FOUAD AJAMI writes on post-Saddam policy in Foreign Affairs.

SO HOW DO I SUBSCRIBE?

HE’S DISGUSTED! HE’S LIBERAL! He’s (They’re?) DisgustedLiberal.com! He’s pretty funny, too, and sometimes he’s even right.

HERE’S A BBC STORY ON NASA’S NUCLEAR PROPULSION INITIATIVE that actually mentions Orion.

The reader who sends the link says: “I think Bush’s overall strategy has become: ‘Everyone is gonna call me a crazy/dumb/cowboy no matter what the Hell I do, so we may as actually do some ambitious stuff.'”

Heh. I hope so.

LILY MALCOLM RESPONDS TO JACK BALKIN about the difference between undergraduate admissions and Supreme Court appointments.

THE HITHERTO-UNKNOWN CONNECTION between Harold Pinter and The Monkees.

Yeah, but The Monkees were artists. I saw their biopic.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN LOS ANGELES, AND YOU’RE INTERESTED IN BLOGS, you should attend this blog event put together by Susannah Breslin of “Reverse Cowgirl” fame. Hey — Breslin and Heather Havrilesky will be there. And Tony Pierce! And Doc Searls!

MICKEY KAUS wonders if Hillary Clinton was channeling Strom Thurmond when she added this gloss to Martin Luther King:

Yes, we want to be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. But what makes up character?” she said, quoting from Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. “If we don’t take race as part of our character, then we are kidding ourselves.”

Jeez.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh, who’s on a roll, today, observes:

So let’s see if I understand this: The King quote is “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their characters.” But according to Hillary Clinton, “the content of [their] characters” must include race as part of “character.” Therefore, the quote really means “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their characters, including the color of their skin, which it is proper to consider as part of our character.” A pretty modest dream, it seems to me.

The way today’s multiculti left is channeling yesterday’s segregationist right would be amusing, if it weren’t so disturbing.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire emails that Hillary may have been misquoted. At least, in this account the quote is somewhat less objectionable:

Noting that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of “revolution,” Clinton said before a gathering hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton that affirmative action foes focus only on his urging that people be judged by their character.

“Well, of course,” she said. “But what is character? The sum total of who you are. The color of your skin and how you deal with it is part of your character.”

Somewhat. So which of these versions is the correct one? Beats me. I’ll let you know if I find out.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire fact-checks his own ass — there were two speeches.

SET THEORY PROVES IT! Proves what? That if you’re opposed to Total Information Awareness, then you should also be opposed to gun control.

Well, at least I’m consistent!

HUGO CHAVEZ’S SUPPORTERS: Compare this picture of rent-a-thugs with these pictures of the anti-Chavez demonstrators.

RACHEL LUCAS HAS ADVICE on how you can pressure the authorities on behalf of a political prisoner.

WE’VE HEARD A LOT OF BLOGOSPHERE CHATTER about underreported polls. But I haven’t seen much reporting about this one, which has at least as much relevance to politics as do Bush’s approval ratings.

FROM A BRITISH READER:

The security services (via the number ten press office) are starting to brief the press that defectors and asylum seekers are reporting “a sudden increase” in anti-Saddam graffiti and leaflets and other “opposition activity” in Iraq.

Maybe that’s where all the anti-Saddam yard signs have gone. . . .

CATHY SEIPP HAS DISCOVERED AN UNFILLED MARKET NICHE:

Matt, here’s what’s been on my mind about that, and if anyone can help I’d be very grateful. Have you noticed how here in Silverlake there are many “No War” yard signs but not one sign expressing support for the other side? Here’s the thing: You can’t buy one! I’ve tried and can’t find any. Of course, “No War” is a brilliant and succinct (despite specious) piece of propaganda because no one wants war. It’s like the anti-abortion crowd using the term “Pro-Life.” As if everyone else is against life. Sometimes you need to be willing to fight small wars in order to avoid larger ones. Except “Yes War” is ungrammatical and “No Appeasement” is too long and most people probably wouldn’t know what it means anyway. What I’d like is a sign that says “Give War a Chance” (a la P.J. O’Rourke) to paste on my garage but I don’t see any for sale via the Internet and you know I’m not techy enough to design one and print it out at Kinko’s etc….I had to call a friend over to figure out how to change the toner cartridge on my new plain paper fax. And then yesterday I went over to her house and saw a big “No War” sign in her yard. Help!

