ANOTHER CHRISTO IMITATOR, but with a wartime theme. . . .

A LOT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY WILL BE UNVEILED in the coming war, but the people behind it are being secretive, as usual. I guess you can’t blame them — they don’t want the other side to get an advantage:

In the Gulf war 12 years ago, CNN trumped its rivals with a “four-wire” connection — a dedicated phone line that bypassed the central phone system, the only one that the Iraqi government permitted — that gave it audio contact as Baghdad was being bombed and others lost their standard phone lines.

What one network executive calls a “quantum leap” in technology since then has led to portable satellite dishes that promise viewers a closer, clearer, more immediate video look, not just audio, at any place a reporter goes. As recently as the conflict in Afghanistan, networks were largely limited to satellite video phones with jerky images.

The technology promises a different kind of armchair access for viewers at home to follow the conflict, with ramifications for how public opinion gets shaped.

But most network executives won’t talk about the developments except in the broadest terms to avoid revealing competitive information to their rivals.

Perhaps at the next Pentagon press conference, Rumsfeld should press them for details, then cry coverup if they won’t answer. . . .

A NOT-VERY-GENTLE OBITUARY for Ron Ziegler.

COLIN POWELL is getting tough:

“France and Germany are resisting,” he said. “They believe that more inspections, more time” should be allowed.

“The question I will put to them is: Why more inspections? And how much more time?” Powell said. “Or are you just delaying for the sake of delaying in order to get Saddam Hussein off the hook and no disarmament? That’s a challenge I will put to them.”

No more Mr. Nice Guy, apparently.

ERIC ALTERMAN, I should mention, has apologized for his remarks about Rush Limbaugh (scroll down). He also asks me if I “believe in the concept of ‘hate speech.'”

I’m tempted to answer, like the man asked about adult baptism, “Believe in it, hell — I’ve seen it done!”

I don’t believe that “hate speech” deserves special legal punishment, though, if that’s the question. I regard “hate speech” as a descriptive term, not a special offense. Wishing for someone’s career to be ended by disability is fairly hateful, and “offensive remarks” that are “based on a disability” would be punishable hate speech in most of those places that forbid it. Though they probably would make an exception where the target is a right-wing talk show host. . . .

But anyone can make a thoughtless remark in an interview, and Alterman’s prompt apology does him credit.

UPDATE: Not everyone agrees.

THE LOCAL CHAPTER OF EARTH FIRST! has partially covered a billboard for “Hooters” with this sign reading “Frodo Has Failed — Bush Has The Ring.” (A couple of them — looking very chilly — are “occupying” the sign, as you may be able to make out on the lower right. And yes, this is actual, firsthand photojournalism here on InstaPundit.)

Interviewed by local radio station WIVK, a spokeswoman for the group said that they were demonstrating true patriotism by putting the First Amendment into practice. Well, by that logic, so were the Nazis at Skokie, but never mind.

It’s easy to understand why Earth First! — which has an all-too-comfortable relationship with terrorism itself — might oppose a war on terrorism. You’d think, though, that Saddam Hussein’s ecological record, which includes firing the Kuwaiti oil fields and wholesale environmental destruction (“ecocide”) in the war against the “Marsh Arabs,” would be a target that even Earth First! would like to see bullseyed.

But, of course, you’d be wrong about that. Because to them, like so much of what styles itself the “antiwar” movement, it’s not really about the war at all. It’s all about Bush.

UPDATE: Several readers point out that in exercising their “free speech” rights, the Earth First! folks are covering up Hooters’ message, which Hooters is actually paying to present. Yeah. I don’t think Earth First! worries about that sort of thing much.

ANOTHER UPDATE: H.D. Miller seems to think I’m calling the Earth Firsters Nazis with the Skokie reference above. I wasn’t, but if he’s confused others might be, since he’s pretty smart. I was reacting to the dumb notion that speech is, in and of itself and independent of its content, patriotic. If it is, then Nazis are patriotic when they march. Got it?

I’VE READ AUSTIN BAY’S NOVEL, The Wrong Side of Brightness, in manuscript. I liked it a lot. You can read the first chapter here. It’ll be out soon.

SYLVAIN GALINEAU has some thoughts on American imperialism.

MICKEY KAUS:

If Osama bin Laden were dead and buried under the rubble in Tora Bora, and you were working in the al Qaeda public affairs shop, you might want to fake a few pungent posthumous proclamations before you had him, conveniently, predict his own demise. …

Yeah. I could be wrong, I suppose, but I don’t believe he’s alive. Where’s the video? Where — as someone mentioned — was the gloating over the loss of a space shuttle with an Israeli astronaut on board?

I’ve been meaning to do a longer post on this, but I’ve been busier than usual this week. Maybe later.

SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE EMAILED to ask if I prefer donations via Amazon, or PayPal. Frankly, I’m just tickled that anyone would ever want to donate, period. All things equal, PayPal is better, as they take less of a cut. But I’m not choosy.

DEMOCRATS THREATEN RACIST FILIBUSTER! That’s the message of this commercial on the Estrada nomination, anyway. Hmm. And just as the controversy over Russell Long heats up.

I sense a disturbance in the Force, one that I have not felt since, well, the last time Karl Rove pulled one of these sucker-punch operations.

VIRGINIA POSTREL says that the Hart anti-semitism charges mentioned below are silly.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Here’s a link to this week’s Carnival of the Vanities.

