AL QAEDA FAILS sexual politics.

UPDATE: Maybe it has to do with the hair: “Don’t they have something in the al-Qaeda manual about mullets not being cool?”

“HAMAS APPEARS TO BE WINNING CIVIL WAR:” Wow, that was fast. Just yesterday we were merely on the brink.

UPDATE: Related item here. “The MSM’s reluctance to call the Gaza civil war a civil war –the New York Times this morning refers to ‘what is beginning to look increasingly like a civil war’– is because the Gaza meltdown doesn’t fit the tired media narrative that sees America as ‘breeding terrorists’ in Iraq and the conflict in the Palestinian territories as the result of Israeli oppression.” Yeah, this almost looks like terrorism is the preferred tactic of Arab terrorists for reasons of their own, or something.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, now that Mahmoud Abbas is calling it a civil war, can we consider it official?

MORE: Okay this from Andrew Sullivan is incoherent, even by his recent standards:

Glenn Reynolds is surely right that what is going on in the Palestinian territories is a civil war. What I don’t understand is why he doesn’t therefore support invading the place and occupying it indefinitely to curb the Islamist threat. I mean: al Qaeda and Islamists are gaining ground in Gaza and the West Bank. What are we waiting for?

It’s not like we invaded Iraq for these reasons, after all. Nor is Andrew, so far as I know, calling for an Iraq withdrawal. So what is he getting at here, beyond mindless snark? Not much, it seems.

A LOOK AT RUSSIA: “The really bad news is, most Russians are still not aware of how screwed up their Soviet era military was. . . . The one effective weapon the Soviets did have were their nuclear armed ballistic missiles. Better maintained than the rest of the military, enough of this missile fleet would work, if used, to devastate Western nations. Russia still has a large part of that nuclear arsenal. But that does not make Russians feel like a superpower. That’s because Russia no longer has the huge fleet, air force and army. And that’s because this huge force was all an expensive illusion, which was disbanded in the 1990s, once it was obvious what a waste it all was.”

STEPHEN GORDON HAS THOUGHTS ON living dangerously.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, government would be crushing speech it didn’t like. And they were right! “Rush Limbaugh has long been a thorn in the side of liberals, but now, because of him, some Democratic politicians don’t even want to join with a local radio station to broadcast hurricane information. Radio station WIOD, AM 610, has been the official channel for emergency information from Broward County government for the past year. The County Commission, all Democrats, balked at renewing the deal Tuesday, unable to stomach the station also being home to Limbaugh’s talk show.”

FRED THOMPSON ON THE TONIGHT SHOW: A.C. Kleinheider has video and a roundup. I meant to watch but got distracted with a sick kid.

AN IRANIAN SEX SCANDAL! Well, sort of.

MORE ON CAIR, and where the money comes from. As I said before, if CAIR were opposing abortion, or promoting gun rights, its paltry membership and dubious funding sources would have gotten a lot more media attention.

ANOTHER REASON WHY BUSH HAS NO CREDIBILITY ON IMMIGRATION:

One of the main missions of the Department of Homeland Security — established in 2003 as a direct response to 9/11 — is to locate and prosecute terrorists and dangerous criminals who have entered the United States, legally or illegally.

However, a recent report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University discovered a “declining long-term trend” in the prosecution of immigrants on terrorism and national security grounds. “The incidents of 9/11/2001 and the creation of DHS appear to have little discernable impact on these trends,” the report noted. It seems that the federal government actually did a better job getting rid of the bad guys before DHS came along.

Nice. Can I say “I told you so”?

RATIFYING THE LAW OF THE SEA TREATY: Thoughts here. It seems a politically inopportune moment for new international commitments.

AN INTERESTING CARBON TAX PROPOSAL that lets everyone put their money where their mouth is. “Why not tie carbon taxes to actual levels of warming? Both skeptics and alarmists should expect their wishes to be answered.” (Via Climate Audit).

THE BELMONT CLUB ON THE WAR DEBATE: “The battle for ‘political interpretation’, far from being dreaded by the Left, is probably anticipated with great eagerness. Here at last is the opportunity to round up the remaining survivors of the Vietnam War syndrome for final annihilation. After the hoped-for Iraq War syndrome, the US will finally be remolded. Into what the reader may imagine. . . . The problem with declaring an Iraq War syndrome is precisely that the war isn’t with Iraq, and hence makes about as much sense as declaring a post-Guadalcanal War syndrome. The conflict is at least with al-Qaeda and the the theocrats in Iran or so those worthies themselves think. When an post al-Qaeda War syndrome can be studied, that will be the time to look back. And not before.”

But that won’t happen in time for the next election. And it’s important that we lose the war before then!

