Three more journalists were murdered in Iraq Thursday. The victims were Al Arabiya television correspondent Atwar Bahjat and two members of her crew:

Their bodies, riddled with bullets, were found Thursday morning near their vehicle, cameras and satellite dish on the outskirts of the city, 95 kilometers, or 60 miles, north of Baghdad, said Laith Muhammada, a police official.
…

The team was conducting interviews when two men pulled up in a pickup truck, shooting in the air and shouting, "We want the correspondent," according to a cameraman who avoided capture, the TV network reported.

A crowd that had gathered around the journalists scattered.

The gunmen shot the three and fled, the station reported.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani condemned the act, praised Bahjat and her colleagues, and responded positively to one journalist’s plea for reporters’ self-defense rights:

When a reporter asked Talabani during a news conference to allow journalists to carry weapons to defend themselves, the president said:

"Send me an official request and I will approve it and inform concerned agencies to give you the right to carry arms."

My kinda guy, that Talabani. He seems to accept the eminently sensible point of view of that famous gun nut, the Dalai Lama:

If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.

(For source of quote and related information, see Gun Ownership in India by Abhijeet Singh. The context of the Dalai Lama’s remark will amaze you.)

Not everyone agrees, of course, and I’m sure there’s no shortage of hoplophobes in the field of journalism. Via JunkYardBlog comes news that an organization that "promotes the provision of safety training and assistance to media workers" is adamently opposed to letting reporters use firearms to resist savages. INSI, the Ignorant Ninnies Safety Institute, argued that journalists would be further endangering themselves if they carried guns:

“Journalists increasingly are being targeted in conflict largely because they have lost, in the eyes of certain elements, their status as neutral observers. If they bear arms they reinforce this misguided belief by placing themselves on one side or another,” said the INSI director, Rodney Pinder.

“A journalist with a gun says ‘some people in the situation I’m covering are my enemies and I am prepared to kill them if necessary’. That is not the position of a neutral civilian.”

I’ve got news for you, Mr. Pinder — there’s nothing you can do to disabuse "certain elements" of this "misguided belief." If you go to Iraq as a "neutral observer," the jihadist terrorists are your enemies, whether you like it or not and whether you’re armed or not, because they define a "neutral observer" as the enemy; they define everyone who isn’t actively on their side as the enemy. You only have three options: stay the hell away, prepare to kill them if necessary, or prepare to die at their whim.

To the followers of al Zarqawi, the proper position of a neutral civilian is on his knees with a dull knife at his throat.

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 The more I learn about the Dubai Ports World deal, the more convinced I am that I was right the other day to scoff at the national security concerns. I heard Gen. Tommy Franks on Hannity & Colmes Wednesday night, and he was downright irate over the criticisms of the UAE and DP World. Franks said something I’d heard elsewhere: Dubai is the favorite place in the Middle East among U.S. troops, sailors, and airmen. The UAE is progressive, Western, and welcoming, and the company is extremely modern and efficient. Franks noted just how much confidence the U.S. Navy has in DP World:

"We have more U.S. Navy ships using the port in Dubai, Jebel Ali, than any other port outside the United States," Franks told Fox News Channel’s "Hannity & Colmes."

The former Iraq war commander explained U.S. reliance on the Dubai port facility by saying, "We know [t]he difference between an enemy and a friend."

"The Emirates is a friend," Franks aid. "That is the best run port that I’ve ever seen."

Sean Hannity challenged Gen. Franks, trotting out all the criticisms you’ve heard in the past few days: the UAE was mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report, two hijackers came from there, money was funneled through UAE banks to al Qaeda, the UAE recognized the Taliban government. Franks would have none of it. He denied there were any links between the UAE government and terrorists and noted that some of the hijackers had lived and banked in Florida, too. He made an interesting comment regarding the UAE and the Taliban (emphasis added):

… I personally believe that we have had no greater ally in seeking a resolution of problems in the Middle East, the Palestinian issue, the Israeli issue, than we have found in the United Arab Emirates.

