INSTAPUNDIT’S AFGHANISTAN PHOTO-CORRESPONDENT, Major John Tammes, sends this photo and reports:

I have attached a photo of one of our staff here at Bagram. Squadron Leader Richard Langley of the RAF Regiment (how non-unilateral of us, yes?). It is people like him that are helping make this unfortunate land a better place.

He also sends this:

I never thought in the course of my military career I would hear myself asking any of the following questions: “Hand-bombs? You mean grenades? OK, where did you put them?” or “Did the FBI come by and ask you about toilets yet?”

The first set of questions was to an employee (of East European extraction) of a contractor who told me he had found three “hand bombs” under a sandbag. I asked him where he put them, and after a merry little chase that led to three different people, I found them. The EOD (bomb squad) cleared that little mess up…

The second question was me asking a manager of the same contractor if some FBI agents based here had manage to get in touch with him about a little plumbing support. As soon as I uttered those words, and realized how odd they sounded, both the manager and I were laughing.

Sometimes I just shake my head in wonder here…..

Thanks, Major. And happy Memorial Day.

WAS IT ALL A SET-UP? Surely not. On the other hand, SayUncle is suspicious, too.

OUTSTANDING DEVELOPMENT in Europe!

UPDATE: Ann Althouse thinks that these figures are inflated.

U.S. NEWS: “Having overestimated his support, radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr backs down.” Read the whole thing, especially the final paragraph.

I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO GO TO BURNING MAN, and my brother and I even talked about it a few years ago. But the closest I’ll ever get is probably Brian Doherty’s new book, This is Burning Man, which tells the interesting story of how the festival came about and what lessons have been learned. (One is that pure anarchism only takes you so far.)

If, like me, you’re not likely to make it out there this year, you might like this book (which for some reason also showed up in my mail a while back): Drama in the Desert, a photo essay, with accompanying DVD, from Burning Man. I watched the DVD; it’s pretty cool.

SGT. STRYKER thinks that the political conventions should be more like science fiction conventions. I agree.

DAVID ADESNIK LOOKS AT a new poll from Iraq and pronounces it good news. Iraqis don’t like the CPA much, and they’d like to end the occupation, but they think that things are getting better and want democracy.

MARK STEYN:

It is already worth it for Iraq. There are more than 8,000 towns and villages in the country. If the much predicted civil war had erupted in any of ’em, you’d see it. Not from the Western press corps holed up with its Ba’ath Party translators at the Palestine Hotel, but from Arab television networks eager to show the country going to hell. They cannot show it you because it isn’t happening. The Sunni Triangle is a little under-policed, but even that’s not aflame. Moqtada al-Sadr, the Khomeini-Of-The-Week in mid-April, is al-Sadr al-Wiser these days, down to his last two 12-year-old insurgents and unable even to get to the mosque on Friday to deliver his weekly widely-ignored call to arms.

Meanwhile, more and more towns are holding elections and voting in “secular independents and representatives of non-religious parties”. I have been trying to persuade my Washington pals to look on Iraq as an exercise in British-style asymmetrical federalism: the Kurdish areas are Scotland, the Shia south is Wales, the Sunni Triangle is Northern Ireland. No need to let the stragglers in one area slow down progress elsewhere. Iraq won’t be perfect, but it will be okay – and in much better shape than most of its neighbours.

So I’ve moved on. I am already looking for new regimes to topple. . . .

In other words, don’t make the mistake of assuming that Bush’s poll numbers on Iraq have fallen because people want him to be more multilateralist and accommodating. On my anecdotal evidence, they want him to be more robust and incendiary.

And evidently John Kerry’s internal polling is telling him the same thing. Hence, his speech in Seattle on Friday.

It’s not just anecdotal, and it’s not just internal — just look at this poll:

30. When you hear about the continuing violent attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, are you more likely to think the United States should be pulling troops our of Iraq or that the United States should be using more force to help stop the attacks by Iraqi insurgents?

