TEETH-KICKING CRITICS When a reviewer writes -- "This is a stupid movie for stupid people. If you're a stupid person, knock yourself out. Please." -- how could you not stand up and cheer? That's the Dallas Observer's Gregory Weinkauf on "How to Lose a Guy in 10 days," by the way. Send him fan mail.

IF BUSH WERE TRULY POSSESSED Courtesy of The Morning News -- BUSH: "But in the last few weeks, I have come to realize my folly in analyzing the issue of WMD-ownership in strict accordance with Newtonian-physics... If you view Iraq in a classical Newtonian framework, then you must concede that they either do or do not have weapons of mass destruction. It is this narrow mindset that causes such confusion in the uninformed. But, over President’s Day weekend at Camp David, I delved into the collected writings of Erwin Schrödinger, and now have no recourse but to conclude that Saddam both has and does not have weapons of mass destruction." Ye gads.

THE SOUTH FALLS AGAIN Thank God, I say, for bad movies that seek to glorify bad tragedies. And thank God for the consensus of film critics about "Gods and Generals", including the Boston Globe's Ty Burr -- " 'Seems a terrible long way up that hill,' says a Union soldier looking across the deadly expanse of open field leading to Marye's Heights... Believe me, the audience understands exactly how that soldier feels. There are movies that sweep you up into the passions and politics of a crucial chapter from the past, that put you right there with such conviction and artistry that the real world melts away and you viscerally understand the terrible crosscurrents of history. 'Gods and Generals' is not one of those movies."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, W.H. AUDEN "He disappeared in the dead of winter:/The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,/And snow disfigured the public statues;/The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day./What instruments we have agree/The day of his death was a dark cold day." (from "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" by W.H. Auden)

THE ANTIC MUSE Apparently, a refuge from suck.com (remember them!?), the Antic Muse chides The New Republic for their daring new editorial stances -- "Among the 'daring' opinions the perpetual graduate students over at TNR intend to stake out: 'support for a war in Iraq, rejection of George W. Bush's tax cut and a call for Democrats to shun presidential candidate Al Sharpton.' Hmm, yes. Daring, indeed. I can't think of a single mainstream publication that would be so bold. Next on the agenda: Editorials deriding 'mean people' and favoring 'ice cream.' " -- and wonders about Joe Lieberman's controversial stance IN FAVOR of a National War Dogs Memorial. "Who could be against honoring war dogs, the furriest and most loyal of all veterans?"

HATE COMMERCIALS BEFORE MOVIES? Read no more. Click immediately and sign the petition to Regal Entertainment Group, letting them know how you feel. If you're going to be part of a captive audience, the least they can do is feed you more buttered popcorn.

COLOR ALERT SYSTEM GOT YA DOWN? Mark Fiore provides an easy-to-follow Flash-animated guide to the hues and shades of national alerts.

ALL HANDS ON THE BAD ONE Today's assignment: Make a list of 103 reasons that Sleater-Kinney completely rules the world of rock.

ALL WE ARE SAYING The list is growing, but someone tell me what Bono, Global Witness, Jacques Chirac and Pope John Paul II have in common? If only the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize was more competitive, and suddenly hundreds of people around the world began competing to see who could create more peace in order to win it.

HIDDEN GEMS ROCK Meet Eleni Mandell, the former alterna-torch singer gone alterna-country, and arguably one of the better musicians roaming the countryside entertaining small clusters of the masses. She's a barely discovered gem of a performer and musician.

THE BLIND LEADING Slate's public service of the week involves short snippets about invading Iraq from people who are either not-so-famous and really smart, like Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institute, or who are really famous. And then there are people like Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute who appears to be neither smart nor famous, if the following pro-invasion argument is a good yardstick: "I'm in favor, for the reasons that the administration argues." One sentence! Now there's a man who's really willing to go to bat for his convictions. Murray's inability to start a fire aside, the rest of the class is worth your attention.

