OUR GERMANS ARE better than their Germans.

But then, turning on relatives who displease the state is a tradition of sorts there, isn’t it?

UPDATE: Reader Fred Boness emails:

Our Germans ARE better than their Germans and that’s always been true. During WWII who was the best German general?

The best German general of WWII was Eisenhower.

Heh. We had some others, too.

SADDAM DEFEATS FRENCH, GERMANS: At least, that’s probably the upshot of this report:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 9 — The top U.N. arms experts said tonight that they were unable to reach agreement with Saddam Hussein’s government on several key weapons issues they had traveled here to resolve in a bid to build support for continuing inspections.

The two chief U.N. inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, failed to come away with the top three items on their wish list during meetings with high-level Iraqi officials on Saturday and today: significant amounts of new evidence about Iraq’s past weapons programs, safety guarantees from Iraq for reconnaissance aircraft they want to fly over the country; and a high-level declaration criminalizing the production of nuclear, chemical or biological arms.

Stay tuned. I guess Saddam figured out that the whole thing was really just a campaign to sneak an invasion force in under U.N. cover.

THE BENEFIT OF A HARVARD EDUCATION. (Via Dave Barry).

BARBECUE BLOGGING: Randy Paul writes about barbecue with a Brazilian flavor. I know some Brazilian folks who cook this, but I’ve never actually had any. I’ve had its Nigerian near-equivalent, though.

Good, but not as good as Calhoun’s — or, of course, the barbecue that I make, which is fit for a god. A damned lucky god.

CPO SPARKEY IS TAKING ME, and more particularly Eric Muller, to task for criticizing the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. (He has updated posts here and here.) He says that MAGIC decryptions gave the authorities reason to suspect a lot of Japanese spies and saboteurs, and provides some excerpts.

This is news to me, but of course the last time I paid close attention to this subject, the MAGIC decryptions weren’t public. (MAGIC was, but not its results). It’s interesting, but I’m not sure how this supports Rep. Howard Coble’s statement that the purpose of the internments was to protect Japanese-Americans from mob violence.

HERE’S A LINK TO STREAMING VIDEO OF AN ANTIWAR PROTEST IN ANN ARBOR: The repeated chant: “We are not like President G. Bush.”

That seems to be the key message of the whole antiwar movement, doesn’t it? “We aren’t like him!”

Protest as solidarity good. The streaming video is cool, though.

LETTER FROM GOTHAM SAYS THAT EVERYONE HAS IT ALL WRONG about the New York City peace march planned by United for Peace and Justice. She reports that New York City is, in fact, willing to allow a “rally,” but not a “march.” (One stays still; the other moves.) And the reasons have to do with safety, not the message.

UPDATE: Jim Henley has responded.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And Gotham has responded to Henley.

JUST SAW AN ENORMOUSLY DISHONEST “60 MINUTES” PIECE on ballistic fingerprinting. It somehow neglected this report indicating that the technology isn’t good enough even to satisfy anti-gun California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Instead, it made it appear as if a few mere technical quibbles on the part of the NRA were the problem, though in fact this report, dated last week, precisely echoes what the NRA representative was saying on “Sixty Minutes.”

Pathetic.

RAND SIMBERG REPORTS ON THE 21ST CENTURY CHILDREN’S CRUSADE: Also, his one-man psychological-warfare campaign appears to be bearing fruit.

Of course, I think he’s telling the truth, and the psychological-warfare talk is just disinformation. . . .

A REVIEW OF RADAR DATA suggests that something broke off of Columbia on Day 2 of its mission, perhaps as a consequence of a debris or meteor impact.

THOUSANDS OF SOUTH KOREANS attended a pro-U.S. rally earlier today. Meanwhile here’s a report that I can’t confirm, about U.S. threats to withdraw troops from South Korea and the reaction thereto. And here’s an article about the generational divide among South Koreans on the subject of North Korea’s dangerousness.

UPDATE: E. Nough has some comments.