With regard to maintaining contact with the Taliban, even before Sept. 11 — and I’ll exercise caution how I say this — but I’ll say that I believe we had every reason to be thankful for the relationship and the dialogue that existed between the United Arab Emirates and the Taliban, as it assisted us in our efforts to understand what was going on in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh, who started the week merely skeptical of what he termed the "tsunami" of ports deal criticism, declared that he’d studied every aspect of the case and now supports the decision to authorize the sale. Limbaugh also noted that, although agreeing with Carter bothered him, he didn’t care for the prospect of being on the same side as many of the opponents, either:

"I haven’t yet heard anybody who’s against this deal make me feel comfortable joining them. I’m hearing a bunch of panic, hysteria, jingoism, racism, profiling and fear — and I try to do as little as possible in my life out of fear."

Limbaugh, like Franks and unlike most of the critics, has been to Dubai. In response to a caller who spoke of trusting Bush on national security, Limbaugh said that trust wasn’t the reason for his decision. He does think Bush is solid on national security, but:

It’s not a matter of trust; it’s a matter of logic. I just don’t think he’s stupid, and I don’t think that he’s not paying attention, and I don’t think that he is all of a sudden less concerned about the threats that we face. If anything, I think this represents an understanding that the threat is real, and it’s very consistent with his foreign policy. He’s trying to spread democracy to the Middle East, everybody laughing at him. He’s trying to make people around the world who are living in tyranny and in oppression free, and the world is laughing at him. So here we have a modernized little country in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates. They want to be like us. It’s apparent to me. It’s obvious that’s who their role model is. Their role model is not bin Laden. They’re role model is not a bunch of sheiks and imams and mosques that want to take us back to the Twelfth Century.

Their role model is us. So it’s an ally in the region. Economic interdependence makes them far less likely to ever be an enemy, and far more likely to join us in the security efforts in this port deal and anywhere else around the world. To ensure their investment and to ensure our safety, we become partners in this — and I think it actually fits with Bush’s foreign policy in terms of modernization, freedom for individuals, economic opportunity and advancement. I think it’s totally consistent. Once against, it’s the Democrats who are on the wrong side of it. I want to stress this, because trust wasn’t enough to make me support Harriet Miers just because he nominated her.

[Note: The above Limbaugh quotes are from transcripts of Thursday’s show, which may become unavailable shortly. Apparently, only segments of the most recent show are available to the public. To see older stuff, you have to be a member of Rush 24/7, which I discovered when trying to retrieve a quote about Carter from the Wednesday show.]

To all the Republicans and conservatives out there who oppose the sale of P&O to DP World: Doesn’t it bother you to be on the same side as the utterly hypocritical Democrats who up until now have insisted that we’re not at war and that Bush is just trying to scare us with all this national security stuff? The Democrats who opposed profiling young Arab men in airports, but are eager to profile rich capitalist Arab businessmen? The Democrats whose opposition is probably fueled by longshoremen’s union contributions? (DP World has a history of modernizing and greatly improving the efficiency of container operations, something the union will fight tooth and nail to prevent.) The Democrats who are tickled pink that they can demagogue this issue to appear strong on national security without jeopardizing their support from the MoveOn, Deaniac, anti-war crowd?

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I dropped by Wienerville for the first time in a while. Bert’s even less prolific than I am, so it’s not like you have to check for updates twice a day. But he’s been on a roll, and I was glad I stopped by for three reasons. First, there’s the new (to me, at least) Wienerville tag line, which may be one of the best tag lines ever:

Jesus saves. Moses invests. Mohammed plunders.

Second, there’s Bert’s post about a car running into his house (two feet from the gas line and seven feet from his head). Bert blogged it in real time; at one point, his blogging was interrupted by cops at the door seeking a statement. The driver seems to have had some "issues":

… By now a bunch of neighbors were out, calling 911 and gawking. The kid was out of the car, healthy, and I could tell he wanted to run. I crowded him and told him he wasn’t smashing into my house and running. The guy from across the street helped. Then the kid tried to make a break for it and we, plus my next-door neighbor (whose house took the brunt of the blow) restrained the kid. …

Bert found a CD, apparently ejected from the vehicle, that sounds, um, interesting. I’ll let you go read about it.

