JIM LINDGREN looks at black conservatism, and offers actual data!

COUNTERPROTESTS IN PARIS: InstaPundit reader Kerry Hardy emails:

Libérte-Chérie, SOS Education, and a number of other groups organised an “anti-blocade/anti-strike” demonstration today here in Paris in response to the violent anti-reform protests that have been taking place at the Sorbonne and elsewhere. Despite the temperature (around 36 degrees) and the hour (2pm), there were still several thousand people. And there will be a new demonstration on Sunday afternoon. There are people in France who are pro-reform, who want to study, who want to work, and who are sick of being stopped from doing so by those who don’t—and who understand that labor law reform is essential to job creation.

Great ambiance, young and old, lots of leaflet distribution to correct the misunderstandings about the CPE (Contract of First Employment).

She sends some photos, too.

IAN TRAYNOR: “Ever since the end of the cold war and the dissolution of the fixed ideological polarities that entrenched the east-west stand-off for two generations, there has been a curious merger of the hard left and the extreme right, particularly in Europe, in defence of the maverick, the authoritarian, and the plain brutal.”

BEN DOMENECH IS blogging at the Washington Post now.

IN THE MAIL: Gabriel Weimann’s Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges. Looks pretty interesting.

RADLEY BALKO is back from Mississippi and has much more on the Cory Maye case.

YALE TALIBAN UPDATE: Here’s an editorial from the Yale Daily News:

While Hashemi has said he supports basic democratic ideals and that he resents being lumped in the same category as more extreme Taliban members, he has not repudiated the ideals or goals he espoused while a Taliban mouthpiece; he has said merely that he regrets some of his more candid responses to criticism of his former superiors.

Despite our own best efforts and those of The New York Times Magazine’s Chip Brown, we have little idea of what Hashemi is doing at Yale, or of what he plans to do with a Yale education. We have seen a generally positive response from his professors, and Hashemi told us that he wants to aid “thinking about change” in his home country — and that he may write a book — but he has been otherwise vague. While we respect every student’s right to privacy, we believe the extenuating circumstances of this case merit further discourse.

The argument made by University officials — that Hashemi adds an important perspective to the Yale community — is typical of its admission of older or non-degree students, but that argument fails if he is unwilling to share his perspective.

Meanwhile, the Yale Daily News also runs this letter:

An article in yesterday’s News mentioned the “rumored Taliban practice of removing the nails of women who wear noticeable nail polish” (“Alumni clash over Hashemi,” 3/20). The Taliban’s history and policy of human rights violations are not “rumored.” They are wide-ranging and well documented.

While Rahmatullah Hashemi toured the United States as an official apologist for the Taliban, some brave Afghanis risked their lives to document and smuggle out proof of human rights abuses committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is because of their efforts that the world saw hidden-camera footage of a woman being shot to death in a sports stadium.

A few of the many documented human rights violations by the Taliban include a ban on women’s work outside the home, a ban on women’s travel outside the home without a man, a ban on women’s education, requirement to wear a burka, punishment by stoning for premarital sex and a ban on the use of cosmetics and nail polish. Those who defied the Taliban’s oppressive rules endured beatings, torture or death.

The Taliban are still waging a campaign of terror against the Afghani people. In the most recent issue of Vanity Fair, Sebastian Junger reports on current Taliban atrocities, including skinning a man alive and forcing another to watch his wife while she was gang-raped. The Taliban are still fighting to regain control. Just one week ago, four American soldiers were killed by a Taliban bomb. I can only hope and assume the lack of outrage on campus over the Taliban is due to ignorance. After all, the News reported that Taliban atrocities were “rumored.”

During my time at Yale, I was a coordinator of the Yale Women’s Center. As a feminist, I am surprised there have been no vocal protests on campus or calls for Yale to answer questions about this decision. This is not and should not be portrayed as a partisan issue. It is not a referendum on Bush, the war, the presence of American troops in Afghanistan or the recent Supreme Court decision on military recruiting. It is about Yale’s decision to recruit the former spokesman of a brutal regime.

Has Yale really slipped into such complacency that the Taliban’s crimes against women and the Afghani people barely merit a shrug? If Rahmatullah has truly disavowed all connection with the Taliban and regrets his involvement, he should step forward publicly to take responsibility for his actions and to apologize to the victims of the Taliban.

Debbie Bookstaber ’00

Indeed.

GRAND ROUNDS is up!

BELARUS UPDATE: Veronika Khokhlova reports: “In real-life Belarus, the protesters have survived the night without major incidents.” She’s got lots more — just keep scrolling. Also, Rush-Mush is translating posts from Belarusian LiveJournal users, and Publius has a huge, link-rich, and multiply-updated roundup.

Read this, too.

Brian Whitaker: “It is a pity Brokeback Mountain isn’t showing in the Arab world, because it resembles current reality there.”

THE GREAT FIREWALL OF AUSTRALIA:

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said a Labor government would force internet service providers (ISPs) to block violent and pornographic material before it reached home computers.

Under the “clean feed” system, pioneered in Britain, users would be unable to access any content banned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) because it contained graphic sexual or violent material, rated R or higher.

They say people would be able to “opt out.” I hope they’ll continue to opt out of supporting Labour, instead . . . .

