ruger just looks old-fashioned. You can explain this stuff, but it’s helpful to show it.

The students got a chance to shoot a variety of guns, from a .45 automatic to a .357 magnum revolver to an HK MP5 submachinegun, which last was especially popular with a couple of the women. Indeed, the bellicose-women trend was pretty visible in the class. All the students had been shooting before, something you probably wouldn’t find in a law school in the Northeast or in California, but the women were notably enthusiastic. (One even knew from experience that Tuesday is “ladies’ day” — free range time — at Guncraft.)

I suppose that in some ways the teaching value would have been higher if some of the students hadn’t had any experience with guns. On the other hand, perhaps the legal parts of the lesson would have been eclipsed by the sheer novelty of the experience. And I’m just happy to have had a successful field trip in a class that doesn’t lend itself to field trips very well. The Environmental Law folks get to go to the Smoky Mountains and measure air quality with lasers. I couldn’t match that, but this was pretty good.

WHAT’S THE SIGN THAT A CELEBRITY HAS REALLY ARRIVED?

he’d or she’d be feted at White House dinners and performing for the troops; sipping coffee with Katie Couric and writing guest posts for Instapundit.

No celebrity (except Eugene Volokh, who’s kind of a celebrity, I guess) has actually made guest posts on InstaPundit. But I suppose they can still hope. Don’t cry, Hollywood, there’s always tomorrow. . . .

TOM WICKER ASKS:

Does a U.S. president really have the power “to make war at pleasure”?

Interesting question, but irrelevant, since — as Wicker seems to have forgotten — Bush got Congressional authorization. Twice.

THIS SEEMS PRETTY LAME to me, as does the limp response:

LA HABRA — Antiwar protesters burned and ripped up flags, flowers and patriotic signs at a Sept. 11 memorial that residents erected on a fence along Whittier Boulevard days after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and have maintained ever since.

However, although officers witnessed the vandalism Saturday afternoon, police did not arrest three people seen damaging the display because they were “exercising the same freedom of speech that the people who put up the flags were,’ La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said Monday.

“For this to be vandalism, there had to be an ill-will intent,’ he said.

Rees said in order for police to take any action, the owner of the fence would have to file a complaint.

The “ill-will intent” seems pretty obvious to me. The owner thinks so, too.

Do the police really think that destroying other people’s property is just another variety of free speech? Then there’s this:

It’s unbelievable, because there were absolutely no political messages on this fence. It was all about supporting our troops, which could mean bringing them home, and about remembering 9-11.’

Les Howard, a sociology professor at Whittier College, said the incident might be an indication of some confusion among people trying to stop a possible war against Iraq but uncertain how to express their sentiments.

The other possibility, of course, is that they were expressing exactly how they feel.

MORE UNDIPLOMATIC BEHAVIOR:

The problem arose when Karzai visited the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for what the committee had billed as a “meeting.” Generally, heads of state meet with the committee in private, but Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) instead invited Karzai to a hearing room with reporters present.

Karzai was placed at a witness table looking up at the senators, the usual layout for people summoned to testify at a hearing. There were several skeptical and hostile questions that Karzai did not expect and had not prepared for, according to the Afghan officials. . . .

In addition to being seated at a table below the committee members, Karzai was scolded by some of them.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) warned that if Karzai told the committee everything was going well, “the next time you come back, then your credibility will be in question.” Hagel said later that he felt the administration had “coached” Karzai.

Holding a recent report released by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told Karzai that “police in Herat are detaining women and girls caught alone with unrelated men, are being forced to submit to medical exams to see if they have recently had sexual relations.”

The Karzai government is trying to expand its authority across the country, but it still has only limited control in many areas, including the western city of Herat. . . .

“We thought these people were our friends, but now we really don’t know,” a senior Afghan government official said. “This was a protocol blunder, and there was real insensitivity on the part of some senators. They were talking about nitty-gritty problems in Afghanistan and missing the big picture that there is a war on terrorism going on while we try to make a country again from scratch.”

Lame.

LEE HARRIS WRITES on our world-historical gamble.

