Crude is the only language adequate to discussing the price of crude. I paid $1.83/gallon for gas yesterday. There's a big wooded lot behind our house that belongs to the church around the corner. There are deer there, and possibly some roots and tubers. So instead of driving to the grocery store, we can forage. We have the internet, TV and each other for entertainment. If I can talk the office into letting me telecommute, we could just about ride this out.

Spree Graphs - Item in the Washington City Paper's media column about misreporting of evidence in the sniper case. The thrust of the article is the different approach to making corrections at the Post and the Times. (Thanks to Hesiod for e-mailing the link.)

A Casket of Amontillado - The Institute for Justice has won two more economic liberty cases. In one, the US Court of Appeals affirmed that a Chattanooga minister may indeed sell affordable caskets to his poor parishioners without

a funeral director’s license. To obtain such a license, individuals had to either attend school for two years, apprentice for two years, or a combination of both. During that time, they would have to help embalm 25 bodies and master vast amounts of utterly irrelevant information.

Bad news for a state-protected funeral home cartel that habitually marks up coffins as much as 600%. A twofer for decency and free enterprise.

A federal district court says Virginia vintner Juanita Swedenburg can ship wine directly to customers in New York State, rather than having to sell to (possibly indifferent) in-state wholesalers only.

The Institute for Justice challenged New York’s law under the Commerce Clause. We argued that the power to regulate alcohol given to the states under the 21st Amendment (the amendment that repealed Prohibition) did not give states authority to engage in naked economic protectionism. That principle, while dealing with wine and the 21st Amendment in this case, is one of profound significance to free trade within the United States.

Attorneys for the other side? Princes of Darkness C. Boyden Gray and Robert Bork, among fourteen others - lacking only David Boies to constitute a Legal Axis of Evil.

Discussing the casket case, author Chip Mellor explains the Institute's Cunning Plan:

This licensing scheme was a classic example of laws that arbitrarily limit economic opportunity. It lacked any fit between the asserted goals behind the law—safety and consumer protection—and the licensing requirements supposedly established to achieve the goals. Courts call this the “rational basis test.” IJ’s economic liberty litigation is dedicated to establishing that this fit under the rational basis test must be a tight one. We argue that courts must not merely rubber stamp any economic legislation and defer to legislatures completely. Such abdication of judicial responsibility guarantees that protectionist legislation will proliferate.

For a lot of conservative business interests, "right to work" means no more than "right to get fired by your employer." For libertarians, "right to work" means what it goddam says: the right to employ your talent and resources in peaceful industry for such gain as others choose to pay. State and local laws are full of prohibitions on that kind of dangerous behavior. By taking those laws on, IJ is probably doing more concrete good than any other libertarian institution.

Like We Did in Afghanistan - From Reuters today:

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Rival commanders squabbling over scrap metal traded mortar fire near the U.S. headquarters in Afghanistan on Thursday after President Hamid Karzai appealed in Washington for subsidies to placate unruly militias. U.S. military spokesman Roger King said the exchange occurred north of Bagram Air Base, for the second time this week.

"There are two sub-unit commanders who both operate north of the base and they are in a dispute over who owes who money and who should have access to the profits generated by some scrap metal," King said.

"They are attempting to settle it with mortars."

Some background:

The latest clash comes after at least six people were killed in fighting between forces from opposing warlords which broke out in the north of the country at the weekend as Karzai was in Japan seeking funds for a program to disarm warlord armies.

Karzai was pledged $51 million but the program is expected to cost nearly three times that.

A warlord who gets X million dollars to disarm and does so is no longer a warlord. He has lost power and status and gotten only money in return. I would imagine the program has the best chance of working if the money goes not to the warlords but directly to his troops. (Warlords already have money if they can afford men and weapons, and the men and weapons afford them a way of getting more money.) You can expect the warlords to resist the program pretty hard, and for it ultimately to have about as much effectiveness as the various "money for guns" programs US cities run from time to time.

In Washington on Wednesday, Karzai asked U.S. senators to support a request that the United States subsidize his budget to allow him to pay 100,000 irregular provincial militiamen.

He said this would be to ensure "they remain well-behaved" until the Japanese-led disarmament drive took off.

That would be money even without disarming.

New Europe = Old Warsaw Pact - Jon Utley of Americans Against Bombing sends a copy of an Investor's Business Daily article by Brian Mitchell that is apparently only available to subscribers. Mitchell goes into great detail about the backgrounds of the leaders of the "Coalition of the Billing" as Matt Hogan calls them. Money quote:

"It's not just that they were Communists - anyone could have been a communist - it's that they were very senior Communists," said John Laughland of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group. "In three or four of the cases, they were actually the Communist bosses in their country."

Examples:

Estonia's President Arnold Ruutel was president of the country's Supreme Soviet.

Lithuania's Primier Algirdas Brazauskas was the first secretary of his country's Communist Party.

Romania's President Ion Iliescu founded Romania's Communist student union. He later served as secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee.

Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov was too young to get far in the Communist Party, until the party changed its name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party in 1990. Parvanov is the first ex-Communist to be president since the end of communism.

Slovakia's President Rudolph Schuster was a member of the Central Committee of Czechoslovakia's Communist Party for 20 years. He attended his last Communist Party meeting in 2000, boasting to the delegates, "I am proud of what I did under the former regime."

The struggle to end communism in Poland pitted Lech Walesa, hero of the Solidarity labor movement, against Aleksander Kwasniewski and Leszek Miller. Kwasniewski was a career propagandist for the Communist regime. Miller was a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee. Today, Walesa is out, and Kwasniewski and Miller are back in . . .

Hungary's prime minister is Socialist Peter Medgyessy, who spied for the Soviet-era secret police under the code name D-209.

Mitchell notes that surveys of actual public opinion in "New Europe" resemble nothing so much as public opinion in - Old Europe. Per Mitchell, 45% of Romanians favor war - the highest level of support in the countries in question - while opposition to the war goes as high as 84% in Bosnia. Bosnia, having had firsthand experience of being liberated, seems a bit short on gratitude and enthusiasm. (Romania had the bloodiest and dirtiest transition to "post-communism.")

"But," Mitchell notes, "since when did public opinion matter in Eastern Europe?"

"They're all a bunch of Commie hacks who are used to giving into to whomever is the biggest bastard on the block," Laughland said.

UPDATE: Fixed link to Americans Against Bombing.

News of the Weird - A reader sent me the premium subscription version of Stratfor's daily Iraq briefing. The public version teases

Following a fast visit by former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is said to have agreed to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. Sources also say that U.S. energy companies could be invited back to Iraq after a 30-year hiatus -- but Washington's reaction to the proposal, to be delivered by Russian diplomat Vladimir Voloshin -- is anything but clear.

Details missing from the teaser:

o Primakov and Saddam are said to be old friends. (Ick.)
o Saddam told Primakov he would "scrap [Iraq's] al Samoud 2 missile program by March 1."
o Saddam will invite UN peacekeepers in to assist the inspectors - essentially volunteering for the currently stillborn "inspections plus" program.
o Here's a pisser: Per Stratfor, Saddam has asked Primakov to convey an invitation to US and British oil companies to return to Iraq for the first time in thirty years.
o Overall goal:

The ultimate goal of [envoy Vladimir Voloshin's follow-up] visit [to the White House] is to persuade the Bush administration that Iraq will be disarmed to such a point that it not only will be unable to threaten U.S. and Israeli forces for years to come, but would be unable to resist a U.S. invasion if Washington deems it necessary to attack Iraq in the future.

The first thing to wonder, as always with Stratfor, is "How reliable is the report." Can't say. The second thing to wonder is, "Will it work?" That is to say, will it stave off war, as the Russians and Iraqis hope? Stratfor is skeptical, which makes sense to me. Stratfor notes, "The proposal would not achieve Washington's two main goals in Iraq: regime change and a new base for U.S. forces in the Middle East." Now we already have bases in the Middle East (Oman and Qatar come to mind), but not bases from which one can launch land invasions of Iran and Syria, so keep this "new base" goal in mind when evaluating Kenneth Pollack-style arguments that Iraq is uniquely worse than other rogue states. (Lynxx Pherret, as so often, does the best job of stating that case.) This war is not designed to end in Iraq. Stratfor's formulation also implies that "regime change" has become an end in itself, not a means to greater US security.

Stratfor (and I) also think that the domestic political situation still tilts in favor of a decision to invade. While the public remains split, there's an activist Republican Party constituency, centered in the think tanks and magazines, insistent on taking Saddam down. All the scribblers have to do is to turn the head of a potential primary-challenge glory hound, and Bush's reelection chances almost disappear. Contrariwise, if Bush decides to invade, he can hope that the "cakewalk scenario" comes to pass, or that all the bad stuff is out of the way by summer 2004. Then the soft opposition in the public at large goes away, the base is happy and he cruises to reelection.

Also, the oil company thing is so transparently cynical on Saddam's part it could backfire on him politically.

But watch this space.

Note from Home - Tired and a touch under the weather. Over the next few days, reader mail, Kenneth Pollack and whatever comes to me while I'm sitting at the computer. Now, decongestant and a pillow.

War of the Kurdish Suppression Update - Per the pro-war Telegraph:

Kurdish leaders in Iraq gave warning yesterday that American-sanctioned deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq would lead to fighting.

What kind of fighting?

But [Nasreen Mustafa Sidiq, the minister of reconstruction and development in Irbil] too gave a warning about unforeseen consequences if the Turks entered the area. "If Turkish soldiers come here, to Irbil, I will hate the Turks. We will use what we have, even our lives, if we have to."

"Even our lives?" Is that an oblique reference to . . . suicide bombing?

Okay, but why do the Turks want to do this in the first place?

The Turks say they want to prevent a repeat of the mass exodus to their territory after the failed Kurdish uprising of 1991, and to protect the Turkoman minority in Kurdistan.

But Mam Qassem, a Turkoman money changer whose family has lived in Irbil for generations said this was a pretext and that his people enjoy equal rights under Kurdish rule.

"The Turks are only coming for oil," he said, "those Turkomen who ask the Turks to come here; we don't like them, they are like spies for the Turkish government."

Mr. Qassem apparently hasn't heard that it's not about oil, dammit.

