TOM RIDGE has some special events planned to celebrate the launch of the Homeland Security department. Fun for the whole family!

THE OLD ALLIANCE IS BROKEN, reports the Agonist. I think he’s right.

THE QUESTION IS, IF RUMSFELD ACTUALLY DID THIS, how many people would pick up the reference?

SPEAKING OF THE PROBLEMS OF BIG MEDIA (well, we usually are, here in the blogosphere, aren’t we?) Josh Marshall notes that Time has retracted the White House / Jefferson-Davis-wreath-laying story. The problems with that story were noted in the blogosphere some time ago, but it’s good to see Time admitting its error so quickly. Here’s a link to the retraction.

UPDATE: Justin Katz is waiting for retractions from the people who made a big deal out of this story.

ANOTHER ISSUE OF VIRGINIA POSTREL MAGAZINE has hit the stands. Er, monitors. Um, servers?

WHY DO AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS SUCK? Nick Denton asks, and answers, that question in a lengthy essay.

THE ECONOMIST is calling for a fourteen-year copyright term, renewable once:

Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. Its sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving creators and publishers a short-term incentive to disseminate their work. Over the past 50 years, as a result of heavy lobbying by content industries, copyright has grown to such ludicrous proportions that it now often inhibits rather than promotes the circulation of ideas, leaving thousands of old movies, records and books languishing behind a legal barrier. Starting from scratch today, no rational, disinterested lawmaker would agree to copyrights that extend to 70 years after an author’s death, now the norm in the developed world.

It’s okay with me, and I have more copyrighted stuff than most people.

(Via Lessig, who also has this).

DAVID BROOKS OBSERVES:

If you went into a lab and tried to create a state that would be perfectly suited for producing successful national politicians, you would create Tennessee. It is southern, which is important because the South is both the largest and the fastest growing region of the country. But it is not too southern. It is rich, and has that huge fundraising base, but it is not culturally elitist, like New York and California. Most important, it is heterodox. If you are going to live in Tennessee and thrive there, you cannot live in an insular cultural enclave, the way Trent Lott can in Mississippi, or the way Nancy Pelosi can in the Bay Area. In Tennessee you have to travel to the eastern part of the state, where they supported the Union, you have to travel to the western part, where they supported the Confederacy, and you have to travel to West Nashville, where they support Cadillac dealerships. If you travel and campaign throughout Tennessee, you are apt to acquire an instinctive feel for how different types of people think and react.

I’ve had some thoughts along these lines myself. Tennessee does seem to produce more than its share of good (or at least successful) politicians, and it is so diverse that it used to call itself “the three states of Tennessee” — and the state constitution still has vestiges of internal federalism, like the requirement that no more than two of the five justices be from the same Grand Division (East, West, or Middle). That probably does tend to winnow (or at least educate) statewide officeholders in a way that a more unitary state wouldn’t. (Not that we don’t still produce world-class losers from time to time).

It probably helps that the media markets are fragmented, too. I wonder if anyone has researched this sort of thing?

HERE’S MORE on terrorist plans for a bombing campaign in London. And Drudge is reporting that the ricin raid may have prevented a plot to poison food at U.K. military bases.

It’s a war. And while some people are arguing about whether to start it, it’s already underway.

RUSSELL WARDLOW has made a shocking discovery at Berkeley. And I mean shocking!

PLUS he has a picture from the San Francisco antiwar protest that you haven’t seen anywere else.

IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN this Supervillain / Linux parody of those Apple “switch” ads, well, watch it. It’s funny.

In a related development, I love my HP, but I hope I don’t have to depend on it for a new kidney.

(Both via Jack Burton).

READER ALI KARIM BEY, who has been emailing me for a while with evidence supporting his contention that John Kerry will be our next President, sends this piece from The New Republic. I’m not convinced that this makes the case, as these excerpts indicate:

Just as Dean is inheriting the Bradley machine, John Kerry is inheriting the Al Gore operation. “They have the Gore staff of 2004,” says Brazile, who, as Gore’s campaign manager, ought to know. . . . Indeed, if there is one candidate who might really benefit from a Sister Souljah moment, it’s Kerry. “Kerry’s in danger of being the pander-bear of the race,” says an adviser to a rival campaign.

