POWER LINE is trying an experiment in citizen journalism revolving around tomorrow’s immigration demonstrations: “We’re encouraging our readers, and anyone else who is able, to attend the demonstration in your city and record what you see. Send your videos to us, and we’ll put up a cross-section of interesting footage–assuming, of course, that we get some. It will be interesting to compare the first-hand observations of citizens with cameras to news accounts.” Read the whole thing if you’re interested.

ED DRISCOLL IS PODCASTING: His first show has an interview with Stephen Green.

And while you’re at it, read this post from Stephen for the anniversary of the Iraq war.

UPDATE: The Wizbang podcast is up.

A HUGE TURNOUT in the Italian elections.

WHERE ARE THE MODERATE MUSLIMS? “They are out there, I suspect; in larger numbers than we might be led to believe. But if most are silent and fearful of speaking out, can you blame them?”

We need to make the moderates feel safer — and the extremists much more nervous. That’s why things like the pandering response to the Cartoon Wars, by everyone from Borders to the Bush Administration, are exactly wrong. Plus, there’s this:

The pandering has escalated: Last month, Columbia University held a conference that included as a “highlight” a video of Libyan dictator Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi presenting “his views on the prospects for democracy in the twenty-first century.” Columbia’s teachers and administrators are apparently untroubled by the fact that Libya’s leading dissident, Fathi Eljami, is currently rotting in one of Qaddafi’s dungeons.

And in Tunisia, democracy advocate Neila Charchour Hachicha is under police surveillance — her phone and internet connections severed, her car confiscated, her daughter threatened and her husband in prison. What did she do to deserve such punishment? It’s not clear, but she did give an interview to Middle East Quarterly (www.meforum.org/article/732) about impediments to reform in Tunisia and she spoke at the “neo-con” American Enterprise Institute about the need for democracy in the Middle East.

The routine imprisonment and torture of dissidents in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia almost never prompts UN officials to consider interfering — or even criticizing. Once in a while, a Western diplomat expresses concern.

“I keep hearing, ‘Why are liberals silent?’” Said al-Ashmawy, an Egyptian judge and author, recently said. “How can we write? Who is going to protect me?”

If we in the West ever want to have allies in Arab and Muslim countries, we’ll need to start supporting moderates — and stop empowering their oppressors. Most immediately, it would be useful if American ambassadors in Muslim countries would welcome dissidents to their offices as they do cabinet ministers. And perhaps Columbia University President Lee Bollinger – whose “primary teaching and scholarly interests are focused on free speech and First Amendment issues” — might recognize how his institution has been compromised and at least express concern.

You’d think.

UPDATE: James Somers emails:

It is indeed passing strange that so many people who might be expected to sympathize with moderate Muslims – the Bush Administration, bookstores, the media, and other governments, to name a few examples – should undertake so consistently to undercut the many moderate Muslims out there, while appeasing a handful of terrorists. Perhaps the reason they’ve done this is because they don’t really believe their own oft-proclaimed cliche: that Islam is a peaceful religion, and that the periodic acts of terrorism done in its name over the past few decades are the acts of a handful of extremists. If those in our society with the easiest access to influential megaphones don’t believe their own cliche, that’s sad. I happen to think the cliche is true. But tolerance needs good soil to, well, grow more tolerance, and so it’s very unfortunate that intolerance is what’s usually being brooked these days.

Indeed.

MORE CONDI RICE PHOTO FUNNIES? Jeez.

UPDATE: Laura Lee Donoho was on this story even earlier.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Joe Malchow says it’s a false alarm: “To me, it looks like an artist’s rendering, albeit a misleadingly photorealistic one.”

A WHILE BACK, I mentioned William Gurstelle’s Adventures from the Technology Underground.

I’ve got a review of the book in today’s New York Post, using his book as a springboard to talk about science education (and science and engineering practice) today, and how they’ve lost some of the sense of fun they used to have.

Gurstelle is also the author of Backyard Ballistics, which a lot of InstaPundit readers seem to like.

