LARRY SOLUM has a very nice roundup on the Supreme Court detention cases.

UPDATE: C.D. Harris recalls a challenge he issued before the decisions.

TIM BLAIR is back from Malaysia, and offers readers a host of delights. Just keep scrolling.

HEH:

NOTE: Box Office Mojo asked Michael Moore and company to comment for this story, but they wanted to screen the questions in advance. As policy, Box Office Mojo does not conduct interviews under such circumstances, so there will be no comment from them.

Moore used to be a gadfly. Now he’s part of the Establishment.

GINNY AUTHORS an essay worthy of Bill Whittle.

MY EARLIER POST on the Lost in Space DVD collection led a couple of readers to ask how I liked the Gilligan’s Island collection I mentioned a while back. Very much. Surprisingly, the InstaWife — who like me, grew up on the syndicated reruns — liked it, too. The unaired pilot (featuring different actors in the roles of the Professor, Ginger, and Mary Ann, and a different, Calypsoesque theme song) was interesting, too.

THE NEW STATESMAN ON France and human rights:

When it comes to foreign policy, opinion polls as well as a sampling of Hollywood blockbusters show that Americans see themselves as the good sheriff, selflessly sorting out a strange and unpredictable world. But as they chew over the congressional report on 9/11, they are clearly struggling to come to terms with the reality of their latest foreign adventure.

In contrast, the French foreign ministry is unambiguous about its role: France is the birthplace of human rights and the cradle of the Enlightenment. Thanks to giants such as Voltaire, France inspired others – for example, in the United States – to liberate themselves from oppressive, corrupt aristocratic elites.

So much for self-image: in practice, the French are running the cash registers in a Wild West whorehouse. Not only do the French, like Edith Piaf, regret nothing: their determination to keep their arms exports booming pushes them to sidestep their own laws, not to mention the international conventions they have signed. While all countries tend to pursue a foreign policy based on self-interest, the French have a network of arms salesmen and military advisers working in concert within their perceived spheres of influence to supply mass murderers. . . .

She has a leaked memo confirming that the French supplied members of the interim government responsible for the massacres with satellite phones to direct operations across the country. “They hand-delivered them by courier,” she says. “In the run-up to the massacres, the French had 47 senior officers living with and training the genocidaires. French policy is about influence and money and Francophonie,” says Melvern. “They are very professional at manipulating the UN system. By controlling Boutros Boutros-Ghali, their candidate for UN secretary general, they determined what information about the Rwandan genocide reached the outside world.”

Perhaps it is unfair to suggest that business interests might be tipping the balance against France’s taking a stand on human rights in Sudan. Jemera Rone of Human Rights Watch explains that TotalFinaElf has oil concessions in southern Sudan that it cannot touch until the peace deal between Khartoum and the south sticks. The French are wary of giving the regime in Khartoum a hard time about its ongoing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Darfur, in case it walks away from the southern peace deal, thus imperilling Total’s prospects.

Read the whole thing.

ARNOLD KLING has problems with the Washington Post’s front page.

INTERESTING STUFF on the Padilla and Hamdi cases, over at Volokh. This bit is interesting: “Scalia’s dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld suggests he would be a fifth vote for the Padilla dissent’s position on the merits. He says that, unless the government suspends the writ of habeas corpus (which it has not done), the government must charge a citizen it is holding with a crime. It cannot detain a citizen without charging him.”

I agree. And this bit, also from Scalia, appears to be a bit of a slap at the Chief Justice: “Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.”

UPDATE: I just got out of a 90+ minute faculty meeting, but Eugene Volokh has further thoughts:

I’ve only read the Hamdi case so far, but here’s a tentative thought (subject to revision as I read the other cases and rethink the matter) — two significant facts in this case are that Justice Scalia voted against the government, and Justice Breyer voted (partly) in favor of the government.

This is because these votes may well change the political dynamics within the conservative and liberal movements.

I think that’s right. There’s more on the Supreme Court at The Volokh Conspiracy, so just scroll up and down. And Marty Lederman has thoughts, too, over at SCOTUSblog. So, in a very different vein, does Mark Levin.

MIXED REPORTS on resveratrol and aging. I’m still going to keep drinking Guinness, though, just to play it safe.

A SAUDI NON-CONNECTION: Daniel Drezner has a column discussing something from the 9/11 Commission report that didn’t get a lot of attention, perhaps because it undercuts Bush critics who say he’s too cozy with Saudi Arabia:

If those who oppose the Bush administration want to excoriate the government for making it appear that the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda was stronger than it actually was, so be it. But it would be nice to see some of those critics acknowledge that their preferred target has been absolved as well — and that the administration has not been lying down on the job in making life difficult for Al Qaeda.

Of course, the force of this point depends to some degree on how much faith one has in the Commission, and I have very little. In addition, the finding that “we found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior officials within the Saudi government funded al Qaeda,” strikes me as rather carefully worded. But it’s certainly true that those who treat the Commission as reliable in other contexts have to deal with this finding, too. Or at least they would, if anyone paid it any attention.

