PHYSICIST / SCIENCE FICTION WRITER GREGORY BENFORD looks at post-Shuttle space programs.

NORTH CAROLINA LAW-PROFESSOR-BLOGGER ERIC MULLER is all over the Howard Coble story. I meant to blog this yesterday, but as you may have noticed it was a light-blogging day — faculty meetings and assorted other projects do get in the way of this hobby from time to time.

Anyway, Coble expressed the view — which Muller correctly calls “bizarre” — that the Japanese-American internments were for their own protection. Uh, right. As Muller notes:

Folks, this is the guy running the show on homeland security in the House of Representatives. The guy who will have oversight over how well Tom Ridge’s new department is balancing national security with individual liberties.

If he’s not already doing so, Dennis Hastert should be looking for a new Chairman for Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

Indeed. Muller also paints a larger political picture that Karl Rove should probably pay attention to.

UPDATE: Here’s a suggestion that Coble doesn’t even know the history of his own party on the subject.

HIGH-SCHOOL BLOGGER DAVID RUSSELL, quoted here a couple of days back, has hit the big time — he’s now being quoted by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post.

VIRGINIA POSTREL WRITES:

The danger may make international support more valuable. But that support does not significantly reduce the risks of war. The only reason to go to war, taking enormous risks today, is to prevent greater risks tomorrow. Wisdom dictates that we make that decision based on the worst-case assumptions about war today, not on happy scenarios of easy victory with minimal casualties. That’s true with or without international support. And it was true before Powell’s speech.

Indeed.

IT’S ROPE-A-DOPE AT THE UN:

The administration’s refusal to supply its opponents with the answers they demanded on their schedule emboldened them. There were anti-war rallies. Democrats in the Senate began finding fault with the president. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle basically said he feared the administration was making up reasons to go to war.

The administration remained patient, waiting until it was ready to speak. And by doing so, the president and his team also showed once more that they possess an astonishingly high level of strategic and tactical intelligence in dealing with the messy realities of world politics.

Powell’s masterful and inarguable presentation yesterday means the administration has once again outflanked its adversaries and out-argued its opponents – just as it did in September, when Bush went to the United Nations and began the process that led to the unanimous passage of U.N. Resolution 1441.

Via Betsy’s Page.

GEORGE WILL WRITES:

It would be more difficult for the president to wage war against Iraq if the United Nations did not exist. But if the United Nations, having passed 1441, now refuses to authorize war, the United Nations will essentially cease to exist.

There is the outline of a satisfactory outcome: Saddam Hussein removed, the United Nations reduced.

The United Nations’ power — like that of France — grows mostly out the the United States’ unaccounted willingness to pretend to take it seriously. But that’s getting steadily harder with both.

MICKEY KAUS gives Hillary’s war speech a failing grade:

The cynicism is clear — if there’s another terrorist strike, Hillary can say it was because the Republicans didn’t earmark that extra $150 million for interoperable radios. But mainly what comes through is state-of-the-art lack of imagination. It’s Robo-Senatoring.

He also asks, weirdly, if the Spector-mansion shooting will prove a shot in the arm for gun control efforts. I don’t see why it would. Especially because even areas with strict gun control always make exceptions for rich and famous people, as the distribution of New York concealed-weapons permits demonstrates.

MARK STEYN DECODES FRENCH DIPLOMACY.

UPDATE: Vaara emails to point out the following:

Hi Glenn,

I just thought I’d mention that on Tuesday evening, the U.N. Security Council *unanimously* passed Resolution 1464, which authorizes the existing deployment of French and African troops in Ivory Coast.

He’s right (he? I guess). I’d missed that development. Here’s a story on the subject, from VOA.

This seems to me to suggest that the French have hit upon a wonderful strategy — invade first, ask permission later. I think that it’s one you might see employed again in the near future. . . .

STEVEN DEN BESTE ANALYZES FRENCH STRATEGY. They’re not our allies.

JAMES LILEKS WRITES:

“How can we possibly go to war without the approval of the United Nations?”

This question would make sense if there was a big red button marked “START WAR” in a locked closet at the U.N. Secretariat, and we had to beg Kofi Annan for the keys. The United States can go to war whenever it likes for its own reasons, and all the United Nations can do is pass more worthless paper. The only way a resolution could stop a truly determined president would be if they wrapped it around a rock and threw it at George W. Bush’s head.

Read the whole thing.

UNILATERALISM, MY ASS!

Statement of the Vilnius Group Countries

For the record: 5 February 2003, Wednesday.

Statement by the Foreign Ministers of Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in response to the presentation by the United States Secretary of State to the United Nations Security Council concerning Iraq:

Earlier today, the United States presented compelling evidence to the United Nations Security Council detailing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, its active efforts to deceive UN inspectors, and its links to international terrorism.

Our countries understand the dangers posed by tyranny and the special responsibility of democracies to defend our shared values. The trans-Atlantic community, of which we are a part, must stand together to face the threat posed by the nexus of terrorism and dictators with weapons of mass destruction.

We have actively supported the international efforts to achieve a peaceful disarmament of Iraq. However, it has now become clear that Iraq is in material breach of U.N. Security Council Resolutions, including U.N. Resolution 1441, passed unanimously on November 8, 2002. As our governments said on the occasion of the NATO Summit in Prague: “We support the goal of the international community for full disarmament of Iraq as stipulated in the UN Security Council Resolution 1441. In the event of non-compliance with the terms of this resolution, we are prepared to contribute to an international coalition to enforce its provisions and the disarmament of Iraq.”