VOTE NO TO ANTI-WAR: Indiana University’s student government has voted down an anti-war resolution. Interesting. I didn’t think that sort of thing was allowed.

PORPHYROGENITUS POINTS OUT THIS <A HREF=”http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm?id=1047337268nL10378933&Section=Main&page=Home&%20channel=IRAQ%20CRISIS%20%2D%20latest%20development
s&objectid=47BD2119-2F0C-4BF9-A9489D5109DBE97E”>REPORT:

MADRID, March 10 (Reuters) – Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, an active supporter of the United States on Iraq, on Monday linked the “material interests” of France, Russia and China in Iraq to their opposition to the use of force there.

Spain, currently on the U.N. Security Council, has joined the United States and Britain in backing a tough new resolution giving Iraq little time to disarm or face military strikes.

“We don’t have any material interests in Iraq…France has material interests in Iraq. Russia has material interests in Iraq. China has material interests in Iraq. We don’t have any,” Aznar told Telecinco television in drawing a distinction between governments on opposing sides within the U.N. Security Council.

Asked by the interviewer if those interests explained the French, Russian and Chinese positions on Iraq, Aznar said, “That’s a question only they can answer.”

“Simply, it seems to me they are on the wrong path and should be adding more pressure on (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein…They have the wrong orientation,” Aznar said. . . .

“What is the alternative to security today that the United States offers to the world? … Can you really think about fighting against terrorism without the participation of the United States?” Aznar asked.

Funny that John Kerry didn’t mention that when he was putting down our coalition.

NOW THIS IS SMART: Eat lunch at McDonald’s and get free Wi-Fi internet. And McDonald’s isn’t the only one:

Besides McDonald’s, Internet surfers will also be able to tote their laptops to 400 U.S. Borders book stores, hundreds of hotels and a pair of U.S. airports where WiFi access will be available by summer, companies announced Monday.

And computer maker Toshiba and chipmaker Intel say they’ll set up wireless “hot spots” in coffee shops, hotels and convenience stores across the United States.

As I’ve said before, this is the wave of the future.

UPDATE: Nick Schulz emails:

You know, if McDonald’s were smart, they’d do more of that kind of thing – making themselves a destination, ‘third place’ kind of institution. They need to change their image, since, as Virginia Postrel will point out in her forthcoming book Look and Feel, in an age of abundance and convenience, what people are looking for – and willing to pay for – are interesting experiences and aesthetics (two things not traditionally associated with Mickey D’s).

Yep. Next they need some comfy chairs.

THOR HALVORSSEN looks at who’s supporting Hugo Chavez.

AUSTIN BAY, who has repeatedly opined that a major part of the Bush Administration’s strategy involves using a drawn-out threat of war as a means of smoking out Al Qaeda cells, emails this link to a story supporting his thesis. Excerpt:

“We have seen a surge in communications and other activity that seems to be driven by the situation in Iraq,” the official said. “The information we have leads us to believe that there are plans for terrorist attacks soon after any military operation starts in Iraq.” . . .

“It’s logical to assume that al-Qaida would try to attack American interests after the U.S. starts a military operation in Iraq,” said Diaa Rashwan, a senior researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “Bin Laden would want to show the Arab masses that he’s defending Iraq, while Arab leaders are allowing the Americans to use their bases.”

I think that he may be onto something here, though I suspect that the Administration regards this as a bonus effect of delay that results from other factors, rather than as a reason for drawn-out saber-rattling all by itself. Here’s another interesting tidbit from the same article:

Intelligence agencies have known for years that terrorists use anonymous e-mail accounts to communicate. But officials recently discovered a new twist, where two or more operatives have access to the same Hotmail or Yahoo account. One of them writes a message and doesn’t send it anywhere. Later, another person logs into the same account and reads that message. This way, the message is never sent and cannot be intercepted or traced.

So much for Carnivore, I guess.

PORTUGAL IS SIDING WITH THE UNITED STATES: Here’s why:

Foreign Minister Antonio Martins da Cruz told state radio that if Portugal were attacked, “it would be unlikely France and Germany would come to our rescue.”

