CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN IRAQ: LT Smash has a roundup of news and reactions to the Sarin-gas / mustard gas story.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Greene says the spin has already started:

Found this quote interesting, and proof that the left will change the debate if WMD are found in Iraq:

“But David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, said the discovery does not provide evidence that Saddam was secretly producing weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War, as alleged by the Bush administration to justify the war that removed him from power.” [emphasis is mine]

See, if we FIND actual WMD, then the left will begin to claim that Saddam wasn’t “secretly producing” it, and so Bush lied. In fact, nobody ever claimed that we were invading Iraq because Saddam was actively producing WMD – only that he had undeclared WMD, might have mobile factories, and was preventing the UN from finding it and getting rid of it.

We’ll see. Stay tuned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader notes that everyone wants a “smoking gun,” but points out what David Kay was saying a year and a half ago before the invasion of Iraq:

When it comes to the U.N. weapons inspection in Iraq, looking for a smoking gun is a fool’s mission. That was true 11 years ago when I led the inspections there. It is no less true today — even after the seemingly important discovery on Thursday of a dozen empty short-range missile warheads left over from the 1980s.

The only job the inspectors can expect to accomplish is confirming whether Iraq has voluntarily disarmed. That is not a task that need take months more. And last week’s cache is irrelevant in answering that question, regardless of the U.N.’s final determination. That’s because the answer is already clear: Iraqi is in breach of U.N. demands that it dismantle its weapons of mass destruction.

Indeed.

MORE: A reader emails:

Listen, if the Left believes that 7 soldiers out of 150 thousand abusing Iraqis detainees can sully the honor of the whole military, then this one shell is proof that Saddam had an extensive WMD program.

Sounds fair to me!

BLOGGING GAY MARRIAGE: A roundup from Jeff Jarvis.

UPDATE: Meanwhile Eugene Volokh has problems with some NPR reportage.

My thoughts here.

HENRY COPELAND is doing a survey of blog reader demographics. Please take part if you can spare a minute.

If you take the questionnaire, please enter “instapundit” in question 22, so they can tell where you came from.

UPDATE: Some people didn’t like the family income question, so Henry’s jiggered things so that you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. He’s also predicting that blog readers (or at least the ones who answer the survey) will be 80% men. Let’s see if that happens. My emailers aren’t that heavily male, but despite the huge volume I get, it’s an unrepresentative selection.

CHIEF WIGGLES is making himself available to the press:

For the past 34 years I have been an interrogator in the Utah Army National Guard, serving my country proudly in this capacity. I have performed my duties as an interrogation team chief in many capacities in a variety of situations. I have been to two wars in the Middle East as a chief warrant officer, conducting numerous interrogations, screenings, debriefings, etc. I have been to South Korea some 40 plus times, been through countless interrogation exercises, and have personally conducted numerous debriefings of North Korean defectors.

I have worked with soldiers from all branches of the military, regular army soldiers and reservists, interacting with them in a variety of real combat situations and training exercises. I have read books on the skills of interrogation and have taught others the finer points of effective interrogation.

While at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, I spent 4 months, on a daily basis, interrogating 17 Iraqi generals, both Brigadier and Major generals, successfully extracting valuable information which was later disseminated up through the chain. I lived as they lived, endured most of what they endured, feeling their pain, while trying to deal with their diverse personalities, with their idiosyncrasies, intertwined with their culture, tradition, religion, and language.

Follow the link for contact information.

MARK HELPRIN says that both the Democrats and the Republicans are clueless on the war. That’s unfortunate, since one party or the other will be in charge of it for the foreseeable future.

Over the weekend, though, a reader sent the best argument I’ve heard so far for putting Kerry in charge: Overnight, the press coverage would shift from negative to positive, good news from Iraq would be widely reported, misbehavior by American troops would be put in its proper context, and so on. This would, at a stroke, deprive the terrorists of their greatest asset.

Sadly, I find this argument surprisingly compelling. . . .

UPDATE: Comments on Helprin here. And, via Neal Boortz, what some British papers are calling two good reasons to vote for Kerry that the American media will probably cover up. Hey, I’m for transparency! [LATER: A reader says I should label this link NSFW. But she’s fully clothed!]

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yes, my “best argument so far” comments are not entirely serious. Please stop sending me horrified emails.

THE NEW MCDONALD’S HAPPY MEALS FOR ADULTS DON’T SUCK! No, really. The InstaWife picked up a couple yesterday (the “stepometers” were the lure, and she and the InstaDaughter have been competing to see who can ring up more steps during the day) but I split the Cobb Salad with her and it was actually good.

I don’t know whether this will actually lead to massive weight loss across America (er, well, I’m pretty sure I do, actually) but it’s a surprisingly well done package, and the food’s actually good. Go figure.

ANDY KAUFMAN has returned.

Well, why not? Rachel Lucas and Jeff Goldstein did. . . .

VIA CICADA, an interesting report from Fallujah:

FALLUJAH, Iraq – A former Saddam Hussein-era general appointed by the Americans to lead an Iraqi security force in the rebellious Sunni stronghold of Fallujah urged tribal elders and sheiks Sunday to support U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq. . . .