1. Pull troops out 32%
2. Use more force 52
3. (Neither) 9
4. (Not sure) 7

Several other questions in the poll are consistent. This suggests that among those who disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war there may be as many who think he’s too soft as too harsh. And I agree that Kerry’s new stance (noted here earlier) suggests that Kerry sees a market for toughness, or at least the appearance thereof.

Steyn thinks that Kerry is just being a weathervane, and that may be true. But you can learn things from watching weathervanes. Tim Blair, meanwhile, is hosting an interesting discussion.

MY SISTER SAW THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW today, and summarizes it thusly: “The world’s better off without people, with lots of special effects.” Julian Sanchez, meanwhile, says that the film isn’t likely to hurt the Bush Administration, as some have speculated: “George Bush should be buying people tickets to this movie. It’s preposterous from start to finish.” It seems clear that the film is nowhere near as good as The Poseidon Adventure, and with no better scientific grounding. Daniel Drezner has more reactions of a similar nature. And David Edelstein observes:

The sad part is that Emmerich really thinks he’s making a political statement, and he and his producers and actors are making the rounds blabbing about the movie’s message to the world. . . . Meanwhile, global-warming experts I know are already girding themselves for a major PR setback, as everyone involved in this catastrophe becomes a laughingstock. Is it possible that The Day After Tomorrow is a plot to make environmental activists look as wacko as antienvironmentalists always claim they are? Al Gore stepped right into this one, didn’t he?

Once again, the Gore endorsement looks like the kiss of death.

MICKEY KAUS: Kerry’s not a flip-flopper — he’s a straddler. A vital distinction!

UPDATE: Ed Holston thinks I’m shortchanging Kaus’s analysis, and has further thoughts.

AS RELIABLE AS A BOSTON GLOBE PHOTO FEATURE! Gary Farber reports on the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash.

Meanwhile, Jeff Goldstein wonders what happened to his pants. And Bill Quick thinks the drugs “must have been incredible.” But Walter in Denver wants to set the record straight.

THIS MEMORIAL DAY POST from Jeff Jarvis is worth reading.

SCOTT BURGESS DEBUNKS RACIST STEREOTYPES IN THE GUARDIAN: I wonder if someone will complain to the British authorities that The Guardian is peddling “hate speech?”

NICHOLAS KRISTOF WRITES:

I doff my hat, briefly, to President Bush.

Sudanese peasants will be naming their sons “George Bush” because he scored a humanitarian victory this week that could be a momentous event around the globe — although almost nobody noticed. It was Bush administration diplomacy that led to an accord to end a 20-year civil war between Sudan’s north and south after two million deaths.

If the peace holds, hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved, millions of refugees will return home, and a region of Africa may be revived.

But there’s a larger lesson here as well: messy African wars are not insoluble, and Western pressure can help save the day. So it’s all the more shameful that the world is failing to exert pressure on Sudan to halt genocide in its Darfur region. Darfur is unaffected by the new peace accords.

Indeed. William Sjostrom has some thoughts on why few people have noticed, or care. And here’s a Sudan blog that follows these issues.

SOME MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND READING: This piece by Jack Neely on The Great War, at home and abroad, is quite good. It also makes clear that we’re still cleaning up the messes made by diplomats nearly a hundred years ago. And some things sound surprisingly contemporary: “Months after the Armistice, there remained a strong anti-occupation insurgency in Germany, and 1919 bred rumors of German saboteurs making their way to America.” No comparable waves of anti-immigrant hysteria this time around, though.

SO WHAT’S GOING ON? Mickey Kaus suggests that the new Iraqi interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, was picked by Brahimi because his lack of grassroots support in Iraq ensures he won’t try to ensconce himself long-term.

But this BBC report says that Brahimi doesn’t like Allawi, and that he was forced to accede to his selection because the Iraqi Governing Council supported Allawi unanimously.

So which is it?

