THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN IRAQ: Roger Simon points to something quite troubling — an effort to theocratize Iraqi family law.

I think that this is a dreadful idea. It seems that many Iraqi women do, too. The United States cannot (unfortunately) entirely force Iraq into the 21st century, but we should certainly stand in the way of clerics who want to force it into the 14th. The best thing that could happen would be for this to be voted down by Iraqis. But I think that our strategic interests require that Iraqi women not be subjugated, and I think we need to be sure, one way or another, that that doesn’t happen.

UPDATE: Read this related post on Sistani and the Shiites, too.

WINDS OF CHANGE has lots of interesting stuff, including its usual Iraq and War roundups, responses to Bush’s space speech, and much more.

MY COLLEAGUE JERRY PHILLIPS HAS DIED, after an unfortunately long and debilitating illness. I liked him very much, and we often had long and interesting conversations on Sundays, when we both tended to come in to the office. May he rest in peace.

Heres something I wrote about Jerry a few years ago.

THE WEB AND INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS: I have an interview with Audra Coldiron, of Audra and the Antidote, over at GlennReynolds.com — and be sure you follow the music links to listen to “The Highschool Song.” I recommend “Sugar Daddy,” too.

Lots of interesting observations on how the web works for music promotion, fan contact, and so on, from a musician who’s also a web designer.

UPDATE: Hey, you should buy her CD, too — she’s having a baby in May, and can probably use the money. . . .

DANIEL DREZNER has pretty much the definitive piece on Paul O’Neill’s Iraq claims, and subsequent backpedaling.

HAD COFFEE WITH SCOTT OTT, of Scrappleface fame. (I told you everyone comes to Knoxville eventually). He’s just as funny and engaging in person as he is on his blog.

THIS DENNIS MILLER INTERVIEW should be required reading for Democratic Party strategists.

SPEAKING OF EMAIL, a bunch of people sent me the Howard Dean spouse abuse affidavit story, too. I couldn’t quite see why it was news, and it seemed like a fairly obvious effort to stir up some dirt at the last minute. Now I learn from Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus that ABC ran with the story. I don’t see why they did.

UPDATE: It’s hardly in the same league, but the Wesley Clark testimony excerpted on Drudge isn’t quite the same when you read the whole thing, according to Tom Maguire.

A BUNCH OF PEOPLE keep emailing me this article by Terrence Moore on the decline of modern manhood. I wonder what Liam Flava would think?

JAMES LILEKS:

So: do you think the guy who wrote that article called up this site today, hoping he’d find a foamy-mouthed point-by-point reply?

Maybe. Who cares? Let’s talk about the stars.

Read the whole thing.

CERP UPDATE: Here’s the transcript of a briefing on the CERP funds in Iraq. And here’s a press release. Sounds good as far as it goes, but I’d like more information.

Perhaps the NYT Baghdad bureau could do a big story on this, if they can find the time. . . .

RECIPEBLOGGING: I had the opportunity to spend the day working at home today (rare lately, with all the appointments committee stuff going on) so I cooked something that takes a little time. It’s not much work: you just have to start it earlier. It’s somewhere between roasted chicken and coq au vin.

Ingredients: 3 large baking potatoes; 3 sweet potatoes; two large onions; one fryer hen; assorted spices

Preheat an oven to 350. Start with a nice fryer hen, about 3 lbs. Clean and then mist with olive oil. (If the InstaWife isn’t around to object that it contains fat, also rub with one tablespoon butter, which doesn’t add many calories, but does add a lot of flavor). Sprinkle with salt, pepper, paprika (lots), garlic, and a bit of sage. Place in a large, covered roasting pan.

Now chop the onions into quarters, and add to the roasting pan. Slice the potatoes (both kinds) into inch-thick sections and add to the pan as well. (Some peeled baby carrots are nice, too, but the InstaWife is allergic to carrots, so we skip those). Next, in a measuring cup add two ounces each of worcestershire, teriyaki, soy, and whatever wine you have around (I used the last of a bottle of Reynolds Merlot tonight). Pour over the chicken and vegetables, then cover the pan.

Put in the oven for about two hours and go do whatever you want — you’re done cooking. Two hours later, serve the chicken, which will be wonderfully tender and succulent, on a platter. Remove the vegetables and serve separately in a large serving bowl. Total prep time is about 15 minutes, there’s not much to clean up, and as a nice side effect, the house smells wonderful when your family gets home.

EDWARDS MOMENTUM GROWING IN IOWA? This comment from a Dean worker on Daniel Drezner’s blog says that it’s really happening.

