I can't help thinking that that Englishman with the double-barelled name must be on holiday, because Kofi Annan has just made another almost unbelievably thick-headed blunder. He has forced Detlev Mehlis water down his report on the Hariri assassination by removing the names of five high-ranking Syrians from it. He did that because, as the Jerusalem Post puts it: he "was concerned that the harsh report could cause political instability in Syria, perhaps even leading to an overthrow of the Assad regime, and thus preferred a watered-down version of the report." The world's rules for this kind of thing are the same for big organisations as they are for little ones - you mess with this kind of document at your peril. It's made worse in Annan's case because his spokesman just a few days ago promised the report would not be tampered with.

The English of Simon Schama's piece about A Master in the Making, a Rubens exhibition which opens on Wednesday at the National Gallery in London, is as lushly coloured as the paintings he describes. Schama's such an accomplished writer that it's almost pointless looking for good bits to lift - you'll start at the first paragraph and get carried, unable to quit, all the way to the end.

On the way, you'll admire this: "There's something airless about a show conceived and executed from a place so deeply internal to the academy of connoisseurs that you can practically smell the Chardonnay."

Perhaps this: "Sent by the Duke of Mantua with a gift package for the King of Spain and his favourite, the Duke of Lerma (the usual thing - crystal vases full of rare perfume, horses so glossy and well-bred they travelled inside their own carriages, original paintings and copies), Rubens endured the nightmare of unpacking the art to find it half destroyed by damp. The Mantuan minister, who didn't much care for this wet-behind-the-ears envoy displacing him, suggested he rush off a landscape or two the way Flemings did. Instead Rubens painted the Heraclitus and Democritus included in this show, not just to display his philosophical credentials but - since one scowls and the other laughs at the twists of fate and follies of men - perhaps also as a wry piece of autobiography. The artist who one day would enjoy his reputation as the prince of painters and the painter of princes already knew how to handle power."

And this: "Rubens' hand flies, but the works are in the best sense weighty, whether conveying the agonising upward heave of the cross - all sweat and raw sinew - or the burden of the crucified Christ dropping on to the blood-red caped figure of John the Evangelist."

But I've narrowed the field hardly at all. You'll find a lot more to admire.

Victor Davis Hansen seems to have been stretching himself a little thin recently, perhaps because he has a new book on the Peloponnesian Wars coming out this month. The result has been that one or two of his more recent columns showed signs of hasty preparation, if I can put it like that. However, he makes some interesting points in this one, published in the National Review, which sets out to show that the Iraqi insurgency is well on its way to ending, not with a bang, but with one of those famous Eliot whimpers.

I do feel sorry for the Cubans. They've taken a terrible beating from hurricanes this year, but because of the American blockade, we hear almost nothing of their suffering. Wilma looks as if it is going to affect the country's four westernmost provinces this weekend, as Granma details. Cuba is small enough to be able to deal with getting people out of the way of hurricanes, and helping them recover from hurricanes, at a personal sort of level. The country has had lots of practice and has very strong civil defence mechanisms which are brought into play. Despite their poverty, the Cubans are better than their big neighbour, the US, at minimising the damage. There is also one tiny sliver of a silver lining...the provinces that will be most affected this time (their cattle-raising areas) are also those which have been suffering from the effects of a many-year drought, so the rain will be welcome.

A British reader has pointed out, in a commment on yesterday's post, that Darcus Howe, who was involved in a verbal punch-up with Joan Rivers on BBC-4 yesterday, has given the Guardian his side of the story this morning: "Rivers kicked off. She was bored with race; she's interested only in people. Why don't we just love each other, inter marry, just be friends? I found this rather odd from a white American who had lived through civil rights, black power and, latterly, New Orleans."

Mr Howe seems to be asking us to believe that the mere fact of having been alive in America through the civil rights movement, the black power movement and the New Orleans disaster, disqualifies Ms Rivers from wanting to be friends. He accused Ms Rivers of being a racist without her having said anything at all that might have suggested such a thing.

