GREG DJEREJIAN has much more on Uzbekistan.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has a big roundup of news. And Slate collects some blog-posts that I hadn’t seen before.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Still more, from Daniel Drezner.

OPINIO JURIS has thoughts on weapons in outer space.

I had a column on this a while back, and I’ve got a somewhat longer treatment coming out in the University of Chicago Journal of International Law sometime this summer.

CATHY SEIPP INTERVIEWS Andrew Breitbart, formerly of Drudge, now of The Huffington Post.

HEH.

UPDATE: Ouch!

THE SCOTSMAN ON GALLOWAY’S SENATE TESTIMONY:

GEORGE Galloway yesterday failed in his attempt to convince a sceptical US Senate investigative committee that he had not profited from oil dealings with Iraq under the UN’s controversial oil-for-food programme.

Despite a typically barnstorming performance full of bluster and rhetorical flourishes, the former Glasgow Kelvin MP was pinned down by persistent questioning over his business relationship with Fawaz Zureikat, the chairman of the Mariam Appeal – set up to assist a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukaemia.

And it was a Democrat senator, Carl Levin, rather than the Republican committee chairman, Norm Coleman, who gave him the hardest time as Mr Galloway sought to turn the tables on his inquisitors, leaving him no closer to clearing his name than when he took his seat in front of the sub-committee of the Senate’s homeland security and government affairs committee in Washington.

Time and again, Mr Levin questioned him, requesting wearily that he deliver a straight answer to a straight question. But Mr Galloway could, or would not.

No surprise, there. Thanks to reader Bill Rudersdorf for the link.

THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIBLE NANOTECHNOLOGY reports that molecular manufacturing may be closer than we think.

Link to the full report, here.

I WAS ON HUGH HEWITT’S SHOW EARLIER, with Jay Rosen, talking about the Newsweek scandal. Hugh seemed to think that Newsweek should be at risk of legal action. I didn’t agree, and neither did Jay. (The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, however, seem to agree with Hugh).

Jay and I did agree that Newsweek’s admission of ignorance regarding the consequences of its reporting was truly stunning. And Jay seemed surprised that my warnings about the consequences for freedom of the press of such irresponsibility were just that: warnings, not a desired state. But they are. Today’s expansive press freedom, which I support wholeheartedly, is of recent origin (essentially, it’s a post-World War II phenomenon) and not to be taken for granted. Remember all the talk about the Enron scandal, and how free enterprise was at risk if greedy corporations didn’t clean up their acts? Well, I’m afraid that press freedom is at risk if it’s seen as a vehicle for out-of-touch corporations to peddle defective products without fear of consequences. (Ironically, the rise of blogs and other people-based media — “we-dia” as Jim Treacher calls them — may be the best defense against that).

Both Jay and I rated this scandal an 8 on a scale where RatherGate was a 10. While there will be specific consequences, for Newsweek and its staff, the bigger damage will be yet another incremental loss of press credibility. I’d rather have a press that was trusted, and trustworthy. We’re still some distance from that, I’m afraid.

There will be a transcript up at Radioblogger, later.

UPDATE: Comments on how the press is handling all this — in a word, badly — here.

You know, when I used to watch old war movies, I never understood the scene where a character would ask “don’t you know there’s a war on?” Of course he does, I’d think, It’s a war movie, for Chrissake!

In the real world, however, it seems less obvious to some people. To the Newsweek folks this was a minor domestic “gotcha” story, and they seem to have completely missed the fact that in wartime, where the enemy is using this sort of thing as the centerpiece of its propaganda campaign, it’s a lot more than that.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Pejman Yousefzadeh writes:

Speaking personally, I have a great many things on my To-Do List that take precedence over a war with the mainstream media, and contrary to the import of these moronic conspiracy theories, I would love to work hand-in-glove with the mainstream media to ensure a somewhat interesting and educational debate. And here’s a news flash: I have this belief–call me naïve, but I hope that you would be wrong in doing so–that bloggers on the other side of the ideological and partisan divide have the exact same wish.

Indeed.

ANDREW SULLIVAN seems to think that I should be blogging more about Abu Ghraib, and less about the Newsweek scandal. Well, I think he should be blogging more (er, at least some) about the worse-than-Tiananmen massacre in Uzbekistan, and perhaps a bit less about gay marriage. But so what? What people blog about is none of my business. Andrew seems to feel differently, and beyond that seems to have endorsed the “fake but accurate” defense of Newsweek’s reporting.

