All right, time to stop feeling sorry for myself and do some blogging. The polls are showing a solid Socialist win in the upcoming European Parliament elections; they should get 27 seats to 22 for the PP, with the Commies getting two and the various regional nationalists pulling in three.

Andy Robinson is actually reporting that Colin Powell has announced that the UN Security Council is "very close" to an agreement on a new resolution that will legitimize the current interim government in Iraq and set up a multinational force under US command that will respect Iraqi sovereignty. The Iraqi interim government has endorsed this plan. The US-led force will be "guests" of the new sovereign government. This is amazing. Andy Robinson writing a piece saying there is agreement among the major countries about what to do on the Iraq issue and not bashing the Americans. I'm gonna have to check tonight to see if the moon is really made of green cheese.

On the Iraq media front, there have been fewer self-righteous denunciations of late, I think because of several factors: a) the situation is calmer there and the bad guys are really cornered in Fallujah and Najaf and a few other places like that; note that even Sadr City and Karbala are calm and under control. b) The Abu Ghraib media cycle is finished, largely because of the lack of indignation in the Arab press. After all, this sort of treatment, given out this time by a few renegade Yanks now facing long prison terms (not to excuse it in the least), is not exactly news to anyone familiar to the Middle East. The Arab street has not exploded in anger like doomsayers said it would. c) They really did find some sarin gas. Not much, but they did find some. Everyone's had to admit it. So much for "BUSH LIED!!!", version 4.2. I guess the lefties will come up with a patch pretty soon. d) Iraq, outside the few and limited violent areas (the parallels I'd make would be Northern Ireland, where most of the country was peaceful but there were two or three conflictive areas, like the Shankill Road and most of County Armagh, or the Bronx, where there are several conflictive areas best avoided but where 90% of the district is perfectly respectable working-class and lower-middle-class folks), is better off now and even Tikrit Tommy Alcoverro admits that the average Iraqi has a much higher standard of living, both material and political, than before. e) Does anybody really want Saddam Hussein back? My guess is no. No matter how much they protest now, I bet that the Iraq War will go down in the history books, twenty-five years or so from now, as the correct thing to have done.