THE NIFONG AFFAIR, ON CHARLIE ROSE: K.C. Johnson has a transcript and links to video.

BRENDAN LOY HAS THOUGHTS on genocide and hypocrisy.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S INTERNET DATA RETENTION POLICY, in which ISPs are being “encouraged” to keep information on what customers upload and download, is getting a lot of criticism, and rightly so.

On the other hand, the dynamic here is exactly what we see with the pressure on gun sellers to retain data on firearms purchasers on the chance that it might be useful to law enforcement someday. Gun-rights activists fear (rightly) that it may be used to support confiscation efforts someday, but are told, even by civil liberties enthusiasts, that such fears are paranoid. Now that the slippery slope has gotten slipperier, maybe people more people will note the similarity.

THE ECONOMIST: “Why so much medical research is rot.” (Thanks to reader Ted Nolan for the link.)

JASON VAN STEENWYK is fact-checking the LAT’s Rosa Brooks.

IN TODAY’S NEW YORK TIMES, Ann Althouse has a column on PC hypersensitivity and legal education. It’s behind the damnable Times Select paywall, but here’s a key bit:

Ironically, you have to care enough about engaging energetically with issues of race to run into this sort of trouble. It’s so much easier to skip the subject altogether, to embrace a theory of colorblindness or to scoop out gobs of politically correct pabulum. It’s only when you challenge the students and confront them with something that can be experienced as ugly — even if you’re only trying to highlight your law firm’s illustrious fight against racism — that you create the risk that someone may take offense. . . .

It would have been so much easier to teach using simple, straightforward lecturing, with every sentence carefully composed, with a sharp eye on the goal of never giving anyone any reason to question the purity of your beliefs and the beneficence of your heart.

Your colleagues may sympathize with you in private, but most likely they’ll be rethinking this idea — heartily promoted in law schools since the 1980s — that they ought to actively incorporate delicate issues of race into their courses.

Publicly, the school goes into damage-control mode. After all, it has worked so hard to bring together a diverse student body and to convey a feeling of welcome to everyone. How can we bear to hear a student say, as one Wisconsin student did on Thursday, that ”unless we have a safe learning environment,” the school’s commitment to diversity ”doesn’t mean anything”?

But this is madness! Our question should not be about what we can do to make you comfortable or how we can make your life pleasant again.

The problem is that law school administrators, like administrators everywhere, tend to care more about having things run smoothly than about fairness, or the quality of classroom discourse. And that tends to be exploited by people with agendas.

UPDATE: Visit Ann’s blog for more on this. Just keep scrolling.

SATURN FROM ABOVE: Cool photos and video, here.

BLOGS: A “parasitic medium?” I’d say more symbiotic. After all, look at the original reporting in the post below this one.

UPDATE: More original reporting here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on blogs vs. the MSM here.

ANN COULTER DOES IT AGAIN:

Ann Coulter almost made it through her CPAC speech without looking like a complete buffoon. . . . Near the end of her speech she said she wouldn’t talk about John Edwards because ” you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’” She’s now on non-speaking terms with any gay and lesbian friends.

Nice. There’s audio at the link.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey: “At some point, Republicans will need to get over their issues with homosexuality.”

COZYING UP to the Axis of Evil.

HEH: Switzerland invades Liechtenstein:

What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers from the neutral country wandered more than a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story, but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

“We’ve spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it’s not a problem,” Daniel Reist told The Associated Press on Friday.

Reports that France surrendered in response to this story, however, are false.

MANUFACTURING HATE SPEECH? Pretty tacky, and possibly illegal, but I’ve noticed that there seems to be something of a campaign going on at the moment.

THE BBC strikes a deal with YouTube. For a state enterprise, they’re surprisingly nimble in some ways.

ARMY SECRETARY RESIGNS OVER WALTER REED SCANDALS:

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The surprise move came one day after Harvey fired the two-star general in charge of the medical center in response to disclosures of problems at the hospital compound.

I don’t have much to say about this beyond — as with Enterprise, Alabama — “this sucks,” and unlike this medical story it’s gotten plenty of attention. But it does suck.

UPDATE: Robert Gates: A breath of fresh air?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Sgt. Mom emails:

Do you want to know what the biggest surprise in this whole Walter Reed ‘care of the troops’ scandal is for me, as a retired military person? It’s the surprise of the WaPo writer at the condition of their barracks. Most career military have had the opportunity of living and working in buildings that are in as bad as condition as the facility noted in the WaPo article for decades.