I find Kerry deeply unimpressive. I can articulate some of the reasons, but a lot of it is just the gut reaction I have when I see him on TV. That reaction seems like it might be widely shared, and it’s a big problem for Kerry if it is.

Of course, all the Democratic candidates look unimpressive at the moment. By the time one of them is the nominee, he will likely seem to have a lot more stature. But, really, if the war goes well, and the economy doesn’t tank, Bush should win. And if the war goes badly, and the economy tanks, he probably won’t. Which makes handicapping the Democratic field a pretty unrewarding endeavor at the moment.

UPDATE: You know if Democrats keep calling for a return to the draft, it just might have an effect on the election. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Of course, I could be totally wrong about the war and the economy. By that kind of logic, Gore should have trounced Bush easily. I’m not sure which way this cuts.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader who is free from the self-doubt I express above emails:

Oh, get real! How can anyone take seriously a candidate whose campaign depends on the sale of Heinz ketchup? Not to mention his appearance: the Knight of the Woeful Countenance look has been out for over a century. You might have to go back even beyond Lincoln to find a face more expressive of depression. If Kerry won as president there would be more suicides in the US than in the Socialist Utopia of Sweden. Imagine having to look at that face day after day on television. And that droning voice…

Well, let’s stop right there, buddy. Kerry’s one thing, but don’t come around here dissing Heinz Ketchup. We’re talking America in a bottle. Heinz Ketchup is a quintessentially American food, which I’ll put up against any of yer sissified Frenchy sauces. Any candidate should be proud to have his campaign funded by Heinz Ketchup — it’s like having your campaign funded by baseball!

(In a John Barnes alternate-history novel where the Germans won World War Two, American expats huddle in New Zealand, comforting themselves with Heinz Ketchup. Like Proust’s madeleines, only with healthy lycopene!)

FINAL KETCHUP-RELATED UPDATE: In the interest of nauseating full disclosure, I once served as an adviser to the Heinz Family Foundation. They didn’t give me any money. Or even any free ketchup.

WOW! My score was about 1,200. I didn’t think I’d do nearly that well. . . .

THIS STORY HAS HOWARD DEAN COMPARING GEORGE BUSH TO THE TALIBAN: Sorry, Howard, but that’s so 2002.

BY GEORGE, I THINK HE’S GOT IT: The secret behind “Joe Millionaire.”

TODAY IS THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF DANNY PEARL’S KIDNAPPING: His mistake? He believed the assurances of Islamic radicals. He thought they wanted a dialogue, but all they really wanted was to kill an American, and a Jew.

BLOGGING FROM MUNICH, Eamonn Fitzgerald explains that for the French, stabbing America in the back is all about oil. Meanwhile, Porphyrogenitus notes that the Holy Roman Empire is back!

I HEREBY AWARD “BLOG POST OF THE DAY” to the ScrappleFace “Axis of Weasel” item that I mentioned below. Not only is it circulating in email throughout the corridors of power, it inspired this powerful graphic, and made Best of the Web, Even more inspiring, it’s apparently spreading into more general currency, at least according to this comment posted on the site:

I am watching “The Big Story with John Gibson” on FOX News… and their lead in was on France and Germany… and they said “Axis of Weasels”… I spit out my Coke all over the place!

The Blog-Force is strong in this one.

UPDATE: More proof: there’s already a lefty backlash — though one that loses credibility because the author apparently hasn’t heard of the “Axis of Weevil.” Newbie. Oh well, he’ll learn. . .

RACHEL LUCAS HAS AN INSPIRED RANT growing out of the Thacker affair. It’s too good to excerpt, really, but I can’t resist quoting this sentence: “That’s like putting Barbra Streisand on the War Council.”

But, really, it’s the sort of thing that deserves to be read in its entirety.

COLLIN MAY AT INNOCENTS ABROAD has a number of very interesting posts about France, Germany, and the “death blow” that France has administered to the traditional Western alliance. Just start at the top and keep scrolling.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And check out this graphic. Somebody stick some up on telephone poles near the German and French embassies. . . .

READER ZACHARY BARBERA SUGGESTS IT MUST BE “CUDDLE DICTATORS MONTH” IN FRANCE. This story suggests that he’s right:

France has confirmed that it is inviting Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to take part in a summit of African Heads of State next month.

Mr Mugabe is currently banned from entering the European Union because of doubts about the legitimacy of his re-election last year.

