SKEPTICISM ABOUT THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP DIPLOMATIC PROPOSALS, from the editorial board of The Washington Post.

MORE ON THE FLYING IMAMS, in the Star Tribune.

KEN LIVINGSTONE: Zionist?

It’s a sad day when Livingstone’s sounding better than Jimmy Carter . . . .

MORE PRAGER FALLOUT: “Former New York City Mayor Edward Koch has called for Dennis Prager to resign or be removed from United States Holocaust Memorial Council, in response to the pundit’s recent insistence that a Muslim congressman should not be sworn in using a Quran.” Prager, says Koch, is a schmuck.

LITVINENKO UPDATE: The spy who knew too much.

MICHAEL FUMENTO: The real Ramadi stands up.

MORE ON YALE AND ALITO, from David Lat.

I LINKED TO THE U.S. ARMY SURVIVAL MANUAL the other day. It’s pretty cheap in printed form, but reader Richard Kemmer notes: “You might want to pass on to your readers the fact that they can obtain a copy of this manual for free, in PDF format here. Given that so many people travel with computer-like phones, many can keep this in their phones, if they wish.”

That’s kind of cool. Though in PDF it’s a pretty big document to store on most cell phones. Maybe converted to HTML or text, though.

SOME COOL Krakow photoblogging.

CARTER DENIES STEIN: So what’s worse — if he’s lying? Or if he really doesn’t know who works at the Carter Center? Either way, it’s another embarrassment for Jimmy.

UPDATE: A uniter, not a divider!

THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION was no — in fact, I think we did talk about that subject briefly in the podcast, where McCain acknowledged that we were on different sides and that I had pounded him on it in the past, but neither McCain nor Patrick Hynes, who was our go-between, asked us to avoid any subjects.

THE INSTA-WIFE WONDERS why I haven’t been shilling for the Weblog Awards like some other folks in the blogosphere. At this point, I’m just not that excited about these things.

A LEBANON ROUNDUP at Pajamas Media.

JAMIL HUSSEIN: International man of mystery! Of course, the biggest mystery is “what the hell is AP thinking?”

UPDATE: C.J. Burch emails: “They’re thinking that if they stonewall long enough the rest of us will forget. Just like the Nixon Administration did.” Yes, the Nixon comparison has been made by others.

GADGET UPDATE: The Popular Mechanics folks have posted their gear wishlist for 2006.

I have to admit that I’ve always wanted one of these, notwithstanding that I’ve seldom had any use for one.

Of gadgets that I actually use, however, this one still takes the top prize. This one is a close second, though. And this smaller, newer version looks really cool too.

THE ISG: No Jews Allowed! “Arabs, Persians, Chinese commies, French obstructionists, Russian assassination squads. But no Jews. Even though Israel is the only country to be required to make specific concessions — return the Golan Heights, etc. Indeed, insofar as this document has any novelty value, it’s in the Frankenstein-meets-the-Wolfman sense of a boffo convergence of hit franchises: a Vietnam bug-out, but with the Jews as the designated fall guys.” (Via Newsbeat 1).

UPDATE: No Kurds, either:

Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani has angrily rejected the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group in the United States and warned of “grave consequences” if there is any delay in deciding the fate of the oil-rich region claimed by his people. Mr Barzani, president of the 15-year-old autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and a staunch ally of the US, also criticised the ISG for not visiting his region, saying that was a “major shortcoming that adversely influenced the credibility of the assessment”.

Looks like the sellout isn’t selling.

ANOTHER UPDATE: XRLQ emails: “The message is clear: if you want the west to acknowledge you, issue fatwahs and blow stuff up.”

Yes, and that’s a bad incentive structure to create. God help the French if the Israelis take this lesson to heart and decide to out-Arab the Arabs. For that matter, God help Jim Baker.

Plus, this amusing comment:

If James Baker ran a bipartisan Blue-Ribbon panel tasked with saving social security, his commission would conclude that no real progress on social security was possible until Israel ceded the Golan Heights to Syria and made whatever concessions necessary to mollify Hamas.

When, exactly, did Baker turn into Jimmy Carter?