Seriously. More here.

I can do a stealth survey of the conditions at Brook Army Medical, but the last time I walked around the circuit, the troop housing looked pretty good, from the outside, at least. It’s all new. Meaning, built in the last decade, of course.

I think they’re still using “temporary” buildings from World War Two in places.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Major John Tammes emails:

So you have been to Fort McCoy?! The chaplains never tire of reminding us that the “temporary” chapel(s) were built in 1942 and meant to last for 2-5 years. They are still there… I won’t go into the housing for mobilizing and demobilizing troops there either, as it is late and I don’t want to get so angry I cannot sleep.

I’m sure that it’s somehow Bush’s fault that they weren’t replaced with permanent structures at the end of their projected life.

JOHN EDWARDS ASSAULTED BY POO-SLINGING COMMUNISTS — er, virtually, in Second Life.

BRIAN FLEMMING LOOKS AT WHAT HE WAS WRONG ABOUT in March of 2003, and issues a challenge to other bloggers: “If you are a blogger who was active in March 2003, link to that month’s archive and write an entry called ‘What I was wrong about in March 2003.'”

Brian’s entry isn’t too impressive as mea culpas go — basically, he says he underestimated just how immoral and evil people who disagreed with him were. But it did inspire me to look through my archives and see how they held up. A few highlights:

Disagreeing with Andrew Sullivan about whether there was a “domestic war” with the New York Times, etc. I still think I was right to say: “While they clearly have an irrational dislike for President Bush, my sense is that they want what’s best for America — however misguided their views on that subject might be — and aren’t calling, after the fashion of Chrissie Hynde, for America to be given ‘what it deserves.'” But follow the link for Sullivan’s clarification, which seems to have been prophetic itself.

Calling SpongeBob Barbie “surreal:” In retrospect, this was a last moment from a more innocent America. But still surreal. So was this, though I don’t think anyone ever got the reference.

Disagreeing with Radley Balko and Oliver Willis who didn’t mind the idea of Al Qaeda terrorists being tortured. Nope. I’m still anti-torture.

Saying that “a swift American victory is pretty much the only outcome that doesn’t involve a lot of dead people.” That seems to have been entirely correct. Too bad it didn’t work out that way, quite.

Agreeing with Jack Balkin on the Padilla case. Nope. Haven’t changed my mind there.

Scorning those who compared the bombing of Saddam’s ministries in Baghdad to the firebombing of Dresden. Yep, still seems right.

Worrying about Steven Den Beste’s fears, including “After we win, and during the post-war occupation, I’m concerned about a campaign of terrorism developing (90%). There will still be zealots and extremists there; will we end up going through months or years of occasional suicide bombings all over the nation? How many of our occupation troops will be victims? If it happens too much, with rising intensity, will it start to make our troops suspicious of all Iraqis, and thus make them start to think of us as invaders instead of liberators? Could it totally sour the attempt to reestablish the rule of law and to start to improve life for everyday Iraqis? If it reaches levels approaching that of the Intifada, we’re in deep trouble. It’s virtually certain that there will be at least some of this; the question is whether it will end up being politically significant.” I’d say it has become politically significant, though it hasn’t been Intifada-like. (In fact, it’s more like the — current — intra-Palestinian strife.) See this post, too. Well-founded fears on that topic, it turns out, though happily most of Steven’s other worries didn’t come to pass.

Saying that Columbia shouldn’t fire Prof. Nicholas de Genova for hoping the war would produce “a million Mogadishus.” Still agree with that.

Publishing the original Oil Trust proposal: Still like it, and that puts me on board with Hillary Clinton and Milton Friedman. Shame it hasn’t happened.

Being Pro-Sodomy: Still there!

Saying that: “I do think that — although at one level it seems premature to be talking about postwar stuff when the war is just starting — the postwar follow-through is likely to be at least as important as the war.” Alas, my MSNBC post on that topic is now lost.

Observing: “Keegan is, however, worried that we don’t have enough troops on the ground, for which he blames the Turks, whose on-again off-again intransigence has produced the troop shortage as the Fourth Infantry has to go through the Suez and around to the Gulf before it can do any good. . . . I can’t help but think, though, that Tommy Franks knows how many troops he has, and what he faces, better than the rest of us do. And the rap on him has always been that he’s too conservative, not that he’s some hell-for-leather adventurer. I’ll spare you any armchair-generalship on my part. We’ll see, soon enough.” Franks was right for the war phase, obviously. For the postwar phase? That’s still unclear.