I do confess that I think that winning the war is much more important than Abu Ghraib, and that viewing the entire war — and the entire American military — through the prism of Abu Ghraib is as unfair as judging all Muslims by the acts of terrorists. Andrew has chosen the role of emoter-in-chief on these subjects, and he’s welcome to it, though he would be more convincing in that part if he didn’t count wrapping people in the Israeli flag as torture.

But while I think that what happened at Abu Ghraib was bad, and that it should be punished, and that Koran-flushing (if it had happened) would have been bad, though not torturous, I don’t think it’s terribly important compared to the war as a whole, and I think that it takes a peculiar perspective to make it emblematic of the war, and of the American military, which seems to be where Andrew is going these days, at least to judge — as he invites us to — by the volume of posts. Every war has its Abu Ghraibs — and, usually, its Dresdens and its Atlantas, which this war has lacked, not because America didn’t have the ability, but because it possessed a decency and restraint that gets small credit. When Andrew was a champion of the war on terror, writing about martial spirit and fifth columns composed of the “decadent left,” did he believe that nothing like Abu Ghraib would happen, when such things (and much worse) happen in prisons across America (and everywhere else) on a daily basis? If so, he was writing out of an appalling ignorance.

As Mickey Kaus has noted, Andrew can be excitable. A while back he apologized to me for some of his criticisms during the election, and more recently he has apologized to his readers for his waffling and defeatism on the war last spring. Perhaps he’ll apologize for this at some point in the future. But, I confess, I find the question of what Andrew thinks less pressing than I used to.

READER ZUBAER MAHBOOB EMAILS:

As a concerned Muslim who wants to see democracy take root not just in Iraq but all across the Middle East and Central Asia, I despair of the stunning silence in the blogosphere regarding the terrible news from Uzbekistan, a massacre of civilians by the odious Karimov.

What is really depressing is that all the bloggers who made such a song and dance over the Iraqi elections cannot for the life of them be bothered to even MENTION this atrocity, not even in passing.

You are our last hope, Glenn. I believe in your innate decency and fairness. If you can, please draw some attention to this topic. No one else is saying a word about it, giving Karimov and his backers a free ride on this issue. You have great influence in the political blogosphere. I request you to use your power to shed a stronger light on the misdeeds of this ugly client regime, and to at least force people to acknowledge what is going on.

We will be eternally grateful.

Well, I don’t think that it’s fair to say that nobody’s talking about it. This rather long post from earlier today links quite a few bloggers who have been on the story for a while, and I’ve certainly been posting on it regularly. And Austin Bay has blogged about it as well, and is promising more, as has Winds of Change and Publius, among others.

Media coverage of events there has been rather thin, the government is doing its best to shut off communications, and unless — like me in the earlier post, or like Gateway Pundit or Registan — you’re getting emails from people there, it’s hard to find much to say. And I don’t generally like to criticize people for blogging about what they think is important, instead of what I think is important.

Nonetheless, I do hope that more bloggers — and more mainstream media outfits — will take up the call. I suspect, and hope, that there’s more going on than meets the eye at the moment. There usually is in these situations. But regardless, external pressure is almost always a good thing.

UPDATE: James Bennett (not the Anglosphere one) emails that he’s posted about it on his blog, here and here. He’s spent time there.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Brian Erst emails:

NPR had a very good piece on Uzbekistan today, featuring a reporter who was in the area where the massacre occurred.

The journalist was very clear that the official Uzbek government line is a lie. She personally witnessed Uzbek troops opening fire on demonstrators, including women and children, with no prior warning. She claimed the casualty figures were much, much higher than reported – at least 1000-1500 dead – and that did not include women and children, whose corpses the government gathered and “disappeared”.

It was a disturbing report by an eyewitness.

Good for them. I caught part of ATC this afternoon, but not that part.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Jay Reding has further thoughts.

MORE: A sum-up article by Nathan Hamm at OpenDemocracy.net.

I’M NOT SURE I CAN DESCRIBE THIS SITE in 100 words or less.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Roger Simon has an important oil-for-food document on his blog.

UPDATE: Sissy Willis has more on Galloway, and Ian Schwartz has video.

INTERESTING ARTICLE IN FORTUNE on the rise of the “do it yourself economy.” And they’ve made it an open link for the benefit of bloggers, which is smart.

I’ve written a couple of related pieces, which you can see here and here.

THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT’S NEW MOTTO: “Whatever it takes!”

THIS WEEK’S Carnival of the Liberated is up!