UPDATE: More Edwards enthusiasm.

JEFF JARVIS reports on who The Week magazine has chosen (er, actually a panel consisting of me, Jeff, and Daniel Radosh chose) as blogger of the year.

A HYDROGEN-POWERED RX-8? That’s kind of cool, though I’m not overwhelmed with the environmental appeal of hydrogen cars — unless, you know, you’re getting the electricity to make the hydrogen from orbiting solar farms or some other clean source.

BUSH HAS GIVEN HIS SPACE SPEECH: Rand Simberg is unimpressed.

On the other hand, at the moment 63% (of over 40,000 respondents) say full speed ahead in the poll accompanying this MSNBC story. Like all Internet polls, it’s unscientific, of course, but the margin is huge and I supsec this suggests that it’s playing well among people who support space in general.

I’m lukewarm. I don’t think this is a dramatic enough departure from mismanagement as usual, and I suspect that the long timetable, for reasons I laid out earlier, will mean that a lot of money will be wasted. I certainly hope that I’m wrong.

THIS RATHER CONFUSED AND LAME ATTACK ON JAMES LILEKS will perhaps inspire a thousand Fiskings, meaning that this part, at least, will come true:

The invasion of Iraq has set a course that could well prove dangerous to us and the rest of the world, but happily it has provided fresh meat for the warbloggers to chew in the public square.

The piece is by Dennis Perrin, henceforth also known as “Mr. fresh meat for the warbloggers to chew on.” Or maybe not, as the piece may be too lame even for Fisking. As John Scalzi emails:

As best as I can tell, he’s criticizing James for airing his personal opinions on his personal site. And I’m all, like, yeah? And?

But they’re the wrong opinions! Er, even if it’s not clear from this piece why, exactly, they’re wrong. I guess if you’re a member of the right alt-weekly crowd you don’t have to explain such things.

UPDATE: Reader Luke Pingel is voting for “too lame to Fisk:”

Sheesh, Glenn, there’s nothing to Fisk. That guy’s article read like one of my 6th grade book reports – where I hadn’t actually paid enough attention the reading assignment and resented having to write the book report so much that I took my pre-pubescent anger out in the report while missing the whole point of the book and of the exercise. I mean this guy busts on Lileks for being verbose on his own website, all the while he’s wasting somebody else’s ink and paper with nothing to say.

Yep.

UPDATE: John Scalzi has now posted some comments of his own:

Perrin seems additionally shocked that James’ observations are off-the-cuff sorts of things, without footnote or journalistic kow-tows to impartiality — indeed, it’s almost as if they were written, you know, late at night or something. In short, Perrin’s huge news flash seems to be that James Lileks is writing like a blogger. On his blog, no less!

And I’m thinking, what does this Perrin fellow want? A cookie?

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Paul Miller notes some well-worn rhetorical tropes in Perrin’s piece.

And Fraters Libertas is providing context. Hugh Hewitt comments: “Mr. Perrin is so small a force as to not warrant a fisking. But let’s be fair: Let Mr. Perrin start a blog and see if anyone notices. Anyone at all.” Ouch.

Looks like the Northern Alliance has been activated!

MORE: Read this, from Mitch Berg, too.

STILL MORE: And here’s more still.

IMAM RAPPED FOR WIFE-BEATING BOOK:

In his book, Mustafa wrote that in disciplining a disobedient wife: “The blows should be concentrated on the hands and feet using a rod that is thin and light so that it does not leave scars or bruises on the body.”

Will any multiculturalists spring to his defense?

THE GERMAN PRESS is beginning to notice that Iraq isn’t a quagmire after all: “The Americans have eliminated all taxes and import customs for eight months, more than a half million cars have rolled into the country since the war ended. Under Saddam it was a strictly regulated matter and to get a car one needed a lot of money along with good connections.”

IF YOU’RE JUST READING INSTAPUNDIT, and not many other blogs, well then you need to branch out. I probably get more traffic than I deserve. Lots of other blogs get less. You can sample a bunch of top blog posts by visiting this week’s Carnival of the Vanities and following the links.

THE FUN JUST KEEPS COMING: Professor Bainbridge exposes Robert Reich’s Hardball whopper. But is it a lie if Reich is just too ignorant to know better? As I said before, what this really proves is that the punditocracy doesn’t watch debates. Does anyone, then?

NICE OBSERVATION on the Bush space proposal:

Setting up a permanent base on the Moon — Bush is expected to call for a return in about 10-15 years — and then reaching for Mars does not require any outlandish hike in NASA’s budget.