THE BELMONT CLUB LOOKS AT CLAIMS OF CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ:

So what’s the truth? The principle in determining truth should be to apply the factual indicator test. A civil war is a visible event whose indicators include the insubordination of armed units, mass refugee flows, the rise of rival governments, etc. The test is whether those events are being observed. What famous individuals say about a situation is a shortcut for encapsulating a factual assessment; it describes reality as public figures see it but is not the reality itself. . . .

Politically what’s interesting is how the narrative has changed. Nobody is talking about the Sunni insurgency succeeding any more. Even the press hardly makes the claim of an insurgency on the brink of success. As late as November 2005, the Daily Kos was boasting: “The occupation is exacerbating terrorism in the country. America is losing, the insurgency is winning. Maybe we should say, ‘has won.'” But by the December 2005 elections this view could no longer be held by anyone with the slightest regard for the facts. . . .

Instead of insurgency the talking points have changed to how Sunnis might soon become victims of an ethnically hostile Iraqi army in a Civil War. Going from a boast of conquest to a portrayal of victim is usually an indicator of something. In my view, the shift of meme from the “insurgency” to a “civil war” is a backhanded way of admitting the military defeat of the insurgency without abandoning the characterization of Iraq is an American fiasco. It was Zarqawi and his cohorts themselves who changed the terms of reference from fighting US forces to sparking a ‘civil war’. With any luck, they’ll lose that campaign too.

Indeed.

UPDATE: MurdocOnline says that it is a civil war of sorts, and I agree with that. (See this post from 2004 on the subject). But the press coverage is presenting it as something very different — a sea change in what’s going on, as opposed to, well, what was going on in 2004.

BRUSSELS JOURNAL looks at French students rioting over poor job prospects.

Meanwhile, here in the States:

U.S. college graduates are facing the best job market since 2001, with business, computer, engineering, education and health care grads in highest demand, a report by an employment consulting firm showed on Monday.

“We are approaching full employment and some employers are already dreaming up perks to attract the best talent,” said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

In its annual outlook of entry-level jobs, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said strong job growth and falling unemployment makes this spring the hottest job market for America’s 1.4 million college graduates since the dot-com collapse in 2001.

The firm pointed to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers which showed employers plan to hire 14.5 percent more new college graduates than a year ago.

Hmm. I remember a lot of tongue-clucking about the evils of “American-style capitalism” from the French after the Enron debacle.

BLOGGER HAO WU has been seized by Chinese authorities. There’s more information here.

Here’s the webpage for the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C.

Here’s some contact information for Wal-Mart. They have clout in China, and they’ve taken an interest in the blogosphere lately.

UPDATE: Here’s contact information for Wal-Mart in China.

READER JOHN MARCOUX EMAILS:

I am watching Bush’s talk, and Q & A, today in Cleveland on C-Span, for the second time. This is by far the best I’ve ever seen him both in his content and the ease with which he expresses himself. Night and day. I recommend you watch it. It will give you heart.

You can watch the video online here and decide for yourself.

PLAME / FITZGERALD UPDATE: Tom Maguire notices a sudden outbreak of media discretion.

RACISM AT THE L.A. TIMES: Paul Geary and Eugene Volokh are on the case. Eugene writes: “Read the whole piece, if you have a high tolerance for bile and schadenfreude. And ask yourself how ‘progressive’ it is to condemn people differently for the same views based on their race, and how progressive or factually plausible it is to argue that someone has committed fraud partly because he’s black.”

ROGER SIMON: “The first release by the Pentagon of the myriad Saddam-era documents and media captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom seems to have ground to a halt as abruptly as it started. . . . Who are the likely culprits in this snafu? The CIA, always anxious to protect its interests, and overly-cautious lawyers come to mind, but there are undoubtedly others. Nevertheless, not to release these documents is ultimately self-destructive and actually naive. The Adminstration has already shown itself to be incompetent in the area of public relations and this only underscores that perception.”

And reality.

UPDATE: In an update to his post, Simon notes that the Pentagon has since released more documents. He modestly declines to take credit.

INSTAPUNDIT: A “leftist opinion site.” Well, I didn’t deny Andrew Keen’s charges of hippie-loving.

“I WOULDN’T BRING UP CUBA IF I WERE YOU, it’s poor salesmanship.”

YALE HAS ITS TALIBAN, HARVARD HAS DAVID DUKE: “A paper recently co-authored by the academic dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government about the allegedly far-reaching influence of an ‘Israel lobby’ is winning praise from white supremacist David Duke. The Palestine Liberation Organization mission to Washington is distributing the paper, which also is being hailed by a senior member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization.”

A TTLB / BLOGCARNIVAL partnership.

THE EUROPEAN UNION has denounced Lukashenko’s victory in Belarus as fraudulent:

EU ministers endorsed the damning findings of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s 476-strong observer mission.

The mission’s report found that Mr Lukashenko had “permitted state authority to be used in a manner which did not allow citizens to freely and fairly express their will”.

It said statements by the Belarusan KGB associating the opposition with terrorism and accusing it of planning a coup had led to a “climate of intimidation”. Campaign workers and opposition figures had been subject to “physical assaults, detention and even imprisonment.”

Read the whole thing.

ARMED AGAINST GENOCIDE: I’ve got some thoughts on the next International Human Right over at The Guardian’s new “Comment is Free” blog.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

PUBLIUS REPORTS a new round of protests in Belarus.