NON-CIVIL WAR UPDATE:

The fate of the increasingly powerless Palestinian national unity government was hanging by a thread last night after another day of brutal fighting between the two main factions in Gaza brought the two-day death toll to at least 36.

Hamas said it had seized control of the northern Gaza headquarters of the large Fatah-dominated national security force. A protracted and bloody battle was fought between 200 of its gunmen, firing mortars and grenades, and up to 500 security force members holed up inside left. At least 12 were killed and 30 injured. More than two dozen jeeps carrying Fatah reinforcements to the battle failed to get through roadblocks manned by Hamas gunmen.

Good thing it’s not a civil war.

UPDATE: Well, some are calling it one.

THOUGHTS ON FAT AND FATNESS, from Megan McArdle.

A “FERAL BEAST:” Actually, I think he’s being kind in that the term suggests a lack of bad intent.

UPDATE: Reader John Chalupa says I’m missing the point here:

Why did Blair attack the media?

1. Iraq criticism aside, the media exposed Blair’s Saudi bribery scandal.
2. Blair may be providing cover for an EU assault on free speech (with an eye toward a job in Brussels?).

Corroborating quotes from the linked Guardian article:

Moving on to the regulation of newspapers, Mr Blair said changes were inevitable…He also questioned whether papers needed some system of accountability that went beyond sales. He said: “The reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself.
……….

The prime minister’s aides admitted he had thought long and hard before making the speech, but felt free to do so now that he was, in his own words, leaving office “still standing”. Ministers conceded privately that the regulatory structure of newspapers may change over the next decade, but did not believe it would lead to direct regulation. “It is possible we could end up with a kitemark that websites pass certain tests, but it is a long way away,” said one minister.

There is also ministerial and industry scepticism that EU legislation and the convergence of newspapers and broadcasting would see a single regulatory structure for newspapers and TV.

The coming EU legislation is likely to make the broadcast regulator, Ofcom, responsible for regulating the internet, but is likely to leave unregulated the content of newspapers on the website.

Well, this isn’t inconsistent. I’m against Euro-style press regulation, of course. But much of the British press has been even more shoddily political and dishonest in its war coverage than its Ratheresque counterparts here. Lack of patriotism and honesty, plus lack of self-discipline, are likely to lead to calls for regulation. And if it were any other industry putting out a similarly shoddy and corrupt product, the British press would be demanding government regulation, wouldn’t it?

I’m sure that government regulation will be worse than press freedom, but irresponsible behavior tends to produce demands for government regulation. I should also note that one of Blair’s targets was the BBC, which is both exceptionally politicized and government funded, making Blair’s criticisms more significant in that case.

I HAVEN’T BEEN FOLLOWING THE IMMIGRATION BILL’S ONGOING WRANGLES but Mickey Kaus and Michelle Malkin have been blogging up a storm. What’s interesting is that there’s no comparable pro-bill passion visible in the blogosphere. On the other hand, as Kaus notes: “the establishment really wants this bill.” It certainly seems to. But why?

REPORTS OF PUDDLES ON MARS retracted.

DER SPIEGEL: Insurgents in Iraq Turn on Each Other.

I’m okay with that.

AL GORE ON SADDAM: Criticizing Bush for minimizing the danger. (Via Surber).

UPDATE: Speech-related stuff of a different sort.

A NEW PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHAEL YON. This story stinks:

American soldiers think our press is bad to them, but we get off light compared to the Brits. One British soldier told me that when he made a journey of several hours across London, in uniform, not a single person acknowledged him. I said he should go to America where British soldiers are always welcome.

That’s consistent with my experience.

STUDYING TIME TRAVEL, at the University of Washington.

HARRY REID PULLS A BIDEN, lifting language from James Carville.

“THEY DON’T MAKE CARS LIKE THAT ANY MORE:” Paul Boutin on why even the best old cars sucked.

SUING AUTOADMIT: “So this is the 21st century? Where courts award punitive damages for offensive words and pictures? Isn’t ‘the scummiest kind of sexually offensive tripe’ exactly what we always used to say people had to put up with in a free country? Man, that was so 20th century!”

Stuff that offends dumb hicks in the heartland is constitutionally protected. Stuff that offends Yale Law Students must be stamped out! More here.

And on Internet libel generally, read this.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Eugene Volokh — also here — and there’s more discussion here.

Patterico, meanwhile, thinks I’m wrong to be dismissive of the plaintiff’s claims. Well, I’m pretty thick-skinned about Internet trash-talk — when I teach libel I give my students a few choice search terms and let them see what people have said about me. They’re usually appalled, but I’ve never sued anyone, and the list of things about which I might actually sue is awfully short. Besides, once you get past the puppy-blending stuff, who’s going to believe much of anything they read?

A LOOK AT Solar Power in Florida, from Randy Neal.