AFTER SIX DECADES, PROGRESS IN KASHMIR: I’m surprised that this hasn’t gotten more attention.

HEH: You can do worse than relying on InstaPundit. And some people have.

I HOPE THAT THIS STUFF is as good as they claim at reducing aging and disease, but I think I’ll wait for the studies.

UPDATE: A skeptical take, here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s a different kind of life-extender:

Curvy women are more likely to live longer than their slimmer counterparts, researchers have found. Institute of Preventative Medicine in Copenhagen researchers found those with wider hips also appeared to be protected against heart conditions.

Will this be FDA approved, though?

SPELLING BEE UPDATE: “‘Appoggiatura’ was music to 13-year-old Anurag Kashyap’s ears. Correctly spelling the word that means melodic tone, he clinched the 2005 national spelling bee championship. . . . Tied for second place were 11-year-old Samir Patel, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, Texas, and Aliya Deri, 13, of Pleasanton, Calif.” Kind of reinforces this piece from last year.

UPDATE: Reader Joseph Sarles says that AP has it wrong: “An appoggiatura is not a melodic tone – it’s a dissonant embellishment that’s NOT part of the melody.”

Indeed.

TREY JACKSON has a Howard Dean video roundup.

MORE OF THOSE BIG-MEDIA EDITORS AND FACTCHECKERS at work: As reader James Thompson emails, “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say John Hindrocket on his driver’s license.”

SCOTT KOENIG has identified war crimes in Iraq. Somebody tell Amnesty International!

And here’s evidence that journalists are being targeted!

UPDATE: More tales of horror.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL seems to have flushed its credibility with the comparison of Guantanamo Bay to a Gulag, which it continues to repeat. By doing so, of course, it only helps the Bush Administration.

Dr. Rusty Shackleford has a lengthy essay with photos, exploring the difference between Guantanamo and the Gulags.

Pamela Hess writes:

Roughly 18 million prisoners — “enemies of the people” or common criminals — were sentenced to forced labor in camps across the Soviet Union, beginning in 1919. The gulags — a Russian acronym for the government agency that oversaw the network of camps — went into full swing under Josef Stalin in 1934 and were not publicly acknowledged until after his death. They were all shut under Mikhail Gorbachev. Millions of people died from starvation, cold, exhaustion, disease and physical abuse, according to Anne Applebaum’s authoritative 2003 book, “Gulag: a History.”

There is no evidence the 600 or so U.S. prisoners at Guantanamo are being starved; nor are they being forced into slave labor. However questionable the evidence may be against some of the prisoners — more than 100 have been released free and clear after some months in the camp — they are being imprisoned not for their political beliefs but for their alleged involvement in terrorism and attacks on U.S. forces.

That so many have been released is itself rather non-Gulag-like, of course. John Podhoretz observes:

Financial purpose of Gulag: Providing totalitarian economy with millions of slave laborers.

Financial purpose of Gitmo: None.

Seizure of Gulag prisoners: From apartments, homes, street corners inside the Soviet Union.

Seizure of Gitmo prisoners: From battlefield sites in Afghanistan in the midst of war.

Even the most damaging charge Amnesty International levels against the United States and its conduct at Gitmo, that our government has been guilty of “entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law,” bears no relation to the way things worked when it came to the Gulag. Soviet prisoners were charged, tried and convicted in courts of law according to the Soviet legal code.

Christopher Orlet notes:

Gulag prisoners were systemically starved, beaten, and forced to labor in sub-zero weather. The lucky ones were shot immediately. In contrast, at Guantanamo Bay, 1,300 Korans in 13 different languages were handed out to prisoners. Prisoners are served “proper Muslim-approved food.” . . .

Nevertheless Amnesty International’s “gulag” reference came as a bit of a surprise. The left has been notoriously silent about the gulags. It is normally a chapter in the history of socialism they prefer to leave out. On the other hand, the fact that Amnesty International used the term shows how little respect the left has for the tens of millions that suffered the hell of the gulag. You would never hear Amnesty International call Guantanamo Bay the “Auschwitz of our Time.” Auschwitz is sacred to the memory of the Jews and Poles who died there. The gulag? That’s not sacred. Just a failed experiment. . . .

By making such asinine comparisons, Amnesty International risks losing whatever credibility it has left. This is unfortunate because the organization normally does important work. However, Amnesty is caught in a Catch-22 situation. It can risk losing its credibility by throwing a bone to its wealthy liberal donors, or risk losing its funding. Amnesty has obviously chosen to risk its credibility.

“Risk?”

