TOM MAGUIRE has several interesting posts. Just keep scrolling.

THE XXIVth LEGION is defending America. This is my favorite bit. Yes, I am a hopeless geek.

How hopeless a geek am I? Hopeless enough that in high school two friends and I made complete Roman legionary kits (including hand-riveted “lorica segmentata” armor of the type you see in the photos above) for the Latin Convention. The equipment was pretty authentic, though our swords — bootlegged via a shop at Oak Ridge National Lab — were laser-cut series 440 stainless steel, making them the only part of our outfit that was clearly superior to the real thing. I don’t know what happened to mine, but it was quite a piece of metal. Thanks to reader Paul Music for sending these.

UPDATE: Hey, some people are making this stuff pay! This looks better than the stuff we made, but then for $500 it ought to.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This looks pretty cool. I’m pretty sure it’s the book I read in Junior High that got me interested in the subject.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Clyde Spicer emails: “I guess that post tells us how much times have changed. Today, if you tried to take a replica sword to a high school, you’d likely be expelled under the ‘zero tolerance’ rules that many districts have implemented.” Yeah. Jeez.

AUSTIN BAY is in Iraq, but he’s published this interview with former Sen. Bob Kerrey that he did just before leaving, in which Kerrey talks about what Iraq will look like in 20 years. In his email, Austin observes: “What’s interesting is Kerrey and I see Iraq in the same light, 20 years down the pike. The column captures maybe 20percent of the interview/discussion. I didn’t tell him I was going to Iraq. Probably should have in retrospect.” Sadly, Austin’s (or perhaps I should say Col. Bay’s) duties are getting in the way of firsthand reporting at the moment, but I hope that will change.

VARIOUS DISCUSSIONS AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE lead me to believe that some people are taking this whole blog thing a little too seriously at the moment.

A bit of catblogging seems like an appropriate remedy, and since Kevin Drum has abandoned his Friday-catblogging duties, I’m filling in tonight.

Meow.

LOSING WEIGHT BY EATING NOTHING BUT MCDONALD’S! And lower cholesterol, too!

(Via Countertop Chronicles).

MORE DEVELOPMENTS in the Catholic priest abuse scandal.

WILL THE NETWORKS SHOW THESE IMAGES OF THE PAUL JOHNSON BEHEADING? Probably not. Or only in a token fashion.

UPDATE: In a related matter, read this piece by Nick Schulz.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader wonders why I’m not making a bigger deal out of this. Well, as the Schulz piece notes, this is a case where a picture is worth 1000 words (at least).

Meanwhile, Tim Blair notes that some people are finding words to describe their feelings:

The Independent’s Andrew Gumbel looks on the bright side: “Is this the horror that will finally undo George Bush’s presidency?”

Sheesh.

AMIR TAHERI:

No terrorist movement in the past two decades has succeeded in overthrowing the state and seizing power for itself. This is in contrast with the experience of the previous decades that saw several terrorist movements, often disguised as revolutionary guerrilla movements, come to power on a wave of violence.

How did Algeria, Peru and other nations that have defeated terrorism managed to do so in the face of heavy odds?

The question is of interest to the latest victims of terrorism, including Saudi Arabia.

While Algerian, Peruvian and other experiences in fighting terrorism show important differences, they all have several key features in common.

The first of these is a psychological determination on the part of the ruling elites to stay the course. One central aim of the terrorist, of course, is to instill fear in society in general and the elite in particular. By refusing to be frightened, society and its leaders achieve their first victory against the terrorists.

This, of course, is easier said than done.

Indeed. There’s also this interesting bit:

In both Algeria and Peru, and to some extent even in Turkey and Egypt, the state decided to actually help the terrorists become fixed targets. In Algeria, for example, the anti-terror units deliberately stayed out of some areas, notably the Mitidja plain and the town of Blida, thus shooing the terrorists there. On some occasions the security forces even refused to intervene to stop terrorist operations that took place under their noses, so to speak. The idea was to convince the terrorists that they had a safe haven. In time this meant that the terrorists became fixed targets while the security forces enjoyed the advantage of mobility and the choice of the time to attack.

I wonder if that’s what we’re trying to do in Fallujah?

VARIOUS PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW what I think about Andrew Sullivan’s announcement that he won’t support Bush, and the hostile reactions it’s gotten.