And third, there’s Bert’s pointer to the Muslim Offense Level, which he accurately described as "like the Terrorist Threat Level but even funnier." It’s explained in this post at The Religious Policeman, a blog that I hadn’t seen before. It’s by Alhamedi Alanezi, a Saudi living in London, who seems to be very interesting, literate, and funny. On January 29, he raised the Muslim Offense Level to High (Highly Offended) due to the Danish cartoons. Here’s his description for that level:

HIGH
Meaning – We are extremely offended by a particular individual or country
Non-Muslim response – That individual or country must apologize
Consequence of non-compliance – Individual; Fatwa, assassination, or both. Country; Boycott (unless you export things the Saudi Royal Family are consumers of), and Saudi newspapers write a long string of boring and repetitive articles that you will never read but will drive Saudi readers to distraction.

To give you more of an idea of Alhamedi’s sense of humor, here are some emoticons he came up with:

Muhammad (((:~{>

Muhammad playing Little Orphan Annie (((8~{>

Muhammad as a pirate (((P~{>

Muhammad on a bad turban day ))):~{>

Muhammad with sand in his eye (((;~{>

Muhammad wearing sunglasses (((B~{>

Muhammad giving the raspberry. (((:~{P>

Giving Muhammad the raspberry. ;-P

Alhamedi then asked an imam if they were blasphemous. Yeah, I’m going to make you go find the answer for yourself. Great stuff.

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One year ago yesterday, on Feb. 22, 2005, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kelo v. City of New London. The intrepid libertarian litigators at the Institute for Justice eventually lost in court, but they’ve since won a resounding victory in the court of public opinion. And Suzette Kelo still has her home:

The little pink house in New London, Conn., that started a nationwide property rights revolt still stands one year after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments and then eventually ruled that it could be torn town for private development.

But the future of that home—and of every home, small business, church and farm—remains in question. Will state and local legislatures change their laws to protect private property from eminent domain abuse (where the government’s power of eminent domain is used for private gain in the guise of creating more jobs or increasing taxes), or will lobbyists representing developers and cities block meaningful reform?

The Kelo ruling ignited a firestorm that’s still raging across the country. This year, at least 37 state legislatures are considering bills that would restrict the use of eminent domain. Ending eminent domain abuse seems to be a uniquely appealing issue about which a broad spectrum of people feel very strongly:

"It’s open season on eminent domain," said Larry Morandi, a land-use specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Bills are being pushed by Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and they’re passing by huge margins."

Seldom has a Supreme Court decision sparked such an immediate legislative reaction, and one that scrambles the usual partisan lines. Condemnation of the ruling came from black lawmakers representing distressed urban districts, from suburbanites and from Western property-rights absolutists who rarely see eye to eye on anything. Lawmakers from Maine to California have introduced dozens of bills in reaction to the ruling, most of them saying that government should never seize private homes or businesses solely to benefit a private developer. 

In Colorado, the State Senate just unanimously passed a bill to rescind a 19th-century law permitting private developers to condemn land for toll roads. And a ballot initiative is in the works to strengthen property rights in the Colorado Constitution:

Colorado Citizens For Property Rights, together with state Representative Al White, R-Winter Park, recently announced a proposed ballot initiative that seeks to combat eminent [domain] abuse in our state. If passed by voters this November, the initiative would introduce language to the Colorado constitution that would make it illegal to take private property for the sole purpose of generating more revenue through an alternative use. 

The Institute for Justice is at the forefront of the nationwide battle for property rights. It’s been leading the way in both litigation and public relations for more than a decade, making its first big splash by defeating Donald Trump’s effort to take Vera Coking’s home for an Atlantic City casino expansion project. IJ’s offshoot, the grass-roots Castle Coalition, has been tremendously effective in local battles and legislative efforts.

But IJ isn’t just about property rights. This libertarian public interest law firm fights for economic liberties, successfully litigating against license and permit requirements and other barriers to entry that restrict employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. IJ also fights for freedom of speech, especially political and commercial speech, school choice, and more.

I’ve been an IJ supporter for about a dozen years, and I can’t think of a more effective place to invest some dollars to fund freedom. Support the Institute for Justice and the Castle Coalition. Do it for Suzette Kelo. And yourself.