Beyond a modest 5 percent increase that Bush will reportedly announce Wednesday, getting people beyond Earth orbit means shifting the existing budget from arguably ineffective and unpopular programs — crippled shuttles and a leaking space station — into building a new generation of space taxis and other worldly habitats.

He’s also rather hard on space-critic Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute: “Marshall’s criticism is either uninformed or patently political, or both.”

Read the whole thing. I’ve got more observations on Mars missions over at GlennReynolds.com.

PAST STATEMENTS COME BACK TO HAUNT HOWARD DEAN AGAIN, as this letter urging President Clinton to take unilateral military action in Bosnia appears in USA Today:

We must give, and have given, this policy with our allies and with the United Nations every opportunity to work. It is evident, however, that the cost in human lives in allowing this policy to continue is too great. In addition, and perhaps more importantly for the United States, we are now in a position of ignoring, as many did in the 1940s, one of the worst crimes committed in history. If we ignore these behaviors, no matter where they occur, our moral fiber as a people becomes weakened. As the Catholic Church and others lost credibility during the Holocaust for not speaking out, so will the United States lose credibility and our people lose confidence in themselves as moral beings if the United States does not take action.

Since it is clearly no longer possible to take action in conjunction with NATO and the United Nations, I have reluctantly concluded that we must take unilateral action.

Hmm. Sounds a lot like the situation in Iraq under Saddam, except that with Iraq (1) the human rights abuses were worse; (2) the failures of the UN and the international community were greater; and, oh yeah, (3) there was a Republican president. I wonder which one of these factors made the difference in terms of Dean’s positions?

Meanwhile, this article fact-checks another Dean assertion:

The word “imminent” is key to differentiating Dean’s policy from the president’s decision to invade Iraq, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, policy director for Dean’s campaign.

Bush “sold the war on the basis of an imminent threat to U.S. security, and that has now been shown to be false,” Ben-Ami said. Since the threat from Iraq was not imminent, the administration could not properly justify the war, he said.

However, when Bush laid out the case for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address, he said the United States should not wait for an imminent threat.

“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent,” Bush said. “Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein … is not an option.”

“It’s imminent!” vs. “We can’t wait until it’s imminent.” Looks like a difference to me.

UPDATE: Greg Djerejian writes that Dean’s unilateralism would actually have made him more likely to support Dean — if it hadn’t come so late.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Simon says that the Internet will kill Dean just as it built him up:

Because this is Mr. Tell-It-Like It-Is and he isn’t. And he can’t. There’s too much information already on record. The Internet will be his great undoing. This is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Wait until summer. The same is true for Clark. In a sea of a million fact-checkers, his idiot vacillations seem all the more ridiculous. If he gets nominated, it is going to be a donnybrook.

Roger hopes for an Edwards nomination, which seems very unlikely to me. I’m not sure why — I keep watching him and saying “why isn’t he doing better?” So do a lot of my hardcore Democratic friends. Maybe he’ll pull of a surprise?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Daniel Drezner thinks Edwards is underrated.

JEFF JARVIS: “Every damned car stereo should have an input plug on the front so we could plug in our MP3 players and phones.” Preach it, brother.

AN AMERICAN MUSLIM WRITES:

As a Muslim in America I was already used to being treated with ignorance and suspicion and now I was increasingly sickened by the prospect of a reckless but inevitable war in Iraq. Of course, I was impossibly naive: the Middle East existed for me, like all things Islamic, in a sort of exotic orientalist ether of veiled women, the Ka‘ba and the Virgins of Paradise. I set off for Egypt convinced that, unlike America, there was no corruption and hypocrisy in the Arab Muslim world and that it bore no responsibility for its own appalling condition. People told me that Egypt was, like its Muslim neighbours, a ruthless dictatorship, but until I lived there I refused to admit this to myself. I wanted only to be an expatriate novelist, a dissident, and to enjoy the celebrity of being a convert in a Muslim country.

For a week I managed to persist in the happy belief that I was not living in a brutal police state. . . .

In Mecca, I found the same mixture of confusion, oppression and apathy I thought I had left behind in Egypt. But as in Egypt, nothing worked, even at the blessed hajj, for we were visitors not to an Islamic state but to yet another cynical Arab kleptocracy which only pretended to adhere to the true ideals of Islam. . . .

I fled home the next week, leaving all my illusions of the Arab world in my Cairo flat. I couldn’t wait to be in America again. On the long flight home, I promised myself I would never accept anything less than full democracy for my fellow Muslims in the Arab world or apologize for the tyranny that now masquerades as Islam.

Good.