WHAT’S THE WAR ABOUT? Here’s what I said back in August.

BILL O’REILLY DOESN’T LIKE THE INTERNET because people say bad things about him.

Grow up, Bill. Or get out of the kitchen.

UPDATE: Cam Edwards writes:

Do you think Bill would accuse me of telling lies if I said he’s a big ol’ weenie? Because in my book, whining and making excuses about your radio show being dropped is a weenie thing to do.

The Blogosphere is a no-weenie zone.

NOAH SHACHTMAN REPORTS on the way scientists are re-labeling their work as “nanotechnology” in order to cash in on the enthusiasm.

MICKEY KAUS IS STILL SILENT regarding his former career plans in the trucking industry. He’s ducking that earthshattering issue in favor of trivial stuff like the Supreme Court’s possibly hidden agenda on campaign finance law and a major post regarding the New York Times’ real reason for firing Howell Raines.

WELL, THEY WERE PRACTICING OMERTA:

A defiant Frank Keating took another swipe at some Roman Catholic bishops Monday, defending his comments that compared church leaders to the mafia as he officially resigned as head of a panel keeping tabs on the prelates’ sex abuse reforms.

“My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology,” the former Oklahoma governor wrote in his resignation letter to Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. hierarchy.

“To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church.”

And speaking of a “culture of impunity,” there’s this:

The bishop of Phoenix, who was granted immunity this month from prosecution in the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, was questioned on Monday in connection with a fatal hit-and-run accident over the weekend, police said on Monday.

They said Bishop Thomas O’Brien, 67, was co-operating with investigations into the death of a man hit by two cars in the city on Saturday night.

Police said witnesses identified the first car and that checks led them to the bishop’s car, whose windshield showed signs of damage.

I think the Church has a serious personnel problem.

UPDATE: Reader Andrew Brooks sends this link to a story featuring a picture of the Bishop’s windshield. Ouch! There’s no way he didn’t notice that when it happened.

MORE ON IRAN, at GlennReynolds.com.

STILL, ER, ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT IN THE ARAB WORLD:

DUBAI – Tensions were running high in Ras Al-Khaimah, a member of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), yesterday after the crown prince was ousted reportedly for being too sympathetic to women’s rights.

‘Sheikh Khaled was told, at a meeting with his father and six of his brothers, that he had to banish his wife from the emirate and demolish the ladies’ club that helps women here if they have problems,’ the employee was reported to have said.

‘She has done a lot to bring the country forward, but Sheikh Saud does not feel there is a place for women in today’s Arab society.’

The Arab world is overdue for a shakeup — so maybe the point of emphasis in the above should be the word “today’s.” (Via Kathy Kinsley).

TRIGGER HIPPIES: Dave Weigel looks at Weather Undergound reminiscences and concludes that a lot of people still aren’t facing up to the reality of their actions.

CONGO UPDATE: THE UNITED NATIONS can’t — or won’t — even protect its own people.

“AZADI, ARAK, ESHGH!”

ANOTHER BLOW TO THE BANCROFT PRIZE? Ralph Luker charges more counting problems by a winner of the Bancroft Prize in Early American History. Once again, the charge is manipulation of data to support a thesis. There’s a response here.

WHITHER THE BLOGOSPHERE? John Scalzi has some thoughts and suggests that blogging is simultaneously becoming more and less professional.

IRANIAN FACULTY ARE ACTUALLY DOING what some American academics delude themselves into thinking they’re doing — standing up for freedom against a fundamentalist dictatorship:

TEHRAN, Iran — More than 250 university lecturers and writers in Iran signed a statement calling on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (search) to abandon the idea that he is God’s representative on Earth.

In a statement made available to The Associated Press on Monday, the intellectuals say they stand behind liberal legislators’ call last month for democratic reform.

The statement comes after a week of protests and riots in Tehran that saw pro-democracy demonstrators clash with police and vigilantes who support the hard-line clerical regime. Protesters said Khamenei should be hanged, an unprecedented call in a land where criticism of the supreme leader is punishable by imprisonment.