What makes people delighted that Joan Rivers took this man on is that they see Mr Howe's behaviour as typical of some black people who are outspoken about race - they no longer bother with logical, reasoned arguments. Their assumption is that white people are racist unless and until they can prove otherwise, as if racism were a type of original sin. And if the accusations they make against individuals aren't supported by truth or logic...well, the failure of one specific doesn't really matter so much because white individuals are guilty in a broad sense. It is an infuriating attitude, one that has pretty much stopped dialogue in its tracks in many places, including Bermuda.

Mr Howe doesn't get into any of that, so to many readers, his article is simply bumbling and evasive.

Haaretz's analysis of the UN's Hariri assassination findings suggests that Bashar Assad had three options. "The United Nations probe on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri has left Bashar Assad facing three less than favorable options: arresting, questioning and indicting the suspects; saying he didn't know that an assassination plot was being hatched in his regime and announcing that an underground cell had planned the assassination; or denying everything and saying the entire investigation is a political conspiracy engineered by the United States. Syria, as expected, has chosen the third option.

"Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah said Friday that the UN report contains only stories propagated by forces hostile to Syria, has no decisive evidence or credible witnesses, and is part of a 'major conspiracy'. These declarations make no mention of the commitment Assad made in a CNN interview, in which he said he would view anyone involved in the Hariri assassination as a traitor."

The Guardian's Victor Keegan weighs Google's efforts to digitise books and make them available on the internet and concludes that the publishers who object are the villains of the piece. "The prospect of having an electronic wonder in the form of a virtual Library of Alexandria, in which anyone anywhere in the world can access almost anything ever written in books (as long as they are online) is just brilliant.

"It could increase the knowledge of practically everyone willing to learn, cut down the years of research needed to do a PhD, and may even provide a legitimate reason for continuing improvements in our school and college examination results. Among the institutions that have already agreed to take part are the universities of Oxford, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library.

"There is no problem digitising books that are out of copyright - which could lead to a boom in the rapidly expanding print-on-demand industry. But publishers are very angry about Google scanning books that are still covered by copyright protection, even if they are out of print and even though Google has offered an opt-out clause for authors and publishers not wanting to be part of it."

I'm a sucker for a Terry Teachout article anyway, but this Commentary piece is a classic of the slightly-out-of-left-field stuff that is his signature. It's writing of a kind that makes him one of the broadest and best commentators around about matters cultural. He's aking why literate songwriters seem to have faded from the scene. The answer is at least in part contained in this quote from New York-based cabaret singer Mary Foster Conklin:

"I got frustrated with standard cabaret because my perspective didn't really contain a shred of what you'd call old-movie romance...I don't do all-Gershwin shows, or little stories about wanting to come to New York and be an actress. I sing ballads for grownups - ballads about reality, about now."

But there's a lot more - a lot more well worth taking the time to read.

Not even Hitler could get it wrong all the time, apparently. The Times reveals that the thousands of pictures he commissioned of art treasures in Germany and elsewhere in occupied Europe are sometimes our only record of what was destroyed. "Thousands of colour photographs commissioned by Adolf Hitler are to be released on the internet tomorrow, bringing back to life many of Germany's lost art treasures. Hitler, worried about damage being wrought by Allied bombers, ordered photographers to make records of frescoes in churches, monasteries and palaces across Germany and occupied Europe. The decision, made after the German defeat at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43, suggests that even Hitler sensed that the war could no longer be won. About 60 per cent of the photographed church art was destroyed in air raids."

God bless Joan Rivers - she took on one of those mindless race-baiters on a talk show on BBC-4 yesterday, and argued him to a sputtering, apologetic standstill. Mind you, as the Guardian says, "She has a tongue sharp enough to cut diamonds...Even so, few could have predicted that inviting American comedian Joan Rivers and British broadcaster Darcus Howe into the cuddly surroundings of the Midweek studio would result in a spat fierce enough to have Radio 4 listeners spluttering into their teacups."

