HERE’S A PICTURE FROM LAKESHORE PARK, taken as I went for a run this morning. And, to the right, [LATER: Moved here to keep from slowing the page too much for dialup users] a picture of the Sterchi building downtown as I headed home from the Downtown Grill and Brewery this afternoon. It’s definitely trying to become spring.

One of my friends in Alaska once told me that there was an Inuit word that translated, roughly, as “being really mad because it’s freakin’ April and it’s still freakin’ winter!” February in Knoxville isn’t the best time of year here, but it was 65 and sunny again today, and while there weren’t leaves on the trees or flowers (well, not many of them, anyway) it at least feels like spring is on the way. And it’ll be here in a week or two.

Back when I was in Elementary School I used to resent the lame “signs of spring” and “signs of fall” type assignments I’d get. (Remember ironing leaves between sheets of waxed paper?) Now I look for that sort of thing on my own.

Luckily, the signs of spring are everywhere now.

UPDATE: Reader Aleta Jackson sends this picture taken from her office window — it’s snowing in Mojave. And a reader asked that I post an enlarged version of the Lakeshore picture. You can find it here if you like.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Several people email to ask what camera I used to take those pictures. It was the Toshiba. The Sterchi photo was on the maximum quality setting; the Lakeshore photo is on “medium.” It’s not one of the high-end cameras that I’ve been writing about, but it’s surprisingly good. My only real criticism is the lack of an optical viewfinder — there’s an LCD display on the back, and another one behind an eyepiece, but I’m enough of a traditionalist that I find it vaguely disquieting, although it works fine this way.

I’M HERE AT THE DOWNTOWN GRILL AND BREWERY, taking advantage of their free wireless internet to finish up my TechCentralStation column. (It’s savaging the Administration for their cheesy behavior with the Bioethics council, a topic I’ve hit on before. It’ll probably run tomorrow.)

They brew on Sundays, which is kind of cool. I used to be a homebrewer, but haven’t made any beer in several years. There’s less reason to, with the proliferation of excellent brewpubs with free wireless Internet!

I wonder if there were people who feared brewing technology when it was new? “They put in water and stuff, and out comes beer, which alters your consciousness. It’s evil magic!”

Actually, I’m pretty sure that there were people like that. Would Leon Kass have been one of them, had he lived back then? I’m just, you know, asking.

UPDATE: Several readers have noted that brewing was responsible for civilization. Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t opposed by small-minded people at the time.

THE CALIFORNIA DEBATES get a negative review from Wonkette.

UPDATE: And James Lileks suggests a followup question for Elizabeth Bumiller, along with some pointers to Kerry on what he should answer if he gets asked this next time.

DAVID BERNSTEIN points out a “nonapology apology” by Rep. Corrine Brown, for the racist remarks mentioned here earlier. Bernstein: “How about a little outrage that Rep. Brown can’t just say she finds the policy stupid, but needs to racialize her criticism?”

JACK NEELY has an interesting story about ex V-Roy Scott Miller’s Amtrak-based multicity musical tour.

And, in a bonus for journalistic trivia buffs, a chance meeting reveals the fate and whereabouts of Wes Yoder, the New York Times stringer involved in the Rick Bragg scandal last year.

ANTIAMERICANISM HASN’T BEEN ENOUGH to save Gerhard Schroeder from an electorate that’s unhappy with him for many reasons:

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats were trounced in a regional election in the city-state of Hamburg seen as a key test for his center-left government, exit polls said.

I think it’s a trend:

The Hamburg defeat follows three landslide defeats in major states last year. Further losses this year and next would weaken Schroeder in the run-up to the next general election in 2006.

Gee do you think? What’s unfortunate is that his economic-reform package, though probably inadequate, represents at least some recognition of economic reality. German voters seem even less willing to face economic reality than to accept international political reality.

UPDATE: More on Germany’s problems with reality, here.

I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU that Randy Barnett is a Constitutional Law “rock star” — but now he’s started hanging out with Elton John and discussing libertarianism with Clint Eastwood.

ARISTIDE IS OUT and an “international force” is on its way in. Given that the only period of (relatively) good governance Haiti has enjoyed was when it was under the control of the United States, it’s hard for me to be optimistic about its long-term prospects, but this is at least a short-term improvement and it was a necessary precondition to any long-term improvement.

I expect that Caribpundit will have more as the situation develops.

GOD HATES SHRIMP: But I don’t.

UPDATE: More (of what, I’m not entirely sure. . . .) here.