Anyway, developing . . .

Daredevil - I feel like a bit like a Star Trek fan - I realize I'm forgiving a lot for the sake of my enjoyment. (Note to self: stop making fun of those people.) But there's a lot I liked. One thing: in most superhero stories, endless contrivances prevent anyone from unmasking the hero. Here everybody takes Daredevil's mask off at some point. Elektra does it, the Kingpin does it, Matt Murdock's priest does it. I liked Matt's "solution" to the Kingpin discovering his identity. It makes a nice change from the default. (Contrive to have the villain die through no fault of the hero's.) It felt right that the one person in on Daredevil's secret identity from the beginning is his priest. The fight with Bullseye atop the pipe organ was pretty fine. The courtship/fight with Elektra: primo. Foggy Nelson: perfect.

What's not to like? The costume. The somewhat jerky pacing. The editing of some of the fight scenes. I wasn't wild about the CGI rendering of Daredevil's radar sense. The only partially-successful response to the problem of Batman Envy.

Batman Envy was even a problem during Frank Miller's legendary first run as series writer, and Miller's work on Daredevil changed the way superhero comics were written. (Miller was the first "good" writer to script comics, where "good" means not confusing overwriting with merit.) Miller did the logical thing and went off to write Batman instead (The Dark Knight Returns). On his return to Daredevil, he actually freed the character from "avenger of the night"-hood. A lot less of the cowardly, superstitious lot calling him " 'Devil!" and quaking at his shadow. The reprint of those issues, Daredevil: Born Again, is well worth your time. I spent an enjoyable hour with it last night in Barnes & Noble after the movie. Miller and "Born Again" artist Dave Mazzuchelli then made "Batman: Year One." I would argue that to read Dark Knight, Born Again and Year One together is to see that by that point the two heroes are utterly distinct in Miller's mind. He's identified a core sweetness in Matt Murdock and his world that just doesn't exist for Bruce Wayne. (He identifies the sweetness with Christianity.)

You could make the case that the movie is about Matt Murdock making the same discovery in himself Frank Miller made for him - the movie Murdock decides his core value is not vengeance but mercy. The decision makes him happier and gives him strength. (It'll make confession easier too.) One problem is that, despite what I wrote about the evolution of Frank Miller's approach to the character, the evolution from avenger to defender is not Daredevil's story - not the character's ur-text from the beginning of the series. Miller never confused Murdock with Bruce Wayne, exactly. He employed Darknight Detective tropes in the reaction of characters to Murdock's costumed identity. A Comics Code baby, Daredevil never had a "killer phase" to grow out of.

The other problem is that it means most of the movie becomes "The Dark Knight Walks with a Cane." At the end, Daredevil decides not to be Batman, but to be Chandler's "man who is not himself mean." But that means we still don't have a Daredevil movie, because it's only at the end of the movie that Matt Murdock becomes Daredevil.

Better Gaming, Better Living - Bruce Baugh's RPG designer's manifesto is worth a general audience. Excerpt:

Yes, I craft entertainment. But entertainment is important. The demands of living a decent and humane existence are tough: it takes work to be a good child and parent, spouse and friend, employer and employee, neighbor and citizen. Life is seldom altogether delightful. Our entertainment time is our chance to renew our sense of enjoyment, and in gaming to do so with friends in a really pretty unique kind of way. Having as much fun as possible in gaming is, or can be, part of living life responsibly, recharging energy and enthusiasm ground down by duty and happenstance. Gaming seldom gives anyone new ideas, and indeed anyone who gets their ideas about life from gaming has some other problems. But good gaming can build us up in a bunch of ways, including the sense of rising to a challenge: "I wanted to do this, and I prepared for it, and I made it work. We did something cool together, and it happened because I made it." Those of us who create games are the collaborators-at-a-distance with all the folks reading and playing the games in their various and sundry ways. If I fail to pursue options for adventure, intrigue, drama, tragedy, and mystery just because they weren't done right or at all 20-odd years ago, I'm being an irresponsible steward of the money and time I'm asking you to invest in my products.

Weekly Fitness Blog Post - Those not into the weight loss thing may enjoy A heavy girl's guide to success, by Kerry Daniels.

This week's title change simply acknowledges what everyone else undoubtedly decided weeks ago - there's nothing "imitation" about this regular feature any more. Of course, I just checked and there's nothing weekly either - despite clear memories of writing a fitness item last Sunday morning, no such post exists in the database. Suddenly Eric Mauro's recent e-mail - "PS no diet posts lately?" seems less cryptic.

So last week we were at 194 pounds, 37 3/4" waist, same as the previous week. This week, 190 pounds, same pants size. From a plateau to a big drop, both of which are expected features of any diet. That drops the BMI to 26.5, still officially (and genuinely) overweight, but making me now slightly thinner than my age-gender cohort (49th percentile). But as I've said before, the heck with those slackers - I'm after better.

(Define better? Okay, two goals - one sensible, one absurd. A few years ago, at a poetry conference, one of the grad students working the conference allowed that he was forty years old. I was stunned. I want to be that guy. Not in a making my hair less gray sense - I don't care about that. In a how can he be in such good shape at that age sense. Second, if I make my weight and am plausibly athletic by this fall, I get to wear a superhero costume at any Halloween parties. I haven't decided which one yet.)

New statistics: Yesterday I used the blood pressure chair by the supermarket prescription counter. These things are nowhere close to definitive and it was my first use. Still, I got 123/76, with a 72/minute heartbeat. Those are the best readings I've had in years. I have to see the doctor this week about something else, so we'll see if these numbers hold up.

Now for the exercise portion of the item. I would say that I continued to pursue a weightlifting-only strategy this week, but I'm not sure that's strictly true - after all, I spent a couple of hours shoveling snow. Snow shoveling is such high-demand activity - which is why people die doing it - that Leonard "Heavyhands" Schwartz actually recommended "practice shoveling" as an exercise in his first book. It was the only exercise that did not involve small dumbbells. Instead, he suggested holding an actual snow shovel and engaging in rhythmic shoveling movements at your target heart rate for several minutes during your workout. Two hours of shoveling can easily burn 800 calories. (For perspective, though, that's only about a quarter pound of fat.)

What I can say is that the snow provided a useful fitness test. I did three sessions over three days. Arms, legs, abs and heart held up fine. That's quite a change from the early winter snows, where my heart rate shot right up and I had to take frequent rests and walked like a zombie for days afterward. I suffered some mild soreness in the back muscles, but thanks to those stiff-legged deadlifts, even that wasn't as bad is it's been after previous snows. (Another thing Schwartz and the slow-cadence weightlifting gurus would agree on: the solution to America's back problems is not to avoid using our backs. The solution is to train our backs.)

Hey. not having a heart attack while shoveling snow is a major fitness goal for men my age.

Am I convinced yet that slow-cadence weight training really is all the exercise one needs? No, not yet. I've felt subjectively less conditioned in the chest area toward the end of the week - two weeks since my last heavyhands session. That could be a cold I've picked up, though. And I posted those good blood pressure and heartbeat numbers regardless. I plan to give the weight's-only program another month.

The part of this post that isn't obsessively about me. I do, I should mention, get fitness-blog e-mail. Eric Mauro writes:

I tried out your plan, don't know if I'm any stronger, but it does leave more time for the fam. I'm counting on you to clear my conscience. Certainly there must be a better way to do this than chipping off those calories on the stairmaster. I'm only 33 and already my joints are going. Oy my sciatica...

The numbers one more time. Running a mile uses up a hundred calories. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. Run a mile, in place or on the go. Eat 3 oreos. You've lost ground. Plus, the stairmaster does nothing for the upper body. (At least elliptical trainers provide for arm work, though it looks like the range of motion is nothing spectacular. But I've never used one.) Eric: I clear your conscience. Build muscle. Weights do that.

Now, what the weight training enthusiasts may not appreciate is that there is an aerobic way to burn a lot more than a hundred calories at a time and build muscle too. You all know what it is by now. Schwartz's tables in the first Heavyhands book suggest that a 170# man can burn 1.5 calories per minute per MET. (1 MET is the work the body does at rest.) A trained heavyhander can sustain workloads of 10-15 METs over a half hour. That's 15-22 calories per minute. Four half-hour sessions of that a week could burn a half to three-quarters of a pound of fat and would also, if you keep working in some aerobic intervals with heavier dumbbells, build muscle mass over your entire body. That means that, unlike the stairmaster, it will keep working between sessions.

I saw a jogger along Sligo Creek Parkway yesterday, her little arms up in front of her like a squirrel's, and I just wanted to stop the car and shout "Stop that!" (Fred Hahn claims that studies have found that runners have as much of the brain protien S-100B in their system as boxers, suggesting that they're bouncing their brains around while exercising.)

I'm sure now that slow-cadence weight training builds muscle, and at a faster rate than Heavyhands alone. I can feel it. Like I said, ask me in a month weather my breathing and heart rate are where I feel they should be. The problem is that, if slow-cadence weight training turns out not to be all one needs or wants from an exercise program, it's hard to combine it with anything else. All the slow-cadence gurus stress the importance of recovery time. That's when the body actually builds muscle. So far, my legs are taking most of a week to recover between sessions. (I plan to try out a new squat this week that might alleviate the leg problem.)

I'm automatically suspicious of the fitness advisors who say "You need to do all the exercise types" - it sounds political. But if they're right, slow-cadence weight training makes it hard to fit those other exercises in - you don't want to ruin recovery time. The slow-cadence gurus I've seen all say, "You don't need to do aerobics, but if you really want to, wait four or five days after your weight workout."

Here's a possible alternative. Call it "Fortnightly Fitness Fun": Do a slow-cadence weight session Sunday. Rest all week. Next week, do three four intense sessions of Heavyhands. Then start the cycle over. The week of Heavyhands should at the very least prevent muscle atrophy, allowing one to continue to make strength gains after the weight sessions.

But that's for later.

Dave Lull writes

PS: I've been THINKING about Super Slow for a while, but have never done it. I think a lot about things before I try them. I haven't done an exercise program since I got out of boot camp at the age of 22. I've been thinking about exercise, in various forms, since then, i.e., for about 32 years now. Someday I may actually do some. Well, actually, I did do some exercises a while ago to help alleviate some pain I was suffering. Of course, when the pain subsided, so did my bout with exercise. But the success I had with these exercises made me interested in the ideas behind them. So now I'm THINKING about them.

