BUSH WAS JUST ON TV — talking about Medicare. Huh?

HEH. I guess that would be these guys.

BTW, I’ve been meaning to thank Bill Quick for calling Day By Day to my attention, and that of a lot of other people. Great find.

GARY COOPER and “necessary unilateralism” — Geitner Simmons instructs Tom Friedman on cinematic parallels.

ANOTHER REASON TO MOVE YOUR BUSINESS OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO:

11:00 PST — Waves of anti-war protesters made good on their promise to disrupt downtown San Francisco this morning, as they occupied intersections throughout the Financial District, South of Market and Civic Center, preventing buses and cars from navigating the streets.

Demonstrations began with sunrise and heated up rapidly after 7 a.m., as groups of protesters fanned out to locations they had selected over the previous several weeks.

By late morning, demonstrators were still moving from intersection to intersection, and large portions of Market Street, Van Ness Avenue and other thoroughfares were blocked off.

“We don’t want to alienate people. I hope people realize that political murder merits action that inconveniences them,” said Quinn Miller, 32, who took the day off from his job for a banking company and said he expected to be arrested for the first time in his life.

Of course, maybe these guys are more of Karl Rove’s agents provocateurs:

Outside the Transamerica Pyramid, more than 100 demonstrators shouted anti-war slogans, shutting down the intersection of Clay and Montgomery and angering motorists.

“You suck. Why don’t you all go to North Korea and do this,” yelled Larry Chu, who had driven into the city from San Rafael and had been stuck for several minutes in his car.

Go see Evan Coyne Maloney’s video and ask yourself: are these people for real? Or actors hired to discredit the opposition? And is it even possible to tell the difference, these days?

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll has more thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Christopher Baker emails from San Francisco:

I think your recent post overstates the protests.

I did have a few roblems getting to work today. A few people (not a lot) blocked some city streets to protest the war. Just a few minutes ago, the whole group of protesters (maybe one hundred and fifty) walked down the middle of Second Street trying to put up barricades by rolling garbage bins and dragging newspaper boxes into the street. They spilled a lot of “Bay Guardians” – a far left free daily — in the process. The police followed behind, cleaning up after them, but not really arresting anyone. Really, what would be the point?

I watched the proceedings from my office window with a co-worker. He’s a strong Democrat and he opposes the war. Looking down at the pathetic-looking group and their shenanigans, he shook his head and said “It makes me want to support Bush.”

Someone needs to tell the protesters that trying to shut down San Francisco, the city that loves France, is not going to have any effect on America’s foreign policy. All they’re doing is pissing off their choir.

More support for the Rove theory. Let’s call them “Karl Rove’s useful idiots!”

Then there’s this reaction: “Yawn.”

H.D. MILLER THINKS, quite reasonably, that it was Uday in the bunker.

WAR SEEMS HAVE BEGUN IN EARNEST:

March 20 — The U.S. military launched ground and air attacks on Iraq Thursday, firing Army artillery into the south and unleashing waves of bombings on Baghdad. Television footage of Baghdad showed explosions in the dark, while correspondent Peter Arnett described seeing missiles hit at least two buildings — possibly a TV center and an intelligence structure inside the presidential compound.

Not much more to say at the moment. I hope it goes well, and quickly. I’ll have some thoughts on what constitutes victory over at GlennReynolds.com in a little while.

SALAM PAX UPDATE: Will Femia has a fairly lengthy piece on Salam and his weblog, saying that Peter Arnett, etc., are being scooped, and out-written.

Meanwhile, Paul Boutin thinks that he’s “probably” for real, and has done some digging. Jason Kottke has more, too.

These are very interesting posts, but the question isn’t so much is Salam real, or in Baghdad. It’s whether he’s really an ordinary Iraqi as he claims, or something else (conceivably, on either side). And that’s much harder to know. That’s the issue with intelligence — facts are easier to figure out than motivations, but motivations usually matter as much as discernable facts.

UPDATE: Here’s more from Gotham.

MAJOR VICTORIES FOR GUN RIGHTS in Colorado, reported by Clayton Cramer, who has joined the ever-expanding Volokh Conspiracy.

LOTS OF NEW STUFF over at Virginia Postrel’s site — including information on a volunteer support-the-troops effort called “Operation Homefront.” It’s really a “support the troops’ families” effort, and Virginia is taking donations, so go over there and donate.

I’M NOW WIRELESS-BLOGGING from the Mellow Mushroom on campus, seated in front of a huge HDTV carrying CNN. There still doesn’t seem to be a lot of real news, and so far the Baghdad-cam continues to be a bust.

I’m certainly a fan of the setting, though. With my former colleague Peter Morgan, I watched CNN at lunch during the last war at the late, lamented Roman Room. This place has less atmosphere and history, but better TVs and a wireless network. And the waitress is substantially more attractive than the Roman Room’s George, even if he was a Knoxville institution.

UPDATE: By popular demand, here’s a picture of the waitress. (Sorry, guys, I’m not posting her name on the Internet. She was happy to let me take her picture for the site, but . . . ) Sadly, I don’t have a picture of George, though, so you’ll have to trust me on the comparison.