BELGIAN UNILATERALISM — and imperialism, too.

FRANCE UNITES BRITAIN!

For the first time in the build-up to action against Iraq, the newspapers of the Anglosphere are united in a blizzard of abuse against the French. In Paris, Le Monde has finally been obliged to translate Bart Simpson’s phrase that is now on everyone’s lips.

The French, say the mass-circulation papers in Britain and America, are nothing but “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” (les primates capitulards toujours en quete de fromage), and, you know what, I couldn’t agree more. . . .

It does not mean the end of Nato. It does not even mean the end of the attempts to construct a Heath Robinson-style European “Common Foreign and Security Policy”. But are we really going to share a single constitution with France and Germany, of a kind now being drawn up by Giscard in Brussels? And will Blair really try to push that through without holding a referendum?

I am told that the Prime Minister is so keen on the euro that he was considering sacking the Chancellor in 2004, and holding it then. Has that ambition survived this week? Is Blair really still asking us to share a currency with this lot? Mangez mes culottes, as they are by now saying in Paris.

Er, only it’s Groundskeeper Willie, not Bart Simpson. The man ain’t got no culture. But it’s all right. . . .

A JACKSONIAN MOMENT? Michael Barone emails:

I was just reading InstaPundit tonight when I remembered one of the great Jacksonian moments in American history. If you listen to the audio tape of Franklin Roosevelt’s speech to Congress December 8, 1941, you will notice that the biggest applause–not just applause, but wild raucous cheers–comes after this line.

“No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

It is, I think a beautiful piece of writing, drafted by Roosevelt himself–more proof that, whatever his faults, he was a great man. “The American people”: not the government, not the armed forces, not the leadership, the American people. “In their righteous might”: here Roosevelt weaves together by internal rhyme the idea that we are strong and we are good. “Will win through to absolute victory.”

The historians debate when the United States and their allies became committed to unconditional surrender. But after these words, how could America have settled for anything else? Roosevelt knew what had followed the ambiguous victory of November 1918, and wanted to make sure that nothing like that ever happened again. And he did so in just a few words.

I wonder if anyone in France called him a “cowboy?”

ANOTHER SMOKING GUN — AND THIS ONE’S A DOOZY:

THE chief United Nations weapons inspector will report tomorrow that Iraq has been developing a ballistic missile that is in clear violation of UN restrictions.

The discovery of a banned weapons system on the eve of Hans Blix’s crucial presentation is tantamount to the inspectors finding a “smoking gun” — even though it was declared by Iraq to the UN as a legal programme.

Diplomats said the announcement would strengthen London and Washington’s case that Iraq was in “material breach” of UN demands and help the two allies to win support within the Security Council for a new resolution authorising the use of force.

The finding is also certain to provoke a confrontation when inspectors ask the Iraqi armed forces to surrender the banned missiles for destruction just as the country is preparing for an American attack. . . .

Before making a final decision on whether the missiles contravened UN rules, Dr Blix convened a meeting of outside missile experts from Britain, China, France, Ukraine, Germany and the US on Monday and Tuesday. Diplomatic sources said that those experts determined that the al-Samoud 2 exceeded the 150km range, but that the capability of the al-Fatah remained an “open question”.

The experts also judged Iraq to be in violation of UN rules for repairing banned casting chambers for making illegal missiles and for building a new test stand that can test missile engines five times above the permitted thrust.

These things just keep turning up.

UPDATE: This Reuters story says that Russia and Iraq are calling this a mere technicality.

It also says that “In connection with the missiles, Iraq had imported 380 rocket engines, chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and guidance and control instruments — all forbidden under 12-year-old U.N. sanctions imposed after Baghdad invaded neighboring Kuwait, the U.N. arms experts reported.”

The story neglects to mention the source of these illegally imported rocket engines, chemicals, etc. I have a suspicion, though. . . .

DR. MANHATTAN HAS A THEORY about the terror alerts.

HEH.

GO READ LILEKS. He makes me proud to own a Dell.

MORE FROM THE FRANCO-AMERICAN STREET: This letter in the New York Post:

February 11, 2003 — As I opened my Post this morning, the anger I’ve felt over these past few weeks reached a total rage when I read Steve Dunleavy’s column from Normandy (“Sacrifice,” Feb. 10).

I was born in France, married my wonderful American husband of 41 years in Paris, came to the United States in 1963 and became an American citizen.

France can now disappear into the ocean as far as I’m concerned.

Claudette Davison

I’m also very proud of you folks: I used the word “Franco-American” and didn’t get a single email about Spaghetti-O’s.

INTERESTING COLUMBIA DISCUSSION here. Scroll down to near the bottom for a plausible conclusion.

SOMEBODY JUST SHOWED JACQUES CHIRAC SOME WEBLOGS.

If you’ve got another suggested caption, enter it in the comments, below.

UPDATE: Boy, the comments are rolling in. My favorite so far: “You mean Joe isn’t a millionaire!?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Other people are having fun with this photo here.

Heh. It took me a minute to get this one.

“NO OIL FOR PACIFISTS” — Heh.

PEOPLE LIKE TO ACCUSE AMERICANS of not knowing much about the rest of the world. But here’s a column in The Guardian calling Rep. Peter King “Senator Pete King.” It’s especially lame as the author, Rod Liddle, purports to have been following King’s activities for 15 years.