The Independent was lucky enough to have scheduled an interview with her after the show, and so got a privileged kind of perspective on a much-reported story. The sharp-tongued Ms Rivers told their guy: "I bet nobody has come back to him like that before, but you reach a point in life when you just have to say, 'Stop it.' This man had to be stopped, and I stopped him, this disgusting man who has written a stupid movie about what a great father he was, even though he didn't see his son for the first eight years of his life. Gah!"

Thne Independent says "She is furious as she recounts this but, as ever, it is not long before the fury becomes distilled and she turns it funny.

"'I'm racist?' she mock-shrieks. 'How can that even be possible? I'm playing Blackpool, aren't I? Not Whitepool.' Her grin gradually becomes malevolent. 'And anyway, I was a friend of Michael Jackson's back when he was black...'"

The great Pooh-Bah of defence writers, John Keegan, sets a puzzle for readers this morning - who was it who made this speech in front of a court? "I would know by what power I am called hither... and when I know [by] what lawful authority, I shall answer. Remember, I am your king, your lawful king, and what sins you bring upon your heads, and the judgment of God upon this land, think well upon it, I say, think well upon it, before you go further from one sin to a greater; therefore let me know by what lawful authority I am seated here, and I shall not be unwilling to answer. In the meantime I shall not betray my trust." Go to this Telegraph piece for the answer. Keegan comments: To try a head of state always tests the legal ingenuity of a jurisdiction to the utmost. Everyday trials are conducted in the name of the state, the Republic in France, or its constituting power, the People in the United States, or its head, in Britain, the Crown. In almost any system, therefore, an accused head of state may refuse to acknowledge the authority of the court..."

In the case of the gentleman cited above, the court chose to simply insist that it recognised its own jurisdiction and carried on. The accused was sentenced to death on a Saturday, and executed the following Tuesday.

During a Congressional hearing a day or so ago, Paul Volcker, who investigated the UN's Oil-for-Food scandal, denied a Congressman's claim that there was a culture of corruption in the UN. There was some corruption at the UN, he said, but it was not common enough to be described as a culture. What was a culture in the body, he said, was inaction. This morning, the New York Times reports that that tendency towards inaction is thwarting correction of sexual abuse of local women by UN peacekeepers abroad. "The United Nations has developed procedures to curb sexual abuse by peacekeepers, but the measures are not being put into force because of a deep-seated culture of tolerating sexual exploitation, an independent review reported Tuesday.

"'A 'boys will be boys' attitude in peacekeeping missions breeds tolerance for exploiting and abusing local women,' said the report, by Refugees International, a Washington-based advocacy group. 'This attitude is slowly changing, but the UN must go beyond strong rhetoric and ensure that the resources needed to change this culture are available.'"

The Washington Times publishes an article today that reveals that: "A month after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the Gulf Coast, Louisiana's congressional delegation has presented Washington with a request for $250 billion in federal reconstruction funds for Louisiana alone. That's more than $50,000 per person in the state...In addition, one's compassion and generosity is tested when one realizes that the Louisiana lawmakers have stuffed the 440-page bill with numerous items that have nothing to do with hurricane relief. This pork barrel spending includes: $120 million for a laboratory facilities and equipment at the Southern Regional Research Center, $35 million for the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, $8 million for direct financial assistance to alligator farmers, $25.5 million to complete the Sugarcane Research Laboratory, $12 million for the restoration of wildlife management areas and $28 million for the restoration and rehabilitation of forestlands.

"The Louisiana legislators...ask for $150 million for small business loans fund and tax breaks on top of $50 billion in block grants. But they also ask for lost sales revenues for many commercial entities. For instance, they request $27 million for lost timber-sales revenues from the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area and $250,000 for dairy-cattle losses of dairy producers along with $11 million for livestock losses. The Louisianans also request $715 million for diverse military construction projects, including $160 million to implement the 2005 recommendations of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission related to the Federal city development in Algiers, La...The delegation requests a gigantic budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. The request for $40 billion is 10 times the Army Corps' annual budget for the entire nation. It is also 16 times the amount necessary to protect New Orleans from a category five hurricane."

