UH OH: “The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the professional association of CPAs, has sheepishly announced that it has lost a computer file containing the names, addresses, and social security numbers of some of its members.”

AMIR TAHERI looks at leading indicators in Iraq:

Since my first encounter with Iraq almost 40 years ago, I have relied on several broad measures of social and economic health to assess the countrys condition. Through good times and bad, these signs have proved remarkably accurateas accurate, that is, as is possible in human affairs. For some time now, all have been pointing in an unequivocally positive direction.

The first sign is refugees. When things have been truly desperate in Iraqin 1959, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1988, and 1990long queues of Iraqis have formed at the Turkish and Iranian frontiers, hoping to escape. In 1973, for example, when Saddam Hussein decided to expel all those whose ancestors had not been Ottoman citizens before Iraqs creation as a state, some 1.2 million Iraqis left their homes in the space of just six weeks. This was not the temporary exile of a small group of middle-class professionals and intellectuals, which is a common enough phenomenon in most Arab countries. Rather, it was a departure en masse, affecting people both in small villages and in big cities, and it was a scene regularly repeated under Saddam Hussein.

Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003, this is one highly damaging image we have not seen on our television setsand we can be sure that we would be seeing it if it were there to be shown. To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark. Many of the camps set up for fleeing Iraqis in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia since 1959 have now closed down. The oldest such center, at Ashrafiayh in southwest Iran, was formally shut when its last Iraqi guests returned home in 2004.

A second dependable sign likewise concerns human movement, but of a different kind. This is the flow of religious pilgrims to the Shiite shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Whenever things start to go badly in Iraq, this stream is reduced to a trickle and then it dries up completely. From 1991 (when Saddam Hussein massacred Shiites involved in a revolt against him) to 2003, there were scarcely any pilgrims to these cities. Since Saddams fall, they have been flooded with visitors. In 2005, the holy sites received an estimated 12 million pilgrims, making them the most visited spots in the entire Muslim world, ahead of both Mecca and Medina.

Over 3,000 Iraqi clerics have also returned from exile, and Shiite seminaries, which just a few years ago held no more than a few dozen pupils, now boast over 15,000 from 40 different countries. This is because Najaf, the oldest center of Shiite scholarship, is once again able to offer an alternative to Qom, the Iranian holy city where a radical and highly politicized version of Shiism is taught. Those wishing to pursue the study of more traditional and quietist forms of Shiism now go to Iraq where, unlike in Iran, the seminaries are not controlled by the government and its secret police.

A third sign, this one of the hard economic variety, is the value of the Iraqi dinar, especially as compared with the regions other major currencies. In the final years of Saddam Husseins rule, the Iraqi dinar was in free fall; after 1995, it was no longer even traded in Iran and Kuwait. By contrast, the new dinar, introduced early in 2004, is doing well against both the Kuwaiti dinar and the Iranian rial, having risen by 17 percent against the former and by 23 percent against the latter. Although it is still impossible to fix its value against a basket of international currencies, the new Iraqi dinar has done well against the U.S. dollar, increasing in value by almost 18 percent between August 2004 and August 2005. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis, and millions of Iranians and Kuwaitis, now treat it as a safe and solid medium of exchange

My fourth time-tested sign is the level of activity by small and medium-sized businesses. In the past, whenever things have gone downhill in Iraq, large numbers of such enterprises have simply closed down, with the countrys most capable entrepreneurs decamping to Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Turkey, Iran, and even Europe and North America. Since liberation, however, Iraq has witnessed a private-sector boom, especially among small and medium-sized businesses.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: In response, Greg Djerejian sends this story from the New York Times claiming an exodus of middle class citizens from Baghdad. I heard a similar story on NPR a few weeks back, interviewing Iraqi expats in Jordan — but the story omitted any overt mention of what seemed obvious from the interviews, which was that the refugees were former Baathists. Can’t tell if that’s true here, but Jim Hoft has looked at the NYT’s numbers and says they’re not supported. So it’s hard to say for sure.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Much more here.

MORE: A less-positive take here from Iraq the Model: “On the other hand many of my friends, relatives or the people I know have either left Iraq or are planning to do so.”

MICKEY KAUS ON THE BORDER:

The logic seems inescapable. The U.S., in this sense, is an attractive nuisance like a swimming pool. If you want to keep neighborhood children from using the pool, and possibly drowning, you don’t partially fence it in. You completely fence it in. … Full funding for full fencing! … P.S.: Sure, Bush has said “it’s impractical to fence off the border.” But earlier this week he wasn’t willing to flatly endorse even the 320 miles the Senate supported. Today he was. Give him time. He’s caving fast!

