THE RICH BOYS’ PLAN: Austin Bay has some thoughts on what’s going on in Iraq.

UPDATE: More here. And here.

DR. BOB ARNOT HAS LEFT NBC:

In his letter to Mr. Shapiro, he wondered why the network wasn’t reporting stories of progress in Iraq, a frequently heard complaint of the Bush administration. “As you know, I have regularly pitched most of these stories contained in the note to Nightly, Today and directly to you,” he wrote. “Every single story has been rejected.” . . .

A number of high-ranking military officials contacted by NYTV complimented Dr. Arnot’s superior reporting skills, especially in light of what they perceived as the chronically negative war reporting on TV in the United States. Larry DiRita, the Pentagon spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld, said that Dr. Arnot captured Iraq as he experienced it when he visited there himself. “It was complex and nuanced and uneven then, and you had to get around to see it that way—and he does,” Mr. DiRita said. “I think his coverage provided an aspect of daily Iraqi life that is being missed by a heck of a lot of coverage.”

Maj. Clark Taylor e-mailed NYTV from Baghdad to state that Dr. Arnot “highlighted what is really happening over here …. He generally reported positive things because, generally, that is what is happening. Of course there are occasional bad things … and he reported those as well. The fact was, he reported what he saw—which generally was positive.”

The network’s excuse is that it was cutting back on coverage. This just serves to underscore blogosphere complaints about the lousy job Big Media outfits are doing.

“WE WERE LIEUTENANTS TOGETHER:” A letter to the editor from one of Bush’s squadron mates, in his defense. It’s long and detailed — read the whole thing.

THE MURDER OF BILL GATES: Nothing So Strange is a “mock documentary” looking at the 1999 assassination of Bill Gates and the conspiracy theories, etc., that grew up in its wake. I haven’t seen the film, but the website has video clips and lots of information. It looks pretty good.

ROGER SIMON: “These days I learn more from Allahpundit, where I found this link, than I ever do from Meet the Press.”

WELL, I SAID “LET THE REMIXING BEGIN,” and sure enough Neal Boortz has posted a remix of “Shout!” featuring the Dean and Gore yells. Another effect of technology: Politicians didn’t used to have to worry about that sort of thing.

ANOTHER ECONOMIC REPORT from the Joint Economic Committee. Looks like good news.

I’M ALL FOR ASSIMILATION, but I think the French ban on headscarves is a dumb idea. (The bigger news, I suspect, is the lopsided margin by which it passed.) Bjorn Staerk reports that the same thing is under consideration in Norway. I think that this is a cosmetic measure that is likely to do little good, and a nontrivial amount of harm.

“MYSTERY SURROUNDS WOULD-BE DEFECTOR:”

Norbert Vollertsen, a leading activist in the underground railway that brings out hundreds of North Koreans each year through China, said the would-be defector, Ri Chae-woo, had worked in the Chiha-ri Chemical Corporation in Anbyon, south of the port city of Wonsan.

He had a large volume of evidence of human experiments that have helped develop North Korea’s chemical/biological weapons program from a secret clinic dug into the mountains, Dr Vollertsen said, adding the aim was to bring this material before the United States Congress.

The North Korean expert, who had crossed into China in June with his wife and two teenage children, was arrested by Chinese police while trying to enter the Australian consulate-general in Guangzhou about 5pm on Friday.

He hasn’t been heard from since. Where’s Amnesty International on this?

UPDATE: But wait, there’s another one:

A North Korean man who fled with evidence that prisoners are used to test chemical weapons has been detained by China, a human rights worker said.

Kang Byong-sop, 58, was stopped last month in Yunnan province while trying to cross into Laos, Kim Sang-hun said.

Mr Kim called on the UK to stop China handing Mr Kang to North Korea, where he faced possible torture or death.

The Chinese seem awfully anxious to cover this up. I wonder why that would be? Could they have been outsourcing their own chem-bio weapons work to North Korea?

THERE’S A DEMOCRATS FOR BUSH blog, with an amusing slogan: “because no one ever asked for a piece of elephant.”

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and Kerry’s economic plan: an interesting observation.

SOME MINNESOTA WOMEN have a support the troops project that may interest the blogosphere.

KATHY KINSLEY is hosting this week’s Carnival of the Vanities. Don’t miss it!

