DE-MINING AFGHANISTAN Reuters is reporting that the timetable for clearing one of the world's most mined country has been strengthened. Hopefully, the newfound sense of urgency will continue.

Afghanistan, the world's most mined country, is aiming to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance from all densely populated centres in four years in line with reconstruction plans, the United Nations said on Friday.

About 150 people are maimed or killed each month by some of an estimated 10 million mines strewn across the country, making reconstruction work slow and risky. Under a new plan ordered by the transitional administration, each of Afghanistan's 32 provinces has been classified into high- and low-priority areas.

"This strategy looks at clearing all of the high-priority areas in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2007," said Dan Kelly, programme manager of the United Nations Mine Action Programme.

WANTED: NERVOUS WAIF. MUST LIKE NICE GLOVES. The Walt Disney Co. has picked up Steve Martin's book "Shopgirl," which Martin expects to begin filming after he finishes his work on "Cheaper By the Dozen."

OH, RATS! If you didn't see Crispin Glover's breakout moment on David Letterman in the early 1990s, then you certainly don't have his over-the-top vinyl musical debut from the same time period, which means you just don't realize that Crispin Glover is nuttier than you are. Much, much nuttier.

All the more reason to dust off your wallet and head for the local cineplex this weekend for "Willard," in which Glover plays office nerd Willard Stiles whose only friends are rats. And when you piss Willard off, his friends are going to take up for him. The Post's Desson Howe says Willard is all about Glover.

I think it's safe and accurate to say Crispin Glover has found his home in "Willard." Or his rathole. In this remake of the 1971 cult classic, the nation's weirdest, loopiest actor blends so easily with the rats -- the furry, pink-tailed anti-stars of this nutty flick -- it's beyond uncany. It's a reunion.

MIXED MESSAGES David Ignatius starts with a few jokes making the rounds in the Arab world, including one that suggests the real aim of a war against Iraq is to topple Tony Blair's government. Ignatius' point is that as he navigates the countries in the Middle East, he senses a significant desire to see Saddam Hussein's regime ended. Few people are publicly carrying America's torch on this one, but unlike a decade ago they aren't carrying Hussein's face on protest posters either.

Ignatius says the mood changes when he leaves Europe or the United States, and arrives back in the Middle East. Where Europe sees the crumbling of an old political order, and Americans struggle to make sense of what appears to be a strategically muddled series of justifications for war, in the Arab world there is a growing sense that change is coming. And that it might not be all bad.

Which brings us back to the war that lies just over the horizon. I seem to feel more hopeful about the future when I'm in the Middle East than I do in Europe, or even the United States. Something new is happening here, a process of Arab perestroika that is affecting everyone, from the Syrians to the Saudis.

FLICKERING FLAMES MoveOn continues to demonstrate that the Internet is a powerful mobilizer by promoting a global candlelight vigil for peace, slated for Sunday, March 16, at 7:00 p.m. According to their site, 2,078 vigils have been scheduled in 82 countries. A vigil in Richmond is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Sunday by the 42nd Street tennis courts at Forest Hill Park.

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS A weekend of activism is set to hit Richmond later in March. If you're local, passionate and interested take a gander at the Richmond Independent Media Center's site. If not, we can go spleunking together.

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT Welcome to the Land of 10,000 Hits. Thank you for shopping Buttermilk & Molasses.

JUDY, TAKE A MEMO! Que Sera Sera's Sarah keeps it brief today. I think it was the Dear Hair note that I found compelling. I'm not sure why. I'm also not sure it matters why. So there.

THERE GOES A THIRD RIB. AND A TEARDROP. Get Your War On has two new strips added to the bottom of the segment that caused me to crack two ribs last week. This one follows the carping from Congress to change the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries, because apparently the French are still socialists, don't believe in freedom and aren't allowed to diisagree with U.S. foreign policy.

Office Worker One: You know what the worst thing about Freedom Fries is? It just proves that nobody is taking this shit seriously. FOR FUCK'S FUCKING SAKE, we're about to go to war AGAIN! Would somebody please act like a fucking goddamn grown-up for once?

Office Worker Two: Why, is there something at stake all of a sudden?

A VOICE FROM IRAN Ah, the power of the weblog. "Notes of an Iranian girl" posts observations from Iran, including links to news stories and other weblogs that catch the eye of the diarist.

THE PEACE OF THE WORLD The Post's "War on the Web" series continues with a look at international websites focused on antiwar activities.