Overall, I give the Mellow Mushroom’s wireless setup about a B+ or A-. It seemed a bit slow to me, as I think I was sharing a single Linksys WAP with, well, everyone else who was using it. On the other hand, today’s a bad day to judge, as the whole Internet seems a bit slow to me, and I don’t know how much of the slowness was the result of wireless bandwidth and how much was the result of the sites being slow to serve, or net congestion along the way.

The staff thought it was pretty cool to see photos posted in realtime like that. And the pizza was great, though I didn’t need to order two slices given that each slice was about the size of Detroit. Sadly, I didn’t partake of any of their dozen-or-two varieties of draft beer as I have a committee meeting in about an hour and those call for caffeine, not alcohol.

JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA have announced their support for the liberation of Iraq.

THE PENTAGON is using a lot of commercial satellites for both imaging and communications. Interesting piece.

SADDAM’S SPEECH has been Fisked with verve and vigor. Heh.

THE TURKS want to send troops into Northern Iraq. I hope we’ll explain to them that it might be dangerous to do so, since there’s a war on.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT, with this crackdown on journalists who don’t toe the administration line:

The Cuban government has jailed 10 independent journalists — most of whom publish articles on Internet news sites — as part of a larger crackdown against political opposition on the island.

Police went from house to house on March 18, rounding up the reporters and 24 political activists, according to the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Authorities confiscated the detainees’ computer equipment, books and papers, the group said.

I sure hope we’ll hear a lot of people denouncing this at the Oscars.

SUSANNA CORNETT has posts on bellicose women and editorial bias at Editor and Publisher. Just keep scrolling!

DAVE WINER has a lot of war-related links. Currently, his page is topped with a report from Debka that mass Iraqi surrenders are forthcoming. I’m a Debka-skeptic, but I hope this will turn out to be true.

OVER 190,000 PAGEVIEWS YESTERDAY. Sheesh. Fortunately, I get a good deal on bandwidth.

IT’S A BLOGATHON over at SgtStryker.com. Lots of good posts. Check it out.

ERIC ALTERMAN WRITES:

For me, the antiwar movement such as it was, is over. We lost. It’s time to wish the best for our soldiers and the victims of this war focus on building a better future.

If you want to see — graphically — why the antiwar movement failed, Evan Coyne Maloney has a brand-new documentary video on anti-war protests from last weekend in San Francisco. The antiwar movement failed because it was morally and intellectually unserious, and could never articulate an alternative position that might plausibly have led to a safer America and a safer world.

Had it been able to do so, it might have gotten some traction. But it was too overwhelmed by anti-Bush, anti-capitalist, and anti-American sentiments to generate a positive vision. Even a lot of lefties have noticed that recently.

UPDATE: One of the protesters interviewed by Maloney, a guy named Frank Chiu, is so famous he has a fan club. But of course!

CHIRAC UPDATE: Via Armed Prophet, I find this hilarious story:

President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac may not be phone pals anymore, but that didn’t stop Chirac from discussing Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq, and other serious issues with another famous American: Jerry Lewis.

Except it turns out that the man who had a five-minute phone conversation with Chirac last week wasn’t Lewis, but rather a Los Angeles DJ impersonating the comedian. A source at KROQ 106.7 confirms that ”Kevin and Bean Show” entertainment reporter Ralph Garman got through to Chirac by claiming to be France’s most loved American funnyman — a prank that has the real Lewis considering legal action. ”Jerry is outraged that this impersonation occurred, especially at this critical time in the conduct of foreign policy,” Alan Isaacman, Lewis’ attorney, tells EW.com. ”These are life and death matters, and the last thing that’s needed is someone getting involved in this situation in a false manner. It’s reprehensible and irresponsible, and we intend to pursue the appropriate remedies.” (KROQ declined to comment on the hoax.)

EW.com procured a tape of the phone call, during which Chirac assured Garman, ”I recognize your voice, no doubt about that” and talked freely about why he isn’t supporting an attack on Iraq.

Sounds like Lewis needs to develop a sense of humor, here — but then, I suppose, he’d lose his popularity with the French. . . .

SKBUBBA HAS PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE that Saddam has been disarmed now.

THE WAR ON IRAQ is apparently proving a big distraction to Al Qaeda. Heh.

WHY IS CASTRO SUDDENLY SO NERVOUS?

HAVANA – U.S. officials and Cuban dissidents reacted with anger as Fidel Castro (news – web sites)’s government arrested more activists and vowed to put them on trial in the country’s harshest crackdown on dissent in years.

As tensions with the United States increased, a Cuban airliner carrying 29 passengers was hijacked Wednesday night and landed under U.S. military escort in Key West, Fla. The six hijackers were detained and faced federal air piracy charges.

At least 46 dissidents have been detained in a two-day operation by Cuban state security agents, human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said. He said arrests of anti-government activists continued Wednesday night.

Sanchez called it “the most intense repression in recent years.”

The detentions come amid a sharp deterioration in relations between Washington and Havana, which has repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for encouraging dissent on the Caribbean island.

I wonder if any Hollywood stars will protest this “crushing of dissent” at the Oscars Monday night?

MATT WELCH:

Best Moment on the BBC Tonight: A female guest, I think some Iraqi-Brit student, stormed out of the studio after pressing the other guest, an anti-war Iraqi, on whether he was anti-Saddam or not. “I think Saddam knows his country and has done great things,” the old geezer said, or thereabouts; college gal sputtered something about not believing her ears, and stomped off.

Welch has a lot of great stuff up.