I don’t have much to say about it, really. If you read a lot of lefty blogs, you know that people write nasty stuff about me all the time. I live with it. Interestingly, unlike (apparently) Andrew, I get less hatemail when I criticize Bush / Ashcroft / etc. than when I criticize the left. But then I’ve never waxed as rapturously about Bush as Sullivan has in the past. Maybe that makes a difference.

Andrew’s position seems to me to be driven largely by Bush’s support of the (non-starter) Federal Marriage Amendment. As someone who supports gay marriage pretty strongly (though less so than Andrew, I imagine) I can understand his disappointment. But it seems to me that Bush has done the least he realistically could have done on this issue, only supporting the Amendment when it became obvious that it wasn’t going anywhere, and then offering only token support. And though you can draw a distinction between Bush and Kerry on this issue, it’s not much of one, really. But obviously it seems bigger to Andrew than it does to me.

There are plenty of things that I disagree with Bush on — stem cell research (and pretty much all other biotech/bioethics issues), abortion, gay marriage, the Drug War, etc. If it weren’t for the war, I’d probably be on the fence. But I can’t take Kerry seriously on the war, and for me it’s the number one issue. For Sullivan, I guess, it’s not. I had thought that it was.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF AND ED DRISCOLL have thoughts on historical revisionism.

UPDATE: Brian Dunn has some thoughts, too: “Saddam had longstanding ties to terrorists including al Qaeda, sponsored terrorism, carried out terrorism, and cheered on terrorism. The press likes to pretend that this is a new argument invented by the Bush administration to trump up reasons for war, forgetting their own reports in the 90s about such connections and the Clinton administration’s claims of such connections.”

FOR THE VARIOUS HOMESICK KNOXVILLE EXPATS OUT THERE, here are a couple of pictures, both taken at Concord Park near the Yacht Club. Hope you enjoy them!

MY SPACE-BLOGGING has been miserably deficient lately. But The Belmont Club, Dale Amon, and Rand Simberg are on top of the situation. That’s the beauty of the blogosphere. There’s always somebody to pick up the slack!

UPDATE: Aleta Jackson emails to note that Mojave Airport is now officially licensed as a spaceport by the FAA.

JAMES MOORE has more on Darfur and the Sudan, and suggests that the U.S. and U.K. may be contemplating military action. He adds: ” I personally support declaring the situation a genocide and taking immediate military action.”

Based on what I know, so do I. He adds:

Finally, for those who are focused on the weaknesses of the UN system and the oil for food scandal–the scandal of the UN response to this genocide seems to me to be equally damning. Sudan sits on the human rights council, Kofi Annan says nice words but appears not willing to either use his bully pulpit to rally world opinion, nor to use his formal powers to take on the Arab, African, and Russian governments that are said to be blocking stronger action in the Security Council.

As those who know me realize, I am certainly not a unilateralist. On the other hand, this case shows why unilaterial action is sometimes the only way to deal with a problem while it still can be meaningfully addressed.

Indeed.

UPDATE: War Nerd has a column on Darfur, where things are bad enough to penetrate even his hardboiled cynicism.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s John Kerry’s statement on Darfur. (Via Cockalorum).

MICKEY KAUS is slamming CBS’s John Roberts for misrepresenting what the 9/11 Commission found.

This is egregious, but so is most of the coverage of the Bush/Saddam/Al Qaeda issue. Including Slate’s.

UPDATE: Jason van Steenwyk wonders: “Why are respected news organizations letting idiots cover the White House beat?”

THE PROBLEM IS SPREADING: As I’ve noted in several posts below, Slate’s “Bushism” and “Kerryism” features have come in for a lot of criticism for being sloppy, misleading, and just plain dumb.

Now the “Whopper of the Week” feature is getting the same treatment. What’s going on at Slate?

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has some thoughts on Slate’s problem: “Part of the problem, I think, is precisely that these are regular columns, with constant plots — not just constant subject matters (the war, the economy, or whatever else), but constant points (Bush misspoke, Kerry spoke in too complex a way, someone lied). This means that their authors are constantly looking for something that fits the plot. That’s not a good recipe for sound, thoughtful journalism.”

Nope.

UNSCAM UPDATE: An interesting development:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) has received a subpoena from a federal prosecutor regarding the UN-run oil-for-food program in Iraq, the world’s No. 1 publicly-traded oil company said on Friday.

The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on whether it has opened a probe of the program. . . . UN officials said they believed the subpoena to Exxon Mobil was the first indication that the federal prosecutor’s office might be looking into the program.