FEC TAKE NOTE: Amit Varma points out that the Indian government is recognizing bloggers as journalists.

ANOTHER MEDIA SCANDAL? Mark Tapscott wonders what is going on at the Detroit Free Press.

MATT YGLESIAS EXPLAINS AMERICA to the Chinese.

He might also point out that the 9/11 attacks didn’t have the expected effect. For a warmongering global imperialist power, America seems to be insufficiently feared.

UPDATE: Hmm. If Taiwan “acquired” a few dozen thermonuclear weapons, would the calculus change?

TIM RUSSO WRITES:

Who needs real news when you’ve got Wolf Blitzer telling you about it? Attempting to watch the oil-for-food hearing today featuring George Galloway via CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC was like watching a baseball game with the camera focused on the broadcast booth rather than the ball diamond. Every time it got good, especially during the questioning, which provided the real fireworks, they cut to some ‘commentator’ telling us how ‘firey’, ‘scathing’, etc Galloway was (especially Fox), while Galloway and Senators Coleman and Levin were actually being firey and scathing behind them. What a disgrace.

He switched to C-SPAN, which is usually the right move. Do they pay these guys by the word?

MORE ON NEWSWEEK: The UPI’s Pamela Hess says that Newsweek blew it, but that the Bush Administration needs better PR efforts.

That’s no doubt true, but I can understand their frustration in dealing with an extraordinarily hostile, and frequently untrustworthy, press.

And the latest poll results, which suggest that many Americans trust the government more than they trust the press, suggest that the press needs to work on its image, as well.

UZBEKISTAN UPDATE: [Identifying information removed at correspondent’s request] Reader _________ emails:

[Paragraph deleted at correspondent’s request.]

I’m writing to ask your opinion regarding the situation in Uzbekistan and the Bush Doctrine. Full disclosure-I’m a staunch Democrat but one that willingly acknowledges the positive effect the Iraq invasion has had on democracy movements in several nations. In fact, most liberals I know are shamefully in denial about this and need to wake up and get excited about the spread of freedom.

However, I think the Uzbek situation is where the Bush Doctrine’s rubber needs to meet the road. It was great when the new democracy movements produced governments that were friendlier to US interests (Ukraine, Georgia, Lebanon), but Uzbekistan is different. Karimov is our buddy, it seems primarily due to our military base in southern Uzbekistan. However this week we’ve seen just how amazingly brutal he is and the Bush Administration needs to come out clearly against this turd. I think we can find another place from which to stage our Afghanistan operation. Sadly, the lukewarm admonishments coming from our government only confirm my initial suspicion about the Bush Doctrine, that we would only pressure tyrants that we didn’t need anyway.

I’m sure you’ve gotten lots of email like this about Uzbekistan, but I thought maybe you’d like to hear from an American who was there during the incident. It wasn’t easy telling them that we were keeping our mouths shut because we find Karimov convenient. The worst thing is that they knew this already, they’ve known it for years.

Well, I think Ukraine stands as a counterexample to that, as Yushchenko has been far less supportive of U.S. war efforts than his predecessor. But I certainly think we need to be encouraging democracy in Uzbekistan.

In wartime, you can’t always be choosy about your allies — we sided with Stalin in World War Two, and for that matter cut deals with the likes of DeGaulle that we came to regret later. And America’s longstanding reputation for being harder on our allies than our enemies is something we don’t want to exacerbate, as you don’t get allies that way. Telling friendly dictators that we’ll focus our efforts elsewhere for a while, and give them time to arrange a transition to democracy that leaves their families safe and even lets them keep some of their ill-gotten gains is acceptable realpolitik. Closing your eyes to mass murder is not.

But I think it’s fair to insist that things move in the right direction, not the wrong one, and from what I can tell, things in Uzbekistan have gone very far wrong — far enough to justify ditching any promises made earlier, if the reports are true.

UPDATE: A reader who prefers anonymity sends this link to a report that we’re actually doing more than I realized:

Over the past few years, Uzbek president Islam Karimov has been warned by the U.S. to either get with the democratic process, or risk getting overthrown. Even though the United States withdrew most foreign aid last year over this issue, Karimov believes that he can tough it out. But the United States has been funding pro-democracy political organizations in Uzbekistan.

Sounds like a good time to tighten the screws some more. Michael Totten says it’s time to dump Karimov, and suggests that the White House agrees.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Much more on Uzbekistan at Registan.

MORE: Jim Hoft has posted further thoughts on Uzbekistan.