THREE YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF SADDAM, an Iraqi march against Al Qaeda.

MARTIN PERETZ: “Kerry asserted that ‘the Koran, the Torah, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles had influenced a social conscience that he exercised in politics.’ My God, what bullshit politicians feel obliged to utter! Or maybe the bullshit is already second nature, or even first. But since Kerry raised it, let me ask: What hadith of the Prophet influenced him the most, and why?”

DARFUR UPDATE:

The continuing raids by Sudanese tribesmen have sent over 50,000 Chad civilians fleeing from their villages. Some of the Sudanese raiders belong to tribes with branches in Chad. Same thing with the victims. Like Sudan, Chad has tribes that consider themselves Arab, while others consider themselves just African. There has always been animosity between the two groups, although intermarriage, rape and slavery have resulted in both groups looking much alike, and sharing languages and customs.

Sudan continues to receive the support of other Arab nations, especially Egypt. The Arab nations oppose bringing in UN, and especially European, peacekeepers. This would offend the dignity of the Arab world (the way overthrowing Saddam Hussein did), thus the Arabs allow the ethnic cleansing of Darfur to continue, even though the victims are Moslem. These attacks are less painful to Arabs because the victims are black Africans, who have always been held in low esteem by Arabs, even if the Africans are Moslem. . . . a coalition of Arab and Moslem nations, plus China (which wants to protect its business interests in Sudan), block any too aggressive operations by the UN.

So much for “never again.” And for the U.N.

ANDREW SULLIVAN links this story from The Guardian on how prisoners released from Guantanamo thought it was pretty nice. Excerpt:

On January 29, Asadullah and two other juvenile prisoners were returned home to Afghanistan. The three boys are not sure of their ages. But, according to the estimate of the Red Cross, Asadullah is the youngest, aged 12 at the time of his arrest. The second youngest, Naqibullah, was arrested with him, aged perhaps 13, while the third boy, Mohammed Ismail, was a child at the time of his separate arrest, but probably isn’t now.

Tracked down to his remote village in south-eastern Afghanistan, Naqibullah has memories of Guantanamo that are almost identical to Asadullah’s. Prison life was good, he said shyly, nervous to be receiving a foreigner to his family’s mud-fortress home.

The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. “Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don’t have anything against them,” he said. “If my father didn’t need me, I would want to live in America.”

It’s a good story. It’s also from March of 2004 (here’s my post from back then), which is why I’ve been rather skeptical, in the interim, of accounts that Guantanamo was some sort of torture-house. Yes, these are juveniles, not adults — but for those who have been portraying the entire enterprise as depraved and vicious, it’s hardly support, is it? And this other oldie but goodie — about released prisoners having gained weight in the facility, from Slate — isn’t about juveniles.

Then there’s this, from an OSCE official: “‘At the level of the detention facilities, it is a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons,’ said Alain Grignard, the deputy head of Brussels’ federal police anti-terrorism unit. Grignard, who is also a professor of Islam at the University of Liege, served as an expert to a group of lawmakers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on a visit to Guantanamo Bay last week.”

That’s from March of this year. Didn’t get much attention, though. Maybe by March of 2008. Meanwhile, perhaps human rights activists will turn their attention from Guantanamo to places where it might actually do some good:

European politicians and human rights groups have repeatedly rapped the U.S. military for its treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. But this torrent of criticism was undermined last month by a report on French prisons by the Council of Europe, the pan-European human rights organization. The author of the report, human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil Robles, said France had the shabbiest prisons of any country he had visited, with the exception of Moldova.

But what’s to gain from that?

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN)’s office sent me this by Ford on pork:

A bipartisan problem demands a bipartisan solution. In that spirit, I offer several ideas to give Americans the best value for their tax dollars.

First, institute a “stand by your earmark” rule. If a member of Congress wants to insert an earmark into a bill at the final stage of the legislative process, he should be forced to sign his name to the provision and explain why it is in the interests of the nation as a whole. This rule would prevent special-interest favors from being slipped into bills at the last minute with no one claiming responsibility.