INSTALAWYER has an lengthy email from a former juror regarding a medical malpractice case. Having served on a jury myself in a tort case (one far less complex than this one) it rings true. Best part, though, is InstaLawyer’s observation at the end:

By the way, the first thing I thought when I read the facts of the case was: How can this lady not know she’s pregnant, regardless of what the doctor’s office said. An obvious tragedy — losing a child — but what did she think that moving lump in her belly was? Too many burgers? I would have turned the case down on that point alone.

While there are lawyers out there who’ll take anything that walks in the door, my own observation on contingent fees has been that they make many plaintiffs’ lawyers reluctant to take cases that are far from frivolous. Many of the frivolous cases (e.g., the McDonald’s fat case) are really brought on grounds of ideology rather than profit.

THE AAAS HAS A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS of the Bush 2004 science budget. The Department of Homeland Security becomes a major science funding center. I’m not convinced that’s a good thing. I mean, it’s not impossible for it to be a good thing, but. . . .

BILL HERBERT SAYS BUSH SHOULD CALL THEIR BLUFF ON IRAQ. And scroll down for his comments on the “irreplaceable” Harvey Pitt.

KIERAN HEALY HAS MOVED to a new bloghome. Adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

PRINCE CHARLES, ROBED ARABOPHILE? PunditWatch is up!

UPDATE: Here’s more on Charles.

MATT WELCH SUGGESTS THAT BUSH IS BETTER AT THIS DIPLOMACY THING than many — including many on his side — believe:

Last February, if UN resolutions were being discussed in public at all, odds were high that the debate was over the number of child deaths attributable to economic sanctions, not the exploits of Hans Blix and Co.

Colin Powell was muddling through a process of developing more targeted “smart sanctions,” aimed to ease some of the economic chokehold in deference to the French and Russians, who had long ago lost interest in enforcing the program. Weapons inspectors had been absent since 1998, and almost no one was talking about bringing them back.

Now, fast-forward a year. Instead of throwing up obstacles to economic sanctions, the French and Russians have become overnight converts to the idea of intrusive weapons inspections. Saddam Hussein himself, clearly spooked by the idea of being pulverized, has invited the inspectors back in, allowed one-on-one interviews with Iraqi scientists, and may soon cave on U2 surveillance flights.

With each new U.S. “compromise” comes an audible tightening of the noose, and a frantic new round of Arab diplomacy to persuade Saddam to walk away before the Stealth Bombers take off. Rarely before has bluster yielded so many results.

Is Bush bluffing? “We may never know,” observes Welch.

OLD AND NEW EUROPE: Jim Bennett has some thoughts.

POWER LAWS, POPULARITY, AND THE VANISHING MIDDLE: Clay Shirky has some interesting observations on weblogs.

TOM FRIEDMAN IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT: India should replace France on the Security Council:

Why replace France with India? Because India is the world’s biggest democracy, the world’s largest Hindu nation and the world’s second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it’s become silly. India has grown out of that game. India may be ambivalent about war in Iraq, but it comes to its ambivalence honestly. Also, France can’t see how the world has changed since the end of the cold war. India can.

Indeed.

As I’ve said, the French/German diplomatic initiative is merely isolating those nations.

SUMAN PALIT IS UNFAZED by the French/German diplomatic counteroffensive. I think he’s right here.

Just now I caught a bit of an NPR program in which an expert was solemnly warning that Europe would become a “rival superpower” and asserting, as evidence, the “growing pacifism” among Germans.

I’m willing to run the risk of a pacifistic rival. In truth, Europe can’t become a rival superpower without structural change that would completely undermine the current meaning of “Europe” — a shift away from socialist welfare-state economics that would allow investments in military capacity, for example.

That could happen, but it’s not likely, and it’s not the kind of thing that happens gradually, or by accident.

Personally, I think that the French/German behavior here is further support for Steven Den Beste’s theory that they have something dreadful to hide regarding their relations with Saddam.

UPDATE: Reader Chuck Herrick emails:

Clearly, this is a credible alternative to democracy forced by war. Certainly not preferable, but definitely credible, meaning a butt-load of folks are going to believe in it.

