KEVIN MCCULLOUGH HAS RETRACTED his Ed Asner interview report. Scroll to the bottom to see the new report of what Asner said, which is rather different from McCullough’s original report — no longer does the question ask Asner about portraying someone he’d respects, and Asner’s answer shows his awareness of Stalin’s murders. It’s hard for me to understand how McCullough could have made this mistake, but I’m glad he’s corrected it.

I’ve posted a correction over at GlennReynolds.com, too, since I also wrote about the Asner issue there.

UPDATE: Here’s McCullough’s blog retraction, too. McCullough has taken his medicine admirably.

THEY DON’T CALL IT THE BAATHIST BROADCASTING CORPORATION FOR NOTHING: Coming soon, how hard the second half of 1945 was on Eva Braun’s niece.

AL GIORDANO says that I’m wrong about Bolivia, and likens what’s going on there to the California recall. He’s got a long and link-filled post offering a rather different view than you’ve seen here. (This is the earlier post of mine.)

I hope that he’s right that “authentic democracy” is coming to Bolivia, but I remain skeptical. All my life I’ve heard that revolutions in Latin America were about authentic democracy, but on closer inspection they’ve turned out to be fomented by the usual sorts of Maoists and Stalinists, acting as pawns for outside interests. I’d love for things to be different this time.

UPDATE: Here’s a roundup of stories about Bolivia from a blogger in Ecuador, with firsthand reports from his brother who’s in Bolivia. And here’s more blogging from Bolivia, with photos.

GERMANS SAY THEY’RE VICTIMS, and Stephen Green is unimpressed.

To paraphrase Joseph Story, if the Germans have been victims in the past century, it’s because they’ve been “victims of their own imbecility.”

UPDATE: German blogger Cum Grano Salis has more on this.

INTERESTING BIT OF NEWS FROM IRAQ:

Nethercutt and Senor highlighted the return of electricity to Iraq, which now has a higher megawatt output than it did before the war. Reconstruction has targeted schools and hospitals, and the Americans are spending 3,500 percent more on health care than Saddam Hussein did, Senor said.

(Emphasis added.) Hmm. Does that mean that all those people who defend Castro’s dictatorship based on the “excellent health care system” will now start defending the war in Iraq?

And if not, why not?

THE POSTWAR DEBATE about the pre-war rhetoric: Daniel Drezner is refereeing.

RICH BLOGGY GOODNESS: This week’s Carnival of the Vanities is up, with an assortment of posts from bloggers you may not have read before. Check it out — you may find some you’ll want to add to your daily blog-reading rounds.

Yeah, I say this every week. But there’s more to the blogosphere than InstaPundit, you know.

TIM BLAIR is offering title help to Ted Rall, and rewrite services to the risible Rowan Williams.

That’s our Tim — he just gives, and gives.

NEXT WE CAN DO THE SAME FOR THE PLAME AFFAIR:

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ordered five journalists, including a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, to identify government sources for their articles about former nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Lee is suing the government, alleging that officials illegally divulged private information about him in the course of investigating his role in suspected espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico four years ago.

Make Novak testify. Since the “six reporters” to whom the story was allegedly “shopped” appear not to exist, that may be the end of it, but who knows? As even the biggest Plame-conspiracists are now admitting, things are, um, complicated. So let’s cut the Gordian knot!

MEGAN MCARDLE:

In other words, with or without the trust fund, when the expenses of Social Security and Medicare exceed the value of our contributions, our budget is suddenly going to have more holes than a warehouse full of Jarlsberg. And when does this happen? According to the Social Security trustees, Medicare’s expenses start to exceed benefits in 2013, less than ten years from now. Social Security follows suit in 2017. 2040 isn’t the date when we need to start worrying; it’s the date when we finally give up pretending that Social Security is anything other than a gigantic Ponzi scheme, and the suckers revolt. . . .

And what are our elected officials doing about this looming crisis? Why, with the able assistance of groups like the AARP, they’re actively looking for ways to make it worse.

I ain’t gonna eat no government cheese.

For one thing, there won’t be any left by the time I’m of age. . . .

