TEA AND CRUMPETS with Osama. Some thoughts from Amy Alkon.

ANOTHER REVOLT ON THE RIGHT, this time over No Child Left Behind? Well, possibly. But regardless, this is good advice for Bush: ” Extending his hand to critics now would present an opportunity to patch up the wounds inflicted during the immigration debate. It might also lead to a better bill.”

PRINCE HARRY gives a shout out to his squadron.

DAN COLLINS TIES TOGETHER a number of themes in today’s war on terror news.

UPDATE: More from Tim Blair. And related thoughts from Mark Steyn. And “poor and disenfranchised?” Not so much: “Two doctors held over bomb attacks.”

And it’s not just Tim Blair, but Tony Blair on the attack.

SORRY, BUT THIS IS A DUMB IDEA:

Lieberman said that the United States should emulate what the Brits have done in London, look into putting cameras all over our major cities to monitor what people are doing. He said that privacy was not a concern, as this would be for our national security. He said that this was “common sense.”

Lots of garbage data, threat to civil liberties, but not much of an anti-terrorism record. The efficacy of cameras in preventing or remedying terror has been highly ineffective.

UPDATE: Brendan Loy emails that the quote is inaccurate:

When I read the quote from RedState about Lieberman’s comments regarding cameras in major cities, I knew the statement “he said that privacy was not a concern, as this would be for our national security” had to be wrong. That doesn’t make any sense, and it isn’t something the eminently sensible Sen. Lieberman would say. Certainly, there are some instances where national-security measures can have too great a negative impact on privacy. Everyone knows this, and the Joe Lieberman I know wouldn’t deny it. And sure enough, he didn’t. He didn’t say that privacy is “not a concern” because “this would be for our national security.” The two statements were separate. Here’s the video clip: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=3335589&page=1

Here’s the actual quote: “I think it’s just common sense to do that here much more widely. And of course we can do it without compromising anybody’s real privacy. This is about the security of our country and our people with an enemy that is prepared to attack us again and again here at home.”

When he says “of course we can do it without compromising anybody’s real privacy,” it’s clear he is saying he believes such a system can be implemented with adequate safeguards for people’s privacy. He doesn’t detail what those safeguards would be, probably because he was on a sound-byte show and was already on a tangent, but it’s certainly not an implausible position, even if one disagrees with it. Anyway, after saying he believes people’s privacy can be protected, he then explains again his rationale for why the cameras are necessary in the first place, namely national security. But they’re clearly separate sentences and separate logical trains of thought, whereas RedState’s summary of his remarks mistakenly posits national security as the reason Lieberman believes privacy would not be impacted — which makes his position sound cartoonish. Frankly, it sounds like the sort of summary of a Lieberman appearance that I’d expect to find on Daily Kos, not RedState.

I still think the cameras are a dumb idea, but this does change things somewhat.

MARK STEYN: No legislation without explanation. Good battle-cry!

Excerpt:

Time and again, the remote insulated emirs were offered the opportunity to rise above their condescension and declined to do so. Sen. John McCain, R- Maverickistan, confidently asserted that he’d worked hard on this bill and knew it better than all these no-account nonentities riled up about it and then had to have it explained to him – by bloggers on a conference call – that he’d misunderstood a key provision of his own legislation: There was no requirement for illegal immigrants to pay back taxes. Their amnesty would come tax-free. Blustering senators who claimed to have drafted this thing had to be told what was in it by critics who’d actually taken the trouble to look at it. . . .

If the senators have any sense of why they lost, they’ll learn their lesson. But initial indications are not encouraging. Predicting victory, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., declared gravely and portentously that “the will of the Senate” would prevail. And that’s what matters, isn’t it? As the rebel colonists cried all those years ago, “No legislation without self-congratulation!”

Happy Independence Day!

Read the whole thing — Trent Lott comes off especially badly, which is to say accurately. And my suggestions on how to do better next time can be found here.

PLEASE INVADE US:

ZIMBABWE’S leading cleric has called on Britain to invade the country and topple President Robert Mugabe. Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo, warned that millions were facing death from famine, unable to survive amid inflation believed to have soared to 15,000%.

Mugabe, 83, had proved intransigent despite the “massive risk to life”, said Ncube, the head of Zimbabwe’s 1m Catholics. “I think it is justified for Britain to raid Zimbabwe and remove Mugabe,” he said. “We should do it ourselves but there’s too much fear. I’m ready to lead the people, guns blazing, but the people are not ready.”

Some parts of Zimbabwe have seen 95% of crops fail, leaving families with only two or three weeks’ food supply to last a year. Prices in the shops are more than doubling every week and Christopher Dell, the American ambassador, predicts that by the end of the year inflation could hit 1.5m%.

Ncube said that far from helping those struggling on less than £1 a week, Mugabe had just spent £1m on surveillance equipment to monitor phone calls and e-mails. “How can you expect people to rise up when even our church services are attended by state intelligence people?

Can’t somebody just bump him off?

MICHAEL TOTTEN: From the Anbar Awakening to the Surge.