As President Mugabe of Zimbabwe spent his time yesterday calling President Bush and Prime Minister Blair "international terrorists bent on world domination like Adolf Hitler", a Zimbabwean judge ruled that this ugly little thug and his henchmen "threatened hungry peasants with starvation if they failed to back his ruling Zanu PF party" at the last election there.

Right up there with that crime, though, is the offence committed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation in inviting the little monster to address its 60th anniversary meeting in the first place, as if he were somehow worthy of respect in the field of food and agriculture. The UN's taste for giving voice to an international underclass that feels no responsibility to respect reason or truth in its behaviour may be the most significant crime against humanity of our day, bearing out, as it does, the apocalyptic vision of out-of-control authority George Orwell wrote about in 1984.

The UN Security Council is thinking about extending the probe into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, if its investigator's upcoming report on the slaying leaves any questions unanswered, a senior diplomat has told Israel's Haaretz. The newspaper says "The probe's lead investigator, Detlev Mehlis, is expected to turn in his report on the killing of Rafik Hariri by the end of this week. The Lebanese opposition has accused Syria of playing a role in Hariri's February 14 death in a car bombing that killed 20 other people, allegations Damascus repeatedly has denied.

Meantime, DEBKAfile says Mehlis has just fired the inquiry team's Lebanese spokesman Najib Farij because of leaks to the Lebanese media about the Syrian interior minister Ghazi Kenaan's reported suicide. Whether there's a connection or not is a matter for speculation, but DEBKAfile thinks it is now in possession of the main points of Mehlis's report. "We can reveal here that barring last-minute developments, the report will focus on five main points:

1. The Hariri assassination was not a hastily concocted operation but planned down to the last detail over many months.

2. It was plotted and executed by security and intelligence bodies or groups - not individuals.

3. There are pointers to possible Syrian and Lebanese intelligence involvement, but no legal proofs.

4. The suspected source of the orders to stage the assassination is to be found at high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese levels.

5. Since the report contains findings rather than proofs, the UN prosecutor will request more time to complete his investigation with focus on the Syrian role.

The New York Times should fire reporter Judith Miller, says Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher. "It's not enough that Judith Miller, we learned Saturday, is taking some time off and 'hopes' to return to the New York Times newsroom. As the newspaper's devastating account of her Plame games - and her own first-person sidebar - make clear, she should be promptly dismissed for crimes against journalism, and her own newspaper. And Bill Keller, executive editor, who let her get away with it, owes readers, at the minimum, an apology instead of merely hailing his paper's long-delayed analysis and saying that readers can make of it what they will...

"Saturday's Times article, without calling for Miller's dismissal, or Keller's apology, made the case for both actions in this pithy, frank, and brutal assessment: 'The Times incurred millions of dollars in legal fees in Ms. Miller's case. It limited its own ability to cover aspects of one of the biggest scandals of the day. Even as the paper asked for the public's support, it was unable to answer its questions.' It followed that paragraph with Keller's view: 'It's too early to judge.'

"Like Keller says, make of it what you will. My view: Miller did far more damage to her newspaper than did Jayson Blair, and that's not even counting her WMD reporting, which hurt and embarrassed the paper in other ways."

Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Institute scholar and editor of the Middle East Quarterly, says in the Wall Street Journal this morning what many other commentators have said: "Cameras and reporters do not lie, but they do not always give a full perspective. Political brinkmanship devoid of context breeds panic. Beheadings and blood sell copy, but do not accurately reflect Iraq. Political milestones give a glimpse of the often-unreported determination that Iraqis and longtime visitors see daily. Bombings and body bags are tragic. But they do not reflect failure. Rather, they represent the sacrifice that both Iraqis and Americans have made for security and democracy. The referendum, refugee return, real estate and investment show much more accurately - and objectively - Iraq's slow but steady progress."

Paul Wolfowitz, once derided as a fundamentally empty-headed neo-con putbull-for-Bush, seems to have been impressing people around the world with his intelligent presidency of the World Bank. In China, People's Daily recalls this morning that: "US decision to nominate him as candidate for the World Bank's presidency led to opposition from some parts of the world. The nomination was approved by the bank's board after diplomatic efforts by the US and Wolfowitz himself.