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Team Canada’s loss to Russia in the quarterfinals of Olympic ice hockey has to be the most devastating blow to the Canadian psyche since the cancellation of SCTV. I just watched Bob Costas interview Wayne Gretzky, and I want to make a couple of quick points. One, Gretzky looked terrible, and given what he’s faced in the past three months, you can’t help but feel for him. Two, Bob Costas is still the best interviewer on television. Costas had a late-night show from 1988 to 1994 that was nothing but terrific interviewing:

But Costas truly proved his mettle while hosting Later with Bob Costas, a talk show that featured no audience, no house band, no monologue, and no sidekick — only a half-hour conversation between Costas and his sole guest for the night, who could be anyone from Mario Cuomo to Mel Brooks. (This show went on to become Later with Greg Kinnear, which is kind of like replacing Niels Bohr with L. Ron Hubbard.)

He hasn’t lost a step. The interview with Gretzky showcased what makes Costas so good: he treats the guest with respect and, when warranted, sympathy, but without pandering, schmoozing, or lobbing softballs. He asks the tough questions that need to be asked, but he does it without becoming adversarial, confrontational, or hostile. He is never, ever argumentative; his purpose is to reveal things about his guest, not about himself. His questioning is intelligent, civil, informative, revealing, … and adult.

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If you’re upset because your analog television will stop working in 2009 (you Luddite old fuddy-duddy!), be glad you don’t live in Japan. On April 1st (no joke), it’ll become illegal to sell an electronic device more than five years old. Unless you get a special certificate verifying that the equipment meets the "Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law" of 2001:

Sellers are crying foul, saying that in certain cases, it’ll be too hard to get certification, and they may end up dumping their gear — or exporting it, since it turns out exports are exempt from the new law. So, for the best deals on unsafe old Japanese electrical products, start checking the second-hand markets of Shanghai and Hanoi. Just don’t mention our name.

One of the commenters to that post speculated that environmental regulations regarding lead solder could be involved. That sounds like a possibility to me. I know that my division of Polycom, which makes large teleconferencing bridges, is under the gun to change all our circuit boards and components to comply with EU regulations regarding lead, mercury, cadmium, etc. It’s a huge expense and hassle for very little benefit (assuming you don’t chew on the electronics and they’re recycled or properly land-filled, the harm/risk from the existing equipment is trivial).

In any case, if you want to find some bargains in used electronics, you might schedule your trip to Tokyo for late March.

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It’s been a while since I visited Solomonia, and that was a mistake. Sol is yet another long-time liberal who "began to have ‘second thoughts’" largely as a consequence of Sept. 11. His blog is worth regular visits for anyone concerned about the war against Islamofascism. Just yesterday, he had two interesting short posts that offer revealing glimpses of the "Palestinian cause."

The  first post shows you the Flash animation that adorns Hamas’ Al-Qasam Brigades website. It depicts a Star of David being obliterated by a mushroom cloud. The name of the file, according to a commenter, probably translates as "annihilation."

The second post links to two reports that provide information about the activities of Ahmad Abu Laban, the Palestinian-Danish Imam who instigated (with the help of three fake cartoons) the "comic jihad," and his followers. The Imam urged his congregation to give their lives in jihad. These charming people dressed their kids as suicide bombers, burned the Israeli flag, and cheered the murder of Theo van Gogh. But we’re supposed to avoid offending them.

There are many more fine posts, mostly short and to the point, and mostly — but not exclusively — about the Islamofascists. For a nice chuckle, check out Jihad Joe. You might want to bookmark Solomonia. I’m going to blogroll it.

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It looks like the only people who aren’t upset over the prospect of a United Arab Emirates company running U.S. ports are Rush Limbaugh, me, and some other libertarian free-market types.

Oh, and it turns out that Jimmuh Cah-tuh supports the Bush administration on this one. Hmm… Now I’m thinking of moving into the "anti" column.

Seriously, I just don’t buy the national security concerns here. The Arab company, Dubai Ports World, wants to buy the British company, Peninsula and Oriental, that’s been operating the American ports in question (New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans). P&O stockholders approved the DP World bid, which beat out an offer from a Singapore company.

