HAPPY VETERANS DAY: InstaPundit’s Afghanistan photo-correspondent, Major John Tammes, sends this photo and reports: “Every time I accompany one of our patrols in the area, it seems like the circus has come to town. We manage to draw a crowd no matter how isolated an area we visit. This is what we saw near Hassankheyl – a nearly deserted village that is starting to show signs of life again. Or at least signs of kids and camels…”

That’s life, though I’m fonder of the former than the latter.

UPDATE: More Veterans’ Day thoughts here.

GERMANY SAYS “SORRY!”

SIMON WORLD’S ASIAN BLOG ROUNDUP is up. Everything from China’s Africa policy (it’s all about oil! — but you knew that) to Pol Pot’s crematorium (it’s not).

AN “EXHAUSTIVE SEARCH” OF WEB PHOTOS featuring Kate Beckinsale’s breasts, over at the ContractsProf blog: Just more evidence that law professors will undergo any hardship in our ceaseless quest for the truth.

NOT EVERYONE WILL BE SAD ABOUT THIS NEWS:

The BBC is planning to axe as many as 50 per cent of jobs across the board, insiders revealed today.

A raft of cuts is being designed to prove the BBC is giving value for money before a review of its 10-year royal charter in 2006.

High-ranking sources say earlier rumours of 6,000 losses from 28,000 staff may turn out to be a wild underestimate.

Payback for the Gilligan affair? Probably not.

GOOD RIDDANCE: CNN is reporting that Arafat is dead.

IF A REPUBLICAN WROTE THIS, it would be homophobic. Luckily, one didn’t.

UPDATE: Reader William Aronstein writes: “Dear Professor Reynolds: It’s not luck.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: “If it had been anybody else than US Senators, the SEC would have been sending out subpoenas and combing trading records and generally doing its thing. Punks.”

WHAT I HOPE WILL BE MY FINAL PIECE ON THE ELECTIONS over at GlennReynolds.com is now up. There is some minor dissing of Keith Olbermann.

UPDATE: Heh. But not this much.

YES, IT’S A TOPSY-TURVY WORLD we live in, these days.

ARNOLD KLING OFFERS reality-based election analysis.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

Leaders of a United States Senate subcommittee investigating allegations of fraud in the oil-for-food program in Iraq have accused Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, of obstructing their inquiry.

In a letter sent to Mr. Annan yesterday, the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations charged that the secretary general and a panel he appointed to conduct an independent investigation into the charges of abuses appeared to be “affirmatively preventing” the Senate from getting documents from a former United Nations contractor that inspected goods bought by Iraq. . . .

(Via Tom Maguire).

IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY: That’s the name of a new blog devoted to the 2008 elections. I’m not so sure that it’s never too early. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it’s too early right now. . . .

WOW, LOTS OF PRO-GUN READERS AT DAILY KOS: Who knew?

TENNESSEE’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR PHIL BREDESEN plans to scrap the state’s TennCare medical program as too expensive. TennCare was a testbed for HillaryCare, and a model for Kerry’s health care reform plan.

UPDATE: Michael Silence has a roundup, and notes that Tennessee’s plan covered a higher percentage of the populace (nearly a quarter of Tennesseans) than any other state plan.

ANOTHER UPDATE: SKBubba: “The more I think about it the more think it’s a bluff — brilliant political theater unlike anything in recent Tennessee history. And it will work for the Governor, one way or another.” As I’ve said before, national Democrats who want to win elections could learn a lot from Bredesen.

And there’s more on TennCare’s problems, here.

MORE: Bill Hobbs has some thoughts on what Bredesen is trying to accomplish.

SCOTT OTT’S NEW BOOK, Axis of Weasels, is out. He assures me that it makes a perfect Christmas or Hanukkah gift. Also good for weddings, wakes, and bar mitzvahs!

You’ll notice some prominent bloggers in the Amazon reviews.

DON’T MISS THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES, where the theme is “Things Having Nothing To Do With Partisan Politics.”

GOOD RIDDANCE: Martin Peretz on John Kerry:

Still, the extreme and bitter judgments against the citizenry after this election are especially tendentious. For what the electorate did on Nov. 2 was essentially (or maybe just merely) turn down John Kerry, a candidate who until very late in the Democratic primaries was almost no one’s choice as the nominee, the party’s last option because it could rally around no one else. What a pathetic vessel in which to have placed liberalism’s hopes! A senator for two decades who had stood for nothing, really nothing. . . .

Had you noticed, by the way, that money in politics ceased to be an issue for the Democrats? There’s no mystery why this is so. They and those 527s that circled around the Kerry effort collected much more money than they could spend usefully, which is why there were so many inane ads aimed unnecessarily at New York voters in the New York Times. The problem of money in politics, it turns out, was actually just Republican money. But all the Democratic money that was raised — nearly $100 million from George Soros, University of Phoenix founder John Sperling, and the imperious chairman of the Progressive Corporation Peter Lewis alone — accomplished, let’s face it, nothing.

If, however, Mr. Kerry had won, there was a chance, insiders say, that Mr. Soros would have been made secretary of state or of the Treasury. Imagine Mr. Soros at his first meetings with the ministers of finance of allied countries whose currencies he’d once trashed. Perhaps he would lecture them on the virtues of multilateralism.

Ouch. Read the whole thing. The Soros money was not a complete waste, however, as it purchased a few blogads here, and helped pay for the laptop with which I’m posting this entry. Thanks, George! Your legacy lives on.

UPDATE: Reader Kent Guida wants to know which laptop I bought. It was this Dell Inspiron 700m. I managed to use one of those $750 coupons that were briefly floating around. I’m quite happy with it so far — battery life with the extended-life battery is quite good, and the display is excellent. It’s also quite light.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Not as light as that Amazon page says, though. If it were, I’d have to duct-tape it to a brick to keep it from floating away. . . .

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Check out the Cordair art gallery blogad to the right: “Funding for this BlogAd Certified Soros-Free.” Heh. That’s pretty funny.

RANDY BARNETT SAYS HE’S out of the running for the Attorney General slot.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs suggests Fred Thompson: “Everybody trusts Fred Thompson. After the polarizing John Ashcroft, that counts for something.”

Not a bad idea. I mean, since we can’t have Randy Barnett.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jerry Shaw emails: “Rather than Attorney General, how about Fred Thompson as the new Chief Justice?”