Dave's suggested reading is this article from trainer Pete Egoscue. Egoscue theorizes about pro athletes that injure themselves:

Despite all the hours of practice and weight training, high school and college ball and endless drills, these athletes are still products of their own culture, and that means they've been running a motion deficit since infancy. The great thieves of bodily function are cars, desks and television sets. Technology is robbing us of a precious legacy. We are losing our life-support system.

The Synopsis of the Egoscue Method contains this spectacularly bad sentence:

That decrease in performance could be expressed in the way you deliver a curve ball to a person having difficulty rising from a chair.

That's just cruel.

I Get a No-Prize - Everyone complains about the scene at the beginning of Daredevil where defense attorney Matt Murdock is "prosecuting" a rape case. By everyone, I mean Franklin Harris. Probably others, too, but I haven't been obsessive about reading the reviews.

The problem vanishes, though, if you assume that the rape trial is a civil case Murdock is bringing on behalf of the victim. (He refers to her as "my client" in the courtroom.) The only minor difficulty is afterwards, on the steps of the courthouse, when Matt and Foggy regret that another rapist is still on the streets. But you can put that down to loose talk. Really. You can. I just did.

More on the movie later. Mrs. Offering wanted to know how Matt could afford a fancy isolation tank and all the equipment if none of his clients ever pay him. I promised to tell her when she's older. For my part, I was distracted by the conviction that Ben Affleck looks remarkably like a cross between NEA head Dana Gioia and Adam Sandler. But I suppose everybody felt that way.

Imitation Tech Blog Post III - More from PC World's twentieth anniversary issue.

"Americans spent an average of 157 hours (6.5 days) using the Internet at home in 2002."

157 hours a year??? Some of you are not holding up your end.

Internet sales taxes creep closer.

Step One, the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, is near completion. In itself, that wouldn't compel retailer compliance because the states can't regulate interstate commerce. So step two involves Uncle Sugar:

Once ten states representing 20 percent of the U.S. population pass the tax rules, the governors and state legislatures of all the states participating in the SSTP will ask Capitol Hill for laws to make seller compliance mandatory, says Diane Hardt, cochair of the SSTP. In the states' most optimistic scenario, federal laws enforcing collection could appear as soon as 2004.

Appeasement Watch:

As of this writing, a group of at least five national retailers has approached state offices about voluntarily collecting sales taxes by February 1, independent of the SSTP. These vendors have negotiated with the various states amnesty deals that grant them immunity from liability for missed or improperly collected taxes on previous sales. The SSTP proposes a similar deal for vendors that voluntarily comply within a year of SSTP law enactment in their state.

Of PC World's Five Free Tips, I especially appreciated the fourth one. All sorts of programs want to set themselves to launch on startup, including some that have no business doing so. The fourth tip explains how to get them off the Startup list.

Non-PC World Item. I'm using Opera a lot more lately. The unwanted popup suppression is wonderful. I'm not fond of its insistence on running full screen. And I haven't convinced myself to switch over to its mail client, M2, which a lot of people really like. But I'm moving more and more toward using IE only for Movable Type and Opera for everything else. (The formatting buttons in the edit window don't appear in Opera or Mozilla/Netscape.) Strangely, I'm using the free, ad-supported version of Opera rather than the $39 ad-free version. But I'm getting no ads.

Hosting Matters. In the for what it's worth department, here's how I feel about my first month on the new host. Reliability has been excellent. Blog posting goes much faster and I haven't lost a post yet. On the other hand, the statistics available suck. You can't set the date range you want in any of the available stat engines. Referrer stats accrue on a month-to-date basis only. Consequently it's essentially impossible for me to spot new referrers after the first week of the month. The bright side is I'm less obsessed with what others are saying about the blog (assuming they're saying anything). The downside is that I feel less connected to "the weblogging community" and have a harder time being a good blog citizen than before.

Historical Spam - PC World also reproduces the first known unsolicited commercial e-mail. "Early Internet users say that a marketing rep at Digital Equipment Corporation sent the first unsolicited commercial e-mail on May 1, 1978. The message invited all 594 people with Arpanet accounts to product demonstrations. This is one innovator who's probably happy to go unremembered: Only the offender's e-mail address, THUERK at DEC-MARLBORO, still appears in the online record. "

Remember, as the poet said, the mighty oak was once a nut like you. (The actual e-mail image is hard to read.)

Spam Mail From Some Flounder? - For PC World's twentieth anniversary, the magazine assigned writer Scott Spanbauer to go computer-free for twenty days. The experiment resulted in a somewhat predictible article (computer-free life has good points! Bad points too!) but what struck me was the passage on what happened when he checked his e-mail for the first time in 21 days:

The time has come to reenter the 21st century. I take the Sony out of the safe, boot it up, and start downloading mail. I find more than 2000 messages--including 1571 pieces of unsolicited commercial e-mail. Hallelujah, baby, this is productivity.

Three-quarters of his e-mails are spam? This dumbfounds me. I hear people complain about spam all the time, but I never give it much thought. I don't pay by the message, it's usually pretty easy to delete unread and the ones I'm not quite sure of take about a second to figure out once I open them. My in-box strategy is, generally, to do a pre-read delete pass, then read new unread messages in order as received. I have no use for spam, but I've never found it the bother that others seem to.

But I'm pretty sure that three-quarters of my e-mails aren't spam, either. I'd guess that one out of ten, perhaps as many as one out of five, e-mails I get qualify as spam. But now I'm wondering. So starting tomorrow, I'm going to keep count for a week.

By No Means Duty-Free - Apparently the Bush Administration has finally succeeded in buying Turkey's cooperation in the conquest of Iraq. Cost we know about, $6 billion in direct aid "with the idea that this financing could be leveraged into an additional $20 billion in loans from international institutions.

The haggling also reached into such details as to which side should pay the cost of the plastic identification badges American troops stationed here would be required to wear, how much American soldiers would pay for gasoline at Turkish pumps and whether U.S. soldiers would have to pay Turkey's value-added taxes, according to Turkish officials close to or familiar with the talks.

Costs we don't know about yet:

These officials insisted, however, that the argument was not all about money. They said equally important were issues such as the role and command of Turkish troops who would participate in a U.S. operation in northern Iraq and guarantees that Iraqi Kurds would not come over the border into Turkey as happened in 1991.

In other words, what news for the War of the Kurdish Suppression? Answer: mixed news.

Another outstanding issue was American plans to give more weapons to Iraqi Kurds, with Turkey concerned about its own Kurdish minority and fearful of a revival of the PKK Kurdish independence group. Foreign Minister Yakis told Turkish NTV television tonight: "The Kurdish groups will need light weapons to defend themselves. Negotiations with the U.S. about how we can collect them, can we collect them, are continuing."

What the Kurds might think of the hated Turks "collecting" their weapons is left as an exercise to the reader - not a hard exercise, mind you. Also, are "light weapons" enough for the Kurds to fulfill their planned offensive role of providing the bulk of the manpower for the drive south on Baghdad?

"In 1991, these weapons fell into the hands of the PKK," he said. "In order to avoid a similar situation this time, we prefer that these weapons are taken back."

Because there can be no "safe zone" for the Kurds of Turkey.

A senior U.S. official said the American side will continue to insist that Turkish troops inside Iraq must report to U.S. commanders. But Yakis said on NTV, "The Turkish troops in Northern Iraq will have their own commander. However, this does not mean that the Turkish troops and American troops will act totally separate without any coordination."

A U.S. official in Washington also said no Turkish troops will be permitted a role in the Iraqi oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.

It's not about oil. Kirkul and Mosul just kind of keep coming up, is all. It's a train wreck waiting to happen, with the Turks saying the Kurds mustn't take Kirkuk and Mosul, the US saying the Turks mustn't take Kirkuk and Mosul and the Kurds saying, "They're ours, baby." Meanwhile all parties know that the Northern Alliance proved with the capture of Kabul that Who dares, wins.

Something that occurs to me this morning, though - there's an outside chance that we're not going to shaft the Kurds at all. Maybe we're going to shaft the Turks. What if the plan is to let the Kurds keep their autonomy against Turkey's insistence? Once the invasion has been concluded and the US no longer needs Turkey to provide the logistical tail, what could they do? This administration has shown that they do not appreciate demurrals even from allies, and they hold grudges. They may wish to punish Turkey for holding them up so long.

Odds: damned low. If the idea is to turn next to Iran and Syria, as it surely is, Turkey remains too useful. So continue to place your bets on the Kurds taking it in the shorts at the end of this process.

Could It Happen Watch - The conservative and generally pro-war Capitol Hill Blue reports White House advisors looking for a "way out" of war with Iraq:

Some strategists within the Bush Administration are urging the President to look for an "exit strategy" on Iraq, warning the tough stance on war with the Arab country has left the country in a "no win" situation.

Why? The UN problems, for one. And, interestingly, this:

In addition, Republican leaders in both the House and Senate are telling the Presidently privately that he is losing support in Congress for a "go it alone war" against Iraq.

"The President's war plans are in trouble, there's no doubt about that," says an advisor to House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert. "Some Republican members want a vote on military action and some of those say they would, at this point, vote against such action."

Have no fear, though, or hope depending on your inclinations:

President Bush, however, is reported to be "hanging tough" on plans to invade Iraq, even though his closest advisors tell him such a move could be "disasterous" politically.

Your usual interpretive options are available, from pure charade through meaningless jitters to watch this space. I wouldn't give much chance of Republican lawmakers actually carrying out what would be a colossal rebuke to a sitting president of their own party, but the rumblings, combined with the uncertainties in Britain and Turkey, are interesting.

Hawks Unclear on the Concept - Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is shocked, shocked to discover that French politicians act in . . . French interests:

So France in recent decades has chosen to express its power negatively -- by opposing actions that it believes are not in France's interest.

and

The United States has been the principal target of French negativism, but it is hardly the only one. Many of France's European allies have felt the sting of its refusal to compromise on what it regards as its interests.