Worry about friendly-fire incidents with allied (British) forces — sadly, this was right.

Criticizing Patriot Act abuses, and supporting Randy Barnett for Attorney General. Not ashamed of that stance!

Noting reports of German and French responsibility for the war via their obstruction and evasion of sanctions on Saddam. You don’t hear much about that anymore, do you? How convenient.

Pointing out that satellite imagery from Baghdad contradicted press reports to a highly suspicious extent. Sadly prophetic. LIkewise this report of photo-fakery at the Los Angeles Times.

So was I like Brian? Was my big mistake underestimating the dishonesty of the people who disagreed with me about the war?

Well, let’s give that one a pass and look at the big picture. Knowing what I know now, would I have supported the invasion of Iraq? The actual invasion and capture of Iraq went better than most people expected — certainly better than I expected, as I figured we’d see about as many casualties on the road to Baghdad as we’ve seen in the entire four years since things started. On the other hand, the postwar reconstruction, which I expected to be hard, has been worse than I, or most people (including the war critics), expected. (In retrospect, Mark Steyn’s report about Palestinians heading to Baghdad was probably a harbinger of trouble.)

The domestic political posture is grim — we’ve gone well beyond the three year rule on Iraq, and we’re more than five years into Afghanistan, and that’s costly. I think it’s probably true that the White House wouldn’t do it over again, if they knew what was ahead — certainly the alternative “low-hanging fruit” approach, which called for attacking terrorist havens in Somalia, etc., probably looks better in retrospect. On the other hand, I don’t much care about the political future of the Bush Administration or the Republicans as such, and would happily sacrifice them to make the country safe. Did the Iraq invasion do so? The absence of significant attacks on the U.S. is evidence, but not proof. Saddam and his regime are no longer a threat, and although Iran remains a threat, it was a threat before. It’s been trying to get nukes, and regional hegemony, for decades and it’s not clear that toppling Saddam made things worse, though it certainly hasn’t (as I’d hoped) rendered Iran any more pliable.

And that goes to my big problem. I supported the invasion of Iraq because I saw it as a move toward shaking up the entire Middle East. But as I’ve noted before, we seemed to exhaust our momentum as soon as Baghdad fell. (It’s almost enough to make you believe the Weekly World News theory, mentioned here before, that the invasion was really all about capturing a crashed alien spaceship. Well, no, but it does have a degree of explanatory power . . . .) The cost of toppling Saddam wasn’t nearly as bad as some had feared, and even with the cost of reconstruction added in it might well be worth it if the result was the toppling or moderation of Arab and Islamist despots. But the Bush Administration seemed to lose all momentum in that direction and without that larger payoff I’m not sure it was worth it. That’s not a reason to cut and run now: We’re there, and we owe it to the Iraqis, and our troops, to make it a success. But where I was wrong in March of 2003 was in seeing the toppling of Saddam as the beginning, rather than the end, of the stage of post-9/11 history that started with the rout of the Taliban. In other posts, I’ve quoted Talleyrand to the effect that “you can do anything with bayonets, except sit on them,” and that’s what we’ve done. Was that the plan all along? It’s hard for me to believe, but if someone had told me that was the plan in March of 2003 I’d have been much less supportive of going into Iraq. Not that it didn’t have its benefits.

LAWRENCE V. TEXAS AND CONSENSUAL ADULT INCEST, in a new opinion from the Ohio Supreme Court. Though calling sex between adult steprelatives “incest” seems to stretch the definition a bit. According to Perry Dane, Justice Rehnquist had doubts about this, too, but interestingly most of the comments at Volokh don’t. Plus, interesting observations on tribalism, and the Harvard Law Review’s being ahead of its time.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Eugene Volokh.

I HAVEN’T BLOGGED about the Enterprise, Alabama tornado because it’s been all over the news, and I don’t have anything to add besides “jeez, that sucks.” But Will Collier is from Enterprise, and thus has a perspective you won’t find in the big media coverage.

THE ECONOMIST on the transatlantic alliance:

It’s very difficult to argue that America should bust a gut for Europe ever again. But it’s also difficult to watch central and eastern Europe failing to make the safe docking with western Europe that was hoped for ten years ago, and slipping back into the orbit of an exploitative and illiberal Russia. If there is to be hope here, it has to lie with some sort of resurgent American soft power which offers some moral leadership to central and eastern Europe and some political example to Russia.

