ALPHECCA’S WEEKLY SURVEY of media reporting on guns is up.

ERIC MULLER IS CORRECTING THE NEW YORK TIMES on the Pope. “Does nobody at the New York Times do any fact checking at all?”

It’s not like Ratzinger was an out-of-the-blue candidate, so you’d think they’d have had all this stuff squared away ahead of time.

Meanwhile The Anchoress has some thoughts on the press coverage in general.

Meanwhile, Trey Jackson has a video roundup.

UPDATE: Amy Welborn, unsurprisingly, has lots of interesting thoughts.

IT’S A QUAGMIRE:

Sixty years after the end of World War II, there are still 62,000 American troops in Europe. They are stationed in 236 bases, including 13 training areas. The force has been reduced considerably over the years, especially after the Cold War ended in 1991, leaving over a quarter million American troops in Europe. But in 2015 there will still be 24,000 American troops over there, in 88 bases, and using four training areas.

This is all because Ike went in without an “exit strategy.”

READER C.J. BURCH EMAILS: “I grow more and more convinced the Republican majority will end itself by 2006 if the Left will just shut up for five minutes.”

Which makes it a damn close-run thing.

CALVIN MASSEY’S ARTICLE ON THE POLITICAL MARKETPLACE OF RELIGION is available for download at SSRN. (Via the Religion Clause blog.)

RAND SIMBERG HAS THOUGHTS on National Self-Defense Day.

JOE GANDELMAN has a massive new-Pope roundup.

IRAQI BLOGGER SALAM PAX TAKES ON GEORGE GALLOWAY:

Mr Galloway left the press conference near Liverpool Street station before the end but was met outside by Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger, who was making a film for BBC2’s Newsnight.

Challenged by Mr Pax that only 21% of Iraqis want US and UK troops out of their country, Mr Galloway said there was no point in engaging in discussion “because you and I will never agree”.

That’s because Galloway — as he’s illustrated quite consistently by his words and actions — wants the good guys to lose.

This via U.S.S. Neverdock, which also notes this passage from the BBC’s report:

The “Baghdad blogger” was at the event to make a film for Newsnight, and he managed to snatch a brief interview with Mr Galloway before the Respect candidate dashed off to his meeting with the lawyers.

“I know who you are,” said Mr Galloway, warily eyeing Mr Pax, whose weblog gave the world an insight into the lives of ordinary Iraqis in the run-up to the US-led invasion.

Mr Pax wanted to know why Mr Galloway wanted the immediate withdrawal of occupying troops from Iraq.

“I really don’t think we are going to agree on this. You supported the war and I opposed it,” said Mr Galloway.

“You welcomed the invasion of foreign armies into your country. I opposed it. So we are not going to agree on this, which is why I didn’t think it would be productive to have a discussion with you and I do have to go now.”

‘Illegal war’

But Mr Pax – whose real name has never been revealed – pressed the point.

Galloway: “I just want to be honest with you. You can not demand that our armed forces occupy your country – that’s a matter for us.

“It’s not a matter for you – it’s a matter for us. Now I think there are millions of people in this country who think the war was illegal, was wrong shouldn’t have happened and should be immediately withdrawn from. We are entitled to that point of view and we are.”

Mr Pax “shouldn’t have supported” the war in the first place, added Mr Galloway.

But Mr Pax countered that would be tantamount to supporting the continuation of a regime like Saddam’s.

Which would be no surprise where Galloway is concerned.

LARRY KUDLOW says that China is a “mess,” with no end in sight.

Meanwhile, Joe Katzman rounds up all sorts of interesting information on the situation.

THE CITY OF KNOXVILLE IS CONSIDERING TRAFFIC CAMERAS: Given that this dreadful idea has been abandoned by many states, I don’t know why we’re considering it. Though I suspect that it has something to do with the city’s desire for revenue . . . .

REPORTEDLY, THERE IS A NEW POPE: No further details, yet.