SORTING THE BIRDS When mulling over your choices for the Democratic Presidential nomination, you might get confused about their stance on the Iraqi issue. Slate gives us a handy chart, and -- lookit! -- Lieberman and John Edwards are raring to go to war!

THE FREEDOM FROM INFORMATION If you missed it last week, apparently the United States has been bugging the homes of diplomats at the United Nations. All's fair in love and war, you know.

Sometimes, I'm worried more about homeland security than I am about foreign affairs. Here's some key points made by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press' report titled "Homefront Confidential: How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Public's Right to Know" --

• Oct. 5, 2001: The White House narrows the list of congressional leaders entitled to briefings on classified law-enforcement information from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the State, Treasury, Defense, and Justice Departments.

• Oct. 12, 2001: Attorney General John Ashcroft issues a memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act – drafted by his office the previous summer – reversing Clinton-era FOIA policy that allowed government officials to release documents so long as doing so would not cause any "foreseeable harm." Instead, agencies that opt to withhold records "can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend [their] decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis," Ashcroft wrote, in effect discouraging the release of any information unless clearly required by law.

• Nov. 13, 2001: President Bush decrees that suspected terrorists can be tried by secret military tribunals.

• Dec. 10, 2001: President Bush grants the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to classify information.

• Dec. 28, 2001: The White House issues a statement asserting the president's right to withhold any information from Congress he deems necessary for reasons of "foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the executive, or performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

• Feb. 19, 2002: The New York Times reports Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's intentions to disseminate false information to the media through its new Office of Strategic Influence. Rumsfeld eventually closes the office as a result of public outcry but makes a cryptic statement to the press in November indicating he intends to go forward with its misinformation plans.

• April 18, 2002: The Immigration and Naturalization Service orders the names of all INS detainees be kept secret.

I SPY... A LIGHT IN THE SKY Scientists in Berkeley are still culling through billions of data points in their search for intelligent life, and have filtered out 150 bursts of radio noise that might be from another world.

Out of 5 billion bursts of radio noise flowing into more than 4 million computers around the world, Berkeley scientists say they have identified the first 150 "candidate" sources for what just might turn out to be signals from intelligent beings on some distant planet somewhere in the universe.

The scientists will look at the first results of a four-year effort called SETI@home that links volunteer computer-owners into a combined global push to analyze all the radio static that constantly fills the sky, and to seek out any noise that doesn't seem to be merely random.

In the SETI@home project, more than 4,287,000 home computers have been mobilized to work together in a technology called distributed computing that might, the scientists say, one day provide convincing evidence that Earth is not the only place where so-called intelligent life exists.

WELCOME TO AGAPELAND Interested in what the world's religions have to say about the possibility of war against Iraq? The Post gives you the skinny, along with links. Here's a hint: If they believe in a God-inspired Armageddon, they're rooting for war.

YOU HANDSOME DEVIL I'll continue my penchant for those Democratic candidates with silver locks and rugged, good looks today by re-introducing everyone to Senator Joe Biden, the world's smartest man. Except when he's being nailed for plagiarism. Joe's on the foreign relations beat up on Capitol Hill, and he's got a much smarter public spin on terrorism than the current czar.

Biden builds on the idea that we are faced with terrorism that has emerged from a world of borderless states, that al Qaeda and their cousins lose havens when we attack Afghanistan and possibly Iraq, but they don't lose their ability to attack. Think Chicago in the 1920s, not Versaille circa 1919.

Sen. Biden contends the people who wage this borderless war are simply bent on chaos and destruction as a means to disempower the forces trying to extend orderly modernity to regions where such development would threaten power structures that rely on lack of modernity.

Securing against them will require forming international alliances with coordinated strategies for smashing criminal enterprises and organized terrorism and a national defensive strategy that focuses technology not on offensive war weapons but on verifying the security of people and materials crossing our borders.

[Biden] ... gave only a glancing treatment to the Bush administration's approach to the war on terrorism by pointing out that "winning" in Afghanistan has not stopped terrorism, which is steadily increasing around the world.

This concept has been the basis of our opposition to President Bush's lone-wolf elective war with Iraq. Taking out Saddam Hussein and putting a lid on Iraq discounts the reality that the borderless war will continue unabated. It's the borderless war that deserves more attention. It is a much greater threat, globally and here at home, than Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and potentially far more dangerous to our safety and liberty.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN BONNIE BRITAIN Tony Blair gets to appear before the House of Commons regularly for a public grilling (or flaying, depending on the mood). Too bad George Bush doesn't get the same opportunity with Congress. Anyhoo, this week Blair's issues to defend were Iraq and the threatened resignation of Clare Short from his cabinet. He was oddly nonplussed.