But it’s the “Old Europe” leadership that doesn’t like American soft power (or hard power either) and that has given Americans the sense that the alliance has been mostly a one-way street all along.

VAGINA ENVY at Newsweek.

EDWARD LUTTWAK says we should be encouraging the breakup of Iran:

If Iran’s economy were strong, ethnic divisions and even religious resentments would matter less. As it is, with at least 20 per cent unemployment and an annual inflation rate of 30 per cent, Iran’s economy is scarcely a unifying force.

Viewed from the inside, Iran is hardly the formidable power that some see from the outside. The natural outcome of increasing popular opposition to extremist rulers, of widening ethnic divisions and bitter Sunni resentment of Shia oppression is the break-up of Iran.

There is no reason why Iran should be the only multinational state to resist the nationalist separatism that destroyed the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, divided Belgium in all but name, and has decentralised Spain and even the United Kingdom.

As with the Soviet Union, there is a better alternative to detente with a repulsive regime – and that is to be true to the Wilsonian tradition of American foreign policy by encouraging and helping the forces of national liberation within Iran.

I would like to see the mullahs’ regime fall, preferably in the bloodless fashion of the old Soviet Union.

UPDATE: Reader Frieda Hovsepian emails:

I grow up in Iran and I hate Mullahs’ more than anything , but to divide Iran like Soviet Union…No way! I can not see that happening. Culturally and Characteristically, Iran is not Soviet Union.

Iranians will rally around even this regime, IF they know Western countries have plans for division of Iran.

People who talk about division of Iran, don’t know what Iranian people are made of…Revolution yes, division NO.

I’d be just as happy with revolution, velvet or otherwise. And other readers note that some parts of Iran that aspire to independence, like Baluchistan, might make pretty unpleasant countries if independent.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related item here. ” I’ve always said invasion of Iran would be a terrible mistake, and it would demonstrate a failure to design and conduct a rational policy toward Iran.”

MORE: Further thoughts here.

BRENDAN O’NEILL ON GENOCIDE:

Hardly anyone talks openly about a global divide between the savage Third World and the enlightened West anymore. Yet today’s genocide-mongering has nurtured a new, apparently acceptable divide between the genocide-executers over there, and the genocide-saviours at home. This new global faultline over genocide is formalised in the international court system. . . . At a time when the West making claims to global moral authority on the basis of enlightenment or democracy has become distinctly unfashionable, the new fashion for genocide-mongering seems to have turned ‘genocide’ into the one remaining moral absolute, which has allowed today’s pretty visionless West to assert at least some authority over the Third World.

I don’t think I agree with his analysis, but it’s worth reading. And his free-speech point is clearly correct.

DEAN BARNETT: “It’s a subject that’s been strangely on my mind the last few weeks: Which national figures are true believers in what they preach and which ones are low-level or high level frauds?” He offers his thoughts on a number of different pundits and politicians. Here’s one: “Andrew Sullivan – Whatever his faults may be, Andrew believes every word he writes and every word he says with every fiber of his being. A tiresome scold? Sure. But a fraud? No way.”

Nope. Andrew’s sincere when he takes a position, sincere when he switches, and sincere in calling you a hack and a fraud for agreeing with yesterday’s position — or tomorrow’s — today!

PEOPLE ARE ASKING ME if they should use TurboTax or H&R Block’s TaxCut for their taxes. I don’t have any idea, as I don’t use either one — I used to be a TurboTax guy, but Helen has always done our taxes since we got married, which I find a far superior approach from my perspective.

Anyway, here’s a review of the two suggesting that you won’t go far wrong with either one. And here’s more on the subject.

RED-LIGHT CAMERA UPDATE:

On Thursday, the Lubbock, Texas city council voted to delay installation of red light cameras after a local television station exposed the city’s short timing of yellow lights at eight of the twelve intersections where the devices were to be installed.

“Many folks believe this is a money grab and then we found out through KCBD Television there’s a discrepancy in timing,” Councilman Gary Boren said, as quoted by KCBD.

Earlier this month, the station cited the rule-of-thumb that Lubbock City Engineer Jere Hart asserted as the basis for timing lights at city intersections. At most of the proposed camera intersections, Hart did not follow his own rule. . . .

Short yellows assure a steady flow of red light camera ticket revenue. A Texas Transportation Institute study found that an extra second of yellow time added to the current ITE formula yields a a 53 percent reduction in the number of tickets issued along with a 40 percent reduction in accidents.

Indeed.