UPDATE: It’s Ratzinger, now known as Benedict XVI. Prof. Bainbridge has thoughts. So does Andrew Sullivan, though they’re, um, different thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rob Huddleston: “I am just giddy that the word ‘conclave’ will quickly disappear from all newscasts. . .”

Blake Wylie: “No surprise, here.”

Ed Morrissey, on the other hand, notes that the selection flies in the face of traditional conventional wisdom.

And Bainbridge responds to Sullivan — though his final line is, I think, a two-edged sword.

Meanwhile Brendan Loy videoblogs the (mixed) reaction at Notre Dame law school.

TODAY IS THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY of the Oklahoma City bombing. And there are still homegrown terrorists out there. One of my worries is that some of them will make common-cause with the middle eastern variety of terrorists. (Some people say that they already have, and did so in the context of Oklahoma City. And some were certainly quick to applaud the 9/11 attacks.)

I worried about domestic terrorism before Oklahoma City, and in fact wrote an op-ed in January of 1995 that I sent out to lots of little newspapers in rural towns in the north- and southwest. I don’t even remember sending it to the Chicago Tribune, but they published it. (They didn’t even call me first, and for that matter, they never paid me anything . . . .) You can read it by clicking “read more.”
Recently, a steady drumbeat of print reports and network news stories has given national attention to what many in the South and West already knew: that some Americans are arming themselves and organizing into militia companies. Part of a so-called “Patriot Movement” that some number at 5 million members, the militia movement is estimated by press accounts as having somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 members under arms. Their fear, based on all sorts of rumors about “black helicopters” and foreign forces maneuvering in remote areas, is that the feds, perhaps in conjunction with the United Nations, will seize their guns and establish a “new world order” dictatorship that will take control over their lives. Some are even talking about armed revolt.

Militia members believe their actions are authorized by the U.S. Constitution. They’re silly to worry about the UN, which can’t even handle the Serbs. They’re half right about the Constitution-but the part they have wrong could mean trouble. Militia advocates point to the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment, which addresses the right to keep and bear arms, and to the framers’ general views in favor of an armed citizenry as a check on tyrants. Here they’re on solid ground. There is no question that the framers supported an armed citizenry as a way of preventing tyrannical government.

But the militia groups haven’t thought about how the framers defined tyrannical government. The fact is that though there is plenty to complain about with regard to the expansion of government in the last half-century, just about all of it was with the acquiescence-and often the outright endorsement-of the electorate. That makes a big difference. Although many militia supporters can quote the framers at great length on the right to bear arms, few seem aware that the framers also put a lot of effort into distinguishing between legitimate revolutions-such as the American Revolution- and mere “rebellions” or “insurrections.” The former represented a right, even a duty, of the people. The latter were illegitimate, mere outlawry. The framers developed a rather sophisticated political theory for distinguishing between the two.

The most important aspect of this theory was representation. Those who were not represented lacked the citizen’s duty of loyalty. A government that taxed its citizens without representation was thus no better than an outlaw, and citizens enjoyed the same right of resistance against its officers as they possessed against robbers.

But revolting against taxation without representation is not the same thing as revolting against taxation, period. Like it or not, the government we have now is the government that most citizens at least thought they wanted.

If you want to know what the framers considered grounds for revolt, read the list of complaints about George III in the Declaration of Independence.

The framers understood what a dangerous thing a revolution was. They embarked on their effort with trepidation, and they would not have been surprised to learn that most revolutions that came after theirs either failed or produced a new tyranny worse than the old. They knew that once let out, the genie of revolution often proves both destructive and hard to rebottle. As the militia movement says, the framers did believe in the right to revolution. But they believed that such strong medicine was a last resort against tyranny. Today’s militia members would be better advised to organize a new political party, or to work at increasing voter turnout.