Zut alors! as Batroc zee Leepair might put it.

A Slough of Subsidizers - The Institute for Justice has opened a North Carolina chapter. First target: that state government's policy of giving its citizens money to wealthy out-of-state movie studios:

The IJ-NC represents Raleigh small businessman Edward Jones and the Wake County Taxpayers’ Association in the lawsuit.

“As a small businessman who built a company, pays taxes and provides jobs to North Carolinians, I say handing over our tax money like this brings no benefit to the public and is just wrong,” said Jones, a remodeling contractor whose Eastern Surfa-Shield and Facelifters employs a crew of six. “I never expected or received a $200,000 check from the State to build my business. My business relies on hard work and good service to our customers to survive, not on government handouts. The North Carolina Constitution is supposed to prevent that kind of giveaway.”

Article V, Section 2 of the North Carolina Constitution states that the taxing power shall be exercised “for public purposes only . . . .” Although the North Carolina courts traditionally enforced this provision as a barrier to state subsidies of private businesses, the General Assembly in recent years has eroded that constitutional protection. Recent so-called “incentive” programs—passed under the guise of “economic development”—result in private businesses being subsidized by the public purse for purposes unconnected to traditional public matters. Moreover, the North Carolina courts have given more leeway to the General Assembly’s actions in this area—a trend the plaintiffs in this lawsuit hope to help change.

In Maryland we have a similar policy: keep corporate taxes high; then, when a large company threatens to move out of state (like Marriott did a few years ago), negotiate a tax incentive package directly with them. Doing so concedes the essential point: high taxes tend to drive employers away, low taxes tend to retain them. But you can't just lower taxes for everyone because that would leave less for the state's own employees to do. A general policy of low taxes provides few opportunities for public officials to hold press conferences announcing that they've "saved" a particular business. (No press conferences are held to commemorate the departing employers that they don't even try to save.) Plus, official favoritism drives campaign contributions from corporations who stand to benefit.

It's a win-win for everyone but, you know, almost everybody.

Gioa Division - This San Francisco Chronicle profile of new NEA head Dana Gioia is, all in all, not so bad. It gets off to a very rocky start, implying that Gioia was still in the corporate world at the time of his nomination and talking about what it might mean if Gioia is confirmed. (The Chronicle piece ran February 16. Gioia was confirmed two weeks prior. Later in the article the author notes that Gioia left his business career in 1992.)

Other cavils: The article is correct that Gioia identifies himself as a member and supporter of the New Formalist movement, but overstates when it continues

Gioia's own work exemplifies New Formalism. Along with three published volumes of poetry - "Daily Horoscope" (1986), "The Gods of Winter" (1991) and "Interrogations at Noon" (2001), which won the American Book Award - he has published translations, essays, literary anthologies and reviews. And he has founded two poetry conferences, one at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, and "Teaching Poetry" in Santa Rosa.

But Gioia's own collections probably contain less metrical verse, proportionally, than any other new formalist. Compare one of Gioia's volumes to a book by Timothy Steele or R.S. Gwynn, to name two poets I admire, and the distinction is obvious. Publishing "translations, essays, literary anthologies and reviews" is not a sign of "new formalism." It's the sort of thing many poets do. The two (poorly-formatted) poems the article reprints at the end, "Money" and "Planting a Sequoia," are probably Gioia's best-known poems. (Garrison Keillor read "Money" on the radio.) Neither one is formal verse.

But the profile gets some important things right. It correctly identifies Gioia's origins as working class. He spent much of his youth in the corporate world, but he didn't start there. It identifies Wallace Stevens as his career inspiration. It doesn't (quite) convey the energy Gioia has brought to supporting poets and fostering interconnecting cells of sympathetically-minded writers, but the full force of Gioia the instigator may be beyond description, something you just have to experience.

His appointment doesn't give me any more faith in the NEA than I had previously, but the Bush Administration had to appoint someone, and I doubt they could have done better.

You Like Me! You Really Like Me! - Wow. Your Talking Dog undertook the herculean task of actually providing a capsule description for every link in "the Dog Run," aka "The Best Damn Links Section on the Internet." One of his tricks was to pick a breed of dog for each blog. And I'm honored to report that instead of assigning a breed to Unqualified Offerings, he awarded it "Best in Show." Given my admiration for TD's own writing, this means a lot. I haven't felt this swell-headed since I realized I was the top blog on Gene Healy's link list.

Axis of Tryptophan - So is Turkey in or out? Right now the alleged sticking point is cash, because, as you know, our supporters are morally superior in every way to our (weasel) antagonists, and moral superiority costs good money.

Rights to Iraqi oil in Kirkuk and the future of a Turkish military presence in northern Iraq also were part of the negotiations, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

Keep in mind that it's possible that this is all mummery, that the deal is done and the public proceedings are an attempt to achieve tactical surprise on the northern front. To return to our ur-text, William Kristol's Washington Post column of October 12, 2002:

The president's audience is no longer the American public, or even our allies. It is Hussein. Deceiving him as to the timing of the war and the manner of attack is crucial to success. We obviously cannot achieve real strategic surprise; Hussein knows an attack is likely. But tactical surprise remains possible and, especially given Hussein's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, very much desirable, if we are to minimize casualties and risks.

When it comes to "minimiz[ing] casualties and risks," the northern front would seem to be crucial. That's certainly true if the plan really is to hit Baghdad with airmobile troops early on in a race to kill Saddam, as the London Times maintained earlier in the month:

AMERICAN war planners believe that they have little more than 48 hours from the start of a ground war to kill President Saddam Hussein if they are to avoid a protracted conflict and a complicated peace.

What the Times calls a "rush to Baghdad" carries at least the risk of becoming "Arnhem II." The more directions the US hits Iraq from, the less chance, one would think, that Saddam can successfully concentrate his defenses.

So, is the Bush administration 1) that reckless or 2) do they secretly have the Turks sewn up already or 3) is this one more snafu that may stop the conquest entirely? (Can't say "stop the war." As the Times notes, "US special forces and CIA teams are already operating on the ground in Iraq." In quainter times, "operating" military forces in the territory of an adversary was called, you know, war.) My considered opinion: hey, who can tell with these people. But my bets are on 2, 3 and 1 in that order. But one is last because I still, despite everything, would like to think the Administration wouldn't blithely launch "Operation Market Souk."

A Rorschach of Regulators - Congressmen have to take classes in McCain-Feingold, notes the New York Times, and even then many of them say they can't follow it. Robert Matsui, who voted for the thing, told a reporter after his class, "I didn't realize what all was in it." Radley Balko writes

Now, if Rep. Matsui votes for and vigorously endorses legislation directly affecting him, without reading or really understanding said piece of legislation, imagine how much attention he gives legislation that affects only you, or me -- or minutia-laden OHSA or HIPAA regulations -- before he blindly casts his vote.

Well I'm sure he has people for that. Whee.

This Land is not Your Land - Ramesh Ponnuru gives props to the Institute for Justice, which has been, among its many good works, fighting abuses of "eminent domain." Often cities condemn the property of small businesses, homeowners and even churches, not to build roads or parks or even government buildings, but to give it to much bigger businesses. Ponnuru:

The economic-development justification for property seizure is a license for abuse. It will always be possible to dress up the appeasement of powerful financial interests in an area in this fashion. The best economic-development strategy for cities, in any case, is not to attack property rights but to maintain their roads, apprehend and punish criminals, keep taxes low, and fix the schools.

The IJ donations page is here. It gets 4 stars out of 4 from Charity Navigator.

Crazy Talk - Matt Hogan e-mails about this morning's item on war skepticism in the US military:

American arrogance? peacenik talk indeed! What true military guy would use such leftyspeak? Next thing they'll tell me is that Dwight Eisenhower made up "military-industrial complex"!! They'll stop at nothing, I tell ya.

In further comments on his now active weblog, Matt writes

What is most scary is that it appears that our military status and political risks in invading Iraq match what can be called the “Bin-Laden doctrine."

He then explains how. Worth reading. Be even more worth reading when he discovers the wonders of the BLOCKQUOTE tag.

How Many Chances? - Jeff Taylor of Reason Express asks:

Let's pretend that the Federal Bureau of Investigation came into being on September 12, 2001. How long would it be reasonable to wait before it got its anti-terror act together? How many utterly absurd blunders would we tolerate before top-level FBI managers were fired and replaced with non-FBI talent?

Taylor thinks the FBI is missing something basic:

When a terrorist in FBI custody makes claims about future attacks, and those claims result in police with fully-automatic weapons deployed to street corners and cabinet officials advising Americans to construct safe rooms with duct tape and plastic sheeting, that terrorist has successfully committed an act of terror. And the FBI was his unwitting accomplice.

A captured terrorist has no conceivable interest in supplying the FBI with accurate information on future attacks. He does, however, have an interest in diverting resources from actual attack plots, scrambling security assets so his cohorts still in the field can observe how they operate, and inducing general panic via grand claims about a "dirty bomb" set to explode in New York or Washington.

Taylor puts more faith in polygraphs than I do, but he's surely right that the principle - captured terrorists are not your friend - is essential, and basic. Hell, even I figured it out. (See Paging George Smiley at this link.)

Department of Just Not Being Cynical Enough - I've realized this evening that my "War of the Kurdish Suppression" pieces have been far too sunny and far too kind to official policy. Even Mr. Jimmy's dismantling of the so-called humanitarian case for the no-fly zones has been letting the government slide. How can that be, you ask? Let's ask the Providence Journal:

Topping a list of other embarrassments the Pentagon refuses to talk about is the contradiction between the official reason for the no-fly missions in northern Iraq and way the Turkish Air Force is allowed to make a mockery of them.

Basile and other pilots interviewed by The Providence Journal have confirmed that they have had to make way, from time to time, for what other U.S. pilots flying out of Incirlik Air Field in Turkey euphemistically call a TSM -- a Turkish Special Mission.

Although the Air Force officially denies any knowledge of them, the Turkish missions became an open secret among U.S. flight crews after American pilots, returning from their patrols over northern Iraq, noticed Turkish jets -- laden with bombs and missiles -- streaking past in the opposite direction.

Within a half hour or so, the once-heavily armed Turkish jets would fly out of Iraq empty, leaving behind smoldering ruins where Kurdish villages once stood.

