HERE’S A WEBLOG by a professional courtesan. And she doesn’t like the French, either.

I tell you, their reputation is really taking a beating here.

THE AMERICAN STREET SPEAKS: Reader Jim Hogue emails:

I heard the “American street” speak today in a supermarket in Dayton, Ohio and it said “F**K the French!”

I stop by the store after work to get a bottle of wine. While reaching for my usual Australian bottle of red plonk when I noticed that “Georges Duboeuf” “produced and bottled in France” has a Syrah and it was on sale. Not even thinking about anything in particular, I reached for the bottle when a black gentleman standing next to me, looking at the same wine said, “F**k the French, I wouldn’t drink it if it were free!” and picked up another bottle of wine, Aussie I think, glared at me and walked away.

I thought to myself, “yep, me too pal, with barbed wire” and grabbed an Aussie bottle myself.

I have never put much faith in boycotts, they don’t seem to work in this global world economy; you know the old question, what’s more American? A Chevy built in Canada or a Toyota built in Kentucky? But this experience tonight was thought provoking and “yeah”, I muttered to myself as I walked from the store, “F**k the French!” French (and German) anything is off my list.

I suspect a lot of people are starting to think this way.

A P.R. CAMPAIGN SO VAST: Just checked my mailbox and found not one, but two sample copies of Eric Alterman’s book in my afternoon mail — one with a return address from HarperCollins, and one from Perseus. Weird.

Is this proof of a vast, interconnected liberal-publishing conspiracy? I report, you decide.

Note to Alterman: hope they’re not charging these against your royalties. . . .

SOFIA SIDESHOW says that the antiwar movement is performing a valuable service.

MORE ON PRINCE CHARLES, from the Middle East Quarterly.

I guess this would matter more if, you know, Prince Charles did, but it’s here for those who are interested. Note, however, the article’s larger point.

ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR FRANCO-GERMAN DIPLOMACY: They’ve managed to get the Greeks to endorse Turkish self-defense!

(Via email from John Bono, who also blogged it here. Hey — if you blog stuff that you email me, include the link. I don’t always think to check.)

A READER ASKS: “Is it me? Or is this guy Saruman?”

It’s not you.

SMALLPOX SNIVELERS AND LINGUISTIC REBELS: Virginia Postrel has a lot of new stuff up at her blog weekly webzine.

SPINSANITY is disappointed with Michael Moore’s Oscar nomination.

UPDATE: John Scalzi offers Oscar analysis and predicts (scroll to near the end):

* Bowling for Columbine will win Best Documentary, because it’s the only documentary most of the Academy is aware of, and because Mike Moore loathes George Bush and so does Hollywood.

Makes sense to me.

BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET: The Politburo critiques The Guardian’s assessment of American politics.

DANIEL PIPES WRITES that the real debate is no longer over war:

For insiders, the main issue is the extent of U.S. ambition in the Arabic-speaking countries after that’s all done. This foreshadows the debate likely to dominate foreign-policy circles for decades: What should be America’s role in the world?

I think that French (not so much German) efforts to play spoiler here have as much to do with poisoning the well on this front as they do with the matter ostensibly at hand — though I agree with the increasing number of people in and out of the blogosphere who believe that the chief motivation may be covering up evidence of French (and German) collaboration with Saddam.

HOW CONVENIENT. Personally, I think this is evidence that Osama is dead, and that the CIA is supplying these tapes for purposes of its own. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that).

But now that he’s admitting a “partnership” with Iraq, it’s going to be tough for people who’ve been saying “you can’t even catch Osama” to deny this evidence. Heh.

LIE DOWN WITH DOGS, GET UP WITH FLEAS: David Corn reports on the banning of Rabbi Michael Lerner from an antiwar protest at A.N.S.W.E.R.’s behest. Now, I think that Lerner is a deeply silly man, but that’s not the point here. What’s most troubling is that he was banned on “anti-zionist” grounds, and that two of the “alternative” antiwar groups, supposedly cleaner than A.N.S.W.E.R., went along.

As best I can tell, this means either that (1) the “alternative” groups don’t have enough oomph to put together a rally without A.N.S.W.E.R., meaning that the Stalinists of A.N.S.W.E.R. really are the core of what passes for an antiwar movement in this country; or (2) they just don’t give a damn. Corn concludes:

Lerner was not the source of the problem; ANSWER was. This distracting episode shows what can happen when sincere do-gooders enter into deals with the ANSWER gang. If the reasonable and responsible foes of war are fortunate enough to have further opportunity to rally opposition to the conflict before it occurs, they ought to reconsider their alliance with the censors of ANSWER.

