The first "SARS-Star", Ladies and gentleman, Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman.

Clearly Fareed Zakaria insights are driving much of the discussion regarding Post-War Iraq. I think this is a good thing. Here David Plotz weighs in with the rules for rebuilding.

And Jonah Goldberg advocats a Swiss model.

Switzerland is peaceful now, but it was formed by warring tribes of Germans, Italians, French, and Romansch, and divided along religious lines in a strategically vital region of Europe not unlike Iraq's place in the Middle East. It seems to me the Swiss model is almost precisely what the Iraqis need. Militarily, Switzerland is a threat to no one but invaders; its neutrality and armed pacifism are a matter of national pride, as is its desire to be a force for good in the region and the world. It's rich, stable, improbably happy — and, yeah, just a little boring in the eyes of the rest of the world. In a sense, History has ended in the Swiss Alps, and that's the way everyone likes it. Who would be crying in their beer if we could say the same thing about Iraq?

Great news for fans of file sharing.

I would say "Wow" if it didn't make such sense.

Drudge pulls in $3,500 a day? Wow.

Lest we forget.

In the tawdry, base, and often shameless contest to prostitute the Laci Peterson case for personal gain you have to hand it California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Nothing like a murdered woman to give your early campaign for a gov. a little boost. Disgusting.

Oh hell, Andrew Sullivan is going off on conservatives. Rightfully so. Being a conservative and not being willing to fight for consensual adults doing what they chose in the privacy of their homes without governmental intervention is so ludicrous it's almost laughable. This is what Sullivan is fighting for, the core principles of an ideology. What Santorum and his ilk are fighting for are political expediency fueled by moral cowardice.

Howard Dean is clearly the democratic wild card in the upcoming election. He's used the net to help him raise $2.6MM, blew down the house in Calif., and seems to have a message that resonates with many voters.

Pabst Blue Ribbon, the hipster/poseur drink of the day. (note to self, how hip can anything be if the WoPo is discussing it?) And speaking of insanely, annoying, affects, this my last Peta post every.

Wunderkinder with a nice synopsis of the Josh Marshall vs. the Neo-cons debate.

Fareed Zakaria over at Salon (suck it up and get the day pass!) discussing The Future of Freedom. The next Sec. of State on how the elites may actually serve a vital role, institutions that need to flourish in a democracy, and what it's like to be an "intellectual pinup".

One lesson of the Balkans was that if you begin the power contest before you build the institutions, everything goes awry because people who are voted into office suddenly lose interest in the rule of law, clean administration and limitations on governmental authority. It's much easier to construct a fair system when you don't know whether you're going to be the ruler or the ruled, because you will have an incentive to create a fair and balanced system....

American democracy has always been safeguarded by strong institutions that protect liberty and it's also been enriched and ennobled by a whole set of informal institutions that Tocqueville called intermediate institutions -- everything from political parties to rotary clubs to choral societies to bowling leagues. If those intermediate associations wither away, if the sense of the civic culture of America decays and is replaced by a kind of polarized populism in which each side is simply trying to use the political system as an arena where you simply have to capture the government however you can, then American democracy is impoverished and loses some of its vibrancy. It doesn't mean American democracy will become Nigerian democracy. It means it won't live up to its promise.

Looks like China took a page out of the Iraqi playbook (hide-and-seek from the international inspectors)

While reading this Salon piece on Ashcrotification of America, and listening to all these congressional aides cry that they aren't getting the access their bosses so desperately desire, I am struck by an obvious irony. They shouldn't have voted for it in the first place. A drunken baboon could see that the Patriot Act was a bad piece of legislation, yet these cowards (with one exception) jumped all over each other in an effort to support this woebegotten piece of legislation. Just because you are Congressmen doesn't mean you should be screwed any less by you horrific law than the rest of us.

Good news on the Freedom Front (thanks instapundit):

Washington - House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. said Thursday that he would fight any effort now to make permanent many of the expanded police powers enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks as part of the USA Patriot Act.

"That will be done over my dead body," said Sensenbrenner in an interview.

The Menomonee Falls Republican also said it was "way premature" for Congress to consider a new package of anti-terrorism proposals being drafted by the Justice Department - a so-called "Patriot Act Two."

Before that happens, he said, the "burden of proof" is on the Justice Department to prove the merits of what he called "Patriot Act One."

A Moscow-based organization was training Iraqi intelligence agents as recently as last September -- at the same time Russia was resisting the Bush administration's push for a tough stand against Saddam Hussein's regime

This according to documents found in Baghdad by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Robert Collier . The training of Iraqi secret police in spying and counterintelligence techniques is in clear violation of U.N. regulations.

When contacted by the Chronicle, the US State Dept. declined comment and the Russians denied the reports. As the story grew Russia later admitted to training Iraqi spies.

A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Boris Labusov, acknowledged that Iraqi secret police agents had been trained by his agency but said the training was for nonmilitary purposes, such as fighting crime and terrorism.

Yet documents discovered in Baghdad by The Chronicle last week suggest that the spying techniques the Iraqi agents learned in Russia may have been used against foreign diplomats and civilians, raising doubt about the accuracy of Labusov's characterization.

A U.S. intelligence source said, "The sole purpose of the Iraqi security services was to protect the Baath regime from its enemies inside and outside Iraq," he said. "That was their only reason for existence."

Russia and Iraq have a long and mostly economic partnership However offering aid via training to the Iraqi secret police in the days leading up to the United States battle with Iraq is unsettling more than a few American officials. An already testy relationship between Russia and the US is now about to face another challenge. Watchers are worried that remnants of the KGB may be reasserting themselves within Russia.

No one is above the Law.

Glenn Reynolds on the two fronts of the war. Abroad we are doing well, domestically, not so good. With little public and/or judicial oversight civil liberties remain at risk.

How can we trust them to police America when they’re so poor at policing themselves?
The answer, of course, is that we can trust them only so far as we can see what they’re doing. And at the moment, that’s not very far at all.

Ah the serenity of The Masters.

At no point did the protest turn violent, though officers escorted Heywood Jablome away after he held up a sign directly in front of Burk that read "Make me dinner" before shouting "Oprah rules."

Heywood Jablome?!?! Obviously this is one reporter who doesn't watch the Simpsons.

It's time to start the Colin Powell job watch. First he says that the military coup in Chile in 1973 was a mistake. "It is not a part of American history that we're proud of," Powell said. Then the State Dept. makes an announcement that the Sec. of State's views were not the Department's. As Rice and Rumsfeld's roles grow in post-war Iraq, it will be interesting to see if there is room for him going forward.

Who will be the next Sec. of State? How about Fareed Zakaria?