Do you think DP World will replace the American longshoremen actually working at those ports with Arabs who have suspicious backgrounds? The Brits have been running these facilities for years — how many limeys are working Baltimore harbor?

Besides, if you’re worried about DP World being in charge of the unloading of containers in Newark, what about the loading of those containers in their ports of origin? DP World is one of the top four port and container operations companies in the world, managing container terminals in Dubai, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Germany, Australia, India, South Korea, Venezuela, … need I go on? If there are Islamofascists in DP World management who want to facilitate a terrorist attack on U.S. ports, couldn’t they best accomplish that at the Shanghai or Busan facility where DP World processes thousands of containers bound for those U.S. ports?

All that having been said, this was a politically stupid decision, no matter how off-base the criticisms are. And for W to exercise his first veto in six years over this? That’s just crazy. Where the heck is Karl Rove? Did he know about this public relations disaster?

Well, I’m sure Hillary’s delighted. I’ve noted before that she’s got problems trying to appear tough on national security without alienating the anti-war Democrat base. This issue was made for her to demagogue: 

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is once again attempting to do an end run to the right of any and all potential Republican opponents she might face for the presidency in 2008. Of course, when you are vying to be the first female president, it never hurts to appear as tough as possible on national security issues, either.

Hillary says she will join with a fellow Democrat, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, in sponsoring legislation that would ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations. …

Isn’t that odd — as far as I can tell, in the 90s, Hillary didn’t object to letting "companies owned or controlled by foreign governments" acquire Long Beach port operations or operations at the Panama Canal. Maybe if DP World put Johnny Chung on their payroll and arranged for the appropriate donations…

There aren’t any American companies that do large-scale ports management and container terminal operations. Probably the American company that’s closest to being qualified is KBR (formerly Kellog Brown & Root), a subsidiary of Halliburton. Oooh, wouldn’t that be a fun outcome — Congress passes a Clinton bill requiring a U.S. company, so the contract goes to Halliburton! You think maybe Cheney was behind this all along?

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For some good reading, check out the latest voting results from the Watcher’s Council (or the complete list of nominees). The winning council entry was Dymphna’s extended dialog with Eteraz about "Islamophobia" and anti-Semitism, in which she pretty much nails it with this (emphasis added):

For me, anti-semitism and islamophobia are not on the same order of injustice at all. The Jews are hated and feared because they exist; the Muslims are hated and feared because they kill people at will and do not seem bound to the rule of law that the rest of us take for granted. 

The Big Pharaoh won for best non-council entry with an account of a strange visitation he had recently:

A voice came out of the fire telling me “The Big Pharaoh, I am Allah, I chose you to carry a message to my beloved Muslims. I know they are not happy with how they are looked upon internationally and especially in the Western world. I know they are trying to find ways in order to remedy that and this is why I will give you 10 commandments to post on your blog. I just hope they listen to me”

My two favorites, though, were Dr. Sanity’s Shame, Guilt, the Muslim Psyche, and the Danish Cartoons and Jeff Goldstein’s 9 Al Gore Panders That His Handlers Revised Out of the Final Draft of His Speech to the Saudis. The first is a serious and thought-provoking essay about the difference between guilt-based and shame-based cultures. The second is a hoot.

I’m sure there are also some fine reads at the latest Carnival of Liberty (marked "XXX," but really #33), but I haven’t checked them out yet. For some reason, I never got an invitation to submit or an announcement that it’s up, and I completely spaced it out. Sigh — I’ve been thinking this is Monday all day.

UPDATE: Also, if you’re interested in guns, self-defense rights, Cheney jokes and music, a funny video of a guy being busted for pot, or stuff like that, drop by Carnival of Cordite #48.

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I can’t resist quoting what, by rights, ought to be the final word on the Cheney-Whittington-birdshot incident. It’s by Scott Adams, for chrissake:

I think it’s the worst kind of pandering to shoot a lawyer just because your popularity is low. But I’ll bet it works.

Check out the comments, too. Some are pretty lame (or even annoying), but some are pretty good:

He WAS a big shot lawyer… now is is a big, SHOT lawyer!

Hat tip to Instapundit, who I’m sure can use the extra traffic.