THE BIG HEIST: Roger Simon — who has been following the oil-for-food scandal closely — has some comments on the New York Times story mentioned below:

Let us hope this is only the beginning and I think it is because I suspect from the research revealed in her piece that there is a lot more to come. Good. We’re waiting. Since this may be among the Biggest Heists of All Time, if not the biggest, we need to know as many facts as possible.

He has an interesting proposal about what to do to prevent United Nations corruption in the future, too.

UPDATE: More here, including this spot-on observation:

Obviously, it was those who supported the war to remove Saddam Hussein that could justifiably have used the slogan “no blood for oil” against the opponents.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader sends this interesting observation:

The New York Times article this morning on Iraq’s Oil for Food program mentions Glencore but conveniently leaves out that this is the new name for Marc Rich’s Swiss Trading Company. Just Google, Marc Rich + Glencore and look at all the matches. Do you think that the New York Times did not want to mention that the recipient of Clinton’s most famous pardon was buying Iraq oil and kicking back to Saddam?

Hmm. Well, the Times story does say that:

Iraqi records, for example, show that Glencore, a Swiss-based trading company that was one of the most active purchasers of Iraqi crude, paid $3,222,780.70 in surcharges. But the company said in a written statement that “it has at no time made any inappropriate payments to the Iraqi government” and “had no dealings with the Iraqi government outside the U.N. approved oil-for-food program.”

So Glencore’s denying the kickbacks, for what that’s worth. But this story from Forbes seems to indicate that Marc Rich isn’t associated with Glencore anymore:

After more battling, Rich left his namesake firm in 1993, which was later renamed Glencore and remains one of the world’s largest commodity dealers. Rich got back to business in late 1995 with the Marc Rich Group.

So it sounds as if Glencore and Rich no longer have a connection, and haven’t had one for quite a while, which would certainly explain why the Times doesn’t make one. Am I wrong here?

ARMED LIBERAL NOTES A DEAFENING SILENCE where Rep. Corinne Brown’s racist comments are concerned. (Kevin Drum is a notable exception.) He writes:

Someone explain to me how I can demand, with a straight face, that Dixiecrat Trent Lott or Jew-baiter (and MBNA shill) James Moran be punished when she isn’t, or how I can give moral – as opposed to political – standing to those who only bust one side for the same crime.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Ed Cone has more thoughts on racism and double standards.

HERE’S MORE ON KERRY’S WAR RECORD:

No one denies Mr. Kerry’s four bemedaled months in “Swiftboats” or his seven-months’ service as an electrical officer on board the USS Gridley, during its cruises back and forth to California, or even his months as an admiral’s aide in Brooklyn, before he was able get out of the Navy six months early to run for office.

Taking a look at Mr. Kerry’s much-promoted Vietnam service, his military record was, indeed, remarkable in many ways. Last week, the former assistant secretary of defense and Fletcher School of Diplomacy professor,W. Scott Thompson, recalled a conversation with the late Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. that clearly had a slightly different take on Mr. Kerry’s recollection of their discussions:

“[T]he fabled and distinguished chief of naval operations,Admiral Elmo Zumwalt,told me — 30 years ago when he was still CNO —that during his own command of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam,just prior to his anointment as CNO, young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass,by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets.‘We had virtually to straitjacket him to keep him under control,’ the admiral said. ‘Bud’ Zumwalt got it right when he assessed Kerry as having large ambitions — but promised that his career in Vietnam would haunt him if he were ever on the national stage.” And this statement was made despite the fact Zumwalt had personally pinned a Silver Star on Mr. Kerry.

A lot of people are all over Kerry about various Vietnam-related issues, but personally, I think it’s shameful that anyone would ever criticize a former Naval officer who won a Silver Star over his positions on Vietnam.

UPDATE: BlackFive has more thoughts on medals.

Also, via this post at Rkayn, read this story on a related topic.

SPRING IS SPRINGING here. It was sunny and 65 degrees, and my bulbs are coming out of the ground even as the last patches of Thursday’s snow melt. (I shot this with the Toshiba and, inspired by SmokyBlog, applied the PhotoShop “brushstrokes” filter.)

I don’t use PhotoShop much. For simple cropping and brightness/contrast editing (about all I do for the quickie photos I tend to post here), I use an elderly (and cheap!) program called MicroGrafx Picture Publisher. It’s not as good as PhotoShop, but I can open it, crop, adjust contrast and brightness, size, and save as a .jpg in about the same amount of time that it takes for PhotoShop to load. (Okay, not quite, but it seems that way). I do like PhotoShop’s “fill flash” setting, though. You can see an example of it in the photo of the InstaWife I posted here at the TypePad test blog.

