Will this finally get the Europeans angry at Saddam’s regime? From a story about the opulence and decadence of Uday’s (and how is the guy’s name properly spelled anyway?) digs:

The house was adorned with paintings of naked women, as well as bundles of Internet printouts of what appeared to be prostitutes, complete with handwritten ratings of each. One black book listed hundreds of women’s names and phone numbers.

One e-mail printout was a complaint from a woman that she was having a difficult time finding heterosexual men in Europe.

“Darling, babe, it’s not good timing to send me sexy attachment. OH BOY where am I going to get one guy?” it read in English.

On second thought, maybe they’ll think it a compliment?

Will this finally get the Europeans angry at Saddam’s regime? From a story about the opulence and decadence of Uday’s (and how is the guy’s name properly spelled anyway?) digs:

The house was adorned with paintings of naked women, as well as bundles of Internet printouts of what appeared to be prostitutes, complete with handwritten ratings of each. One black book listed hundreds of women’s names and phone numbers.

One e-mail printout was a complaint from a woman that she was having a difficult time finding heterosexual men in Europe.

“Darling, babe, it’s not good timing to send me sexy attachment. OH BOY where am I going to get one guy?” it read in English.

On second thought, maybe they’ll think it a compliment?

Will this finally get the Europeans angry at Saddam’s regime? From a story about the opulence and decadence of Uday’s (and how is the guy’s name properly spelled anyway?) digs:

The house was adorned with paintings of naked women, as well as bundles of Internet printouts of what appeared to be prostitutes, complete with handwritten ratings of each. One black book listed hundreds of women’s names and phone numbers.

One e-mail printout was a complaint from a woman that she was having a difficult time finding heterosexual men in Europe.

“Darling, babe, it’s not good timing to send me sexy attachment. OH BOY where am I going to get one guy?” it read in English.

On second thought, maybe they’ll think it a compliment?

I don’t think so.

Glenn notes that Bush has endorsed a renewal of the “assault weapons” ban. I don’t think that it’s as bad for him politically as the good Professor does.

I’d think that the chances of an extension passing are close to nil, even with a Bush endorsement, and he (and Rove) knows that (remember, it was a Democrat-controlled Congress that got the first one through). And remember who’s majority leader in the House. Tom Delay probably won’t even let it out of committee.

So it’s probably a safe position to take. He can make himself look moderate to the moderates, while still allowing the thing to die, thus pleasing his gun rights constituency. The issue isn’t what the administration’s formal position is, but whether it actually provides any pressure to make it happen. I’ll be surprised if they do.

The only real political danger is if it actually passes, and he then has to sign it so as not to appear to change his position.

I just wish that more (or all) laws were sunsetted (sunsat?) like this one.

MSNBC has a story with much more detail about the ambush in which the POWs were captured, and their ordeal afterward. There’s nothing here to confirm the stories about Pfc. Lynch emptying her gun at the enemy. I’m still curious as to how they know that (I think I’ve read that the original reporting indicated that it came from Iraqi radio traffic).

Evelyn Nieves reports that the “peace” protestors are shifting to anti-Bush protests, as though this hasn’t always been about hatred of George Bush.

She writes, apparently with tongue nowhere near cheek:

In broad terms, according to leaders of some of the largest national peace groups, the antiwar movement is reshaping itself to become an anti-Bush movement.

Yup, they’re clearly moving on to yet another winning bandwagon, as the President’s approval ratings soar in the wake of a successful Iraqi campaign.

The whole article is (I suspect unintentionally) amusing, in that it clearly shows how desperate, and out of touch with reality they are.

Michael Negler, who teaches in the Peace and Conflict Studies department at the University of California at Berkeley and who has written extensively on nonviolent protest, said the current antiwar campaign “hasn’t been as effective as it could be.” Whether nonviolent civil disobedience actions at military installations and corporations that stand to profit from the war will have an effect remains to be seen, he added. “In nonviolence, we don’t always judge by immediate results,” Negler said. “Nonviolence is confident it will have positive effects down the line.”

I liked this next passage:

Just how the antiwar movement plans on challenging the president depends on which group you ask. Some are focusing on registering voters to challenge Bush in 2004. Others say their emphasis will be on finding congressional candidates to run against those who have supported or acquiesced to the Bush administration. Still others say they will emphasize creating permanent community-based groups that will fight the administration’s policies. Some also say that while they plot their next big moves, they will continue to hold teach-ins, protests and other forums to criticize the current military policies and practices in Washington and fortify their ranks.

It reminded me a lot of this hilarious article from the Onion about the South (not) rising again.

Though Southerners are overwhelmingly in favor of rising again, few were able to provide specific details of the rising-again process. “I don’t know, I reckon we’ll build us a bunch of big, fancy buildins and pave us up a whole mess of roads,” said Bobby Lee Fuller of Greenville, MS. “I ain’t exactly sure where we’re gonna get the money for that, but when Johnny Reb sets his mind to something, you best get out of his way.”

But Ms. Nieves is apparently serious.

Or many of the other guests could go hungry.

Michael Moore may show up to a White House dinner.

David Frum says that the next target in the War on Terror should be the UN itself.

Read the whole thing, but here’s one part that I’d never previously considered:

Behind all of these problems is a larger one: The UN is inherently incompetent to deal with the problem of terrorism. The UN Charter forbids states to use force against other states — which was the UN’s excuse for condemning Israel for bombing Iraq’s French-built nuclear reactor in 1981. But the Charter has nothing to say about the use of force by non-states or quasi-states — which is why the UN kept silent when Hezbollah, with Iranian help, bombed the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing more than 100 people.

Yes, I’d say that at least in terms of global security, the organization has long outlived any usefulness it may have once had.

And I found this little bit here thought provoking:

Some of the oil contracts between Iraq and France are hugely disfavorable to Iraq. Saddam seems to have believed that these special deals would win him France’s political support. A new Iraqi government might want to renegotiate or even cancel these contracts — how would it benefit the Iraqi people for that to be prevented?

If that’s the case, then why shouldn’t these contracts simply be considered odious debt that should be forgiven?

Iraqis are having a hard time dealing with American soldiers’ ethnic diversity.

…Corpsman Benedict Bito, 19, of Alameda, Calif., may have gotten the strangest question while at his post in Numaniyah.

“One kid asked me was I related to (martial artists movie star) Jackie Chan,” said Bito, who is Filipino. “I was standing guard in the square and the people started to stare at me. At first they told me I was Chinese, then they said Korean and finally one guy thought I was Vietnamese.

“They just couldn’t believe I was American.”

Iraqis are having a hard time dealing with American soldiers’ ethnic diversity.

…Corpsman Benedict Bito, 19, of Alameda, Calif., may have gotten the strangest question while at his post in Numaniyah.

“One kid asked me was I related to (martial artists movie star) Jackie Chan,” said Bito, who is Filipino. “I was standing guard in the square and the people started to stare at me. At first they told me I was Chinese, then they said Korean and finally one guy thought I was Vietnamese.

“They just couldn’t believe I was American.”