But French President Jacques Chirac was convinced that the Zimbabwean leader’s presence at the summit would help promote justice, human rights and democracy in his country, foreign ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau told journalists.

Then there’s this explanation for France’s abstention when Qadafi was elected to the Human Rights Commission:

If France chose to abstain in the vote, which saw Libyan ambassador to Geneva Najat al-Hajjaji elected head of the UN commission on human rights, it was done in such a way that France could send two different messages to Libya, a French spokesman said.

He noted that if the vote had been taken a year or two ago, France would undoubtedly have joined the United States and Canada in voting against Libya _ to protest Libya’s alleged involvement in the bombing of a French aircraft over Niger in 1989.

However, Paris also wanted to respect the memory of a large number of Africans who died in the plane crash and so thought it best to neither support nor oppose Tripoli’s elevation at the world body, the spokesman said.

“Axis of Weasel,” indeed.

UPDATE: I just noted that Zach Barbera has already blogged this on his blog. Note to bloggers — when you send me links to stories, let me know if you’ve already blogged them. I’d rather send the traffic to you than to Reuters! But if you don’t mention it, I don’t always think to check.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tacitus is denouncing French unilateralism in abandoning E.U. sanctions.

TODD GITLIN is criticizing A.N.S.W.E.R. on Fresh Air. Follow the link and click to hear the audio.

NO ANTISEMITISM TO SEE HERE. NOPE, NOTHING. MOVE ALONG, NOW. . . .

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Parents of more than 100 Danish scouts were outraged over a game of tag at a scout camp in which children acted as Jews wearing yellow Stars of David and tried to escape from adults pretending to be Nazis.

The group of about 160 scouts, aged 11-14, included a dozen teenagers from the Danish-speaking minority in northern Germany. The school yard was turned into a concentration camp with swastikas on the windows. . . .

Jes Imer of the local FDF chapter told the tabloid B.T. that they “may have crossed the line this time with a night game where Nazis chase Jews.”

The school yard included a sign with the German words “Arbeit macht frei,” or “Work will set you free,” the infamous inscription over the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

“I don’t know whether I should apologize,” Imer told B.T.

Oh, I know. You couldn’t make stuff like this up. Sadly, you don’t have to. At least the parents were shocked.

UPDATE: Reader David Rosenberg says not so fast with the antisemitism charges:

I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the people who organized this game were anti-semites.

I was a counselor at a Jewish day camp in California where we once concocted a similar game although without the props like Jewish stars etc. I think we had the kids trying to escape from Europe past the Nazi border guards.

Later on, the other counselors and I agreed that the game was too scary and totally inappropriate. But I don’t think we would have thought that it could be interpreted as anti-semitic, even if it had been a non-Jewish day camp and even if we had been non-Jews.

Sure, let’s hold the Germans (even Danish-speaking ones) to a higher standard, but I’d like to see more facts before I call it the A word.

Meanwhile Ben Dolfin writes:

This sounds similar to a game we play at our church in the youth group. We have persecution Sunday where Youth Group members pretend to be Christians located in a country that doesn’t allow the freedom of religion. Roman Empire, Russia during communism, China, etc. The kids are all dropped off outside town at night in groups of 2-3 and they need to all assemble and meet at a location in town and hold a bible study. Meanwhile the counselors and friendly volunteers drive around with spotlights and attempt to run down and capture the Christians. The point of the exercise is to who people that in some areas people can’t freely assemble and worship, but in reality it turns into a big hide and go seek game for adults with 500,000 candlepower deer spotlights, full camo outfits, and running through cornfields at midnight. If you got caught we even loaded people into a “prison truck” which was basically a big van. It’s very similiar sounding to what they appeared to be doing.

So although it may sound bad, I think there was a moral lesson that they were teaching in there somewhere. Instead of giving the groups labels of Nazi and Jew they should have called them “evil tyrants” and “free people”. I think that was their biggest error. It sounds bad, but I think it was probably harmless in it’s intent. That’s my guess at this time anyways.

Um, okay. But if that’s true, there’s no hint of it in the story. Which would make the story very bad reporting, though that’s certainly not out of the question.

MORE THOUGHTS on the Iraq / Al Qaeda connection.

GOD BLESS AMERICA — but not, reports Tongue Tied, at military funerals.