I've always been pretty ambivalent about gun-control legislation. It's always struck me as a waste of time, and as a needless extension of the government into private lives. The idea of a massive government program that restricts individual rights and doesn't work is a pretty tough sell, after all.

Alphecca has a great post rounding up the various arguments against such a program, but as usual, none is as compelling as the simple fact that it doesn't work.

Take Canadian gun control laws. These laws are, to my knowledge, much stricter than American laws. But they're not any more effective. Alphecca's post leads with the story of James Roszko, a convicted felon who was barred from owning firearms, thanks to Canada's gun registry.

Last Thursday, Roszko shot dead four Royal Canadian Mounted Policemen (unrelated question: is "Mountie" offensive?) who were attempting to execute a search warrant on him. Canada's anti-gun program, which Alphecca says is costing the country's taxpayers $2 billion (Not that it matters, but: Canadian?), clearly failed here.

And Alphecca makes a great point:

The murder of the RCMP officers was a true tragedy but it points up the uselessness of registering firearms because the simple fact is that criminals don't obey laws and they're not going to register their guns.

Al Gore wanted to have national handgun registration here in the United States (which probably cost him five states in the 2000 election). Does anyone really think that if such legislation was passed that the Muhammads and Malvos, the Harrises and Klebolds would march down to the local police station to register their guns? That gang members would charter a bus to the local precinct to comply with the new law?

The answer to these rhetorical questions, of course, is "No." And as long as that remains the answer, it's impossible to see any reasonable justification for the kind of strict gun control that is so often the goal of our "progressive" politicians.

The entire post is a must-read, though. The Roszko case is just the start. Alphecca also has a dissection of an article from Reuters, that noted bastion of journalistic integrity, on the dangers of global arms proliferation. I disagree with his take on the issue, though: small-arms proliferation worldwide is a serious threat, and it's tough to compare it to the legal purchase of registered arms by citizens of democratic countries.

Still, read on, and form your own opinion.

Attention, political junkies!

Ace has a very important news report: apparently, Al Gore won't be running for President in 2008!

All I can say is thank goodness Al decided to make this decision public so early. Certainly the "Draft Gore" groundswell had already built to epic levels...letting his supporters twist in the wind any longer would have been just cruel.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

In the same vein, I'm proud to report the following Another WebRant scoop: Charles Manson, Michael Jackson and Ice Cube will also not be making runs at the Oval Office in 2008. Please, restrain your disappointment.

Meanwhile, Gore's erstwhile replacement as the "electable" face of the Democratic party, John Kerry, is still waffling. Not that that's a surprise.

I'm a proud subscriber to Foreign Policy magazine, one of the better publications to which I subscribe. I've always enjoyed the product, even if I frequently disagree with its slants. But the latest issue of FP contains one of the most preposterous articles I've ever read.

The piece, headlined "Inside the Committee that Runs the World," was written by David J. Rothkopf, who is the author of a forthcoming book about the inner workings of the National Security Council.

If the FP article is a preview of the book, I think I'll leave it off my Amazon.com wishlist.

Rothkopf portrays Cheney -- probably quite accurately -- as one of the most active and influential vice presidents in recent American history, with a large and powerful staff. To which I say: Great. So far, so good.

The real shocker, I suppose, is that Cheney, according to Rothkopf, oversees "a process of policy formation" that is -- wait for it! -- ideologically driven. If you're wondering how the Republic will survive such a terrifying blow to its very core, you're not alone.

But that's not all. Did you know that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 were an opportunity for the administration's neocons " to assert their case that diplomatic balancing acts in the Middle East had created danger for the United States and that the time had come for stronger measures, whatever the cost?"

Gosh...what a terribly ideological statement. Certainly it would take a nefarious conspiracy to make folks think that our Middle East policy had contributed to the attacks. And certainly the idea that "stronger measures" were needed would never have occurred to anyone if it wasn't for this Cheney-driven conspiracy.

But the most offensive remark of all is this one:

As for the president himself, one Bush family intimate, commenting on the commander in chief’s renewed sense of mission, muses, “I don’t know exactly what it means to be a born-again Christian, but, if it means that Jesus has entered your soul, then does it mean that you are infallible? I don’t know the answer to that. But it may impart a certitude to the president that affects the way he reacts to his team and everything else.” The lightning bolt had struck and the transformation of the transformationalists had begun.

Where to start with this piece of nonsense? Is this quote -- offered without comment by Rothkopf -- meant to provide insight into the way Bush operates? Is the assumption that there would be no war in Iraq, no invasion of Afghanistan, no Bush Doctrine at all, if it weren't for the fact that Bushitler believes in Jesus?

It's a rare day when words fail me. This is one of those days. I've got to move on.