UPDATE: Drezner has more thoughts on his blog. Why don’t I think much of the Commission? Leaving aside Jamie Gorelick’s various conflicts of interest, the relentless partisan public posturing and the tendency to ignore important issues, all well-documented in the blogosphere, caused me to decide that it wasn’t a serious enterprise, and was aimed at the TV cameras more than the truth.

For a somewhat different view, read Mark Steyn’s column on How the September 11 commission blew it: “These poseurs have blown it so badly they’ve become the definitive example of what they’re meant to be investigating: a culture so stuck in its way it’s unable to change even in the most extreme circumstances.”

Okay, it’s not that different.

IN AN UPDATE to his earlier post on the new Niger developments, Greg Djerejian notes that Josh Marshall appears to be disputing the new Financial Times reports of a Niger/Iraq uranium connection, and offers some comments.

UPDATE: Reader Paul Harper thinks I’m somehow boycotting Josh Marshall. Er, he’s permalinked over to the right, you know. . . But here’s the link to Marshall’s rather cloak-and-daggerish post (which is also linked by Greg Djerejian, of course). But I don’t think you’ll be able to make much of Marshall’s post without reading Djerejian’s first.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire thinks he has the answer, which he says is boring, and notes a startling possible source for the forged documents — disgruntled CIA agents? “If Josh Marshall is endorsing that, and is about to confirm that, I can not imagine how it will be presented as a Bush-basher (but it will be!).” Stay tuned.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF has posted this week’s Euro news roundup, where polls are telling some people things they don’t want to know. And Gerhard Schroeder has successfully blocked the publication of a novel. I blame John Aschroft!

And speaking of roundups, Alphecca’s weekly roundup of media gun coverage is up.

IN THE MAIL: A copy of Frank Newport’s forthcoming book, Polling Matters: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People. Newport, the Editor-in-Chief of Gallup, is out to make the case for the importance of polling in a democracy, and he’s obviously concerned that polls are losing credibility. That’s because — as Eugene Volokh regularly notes — polls that are unscientific, or that are misrepresented by media coverage, are so common. Newport’s most interesting point is that polls can uncover collective wisdom (he sounds almost like Howard Smart Mobs Rheingold in places) that other mechanisms miss.

That may be true, but sloppiness and dishonesty in polling — and, to a much greater extent, in media reporting of polls, something Newport devotes a chapter to — are doing considerable damage to the institution, and those who care about it should be paying more attention to that issue.

And if all this stuff interests you, you may be interested in Daniel Drummond’s link-rich post on polling over at The Fourth Rail.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: More on scare tactics in the nano-wars:

We’ve seen this before, in the politicization of biotechnology through junk science. The European Parliament, which did so much to undermine genetically modified food, is set to join the nanowar. It commissioned a report that said nanoparticles should not be released into the environment. The message: Humanity must be saved from the technology that could save humanity.

Color me unsurprised.

OVERSTOCK.COM is now the biggest private employer in Afghanistan. (Via Virginia Postrel, who has several new and interesting posts up.)

AN EARLY TURNOVER OF SOVEREIGNTY in Iraq — a clever way to forestall terrorist attacks planned for June 30. And a self-governing, democratic Iraq is what the terrorists dread.

Now will we see early elections for the same reason? I hope so.

UPDATE: Roger Simon has thoughts. So does Joe Gandelman, who predicts that the new Iraqi government will crack down in ways the United States has not.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Robert Alt comments from Baghdad, and Michael Rubin has comments too. Meanwhile, for the press, it’s all about — the press! “As someone who was in the Press Room in Baghdad when the announcement was made to the Press via a phone call, I can tell you that there were flacks who visibly angry at being ‘duped.'” I don’t blame them for being mad. What’s more important — the future of the Middle East and America, or the care and feeding of media egos?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Interesting list of CPA accomplishments here. As someone who’s been critical of the CPA, I should note that it has actually done a lot.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Michael Greenspan emails:

On CBS Radio’s 1:00 EDT news roundup, the Iraq handover was the second story, behind the Supreme Court decisions. I was amazed at that editorial choice, and perhaps this is the explanation:

One thing I am absolutely sure about. The press is vexed, mightily vexed. They won’t say it, they can’t. But a zillion muckety-mucks have gone to Iraq to be there for the handover and they got scooped. Plans have been trashed, egos bruised. It will be interesting to see how or if this gets translated into coverage.

Indeed.

A READER EMAILS FROM IRAQ: “My Arabic isn’t too good, but the local radio in Iraq is stating that Zarqawi has been captured by Iraqi intelligence. All our laborers are chattering about it and seem extremely pleased (most are Kurdish).” However, the U.S. military is denying it.

ROBERT TAGORDA compares Al Gore’s statements with those of Bill Clinton and concludes: “I think that Gore is simply more radical than Clinton. It would benefit the public to see the divergence clearly in the news.”

FISH: It really is a brain food.