I’m not normally much on the wishlist thing but if anyone out there is overcome with the desire to blow a few thousand bucks on me? Get me this (original). I can’t even begin to express how much I want this object. Wait, that’s a lie. I can easily express how much I want this object: less than five thousand dollars worth of want. I gotta say, this whole “money” concept is a very clever invention.

As the blogosphere gears up for the Blix report to the UN, Howard Bashman soldiers along talking about legal matters. His post on yesterday’s Supreme Court decisions is so good I felt like linking to it. It ought also to be of particular interest to Californians and Alaskans, since two of the cases decided relate to California’s three strikes law and one of them is about the Alaska sex offenders registry. ...

Eugene Volokh goes over the differences between Iraq and North Korea. He’s right, as far as he goes — but now let’s ask the next question. “If we can live with North Korea possessing and actively making nuclear weapons, why can’t we live with the possibility that Iraq may get nuclear weapons?” Or, put differently: assuming inspections fail, and assuming it’s impossible to stand between Saddam and nukes, what makes that world more dangerous than the one we live in? And please. Don’t tell me Saddam is more loony than Kim Jong-il.

Hey, let’s do that thing I see the hip kids doing where I stuff a bunch of links into one post! The Crossgates Mall, quite appropriately, has dropped the charges against Stephen Downs. Steven Kaye, in comments, pointed me at Eurasianet. Looks like a really good source of info on Turkey and other Eurasian states. (Hey, Steven’s looking for players for an 1890s CoC game. Or, anyhow, was in 1999. Hm.) ...

The DoD kicked out a press release today about Iraq’s oil. About what you’d expect no matter what you believe: promises to preserve the oil for Iraq, warnings that Saddam may intend to destroy the oil, ecological warnings, etc. I found this quote interesting, though: “Oil is a natural resource of Iraq that provides commerce, income for education and other needs, and infrastructure. The department considers destruction of that resource as an act of terrorism.” ...

The Smoking Gun has the police report about that guy who was arrested for wearing a peace T-shirt and refusing to leave the mall he was in. The police report implies that Mr. Downs was causing a disturbance. As the right wing rushes to link to the police report, I just thought I’d point out that it’s not actually very conclusive. The first statement is from a store detective got a complaint about a verbal dispute; the complaint didn’t include any details about who started it. The store detective didn’t investigate. He just went back and called mall security to warn them about the dangerous T-shirt wearers. Yeah, that’s a balanced response. ...

Man, this is why I love sports. Battie just blocked a shot which saved the game for the Celtics. You can’t really tell from the picture, but he’s pogoing up and down here, arms tight to his side, looking just like this. Cutest damned thing I’ve seen in a while. How can you not love this team?

So I wonder. I’m on some mailing lists which get a fair amount of noise mixed in with the signal. But it’s hard to tell whether a given piece of mail is gonna be signal or noise before I open it. You can’t tell by person — most people say something intelligent at least some of the time. Besides, I really hate categorically killfileing anyone. I wonder if you couldn’t use spamprobe as an effective mailing list filter? ...

Another one of those “hey, look who’s anti-war” bits here. I find ‘em interesting and in many cases telling. It’s important not to let the right paint all protesters as stupid hippies, much as it’s important to remember that the right isn’t comprised purely of Neanderthals. Anyhow, Warren Langley is getting involved in planning anti-war civil disobedience designed to shut down San Francisco’s Financial District. This is interesting, since Langley used to be president of the Pacific Exchange. More recently, he was almost named CEO of a Nasdaq/Liffe venture (original), although apparently they couldn’t come to terms on a contract. Langley also served in the U.S. Air Force after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy. ...

It’s been a busy few days in the Iraq debate. Let’s summarize — no, is not enough! Let’s predict! Turkey declined the opportunity to help out with the war over the weekend, but now the Turkish military is pushing for a revote (original). Remember, in Turkey, the military is a political force unto itself. Now, there’s no chance that Abdullah Gul, the current Prime Minister, is going to call that vote this week. Gul has no leverage to push for a revote; he’s a lame duck. There’s a by-election coming on Sunday, in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan will undoubtedly gain a parliamentary seat. As leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, he’ll be elected Prime Minister immediately. (Up until quite recently, he was banned from running for Parliament, largely because of — wait for it — the Turkish military. Now you know why the government has been in favor of aiding the US; the JDP needs to keep on the military’s good side.) ...