Mexican immigrants are adults, though, not children.

HOW AN IRAQI MINISTER is using the Washington Post. And vice versa.

REQUIRING A PHOTO ID TO VOTE? Doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me, given that I have to show one to buy a beer.

UPDATE: Reader Barry Dauphin emails that he had to show one to buy Claritin-D.

PODCASTING ELIOT SPITZER AND ANDREW RASIEJ from the Personal Democracy Forum.

I’M PROUD OF HARPER’S for publishing the Mohammed cartoons, but Ed Driscoll has some questions.

THE AMNESTY PROTESTS CONTINUE TO BEAR FRUIT: The Inhofe Amendment, which makes English the national language of the United States, has just passed the Senate by a sizable margin.

HOWARD LOVY on the latest raft of toxic nanotechnology stories:

It’s frustrating to read and hear some of the coverage of this “story,” since basic rules of journalism are apparently thrown out the window. Science and technology writers, especially, should know that there have actually been no tests showing that nanotechnology is toxic to anything or anyone. The old nanotube rat and buckyball fish studies show that if you pump these beasts full of raw nanoparticles, they’ll probably suffocate or become brain damaged.

Any company that dumps a bunch of raw, uncooked, unengineered nanoparticles into any product would not actually be practicing “nanotechnology.” So, these oft-repeated studies show absolutely nothing about the potential toxicity of nanotech products. It shows that scientists are practicing science, one small step at a time.

Indeed.

STEPHEN BAINBRIDGE has thoughts on The DaVinci Code.

IT’S A TRIBUTE TO EDUCATION over at Hot Air.

HEH: “If you’re reading this at work, the answer is: ‘Research. Why do you ask?'”

JAY ROSEN offers advice for Tony Snow and the White House. I think it’s pretty good.

UPDATE: Mary Katharine Ham: “The more Snow, the better.”

DOKTOR FRANK’S NEW NOVEL KING DORK gets a review from the InstaMom, a children’s librarian. Click “read more” to read it.

Plus, Doktor Frank hits upon a new marketing strategy.

(more…)

THE PUNDIT is flat.

AL GORE, RESURGENS: Howard Kurtz has the skinny.

NOT IN THE MAIL: For some reason, no one has gotten around to sending me a copy of Helen Thomas’s new book, Watchdogs of Democracy? : The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public. However, I did get a press release saying that “Today’s journalists, to hear Thomas tell it, have become subdued and are failing to fulfill their most vital role in American life: to be the watchdogs of democracy.”

Well, just because it barks at everything doesn’t mean it’s a watchdog. Something Thomas herself might keep in mind. . . .

CAN’T WIN FOR LOSING: “Fading slugger hurting team by playing, but S.F. even worse without him.”

Thanks to reader Bo McIlvain for this amusing headline.

JONATHAN ADLER: “If Congress really cares about high gasoline prices — even if the gasoline is more affordable than in decades past — they should consider the role of current federal policies in reducing supply, balkanizing markets, enhancing price volatility, and discouraging alternative fuel sources. Yet if Congress won’t even reduce tariffs on ethanol imports — which would significantly reduce the costs associated with current ethanol mandates — I see little hope for more meaningful policy reforms.”

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT, in Boston. Meanwhile, London Mayor “Red Ken” Livingstone goes after an anti-Chavez blogger.

IN THE MAIL: Shmuel Bar’s new book, Warrant for Terror : The Fatwas of Radical Islam, and the Duty of Jihad.

A NEW APPROACH to North Korea?

SYRIA IS ARRESTING PRO-DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS: Norm Geras has a roundup.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: I like this from Dennis Hastert:

Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) today made the following statement regarding Senate attempts to use an across-the-board cut to make room for additional spending it included in its $109 billion emergency supplemental bill. The Senate passed its bill, which is more than $15 billion over the President’s $92 billion budget request, earlier this month.

“Any calls from the Senate for an across-the-board cut to make room for a bloated supplemental will be met by a busy signal in the House. The House will not join a shell-game spending spree with taxpayer dollars. President Bush requested $92 billion for the War on Terror and Hurricane Katrina relief spending. The House has passed a bill that exercised fiscal restraint. The Senate needs to throw overboard, unnecessary add-ons and help us get the needed funds to our troops in the field and our fellow citizens suffering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”

Yes. That’s certainly consistent with what Majority Leader John Boehner said in our PorkBusters interview. Boehner, by the way, also said that we may see a vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment this year.

Meanwhile, I like this proposal for term limits for Congressional appropriators. It might even be a cure for Pork Envy.

CAM EDWARDS reports that the NRA is going after mayors and police chiefs who support gun control.