Khamenei has the final say on all matters. The ruling clerics regard him as God’s representative and say his word cannot be challenged.

“Considering individuals to be in the position of a divinity and absolute power … is open polytheism [in contradiction to] almighty God and blatant oppression of the dignity of human being,” the statement said.

“People [and their elected lawmakers] have the right to fully supervise their rulers, criticize them, and remove them from power if they are not satisfied,” said the statement, which was published in the reformist newspaper Yas-e-nou on Monday.

Sadly, you could probably get 250 faculty in America to demonstrate in favor of the Iranian government, so long as you could cast it as an anti-Bush event.

IN 1972, MICKEY KAUS WROTE: “After the Revolution, I want to be a truck driver.” Now he writes a column for Slate, called Gearbox.

Surely there’s something profound in that, somewhere.

MORE PEOPLE ARE ASKING ABOUT the color of Howell Raines’ parachute. But The New York Times isn’t talking. Funny, they’re happy to talk about compensation at other big corporations.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, David Frum is accusing Maureen Dowd of stealing from his wife. Stealing? Well, I’d call it “heavy lifting,” to use a Safire phrase, at most.

OKAY, I LIKE IT THAT HOWARD DEAN IS USING BLOGS in his campaign effort. But fundraising via popup ads seems a bit much.

DROPPING THE MEDICAL BALL IN IRAQ? Reader John Borell emails:

The front page of the NY Times had a picture on Saturday, and one of the soldiers in the picture, being comforted, is my brother, Sgt. David Borell (misspelled as Borello). There was a corresponding article in the local paper, The Toledo Blade, (Link) and it discusses his disgust with the Army doctors for not treating wounded Iraqis.

I am a big supporter of the president, and of our actions in Iraq. However, I want to win the peace, and believe it is important to speak up when things drift away. We want to win the hearts of the Iraqi people, and providing them with aid, when possible, is key to that.

One of the beautiful things about out country, is that a soldier can speak up, and it may even prompt change (our congresswoman, whom I disagree with on most things, but agree with on this narrow issue, wants to establish hospitals for the Iraqis. Not a bad idea, as I doubt they have much of their own. Link).

We are Americans. We help people in need. Not always, but we do what we can. We decided to help Iraq, not just by ridding the world of Saddam, but by rebuilding. Hopefully, there are people in Washington who pay attention to such things, and make course corrections as needed.

Mr. Borell also forwarded an email from his brother, which I’m not reprinting here as it’s very long — but it’s clearly heartfelt and expresses a profound sense that we’re getting this particular matter very wrong. Somebody needs to look into this story.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Cecil Turner (Major, USMC, ret.) sends this:

Concur we need to help in any way possible in Iraq. However, this stuff is getting silly. We currently have ~150,000 troops in country, with presumably appropriate levels of medical support. (And it isn’t like they don’t have any cases to treat.) There are 5 million people in Baghdad alone (many of whom are doctors). Looks to me like 97% of the requirement is going to go unfilled if we rely on the military.

There are many people who believe the military can provide endless support to a population, and it’s just not practicable. Mountains of supplies? No problem. Technical support? By all means. But there is no way the Army support groups are geared up for this sort of thing, nor should they be. The last thing we want is for every Iraqi to sit on his duff and wait for the US Army to do stuff for him. It’s past time to get Iraqis back to work rebuilding their own country . . . including hospitals.

And while we should help them do that, providing medical staff out of the few military personnel available isn’t the right kind of help.

Fair enough.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chuck Simmins thinks I’ve made too much of this story, too:

Glenn – the most telling thing about the article you linked was that “The local hospital already had refused to treat the children.”

Most of the hospital that existed in Iraq are open for business and treating Iraqis. The Central Command news releases, on a daily basis, talk about those
hospitals, supplying them, paying for them, improving them. We’re doing a hell of a lot for these hospitals.

