MIT IS ON THE CASE:

Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention. Time travelers from all eras could meet at a specific place at a specific time, and they could make as many repeat visits as they wanted. We are hosting the first and only Time Traveler Convention at MIT in one week, and WE NEED YOUR HELP!

I wonder who’ll show up? . . .

SHOULD HOAXES BE TREATED AS CRIMINAL OFFENSES? CrimProf is asking.

DEEP THOUGHTS on rock, paper, scissors.

IF THERE’S A MASSACRE OF SUNNIS IN IRAQ, it will be because of the lack of a KPS Gill.

CATALLARCHY IS REMEMBERING MAY DAY by remembering the victims of Communism in all their millions.

FILIBUSTERING FRIST AT PRINCETON: TigerHawk has an interesting report, and what I think is a spot-on observation:

I think that these Princeton students have the right idea: If you are going to filibuster, then you should have to filibuster. Filibusters should come at some personal and political cost. We should abolish the candy-ass filibusters of modern times, and require that if debate is not closed it must therefore happen.

The prospect of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy bloviating for hours on C-SPAN would deter filibusters except when the stakes are dire, if for no other reason than the risk that long debate would create a huge amount of fodder for negative advertising. If Frist were to enact the “reform” of the filibuster instead of its repeal, he would sieze the high ground.

Filibusters, traditionally, were an expensive proposition for the filibusterers, and the recent rule changes that removed those costs fly in the face of the very Senate traditions that pro-filibuster folks are invoking. This reform makes sense to me, as it would ensure that the filibuster-nuke is dropped only when the stakes are high enough that the minority is willing to pay a price.

TIM WORSTALL HAS POSTED HIS BRITBLOG ROUNDUP: Check it out.

I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY about the “runaway bride” story, except that if I were the groom I’d be running away myself, now. But Single Southern Guy has much more to say.

UPDATE: And Manolo has more still. I hear that there will be no criminal charges, but I think she should be forced to read his entire essay aloud to everyone in the wedding party. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to reprint it in all the bridal magazines, as a useful cautionary note.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS REGARDING ROTC at Columbia University:

Emboldened by a high-turnout student referendum two years ago that put support for ending the R.O.T.C. ban at 65 percent, a politically eclectic group of undergraduates has raised the program’s profile.

The debate has done more than expose predictable fault lines over the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” regulations and the war in Iraq. It has also signaled a shift in student attitudes toward the military and encouraged vigorous conversation on campus.

“From the point of view of a veteran of ’68 here, which I am, it’s a different world,” said Allan A. Silver, a professor of sociology, referring to the year that student protests convulsed the campus. Mr. Silver, who has taught at Columbia for more than four decades, favors the R.O.T.C.’s return.

Read the whole thing, which certainly seems newsworthy. And note the byline.

YOU CAN SEE VIDEO of President Bush’s appearance at the White House Correspondents’ dinner here and here.

“ISLAM HAS NOT CONQUERED ARAB CULTURE — ARAB CULTURE HAS CONQUERED ISLAM:” I’m watching Irshad Manji on Tucker Carlson’s PBS show, plugging her book on the trouble with Islam. She’s quite impressive, and it will be interesting — and, I have to say, an exacting test of the “moderate muslims” we’ve heard more about than from, since 9/11 — to see how she’s received.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to her website.

LATIN AMERICA: The Community of Democracies vs. the “Axis of Subversion.”

PATTERICO: “Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.”

BLOGS AND IMPACT: An interesting report in The New York Times:

A blog rebellion among scientists and engineers at Los Alamos, the federal government’s premier nuclear weapons laboratory, is threatening to end the tenure of its director, G. Peter Nanos.

Four months of jeers, denunciations and defenses of Dr. Nanos’s management recently culminated in dozens of signed and anonymous messages concluding that his days were numbered. The postings to a public Web log conveyed a mood of self-congratulation tempered with sober discussion of what comes next.

Interesting. And, no doubt, worrisome to all sorts of people.

GIULIANA SGRENA UPDATE: Ed Morrissey reports:

CBS News reports that the American and Italian investigators looking into the death of Italian commando Nicola Calipari and wounding of hostage/journalist Giuliana Sgrena have evidence that Sgrena lied about the incident from the beginning. Sgrena has long insisted that the Italian driver slowed down to under 30 MPH before approaching the checkpoint, whereupon American soldiers opened fire without warning. However, CBS now claims that data from military satellites clearly showed the car traveling towards the checkpoint at over 60 MPH without slowing down at all, triggering the defensive response from the American soldiers.