In 1999, Turkish and U.S. military authorities established separate air corridors so that U.S. aircraft would no longer have to cross paths with the Turkish jets heading in to bomb villages that the Turks suspected were being used as bases by a Turkish faction of Kurdish separatists.

Perhaps the folks at Samizdata can find pictures of the dead to post.

The same Providence Journal author apparently wrote an earlier article on the subject, dated March 25, 2001 and reproduced here. Excerpt:

At Otis Air Force Base, where more than 200 members of the Air National Guard returned last December after a two-week deployment in the no-fly zone, Major Marty Richard is slightly more guarded.

Asked if the no-fly missions over northern Iraq are still geared toward protecting the Kurds, Richard concedes, "The focus of that mission has changed drastically."

Shortly after the Gulf War, during Operation Provide Comfort, he says, the goal was to protect the Kurds, "but what we're doing now is no-fly-zone enforcement. The subtle nuance," he says, "I will leave to you."

Asked directly if U.S. patrols over northern Iraq get cancelled or cut short in advance of Turkish incursions into the no-fly zone, Richard says they do.

"Suffice it to say," he adds, "that when the Turks are involved with the Kurds well, we've got a political football."

And a bunch of dead Kurds:

Last August, a spokesman in Dubai for one Kurdish faction the Kurdish Democratic Party told Agence France- Presse News Service that in one such raid, 38 Kurdish civilians were killed and 11 were wounded.

Like I said before, war in the name of the Kurds, but not for the sake of the Kurds.

On the Sharp End - There's a pretty good article in, of all places, the Nation about war and empire doubts among the US officer corps. One of the things that makes it good is that it acknowledges that there's a sector of the officer corps that is as enthusiastic about Pax Americana as the civilian leadership, in addition to two groups of skeptics. We might justly term these skeptical camps "conservative" and "liberal." Here are your three groups in order:

Within military ranks, according to one midlevel officer, "one group believes that our Constitution is the right way to go for everyone and that we have a moral imperative to give everyone the world over the opportunity to have that device. You have another group that sees our military as a defensive weapon to use in the face of an actual threat to the nation, which means in this context enthusiasm about taking on Al Qaeda but not Iraq. Then there's a smaller group that believes political leaders, instead of really addressing problems and resource issues, are going to go out and empire-grab and disguise it as something else so we can feed a warped version of the American dream, in which we continue to consume more resources and produce more waste, rather than really struggle with what it takes to keep the American dream viable and inspirational in a world of 6 billion people."

A big concern for all the skeptics is resources. For one thing, as usual, they're lying to us about official estimates of the size and duration of the occupation. (Students of ancient history may recall that we were only going to be in Bosnia for "a year." Same with Kosovo. And Haiti. But you get the idea.)

Despite the wishing-will-make-it-so qualities of some in the pundit class (perhaps best summed up in one Slate contributor's declaration that "a condition of the new imperialism" is that troops "will not stay too long"), the most conservative estimate for the number of troops required in a post-Saddam Iraq is 50,000 for at least one year. Many military officers and civilian analysts--including some leading hawks--privately acknowledge that the number and time requirement will be vastly greater, perhaps lasting years and requiring forces that run to six digits. British troops have been told to anticipate at least three years of post-Saddam occupation duty.

Count on it: "at least" is more significant than "three years" in that advice. Meanwhile, what else is going on?

Officers also have real concerns about anti-US backlashes or acts of terrorism down the road--not just against occupation forces in Iraq but against Americans all over the world. These situations may require the dispatch of anything from small special operations detachments to scores of smaller expeditionary forces.

Yet today, infantry forces--to take just one part of the military--are less than half their Vietnam-era strength. An August 2002 Army conference found that two-thirds of the Army's Special Forces are currently spread out over eighty-five countries, and that "the rate of increased employment since 9/11 cannot be sustained within current structures." The conclave also concluded that "many military occupational specialties and organizations that are important...for winning the global war on terrorism, are of low density," and that the current force structure does not meet "the exigencies of the global war on terrorism," let alone long-term operations in Iraq.

One possible solution? Janissaries:

Indeed, the manpower situation is so tenuous that in a recent issue of the Army War College's journal Parameters, one officer essentially called for accelerated outsourcing of war to entities that some refer to as "private military corporations" (PMCs) and that others less charitably characterize as mercenaries.

Well, what's wrong with that?

Given the dubious track record of PMCs (for example, DynCorp's women-trafficking in the Balkans; Airscan's involvement in the Colombian Army's bombing of civilians), this is the type of suggestion that cries out for more debate and consideration. "Is this really the direction we want to be going in, philosophically and practically?" asks one Special Forces captain who's seen service in the Balkans and Afghanistan. "Speaking from experience, locals can be hostile to or alienated by the sight of American troops. Put people in who are seen as America's Hessians, and it adds another dimension to perceptions of American arrogance.

That's peacenik talk, "American arrogance." But that's the military for you. There's a lot more in the article - well worth reading.

This is London - More on the British situation from the UK tabloid, the Mirror:

Jack Straw today conceded that the enormity of the anti-war protests at the weekend made it "very difficult" to launch an invasion of Iraq.

The Foreign Secretary acknowledged the sheer size and strength of feeling against a potentially devastating new Gulf war.

He told the BBC: "It was a very, very large demonstration, probably the largest one we've seen in our recent democratic history in London. We have to take account of public opinion."

When asked if the government could start a war without public backing, Straw said it would be "very difficult indeed in those circumstances".

Will it be Straw who leads the revolt? Will there be a revolt? Will the loss of Britain really kill the invasion (if Britain is lost)? All of a sudden things are interesting again.

I Got Your Smoking Gun Right Here - Australia's The Age has the definitive case on the Bin Laden-Saddam "nexus."

Doves of the Bourse - From CNNMoney:

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Global investors aren't the likeliest group of peaceniks you'll come across. But Monday they appeared to have joined the millions who protested this past weekend in hoping that war with Iraq would be avoided.

U.S. markets were closed for Presidents Day -- just as well considering the snow drifts piling up on Wall Street -- but markets around the world suggested that traders have come to feel that war is less imminent.

The major international stock exchanges saw big rallies. Gold -- traditionally a safe haven for skittish investors -- saw its price tumble, as did oil. The dollar strengthened.

Analysts credit both the relatively soft line of the Blix report and the turnout at the weekend's peace rallies.

These were not the protesters who ran amuck in Seattle in the fall of 2000. They may not represent the consensus, but they represent something more than the fringe.

"I'm astonished how many people I knew, Labor and Tory, who went," said Lehman Brothers global economist John Llewellyn, who works in London. "I don't think you would have a million people out in the street just to say war is bad. What tipped it toward such big numbers is this idea that the U.S.'s approach is such a misdiagnosis."

"Not the consensus but more than the fringe" sounds about right. The article also sounds a familiar theme to readers of Unqualified Offerings:

The strength of the anti-war rally in London, in particular, may have some effect, forcing Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has thus far been the United States' staunchest ally, to soften his stance.

As Foreign Exchange Analytics currency strategist Dave Gilmore pointed out in a morning note on Monday, "In the U.K. in particular, the notion of Blair leading Britain to war with Iraq alongside the U.S. without U.N. backing is political suicide."

Not everyone agrees, though:

"I see no officials saying a war is less likely," said HSBC currency strategist Marc Chandler. "I don't think the protesters in Western Europe and the U.S. are enough to change policy makers' minds."

Nor did Chandler put much stock in the general interpretation most observers were gleaning from market movements Monday, believing that they said little about what was going on in the world.

"Lower gold prices and a lower euro means there's less likely to be a war with Iraq? That's politically naive," he said.

I think Chandler has it backwards - a marginally smaller chance for war means lower gold prices and a lower euro, not the other way around. But we'll see.

Fun if you are Unqualified Dog, is had thusly:

Wait for snow.

Go out with the pack leader when it's time to shovel snow.

Have the pack leader toss shovels full of snow right at you.

Leap into the spray like a dolphin breasting a wave.

Alternately . . .

Have someone throw snowballs at you.

Try to catch the snowballs in your mouth.

Tip for dogs and would-be dogs among the readership . . .

If the snow is powdery, by romping across the barrier between shoveled and unshoveled parts, you can knock significant amounts of snow back where the pack leader already shoveled.

Bonus tip, which apparently needs to be re-learned with every snowfall:

Do NOT try to bite the moving shovel! It hurts!

The Awful Truth - MSN has one of those "Why Men Won't Commit" articles. It offers four typical reasons, but, speaking as a guy, who knows guys, I haev to tell you ladies that the last one is the only one that matters:

4. They feel they aren't with the right woman Ouch! This could be for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they see something about a person they don't like, or they may just feel they aren't compatible. Maybe they're too set in their single ways, or maybe they just don't love the woman enough (ouch again!).

As Tony Kornheiser would say, "That's it! That's the list!" Everything else is men being polite. Sorry.

Update - You should be reading John Smith's Lincoln Plawg every day. I would go so far as to say that he is the best antiwar blogger going. I wouldn't append "except for me of course" to that either.

Here he tackles Tony Blair's "morality."

Don't Get Huffy - Jane Galt does a nice job of setting Arianna Huffington straight about tax policy. Money quote:

As long as there are different rates on different kinds of income, people will spend time and money trying to take their income in the form that has the lower tax rates.

Actually, there are two money quotes. Here's the second:

Unless she is making sure that all her income comes as highly taxed wages and salaries, refusing to take more than the standard deduction, and otherwise making sure that she pays what I consider to be her "fair share", I'm not really interested in hearing her carp about how people even richer than she is are getting away with something.

Given that Arianna is a woman who complains about SUVs while flying charter planes and driving an enhanced light truck of her own, I suspect the odds against her tax purity are pretty long.