"Since taking office, however, Wolfowitz has worked to establish his image as a strong advocate of the World Bank's anti-poverty mission, rather than a tool for US values. He lobbied hard for increased aid and debt relief for poor countries and reduction of trade barriers. He defied proposals by some to slash the bank's support to what they called 'middle-income countries' such as China. He travelled extensively to donor nations, to secure smooth co-operation, and to developing countries, to know local people's needs at first hand...

"Responding to the question whether he would reorient the bank and turn it into an instrument to promote US-style democracy, he said there are issues such as the accountability of government which support economic development that some people might say are political. Development should be given a meaning in a broader context, he said. 'The mission of the World Bank is to reduce poverty and to promote economic development and that's really what I want to stress,' Wolfowitz said. 'When it comes back to the test of whether we (the World Bank) are doing our job or not, it's whether we're promoting development, not whether we're promoting democracy.'"

Almost none of the mainstream media stories about the Iraq constitution vote on Saturday, that I have been able to find, have compared the level of insurgent violence this time with the level of violence that was brought to bear on the January election - something that seems to me a key indication of the strength of the insurgency. Various figures were given by blogs yesterday, but this morning, estimates seem to be higher, ranging from 38, down from 347 given in a wire service story, slugged as developing, to this estimate in the Austin-American Statesman of 89 on Saturday and 347 in January. It is clear, wherever the total ends up, that the level of insurgent violence was considerably lower this time around.

The New York Sun's editorial applauds the fact that the outcome of the referendum seems likely to be support for the constitution, but says "Even a rejection of the constitution, because of the Sunni turnout, would not be bad news for Iraq. While in sports winning may be almost everything, in democracy taking part is really what counts. By voting the Sunnis have tied themselves to the democratic process. A democratic referendum involves a yes or no option. Only in dictatorships like Iraq under Saddam could a referendum only yield one result. Respected Iraqi democrats, such as Nibras Kazimi, who writes on these pages, have recommended rejecting the constitution, warning it risks giving too much power to clerics. If the constitution is rejected, democracy will continue. Elections will take place as planned in December, and the new parliament will simply start writing a constitution again. And if it the constitution is passed, the agreement made means amendments can be passed dealing with these concerns."

Poets laureate, under pressure to commemorate one event or another, have written some pretty self-conscious, often transparently hypocritical rubbish over the years. But Britain's poet laureate, Andrew Motion, has written not only quite a successful piece of poetry to mark the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar, but one that expresses real feeling. It's published this morning at the end of this story in the London Times.

Are you culturally competent? Here's the way it seems to be going in some American universities, according to Norman Levitt, professor of mathematics at Rutgers, who was writing in Spiked Online. You're culturally incompetent, and therefore unfit to teach, for any of the followiong transgressions:

"Suggesting that affirmative action might conflict with other standards of justice and equity, or that opponents of affirmative action are not ipso facto Klansmen waiting for their white sheets to come back from the laundry;

"Taking issue with the claim that Malcolm X was a paragon of humanitarianism and political genius;

"Disputing the wisdom of feminist theory as regards the social constructedness of gender;

"Asserting that the early demographic history of the Americas is more accurately revealed by scientific anthropology than by the Native American folklore and myth celebrated by tribal militants;

"Expressing doubts that 'queer theory' should be made the epicenter of literary studies.

"Likewise, to maintain that hiring, retention and promotion within the university should focus on the traditional academic virtues of the scholar, rather than assigning enormous importance to the candidate's race, ethnicity, sex or sexuality, would banish one permanently from the culturally competent elect. To deny that feminist theorists should call all the shots on matters having to do with sexual harassment would be an act of self-immolation."

For some, it may be a little strong for Sunday morning fare, but I thought Dr Theodore Dalrymple's article in the National Review on the meaning of beheading was rather tasty. "We should never forget that to commit barbarity in the name of righteousness," he says, "is one of the greatest joys known to man - or at least to many men - and not just to Islamists, though at the moment it is they alone who have the courage of their barbarity, and rejoice publicly in it...