At the same time, members of Congress would have a chance to defend projects that have genuine value. For example, I would be proud to stand up and persuade my colleagues that it was worthwhile to invest the $1 million in federal money that was approved last year for LeMoyne-Owen College’s juvenile asthma research program, which is benefiting the entire nation.

Second, the secretive nature of lobbying is one of the main reasons Congress spends money on projects that serve special interests at the expense of the national interest. Lobbyists should be required to disclose who all of their clients are and what specific provisions they are lobbying for.

Third, we should institute a rule that any new spending has to be offset somewhere else in the budget. Requiring Congress to balance its books every year — like any business or family — would force us to separate national needs from political luxuries.

Fourth, this very simple idea might be the most effective: Let the American people read bills before Congress votes on them. Post the entire text of the bills, including every pork project and special-interest provision, on the Internet for all to see, for at least 72 hours before the vote.

Forcing members of Congress to defend the indefensible would make them think twice before wasting taxpayer dollars.

This sounds pretty good — it’s basically the PorkBusters legislative program — and I hope to talk to Ford (who’s running for Senate now) about this in the near future.

UPDATE: Chattanooga reader C.G. Browning is skeptical:

Everything Ford writes is an excellent idea. Does anyone think he could possibly get enough support for just one, I repeat, just one of these ideas to become a reality?

I don’t think so and neither does Mr. Ford. Government spending is conducted in secret and will remain so to keep the ones in power, in power.

I think it’s possible to change dynamics like that, if you pick the right moment. And I think that this may be the right moment. It’s certainly worth a try. The history of politics in this country, after all, is a history of things that nobody ever thought could be changed, changing.

DAN RIEHL says that media reports of U.S. nuclear plans against Iran are highly exaggerated: “There’s far too much in the Hersh piece to simply jump to the headline or conclusion – Bush Is Going Nuclear On Iran. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop Think Progress, or the AP. But then both outlets appear to have a tendency to go nuclear on Bush.”

It’s also worth noting that Hersh’s track record in this war hasn’t been exactly stellar.

UPDATE: A warning from Ralph Peters: “The most dangerous error we could make in our sharpening confrontation with Iran is to convince ourselves that its leaders will act rationally.”

THE DAY THE STATUE FELL: Winds of Change marks the three-year anniversary of Baghdad’s liberation from Saddam. Meanwhile, StrategyPage looks at what’s going on now.

UPDATE: More anniversary thoughts from Judith Weiss.

And don’t miss this guest post from a Gold Star Mother. She has “absolute moral authority.”

DAVE KOPEL: “This Friday’s coverage of the so-called ‘Gospel of Judas’ in much of the U.S. media was appallingly stupid.”

YOU CAN NOW GET PorkBusters coffee mugs proudly emblazoned with Trent Lott’s annoyed quote!

THE HARTFORD COURANT reports on Borders’ Islamophobia and calls for a Borders boycott:

“If you care about freedom of expression, don’t buy books from Borders or Waldenbooks,” writes conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan on his blog. “And if you want to draw a lesson from the entire episode, it’s obvious: violence against free writers and artists gets results. We have all but invited more.”

Robert Bidinotto, editor of The New Individualist magazine, who wrote an open letter to Borders, was one of the first bloggers to weigh in on the matter. In his letter, Bidinotto said he would refuse to buy from Borders and encourage others to do the same.

After posting it, Bidinotto says his website was flooded by thousands of visitors. He was surprised by how much attention his letter received, but can understand why people feel so deeply about the issue.

“If people are in the idea business and expect First Amendment protections, they have to stand up in defense of those free speech protections,” says Bidinotto, who says his magazine was the first in the country to feature one of the cartoons on its cover. “When a leader in that industry goes south and cuts and runs at the first hint of any kind of a threat, we have reached a very sorry moment in America.”

(Via Virginia Postrel, who writes: “I’d like to know who at corporate headquarters is responsible for the bone-headed decision to take Free Inquiry off the newsstand.”)