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Put yourself in Bryant Gumbel’s place for a moment. You’ve got this show, "Real Sports," on HBO. They’re paying you huge sums of money to be provocative and entertaining, not to keep your enormous ego in check. You’ve got to come up with a clever closing monologue for the next show. The producer told you last week’s was pretty lame, and you need to punch it up a bit.

It’s February. Things are pretty slow in the world of sports. Football’s over. Baseball spring training hasn’t started yet. And who cares about NASCAR, or about the NHL and NBA until playoffs? If it weren’t for the stupid Winter Olympics, there’d be nothing going on. That’s it! Trash the Winter Olympics — make it a bit edgy and fun!

What can you say about the Winter Olympics? Well, you can always get a chuckle by poking fun at the weird events — biathlon, curling, luge, skeleton — and dissing figure skating will earn you points with the beer-and-wings crowd. And here’s an idea for something both edgy and funny: complain about sports invented in Scandinavia and the Alps being dominated by white people.

Yeah, the producer will love this monologue — now to deliver it with the characteristic Gumbel air of smug sarcasm and superiority:

"Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them … Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won … So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin."

Imagine Gumbel’s surprise when the fit hit the shan, and people started calling him a racist and a bigot and a pompous ass (well, OK, people have been calling him a pompous ass for many years, but…). Most of the anger, curiously enough, didn’t come from figure skating fans, but from people irate about the bolded sentence above.

What Gumbel didn’t count on is that nowadays there are a lot of pigmentally-challenged people who’ve learned what I call the Law of Comparative Outrage: whoever takes offense first and loudest gains the advantage. "How dare you suggest that white people can’t be world-class athletes!" "How dare you imply that people of color aren’t welcome in the Republican Party!" "How dare you sneer at women and gay men for openly and honestly displaying their emotions after blowing a triple lutz!"

Personally, I wasn’t bothered by his remarks (although I found them no funnier than most of what Gumbel says — which is to say, not very). I wish everyone of every shade and persuasion were less thin-skinned and sensitive. I think humor was funnier back when we could laugh at each other, not just with each other. Did you hear the one about the Irish midget priest with a harelip?

I do think it’s odd that Gumbel would deny Olympic status to skiing and skating because the ancient Greeks didn’t do that. When the Summer Olympics come around, is he going to object to cycling, basketball, kayaking, shooting, and synchronized swimming? (Actually, I’ll sign the petition to dump synchronized swimming.) And I can’t help wondering what would happen if Terry Bradshaw said he won’t watch the NBA playoffs because they look like an NAACP meeting (glandular freak chapter).

What amused me, though, was Gumbel’s lousy timing. About the time reaction to his remarks had peaked and was beginning to die down, a kid from the south side of Chicago named Shani Davis won the gold medal in men’s 1000 meter speedskating, and suddenly his picture, frequently accompanied by a reference to Gumbel’s remarks, was everywhere.

Of course, he’s not the only black athlete at the Winter Olympics. Booker Rising has been profiling them in what she calls the Black Ice Series. I don’t see a list of links; just keep scrolling or search the page for "black ice." Or, there’s a partial list at The Texas Songbird.

Booker Rising is also where I found the nice picture above, in this post about Davis’ gold medal performance. I don’t know where Shay got the picture, and I hope she doesn’t mind me borrowing it.

I bet ice skates (or roller skates, which is what Shani Davis started on) cost less than most of the poputar big-name basketball shoes. Maybe the next time Bryant Gumbel talks to a bunch of black kids, he should tell them about Shani Davis and encourage them to pursue a sport for its own sake, and not for some one-in-a-bazillion chance to become an overpaid football, basketball, or baseball star.

Of course, there’s the danger that some of them would get figure skates and some day end up in that "kiss and cry area."

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While you’re at Radio Blogger reading or listening to the Mark Steyn interview from which I quoted earlier, you might want to check out a couple of other fascinating segments from this past week.

First, there’s Hugh’s interview with Robert Ferrigno, author of Prayers for the Assassin, a novel set in 2040 in the Islamic States of America. Sounds like a great read. I’m not familiar with Ferrigno, although this is his 9th novel. The previous 8 sound interesting, too — Elmore Leonardish, gritty, character-driven crime novels.