So, why wait until it’s too late (so late)?

I think the point the Euro’s are trying to accomplish is the destruction of George W Bush, and the muscular, politically conservative agenda of America. Because, even if Bush takes us to war (I pray for this) and wins (I pray for this) and wins easily (I pray for this) and transforms the middle east into a domino-phenomenon that beings a democratic ripple throughout the region (I pray for this), the anti-war, America-haters are going forever to be able to brand America as “The Big Cowboy”.

For the Euros, this is not about presenting viable alternatives. This is about neutering America. This is about international competition of the most venal sort. Because if there were a shred of interest in presenting alternatives, this alternative would not have been presented so late in the game.

Look at the play-by-play, in slo-mo if you like. The Euros have played this brilliantly. This is going to be very difficult for the US to bat down in time before we go to war, and that I think is the whole point. The Euros want us to go to war with this proposal sitting on the table.

In other words, since this is not an honest proposal (serious, yes, honest no), they win big chips in the court of world opinion.

It’s poker baby, and the Euros have just called our hand. They suck, but play very well.

Yeah, but it’s a bluff, and it’s not going to work. First, this assumes that it’s bad to be thought of as the “Cowboy of the World.”

A year or two ago I might have agreed with this. But looking around the world I see a degree of cravenness and an appetite for appeasement that makes me wonder whether it’s worth it to play nice.

And my question for the French and Germans is this: If the Security Council fails to constrain Saddam Hussein, what makes you think that it will constrain America?

And how long can you demonize America as an imperialist power that doesn’t give a damn what other people think before it comes true?

And do you want to live in that world?

As I said below, of course, it would serve these guys right if Bush said: “We’ve mobilized the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, and we’ll transport 50,000 of your toops to Iraq starting on Thursday. But if you’re not ready to send them, we’ll dismiss you as a bunch of unserious kibitzers and go on as planned.”

I predict a different outcome, however, because this is, in fact, a transparent ploy.

AARON SCHATZ EMAILS:

Don’t know if you watch Saturday Night Live (I doubt it) but the theme of tonight’s show seemed to be “Europeans are morons.”

The opening sketch featured the UN Security Council. After Colin Powell finishes his statements on Iraq, the German foreign minister says “and now, I think we should do nothing.” Then the French minister says “actually, I think we should all go to lunch at the most expensive restaurant in town, and make the UN pay the tab.” For the next five minutes the ministers all discuss how they can find the most expensive restaurant, take the highest number of stretch limos, and block the largest amount of New York traffic. The minister from Syria suggests they use their UN immunity to shoplift at Cartier. At the end the camera turns to Powell, who is dumbfounded.

A later sketch featured an anti-war protest. The lead protester kept trying to discuss the war while the rest of the protesters kept interrupting him by screaming out other causes, including gay rights, legalizing drugs, saving the whales, and stopping smoking. Clearly a parody of ANSWER.

Later on, they ran a parody of a European pop music program, as the two hosts traded criticisms of the United States war on Iraq with horrible banalities about pop music, including a great spot-on parody of horrible European “rappers.” Later on they went into the “audience” of kids to get video requests, each kid said how much they hated America and then requested some American video. “Yeah, I want to say to George Bush, get your troops out of Turkey… and my favorite song is Jenny From the Block!!!”

Bet nobody ever thought they would see the day when Saturday Night Live had such a clear pro-war stance.

Well, SNL at its best is about satire, and satire is about puncturing pretentious empty twaddle. And we all know who has the market on that cornered.

UPDATE: Reader Devereaux Cannon emails:

I was struck by the concept of a pacifist superpower. Can such a thing exist?

In an old Death Valley Days episode, I think titled “No Gun Behind The Badge,” Ronald Reagan played the roll of a town marshal who tried to enforce the law without using a firearm. He was, of course, shot dead by a bad guy. This strikes me as being analogous to a pacifist superpower.