The prime minister appeared strangely unbothered. He, figuratively, shrugged his shoulders, smiled with weary resignation and said: "I know, what can I do with her. Sack her and make things worse, or keep her and give you a stick to beat me with?"

OK, he didn't actually say that - but it is certainly what he meant...
His argument was simple - never mind Clare, let's get on with winning this bloody war. And he continued to look strangely unbothered.

Presumably this is the serenity of certainty. He knows exactly what he is going to do.

He's going to push down the UN path to the bitter end, which is in about three or four days' time. Then he is going to war.

And he is going to sack Clare Short. Unless she resigns first, which looks increasingly inevitable.

GUT CHECKS Tom Friedman offers his four gut checks on Iraq today: This is a legitimate war of choice, not necessity. Rebuilding a stable, viable Iraq will be harder than most people think. To do this properly will require national and global unity. And people everywhere generally want a compromise that forces Iraqi compliance without weakening America. I think Friedman is generally right with his feelings. But here's where Friedman strikes the most resonant chord with me today:

My main criticism of President Bush is that he has failed to acknowledge how unusual this war of choice is — for both Americans and the world — and therefore hasn't offered the bold policies that have to go with it. Instead, the president has hyped the threat and asserted that this is a war of no choice, then combined it all with his worst pre-9/11 business as usual: budget-busting tax cuts, indifference to global environmental concerns, a gas-guzzling energy policy, neglect of the Arab-Israeli peace process and bullying diplomacy.

DANCING IN THE FIELD Another plug for another friend, this time the dancer-choreographer who once jumped streams with me. Julie Mayo returned to Richmond recently, and has launched a workshop series for performance artists to come together and perform, critique and learn from each other.

This is The Field — a series of 10 workshops that, according to a promotional postcard, are “designed for choreographers, theater artists, performance artists and composers to meet weekly with other artists, show their works-in-progress, and receive thoughtful, critical feedback.”

In Richmond’s version of The Field, Fieldwork, the workshop sessions that make up the series, is a group of seven dance and theater artists who gather at Orange Door Gallery on Sunday nights through April 13. They show their works in turn and then sit in a circle to discuss and give feedback on each piece. The series culminates in a performance of the completed works April 19.

Choreographer and performer Julie Mayo, who recently moved back to Richmond, participated in Fieldwork in Seattle and San Francisco. She brought the series to Richmond because it had “such a positive influence in my creative life.” Getting outside perspectives on her choreography, Mayo would hear “unexpected reactions that [I] didn’t necessarily intend.” “It was rich,” she says.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN SIBERIA It would be silly to suggest that there is no reason to hold the majority of the 650 prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But it is patently absurd to continue their incarceration indefinately, allowing them no legal recourse. That's exactly what the government intends to do, if yesterday's federal appeals court ruling is any indication.

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the 650 suspected terrorists and Taliban fighters held at a U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have no legal rights in the United States and may not ask courts to review their detentions.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, an important legal victory for the administration in its war on terrorism, means that the detainees can be held indefinitely without access to lawyers or judges.

The attorneys for 16 detainees -- 12 Kuwaitis, two Britons and two Australians -- sought to force the government to explain in court why the men are being held. That motion, known as a writ of habeas corpus, establishes a court's authority over a person in custody.

YEAH, WELL, BUT... IF MARCH 12TH IS YOUR BIRTHDAY ... you are creative and attractive, and have marvelous sense of humor. These traits draw people to you; often you are overwhelmed by invitations, company. Being a Pisces, sometimes you require privacy, time to meditate. You are optimistic, tend to see the "bright side" of situations. Weight control, intake of sugar can be challenges. Before March ends, there may be new romance, addition to family.

HEY, BRAINLESS The Atlantic takes a look at the inner coils of President's Bush's mind this month, and then takes the story online in this interview with journalist Richard Brookhiser about his findings. This is from the lead-in to the Q&A:

Brookhiser assures readers that despite Bush's bumbling lack of speaking ability, he is a reasonably intelligent man and an excellent manager... Bush now directs his team with assured deftness. He asks his staff good questions, listens attentively, sizes people up quickly and accurately, and makes use of an informal, bantering style to diffuse tension and foster camaraderie. He neither micro-manages nor delegates tasks to the point of losing track of what's going on...

