WAS PAUL HARVEY the original blogger? Hmm. . . .

PRO-WAR PROTESTERS ARE FINALLY CATCHING ON to the importance of costumes. No stilts yet, but check out the guy dressed as Bush carrying the heads of Osama and Saddam on a platter. In the old days, if you saw a guy in a Bush mask, he just had to be a lefty protester. Now, you can’t be sure. That’s semiotic warfare for you . . . .

And it seems clear that talk radio is starting to do for the pro-war side what Stalinists are doing for the anti-war side:

Two weeks after antiwar demonstrators marched on the world’s capitals, a crowd of more than 7,000 gathered north of San Antonio on Saturday to salute U.S. troops.

Meanwhile, thousands more jammed into a downtown Houston plaza, cheering and waving flags, also to support the troops.

Both events were organized by radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc., the San Antonio-based media conglomerate.

Well, better conglomerates than communists.

UPDATE: Reader Lee Goldston emails:

Let me tell you that the weather here on Saturday was high 40s to low 50s, foggy and drizzling all day. Miserable.

If this paper reported 7,000, you can bet that was the most conservative crowd size estimate they could get.

Although there was a teaser about the story at the bottom of the front page, the story itself was below the fold on B 1.

Well, that’s miserable by San Antonio standards, but I’ll bet it was a lot nicer than Cleveland. Though it was much nicer here in Knoxville.

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT needs to get a clue on its reflexive anti-encryption stands. This article from The Register notes problems with the latest proposals:

One such proposal — which has been floated out many times before — is the idea of making a new crime out of using encryption in during the course of commission of a different and unrelated crime.

The language would create a new offense which would punish anyone who “during the commission of a felony under Federal law, knowingly and willfully encrypts any incriminating communication or information relating to that felony.” It defines encryption as referring to “the scrambling (and descrambling) of wire communications, electronic communications, or electronically stored information, using mathematical formulas or algorithms in order to preserve the confidentiality, integrity, or authenticity of, and prevent unauthorized recipients from accessing or altering, such communications or information.”

This is a bad idea.

A few preliminary observations: the proposed law applies to any federal felony, not simply terrorism or related offenses. And it punishes the encrypting of any communication related to the offense — not simply encrypting communications with the intention to conceal or obstruct the offense. It also takes an expansive definition of encryption to include not only encryption that is used to protect the confidentiality of the communication, but also encryption that may be used to authenticate — such as digital signatures.

If you order a book from Amazon.com and fail to pay state tax, the SSL session with Amazon supports a five year felony.

Federal prosecutors will love the, er, “flexibility” that this will give them. But it’s wrong, it’s cheesy, and it should never become law.

And the more that the Justice Department uses “anti-terrorism” as a slogan for grabbing more power against ordinary crimes, the more convinced a lot of people will become that the Justice Department isn’t serious about terrorism at all.

THEY WERE PLANNING ANTIWAR PROTESTS before there was even a war. And look who was doing the planning:

The organizers say the February rallies were first agreed upon at a small strategy session in Florence in November. But their roots go back to the days just after Sept. 11, 2001, when activists say they began meeting to map out opposition to what they anticipated would be the U.S. military response to the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

In Britain, according to organizer John Rees, several hundred activists first got together the weekend after Sept. 11. Most were from the hard core of the British left — the Socialist Workers Party, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the anti-capitalist organization Globalized Resistance, along with Labor Party legislators Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway. Within weeks, they had combined with representatives from two more important elements — Britain’s growing Muslim community and its militant trade unions. By October they had a name: the Stop the War Coalition.

I guess “Communists and Islamists Who Hate America” was already taken. It’s pretty obvious who’s behind this, and how little the agenda really had to do with “peace,” isn’t it?

UPDATE: I wonder if any of these marchers will write something like this thirty years from now?

THE SPONGEBOB BARBIE post is still generating email. This seems to have tapped a rich vein of, well, something.

MAX BOOT WRITES about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed:

He is only the latest senior al Qaeda cutthroat to be neutralized in the past year:

* Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter and trainer, was picked up in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

* Ramzi Binalshibh, part of the Hamburg cell, was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan.

* Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, organizer of the Cole bombing, was incinerated in Yemen by a Predator drone.

And all this while preparations for an Iraq war have been heating up.

Apparently, as he notes, Uncle Sam can walk and chew gum at the same time. He also observes:

Remember: Al Qaeda flourished in the ’90s – precisely when America was doing its utmost to appease the Arab world by sponsoring the Oslo peace process and limiting its response to terrorism to pinprick strikes. This only convinced the Islamists that America was ripe for attack.

And when the United States finally took firm action, by invading Afghanistan, there was no rejoicing in the Arab street and no sign of increased recruiting for al Qaeda. The prospect of spending the rest of their lives in Guantanamo Bay may even dissuade some of the more faint-hearted Islamists from taking up arms.

Whatever its impact on enemy morale, the conquest of Afghanistan definitely denied the terrorists an important base of operations. The ouster of Saddam Hussein will achieve the same purpose.

Yes. And momentum matters.

VANESSA JEAN ASKS SOME QUESTIONS that deserve answers.

LOTS OF INTERESTING NEWS OVER AT AFRICAPUNDIT. In particular, note this post about high-level cooperation — after 9/11 — with Al Qaeda by the governments of Liberia and Burkina Faso.

HOW BAD IS WHITNEY HOUSTON’S NEW RECORD? Bad enough that heads are already rolling. Interestingly, Aimee Deep reports that this was predicted by file-sharing numbers.

FROM BADASS to dumbass. Heh.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE:

Dozens of young Iranians have been detained for “unlawful actions” after using a website to arrange dates, officials say.

A militia commander said 68 men and women were arrested in the capital Tehran, according to a report by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna).

The Basij militia also detained the operators of the dating website, Irna said.

Correspondents say the Basij enforce Iran’s strict morality laws and often raid mixed parties and gatherings, but this is the first time an operation against internet users has been reported.

Pathetic. And futile.

WHY SCHROEDER KEEPS TRYING TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT:

BERLIN – Every week brings Germany more grim economic news. Bankruptcies hit a record high. Growth grinds to a halt. In Berlin 313,500 unemployed people chase an estimated 20,000 job openings. . . .

The postwar German economic miracle has run its course. Soaring labor costs and taxes, subsidies to prop up the former East Germany, foreign competition, an aging population and a global economic slowdown have come together to pull the economy down.

There’s more. Schroeder’s strategy doesn’t seem to be working, though, as Schroeder’s party has suffered another electoral defeat:

More defeats for Schroeder’s SPD

Communal elections in Germany’s northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein have delivered more hefty defeats for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats. Compared to polls in 1998, nearly a third of voters abandoned the Social Democrats on Sunday, leaving it on 29.3 percent, while Schleswig-Holstein’s CDU conservatives soared from behind to 50.8 percent. The Social Democrats came close to losing the mayorality in the port city of Kiel for the first time since 1946. That post is to be decided in a run-off on March the 16th. Federal opposition CDU leader Angela Merkel said the result for Schroeder was “disasterous”. Schroeder’s colleague, Schleswig-Holstein’s premier, Heidi Simonis urged party headquarters in Berlin to reassert itself. Four weeks ago the SPD lost heavily in Lower Saxony and Hesse states.

This loss isn’t comparable to that earlier one, of course, but it can’t be making Schroeder, or his party, happy. It isn’t all bad news, though, as Scott Hanson emails:

But there is also good news for Schröder. His singing double (the one who did the tax song a couple of months ago) is one of the favorites to become Germany’s nominee for the Eurovsion Song Contest.

Oh, I’m sure he’s celebrating that development.