"...The very terms of the debate are the most significant thing about it, and demonstrate the lack of, as well as the burning need for, an Islamic Enlightenment. For the assumption behind the debate is that the answer to the question, 'Can people taken more or less at random, who are however members of a class or nation perceived to be an enemy of Islam, rightly be beheaded?' is to be found somewhere in the Koran or the Hadith, and nowhere else.

"Original thought is unnecessary, since the answer to every question has already been given, if only we are diligent enough to find it in irreproachable texts. If the Koran or the Hadith says that such beheading is right, it is right; if it says it is wrong, it is wrong. If Mohammed says we can cut off people's heads whenever we choose, then we can; if he doesn't, then we can't. Compared with this, even the most literal-minded Bible fundamentalist in the West lives, de facto at least, like the child of Voltaire, for even such a fundamentalist probably wouldn't dare justify decapitation as a policy by reference to David and Goliath. And if by any chance he did, he would rightly be laughed at by his fellow citizens."

The New York Times is making a great meal out of Judith Miller's first-person account of her appearance before the Grand Jury in the Valerie Plame probe. My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room is the headline on her long piece. Public editor Byron Calame says he'll write a column about it on October 23. I look forward to reading it. I hope he notes that Miller's account is about as exciting as watching paint dry. And I hope he notes that the Times's positioning of this case as a grand journalistic cause in which they all galloped about on white steeds is about as convincing as a cheap toupee.

Sir Ian Blair says he may soon be forced to resign in the wake of the shooting of an innocent Brazilian man on the London Underground, according to this London Times piece. "Britain's top policeman told a private gathering of business leaders and officials last week that he might have to go 'fairly soon' over the killing...Describing the pressure he faced over the botched operation, he said: 'Where does resignation end? Of course, it might end fairly soon.'"

So it should. He should have resigned not very many moments after he found out his men had screwed it up.

Another very British story appears this morning in the Independent. Cartoonist Donald McGill, whose naughty Brighton and Southend postcards were the delight of the British seaside-going classes for half a century, was buried, apparently, in an unmarked grave. Shock. Horror. Upright Brits are offering to mark the grave properly themselves. His relatives are hurriedly distancing themselves from the decisions that resulted in this state of affairs. Curtains are being moved in windows long as still as graves.

What is interesting, though, is to rediscover Donald McGill, nearly 50 years after his death. All those of a certain age have his style imprinted on their minds as if it were some kind of primal icon. George Orwell loved him. In an essay, he referred to a first impression of overpowering vulgarity. "This is quite apart from the ever-present obscenity, and apart also from the hideousness of the colours. They have an utter lowness of mental atmosphere which comes out not only in the nature of the jokes but, even more, in the grotesque, staring, blatant quality of the drawings. The designs, like those of a child, are full of heavy lines and empty spaces, and all the figures in them, every gesture and attitude, are deliberately ugly, the faces grinning and vacuous, the women monstrously paradied, with bottoms like Hottentots.

"Your second impression, however, is of indefinable familiarity. What do these things remind you of? What are they so like? In the first place, of course, they remind you of the barely different post cards which you probably gazed at in your childhood. But more than this, what you are really looking at is something as traditional as Greek
tragedy, a sort of sub-world of smacked bottoms and scrawny mothers-in-law which is a part of Western European consciousness."

It's one of the peculiar little secrets of British civilisation, that these conservative, uptight (in the first half of the 20th Century, anyway) people would have such a strong taste for this kind of towering, monumental vulgarity. They do, though...you can find traces of it everywhere in British life.

McGill was prosecuted, in the 1950s, for obscenity. You can see some of the cartoons that got him into trouble on this BBC Radio 4 page, and have fun speculating about the workings of the tiny minds that were sufficiently offended by these rather jolly and harmless little bits of silliness to take him to court.

McGill, incidentally, was also a powerful cartoonist in the service of his country - you can see some of his Great War propaganda work on this page, along with examples of the work of other British cartoonists.