JAMES LILEKS DELIVERS A ROYAL FISKING: “Patrick Stewart has now become T. J. Hooker. I know him not.”

And without even a Heather Locklear to make him palatable.

HERE’S MORE ON NORTH KOREA: And it’s very disturbing.

HEY, maybe the Plame affair isn’t as bogus as Joseph Wilson made it seem. Here’s a report that the investigation is focusing on John Hannah and Scooter Libby. Stay tuned.

IT SEEMS CLEAR that, in spite of the actual evidence, the antiwar line — parroted by the media — is that Bush lied to get us into war by claiming that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States.

Never mind that (1) He said the opposite; and (2) Most of those saying “he fooled us” both believed that Iraq had WMD and nonetheless opposed the war. The point is to hope that people miss that if it’s repeated often enough.

But for those interested the, you know, truth, here’s a link-rich post that ties it all together.

UPDATE: Belgravia Dispatch has more on this.

SOME FOLKS at the Converging Technologies Bar Association just invited me to their conference on nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. I wasn’t able to attend, but it looks interesting.

FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY: Now it’s Slashdot readers taking on the BBC for bias and inaccuracy.

I MENTIONED NORTH KOREA’S CONCENTRATION CAMPS YESTERDAY: Now I see at The Corner that Anne Applebaum recommends these folks as a worthwhile outfit trying to do something about them.

MICKEY KAUS echoes my earlier Nixon point regarding the Bush Administration’s spending:

Remember that the silliest excesses of big government, including the double indexation of Social Security benefits, occurred not under a Democratic president but under Nixon.

Of course, it did get Nixon re-elected. . . .

JANET JACKSON IS BEING SUED OVER HER BREAST by a woman here in Knoxville. Seems rather extreme to me. The Smoking Gun has the complaint.

THE AP IS RECYCLING THE “IMMINENT THREAT” LINE YET AGAIN:

CIA Boss: Iraq Not Called Imminent Threat

By KATHERINE PFLEGER WASHINGTON (AP) – In his first public defense of prewar intelligence, CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday that U.S. analysts had never claimed Iraq was an imminent threat, the main argument used by President Bush for going to war.

I’ve mentioned this before, but let’s repeat USA Today’s excellent summary of this issue:

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.”

(Emphasis added.) I guess, as SpinSanity warned, a bogus quote is “hardening into fact.”

YOU MEAN THERE WAS ANOTHER POLITICAL BREAK-IN IN 1972? Go figure.

MARK STEYN WRITES that those of us who criticized the concept of a “war on terror” were, well, wrong:

We assumed “war on terror” was a polite evasion, the compassionate conservative’s preferred euphemism for what was really going on – a war against militant Islam, which, had you designated it as such, would have been harder to square with all those White House Ramadan photo-ops and the interminable presidential speeches about Islam being a “religion of peace.”

But here’s the interesting thing. Pace the historian, it seems you can wage war against a phenomenon. If the “war on terror” is aimed primarily at al-Qaida and those of similar ideological bent, it seems to have had the happy side-benefit of discombobulating various non-Islamic terrorists from Colombia to Sri Lanka.

This isn’t because these fellows are the administration’s priority right now, but rather because it’s amazing what a little light scrutiny of international wire transfers can do. . . .

He seems to be right.

BE VERY AFRAID: Tim Blair will be providing blog coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions.

I LINK TO AUSTIN BAY’S STUFF A LOT because I think he’s really smart. How smart is he? Well besides the recent columns on intelligence linked below, try reading this column from January 23, 2001 on “What’s Keeping Donald Rumsfeld Up Late At Night?” The answer — fear of intelligence failures:

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked if he could name “one thing” that “kept him up at night” more than any other specific threat, terror, or trouble the Pentagon confronts.

Rumsfeld’s answer was “intelligence.”

Even if freighted with James Bond associations, as answers go, “intelligence” doesn’t have a lot of Hollywood impact. The tv squawk shows didn’t pick it up. If they noticed, Oprah and Geraldo yawned.

But Rumsfeld’s response fingered what is the major American foreign policy and defense weakness, even in this era of extraordinary American economic, political, and military strength. . . .

America’s “intelligence vulnerability” is intricate, detailed, and complex. The penalty for intelligence failure, however, is often cruelly simple. In the defense business what you don’t know will kill you. To draw an even finer bead, what you know but understand poorly, or what you know well but fail to use decisively, will also cost you in blood, money, and political capital.

Here’s a quick sketch of Rumsfeld’s worry. “Intelligence” isn’t simply data, it’s a dynamic process that includes: (1) creating and maintaining collection capabilities (with assets from human spies to spy satellites); (2) retrieving the info in a way that’s timely and secure; (3) assessing source reliability; (4) assimilating often contradictory information into a meaningful “pattern,” which means interpretation that is more art than science; and (5) convincing decision makers (whose minds may be less than open) to act on the assessments.