What some readers may find less reassuring, however, is the fact that, as Brookhiser explains, Bush's worldview is extremely rigid, circumscribed by the good-versus-evil religious convictions to which he has adhered since his recovery from alcoholism seventeen years ago. "Practically," Brookhiser writes, "Bush's faith means that he does not tolerate, or even recognize, ambiguity: there is an all-knowing God who decrees certain behaviors, and leaders must obey." While this clear-cut belief structure enables him to make split-second decisions and take action with principled confidence, it also means that he is limited by "strictly defined mental horizons.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS The International Criminal Court struck its opening gavel today, minus several countries including the United States, Iraq, China and Israel.

FLOWER POWER Due to the threat of war and an exceptionally late winter, the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., will not reach peak bloom until the day after the conclusion of the 2003 Cherry Blossom Festival. Also known as April 8.

A CHANNEL FOR THE ANGER Egyptian singer Shaaban Abdel-Rahim apparently is giving voice to many in the Middle East with his newest song, filled with invective against the U.S. and Israel. Abdel-Rahim is rather despised by culturally savvy Arabs, but seems to have struck a chord with the masses.

In just a few weeks, the song has spread through the Arab world despite little promotion or publicity. State-owned radio and television stations, which still dominate Arab media, have not played the song, deeming Abdel-Rahim and the phenomenon around him as too low-brow. But a small number of privately owned channels have been far more enthusiastic. In Egypt, Dream TV broadcast the music video of "The Attack on Iraq" four times in a little more than an hour over the weekend. Lebanese watched the video once every two hours on Melody Hits, another private channel that programs its music videos by popular request.

Bootleg copies have flooded the market in Amman. The song blares from downtown stalls and from taxis careering through its jammed streets. One vendor in Amman said he sold 100 hastily made copies of CDs and cassettes each day last week; another said customers snapped up 300 CDs and 80 cassettes just on Friday.

FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION Afghanistan now has a dot.com. Two of them, in fact.

LIVE, FROM BAGHDAD Raed and friends continue to post their observations on life before wartime.

OUCH. I JUST BROKE A GODDAMN RIB. Get Your War On returns from its week at the wake of Fred Rogers in rare form, using bitter, bitter, wry humor to make us feel better about war. Because, you know, if it's good for defense contractors, it's good for all of us. Here's a taste of one of the new GYWO strips:

Office Worker One: Someday, when I'm driving through a reconstructed, democratic Baghdad in my Freedom Car, I will pause and ask, Did the U.S. Government say one true thing in justifying Operation [insert the tough-ass name that we will soon learn here]?

Office Worker Two: And I will look up from counting ballots in Syria to reply, Who fuckin' cares? It worked out, didn't it?

Office Worker One: And I will have to admit: It did indeed. (Then I'll probably have to get out and stop an Iraqi child from lapping up the water dripping from my Freedom Car's muffler. Why are those kids so thirsty?)

GETTING FUNKY DOWN UNDER WOMADelaide has always been the secret cousin of hip music festivals -- the one with a really good record collection and those crazy bell-bottoms and that whacked accent. It's chockful of some of the world's most amazing musicians, and has managed to avoid being pillaged by modern rock. And, as Australia's The Age notes, "WOMADelaide has a habit of offering at least one act that takes everyone by surprise and leaves audiences gasping."

This year, the act that stole the show was Badenya les Freres Coulibaly, an extraordinary group of drummers and dancers from the African country Burkina Faso (previously Upper Volta).

Their magic was artlessly simple. Six men all beating on various percussive instruments and two beautiful women dancing and singing. The rhythmic power of the group, and the excitement created when a multiplicity of drums generate a roar of sound, was exhilarating and irresistible.

The WOMADelaide ambience is friendly and warm, the crowd is eclectic (the old, the young, the alternative and the mainstream), the global food stalls are sensational, and there is always a feeling that God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.

THE DEMOCRATS MIGHT HAVE A FISH Sure, he tilts to the left of the party out of power, but from what I've seen to date Vermont's Howard Dean has more polish on his boots than most of the hacks out stumping for the Democratic nomination. Yesterday, on "Meet the Press," he was poised, articulate, wry and thoughtful -- all in the same breath. And he's pretty darned handsome, which matters these days. Who doesn't want an intellectually honest, stud muffin liberal for President? Hmm?