MORE: Meryl Yourish thinks it’s all a cunning plan: “James Baker has managed to draw quite a lot of ire away from Bush and towards himself. Why, you’d almost think it was deliberate. . . . I think we’ve all been had, and that the Iraq Study Group was never meant to be taken seriously.”

DO ANTIPSYCHOTIC DRUGS CHANGE YOUR PERSONALITY? Or do they get you back to being your true self? The latter, according to the linked paper. (Via Dr. Helen).

THE OIL TRUST IDEA LIVES:

Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say. . . .

The national oil law lies at the heart of debates about the future of Iraq, particularly the issue of a strong central government versus robust regional governments. The oil question has also inflamed ethnic and sectarian tensions. Sunni Arabs, who preside over areas of the country that apparently have little or no oil, are adamant about the equitable distribution of oil revenues by the central government.

As Hillary Clinton and I have been saying, this should have been done three years ago when the idea was first floated. But better late than never, I suppose.

UPDATE: More on the oil-trust idea from Mohammed at Iraq the Model.

MORE ON JIMMY CARTER’S BOOK:

On his first visit to the Jewish state in the early 1970s, Carter, who was then still the governor of Georgia, met with Prime Minister Golda Meir, who asked Carter to share his observations about his visit. Such a mistake she never made.

“With some hesitation,” Carter writes, “I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government.”

Jews, in my experience, tend to become peevish when Christians, their traditional persecutors, lecture them on morality, and Carter reports that Meir was taken aback by his “temerity.” He is, of course, paying himself a compliment. Temerity is mandatory when you are doing God’s work, and Carter makes it clear in this polemical book that, in excoriating Israel for its sins — and he blames Israel almost entirely for perpetuating the hundred-year war between Arab and Jew — he is on a mission from God.

More thoughts at Extreme Mortman.

UPDATE: Further thoughts here.

I WONDER WHERE ALL THAT MONEY WENT? “The United Nations is facing fresh accusations of bureaucratic incompetence after the disclosure that renovation costs for its vast New York headquarters have rocketed to nearly £1 billion.”

I think that “incompetence” is probably the best explanation one could hope for. A fitting capstone to Kofi Annan’s career.

SUNNI, SHIITE, WHATEVER: The first team isn’t coming in, but hey, at least he’s not Alcee Hastings!

THE SHUTTLE LAUNCH SUCCEEDED: And on board is a blogging astronaut.

Frank J. shot some video, and it’s posted here.

CAROLINE GLICK: “When the history of our times is written, this week will be remembered as the week that Washington decided to let the Islamic Republic of Iran go nuclear.”

MEGAN MCARDLE OFFERS SOME HOLIDAY DVD RECOMMENDATIONS.

I’ll chime in with recommendations for Firefly, Serenity, Wonderfalls, and, of course, The Addams Family and F Troop.

In the way of music DVDs, I highly recommend Underworld’s Everything Everything, — also Wilco’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, and you can’t go wrong with Better Living Through Circuitry.

There’s also the Mel Brooks DVD Box Set, which I got, and which rocks.

AT MICHAELTOTTEN.COM, THOUGHTS ON ASSAD IN LEBANON:

The Assad regime is in a hurry. Nasrallah hasn’t been able to deliver quickly enough. The Grand Serail is a fortress, and the Lebanese street is slowly turning against the protestors, who don’t even have safe passage back to their homes now. The orders from the Dark Lord’s council are to pack more people in downtown Beirut, and as soon as possible. The plan to occupy or lay siege to the Rafik Hariri International airport seems to be in full swing, although the Lebanese army will reportedly not allow it.

What’s the hurry for?

This sunday, the 15-day time limit for Lahoud to sign the Hariri tribunal plan expires. As of Monday, the cabinet can constitutionally send it to parliament for endorsement. . . . Pretty soon, there will be no one left to remind Nasrallah’s worshippers of all these crimes. Not when Assad is allowed to complete the plan to assassinate anyone who speaks, let alone protests, against Hizbullah’s second favorite regime.

Given that assassination seems to be chic nowadays, why aren’ t the good guys doing some of it?