Check out the website for the new book, including Ferrigno’s blog and the very elaborate, well-done "news from 2036," RepublicWorldNews.com, featuring such stories as this:

HITE, Utah (RWN) – A Fedayeen assault force working its way along the Colorado River was ambushed by Mormon forces late Sunday night, in the worst attack of the war to restore the so-called nation of Deseret to the Islamic States.
…
The purpose of the attack was "to show that Mormon forces can protect Deseret at any time and place we wish to," said Col. John D. Young, the Nauvoo Legion’s press officer.
The Fedayeen assault element was inserted via vertical lift into the Green River basin near Gunnison Butte three weeks ago, Sharif said, to conduct "operations assessing the willingness of area residents to come to the one true calling."

Young disputed that claim in his communications, saying that the group, which the Legion had tracked since it was inserted, had been poisoning the cattle of local ranchers with a weaponized strain of BSE, more commonly known as mad-cow disease.

The Islamic States and the so-called nation of Deseret – formed by the state of Utah and a portion of southern Colorado – have been in a state of undeclared war since February 2016, when the heavily Mormon areas announced their secession from the Islamic States.

It has been a brutal guerilla war, out of much of the public’s eye, fought in lonely places through the Eastern Great Basin. Both sides have accused the others of atrocities and both sides have, at one time or another, claimed partial victory.

There’s also international news, sports, entertainment, fashion, health ("High-tech chador created for women prone to hot flashes"), ads for Jihad Cola ("for the warrior within") and Pilgrimage cereal ("Every crunchy bite contains pistachios from Arabia!") — it’s pretty cool.

Back at Radio Blogger, there’s another interview that’s quite entertaining in a very different way. Hugh Hewitt talked with Helen Thomas — until she hung up on him. If possible, you ought to listen to the audio, not just read it. It’s a hoot. I especially liked this part, during which Thomas has just the most incredulous tone:

HT: Who are you?

HH: I…

HT: Who am I talking to?

HH: Hugh Hewitt.

HT: Am I talking to a journalist?

HH: Yes. Yes, for a long time. I’m just curious about what’s gone wrong…

HT: Tell me about your career. What have you really done?

HH: Well, it’s not nearly as impressive as you.

HT: Where did…yes, it’s…it’s very important to me. Where did you work?

HH: PBS for ten years.

HT: PBS?

HH: Yes.

HT: Well, that’s a good credential.

HH: There you have it. See? I’m…

HT: But then you decided to switch over?

HH: To switch over to what?

HT: God knows what you are.

PBS is a good credential, but then he "switched over" — I love it.

Thomas got pretty feisty and defensive when Hewitt asked about her political leanings:

HH: Do you think that what makes you a journalist is the fact that you won’t tell people who you voted for?

HT: Did I say that? I told you that I was a straight, factual reporter for more than fifty years.

HH: And now you’re an opinion columnist.

HT: That’s right.

HH: And so now you can tell us who you voted for.

HT: And I don’t think it’s your business who I voted for.

HH: All right.

HT: And I don’t think you have the right to ask anybody that question.

HH: Why not? It’s a free press, isn’t it?

HT: Well, it’s not a fair question. It’s…

HH: You want to censor my questions?

HT: It’s a secret ballot.

HH: Of course. You don’t have to answer, but why should you censor my questions?

HT: Because you are looking for trouble, that’s why. You’re not asking legitimate questions. That has nothing to do with the current situation. That’s why.

…

HT: Why don’t you just act like a journalist and quit all this stuff, you know?

HH: Well, that would be to…you want me to join the guild.

HT: Why don’t you stick to the news and the facts?

HH: You want me to join the guild and just go along…

HT: Did I say that?

HH: Well, yes. You want me to ask the questions you’re comfortable being asked.

HT: Look, look. I’m a liberal. And I’m a columnist. And I wrote straight news, I told you, for fifty years. Get that in your head.

"Join the guild" is the perfect characterization — mainstream journalists think and act exactly like members of a medieval guild.