Can anyone help her out? (From the comments thread to this post on Matt Welch’s site.)

And, yeah, I know you can get a DISARM SADDAM bumper sticker here. But we’re talking yard signs.

UPDATE: Reader Eric Kolchinsky writes:

The best sign for the pro-war side should be “Free Iraq!” Alas, I don’t

know where to buy it either….

If anyone does know, email me.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

Police in northern Pakistan say unidentified attackers have shot dead a writer whose work was viewed as critical of fundamentalist Islam.

The 40-year-old writer, Fazal Wahab, was shot at a local shop.

Fatwas, or religious edicts, declaring his work un-Islamic had been issued by senior clerical figures after the publication of two books challenging the role of mullahs.

Perhaps Harold Pinter will be moved to write a poem.

ALPHECCA’S WEEKLY REPORT ON MEDIA BIAS RELATING TO GUN ISSUES IS UP.

WHY CONGRESS SHOULDN’T PASS ABORTION LAWS: My obligatory Roe-anniversary comments are posted over at GlennReynolds.com for your enjoyment or infuriation.

ZACHARY BARBERA has another reason why the Australians are cool.

I MOVED THE INSTAPUNDIT BACKUP SITE off of BellSouth for various technical reasons. It’s now at Instabackup.blogspot.com. Adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

Hey, I paid for Blogger Pro, so I might as well get some use out of it. . . .

WHEN YOU GUYS GET RICH, ENDOW ME A CHAIR: Here’s a law firm that is establishing a practice in nanotechnology law.

OKAY, by now the weekend protests are old news, and I’m tired of them — as, no doubt, are you. But I love pics on the web, and this gallery is especially good.

Oh, and I guess I should mention that ANSWER’s views are finally getting some major media attention.

ARMED LIBERAL has coined a new term for what he doesn’t like about today’s politics: “skybox liberalism.”

I prefer the armed variety to the skybox variety, myself.

JOURNALIST ROBERT YOUNG PELTON appears to have been kidnapped.

WHY THE GERMANS AND FRENCH DON’T WANT WAR: Den Beste wonders if they’re afraid of what we’ll find out about them once Iraqi records become available.

UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus has some further thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mike Campbell takes on the French: “for them, it’s all about the oil.”

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Quick just had an Aha! moment.

KEVIN DRUM SAYS THAT Europeans aren’t anti-American — just anti-Bush. There’s something to that, as I recall a story in which a couple of European diplomats said that, sure, they’d back the U.S. against Iraq if Clinton were President, but not with Bush. . . .

But then I read stuff like Harold Pinter’s latest — which Chris Bertram rightly describes as scraping the bottom of the barrel, and what I see is the impotent seething of an entire failed intellectual tradition.

Let’s be honest here: there’s a whole crowd in Europe that can’t get over its disappointment that the wrong side won the Cold War, and that even lesser-path communism (that is, Euro-socialism) has been shown up as a failure. That’s what this is all about, really. And it’s contemptible — and morally indistinguishable from a bunch of fat Germans sitting around nostalgically singing the “Horst Wessel.”

Certain European political and intellectual leaders think that, because it’s militarily impotent, Europe should be a “moral superpower.” But unfortunately, they’ve committed unilateral moral disarmament, too.

For more, see this post by Eugene Volokh.

UPDATE: Reader Warren Ball sends this response to Pinter’s poem:

God Bless! Pinter?!?

Here he goes again,

The Crank in his angry tirade.

Chanting his ballads of hate

As he gallops across the world press

Appeasing the Enemy’s God.

The gutters are filled with his friends

The ones who couldn’t admit

The others refusing to see

The ones who are wasting their voices

The ones who’ve forgotten the past.

Their poems have couplets which suck.

Your head rolls into your hands

Your brain is a pool of mush

Your mind is stained with disgust.

Your eyes roll up and your nose

Sniffs only the pong of bad prose.

And all this foul air derives

From appeasing the Enemy’s God.

Well, it’s as good as the poem it’s parodying!

ANOTHER UPDATE: More poesy at Letter from Gotham.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader sends this one:

He wrote his poem, and see, he never learns

The use of meter, rhyme (and God knows what he earns).

Motion pens this crap, though not as bad,

As pundits clearly both are raving mad.

Heh. Of course, this all just makes me miss Will Warren.

STILL MORE: Tim Blair weighs in.