I’d call this episode more “revealing” than “distracting.”

SCOTT WRIGHTSON says that Morton Halperin isn’t making sense.

SHANTI MANGALA is praising unilateralism.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT (it was posted later than usual yesterday) here’s my thought experiment on how America would be acting if it really were an imperialist bully, over at GlennReynolds.com.

THIS POST BY MATTHEW YGLESIAS leads Aziz Poonawalla to send the following:

I did NOT mean to imply that YOU had accused Charles of anything, but rather that News of the World did. I am worried that others may also draw the same conclusion. Could you post the following clarification on your post?

“News of the World is whom I am defending Charles against. Their article insinuates that that Charles’ anti-war opinions (which reflects the general public opinion in Britain) are caused by his secret Arab (implied: Wahabi) sympathies. They took a photo from a cultural visit to a peaceful Muslim community (mine, BTW) that is fiercely loyal to the UK, and used it out of context to imply its exact opposite.”

It greatly bothers me that your generous favor of linking to my post could open you to unfounded criticism of something you did not do (and which apparently I was not careful enough to make clear in my own post). I apologise.

No apology needed. I didn’t misunderstand. (I didn’t think linking to Aziz’s interesting post was a “generous favor” — except maybe to my readers — either). I didn’t think my post said very much at all (it’s here) since it was pretty much a pure link, but whatever.

MICKEY KAUS’S JOHN-KERRY-IS-TWO-FACED MEME appears to be catching on. On the other hand, he bears a surprising resemblance to George Clooney in this photo.

[Isn’t that just another way of being “two-faced?” — Ed. Go away! Back to Kaus’s page!]

UPDATE: Some amusing George Clooney comments can be found here.

CHARLES WATSON (of Shouting Across the Pacific blog fame) has set up a page where you can view commercial satellite imagery of key strategic targets in Iraq.

APPARENTLY IT’S “BOOBIE WEEK” OVER AT AIMEE DEEP’S SITE.

INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE on U.S./German difficulties from Wax Tadpole, Eamonn Fitzgerald, AmiLand and PapaScott. Apparently, screwing the U.S. at the U.N. is all in good fun, but many German editorialists are genuinely horrified at the damage Schroeder is doing to NATO. Trouble is, it may be too late to fix it. In a political alliance, problems like this can be forgotten or papered over — but what good is a military alliance where you don’t trust your allies to make good in the clutches?

And forget the relationship with America. How must the Turks feel about the unwillingness of NATO to defend them?

Perhaps we should offer them NAFTA membership and a bilateral alliance.

I’M NOT SURE WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS:

CHICAGO — The head of a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to Osama bin Laden’s terror network pleaded guilty Monday to illegally buying boots and uniforms for fighting forces in Bosnia and Chechnya.

As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors dropped charges that Enaam Arnaout aided bin Laden. But they insisted he committed the offense, and said they agreed to the plea bargain to secure a conviction and Arnaout’s cooperation while sparing the government the expense of a trial.

“We are prepared to prove that he did support al-Qaida when that issue is addressed at sentencing,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said in Washington.

Possibilities: (1) the Al Qaeda link was too weak to take to trial; (2) this was in exchange for cooperation; (3) proving the Al Qaeda link would have exposed sources; (4) something else not immediately apparent.

UPDATE: InstaPundit’s Chicago legal correspondent, Jacob Corre, emails:

There is a simple legal answer to the “why the cheap plea bargain?” question, which is a particular version of your first scenario, with a possible element of the third. The government lost a major motion on Friay. It had made a “Santiago proffer” claiming that Aranaout was a coconspirator with Al Qaeda, and a prima facie showing whould have made the al Fahdl testimony “Al Qaeda link” evidence admissible against Aranaout at trial under the coconspirator exception to the hearsay rule. The district judge (I believe it was judge Susan Conlon) said the government had not yet made an adequate showing, though she gave them a chance to renew the motion at trial. Hence the plea bargain. It will be interesting to see whether the Al Qaeda stuff comes in through the back door at sentencing. (That is something that would concern me, on principled grounds. I don’t like using the sentencing phase to convict of uncharged offenses by means of enhancements to base offense levels.)

Yes, that makes sense.

JOAN SMITH WRITES that it’s about time the United States “got over” 9/11.

I guess, then, it’s time for the Palestinians to get over 1948, eh?

I won’t hold my breath waiting to hear that one, though. Not from her or her ilk, anyway.

ORCHID has resurfaced. Drop by her page and tell her to keep it up!

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