Such counsel may seem bland beside the very real romance of revolution. But those on the political right (from which most, though not all, of the militia movement comes) should know better than to yield to that romance. Ever since the idolization of Che Guevara, a large chunk of the American left has succumbed to revolutionary romance, while those on the right have focused on workaday politics. The relative fortunes of those two movements over the last 25 years, especially after November’s elections, suggest which approach works.

Having said this, I also have a cautionary note for those who are not part of the militia movement. When large numbers of citizens begin arming against their own government and are ready to believe even the silliest rumors about that government’s willingness to evade the Constitution, there is a problem that goes beyond gullibility. This country’s political establishment should think about what it has done to inspire such distrust–and what it can do to regain the trust and loyalty of many Americans who no longer grant it either.

(more…)

BRIAN ANDERSON WRITES THAT Air America is crashing, and can’t be saved.

I still haven’t finished his South Park Conservatives, yet. I’ve just been too busy. It’s that time of the semester for me.

LOOKING FOR ALIEN SPACE STATIONS. But not finding any, yet.

UPDATE: Reader Frederick Irving emails: “Alien Space Station research is looking for Intelligent Design in the Universe. I guess it’s not science.”

Except that Intelligent Design in the Universe isn’t the same as Intelligent Design of the Universe. And the ID theorists I’ve encountered generally seem to have already decided who the Designer is, before they ever started looking for evidence of design.

SOME VERY NICE PHOTOS OF MT. LECONTE by Scott Williams. I especially liked this one.

HEALTH CARE BLOG-A-RAMA: This week’s Grand Rounds is up, over at GrrlScientist’s place.

WOE, CANADA:

Visiting Americans may be about to lose their favorite cliché about their chilly neighbor. Over the past few weeks, a judicial inquiry in Montreal has heard charges that Canada’s governing Liberal Party was running a system of extortion, embezzlement, kickbacks and graft as dirty as anything Americans might expect to find in your run-of-the-mill banana republic. . . .

Unlike their supposed analogues, the Democrats in the United States or Great Britain’s Labor Party, Canada’s Liberals are not a party built around certain policies and principles. They are instead what political scientists call a brokerage party, similar to the old Italian Christian Democrats or India’s Congress Party: a political entity without fixed principles or policies that exploits the power of the central state to bribe or bully incompatible constituencies to join together to share the spoils of government.

As countries modernize, they tend to leave brokerage parties behind. Very belatedly, that moment of maturity may now be arriving in Canada. Americans may lose their illusions about my native country; Canadians will gain true multiparty democracy and accountability in government. It’s an exchange that is long past due.

Indeed.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH is unabashedly pro-choice.

A CALL FOR ELIOT SPITZER’S RESIGNATION over conflicts of interest.

The Google story is rather revealing.

FROM THE NEW REPUBLIC TO THE BLOGOSPHERE, everybody’s dogpiling on Juan Cole.

I have no doubt that he’s sincere, but I’ve found his analysis, when I’ve looked at it, to be too distorted by Bush-hatred to be reliable.

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY TODAY, but I was just too busy (got an article back from a law review with editorial revisions and the inevitable request for more footnotes) to get out and photoblog. But Ann Althouse has some photos. Once again, as at my campus, women seem to be overrepresented.

HATE SPEECH AT STANFORD.

UPDATE: Stanford blogger Elliot Fladen emails:

It was as bad as the Reason piece says, if not worse. And the Women of
Stanford Law are largely repeating her truisms left and right now, as
if they went to a cult initiation session. Anyway, here is my post on
the subject if you are willing to link to it.

Follow this link for his firsthand account.

UNSCAM UPDATE: More on a Canadian connection to the oil-for-food scandal.

MIKE KREMPASKY ERICK ERICKSON is defending the Heritage Foundation against Thomas Edsall’s charges.

Sorry, Krempasky sent me the link and I didn’t notice the author credit line.

JIM DUNNIGAN THINKS THAT CHINA IS LESS STABLE than it appears, and that the anti-Japanese protests organized by the government are getting out of its control.