IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT already, check out this interview with Matt Welch by Norm Geras.

SEAN HACKBARTH RESPONDS to my criticism of the Kerry / Ketchup business, below. He also comments in email:

Oh by far, Heinz is the best. Even if John Kerry were running Heinz
personally and pumping the company’s profits into his campaign, I’d still
buy the stuff.

It’s a classic American sauce. And full of healthy Lycopene!

UPDATE: But it gets no respect from Amazon! But as far as I’m concerned, it’s a “gourmet food.”

THIS IS KIND OF SAD: A gallery of photos you can’t take in New York City anymore.

WONKETTE:

If being a single dork who’s into policy means someone in D.C. is gay, it’s a wonder that the orgy at the Washington Monthly stops long enough for them to get a magazine out.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Reader Frank Banecker emails: “Wonkette? Doesn’t she strike you as a September 10th kind of babe?” Ouch, again.

HOWELL RAINES says that John Kerry must do better.

Ed Morrissey says that “Raines thinks that Americans are just too stupid to understand Kerry.”

UPDATE: Reader Terry Notus thinks Raines has it backward:

In that Raines article in the Guardian you linked, he writes “As America’s FIRST WAR-HERO candidate since John F Kennedy, he ought to be leading the national
discussion on what went wrong in Iraq.”

You would think Howell Raines would have heard of George McGovern or at least George H.W. Bush, right?

You’d think.

OPENING THE GOLF GREENS IN KABUL: Cool story.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING PHOTO GALLERY BY A FEMALE SOLDIER IN IRAQ: It’s worth a look. (Via Bill Hobbs.)

Sissy Willis has comments.

PROF. BAINBRIDGE has a very interesting post on the relationship between martial virtues and civic virtues.

BUSY TODAY doing yardwork for the InstaMom. Cleaned gutters, caulked, cut down several trees (a couple were big enough to merit an axe — well, they merited a chainsaw, but what I had was an axe, but at least I felt manly while swinging it), etc. Back later.

IT’S AN ARTICLE OF FAITH among many war critics that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. I’d be interested in hearing what those people have to say about Stephen Hayes’ new book, The Connection : How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. He’s doing some of that dot-connecting that people are, in other contexts, so enthusiastic about.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s one response, but I don’t find it dreadfully persuasive due to the high straw-man quotient. The United States abandoned the war on Al Qaeda?

SPIRIT OF AMERICA is trying to upgrade its activities. Jeff Jarvis has some thoughts on how, and why, you should help.

You should also read this column by Dan Gillmor, who’s antiwar but pro-Spirit of America, and here’s an announcement that Armed Liberal (Marc Danziger) has forsaken anonymity to take a job as Spirit of America’s Chief Operating Officer.

NOAM SCHEIBER IS WITTY AND ENTHUSIASTIC, and expects to be properly rewarded.

Mickey Kaus, however, thinks he’s expecting too much.

OSAMA’S WORST NIGHTMARE, via Pseudopsalms.

He wouldn’t like this, either. (Second link NSFW).

FRIDA GHITIS writes on Amnesty International in The New Republic: “In fact, it could be argued that one of the most serious emerging threats to human rights today is Amnesty’s decision to spend a disproportionate share of its limited resources attacking the United States–at the opportunity cost of focusing attention on governments that are slaughtering, enslaving, torturing, and imprisoning millions of people around the world.”

Perhaps they should address a bit more effort to this situation.

“EVERY WAR WITH FASCISM IS OUR BUSINESS:” An interesting interview with the sole survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. “Those who say that you don’t have to fight for freedom, don’t understand what fascism is. I do.” Read the whole thing.