The clear and present danger posed by the Saddam Hussein’s regime requires a united response from the community of democracies. We call upon the U.N. Security Council to take the necessary and appropriate action in response to Iraq’s continuing threat to international peace and security.

That’s in addition to the earlier letter of support from Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark. The diplomatic isolation of “Old Europe” continues.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh thinks the Security Council has Leagalized itself. That’s a new term he’s coined, referring to international bodies that replicate the League of Nations.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jody Green emails:

I really like the statement that we need “a united response from the Community of Democracies”. Community of Democracies (COD). Got a ring to it, eh. How about abandonding the U.N. and creating COD. No more fascists heading human rights committees. Bye bye Syria, China, Iraq and all you other fascist pigs. We have a new club and if you want to join, you must change your ways and we can show you how. Good plan, don’t you think?

I’m sure the French will denounce its simplisme.

I CERTAINLY CAN’T VOUCH FOR THE ACCURACY OF THESE REPORTS FROM NORTH KOREA, but if true they suggest that North Korea is indeed close to collapse.

THE NEW REPUBLIC CALLS POWELL’S CASE FOR WAR “BRUTALLY COMPELLING:”

No doubt about it, Colin Powell laid out a brutally compelling case for war with Iraq at the U.N. Security Council today. The audio tapes of high-ranking Iraqi military officers conspiring to hide evidence of chemical and biological weapons; the satellite footage of Iraqis sanitizing chemical and biological weapons facilities; the descriptions of Iraqi mobile production facilities and un-manned delivery vehicles–all these pieces of evidence were both damning on their merits and dramatic in their effect.

TNR wonders if Powell didn’t make more arguments than he needed to. I guess that depends on who you think the audience is.

FRED KAPLAN AT SLATE SAYS THAT COLIN POWELL DELIVERED THE GOODS ON SADDAM:

Secretary of State Colin Powell’s briefing to the U.N. Security Council was far more powerful than anyone had predicted. Not all his points were equally compelling: Some, as he admitted, were open to interpretation; some were vaguely sourced (if understandably so). But contrary to his own (clearly low-balling) remarks of recent days, Powell did produce the proverbial “smoking gun.” And, while his evidence may not have been quite as shattering as Adlai Stevenson’s U-2 photos of Soviet missiles in Cuba, it came remarkably close—so much so that, if the Security Council does not now take action against Iraq, it might as well disband.

Sounds like win/win to me.

NICHOLAS PACKWOOD IS CALLING IT “GATESGATE” — the scandal over CBC interviewer Jennifer Gates’ remarks about American “arrogance.” He’s posted the CBC’s reply (several readers were kind enough to forward me copies, too — thanks!) and has his own analysis. Since Nicholas is Canadian, I think it’s appropriate for him to take the lead on this.

STEVE VERDON is unimpressed with Bush’s budget and suggests that libertarians may start bolting the G.O.P.

MORE SAUDI PERFIDY: Best of the Web reports on how the Saudis are helping terror witnesses avoid testifying, and training up new terrorists in America.

MY THOUGHTS ON MARIJUANA PROSECUTIONS, JURIES, AND THE TRUTH ARE NOW UP, over at GlennReynolds.com.

DAVE KOPEL TAKES TAPPED TO TASK for shady editing and more.

DODD HARRIS points out a report that Gerhard Schroeder is facing domestic political heat — not only over the economy, but on his position relating to Iraq.

I LISTENED TO POWELL ON NPR, and it seems to me that he’s made the case that the UN must act, or become the League of Nations. The Russian response, though, seems weak so far. We may need another resolution? Or maybe more than one additional resolution? The Security Council will resolve itself to death under that approach.

HEY, NOW THE STORMFRONT GUYS ARE calling InstaPundit’s content “atrocious!” My day is made.

My new slogan: “InstaPundit: Even more atrocious in 2003!”

Or, as another professor once said, “Nazis. I hate these guys.”

UPDATE: Reader James Foster emails:

They would also probably hate that most of your readers are pro-Second Amendment. Just like Condoleezza Rice’s pastor father, who organized shotgun brigades to protect his church and community from their hooded brethren during the dark days of civil rights protests in Birmingham.

Yep. They probably share Hitler’s view on civilian disarmament. Several readers also sent this line from the Blues Brothers movie:

“Who are those guys?”

“Nazis.”

“In Skokie? Illlinois?”

“Illinois Nazis.”

“I hate Illinois Nazis!”

Yep.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

Meanwhile, outside an estimated 500 pro- and anti-Bush demonstrators clashed in a savage snowball fight.

“There was about 10 inches on the ground,” reported Ehlers, so opposing forces had plenty of ammo.

By the time order was restored, several demonstrators were arrested. But Ehlers, a professor at UC-Berkeley in the 1960s, wasn’t impressed.

“Nothing like a Vietnam protest,” he said of the melee, in which outnumbered Bush supporters routed their opponents, according to one participant, by using “better target selection and superior firepower.”

Heh.

MICHELLE MALKIN has a very unsympathetic treatment of the John Lott controversy.

MORE ON WHY Germany + France does not equal Europe.

UPDATE: Chris Lawrence has more.