Like a lot of people, Amnesty has lost perspective here. Instead of making constructive criticisms that might address actual problem areas, it has chosen posturing and over-the-top hysteria that ensure that it can be written off as lacking perspective and credibility. As the editors of the Washington Post noted last week:

Turning a report on prisoner detention into another excuse for Bush-bashing or America-bashing undermines Amnesty’s legitimate criticisms of U.S. policies and weakens the force of its investigations of prison systems in closed societies. It also gives the administration another excuse to dismiss valid objections to its policies as “hysterical.”

Indeed. Amnesty once realized that balance, fairness and — most importantly — self-discipline were vital to its mission. It seems, however, to have joined the rather lengthy list of those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. Bush’s ability to induce that state in his critics, and thereby cause them to blow their own credibility, is astonishing, and surely one of his greatest strengths.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll emails that Steven Den Beste spotted Amnesty International jumping the shark two years ago, and drew unfavorable comparisons with the ACLU. “I use the ACLU’s Skokie decision because Amnesty International now faces exactly the same decision. But Amnesty International is selling out. . . . Unlike the ACLU, AI is demonstrating that when the cards are down, its soul is for sale.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Julian Ku: “Amnesty is veering dangerously close to Noam Chomsky/Ramsey Clark-land here. They are not quite there yet, but give them another year, and the once-proud Amnesty International will be simply dismissed as another hotbed of fervent leftish-anti-Americanism which is no more credible on these matters than the U.S. government itself.”

Actually, I think “no more credible” is putting it rather kindly.

DANIEL DREZNER:

If the U.S. joins France, Brazil, Iran, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands in opposing something, it’s not clear to me whether the U.S. has really triggered “global animus” or just animus among international lawyers.

As Michael Reisman once said in my International Law class, it’s a serious mistake to think that the opinions of international lawyers represent anything much beyond the opinions of international lawyers.

CHIRAC VS. BUSH: An amusing graphic.

JOHN KERRY IS COMPLAINING. Jeff Jacoby is listening.

UPDATE: So is P.J. O’Rourke.

I confess that I haven’t been paying much attention to Kerry, lately, so I’m glad that someone is.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire has advice for Kerry.

MORE: Listening to John Kerry? Shockingly, some people are even listening to Steve Gilliard. Well, it takes all kinds, I guess.

TERRY TEACHOUT WRITES on culture in the age of blogging.

UZBEKISTAN UPDATE: The State Department is evacuating families of workers there.

Meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens writes on Karimov — and I agree with this observation:

It has always to be remembered that such regimes will not last forever, and that one day we will be asked, by their former subjects, what we were doing while they were unable to speak for themselves. Better to have the answer ready now and to consider American influence in a country as the occasion for leverage rather than as the occasion for awkward silence.

Indeed. Perhaps Karimov is afraid we’ll do just that.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I work with the State Dept and I haven’t seen anything saying that families have been evacuated. I see a travel warning and nothing else.

Hmm. I don’t know any more on this. Does anyone?

ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s official, now:

The Department of State has authorized the departure of non-emergency personnel and all eligible family members of U. S. Embassy personnel and urges all U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to Uzbekistan.

The blogosphere’s sources are just way ahead of the official version.

MORE ON EUROPE, over at GlennReynolds.com.

UPDATE: Charmaine Yoest connects these developments with Pepsico President Indra Nooyi’s finger analogy:

Nooyi told us that the index finger, the European Finger, points the way . . . . But a funny thing happened on the way to the (legal) forum — the subtext about yesterday’s vote: the European Finger seems to have a wrist below — the (pesky) people — turning the hand in another direction.

Heh.

MICHAEL YON is photoblogging from northern Iraq.

BWAHAHAHA! The BBC says that bloggers were behind the “no” votes on the European Constitution. Well, sort of:

Despite overwhelming support for the constitution by the governments of both France and the Netherlands and a huge media campaign by political leaders in both countries, voters have rejected the constitution.

And just as the media and political establishment in the US found during last year’s presidential election, European elites have now felt the sting of these online upstarts, the bloggers. . . .

The “Yes” campaigners argued that the blogs were perpetuating myths and half-truths, French internet consultant Stanislas Magniant told the BBC.

But those opposed to the constitution found the internet in general and blogs in particular as one of the ways to get their message out, he said.

“Proponents of ‘No’ have said the mainstream media have been shamelessly in favour of the ‘Yes’. They said the internet was the main area where the democratic debate can take place,” he added.

Another Goliath, brought down by an army of Davids? Well, perhaps a bit. (Via USS Neverdock, which observes: “I’d like to see more UK bloggers take on the British media.”)