War of the Kurdish Suppression Update - Newsweek reports on the latest horse-trading among the "coalition of the willing":

        BUT NOW, NEWSWEEK has learned, Turkey is demanding that it send 60,000 to 80,000 of its own troops into northern Iraq to establish “strategic positions” across a “security arc” as much as 140 to 170 miles deep in Iraq. That would take Turkish troops almost halfway to Baghdad. These troops would not be under U.S. command, according to Turkish sources, who say Turkey has agreed only to “coordination” between U.S. and Turkish forces. Ankara fears the Iraqi Kurds might use Saddam’s fall to declare independence. Kurdish leaders have not yet been told of this new plan, according to Kurdish spokesmen in Washington, who say the Kurds rejected even the earlier notion of a narrow buffer zone. Farhad Barzani, the U.S. representative of the main Kurdish party in Iraq, the KDP, says, “We have told them: American troops will come as liberators. But Turkish troops will be seen as invaders.”

        The White House did not respond to requests for comment; officials elsewhere in the administration played down the Turkish demands as bargaining tactics: “We told them flat out, no.” But independent diplomatic sources in Ankara and Washington with knowledge of the U.S.-Turkey talks say that while the precise depth of the “security zone” has still to be agreed, the concept is “pretty much a done deal,” as one observer put it. These sources add that the main U.S. concern has been that U.S., not Turkish, troops occupy the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, and that Turkish troops merely surround but not enter the heavily Kurdish cities of Erbil and Sulemaniye. To get Turkey’s assent to this, these sources say, the United States had to “cave” on its demand that Turkish troops be under U.S. control.

Once the war is under way, of course, the Turks can occupy Mosul and Kirkuk anyway, much as the Northern Alliance occupied Kabul during the early part of the Afghan war.

Stray thoughts:

There are pictures of Kurdish dead over on Samizdata. I wonder how quick they'll be to post the next batch.

In the "Cross-blog debate" on the war, one of the pro-war questions is

3) American and British military force has allowed Northern Iraq to develop a society which, while imperfect, is clearly a freer and more open society than existed under Saddam Hussein's direct rule. Do you agree that the no-fly zones have been beneficial to Northern Iraq --- and if so, why should this concept not be extended to remove Hussein's regime entirely and spread those freedoms to all Iraqis?

Apparently the questioners never heard of Erbil. (See also Mr. Jimmy on the topic.) But our message to the Kurds seems to be Enjoy it while it lasts, fellas!

The Winter We Had Winter is all I can think to call it so far. The Washington area ought by rights to come up with a better name for this extraordinary season when we recall it in after years. We've had a sizable snowfall every month since November, a rarity, and occasions where the last snow hasn't melted by the time the next snow came, also a rarity. Now the biggest single storm since at least 1996 - about 18 inches through yesterday evening, followed by a nice coating of sleet, and now another 3 to 6 inches on top of that before the day is out.

Say it with me now: It's good for the fish.

A quick tour of Delaware and Maryland trout streams for spring, from Midatlantic Game and Fish magazine.

If bass are more your thing, here's an analogous list of hotspots for them.

Back to trout: In-Fisherman suggests that what works in the high waters we can expect in the next couple of months are big lures. Same magazine warns, however, against rigging that larger lure on a heavy line in "Downsizing for Spring Trout." And while I usually haven't got the patience to fish live bait, if you do, you might profit from their tips on bait fishing for trout in spring.

Violent Protesters - The hawks take it to the streets:

As the parade of local protesters wound around the downtown sidewalks of Athens [GA], pedestrians stopped and stared, motorists blasted their car horns in support and passengers waved the V-shaped peace sign through their car windows. A few drivers seemed annoyed by the delay and an occasional passer flashed a vulgar hand gesture.

Witnesses said a passenger of a white car threw a piece of cinder block into the crowd gathered in the median of Broad Street, striking the 10-year-old. The car then looped around the block and another piece of brick was thrown. That piece struck a protest organizer, but he also wasn't injured.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, guys. (Link via Antiwar.com.)

Reading Around - Stuff I seen lately:

Matt Hogan has a new economic model for blogging.

Orifice World considers British politics and the war. Doing so, he sounds a theme, "I wish they'd get on with it," also taken up by

Under a Blackened Sky, who says the whole inspections thing has been a sham in a different way than hawks mean when they say it. Also, and this will shock you, spendthrift Canadian politicians.

Eve Tushnet on forced sterilization in Mexico. Plus, a Valentine's Day soundtrack.

Through the Looking Glass - A bunch of liberal stuff. (Why did Charles Dodgson never become the liberal alpha blogger? Yeah, I know, he doesn't post enough. But that's a feature with liberals!) Plus NATO and political retaliation, and John Poindexter holds the football while Congress comes running up and kicks it.

The Illuminated Donkey offers Great Events in Romantic History, plus a cryptic reprint of the lyrics to an old David and David song.

Listen, Missy has a Winter of '02 report from downtown DC and a dance item.

Seablogger reports from his sailing vacation. Those of us enjoying the biggest single snowfall in years should head to Seablogger quick.

Perverse Access Memory moderately disses Shrek, as well it should. Plus, sex in roleplaying games. (NOT roleplaying games in sex.)

Sara Rimensnyder thinks happy thoughts for V-Day. Really.

Julian Sanchez looks into the Abyss of Operation Northwoods, and it looks also into him. Plus, the history of the claque and its relevance to Austin Powers.

Jerry Brito advises the French on how to honorably oppose the US/British push for war.

Glenn Reynolds comes out in favor of war with Iraq.

Have Conflict Will Travel says you never forget your first - Nigerian spam e-mail. He's apparently too young to remember when they came by fax, though. (He also doesn't do item-specific anchors.)

Flit suggests that Canada's Iraq policy may be . . . smart. Wise, even.

Colby Cosh takes on the CBC

March (Doesn't) Matters - Salam Pax deconstructs the Baghdad march:

Actually most of the people in Baghdad were stuck in the streets waiting for any kind of public transport. This is the first sign of a big organized demonstration. All buses, state and privately run lines, are grouped in various spots in the city to transport the "demonstrators" from their work places to where the show is supposed to take place.

Drop them at point "A" and pick them up at point "B", school kids would just disappear between these two points. There are a couple of excellent ice-cream places in al-manusr where one of the "demonstrations" took place.

This is what it looks like when you are in one of these affairs: you get out of the bus, wait for a mind-numbing couple of hours until they tell to march, you start walking until you see the guy in the front of your group (usually an eager party member) start jumping and try to pump some life into the bored group of people behind him, you shout the obligatory things, pass the stand where the officials and press are waiting then you get back to whatever you were discussing with the person next to you.

Now an attempt to put two-and-two together. This Telegraph story (link via Instapundit) notes that only 3,000 demonstrators turned out. Since demos in Iraq are compulsory and, per Salam, rely on public transportation, a theory: Iraq's transportation infrastructure is otherwise engaged. Moving troops, basically. Your dictator-under-the-gun perspective on the world is surely Demonstrators nice, rifle companies nicer.

March Sanity - Your Talking Dog has a firsthand report from the NON-march in NYC. He e-mails:

Really-- a "march" would have been less disruptive, and, naturally, had there been less effort to stifle this, I'm guessing 80-90 per cent of the crowd wouldn't have been there.

UPDATE: Diana Moon has a non-protester's perspective of the day in Manhattan away from the march. Apparently the riot missed her.

You're Either with Us and You're Against Us (sic) - Atrios hits an Iran-news slit filter and tries to decide if he's a wave or a particle. Kind of.

Me, I think the Bush Administration is just trying to see how dumb the Iranians are.

March Matters? - For literally the first time since the summer, I think it might not happen. Not because of the rally in New York, where a large and, from the reports I've seen, largely peaceful crowd stretched for thirty blocks. It's the London protest that may tell the tale - a million people by reasonable estimates. (Perry de Havilland was forced to commit a 90-in-a-60-mile-per-hour-zone violation of Godwin's Law.)

Please don't mistake me: I don't think for one second that Tony Blair gives a shit about "democracy," and if he were a Tory I don't think the crowd would delay him for a minute. But he's a Labourite. Isn't that his party's constituency out there? Doesn't he have to calculate a real possibility that his government falls if he goes to war without the UNSC on board? In a two-party parliamentary system, it's those internal party revolts that'll do you in quicker than anything.

And if Britain goes, the soft support from most of the rest of the nominal allies goes too, and now the Bush Administration is staring down the barrel of political consequences even they may not wish to face. And suddenly we're in What the hell do we do now territory.

Maybe. This Channel 4 poll, while generally bad news for Blair and the Bush Administration re British public opinion, has one bit that may give Blair heart:

So would a second UN resolution do the trick? If Tony Blair had UN backing for war instantly his problem would be solved 82% would back military action. Without any UN support only 28% would back an attack alongside the Americans.

But here's something very interesting - if Tony Blair got a majority of the Security Council to back military action - even if one or two countries vetoed a second resolution - 62% would go to war.

(Link via The Grille via Instapundit.) My hunch is that Blair shouldn't make too much of these numbers, ironically because of criticisms Eugene Volokh made of another British poll:

What struck me most was this line from the story:

Nearly nine out of ten voters think the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time to establish whether Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, as France, Germany and Russia have urged. Meanwhile, just a third think that Britain and America have so far put forward a convincing case for military action against Iraq.

"Whether Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction" -- is there really a credible debate remaining about that?

Volokh concludes, "I hope British public opinion is not being accurately reported here. But if it is, then just reflects the errors of the British public, not the errors of a hawkish policy." That's as may be. Here's how I parse the response Volokh analyzes:

1. The British public says they want to give inspections more time to prove that Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction."
2. It's seems pretty clear that Iraq has so-called WMDs - at the very least, gas, and probably germs. (The Channel 4 poll suggests that 9 out of 10 Brits believe this, Eugene Volokh believes it, and I do too.)
3. Inescapable conclusion: when Brits tell a pollster, "We want to give the inspectors more time," what they really mean is "We don't want to go to war."

The implication of this exercise for the support Channel 4 currently finds for war in the case of a majority vote by the UNSC (with vetoes by some permanent members) seems obvious. As soon as that condition presents itself, a great number of Britons will switch their answer.

One is free to think well or ill of the British public on this count. But if Tony Blair can add, shouldn't he be feeling nervous?

Guaranteed Bias-Free - Man-Mountain Max Sawicky, announcing that he will defend President Bush against Andrew Sullivan:

I really don't have an axe to grind here. If Bush was increasing spending, I could say bravo and make fun of his conservative base. If he wasn't, I'd revert to standard issue liberal criticism of inadequate public spending. So the facts are of paramount interest.