Among the less objectionable -- but no less absurd -- revelations offered by Rothkopf is the news that the Department of Defense and the State Department are at odds over the path of U.S. foreign policy. Who'da thunk it, right?

But not to worry: "In the end, of course, the determining vote will come down to Cheney and, above all, as it always does, to President George W. Bush."

That's reassuring, I guess, if only because it's incredibly obvious. Certainly it was open-minded of Rothkopf to affirm the President's management of the doctrine that bears his name.

The story even comes with a handy chart, which purports to show "two degrees of Henry Kissinger." Terrifying stuff, really. It "reveals" that -- surprise! -- many members of the United States' foreign policy team have worked together in the past, and that -- gasp! -- some of them even worked with Kissinger.

The U.S. national security community is among the world’s most exclusive clubs—the preserve of the graduates of a tiny handful of schools and service academies. Within this small world, a number of individuals have become especially influential, and during their rise to the top they have groomed members of their staffs as future leaders and pulled strings to get them hired for key jobs.

Nobody better personifies this influence than Henry Kissinger, the dean of modern U.S. foreign-policy professionals. As the chart below illustrates, if you want to join the committee that runs the world, it helps if you’re already a member.

Of course, "worked with," for the purposes of the chart, is a pretty elastic term. I'm sure Colin Powell, for example, would be surprised to find himself within two degrees of Kissinger, as would Condoleeza Rice. And I'm guessing that Anthony Lake, an aide to Kissinger during the Nixon administration, and Sandy Berger, Lake's deputy, don't think of themselves as Kissinger disciples.

Considering that the Bush administration's foreign policy has been the opposite of Kissinger's paleolithic, Bismarck-inspired realism, it's safe to say that Kissinger's "influence" is a tiny bit overstated.

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned.

It's been 8 months since my last blog entry. And my shame knows few bounds. I'd offer excuses -- I moved to a new city, a new apartment, got a new job, lived without Internet access for a few months -- but really, there are no excuses. I just got lazy.

And let's face it: there's no guarantee it won't happen again. There's no guarantee it won't happen tomorrow, for that matter.

But for now, I'm back. It's been a busy eight months -- and an incredibly busy few weeks recently.

Since my last entry, on July 2, the forces of liberty and democracy have made some truly remarkable strides. The elections in Iraq, of course, are the highlight. Gallons upon gallons of ink have been spilled, and millions of pixels worth of blog posts have been penned, to celebrate this momentous achievement. I'm no going to add anything original -- after all, why start now? -- but I should point out the obvious, mostly because it's what I'm best at.

The elections, in the face of terrorist teeth-gnashing and Western leftist defeatism, proved -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- the falsity of those tired tropes about Arabs' cultural unsuitability for democracy. With any luck at all, that racist meme has been consigned to the dustbin of history, where is belongs.

And in the shadow of those elections, as is belatedly becoming clear, we're seeing the first proof of the value of the Bush Doctrine. The swamp is starting to drain -- in fits and starts, to be sure, and certainly nothing is certain.

But the stirrings of popular protest in Lebanon, the reluctant acceptance of at least the semblance of democracy in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, pro-democracy statements across the region: these things add up. And even if the people making the speeches or the concessions or administering the elections don't really believe in democracy, they'll learn soon enough the lesson that Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping learned to regret: there's no such thing as a little democracy. Offer it to the people, and they'll keep taking.

And if the United States has the courage to support the people of the Middle East in their struggles for freedom, then the coming decade could see a flurry of Kievs and Tblisis.

If we succumb to the isolationist shouts of the so-called "realists," then the next 10 years might see a succession of Tiananmens.

The choice is clear.

The Christian Science Monitor's Daily Update on the War on Terror, dated July 1, is a helluva read.

It's a long, involved and very interesting article about the ongoing spat between the United Kingdom and Iran over the British sailors who were interned by Iran after allegedly violating Iranian waters.

Apparently the sailors, having been returned to Great Britain, are telling a very different story -- namely, that they were forced into Iranian waters by Iranian patrol boats, and then detained. The British government is naturally intrigued, and is demanding the return of the sailor's vessels, which have been interned by Iran. Apparently, the boats' GPS guidance systems might be able to settle the squabble.

All very interesting, of course -- particularly in that it's nice to see the U.K. taking a firm stand. (I'm guessing that if those were French sailors, Chirac's only action would have been to advise them to start learning Farsi.)

It's made even more interesting by the possibility that the incident might further stiffen Britain's spine against the recent series of exercises in excuse-making for the Iranian mullarchy's nuclear weapons program. The EU, which has been playing a major role in "mediating" between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, has recently begun to resist Tehran's efforts to make a further mockery of the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

It's entirely possible that Iran's stunt -- which, if the sailors' story is true, amounts to kidnapping -- will prove to be the type of greedy overreach which will force the extremists to moderate their approach, strengthening the forces of nonproliferation.