ERIN CHAPIN looks at how THE MAN is keeping us down. At the end, THE MAN is unveiled.

RON BAILEY LOOKS AT A HEALTHY, LONG-LIVED FUTURE and observes:

This idyll is more than realistic, given reasonably expected breakthroughs and extensions of our knowledge of human, plant and animal biology, as well as mastery of the manipulation of these biologies to meet our needs and desires.

Although you would think most people would devoutly wish for this vision, an extraordinary coalition of left-wing and right-wing bioconservatives is resisting the biotechnological progress that could make it real. Forget Osama bin Laden and the so-called clash of civilisations. The defining political conflict of the 21st century will literally be the battle over life and death.

On one side stand the partisans of mortality. From the Left, the bioethicist Daniel Callahan declares: “There is no known social good coming from the conquest of death.” On the Right, stands Leon Kass, former head of George Bush’s Council on Bioethics, who insists: “The finitude of human life is a blessing for every human individual, whether he knows it or not.”

Read the whole thing.

PORKVLOGGING: Patrick Hynes shot video of John McCain talking about earmarks in New Hampshire last night.

MICKEY KAUS is all over the breakdown of the immigration “compromise.”

Lots of readers — er, and me — have wondered about the disconnect between what Frist said in our podcast interview Thursday morning and what came out as the Frist-supported compromise that afternoon. I can’t explain it, either, other than as legislative (and perhaps Presidential) politicking. We’ll see what happens next, now that the compromise has cratered.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Rep. Allen Mollohan of West Virginia is being investigated. Reportedly,

Mollohan’s household assets exponentially grew (from $565K in ’00 to at least $6.3M in’ 04).

In addition, the article notes that one of his non-profit groups is “funded almost entirely through provisions he put into annual spending bills.” NRCC Chmn Tom Reynolds called today for Mollohan to step down as ranking member of the ethics cmte until an investigation is complete.

If this story has legs, it could muddy the Dem narrative of the GOP culture of corruption. It’s possible Mollohan accrued a quick fortune from real estate acquisitions and just improperly reporting his finances.

But his seniority on the Appropriations and ethics cmtes raises larger and fundamental questions about the use and abuse of earmarks. The timing also couldn’t be worse for Dems — with Tom DeLay’s resignation, a budget stalemate and immigration exposing fissures in the GOP.

More significant for our purposes is this observation from Don Surber:

Maybe the probe will lead nowhere but it shows a side of earmarks that has not occurred to Porkbusters as they rail against government waste.

Earmarks also can lead to insider playing. His ex-staffer Laura Kuhns now heads the Vandalia Heritage Foundation and sits on the boards of three other nonprofits that catch earmark money. Her Vandalia salary alone is $102,000 a year.

She and her husband are partners with Mollohan and his wife in five properties in Bald Head Island, N.C., worth $2 million.

Read the whole thing. It’s true of course, that large amounts of other people’s money tend to lead to corruption.

UPDATE: Reader Peter Malloy emails:

I hate to turn a good Porkbuster story into an anti-NYT screed (well, not really), but did you notice that the NYT front page (online) story does not get around to stating that Mollohan is a Democrat until the 8th paragraph? You can be certain that it it were a Republican, that fact would be in the headline.

Yes, as part of a “series of events raising troubling questions” about Republican corruption.

OVER AT THE CORNER, John Derbyshire is asking What would Hank do?

Meanwhile, the Rude Street Peters are asking “What Would Hank Say?”

CHAOS THEORY: THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE offers a view of what’s going on in Iraq. Meanwhile, Chester looks ahead to the U.S. / Iraqi Security Treaty of 2007.

AUSTIN BAY: Is the western alliance revitalizing?

LESS MONEY FOR TERROR? “THE European Union’s executive office yesterday cut off direct aid payments to the Hamas-led Palestinian government because of its refusal to renounce violence and recognise Israel, EU officials said yesterday.” It’s probably symbolic, but it’s still a modest sign of progress.