Whether Permitting(sic): New York States of Mind - Different perspectives from New Yorkers. Jane Galt sent a long e-mail:

I don't know what the standard is for issuing parade permits, but I've been toDC, and I've been to New York, and no, I'm not surprised it's harder to get a permit to march here. The people writing about the protest seem largely unaware of how costly a march would be to the City and the people who live there, in money and inconvenience, something it's wise to keep in mind if your aim is to generate support rather than bonding.

Unlike Washington, for one thing, there are no alternative routes around a march. I've spent many a happy hour stuck on the wrong side of a parade, waiting to get across town without having to contrive some bizarre subway route through Queens to get back to my apartment.

We have more traffic than Washington. People from Washington claim otherwise, but hah! You don't know from traffic. On a weekday or a weekend night, on one of the central avenues (which is where, I guarantee you, they want to march), traffic moves about one block per light. That's about 1/20th of a mile every 2-5 minutes, and yes, you read right; it can easily take an hour to go a mile in a car. It speeds up some on the weekends, but only some. And since it's straight up and down, the parade also blocks cars and shoves an enormous amount of traffic onto the other arteries. It's no fun driving all the way down to 14th street to go around a rally when traffic is moving at the aforementioned speeds. This gets even worse because many of the people coming from all over to attend the rally come in, you guessed it, cars.

Washington shuts down on weekends, at least in the places where marches are held. The marchers here, on the other hand, will be marching straight through heavy residential and commercial districts that do a lot of business on Saturdays (I don't know where the march is being proposed, but there are few districts in Manhattan that don't fit that description, and I don't see them staging the march in Harlem, 11th Avenue, or the Garment District. They almost always want to go right down Madison or Park, where EVERYONE can enjoy a few happy hours with friends and family as they wait to be allowed to cross onto the other half of the island.)

Marchers here want to go through the heart of the most populous residential/commercial neighborhoods; that's how they get attention. But it also generates enormous hassles and expense; police have to redirect traffic, essentially cutting off crosstown flow for several miles (depending on the size of the march), garbage has to be cleaned, security has to be provided. This involves an enormous amount of police overtime, etc, which has to be budgeted for. Storekeepers will lose business, which will cost tax revenue. Many people will not come into the city for the day, and the marchers will not replace their spending. You may not have heard, but we have a $5b deficit. So while I do not think that a police permit should be denied for a rally (nor for a march, if it turns out to be standard practice to issue such permits in the described time for a march of this size), I'm much more sympathetic to restricting the movement than I am to preventing it from taking place. There are just too damn many people in a very small place; any sizeable activity is hideously expensive and disruptive. It's not unreasonable for the City to keep the activity on a scope it can deal with/afford.

On the other hand, having seen these things, and attended them in my misspent youth, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more exuberant protesters try to cause a riot if they're penned in, with some idiot idea of overrunning the police and taking it to the streets. So maybe it's better just to let them march and damn the inconvenience.

Meanwhile, Your Talking Dog writes

I remain troubled by how easily we are willing to err on the side of "security" over liberty.

Fact:  the United States proper has not suffered a terrorist attack (that anyone besides me is willing to classify as such) since 9-11-01 (and we had not suffered one before since 1995 at Oklahoma City and 1993 at, well, the World Trade Center). Bad stuff happens; we can't protect everyone against everything.  All the social trends are bad:  everyone wants protection from everything (and will sue anyone in sight, even for things that are one's own fault; not to be outdone, those BEING sued are pressing for liability caps and restrictions...responsibility is in effect no longer in our lexicon.)  So: we demand that our government "protect us" from "terrorists".  To do so, it says, it must restrict our (centuries' old) liberties.  There seems to be no outcry of: THE HELL YOU DO!  Well, folks, it’s time to put up or shut up, because we're well along the slippery slope.  If this be treason, make the most of it.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden is with your TD on the matter.

Arthur Silber catches the Sun trying to spin out of its earlier position. As to the separate issue of the City's conduct, he writes

With regard to that ruling, and whether the judge's reasoning is entirely convincing, I view it as a pretty close call about the safety issues concerning the march. Since the protesters are being allowed to have a stationary rally, I don't view the ruling itself as a big issue one way or the other.

Colin's Gulch - When Patrick Nielsen Hayden called the Bush Administration "Hubris in search of Nemesis," he didn't just mean Donald Rumsfeld, but it looks like the shoe may fit:

Powell also paid for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s unfortunate jibe at “Old Europe” at week ago, a remark that turned into a hilarious football at the Security Council, mostly at America’s expense. De Villepin, the first of the permanent five to speak, gave an eloquent defense of the U.N. (and the inspections regime), concluding, “In the temple of the United Nations we are all guardians of an ideal, the guardian of a conscience,” he said. “This message comes from an old country, France, that does not forget ... all it owes to freedom fighters that came from the United States of America and everywhere.” His statement brought a sustained ovation from all parts of the chamber, including the press gallery. The Chinese foreign minister, speaking next, referred to his country as “an ancient civilization,” and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw comically countered with: “Britain is also a very old country. It was founded in 1066—by the French!” Powell, improvising, came back with: “America is a relatively new country, but it is the oldest democracy around this table ...” Unfortunately, that appeared to snub America’s most stalwart ally, Great Britain, which has had an operating parliament that outdates America’s founding by many years.

That's Michael Hirsh in MSNBC.com. I'm sure that Rumsfeld felt good when he said it, and Hawkish Punditry has relived that moment with the relish of groupies recounting a special view of a favorite singer's codpiece, and far be it from me to deny the pleasures of the snarky jibe (like the one I just made).

I'm not Secretary of Defense though. And there's nothing I particularly want from these people. Meanwhile other members of the Administration engaged in counterproductive, hubris-oriented behavior appropriate to their personal styles:

One reason for the French victory Friday was Powell’s rather laid-back diplomacy during the week since his broadside at the Council. While Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Vladimir Putin and de Villepin have spent the week traveling to and fro, forging coalitions, making speeches, Powell (who doesn’t like to travel) and Bush have stayed put.

As of now, France, Russia and China are so opposed to a second "serious consequences" resolution - a green light for the US and UK to launch the conquest - that the US won't even bring it up. Therefore

For now, it looks as if the Americans will have to either wait an undetermined number of weeks for inspections to continue (Blix’s next scheduled update is on March 1, when Guinea takes over the presidency from Germany), or go to war to defend the honor of the U.N. Security Council while in defiance of the majority of U.N. Security Council opinion.

Which could well happen. Will probably happen. Which is too bad, and not just because the war is a bad idea. It's too bad because what we have here, thanks to about seven kinds of irony, is the opportunity of an era. To switch myths for a minute, this is the chance for Icarus to make a soft landing.

Here is what the Administration could say:

For sixty years, the United States has striven to defend freedom and keep the peace throughout the globe. We have fought in Asia, the Americas, Africa, Europe and the high seas. We have risked our own nuclear annhilation for the sake of friendly nations, helped repel invaders from Panmunjom to the Panjshir Valley, fought famine and forced resettlement. When an entire country, Kuwait, was erased, we redrew it by the force of American arms. Our critics have pointed out that we have benefitted economically and politically, and this is true. They have complained from time to time of our methods - the arms we've sold to whom, the tactics we've countenanced among our clients, our attention span and understanding of local dynamics - and they have from time to time been right to complain, though make no mistake about it, everywhere we've gone or thought to go, there were local actors eager to have our cooperation, and our critics have as often damned us for our non-involvement in one place as our involvement somewhere else.

We couldn't, in other words, have done it without you. What is clear from this week's action in the UN is that the implicit terms of our bargain are no longer acceptable to the bulk of the international community. Our role has been to make an outsized contribution to the military force required to staunch the bleeding of the world's trouble spots. In return, we have demanded an outsized say in where and how to apply that force. For reasons this Council has considered at length, we have insisted in the disarming and removal of the present leadership of Iraq. We can accept that other nation's don't see it our way. But not that our blood and treasure should be spent to enforce their vision at the expense of ours. The plan for 'continued inspections' rests, we believe, on the continuing, expensive and dangerous presence of US troops in the Iraqi theater. We decline to support this. Similarly, on the Korean Penninsula, we can understand if Japan and South Korea disagree with our estimate of the appropriate response to North Korea's threat to them, but we can not commit our troops to what we consider to be a wrongful policy.

So we will not. Today we begin removing our troops from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey. We have also begun removing the troops we don't have in Jordan - just a trick of the desert sun, folks. As sealift capacity becomes available we will be closing our installations in Korea, Japan and Okinawa too. Now that France is back in NATO's military program, there should be no problem with our pulling out. We continue to prosecute a war against al Qaeda and those who aid al Qaeda, so we will maintain our operations in Afghanistan, and we will keep our regional command post in Qatar - the Emir has already expressed his pleasure that this should be so.

You said you don't want the US to "rule the world." This Council's actions - and inactions - this week have made that unmistakeable. Then we won't. We wish you the best of luck in ruling yourselves. We won't be the hammer you wield, however. This is not a withdrawal from the world, just from a distorted and distorting relation to it. Nor is this a capitulation. Tread where we sleep and you will know our fangs.

Now my fellow anti-interventionists may find the above summary of US conduct since WWII to be self-exculpating to an almost Nixonian degree. But the point is to spin it the way a US official could plausibly spin it. The problem since the massacres of September 11, 2001, has been to figure out a disengagement strategy that does not look like bowing the knee before Osama bin Laden. Old Europe has handed us that chance.

Here are a few of the ironies:

I've written a lot about how the Administration's national security strategy would tend to unite grand coalitions against us. I never appreciated that this could happen in a lucky way. What I mean by this is, we've inspired in the first instance not an alliance of military adversaries, but a "soft coalition" of parliamentarians whose "success" would actually preserve us from the bigger fall waiting at the end of "Preemption Road." In other words, we can choose to meet a lesser Nemesis now rather than a greater Nemesis later.

A subsidiary irony: this means the French et al could be doing us a favor, though that is probably not their intention. (It can't be China's intention.

Final, unfortunate irony: the administration that brought us to this point did so in a way that probably makes them unsuited, by temperament and discernment, to seize it.