In other words, a win for the good guys.

Captain Ed, who runs the excellent blog Captain's Quarters (listed below and to the right, in my blogroll) linked to some very important news from both the AP and the BBC detailing yet another discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

From the AP story, which is datelined Warsaw:

"Polish troops had been searching for munitions as part of their regular mission in south-central Iraq when they were told by an informant in May that terrorists had made a bid to buy the chemical weapons, which date back to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s war with Iran in the 1980s, Gen. Marek Dukaczewski told reporters in Warsaw.

"'We were mortified by the information that terrorists were looking for these warheads and offered $5,000 apiece,'" Dukaczewski said. "'An attack with such weapons would be hard to imagine. All of our activity was accelerated at appropriating these warheads.'"

"Dukaczewski refused to give any further details about the terrorists or the sellers of the munitions, saying only that his troops thwarted terrorists by purchasing the 17 rockets for a Soviet-era launcher and two mortar rounds containing the nerve agent for an undisclosed sum June 23."

It has since turned out that the rounds are inert and posed no significant threat, at least according to a statement that the AP attributes to "multinational forces in Iraq."

Nonetheless, the fact remains that these rounds existed, that the U.N. inspectors were entirely ignorant of them, that they were successfully concealed for 12 years, and that others, more competently preserved, could still be hidden somewhere in Iraq. In other words, Iraq DID have WMDs, no matter what Hans Blix may say. Sanctions DID NOT succeed, no matter what George A. Lopez and David Cortwright have to say.

Of course, now that that's cleared up, I have no doubt that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, and indeed every other major media outlet in the world will be printing shamefaced corrections to their over-confident claims that there were no WMDs to be found it Iraq.

Wait...I must have slipped and hit my head, because that last paragraph was self-delusional nonsense. I must brace myself instead to be ready for limited coverage of this earth-shattering news in the world media, accompanied -- if we're lucky -- by a temporary muffling of the shrieks of "Bush lied!" from the left.

The only mystery remains how this news will be spun by the Michael Moores of the world. Will this latest news, like the discovery of another sarin shell in June, be treated as a relic from the 1980's, and used as an opportunity to spout more revisionist "Saddam was our ally" propaganda?

Ed also links to a Hugh Hewitt interview with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers, in which Myers estimates that "16 or 17 warheads have been discovered" in Iraq and found to contain sarin or mustard gas.

Here's Ed's conclusion:

"It's now obvious that Saddam held onto his chemical weapons despite all claims that they had been destroyed after the first Gulf War, which demonstrates the folly of UNSCOM inspections. They had twelve years to find this stuff, since the Iraqis continually failed to prove that they destroyed them. Now we know why. Perhaps he manufactured nothing new since then, although I highly doubt that, but his standing inventory provided enough killing power to make Saddam a highly dangerous man.

"How much WMD do we need to prove the point? One of these shells would be enough to kill most of the people in my town, and 17 of them would be more than enough to wipe out any American urban center. The Poles worried about their use in Baghdad, but I suspect that had the terrorists made the buy first, they had plans for the weapons in Tel Aviv or Washington, DC."

The fact that the discovered weapons' killing power was blunted by time -- a fact Ed acknowledges in an update -- does not render his conclusions moot. Far from it.

I don't expect this to get through to the Fahrenheit 9/11 gang, who have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to ignore anything that doesn't fit the "Bush lied!" and "No blood for oil!" constraints of their worldview.

McGehee at Blogosferics weighs in on the discussion on Kerry's presumptive vice-presidential candidate with an interesting theory: Kerry himself doesn't know, and may not know until Tuesday, which has been touted as The Day of The Announcement.

Money quote:

"As funny as it is to make fun of Kerry’s flipflopping, it’s really the only consistent thing about him. And I’m not so sure he does it consciously, as if trying to please others and get votes from as many different constituencies as possible. I think it’s simply that Kerry is a dilettante, a ditz. A male version of Reese Witherspoon’s character in Legally Blonde, without the depth of character that was revealed as the movie unfolded."

Hence, according to McGehee, all the discordant guessing-games about who the VP nominee will be. No one's able to make a credible prediction, because no one -- literally no one -- knows. It's the Occam's Razor solution: it doesn't make perfect sense, but it's as logical as any other explanation for the confusion surrounding the nomination.

So good luck, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson (who apparently wants no part of the job), Tom Harkin, Dick Gephardt, and anyone else I'm forgetting. It's anyone's race...maybe up until the minute Kerry strides to the podium to announce his choice.