UPDATE: Looks like everybody else is as confused as I am!

TIM BLAIR, whose predictions of non-blogging turned out (like most such) to be overstated, is on a roll. Just keep scrolling.

BETTER ALL THE TIME: The Speculist’s regular roundup of good news is up.

KERRY GETS IT RIGHT:

In what his campaign billed as a major foreign-policy address, Kerry said that despite the fierce election-year politics, the country is standing together when it comes to preventing future attacks.

“This country is united in its determination to destroy you,” said Kerry of the terrorists, in the first of a series of foreign-policy speeches timed to coincide with Memorial Day and President Bush’s trip to Europe for D-Day ceremonies.

“As commander in chief, I will bring the full force of our nation’s power to bear on finding and crushing your networks. We will use every available resource to destroy you,” Kerry said in Seattle.

More like this, please.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS is defending the press from charges of engaging in behavior that some of its members have admitted (rooting for American defeat), while accusing me of something I didn’t do (inciting vandalism against the NYT).

Yglesias omits any mention of journalistic admissions (some collected or linked here) of delight at problems in Iraq, or even hope for a U.S. defeat. On the other hand, he accuses me of a “campaign to incite the defacement of New York Times distribution boxes.” However, if you read the post in question, you’ll see a crucial phrase undercutting Yglesias’ thesis: “Don’t do that!” (To his credit, Yglesias links the post, but he never explains how this could constitute incitement. However, though accusing me of advocating “mob violence,” he fails to note this post, in which I talk about how press irresponsibility may undermine press freedom in the context of changed First Amendment law, not peasants with pitchforks.)

Though Yglesias has gotten shriller since joining the Kuttner empire, this is unworthy of him, and I’m disappointed. However, his touchiness on this subject makes me think that perhaps the press realizes that its behavior is harming its reputation. And it is. Instead of blaming the messenger, perhaps a bit of soul-searching would be in order.

UPDATE: Matt is charged with violating Godwin’s law here and here. And reader John Mattaboni calls on me to note this straw man:

Yglesias: “The argument here – that everything is fine except the media coverage – is absurd on its face.”

It’s absurd on its face because no one is asserting that but him.

Good point. In fact, I’ve made the contrary observation before. For a more nuanced (it doesn’t compare me, Michael Barone, and Morton Kondracke to Hitler!), if still somewhat defensive, response to the press criticism, read this post by Jay Rosen.

HOWARD DEAN’S YEARRGH! SPEECH spawned some guerrilla web responses. Now Junkyard Blog has done the same with Al Gore’s MoveOn fulminations.

UPDATE: More on Gore’s outburst here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More guerrilla media here. And Mike Rappaport observes: “Al Gore has called for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld (and Condoleezza Rice). Given Gore’s track record, including the almost immediate implosion of Howard Dean after Gore endorsed him, this may be the best news for Rumsfeld in many days.”

And here’s a report from a parallel universe. Say, is this where Al Gore got the beard?

IF YOU’RE IN THE DENVER AREA, you might want to attend the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash. I wish I could be there. Then again, Stephen Green and Jeff Goldstein are bad enough influences on me when they’re two time zones away. . . .

MICHAEL TOTTEN:

Pat Buchanan is being an ass again.

Fisking him may be, as Gerard Van der Leun likes to put it, one of those Fish. Barrel. Bang! type of deals. But still it’s something that needs to be done every couple of months to reduce the asininity quotient in American letters by an iota.

So here we go.

Read the whole thing.

AZIZ POONAWALLA IS UPSET that the Dean Campaign seems to be selling user data to other organizations. There’s some debate in the comments as to whether that’s what’s going on.

SOME THOUGHTS ON FRITZ HOLLINGS’ PROBLEMS WITH THE JEWS: “Hollings may or may not be anti-Semitic, but he’s almost certainly a fool.” I’m glad that Fritz is leaving the Senate. The Democrats should be, too.