Hmm.

UPDATE: Brian Erst thinks this is just the news hook the media have been waiting for:

This may be just the hook that will prompt the major news outlets to start fronting this story. Now that it can be spun as a major scandal involving US oil companies, there’s a STORY here! It can be linked to Enron and Halliburton and other completely unrelated corporate malfeasance and shown to really be an “American failing” of “corporate greed”, not the inevitable result of unelected, unaccountable, readily-corruptible elites being given access to vast sums of money. Besides, the UN diplomats involved throw, and are invited to, the BEST parties in Manhattan. What could be wrong with them?

I’m shocked by his cynicism, since the story makes clear that Exxon wasn’t involved. Let’s see if he’s right.

MARK STEYN: “I suggested to him, as politely as I could, that, when Canadian nationalism is too strong meat for you, you know you’ve got a problem.”

STEPHEN GREEN offers an interesting roundup of links.

HMM. THIS REPORT puts a different spin on the week’s news:

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) – Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence after the September 11 attacks that suggested Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was preparing attacks in the United States, President Vladimir Putin said Friday. . . .

“After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services, the intelligence service, received information that officials from Saddam’s regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests,” Putin said.

He said the United States had thanked Russia for the information. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials.

“It’s one thing to have information that Saddam’s regime is preparing terrorist attacks, (but) we didn’t have information that it was involved in any known terrorist attacks,” Putin said in the Kazakh capital Astana after regional economic and security summits.

(Emphasis added.) That’s the difference between revenge and preemption. Bush’s strategy was preemptive, for which he was criticized at the time. And this information seems rather more significant than the 9/11 Commission’s claim that it can’t prove a Saddam connection to the earlier attacks. It will, however, receive far less media attention, since there’s no anti-Bush angle.

UPDATE: Lorie Byrd wonders what would have happened if we hadn’t invaded Iraq, and there had been further attacks. Would Democrats be calling for Bush’s impeachment?

Yep. And probably noting how tough Clinton was on Saddam, what with his signing the Iraq Liberation Act and calling for regime change and everything.

UPDATE: More thoughts here. Plus this observation: “I don’t trust Putin in the slightest. But if he’s lying that’s interesting and if he’s telling the truth, that’s interesting.”

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This piece by James Joyner is worth reading, too.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh.

DONALD SENSING has thoughts on Stepford wives, and husbands. Once again, Hollywood seems to be behind the times.

OPPOSITION TO THE WAR ON DRUGS from the right continues to grow. The latest manifestation is Joel Miller’s book, Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs Is Destroying America. I had hoped that the war on terror would bring a bit more focus, but so far it hasn’t.

The response, of course, is that terrorists often make money via the drug trade. But they do that because it’s illegal. At the very least, legalizing soft drugs like marijuana would concentrate resources. That nobody is thinking about that speaks poorly for the Administration — and for the political establishment in general, since the Democrats haven’t been any better.

WALTER SHAPIRO writes that Michael Moore’s new film is full of “cheap shots” and “far closer to heavy-handed propaganda than to art.” Say it ain’t so!

I hope that Shapiro will review this film about Michael Moore when it’s out, by way of comparison.

LOTS OF INTERESTING POSTS at Asymmetrical Information.

PEAKTALK IS BACK: Apparently, blog fatigue can be cured. But we knew that already. . . .

INTERESTING PIECE ON RADICAL ISLAM from Pakistan Today:

In an Islamist controlled society, debate is forbidden, difference of opinion and dissension is considered a perversion, and modern education a threat. Individual reasoning is forbidden. And expression of doubt about any aspect of the “religiously mandated” social, cultural and political sociology is barred as blasphemy.

Anyone attempting to challenge the status quo is instantly declared an apostate. An Islamist mind is a possessed mind – a condition that compels him or her to live to destroy others. An Islamist does not believe in living side by side with anyone who does not conform to his or her ideology. His life is a constant Jihad (holy war) to overwhelm and eradicate infidels.

No one is more threatened by radical Islam than the Muslims themselves. That’s why some of us who have somehow escaped the Islamist control and influence have taken upon ourselves to expose the scourge and by doing so exterminate it. As a Muslim, it is my experience and observation that radical Islam can only be defeated by providing Muslims a basis of comparison – by informing them of the truth about the others. In an Islamist controlled society, Muslims see Jews, Christians and Hindus through a cleric’s lens.

I hope this finds a wide readership among its target audience.