A BLAME-THE-EURO STRATEGY for Gerhard Schroeder’s government?

Megan McArdle isn’t impressed. Neither, I suspect, will German voters be.

BLOGS PIONEER COVERAGE on the latest Tennessee political scandal. Meanwhile, Frank Cagle says Tennessee legislators need advice on how to take bribes. “The amateurish way this whole bribery scheme was handled is an embarrassment to the profession.”

IN THE MAIL: A copy of the new Civil War alt-history novel, Never Call Retreat, by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen. No word on whether it includes a plug for Hillary.

I actually thought that their widely panned WWII alt-history novel, 1945 was pretty good — though that was partly because much of the action (involving a raid by Otto Skorzeny on the Oak Ridge bomb facilities) took place within 20 miles of my house.

A WELL-DESERVED TRIUMPH for Claudia Rosett.

FREE SPEECH FOR BLOGGERS (and everyone else):

Here’s our advice to the Federal Election Commission regarding Internet regulations: Tread lightly. If the federal government must apply campaign-finance laws, specifically McCain-Feingold, to the Internet as a federal judge ruled last fall, it should do so with as light a touch as possible. Unfortunately, no matter what the FEC decides, there’s a chance that the days of unbridled political discourse on the Internet are nearing their end.

So much for all that “make no law” stuff, I guess. John McCain should be tarred and feathered, not spoken of as a presidential timber, for the travesty he produced. On the other hand, here’s some constructive advice:

In keeping with the judge’s order, however, the FEC has to do something. It has asked for public comment on the proposed rules and e-mails that can be sent to until the deadline tomorrow.

Barring a reversal of the judicial ruling, the only alternative would have to come from Congress, where there are currently bills in both chambers to exempt the Internet from FEC regulations. We encourage lawmakers to support the bills so that Internet free speech can advance unimpeded.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Ron Coleman points out that free speech isn’t just for the Internet. And several readers not that McCain isn’t solely at fault. That’s true. In my speech at the Politics Online conference, I noted that in my opinion President Bush violated his oath of office by signing McCain-Feingold. [Update: Working transcript link here.]

More McCain bossiness from Baseball Musings.

JOHN KEEGAN WRITES that “bad international law is making a just war harder to fight.” (Via Opinio Juris).

UPDATE: Military reader John Kluge emails:

I can’t respond to John Keegan about his article you linked, but I can respond to you. Keegan is absolutely right about the Court-Martial process working better for the military than a system of civilian justice. Interestingly, from my experience of doing over 60 Court-Martials as a military lawyer, military juries are actually harder on solidiers committing misconduct on the battlefield and military related misconduct than civilian juries. A good friend of mine was the lead prosecutor in the Gernier case stemming from the Abu Garib abuses. The defense’s strategy was to pack the jury with as many combat veterens as possible on the theory that they would understand. What happened instead was, as in many trials, the unpleasant truth came out, which was that Gernier had a cush job at a prison in Baghdad, wasn’t exposed to danger every day the way many of us were and was basically a sadistic bastard. The military had no sympathy for him and gave him 10 years. No way does a civilian jury give that hard of a sentence. They would not have known any better and bought the poor stressed out soldier defense. The point is that military juries are more likely to punish war crimes than civilian juries where those war crimes are truly crimes.

BTW, I have always dreamed of Posner getting a Supreme Court gig, if for no other reason than how much better written his opinions would be over what we get now. Compare a good Posner opinion to the muddle put out by the likes of O’Conner. Its embarassing for O’Conner. The liberals would go bizerk over Posner for the same reason they went bizerk over Bork. He would write great, well reasoned, easily understood, broad opinions that would have lasting precidential effect. That is the liberal’s great nightmare. Better to have someone like O’Conner who muddles along and leaves behind a body of work that can be ignored or twisted to mean whatever you like. The social conservatives who would object to him, would do well to support him for that reason alone.

Indeed.

BOY, EVERYBODY’S MAD at the French.

E.U. UPDATE: A Fistful of Euros reports that Latvia has approved the E.U. Constitution — by parliamentary vote, not referendum — and observes:

Meanwhile French media are announcing that there is a plan B, it’s called Blair. Tony Blair, they are suggesting, will seize the opportunity presented by disarray in the federal Europe camp to push ahead with ’liberal’ economic reforms, leaving the institutional infrastructure to languish. Possibly the outcome the French fear most.

Heh. Meanwhile, Austin Bay’s latest column looks at the EU-vote aftermath, and what it means.

GATEWAY PUNDIT reports on the East St. Louis voter fraud trial, with video. I’m surprised this story isn’t getting more attention.