UPDATE: The final irony is that if we put it like this, they'd probably let us have the invasion after all. Because I think it would scare the shit out of them.

Let's Be Careful Out There - Cold in New York today. For friends and others going to the non-March near the UN: Stay warm, and behave yourselves. There's apparently been some rumbling by the usual anarchist assholes about doing asshole anarchist things. After two well-behaved events in DC since the fall, it would be nice to think that the New York organizers can keep their acts together. By denying a march permit, the NYPD may have made its job harder, as instead of one big march down a known street a lot of constituent groups are planning "feeder marches" along a variety of sidewalks to the protest site. But nothing the city has or hasn't done justifies destroying the property of retailers who, it must be remembered, are not the ones trying to drag the country into war and destroy the plain english meaning of the word "preemption" besides. As I'm pretty sure Dorothy Day once said, though you couldn't prove it by Google, Let's leave violence to our opponents - the US government.

Not that I think the readers of this site are the window-smashing sort.

Never Mind! - From ABCNews.com:

Feb. 13 — A key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated, according to two senior law enforcement officials in Washington and New York.

The officials said that a claim made by a captured al Qaeda member that Washington, New York or Florida would be hit by a "dirty bomb" sometime this week had proven to be a product of his imagination.

Here comes the good part:

It was only after the threat level was elevated to orange — meaning high — last week, that the informant was subjected to a polygraph test by the FBI, officials told ABCNEWS.

"This person did not pass," said Cannistraro.

Does that mean we can take the duct tape back if we kept the receipt? Not necessarily:

Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted.

Still, there's a lesson here:

It's not the first time a captured al Qaeda operative has made up a huge story and scared a lot of people.

The FBI concluded the information that led to a nationwide hunt for five men suspected of infiltrating the United States on Christmas Eve was fabricated by an informant, and the agency called off the alert sparked by the information.

And Colin Powell's UN report relied heavily on intelligence from defector debriefings and captive interrogations. Hm.

Some people get offended at the notion that Colin Powell might, you know, lie. But actually, Powell has people for that. He doesn't even have to know he's lying. All that has to happen is that, under ferocious pressure from the White House, the intelligence agencies regrade selected interrogation reports from UNRELIABLE to RELIABLE. Bingo. You now have "intelligence" connecting Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. You had the same reports the day before. You just thought the detainees and defectors were full of shit, probably for good reason. But your bosses want results.

Anyway, be careful out there:

Officials said this one got so far because it coincided with other intelligence, that officials still believe points to a coming attack, timed to hostilities with Iraq.

And maybe they're right.

So What Happened - Much consternation among doves the last two days about the evolving story of the contents of the latest Osama bin Laden broadcast. Early in the day there were reports that in the tape bin Laden called for Saddam's overthrow. This was later removed from reports and blamed on a translators' error. Given the possibly odd provenance of the tape, with a US government official (Colin Powell) revealing the existence of the tape arguably before al-Jazeera actually got a copy, suspicions ran high. Atrios has a screen shot and a chronology; Justin Raimondo devoted his column to the issue. Moderate Mark Kleiman tries to make sense of the story here. (This is easiest to do, apparently, if you assume Glenn Reynolds is an Iraqi agent. I have not made this accusation myself, but others have!)

The most sinister explanation is that the tape is a fake, the USG kept switching the translation around until they found one they liked and the major media went along with it. I suspect that what actually happened is that, when it comes to fast-breaking stories, the early reports are never to be relied on. We saw this over and over during last fall's sniper case, for instance. And remember the thirty-three pounds of plutonium siezed along the Turkish border?

So it's just a normal media snafu. Note that that doesn't change the fact that the various White House claims that the tape proved a "partnership" betwen Saddam and al Qaeda were ridiculously overdrawn and unsupported by any plain reading of the text. That's the real scandal.

So what is bin Laden really up to on the tape? I think a couple of things, possibly. The first theory comes from a Stand Down commenter, Dave, in this comments thread:

Osama is putting himself in the same position that Mao's Chinese Communists were in when Japan invaded China in WWII: the government can't fight the invaders, so the insurgents do the job, prove their worth, and end up the winners in the end.

While Dave has clearly forgotten that there is no history other than 1938-1945, his explanation makes a hell of a lot of sense. I would argue that the other possibility, which need not be exclusive of Dave's, is seduction - specifically the attempted seduction by bin Laden of Saddam or anyone in the Iraqi hierarchy who might be convinced to give bin Laden's people Bad Things.

Regardless, if you enjoyed the last tape controversy, you won't have to wait long for the next one.

Imitation LiveJournal Item - This is true: This morning I dreamt I was one of Michael Jordan's personal assistants. It was some kind of holiday - All Star Game or something, but not basketball, because we ended up in an outdoor stadium in the snow - so we were all getting much of the day off, we assistants. Christmas was coming, because I spent a lot of time trying to figure out "What the hell do you get Michael Jordan for Christmas? Particularly on a personal assistant's salary." I decided to get him a copy of Michael Murphy's Golf in the Kingdom, a mystical fable about playing golf in Scotland, on cassette. I didn't figure he'd read the book if I bought that, but I thought he'd like the tape. I felt really good about my choice, even - hey, Phil Jackson was into the Zen thing, so the interest might be there.

But before that, at the morning meeting, we were all sitting around the table, we assistants. Michael was standing. He tossed me a dollar to "get a soda at the game."

"Like I could buy a soda for a buck at this stadium," I said.

"Here then," he said, and peeled off a hundred and a twenty, folded them over and put it on the table in front of me. "This should work."

"Jeeze, boss," I said, half offended, half embarrassed. "I wasn't trying to get more money out of you."

But I pocketed the hundred twenty bucks as I said it.

(Note to LiveJournal users: We kid because we love!)

Worth Thinking About - Dr. Manhattan has been mulling over such details of the Code Orange alert as we have, particularly the mention of "Jewish-owned hotels and motels" as possible targets, and has a theory that makes a certain amount of sense. It's worth putting out there, since it's the kind of thing that could actually be guarded against by the forewarned:

In a couple of months, thousands of Jews will be in hotels to celebrate Passover. Many large, well-known hotels have programs for Passover that attract hundreds of Jewish families. Those in NY can pick up a copy of the Jewish Week to see an amazing array of advertisements for such programs.

The schedules are known well in advance; it's not like Passover's scheduling can be changed, and the Seder ritual feast is always held the first two nights of the holiday (outside of Israel) after sundown. and the Seder is long enough that its conclusion on the East Coast can overlap with its commencement on the West Coast - which makes it easier to plan multiple attacks in different places.

Since 9/11, what has been the most "successful" episode of Jew-killing? Last year's "Passover Massacre" in Israel. That atrocity was perpetrated by Hamas, but al-Qaeda has been willing to crib techniques and tactics from other terrorist groups.

In a comment on Dr. M's site, Meryl Yourish opines that Passover is too far away to be the subject of the current alert, and maybe it is. But there may be others down the road.

Wrong A.N.S.W.E.R. - David Corn of the Nation has been obsessed with the flaws of the antiwar movement for some time, but if this column about plans for A.N.S.W.E.R.'s February 15th San Francisco protest is accurate, things just aren't improving at the rate the rest of us doves need.

So it was natural that [Michael Lerner's] name was floated as a speaker for the protest. Not In Our Name and United for Peace & Justice were two of the four coalitions behind the event. (According to Lerner, he did not ask to address the San Francisco rally. "You can't say much in three minutes," he notes.) But International ANSWER, another of the organizers, said no.

Lerner's crime: he had dared to criticize ANSWER, an outfit run by members of the Workers World Party, for using antiwar demonstrations to put forward what he considers to be anti-Israel propaganda.

I hold no brief for Michael "Politics of Meaning" Lerner. But he's no worse than any of the other speakers the groups plan to put on stage, like the creepy

Abdul Malim Musa, a Muslim cleric. On October 31, 2001, Musa had appeared at a news conference at the National Press Club with other Muslim activists and members of the New Black Panther Party, where speakers asserted that Israel had launched the 9/11 attacks and that thousands of Jews had been warned that day not to go to work at the World Trade Center. At that press conference, Musa blasted the "Zionists in Hollywood, the Zionists in New York, and the Zionists in D.C." who "all collaborate" to put down blacks and Muslims.

who was allowed to speak in Washington. (Bright side: the sound system sucked that day.)

I won't pretend to be able to peer into the soul of any given "anti-Zionist." I'm as sure there's plenty of antisemitism on the left and among Israel's opponents as I am that plenty of Israel's opponents are not motivated by antisemitism. But as one of my readers wrote a few weeks ago, George Washington didn't just warn of passionate attachments to other nations; he also inveighed against passionate antipathies.

You can't separate the question of the government of Israel's national security strategy from the question of the Iraq war. But you can for damn sure separate the blanket acceptance of the program of Israel's direst enemies from opposition to the war. That A.N.S.W.E.R. refuses to do this would be disturbing if their shortcomings weren't already well known. The question now is will the other groups at the top of the movement have the guts to take them on?

One World - Mrs. Offering woke me last night to ask me where the heck we're supposed to find a room we can seal off in the unprepossessing split-level house that serves as the World Headquarters of Highclearing.com. Of course, lots of people have the same worries, as we can see by reading Salam Pax and Imshin. I daresay they've got it worse, though the hassle factor is universal.

Here's some terror advice from Top Federal Officials.

At Last! An Effect on the World! - Couldn't stop the war. Not a good enough writer. But at least I inspired Chris Newman to sunset the word "idiotarian," which he does in this well-written sayonara.

Sympathy for the European Devils - Two readers spoke up on behalf of the French (and Germans and Belgians). Nick Sweeney writes

You're missing the point a little, Jim: the French/German/Belgian argument is that the decision to push through contingency measures on Turkey's defence capabilities is deliberate designed to escalate the momentum towards war: that is, to create a situation whereby Turkey is *less* safe. The complaint (rather more well-founded now, in light of the stock market boom) is that if you talk something up, it makes it much, much more likely to happen, no matter what underpins it.

d-squared talks about this phenomenon here.

It's actually a good way of comparing the true definition of "anticipation" -- acting ahead of something that's *goin