TAKE A LOOK, AT A BOOK I can't get the damned song out of my head. Thanks, Lee Harris. Anyhoo, the Virginia Festival of the Book is heading to Charlottesville in March. There are far too many poets giving readings, and far too few giving readings about tattoos. And Julian Bond, who you know from the Civil Rights class you took in high school. (That was irony, sadly enough.)

SO TALL IT'S CRIMINAL Mark Holmberg is Richmond's finest writer. And you can tell him I said so. I remember being slightly cowed when he'd lope across the newsroom, splitting his time between covering a homicide and reviewing a GWAR concert. He was an exception at the Times-Dispatch then, and probably is now.

CORNTOOTH WITH TWO SIDES Corntooth will be polishing the saw and rubbing the washboard at Millie's Diner this Sunday, for those of you in the area of Richmond, Virginia. The show will set you back five dollars, and includes an all-you-can-devour buffet.

HITCHHIKE TO ROME Sometimes Thomas Friedman is a ninny, and sometimes he's interesting, and sometimes he manages to get it right. He's getting more right of late, though it might just be a sign of how wrong so many things are. The NYTimes columnist has been covering the Middle East in one way or another for close to two decades, and he nails the current American dilemna dead on -- "The Bush folks are big on attitude, weak on strategy and terrible at diplomacy. I covered the first gulf war, in 1990-91. What I remember most are the seven trips I took with Secretary of State James A. Baker III around the world to watch him build -- face-to-face -- the coalition and public support for that war, before a shot was fired. Going to someone else's country is a sign you respect his opinion. This Bush team has done no such hands-on spade work. Its members think diplomacy is a phone call... They don't like to travel. Seeing senior Bush officials abroad for any length of time has become like rare-bird sightings. It's probably because they spend so much time infighting in Washington over policy, they're each afraid that if they leave town their opponents will change the locks on their office doors." Welcome to the most political administration in three decades. Beneath a veneer of teamwork and casual aplomb, the Bush administration has managed to make both the Clinton and Reagan administrations look like innocent waifs and political neophytes. Not to mention bungle a handful of the most significant foreign policy issues facing the United States. (Registration is required at the NYTimes)

CARROTS AND STICKS Novelist Amos Oz cringes at the convergence of dogmatic ("Bush is evil"), liberal ("negotiation is better than war"), reactionary ("America is oppressive") and racist ("Zionist plots!") voices that have somehow managed to find common ground on the anti-war turf surrounding Iraq. Oz is nervous about an invasion of Iraq on the grounds that the unanswered questions -- What comes next? Will Iraq use chemical weapons? Will the region be more or less stable as a result? -- are so large and dangerous. He opines, "The protesters have it wrong: this war campaign does not emanate from oil lust or from colonialist appetite. It emanates primarily from a simplistic rectitude that aspires to uproot evil by force. But the evil of Saddam Hussein's regime, like the evil of Osama bin Laden, is deeply and extensively rooted in vast expanses of poverty, despair and humiliation. Perhaps it is even more deeply rooted in the terrible, raging envy that America has aroused for many years -- not only in countries of the third world, but also in the broad boulevards of European society... If you are envied by all, you should be careful about wielding a big stick. After World War II, the Marshall Plan benefited the United States and world peace more than America's old and new weapons put together. The big stick is necessary, but it is best used to deter or repulse aggression, not to 'impose good.' And even when the big stick is brandished to defeat aggression, it is crucial that it be brandished by the international community -- or at least by a broad alliance of nations. Otherwise, it is liable to redouble the hatred, despair and lust for vengeance that it set out to defeat." (registration required at the NYTimes)

DIGGING DENMARK Slate's Jim Holt gets all jittery and ga-ga about Denmark's architectural sheen. "Copenhagen—and the rest of Denmark—is a playground of architectural pleasure, a place where exquisite design touches greet the eye at every turn (a good thing, for without that and the vodka to get them through the winter months, the natives would kill themselves). Even the airport has handsome hardwood floors."