HERE’S MORE on Germany’s brain drain. When your system is set up to reward mediocrity over achievement, that’s what you get.

PERRY DE HAVILLAND offers an international human rights proposal that might actually work. At least, it has a better shot at doing so than the current approach.

CONGRATULATIONS to the Black Law Students Association at the University of Tennessee College of Law. Once again, it’s the Southern Region Chapter of the Year. I was their adviser some years ago, and I’m still proud of them.

SHANNON OKEY is unsurprised at reports of vacation sluttiness in Ibiza. Well, yeah.

JACOB LEVY has an important observation regarding the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment:

The amendment proponents make a great deal out of judicial overreach and democratic authority. But this amendment would forbid the democratic supermajority of a state from amending its state constitution to say: “Civil marriage shall be open to same-sex couples.” Or, rather, it would forbid that section of the state constitution from being given force. State courts would be required to read that section of their state constitutions as being legally null.

Those pushing the FMA are, in fact, afraid of democracy — trying to lock in their eroding position on gay marriage against future democratic change. I think they’re right, in a tactical sense, to do that. My students, not especially left-leaning as law students go, are largely untroubled by the idea of gay marriage. I think that’s a generational shift, and I think it’s what the FMA advocates are really worried about.

HMM. Maybe these stories of European support for Palestinian terrorism as a diplomatic move against America (“Schroeder claims that the EU funds Palestinian organisations, well aware that much of the funding ends up in the hands of terrorists. While Schroeder says that the EU does not exactly intend to wage war on Israel, it hopes that a deepening conflict in the region will highlight America’s inability to mediate a satisfactory peace deal – and that Europe will then be able to ride to the rescue.”) have finally started to generate some blowback.

At least, we’re suddenly seeing stories like this:

French prosecutors have launched a money-laundering probe into suspected million dollar transfers to accounts held by the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

I wonder how much of this is because of increased leverage — and intelligence — now that Saddam is in custody and, reportedly, talking. There’s more in this story:

In a parallel development, investigators from the European Union anti-fraud office (OLAF), who are looking into allegations that the PA diverted money from European donors into terror activity, have concluded that documents the IDF seized during Operation Protective Shield are authentic.

As the first story notes, this is the fruit of Ilka Schroeder’s very public effort to get the EU to account for this money — though I suspect that fears that the United States will reveal details of Saddam’s financial dealings are playing a role, too.

RALPH LUKER is critical of Duke University’s lack of diversity, and wonders why the Administration isn’t doing something.

MICKEY KAUS’S GEARBOX COLUMN is back. But don’t worry — he’s still slagging Chris Lehane over at Kausfiles.

WHY I’M WORRIED ABOUT THE NANOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY: My TechCentralStation column is up.

WESLEY CLARK is dropping out of the race.

APPARENTLY THE KERRY CAMPAIGN OUTSOURCING STORY mentioned below was true:

The presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday dumped a firm it hired to make automated phone calls to Wisconsin voters – after it learned the calls were routed through Canada.

The action came quickly, following criticism earlier in the day that the Kerry calling effort was exporting American jobs.

You gotta give ’em credit — they’ve got a fast OODA loop. I wonder if they read blogs?

ANDREA HARRIS: “I have a question on this WMD thing. So, apparently we are now concluding that Hussein did not, in fact, have a huge stash of nuclear weapons aimed at New York and Washington DC. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means that the thing the administration wanted to prevent was, in fact, prevented.”

You’d think. Meanwhile Tim Blair writes:

The anti-war crowd obsesses over WMD because it is the one issue they’ve got even partly right, having been proved massively wrong on likely casualties, humanitarian disasters, a united Islamic response, Saddam’s capture – and, indeed, on WMD, subsequently discovered in Libya as a direct result of the war in Iraq. They don’t mention that very often, do they? Anyway, the WMD argument is boring. Here’s a fun challenge for the anti-warriors: instead of complaining about Saddam’s removal, let’s hear your arguments in favour of leaving him in power. Go on; defend the monster.

Before the peaceniks reply, they might consider the opinion of Iraqi hospital worker Ali, posted at the web site http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com and directed at opponents of the war: “F*** YOU ALL. GWB MADE THE RIGHT DECISION AND AMERICA DID THE RIGHT THING AND WE ARE FREEEEEEEEEE!” Sounds kind of happy about it, doesn’t he?

Obviously suffering from “false consciousness.”