Read the whole thing.

ROGER SIMON is connecting more dots.

CHUCK SIMMINS REPORTS that President Bush recognized Chief Wiggles in a speech this morning.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s the speech link, and here’s the key bit:

Our people in uniform understand the high calling they have answered because they see the nation and the lives they are changing. A guardsman from Utah named Paul Holton has described seeing an Iraqi girl crying and decided then and there to help that child and others like her. By enlisting aid through the Internet, Chief Warrant Officer Holton had arranged the shipment of more than 1,600 aid packages from overseas. Here’s how this man defines his own mission: “It is part of our heritage that the benefits of being free, enjoyed by all Americans, were set up by God, intended for all people. Bondage is not of God, and it is not right that any man should be in bondage at any time, in any way.” Everyone one in this room can say amen to that.

Amen, indeed.

WESLEY CLARK AND JOHN EDWARDS will both be in Knoxville tonight and tomorrow. I kind of doubt I’ll make it, as I just found out about this.

UPDATE: Doug “InstaLawyer” Weinstein is trying to get me to go to Edwards tomorrow night. Maybe I’ll see if I can do an interview. . . .

NONPROFITS AND “LEPETOMAINE SYNDROME:” Heh. This meme was started by Donald Sensing just last night, and it already seems to be catching on.

EVERYONE’S A CRITIC: Austin Bay looks at intelligence:

In a world where commercial jets become missiles aimed at Manhattan, where anthrax-laced letters threaten Senate offices, where the nerve gas required to kill 10,000 can hide in an oil drum, the intelligence analyst, that interpretive artist, has extraordinary responsibilities. So do the analyst’s political leaders, whether the leader is named Bill Clinton, or George Bush, or John Kerry, or Tony Blair.

Before Sept. 11, the Clinton administration and, for eight months, the Bush administration treated international terrorism as a sophisticated form of organized crime. That was a mistake, for though 21st century terror is like a criminal operation, it is also much more. The goals of theo-fascists like Osama bin Laden are imperial state power. Often, these imperial goals intersect with the less-grandiose but still dangerous aims of anti-American despots.

Read the whole thing. It’s worth reading this in conjunction with Bay’s earlier series on intelligence failures and successes, here, here, and here.

WHY THE NANOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY’S PR STRATEGY IS BACKFIRING: My TechCentralStation column — which was not written from my mom’s basement — is up.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Howard Lovy points to a nanotech business guy who gets it.

ANONYBLOGGING: Lots of people have written me on anonymous (and pseudonymous) blogging. I’ve already posted on the subject here and here. And my view hasn’t really changed: I don’t think there’s anything illegitimate about not blogging under your own name, but I think it raises questions that real-name blogging doesn’t. And I think that if you’re a blogger who slings personal insults at folks with names while remaining anonymous yourself, well, that’s pretty lame. But hey, it’s the Internet — you’re allowed to be lame. And the rest of us are allowed to think you’re lame. Plenty of anonymous bloggers manage to be civil, but it does seem that a disproportionate number of uncivil bloggers are anonymous.

For those who want to be anonymous, though, bear in mind that while superficial anonymity on the Internet is easy, it’s pretty superficial. Anyone who really wants to know who you are can probably find out. So while the usual degree of blog anonymity is probably enough to protect you from casual boss harassment, if you’ve got real reasons to keep your identity secret, well, don’t count on it.

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED: “At least 160 of the 650 detainees acknowledged by the Pentagon being held at the United States military base at Guantanamo, Cuba — almost a quarter of the total — are from Saudi Arabia, a special UPI survey can reveal.”

NEW YORK LIFE: IMAGES AFTER THE FALL is an exhibition of photos by Gerard Van der Leun, better known in the Blogosphere for his American Digest blog.

TIM BLAIR TRIES METAPHOR WRESTLING and emerges the undisputed champion.

UPDATE: John Weidner offers a suggestion for mischievous students.

TONGUE TIED suggests that the Southern Poverty Law Center is suffering from mission creep: “The Montgomery, Ala.-based SPLC made a name for itself chasing Klansmen and militias. Now, it focuses on serving diabetic prison inmates, 10 commandment-toting judges and writing movie reviews.”

UPDATE: Reader Robert Racansky points to this article from Harper’s on the SPLC, which seems to illustrate the need for better oversight over nonprofits. I used to be quite impressed with Morris Dees, but I still remember that when he and I were on the PBS Newshour right after the Oklahoma City bombing he seemed more interested in stoking his fundraising efforts than anything else.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Donald Sensing invokes Governor Le Petomaine.