The venue offered a rare insight into Latif’s interactions and influence over Fallujah elders. As he spoke, many sheiks nodded in approval and listened with reverence to his words. Later, they clasped his hands and patted Latif on the back.

Latif, speaking in Arabic to the sheiks, defended the Marines and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

“They were brought here by the acts of one coward who was hunted out of a rathole — Saddam — who disgraced us all,” Latif said. “Let us tell our children that these men (U.S. troops) came here to protect us.

“As President Bush said, they did not come here to occupy our land but to get rid of Saddam. We can help them leave by helping them do their job, or we can make them stay ten years and more by keeping fighting.”

Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, the Marine battalion commander, said, “No truer words have been spoken here today than those by General Latif.”

I know that some people in the blogosphere think we’re not taking a tough enough line in Fallujah, but reports like this suggest that we may just have a better plan.

WILL BAUDE has 20 questions for Professor Bainbridge.

BTW, I’m having a terrible time reaching the server at the moment. A traceroute shows a truly convoluted path. I guess there’s some sort of traffic issue that will resolve itself, but blogging may be light until it’s fixed as my posts keep timing out.

TODAY IS THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, a momentous event and one that shows the value of an extended commitment to justice.

I highly recommend the Brown film Separate But Equal, starring Sidney Poitier as Thurgood Marshall, to anyone interested. I showed this in my Constitutional Law class this year. I don’t generally like to show films in class — they eat up a lot of class time, and most of them don’t teach much law. This one, however, does a good job of capturing both the social conditions (now largely alien to my students) and the legal strategizing (often forgotten even by lawyers) involved in the case.

When the movie came out, I talked to my former professor and mentor, Charles Black, about it. He said it was quite accurate for a movie, though he was a bit disturbed by the casting: “They got Sidney Poitier to play Thurgood,” he said, “while they picked some fella who’s a dead ringer to play me.”

JOHN SCALZI offers wedding advice for gays and lesbians.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS is up, with business and economics-related posts from all over. Don’t miss it!

Also, Alphecca’s weekly survey of media bias relating to guns is up.

MICKEY KAUS continues to argue for elections sooner, rather than later, in Iraq. I think he’s right. The captured Zarqawi memo suggested that the terrorists fear an elected Iraqi government more than anything else we can accomplish, and their recent efforts seem to support that thesis. Their goal, at which they’ve so far been spectacularly unsuccessful, is to turn it into an Iraqi-nationalists-against-American-occupiers struggle. But that becomes impossible if the American occupiers aren’t occupying. The collection of Baathist holdovers and Syrian and Iranian rent-a-terrorists has little support now, and will have far less when it’s attacking an elected Iraqi government. That won’t stop them from blowing up things now and then, but it will stop them from actually mattering.

Meanwhile, their sponsors need to worry about this observation from Belmont Club: “The political storm over prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and, to a lesser extent the decapitation of Nick Berg, has effaced the really important story in the Iraqi campaign: the US has just beaten back a major counteroffensive by Syria and Iran. . . . While both inflicted some damage, neither stroke has come close to seriously hurting the US position. It would be natural and not in the least surprising, if Rumsfeld and Myers were considering what the American riposte should be.”

MORE ON ATROCITIES IN AFRICA that the world doesn’t seem to care about.

Well, you know, it’s not an atrocity if it’s not committed by an American. That’s international law, or something. . . .

THIS IS INTERESTING, if true:

Syrian technicians accompanying unknown equipment were killed in the train explosion in North Korea on April 22, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper.

A military specialist on Korean affairs revealed that the Syrian technicians were killed in the explosion in Ryongchon in the northwestern part of the country, according to the Sankei Shimbun. The specialist said the Syrians were accompanying “large equipment” and that the damage from the explosion was greatest in the portion of the train they occupied.

Hmm.

UPDATE: Hmm, again:

TOKYO — Japan’s Kyodo News, citing numerous diplomatic sources in Vienna, reported Saturday that the force of April 22’s train explosion at the North’s Ryonchon Station was about that of an earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale, which would have required about 800 tons of TNT — about eight times that officially announced by North Korea. . . .

The CTBTO feels that the cause of the explosion may differ from the North’s explanation, and noted the explosion might have been caused by highly-explosive materials like military-use fuel going off. Officials at the CTBTO plan to look into the causes of the accident.

The CTBTO said the explosion at Ryongchon was observed using seismological observation stations in Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia. The stations were built to detect nuclear tests.

More than meets the eye, or even the seismograph, here, I think.

JAN HAUGLAND LOOKS AT EUROPEAN WRITINGS ON THE DANGER OF AMERICANISM. Excerpt:

One should not underestimate the danger of Americanism, or its seductive power. It offers devotion to a culture of nothingness, independence, lack of restraint, a freedom from all obligation, from all honor, from all consideration.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Okay, some of you will be too lazy to follow the link, so here: “By now you may realise this anti-American text is not of recent origin. It was printed in Das Schwarze Korps, the Nazi SS weekly, on 14 March 1944.” But it sounds as fresh as tomorrow!