I USUALLY LEAVE TENNESSEE POLITICS to Bill Hobbs and others who make it their specialty. But via Doug “InstaLawyer” Weinstein, here’s a report on how Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen has angered the Trial Lawyers with a new Workers’ Compensation bill. He had a lot of support from them last time around, but it looks like they’ll be less enthusiastic next time.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ:

THE GENEVA Conventions are so outdated and are written so broadly that they have become a sword used by terrorists to kill civilians, rather than a shield to protect civilians from terrorists. These international laws have become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

I think that a rethinking of the laws of war is probably in order. The Geneva Conventions have acquired a quasi-mystical status in the minds of some (most of whom haven’t actually read them), but they’re merely another set of international agreements, and the world has changed rather a lot since they were adopted. In addition, I don’t believe that the United States has fought a single war since World War II in which our enemy was honoring the Conventions.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I wonder how many Americans are like me in learning everything we know about the ‘Geneva conventions’ from the TV show, Hogan’s Heroes. Do you remember how Col. Hogan could reduce the camp commander Col. Klink to a quivering mess by threatening to report him for ‘violations to the Geneva conventions?’ In retrospect, I doubt they had that much power. Anyhow, I’m wondering if Hogan’s Heroes has a great part in the seemingly mystical understanding lots of people have about them?

Good point.

A SAD CONCLUSION to the Eurofighter debacle.

GERARD HENDERSON: On the anniversary of D-Day, the French have “much to be humble about.”

SEAN HACKBARTH’S THE AMERICAN MIND is a good weblog, and its regular Kerry feature is okay. But — and I don’t mean to single out Sean in this — I’m tired of the ketchup stuff.

Yes, Kerry’s married to the Heinz heiress. And some people think it’s funny to associate him with a condiment. But Heinz Ketchup is an American treasure. Kerry should be proud to be associated with it, and Kerry’s critics aren’t diminishing him by making that association.

Oh, Hunt’s is OK, and Del Monte has its charms. The off-brand Paramount “Oyster Hot” is really good. But Heinz is the Ketchup Reference Standard. It’s the uber-Ketchup. So please stop dissing it in a lame attempt to make Kerry look bad.

VARIOUS READERS HAVE REQUESTED MORE CATBLOGGING: I took this picture of Nicholas on Friday, but didn’t want to get into the Kevin Drum groove. But, since people insist. . . .

He and my 9-month-old nephew, who went back home with his dad today, were playing a game. Nicholas would sit in the grass until the baby achieved contact, then move a few feet away, staying well within crawling range, and wait, repeating the move as needed. Both seemed to enjoy the process.

UPDATE: More catblogging here.

MARK STEYN’S MEMORIAL DAY COLUMN: “They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren’t a victim culture. . . . Playing by Gore-Kennedy rules, the Union would have lost the Civil War, the rebels the Revolutionary War, and the colonists the French and Indian Wars. There would, in other words, be no America.”

READER JED KANE sends this update from Washington, along with a couple of photos:

I went to the Rolling Thunder Memorial Day 2004 ride in DC Sunday. The group is made up of mostly Vietnam vets, and the ride is to raise awareness of the POW/MIA issue, as well as to honor vets. The group’s leader’s paid a visit to President Bush via Harley and presented him with a Rolling Thunder tee-shirt. This group has endorsed Bush over Kerry, a significant action given their membership.

Here’s a link to the Washington Post article (registration required).

Note paragraphs 9 through 11.

While the bike adornments were mostly apolitical, I shot these examples of how these folks view John Kerry.

Kane is certainly right that there’s a lot of anti-Kerry sentiment mentioned in the Post article, entirely consistent with these photographs. And this suggests — as I’ve mentioned before — that Kerry has been mistaken to play up the Vietnam angle so much.

UPDATE: Well, this explains it. Look who was attending.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chong-Ren Chien emails:

Hey, saw your story on Rolling Thunder and I figure I would contribute a couple of pictures your way. Hope you like them.

The first picture was shot while I was pulling up to the stop light in Alexandria, VA. The slogans on the truck were priceless so I pulled out my digital camera and took a shot.

The second one is with me with a couple of Vietnam vets. They were hanging out at the WWII memorial when I noticed them. I decided to approach them and ask for a picture and they obliged.

Thanks Chong! Here they are.

WILLIAM SAFIRE’S Memorial Day column is worth reading.

RADLEY BALKO IS taking on the food bluenoses in Time. “If you aren’t responsible for what you put into your mouth, chew and swallow, what’s left that you are responsible for?”