UPDATE: A very cool gallery of photos from a Marine aviator, here. Shot with a Sony DSC-F707 digital camera. There’s a lot of very impressive stuff in his portfolio — just keep clicking.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Libelling Lincoln?

BEIJING WON’T LIKE THIS:

More than 2.5 million people joined hands to form a 500-kilometre (310-mile) human chain stretching the length of Taiwan in a huge anti-China protest ahead of the island’s presidential elections next month, organisers said.

I don’t know how much of it is posturing, but this confrontation seems to be heating up.

IT’S WORKING:

Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi says he gave up his plans to develop weapons of mass destruction, because such weapons would have exposed Libya to danger, rather than protect it.

(Via World Wide Rant). Even some Bush critics are noticing:

As someone who was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and still has mega-doubts about the “region building” talk coming out of the Bush folks and neocons, I have to admit that Gadhafi’s shift is clearly linked to Bush’s adventurous foreign policy (as are other positive developments throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world).

Indeed.

GOOD QUESTION: “What good is a Republican Senate on Second Amendment and gun use issues if it keeps falling for the peddled myths of the gun control movement?”

A READER NOTES that John Kerry’s 1971 Vietnam book is selling used on Amazon for $595. Wow. [That buys a lot of cookware! — Ed. You said it. I think I’ll wait for the GOP-sponsored free downloadable version. Though that probably won’t bring down the used-book price much.]

WORD HAS IT that tomorrow’s New York Times will have an in-depth look at the oil-for-food program and where the money went. That should be interesting.

UPDATE: It’s already on their website now. Excerpt:

Iraq’s sanctions-busting has long been an open secret. Two years ago, the General Accounting Office estimated that oil smuggling had generated nearly $900 million a year for Iraq. Oil companies had complained that Iraq was squeezing them for illegal surcharges, and Mr. Hussein’s lavish spending on palaces and monuments provided more evidence of his access to unrestricted cash.

But the dimensions of the corruption have only lately become clear, from the newly available documents and from revelations by government officials who say they were too fearful to speak out before. They show the magnitude and organization of the payoff system, the complicity of the companies involved and the way Mr. Hussein bestowed contracts and gifts on those who praised him.

I don’t believe this:

United Nations overseers say they were unaware of the systematic skimming of oil-for-food revenues. They were focused on running aid programs and assuring food deliveries, they add.

Those guys are either lying, or dumb as rocks. The story barely touches on the most interesting aspect of this — Saddam’s use of this money to purchase opposition to American war efforts from politicians and governments. For that matter, the UN has a lot of explaining to do.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Wagner James Au emails that this is the money quote:

In the high-flying days after Iraq was allowed to sell its oil after 10 years of United Nations sanctions, the lobby of the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad was the place to be to get a piece of the action.

That was where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher, courtesy of the Iraqi president or one of his aides, representing the right to buy one million barrels or more of Iraqi crude.

(Emphasis added.) Au asks: “Which journalists? Which actors? Which political figures? Seems to me that the author, Susan Sachs, suspects more here than she’s revealing…”

Let’s hope that those names will appear in the next installment.

I’VE ALREADY READ Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner’s new book, Hollywood, Interrupted — I got an advance copy when I blurbed it — and all I can say is that my already-low respect for Hollywood fell even further. Sheesh.

VIDEO OF A NORTH KOREAN PRISON CAMP — via the NKZone blog. Video links here.

MORE MUGABE:

President Robert Mugabe’s government has set up secret camps across the country in which thousands of youths are taught how to torture and kill, the BBC has learned.

But Chirac treats him like a statesman.

UPDATE: Tim Blair has more.

TOM MAGUIRE: “If a Gore advisor thinks you have an authenticity problem, you have an authenticity problem.”

IRANIAN RADIO is reporting that Osama has been captured. I’m skeptical, but we’ll see.

UPDATE: More Pentagon denials. I’m inclined to believe them, though I’d rather believe the Iranians. I like the thought of Osama in jail, spilling the details of Al Qaeda operations.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Capt. Ed. thinks that the Iranians are trying to game the U.S. elections by creating conspiracy theories that will be gobbled up by gullible Dems.

I’m not sure this will hurt Bush.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, there’s this report from VOA, suggesting that a capture is imminent. (Via Moderate Voice).

SOFTWARE WARFARE: Eugene Volokh (who, besides being a law professor of note, is actually something of a software mogul himself) has some cogent warnings that I hope the right people will read and heed.