OH, CANADA You should have forgotten SxSW and made your way to Toronto for Canadian Music Week, which was colder and less predictable than its Austin-based mirror festival. The Toronto Star recaps the week's highlight shows.

NAILED. Kate Sullivan has me so figured out. And we haven't even met. And we don't even rock to the same tunes.

If it weren't for procrastination, I wouldn't ever get anything done. When I'm on deadline, instead of working, I clean my house and do laundry. When my house is messy and I don't want to clean it, I practice guitar. And when I am feeling lazy and don't want to practice guitar or clean, I work on writing articles.

When things are really bad and I don't want to do any of that, I clean my car and get the oil changed.

Blogging is a constant, everyday form of procrastination on Everything.

ANOTHER TAKE ON TORTURE Peter Maass asks a question that is being asked more and more frequently on the op-ed page: Is torture an appropriate tool? It is a question filled at once with nuance and absolutism, rooted in emotionalism, pragmatism and morality. Which means that the answer can be found in any one of those realms.

Maass looks at the torture of Abdul Hakim Murad by the Philippine police in 1995. Broken ribs, cigarette burns to the genitals and near-drowning were among the techniques used to get Murad to speak, and the information he provided prevented an assassination attempt against the Pope and the planned simultaneous hijacking of 11 commercial planes.

There is grounds there to justify torture, perhaps. And yet.

The line between legitimate interrogation and outlawed torture is ill defined, and the reluctance of governments to disclose what they are doing intensifies this murkiness. It is nearly impossible to know whether, in a fetid basement cell in Cairo or Amman or Islamabad or Kabul, a suspected terrorist is having his limbs broken to safeguard against terrorism. And it is just as hard to know whether such deeds, if they are occurring, will enhance long-term national security or fuel a desire for retribution against America.

THINK UNTIL IT HURTS The 5th Annual Edge Question is a series of questions. Hard questions. Questions that might make you wince and jab at your forehead with a felt-tip pen. Questions like, "How do we scale up the number of quality human relationships one person can sustain by many orders of magnitude? In an increasingly connected world, how does one person interact with a hundred thousand, a million or even a billion people?" Questions asked by really smart people, standouts in their fields.

OH MY STARS AND GARTERS At last, at last, at long, long last. Another of the many stellar creations of the master of nervous illustration, Edward Gorey, can be found on the Internet. Visit the unforgettable world of the Gashlycrumb Tinies, where we learn the alphabet the proper way: "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil assaulted by bears." Rejoice. Dance. Find small children and email them the link.

HOW UNFORTUNATE INDEED Brad Siberling's been tapped to turn the amazing children's books by Lemony Snicket into celluloid eye-candy, and Jim Carrey will grow a goatee and practice diabolical laughter for the role of Count Olaf in "A Series of Unfortunate Events," slated for a December 2004 release. If you're in a dreadful mood and hope to make it worse, visit the Lemony Snicket website and learn just how bad life can be.

CULTURE SKATING Jebediah Purdy has it all going for him -- a West Virginia mountain boy who casts a clever eye at the world scene as he wanders from tribal village to Third World urban sprawlzone. Never you mind his Harvard and Yale degrees. He's been embraced by Bill Moyers, and poked in the eye by Salon (which called his first book "intellectual-fogy porn." His newest missive, "Being America: Liberty, Commerce and Violence in an American World," wanders from Beijing to Cairo to Jakarta with Purdy in his element when he lets the subjects of his book speak in their own voices. It's when he tries to translate that he falls short. He should try co-writing his next book with Sarah Vowell.

WITCHY WOMAN Camille Paglia returns to the pages of the journal Arion with an exploration of religion and mysticism in the 1960s.

Tens of thousands of young people in the American sixties drifted or broke away from parents to explore alternative world-views and lifestyles. A minority actually joined communes or cults. These varied in philosophy and regime from the mild to the extreme. The true cults that proliferated in the American sixties and early seventies resemble those of the Hellenistic and imperial Roman eras. Such phenomena are symptoms of cultural fracturing in cosmopolitan periods of rapid expansion and mobility.

THE ONE-EYED MAN SEES NOTHING Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But what about a third time? First there was Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and then North Korea blindsided the administration with their own (strongly erratic) ambitions. Now, U.S. officials color themselves startled at the ambitious pace of Iran's nuclear program, which so far has remained inside of the paint-by-numbers rulebook of the International Atomic Energy Agency.