UPDATE: Here’s a related post by Steve Verdon.

JAMES KIRCHICK WRITES that Yale Law School is crushing students’ free speech rights.

Here’s a link to the essay in question, and here’s another piece somewhat along those lines.

ATRIOS’S FANS have bought him a laptop, and Tony Pierce wants Cubs tickets.

I don’t need either, but you might want to help out Chief Wiggles’ Iraqi toy drive.

JEFF JARVIS has news from Iran.

I POST PHOTOS FROM TIME TO TIME, but the ones over at Smoky Mountain Journal, a Smoky Mountain photoblog by Jim Fletcher, are better.

CHINA’S FIRST MANNED SPACE MISSION has launched.

Good for them. I hope the entire mission is successful.

James Oberg, meanwhile, suspects that China’s plans are ambitious.

MERYL YOURISH is unhappy that Gregg Easterbrook is lecturing Jewish movie executives about greed.

UPDATE: Roger Simon calls Easterbrook’s post “astonishing and hugely depressing.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jessica Harbour writes that Easterbrook isn’t anti-semitic — he just doesn’t have the hang of this blogging thing yet: “So far the only good thing that’s come out of Easterbrook’s blog is that TMQ is now more focused on football.”

Ouch.

PLEASE SEND your thoughts and prayers to Jeff Cooper, who’s got his priorities right.

BOLIVIA’S ELECTED GOVERNMENT is threatened by a mob, as protests turn violent, though they don’t appear to have achieved critical mass. But here’s something interesting about the main opposition leader:

Morales, who just returned from Libya, on Monday called the United States a ”terrorist nation” for the Iraq war.

When you add this to Hugo Chavez’s terrorist connections in Venezuela, it looks as if someone might be trying to open a southern front against the United States. I hope that the right people are looking into this.

UPDATE: Here’s more on the Chavez/Terrorist connection.

HERE’S A SPOT OF GOOD NEWS:

American forces in Iraq have captured one of the most senior members of Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, U.S. defense officials said Tuesday.

Good.

WESLEY CLARK: Pro-militia:

Today, Clark will announce his plan to establish a “Civilian Reserve,” comprising everyday Americans using their “unique skills” to tackle an assortment of community-based problems — from specific tasks like repairing a crumbling school or a neighbor’s tornado-ravaged home to broad, less tangible goals such as “securing the homeland.”

The Civilian Reserve would work with — but not replace — the nation’s armed forces in dealing with any number of local emergencies. The campaign did not release any more details on today’s proposal, except to say that it would use technology to help identify and mobilize people so that their skills are applied most effectively.

Well, not exactly, but. . . .

Here’s a link to Clark’s speech. Actually, I think it’s a good idea. (Seriously. Read this, too. And this.)

JUXTAPOSITION of the day. Heh.

DANIEL DREZNER distinguishes “Red Sox conservatives” from “Cubs conservatives.”

I was a big Red Sox fan from my childhood days in Boston (the Yaz era) until 1986, at which point I concluded that absent a change in the rules of baseball the Red Sox couldn’t possibly come any closer to winning the World Series while still blowing it. That removed the suspense factor, and I just haven’t been able to get interested since. . . .

KIM DU TOIT is trying to start a mass migration.

JUDGING BY THIS REPORT, the guy should be treated as a hero, not locked up:

A Chinese martial arts expert was in custody yesterday after turning the tables on four burglars armed with knives, killing two of them and seriously wounding a third.

The 28-year-old man, known as “the doctor” for his practice of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, managed to seize one of the two knives carried by his assailants and saw off the entire group with the ferocity of his reaction.

Magistrates in the central Italian town of Empoli are now seeking to establish whether his self-defence constituted an excessive use of force. . . .

Disappointed by their meagre booty, the attackers allegedly threatened to rape the two women unless they told them where the rest of their money was hidden.

At this point the doctor managed to free himself, seize a knife from one of the aggressors and deliver a series of lethal stab wounds.

There’s some question as to whether he pursued them once they decided to flee. I don’t know much about Italian law, but under American law that would generally be a no-no, though on these facts it sounds rather admirable.