He said: “Let us suppose Portugal, proper or its archipelagos, faced a threat, who would come to our rescue? The European Commission, France, Germany?

“I think it would be NATO who would come to our rescue, in other words, it would be the U.S., no one else would defend us. For instance, during the 1996 mission in Bosnia, operations took place with the support of 20 satellites, of which only one was European,” and the remainder belonged to the U.S.

“If we were attacked, is that what they would offer to defend us? How curious is this: in Bosnia, when we were called to send soldiers urgently to that region, the U.S. had C-17 and C-130 planes, and France leased ferry boats, which during the summer are employed in tourist services to Corsica.

Reality asserts itself.

EVE TUSHNET has more on the torture issue. Read it. Be sure to keep scrolling.

SADDAM AS MASTER MEDIA MANIPULATOR: Jim Dunnigan observes that he’s been pretty successful. Excerpt:

Those who feel that media manipulation is not a weapon should note well how successful Saddam Hussein has been in using the press to defend himself. Despite the fact that Saddam’s brutal rule kills more Iraqi civilians every month than the 1991 Gulf War did, he has managed to present a future war (using an even higher percentage of smart bombs) as more lethal than his own bloody war on the Iraqi people. Despite the majority of Iraqis constantly asking reporters, and Westerners, “when are the Americans coming to liberate us from Saddam and his murderers,” Saddam has the world’s media ignoring this and concentrating on protests against removing the most brutal government in the Middle East. Saddam has also managed to perpetuate several other myths, the major one being that “the Arab Street” will rise up and, well, rise up, if Iraqi is invaded. This possibility has been invoked for decades, but the “Arab Street” has never shown up. No one seems to have noticed.

There’s more.

IT’S THE EIGHTEEN-MONTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11. Just thought I’d mention that.

I JUST HEARD ERIC MULLER on NPR, interviewed on Korematsu and lessons learned from the Japanese internments. It was a good story, and also made the important point that there’s not much reason to contemplate locking up very many Iraqi nationals in America anyway, since they’re probably the most pro-war, anti-Saddam segment of the population.

CHRISSIE HYNDE ISN’T ALONE:

Quite probably the worst thing about the inevitable and totally unjustifiable war with Iraq is that there’s no chance the U.S. might lose it. . . .

Someday, perhaps, we may grow out of our mindless, pimple-faced arrogance, but in the meantime, it might do us a ton of good to have our butts kicked. Unfortunately, like most of the targets we pick on, Iraq is much too weak to give us the thrashing our continuously overbearing behavior deserves.

Well, somebody should have their butts kicked, all right. There were people hoping we’d lose in Afghanistan. Now there are people who hope that we’ll lose in Iraq. And although they’ll probably howl over it, I don’t think it’s wrong to call them bad Americans. Because I think that if you root against your own country in a war, it raises justifiable doubts, to put it mildly, about your patriotism.

I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

As a retired soldier, the thing that infuriates me when I hear comments hoping that America loses this war, is that wars are lost when our troops are killed instead of the other sides’. Yes, that’s a bit simplistic, but the only other way we could lose the war is if substantial numbers of civilians are killed and it becomes a public relations nightmare. In either case, we lose only if there is a high body count of our troops or Iraqi civilians, and that’s not the kind of thing I would hope for. Me, I hope we win, and do it quickly.

Yes, a swift American victory is pretty much the only outcome that doesn’t involve a lot of dead people. But the concern for preventing death is, for some of these folks, just an excuse. They really — as Ms. Hynde and Mr. Robbins are honest enough to admit, at least — just want America to lose.

FOR FRANCE AND RUSSIA, IT’S ALL ABOUT OOIIILLL:

Under the scenarios being discussed, a U.S.-controlled government could conceivably run Iraq for as long as two years after the bombing stops. France and Russia, it seems, fear and loathe the prospect of the U.S. exerting such decision-making power in postwar Iraq because they could be cut out of the business opportunities that rise from the ruins of Baghdad. Meanwhile, the fate of their oil contracts, inked as they were with Saddam Hussein’s regime, would be in doubt.

The notion that doing deals with dictators is economically risky strikes me as a good one in general.