HOWARD FINEMAN lists the blogs he reads.

DISSING BIN LADEN: Austin Bay has more captured Al Qaeda documents. Admiration for Osama was not universal.

AN ARMY OF BORG?

Heh. The underlying Gizmodo piece is cool.

ZEYAD has lots of updates on events in Iraq — just keep scrolling. Bottom line: “The situation in Baghdad is bad, bad, bad.”

UPDATE: More positive view here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Michael Novak.

MICHELLE MALKIN HAS BEEN HACKED, apparently. She’ll be posting at PJ Media until it’s fixed.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: “In Northern Iraq there is a place called Lalish where the Yezidis say the universe was born. I drove south from Dohok on snowy roads through an empty land, seemingly to the ends of the earth, and found it nestled among cold hills.”

THE CARNIVAL OF BLOG COVERAGE is a new blog by Daniel Glover that collects Big Media stories on the blogosphere.

IS THERE A CIVIL WAR LOOMING IN IRAQ? In some sense, of course, there’s been one for a while. But Bill Roggio looks at the indicators for a real civil war and finds it unlikely.

IF YOU WEREN’T ONLINE LAST NIGHT, say because you have a life or something, don’t miss our podcast interview with Jim Dunnigan and Austin Bay, focusing on the ports issue, the Philippines, Muslim integration in Europe, and more.

Hey, we’re getting good reviews:

If you’ve ever listened to a talk show and wanted the host to get out of the way and let a well-informed guest explain things at length, you will find yourself wanting to carve inspiring statues of Glenn and his co-host/wife Helen.

They’re like, the anti-Bill-O’Reilly.

Which is good, as I wouldn’t want to be married to Bill O’Reilly.

MORE ON SOUTH DAKOTA’S intellectual diversity legislation.

I’m guessing that the publicity over the Larry Summers affair will give this sort of thing a boost.

SEAN HACKBARTH is podcasting.

PEGGY NOONAN: “We are debating port security. While we’re at it, how about airport security? Does anyone really believe that has gotten much better since 19 terrorists hijacked four planes five years ago?”

I don’t.

UPDATE: More here: “Security experts say U.S. ports have long been ill-prepared for a terrorist attack — regardless of the nationality of the owner.”

Homeland Security remains pretty much a joke — air, sea, and land. The good news is, the Dubai deal won’t make things worse at Baltimore:

At least one of the ports where DP World is set to operate, Baltimore, has been dogged by security shortcomings for years. A Baltimore Sun investigation in June 2005 revealed that the port’s fiber-optic alarm system on the perimeter fence malfunctioned and was usually switched off, and that port police were so understaffed that their patrol boats often dry-docked because there was no one to operate them. The newspaper also found that a pair of “video cameras” guarding the entrance to one important marine terminal were actually blocks of wood on poles.

Last summer, a tour of the port, the nation’s eighth largest, revealed gaps in perimeter fences, unattended gates, surveillances systems that didn’t work and insufficient police patrols on land and sea. State officials have acknowledged security gaps and said they have been working to close them.

It can only get better, apparently . . . .

Read this piece by Jim Glassman, too: “Isn’t this precisely what the United States preaches? Don’t we want places like Dubai to fight terror and to grow, to invest, to buy, to trade, to adopt Western commercial practices, to expose themselves to the rest of the world and thus become tolerant and moderate?” Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Over at WizBang, a correction is offered regarding my views on airport security. I stand corrected.

CENSORSHIP IN MINNESOTA: The story continues. Then there’s this case from Minnesota, too. What’s going on up there?

BILL BENNETT AND ALAN DERSHOWITZ:

We two come from different political and philosophical perspectives, but on this we agree: Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: And here’s a transcript of Dershowitz on Hugh Hewitt’s show last night.

PORT DEAL UPDATE: Reader Steve Soukup emails:

Drudge runs with the headline “Arab Co., White House had Secret Agreement…” Follow the link and you find an AP story detailing this “secret agreement.” At the end of the third paragraph, is the following, “Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.”

Really? So how, exactly, is this news? Does it really deserve to be fronted on Drudge?

Please help me understand what’s going on here. Has everyone gone crazy?

Yes. Well, this deal struck me funny when I first heard about it too, and in spite of Al Gore’s complaints, the notion that the Bush Administration is too friendly with Arab governments isn’t one that fails the straight-face test. But I’m now convinced — especially after talking to Jim Dunnigan and Austin Bay — that there’s not really much to this story.

As I noted earlier, we have a perfect storm brought about by the loss of confidence in the Administration’s backbone after their inadequate Cartoon Wars response, continuing fears of terrorism (at least now the Democrats won’t be able to say that it’s a case of Bush fanning the flames of fear) and lousy White House PR management. As Rich Galen says: “This port deal is not a national security issue. It is an issue of this administration having a continuing problem with understanding how these things will play in the public’s mind and not taking steps to set the stage so these things don’t come as a shock and are presented in their worst possible light.”