ANOTHER ARAB VOICE This week, Al-Arabiya joins Al-Jazeera on the Arabic cable front. The new television channel will be operated by Middle East News, which is based in Dubai. It joins what might soon be a crowded field as Israel, Iran and the United States all look at launching news and entertainment channels in the region in the coming year.

AL QAEDA'S LATEST ATTACK From the wry keyboard of Josh Marshall: "We were warned. And late last night the axe finally fell. Dozens of autonomous, but centrally-directed, al Qaida operatives covered every inch of exposed surface area in Washington, DC with one to two feet of crystallized H2O, mixed with trace amounts of industrial pollutants and toxic chemicals. As of 2 PM on Sunday, the attack continues... The city is paralyzed... Why do they hate us?"

FORGOTTEN PLEASURES When you start hunting for my birthday presents, spend a moment exploring the Modo e' Modo site on the legendary moleskine notebook.

WHY WE STAND HERE IDLE? There were a lot of places I could have gone for the text from Senator Robert Byrd's recent shout-out on the floor of the Senate, but I chose to link to Kate Sullivan's rockblog. Byrd remains one of the more powerfully articulate voices in Washington, which makes it all the more tragic that so few voices are being heard debating issues -- Iraq, or countless others. Byrd said, "... this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events... And this is no small conflagration we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world... This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption -- the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future -- is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self-defense."

AND NOW FOR A THOUSAND WORDS ABOUT LOVE The chanteuse at My Blue House takes a pass at love this week with a Life Magazine's smooching photos.

GUEST'S STARRING Christopher Guest wraps the world of traveling folk music in the wink-wink gauze of his American analysis with the April release of "A Mighty Wind." If you chortled at "Waiting for Guffman" and guffawed throughout "Best in Show," brace yourself for Round Three.

WHERE THE POLLS BREAK Political observer E.J. Dionne wonders where the debate went. When we get waist-deep in Iraq, he suggests we'll be wondering why no one ever told the American people what we were getting into. Dionne says the electorate is split thrice on the issue of Iraq -- those who see an urgent need to move in Iraq, those who believe there is no reason for war, and those who take in the whole landscape of the situation and have a strong sense of foreboding. Dionne writes, "My own doubts are rooted in the Bush administration's failure to prepare our country for the long commitment that will be required if this war is to achieve the results its supporters promise. We still don't know how the administration intends to handle the aftermath of what one hopes would be an American military victory... Some of my doubts are, purely and simply, doubts about this administration. I find it astonishing that Bush and his lieutenants are not willing to offer a sober calculation of the long-term costs of this war, factor those costs into the nation's budget and ask Americans to pay the price. Instead, they would shuck off the costs to the next generation... Their failure to count the costs can only make you wonder about how committed they are to what will be an arduous struggle to pacify and democratize Iraq." Doubts about the validity or necessity of war aside, it is hard to trust the long-term commitment of the Bush administration to helping Iraq create its own future well. Look no farther than Afghanistan for reasons to doubt.

THE ART OF REGIME CHANGE For those who had hoped that last year's elections would see Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe booted office, that deferred hope might yet materialize, as David Ignatius reports. That rigged election, a clampdown on opposition and continued starvation throughout the country has fragmented Mugabe's coalition; Ignatius posits that a regime change, courtesy of the military, might be in the offing. Another note on the subject -- Why is it unsurprising that France's Jacque Chirac has proffered a hand of friendship to Zimbabwe’s dictator?

THE GIFTS While our stuttering economy remains slow enough to crimp the style of any billionaire, the nation's top 60 philanthropists doffed their hats to the tune of $4.6 billion in 2002, according to slate.com. The summary of the donations appears via the link that leads this blurb, while you can take in the tabled version here. Frankly, we'd all be better off if people stopped leaving their inheritance to universities for the construction of more overpriced, faux-Gothic lecture halls.