STILL MORE: Reader Robb Minneman is a bit unclear on the anonymous-source concept, and sends this:

I’ve never written before, but I felt the need to do so this one time.
You’ve been awfully tough on Newsweek (and deservedly so!) in the last
couple of days, but today, you did something just like they did. In the
update to your post on Uzbekistan and democracy movements
(http://instapundit.com/archives/023050.php), you quoted an anonymous
source.

Now this guy may not be anonymous to you, but really, how does this make you any different than Michael Isikoff? You’ve got just as much to worry about, in terms of trust issues, as Newsweek does. Maybe more so, as you’re a newer outfit.

Er, except that the anonymous reader isn’t the source for the information. He just forwarded me a link to a public source for the information. That’s not the same at all.

Anonymous sources, of course, aren’t always bad — but you’d better either (1) be sure that what they’re reporting is accurate; or (2) be truthful about your uncertainties in that regard. But sending someone a link isn’t anonymous sourcing at all.

MORE STILL: Tim Russo says I’m not being tough enough on Uzbekistan. I think, however, that he misunderstood my original post.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Loads of stuff over at NewsBeat 1, and Scott Burgess at The Daily Ablution has been Liveblogging the Galloway hearings.

Latest update: “11:53 – Sen. Coleman is establishing links between Zaraqat and Galloway, which are not being contested.”

Plus this useful observation:

There’s a slightly different focus coming from Chairman Coleman and his Democratic counterpart, but it’s clear that they’re on the same page as far as Galloway is concerned. That’s very good to see, in that it undermines George’s ad hominem attacks on the committee members (“a group of Christian fundamentalist and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of a neocon George Bush who is pro-war” as today’s Times has him saying). In fact, that characterisation has been completely shot down.

Stay tuned.

MYTHBUSTING over at Silent Running. No Korans were harmed during this test, though the book used as a surrogate is regarded as holy by a few misguided souls. . . .

A PROMISING NEW TREATMENT for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Faster, please?

Though I wonder if it works against those bacteria that form biofilms?

UPDATE: Derek Lowe emails that this doesn’t look so promising — though at least my biofilm point made sense which, given how long it’s been since I studied this stuff, is a relief:

Had a look at that Speculist/Wired News piece, followed by a perusal of the Oculus web site. Not too many details there for a chemist, so I searched for their IP, and found their patent WO03048421, which shows up assigned to Oculus in its European filing. That gave me more to go on.

I’m not all that impressed. This seems to have very little relation to the nanotube punctures that you wrote about a few months ago, despite the Speculist lead-in, and the Oculus PR doesn’t make much sense, either. Their statement in the Wired article is:

“the ion-hungry water creates an osmotic potential that ruptures the cell walls
of single-celled organisms, and out leaks the cell’s cytoplasm. Because
multicellular organisms — people, animals, plants — are tightly bound, the
water is prevented from surrounding the cells, and there is no negative impact”

Which is semi-gibberish. Talking about “ion-hungry” water that kills through osmosis makes it sound like it’s some sort of ultrapure stuff, but their water has plenty of ions in it, since the electrolysis that produces it makes hypochlorous acid, hydrochloric acid, and so on. Those are surely the source of its bacteria-killing properties, which would then be done through good ol’ toxic chemistry. And that “tightly bound” stuff isn’t too compelling, either – so it’ll just mess up your cells that it can get to, is my take on that, and won’t touch bacteria that are embedded in a matrix or biofilm.

And the possibility for dosing this stuff in vivo is zero, by the way, for those same reasons.

Dang. I would rather this be a sure winner, alas.

ED CONE notes something amusing: “You can’t make this stuff up.”

I’m running across a lot of things like that.

WOW, THAT WAS FAST: Team America: World Police is out on DVD.

UPDATE: Dave Weigel emails:

Permit me to point at you and say “You’re wrong!” Team America’s theatre-to-DVD gestation actually was average-to-slow. It was released October 15, 2004, made $33 million, and hits DVD May 17 – that’s seven months. By comparison the Michael Keaton sorta-hit “White Noise,” which made $56 million, was released January 5, 2005 and also hits DVD today.

Another comparison – “Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones” came out in theatres May 16, 2002. It came to DVD on November 12, six months later.

Believe me – as a “Team America” devotee I’ve been highly aware of how long it took to arrive on DVD.

Huh. Seemed fast to me, but I don’t pay a lot of attention to these things. Didn’t movies used to take over a year to hit DVD?