Can’t say I’m surprised.

IMMIGRATION IS A BIG ISSUE, AND IT’S GETTING BIGGER: Arnold Schwarzenegger has weighed in on illegal immigration, and he doesn’t seem to be backing down:

On Thursday, Schwarzenegger said on a Los Angeles radio show that the Minuteman Project, which has been patrolling the Mexican border in Arizona in an attempt to prevent illegal crossings, has been doing “a terrific job,” and he credited the volunteers for reducing the flow of entries, though he provided no data.

Schwarzenegger, who immigrated to the United States from Austria more than 25 years ago, softened his comments only slightly Friday. He said he is a strong proponent of immigration, “but you’ve got to do it in a legal way.” He said he favors proposals for a guest worker program that would allow some Mexicans to work in the United States and an opportunity, over time, to apply for citizenship.

Neighborhood watch

But the governor again expressed support for the Minutemen, who have been denounced by some, including President Bush, as vigilantes trying to take the law into their own hands. Schwarzenegger compared them to neighborhood patrol groups, in which citizens work with police to prevent crimes.

As I mentioned before, I have several legal immigrants in my family, and they’re pretty resentful of illegals who ignore all the rules. I suspect that Arnold feels a bit that way himself, and I think he’s in a position to draw the distinction between legal and illegal immigration more clearly than many other politicians.

ELECTRIC HORSEMEN: Tom Maguire has further thoughts on Henninger’s comments about blogs and Mongols.

ROGER SIMON REPORTS on the progress of Pajamas Media.

REMEMBERING THE FALL OF SAIGON: And remember, too, that there are some people here who would like to see the same thing happen in Iraq.

STRATEGYPAGE NOTES THE MARCH OF DIPLOMACY:

Iraq’s neighbors are increasingly supporting the interim government and opposing the Sunni Arab and al Qaeda terrorists. Most of them are more or less are opposed to radical Islamist movements, so that is one thread linking them together. But there are also other issues affecting the stance taken by the various countries surrounding Iraq. Turkey seems in favor of a strong centralized Iraqi government so that the Iraqis can keep the Kurds under control. The Gulf Arabs want to see a strong Iraq as a counterbalance to Iran, though the Kuwaitis are somewhat concerned that a revived Iraqi military might threaten them. Jordan sees the potential need for a strong ally in the event of problems with Syria, while Syria seems inclined to support the new Iraqi regime if only as a way to improve ties with the U.S. Two countries are less committed to the new Iraqi government. Saudi Arabia is tentative about supporting Iraq, since it has to balance its brand of conservative Islam with the certainty that a successful democratic — or at least representative — government in Iraq will probably be strongly secular. The Iranians don’t want Iraq to fall under the control of either the Sunni Arab dominated Baath Party, or the Sunni Islamists (represented now by al Qaeda), both their blood enemies, but have reservations about a secular, democratic Iraq and about American influence in the region. The Iranian situation is complicated by the fact that their country is a clandestine conduit for the movement of Islamist personnel and money among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

I think this counts as progress.

MATT DRUDGE: “I don’t appreciate being called a blog.” Video here.

I don’t appreciate being called a drudge. But, then, both of us should admit that there’s a certain amount of truth to those comments . . . .

“SCHOOL MISTAKES HUGE BURRITO FOR WEAPON:” I’ve encountered some that were pretty close to deadly.

TURNING THE TABLES ON THE GUARDIAN by sending emails to British voters? Let’s hope it works out better than it did for The Guardian . . . .

SOME READERS ARE OBJECTING to Daniel Henninger’s characterization of bloggers as a virtual Mongol horde, but I think it’s a compliment, and dead-accurate.

Mongols drove all their enemies before them, feared nothing but lightning, and were so much faster than their opponents that they could ride around the outside of a besieged fortress faster than the defenders could redeploy on the inside. Sound familiar?

UPDATE: Tom Maguire emails that some of us have reason to fear the lightning. . . . But we don’t let it stop us.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF CORDITE IS UP, featuring, er, loads of gun-related posts.