Well, it worked for Andy Griffith. But the world is not just a big version of Mayberry. Or even Munich.

UPDATE: Reader Dan Hollenbaugh emails:

I watched that show a lot growing up and it’s everywhere in reruns. Sheriff Andy Taylor never carried a gun when he didn’t need one, but in a number of episodes, when it appeared that the bad guys might be capable of violence, he showed no reluctance to strap on his own .38, or grab a rifle from the rack in his office. I think that might actually make a better point about a pacifist superpower – even the supremely gentle Andy knew that there are times that call for the availability of, and willingness to use, lethal force.

Good point. I’ll bet he knows the license number of the bankrobbers’ car that Barney ticketed, too. . . .

YEAH, I KNOW, I HAVEN’T BLOGGED MUCH TODAY: We’ve done a spell of spring cleaning at the InstaPundit household, and various other family activities have had priority. But hey, there’s a lot of new stuff over at Virginia Postrel’s page, and Charles Murtaugh has a lot of new stuff up, too.

And here’s an indication that war is near: Civil Reserve Air Fleet activation.

Meanwhile, don’t miss Colbert King’s thoughts on Harry Belafonte and Colin Powell, in light of Powell’s Security Council speech.

UPDATE: Okay, as I dip lightly into my ocean of email, here are a couple more worth reading: an indication that Homeland Security is still a joke, with armed uniformed Cubans not being noticed until after they’ve landed and given themselves up, and Steven Den Beste’s thoughts on the latest French diplomatic counteroffensive.

Den Beste’s worried about it. I’m not. First, I wouldn’t be surprised if bombs started falling before this jells (see above). But more importantly, the argument has now shifted: the question is now not whether Iraq should be occupied, but by whom. American troops? Or the French army?

Some questions answer themselves. Though it would serve the French right if we waved them in with bands playing, and with a warning that if Saddam does anything untoward, they’d best duck.

Of course, the French will abandon this when they realize that it was originally an American idea. Unless this is all some sort of devious diplomatic ballet. . . . Nah. Couldn’t be.

IN THIS ARTICLE ABOUT ANTI-WAR POETS AND LAURA BUSH, the author marvels at poets’ belief that poetry must be morally pure.

And well he might. It’s easy to understand why poets might like to think that poesy confers high moral stature — just as beekeepers may think that the apiary arts do the same. But the evidence, frankly, is stronger for the beekeepers’ position than for the poets’. In fact, what’s interesting, or perhaps revealing, is that genocidal thuggish dictators so often have artistic aspirations. As has been noted here before, there’s often a lot of overlap between mediocre artistry and murderous tyranny:

Yet in truth, our last century’s worst disasters came from bad artists with dumb political views (Hitler (lousy art), Stalin (bad poetry), Mao (worse poetry), etc.). Perhaps the resemblance between our neo-conceptualists and Hitler is greater than they imagine. Consider the following behaviors alluded to in the piece, and then consider who besides exhibitors at the Whitney and Brooklyn Museum routinely engaged in them:

Dressing up in dumb costumes and having picture made in public places (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot)

Filling warehouses with severed body parts and icky stuff (Above except, mostly, Mussolini)

Portraying political opponents as subhuman (all of the above)

Spouting mind-numbing political cant while imagining they are saying something original (all of the above)

Thinking that they speak for the masses when they are really playing out own neuroses/psychoses (all of the above)

Genocidal Fascist/Communist dictators or Conceptual Artists? You decide.

I’m not sure if Saddam has written poetry, but he’s certainly a novelist of some renown. And there’s something about the artist’s desire for total control over his or her work of art that seems to find resonance with the dictator’s desire for total control over society. Indeed, some dictators seem to regard themselves as artists, artists who work with people and nations.

So perhaps the “antiwar” poets simply recognize a kindred spirit.

I’M KIND OF BUSY THIS MORNING. Head on over to Betsy’s Page for lots of fresh posts. Back later.

UPDATE: Still busy, but go read Eamonn Fitzgerald’s on-site reports from the appropriately sited Munich conference on security.