As I say, I don’t think there’s any real security issue here, but I think the Bush Administration needs to launch a full-bore effort to explain what’s actually going on, something that they still haven’t really mounted.

UPDATE: Reader Mike Sterling emails:

I took one of your earlier posts on the whole port deal – Bush is either stupid or there was a quid pro quo, etc – to mean you were opposed to the idea. Now that you appear to have changed your mind you keep asserting the the administration mismanaged the PR side of this deal. Well, dammit, hindsight is 20/20. How much stuff does a presidential administration deal with in one day? There is absolutely no way to foresee all of the potential problems that any given decision might cause.

Anyway, had they spotted this one, something else would have blindsided them. No, the fault for the hyperactive response to this “story” is with those who hopped on board the meme without checking facts. In this case, and uncharacteristically, I think, you are one of those people.And I really don’t think that the admin’s response to the cartoon stupidity – disappointing as it was and remains – matters a whole lot in this particular firestorm.
But I like your point about the Dems not being able to blame Bush for fanning the flames of fear this time. Good observation.

Love your work.

Well, actually I think I was right about both parts of my earlier observation: The deal seems to be very important, and the veto threat was idiotic. I just caught a panel on Scarborough and the report was that Bush’s veto threat — an uncharacteristic threat, as I noted, given that he never vetoes — was in fact one of the things that sent Congress into a tizzy because it was such a drastic and unexplained escalation.

I will admit that my knee jerked on hearing this story, and that I should have waited to learn more before offering an opinion. In my defense, I’ll note that I gathered more information and changed my mind. Still, mea culpa.

But (and this is a separate point from the merits of the decision, or of my take thereon) it wasn’t just me — there were an awful lot of knees jerking on this decision, and the White House, or somebody, should have foreseen that. That doesn’t get me off the hook, of course, but it doesn’t reflect well on them, either.

What’s more, this issue resonates so much because there is a huge amount of dissatisfaction out there regarding the Administration’s position on border control and homeland security. That’s certainly something they should know about, and that made this problem even more predictable.

Related thoughts here.

MOSQUES BOMBED IN IRAQ: Omar from Iraq the Model has a firsthand report. And Bill Roggio and The Belmont Club have thoughts.

If Danish cartoons could create riots worldwide against the defamers of Islam, you’d think that bombing of mosques would create anti-terrorist marches all over.

BRUCE SCHNEIER discovers that employees don’t care about security. At least, not enough. He also thinks that the people who design and maintain computers don’t care enough, either. I like the furnace analogy. (Via Jamulblog, which also notes that it’s not just the employees.)

UPDATE: The Jamulblog link was broken before. Fixed now. Sorry!

LA SHAWN BARBER writes on why bloggers should review books. Going beyond the obvious: Free books!

CARTOON WARS UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens writes:

Please be outside the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue) between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24. Quietness and calm are the necessities, plus cheerful conversation. Danish flags are good, or posters reading “Stand By Denmark” and any variation on this theme (such as “Buy Carlsberg/ Havarti/ Lego”) The response has been astonishing and I know that the Danes are appreciative. But they are an embassy and thus do not of course endorse or comment on any demonstration. Let us hope, however, to set a precedent for other cities and countries. Please pass on this message to friends and colleagues.

If you’re there, send me any pix or video!

JIM GERAGHTY writes that blogs have blown it on the ports story. Though the misconceptions seem to come from Big Media reporting, and the error correction mostly from bloggers and reader email.

At any rate, this is a perfect storm of bungled PR by the White House (which has forfeited much trust because of its excessive friendliness to the Saudis and limp response to the Cartoon Jihad, as well as general perceived laxity on homeland security and immigration), coupled with generalized anxiety about how things are going on the terrorism front. The White House should have had the facts out quickly, and should be on top of things now. It’s not too late, but there’s already considerable Congressional upset. You can respond to that sort of concern with facts, but not with a mixture of “trust us” and charges of bigotry which has been the White House’s main tactic so far.

At any rate, we just did our podcast interview with Austin Bay and Jim Dunnigan. It’ll be up in a couple of hours, but they think that the concern over this transaction is misplaced, and suggest why the Administration’s PR effort hasn’t been as good as it might.

AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD PERLE, who accuses the Bush Administration of “extraordinary, even foolish restraint” in disseminating documents from Saddam’s regime — Also Jack Kelly, who wasn’t overly impressed with the Intelligence Summit. Up over at The WMD Files.

JIM MILLER HAS ADVICE FOR HARVARD: “You have just effectively fired Harvard president Larry Summers. I request that you consider me as his replacement.”

TERRY HEATON has read An Army of Davids, and posts this blog review:

This is a must-read for people who follow the empowerment of everyday people through technology. It’s an easy read and filled with thoughtful questions (and a few predictions) about tomorrow. It’s the best new media book I’ve read so far.

The title paints the picture of big media (Goliath) now facing an army of Davids, which brought to mind Gordon Borrell’s analogy of the deer having guns. What do you do when you’re facing an army of Davids? Get into the slingshot business.

Heh. Indeed.

GRAND ROUNDS IS UP.