THE TSA BLOWS IT, and puts the Moussaoui sentencing trial at risk. Sheesh. (Via Ann Althouse).

VARIOUS PEOPLE HAVE EMAILED asking for more pictures from campus. I’ve been pretty lame on the photography front lately, as a result of book-related stuff. But I’ll try to do better, and I actually got a new digital camera, a Sony DSC-W7, and decided to try it out while I was on campus Sunday. (After much use and abuse, the faceplate came off my old Sony pocket camera, and though I managed to get it back on, I no longer feel that I can rely on it so it’s been demoted to the glove-compartment camera.) The A/C was out in my office, so I went over to the Main Library to work and took the opportunity to wander around and take a few pictures.

Above is “Hopecote,” a cottage where the University puts up visiting dignitaries, holds receptions, etc. Below is a flower from the tree in front — spring is finally setting in.

Students were wandering around in shorts looking happy that it was warm. (And I don’t mean the 39 degrees that passes for “warm” at Wisconsin!)

And somebody was moving: And doing it pretty seriously, too!

That’s getting the most out of your U-Haul. I’ll have more of these as the semester continues, no doubt.

GATEWAY PUNDIT: U.S. Fatalities Down Since Media Declared Civil War.

KOS AND KREMPASKY on blogs and the 2008 election.

MUCKRAKED REPORTS:

The interim head of the Department of the Interior, Patricia “Lynn” Scarlett, once endorsed the legalization of drugs. Back in 1989, she reportedly wrote “Give up the drug war: legalize drugs instead.”

And Muckraked gives lots of other reasons to like her, too. More appointments like this, please.

ANTISEMITISM is rising among French Muslims, according to an article in the Boston Globe.

RUSHING TO JUDGE AMERICA: “A blinding German obsession.”

NEAL BOORTZ:

I’m still a supporter of the Iraqi war. I still believe that Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power. U.N Resolutions 687, 786 and 1441 clearly set forth the legal basis for the removal of Saddam Hussein, and no other country seemed willing to bear the responsibility. I firmly believe that had the United States backed off, Hussein would have seen it as a sign of weakness, and he would have quickly resurrected his weapons programs. In the long term, the United States would have suffered. In spite of the bleatings of the left and the failure of our mainstream media to report the facts objectively, there most definitely was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and that connection might well have blossomed into a full-scale collaboration had we not interceded. I know that there are many who disagree, but I don’t feel that there are many out there who have put any real research into the matter who would express a differing viewpoint. [Just read “The Connection, How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America” by Stephen F. Hayes. published by Harper Collins]

OK … here’s the “but.” Right now if some pollster asked me whether I approve or disapprove of the way George Bush is handling his second term in office, my only honest answer would be in the negative. At this point there are other things that I would like to see George Bush address; other things I would like for him to explain.

He then lists a lot of other problems, unrelated to the war, and concludes: “Suffice it to say that George Bush needs to talk about much more than the global war on terror to float my boat.”

Yeah, if the Democrats stopped harping on the war, they’d do a lot better. Their continual war-baiting merely serves to remind a lot of people who are unhappy with Bush of why they don’t like the Democrats either. Bush’s best hope is that the Democrats won’t be smart enough to figure that out.

UPDATE: Further thoughts here. And here’s a response to claims that Democrats don’t have a coherent message.

THE FULL-LENGTH TECHNOLOGY REVIEW PIECE on biowar and bioterrorism is up now. You can read it here.

UPDATE: Dale Amon phoned from Belfast with a worrying thought. He notes this passage from the article:

Popov then described a Soviet strategy for hiding deadly viral genes inside some milder bacterium’s genome, so that medical treatment of a victim’s initial symptoms from one microbe would trigger a second microbe’s growth. “The first symptom could be plague, and a victim’s fever would get treated with something as simple as tetracycline. That tetracycline would itself be the factor inducing expression of a second set of genes, which could be a whole virus or a combination of viral genes.”

He links this with the latest Al Qaeda threat of a two-stage attack. Seems like a stretch to me, but thanks for giving me something else to worry about, Dale . . . .

AVIAN FLU UPDATE:

In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.

Ready or not, here it comes.

Well, at least they’re not overpromising in terms of a government response . . . .

DARFUR UPDATE: Nat Hentoff writes:

I continue to hear even some journalists adhering to the myth that the New York Times largely determines the priority of daily news. But, as I tell journalism students, if that is your primary source, you’re going to miss a lot. For example, the New York Sun’s diligent U.N. correspondent, Benny Avni, keeps breaking news on the contrast between the U.N. Security Council’s repellent realpolitik and the unapologetic candor and impatience of our committed U.N. Ambassador John Bolton’s fight for human rights.

With the number of corpses in Darfur steadily mounting, and President Bush again seriously involved in confronting what he has accurately called the genocide there, Mr. Bolton has been pressing hard to get the United Nations moving against the resistance of the government of Sudan, the perpetrator of the genocide.

Read the whole thing. (Via Newsbeat 1).

BIOWARFARE AND BIOTERROR: My TCS Daily column, featuring an interview with Technology Review’s editor Jason Pontin on their new article about the threat of biological weaponry, is up.

JOHN FUND has more on the Yale Taliban story. Plus, a look at the Yale Colonial Office. And there’s still more on the subject from Cathy Young: “Imagine if you were in college and found out that the guy next to you in class had worked as a propagandist for one of the most oppressive regimes of modern times.”