STRATEGYPAGE: “Al Qaeda operations continue to decline, as the number of al Qaeda members, and leaders killed or captured, goes up. . . . Al Qaeda is having some success in the Western media, and among Moslems living in Europe. But those expatriate Moslems are handicapped by many of their brethren who are not enthusiastic about Islamic terrorism. The police get tips, make arrests, and al Qaeda loses a few more true believers. Al Qaeda is desperate for another highly visible attack in the West. Many such operations are apparently being planned, but by amateurs who can get no help from al Qaeda experts. Most of al Qaeda’s traveling experts are dead or in prison.”

It does seem as if the “B” team is in action in Britain. But maybe this is all just a big distraction, though I’d prefer to believe the analysis above.

TOP THREE ACCESSORIES THAT won’t work with your iPhone.

THIS IS WELCOME NEWS:

BAGHDAD — Iraqi civilian deaths in Baghdad dropped significantly in June, a possible indication that recent American military operations around the country and raids on car-bomb shops in the “belts” ringing the capital are starting to pay off.

But June also marked the end of the bloodiest quarter for U.S. troops since the war began in March 2003.

Unofficial figures compiled by McClatchy Newspapers’ show 189 Iraqis, including police and government security forces, were killed in the capital through Friday, a drop of almost two thirds since this year’s high in February, when 520 were killed. The average monthly death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad was 410 from December through May.

The downturn in civilian deaths in Baghdad, should the figures hold, could arm Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, with the kind of results he needs to forestall pressure to set timetables on troop withdrawals. He is scheduled to deliver a progress report on the war to Congress in September.

Of course, it’s a long-term project, not something to be acomplished in a month. Still, it will be interesting to see if this good news gets as much attention as the bad news does. (Via Dan Riehl).

A LEATHER-SWADDLED ThinkPad? Why not?

IN THE MAIL: 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask.

UPDATE: No, I haven’t been a fan of Woods’ work in the past. However, after I posted this link he emailed to say that earlier claims that he’s a neo-confederate are false. So there’s that in his favor.

S.W.A.T.-MANIA: Teaching kids how to break down doors?

REMEMBERING Robert Heinlein.

MICHAEL YON POSTS ANOTHER REPORT FROM IRAQ: Warning: The photos, of what Al Qaeda did to a village and its inhabitants, are pretty graphic. It’s interesting to contrast his first-hand reporting, with names and photos, with what we’re getting from the A.P.

UPDATE: Al Qaeda’s My Lai? Only in the factual sense, not the media sense.

MORE ON “DECAPIGATE:” Greyhawk is in Iraq, and emails that he can’t reach his site. So he sends these thoughts, which I assume will appear on The Mudville Gazette at some later point:

—–

I’m shocked – shocked I tell you, to read this. I haven’t heard of such a thing since the last time the news reported a bogus headless bodies story.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Separate groups of gunmen entered two primary schools in Baghdad on Wednesday and beheaded two teachers in front of their students…

*****

“We sent a crew and they spoke with witnesses in front of the school, and they say nothing happened. We spoke to the guard at the school who says ‘I was here from early morning until they (the kids) left, and nothing happened,” said a representative of one of the agencies.

“We went to both schools and no one confirmed it. We even went to the local police station and they denied it happen. This thing you can’t hide. The kids saw nothing,”

Or the time before that…

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 26 (NY Times) — The bodies of 30 beheaded men were found on a main highway near Baquba this evening, providing more evidence that the death squads in Iraq are becoming out of control.

*****

Q: About, on the news that we heard this week of a number of headless bodies being found along a road in Baghdad. I was wondering what more you could tell us about that, what you know about the victims, and who the perpetrators were?

GEN. THURMAN: Okay. I did understand that question, and what I would tell you — we have not confirmed that report. We went to multiple sites to look for the 32 headless bodies that was reported to our headquarters, and we did not find anything; nor did any of the local citizens that were in these areas could verify that anybody had ever been in there. So I look at that report as completely false right now.

Thanks, Greyhawk.

HAPPY CANADA DAY! (Via Newsbeat 1).

BIG BROTHER IS CARDING YOU: Scanning your driver’s license number when you buy beer.

PHIL BOWERMASTER HAS THOUGHTS ON the origins of the environmental movement.

FROM POPULAR MECHANICS, a video iPhone review.

MICHIKO KAKUTANI LIKES Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur a lot more than I did.

Ironically, however, the same issue of The New York Times contains this article on the triumph of an Army of Davids kind of approach in space suit design, an idea that was originally proposed by blogger Rand Simberg. (And here’s another article on the same thing.) So critics of amateur efforts can get good reviews in the NYT, even while the amateurs are, you know, actually doing stuff. Seems about right . . . .

STRATEGYPAGE ON NIGERIA:

The mayhem in the Niger Delta is costing about $4.4 billion in damages and lost revenue each year. But the loss is just shrugged off as a cost of doing business. The corrupt leadership is nothing if not adaptable. The Nigerian people are still doing most of the suffering. The shut down oil production means there is less money to steal. The growing number of kidnappings means more jobs for bodyguards and security personnel. The tribe based gangs in the Niger Delta are evolving into businesses, based on intimidation, theft and corruption. The inability of anyone to get really organized means there is unlikely to be a unified and effective rebellion. The system just staggers, with individuals and small groups grabbing what they can.

Poor Nigeria.

MORE PRESSURE on the ABA’s accreditation role.

PETER WALLISON: What if we hadn’t invaded Iraq?