Perhaps the Sgt. should have asked why they were turned away from their local hospital. The Army docs were correct. A base hospital is no place for long
term care. If these injuries were not life threatening, these Iraqis should have been treated at an appropriate facility, i.e. the local hospital.

Well, okay — but why was Sgt. Borell so upset? Wouldn’t he know all this stuff?

ARE AMERICANS BEHIND THE PROTESTS IN IRAN? Jay Manifold says yes, and he’s got pictures.

THE WSJ’S MATTHEW ROSE HAS THE SCOOP ON GREG PACKER and this cautionary observation:

News organizations often aren’t choosy about how they get “man on the street” material, in part because it’s often decorative and sometimes contrived. It’s also easy to trick reporters who rarely if ever check up on the “men on the street” they randomly quote. That’s fertile ground for Mr. Packer to exploit. “For some venues, it didn’t matter what you were getting as long as it was lively,” says Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, a journalism research center in St. Petersburg, Fla.

James Barron, a reporter for the New York Times, featured Mr. Packer prominently in his story about Ms. Clinton’s book signing without knowing Mr. Packer’s reputation. Mr. Barron, who conducted the interview after Mr. Packer was done chatting with MSNBC’s Ashleigh Banfield, says he “would have liked to have told our readers this is something he does . . .[but] if this is his place in the world, when he’s not repairing the roads, so be it.” Since 1996, the Times has quoted Mr. Packer three times.

The New York Daily News, which counts about a dozen Packer references, is less sanguine. “Had we known he was Mr. First-in-Line, we would, of course, have identified him as such,” says spokesman Ken Frydman.

Something to keep in mind when you see those “random, representative” folks quoted. Does Barron’s statement mean that he knew that Packer was a quote-o-mat, and “would have liked” to tell the readers, but didn’t? It’s not quite clear. (Via Romenesko).

HIAWATHA BRAY WRITES that businesses are getting interested in blogs.

RADLEY BALKO REPORTS that in Maryland they’re actually making roads more dangerous in order to increase traffic-camera revenues by shortening yellow lights at intersections equipped with traffic cameras.

Tar and feathers. No, really, I’m serious. . . .

RAMBO VS. RIMBAUD: The Rumsfeld / de Villepin poetry slam. Worth it just for the title.

On a more serious note, there’s this suggestion that Rumsfeld is a bit more sophisticated than the “Rambo” characterization suggests:

A lot of people in Europe misunderstand Rumsfeld, not to mention underestimating him. There’s a power in frankness and straight talk; it’s a way of cutting through bullshit and getting straight to the issues. It may be viewed by some as being unsophisticated or uncouth but it also tends to work really well, when it’s needed. And Rumsfeld is really, really good at it.

In this case, however, I think they have completely misunderstood what Rumsfeld wants. He isn’t attempting to get the law repealed. He’s attempting to get NATO HQ moved out of Belgium. If his blunt talk makes it politically impossible for Belgian politicians to rescind the law, Rumsfeld wins.

Of course, if the Belgians back down and rescind the law, Rumsfeld also wins. It makes the point, forcefully, that we’re not going to put up with international busybodies second-guessing our politicians and military people by filing charges against them in kangaroo courts, and indirectly would help in our efforts to make clear that we won’t tolerate having the ICC used maliciously against our people.

Yes.

“RETROMINGENT?”

UPDATE: Jonah emails: “Retromingent, Damn it!”

ANOTHER CORPORATE MANAGER EARNING BIG BUCKS AND BONUSES while leading his corporation to disaster! (Via Kaus).

CONGO UPDATE:

The firefight on the outskirts of Bunia, from which the French special forces emerged unscathed, occurred amid growing concern that the force’s mandate is too limited and does not include the demilitarization of the town that six weeks ago boasted a university, a brand-new mobile phone network and a thriving trade in gold.

”I don’t know why they are here,” said Jan Mol, a Dutch priest who has lived in Bunia for 15 years. ”It’s just show.”

Sounds like he does know why they’re there. . . .