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Last Saturday at the Denver Libertarians breakfast, a good friend with whom I disagree vehemently regarding the war, the threat of Islamofascism, and related matters brought up once again the "no WMDs" meme. I promised to send him a link to a good refutation of that argument that I’d recently seen, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. So I’m thinking I might as well post it here.

(Mind you, I don’t consider WMDs to be the be-all and end-all of the decision to invade Iraq. But it does matter, and I’m tired of lies being turned into accepted truth by virtue of their endless repetition.)

The refutation I was thinking of was this BizzyBlog post, which is a repost, with additional material and updates, of this one.

Of course, I could point to The Anchoress’ post about enriched uranium, or the Kenneth Timmerman article posted at The Red Voice, or From the Great North Wet’s detailed discussion of the WMD issue, or perhaps the briefer, more to-the-point Cult of 7G post.

Or I could simply cite this Villanous Company post, in which Cassandra poses the marvelous question, "if you search for your car keys and fail to find them, have you proved they never existed?" That post foreshadowed the release of some recently-translated Saddam tapes and documents, which are being discussed this weekend at John Loftus’ Intelligence Summit in Arlington, VA.

But, no — I think I’ll just stick with that BizzyBlog post, suggest you follow some of his many links, and point out that he’s completely correct regarding his challenge: if you want to credibly argue that there were no WMDs, you have to discredit all the evidence he cited to the contrary.

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Mark Steyn was on the Hugh Hewitt Show Thursday evening and he nailed several topics in his inimitable way. Transcript and MP3 are available at Radio Blogger. Here’s Steyn on the Saddam tapes aired by ABC’s Nightline:

MS: Well, I’m not sure what to make of them, either. But I think the point is this. When you have a regime that behaves as if it has dangerous weapons, and it’s going to use those weapons. I think the responsibility of the non-insane world is to take those guys at their word. And you know, we see that lesson playing out in Iran. You know, this guy could be bluffing, but so what? The guy who shouts fire in the crowded theater could be bluffing, too. And the lesson of the modern world is if you wait to find out whether these guys have got it all nailed down chapter and verse, and they can really do what they threaten to do half the time, you’re going to lose your world. I don’t want to do that.

HH: Have you even figured out how ABC came by these tapes yet?

MS: No, I haven’t. I don’t know that, to be honest. I assume maybe they gave them to David Gregory in compensation for not giving him the press release on the hunting story in a timely manner.

Steyn on Al Gore’s speech in Jeddah accusing the U.S. of "indiscriminately" rounding up Saudis and mistreating them:

MS: Well, you know, I think the great thing about Al Gore is that the minute Al Gore is on your side, you’re over.

HH: (laughing)

MS: That applies to Howard Dean. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign died when Al Gore endorsed him. When Al Gore said the Day After Tomorrow was one of the most critically important statements on the ecological situation of the planet ever made, you knew instantly it was going to be a hilarious piece of junk. … And for Al Gore to go there and kiss up to the House of Saud is not just completely contemptable, but as I said, politically tone deaf.

Steyn on George Will and the Bush doctrine (emphasis added):

MS: Well, I think George Will is like a lot of conservatives. I like George Will enormously, but, and he’s got a very sharp mind. But he doesn’t basically accept the premise of the Bush doctrine, which is that you can somehow change the culture of our enemies’ states, in other words, the Middle Eastern states, Afghanistan, Pakistan, that you can somehow change them, and make them more like us. And you’re right…he’s right to an extent that you can’t give liberty to people. They have to want it. But on the other hand, it’s a hard job, but there’s actually not much alternative to it. You have to somehow say to these people you have to find a way to reach an accommodation between your religion and the modern world, because just saying it can’t be done is no answer to anything. That condemns us all, essentially, to a majority Muslim planet in which American will be isolated and very short of friends. And the Bush doctrine is a long shot, but it’s better than just consigning ourselves to hopelessness. And I respectfully disagree with George Will, and I wish he could see that.

That’s been my position for the past three years: This war sucks, and the whole plan is a long shot. But no one’s come up with a credible alternative. Note to my fellow libertarians: Bringing all the troops home and hoping that Eurabia somehow doesn’t happen, and that the Islamofascists lose interest in extending the ummah across the entire globe, and that we can all just get along — well, I don’t see that as a credible alternative.

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