JOHN TAMMES ROUNDS UP more news from Afghanistan that you may have missed.

TIM LYNCH LOOKS AT double standards in police shootings.

DANIEL HENNINGER tries to assess the Pope’s divisions.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Star Wars redux.

GENERAL JOHN ABIZAID, in The Harvard Gazette:

America cannot walk away from Iraq without risking another world war. That warning was sounded at the Kennedy School forum Nov. 17 by Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), the man responsible for U.S. military strategy in the Middle East.

“We can walk away from this enemy, but they will not walk away from us,” Abizaid told the forum audience during a discussion titled “The Long War.”

“We have not failed yet and we will not fail if we all understand what we have to do. If we can stay together nothing can stop us and we can make the world a better place.”

Abizaid cited what he called the three greatest challenges facing the world – the Arab-Israeli conflict; the rise of extremist groups “with a dark vision of the future”; and, specifically, the dangers posed by “Shia revolutionary thought.”

“Where these things come together is in Iraq,” he said. “It’s absolutely not an easy thing to do,” Abizaid went on to say. “But the sacrifice that is necessary to stabilize Iraq must be sustained in order for the region itself to become more resilient against these three challenges.”

And while admitting that the recent upturn in sectarian violence in Iraq is disturbing, Abizaid said politicians cannot set arbitrary deadlines for the withdrawal of American troops.

Read the whole thing — and remember that the big rap against Rumsfeld was supposedly that he “didn’t listen to the generals.” So will the Democrats, and Rumsfeld’s successors, listen to this general?

IN THE MAIL: A bunch of CDs from Columbia Records, which is now trying to market to the blogosphere. It’s an interesting selection: Five for Fighting’s Two Lights, John Mayer’s Continuum, System of a Down’s Mezmerize, Bob Dylan’s Modern Times, and Tony Bennett’s Duets. Yeah, it’s an eclectic collection, though I could have done with more techno and less pop. This is more the Insta-Wife’s kind of stuff, so maybe I’ll get her to post some reviews. Still it’s interesting that the music companies are targeting bloggers for their promotional efforts now.

ROGER BATE:

Another World AIDS Day has arrived today and, although hard to believe, the situation across the globe is worse than before.

The AIDS epidemic is described by the United Nations as the “most destructive in human history” and accounting for more than 25 million deaths so far. Leaders of rich and poor nations should be commended for applying their citizens’ largesse in fighting the disease. But the UN, and ultimately these leaders, must be equally criticized for failing to deliver accountability where its programs are concerned.

So it is with some interest that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said earlier this week:

“The challenge now is to deliver on all the promises that governments have made. Leaders must hold themselves accountable — and be held accountable by all of us. Accountability — the theme of [this year’s] World AIDS Day…requires every president and prime minister, every parliamentarian and politician, to decide and declare that AIDS stops with me.”

It is ironic that the accountability that Mr. Annan so passionately speaks of has been thin on the ground when it comes to the UN’s promotion of treatment for HIV.

Where the U.N. is concerned, accountability is very thin on the ground in general.

A LOOK AT THE A.P., MEDIA BIAS, and things “everybody knows.”

ARNOLD KLING LOOKS AT education and entrepreneurship. “I have been losing interest in the contests between Democrats and Republicans in Washington. I am more anxious about the outcome of the struggle between innovators and incumbents in the field of education.”

THE ASSOCIATION OF MUSLIM SCHOLARS splits.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER on alternative fuels. Plus, a turbocharged, hydrogen-powered Prius.

AT THE LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION, The A-Prize:

It is awarded to the person or organization responsible for creating an Animat/Artificial life form with an emphasis on the safety of the researchers, public, and environment OR the person or organization who shows that an Animat/Artificial life form has been created. (The second case is to uncover unpublicized or unsafe projects.)

Kind of interesting.

WELL, SOMEBODY HAS TO DO IT: The Coalition to Preserve Civilization.

HERE’S MORE ON THE LITVINENKO POISONING, in the New York Sun, and here’s the Edward Jay Epstein page they reference. Was it a case of failed nuclear-weapons smuggling?

This is more plausible than Pat Buchanan’s jewish-conspiracy theory, but the Putin regime’s history of poisoning troublesome opponents with exotic substances makes that seem the most likely explanation here.

I’VE BEEN WONDERING why everybody makes a big deal about the ISG report leak — it seems as if it stands for more or less the current plan. The Mudville Gazette seems to see things the same way, describing it as a “360 degree about face,” which seems about right.

No big surprise — it’s not like the ISG is made up of a bunch of guys who’ve spent their lives thinking outside the box. And the Mudville Gazette notes that the Security Council has just renewed the mandate for the international force in Iraq, at the request of the Iraqi government. So this seems to be much ado about nothing, as a “cut and run” doesn’t seem imminent, but there’s no real sign of a “new direction” either. And now that the Security Council has acted, wouldn’t it be, ahem, unilateral of us to pull out?

UPDATE: Another take: “Reading the Washington Post, doesn’t it sound a bit like they’re going to just re-serve current policy?”

Stay the course! Or as Greyhawk puts it in the comments: “We are going to end up going in a ‘new direction’ that is the same direction we were going in before, except it will be new. Hope this clarifies.”

ASKING MUSLIMS TO SPEAK OUT in defense of a journalist under a fatwa of death over the Danish cartoons.

I’M WATCHING EUGENE VOLOKH AND DENNIS PRAGER on this topic — of which I was only vaguely aware — of whether newly-elected Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison should take his oath of office on a Bible or on the Koran. Volokh seems to have the better of this argument by a huge margin. In fact, I think that Prager’s argument that oaths must be on the Bible is absolutely nonsensical. But weirdly Paula Zahn keeps cutting Eugene off. I’m sorry, but Prager’s reference to “the American Bible” as the root of the Constitution is ridiculous. What’s “the American Bible?” And whatever happened to that bit from the Constitution about “no religious test”?

UPDATE: Rather than Prager, I recommend reading this post by Mark Daniels. I think you’ll be able to find the key bit on your own.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Video, courtesy of Hot Air.

I USED TO BE BI-CURIOUS, but now I’ve just gone all the way to becoming “bi,” as I’m now in possession of this entree to the Mac world. So far it seems pretty cool, although every time I try to post in movable type I get a popup warning that it says I can disable by setting “safari_warning=’false'” — but I can’t figure out how to do that.

UPDATE: Solved that problem — by switching to Firefox!

RICHARD MINITER is now blogging for Pajamas Media.

POPULAR MECHANICS: “Experts: Spy Death Radiation Risk Minimal (Unless You’re a Spy).”

UPDATE: More developments here. Not encouraging ones, though.

MILBLOGGER JASON VAN STEENWYK is unhappy with the AP’s response to the Jamil Hussein scandal:

I didn’t get out in front of the whole Mystery Captain Jamil Hussein story too early, because it’s really easy for Americans to screw up Arabic names. Now that the Iraqi Information Ministry has also come on record saying this Captain Hussein does not exist, it’s clear that AP has a problem.

But this bogus source is the least of AP’s problems.

Kathleen Carroll, a senior VP and executive editor of Associated Press, is now saying she is “satisfied with AP’s reporting.”

Yes, only two sources will go on record, and one has recanted his testimony, while the other apparently does not exist, and Kathleen Carroll is “satisfied with the AP’s reporting.”

Jason isn’t.

UPDATE: Is AP stringing us along? But don’t miss this cautionary note from Allah.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT at an American university.

OKAY, I HAVEN’T BLOGGED MUCH TODAY, but Danny Glover rounds up some interesting tidbits.

ON CAPITOL HILL, listening for the sound of promises breaking. Welcome to the majority!

ERIC UMANSKY IS SAYING I TOLD YOU SO:

A few years ago, Erin Brockovich spearheaded a lawsuit alleging that an oil-rig next to Beverly Hills High School was causing cancer. She got all sorts of attention. I dug into the story for the New Republic and concluded that, well, Brockovich was full of it and that moreover she had a knack for fomenting panic in communities by misleading them about purported toxins in their neighborhoods and potentially even forging testing data.

Why I am telling you this? Because a few days ago a judge seemed to agree with me and tossed Brockovich and her suit to the curb.

Umansky’s original TNR piece can be found here.