Col. Austin Bay, longtime contributor to PJM and the co-author of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War, has a new book out titled Ataturk, Lessons in Leadership from the Greatest General of the Ottoman Empire. As Austin says during our interview, “You can make the case that Ataturk was really the 20th century’s most successful revolutionary. It certainly wasn’t Vladimir Lenin, it wasn’t Mao Tse-tung, it wasn’t Ho Chí Minh. It wasn’t Gandhi. I think it was Ataturk. It’s not that his legacy is all settled inside contemporary Turkey, because there are moderate Islamists that are testing that secular legacy of Ataturk. But he certainly established what has grown into a modern state.”

Don’t miss Austin discussing Ataturk on the C-Span2 channel this weekend. C-Span2 is covering the Texas Book Festival, and is scheduled to run the following panel at 4:00 PM eastern on Sunday:

4-5pm ET: Panel on the Arab Spring with Austin Bay, “Ataturk,” Robin Wright, “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World,” and James Zogby, “Arab Voices.”

In the meantime, click below to listen to our interview:

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(21 minutes long; 20MB file size. Want to download instead of streaming? Right click here to download this show to your hard drive. Or right click here to download the 6 MB lo-fi edition.

If your browser/Internet connection balks at the Flash player above and/or downloading the audio, click on the player below, or click here to be taken to YouTube, for an audio-only YouTube clip.  Between one of those versions, you should find a format that plays on your system.

For any of our recent podcasts at the PJM Lifestyle blog, start here and keep scrolling.

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At the Lifestyle blog, I have a fun interview with Rob Long of Ricochet, National Review, and numerous television sitcoms, including a little-known cult hit called Cheers, recorded while Rob was driving up to northern California this past weekend.

Among the topics discussed:

• The CEO of Starbucks has called for an end to partisan rancor. Given that the price of a monthly Ricochet membership is tied to the price of grande latte at the flagship Starbucks in Seattle, does this signal a moratorium on new podcasts?
• What is it like for a conservative working in Hollywood?
• Was Cheers a liberal TV show?
• Is Los Angeles now the most puritanical city on the earth?
• Is living — and dining well — the best revenge against the puritan left?
• Is TV’s small screen shrinking President Obama’s stature?
• And more!

30 minutes long, tune in here to listen.

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Armageddon, now in handy, portable, MP3 form.

As Mark Steyn writes in the introduction to his new book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, just out today from Regnery Publishing:

Nobody writes a doomsday tome because they want it to come true. From an author’s point of view, the apocalypse is not helpful: the bookstores get looted and the collapse of the banking system makes it harder to cash the royalty check. But Cassandra’s warnings were cursed to go unheeded, and so it seems are mine. Last time ’round, I wrote that Europe was facing a largely self-inflicted perfect storm that threatened the very existence of some of the oldest nation-states in the world. My warning proved so influential that America decided to sign up for the same program but supersized. Heigh-ho.

As  I said to Mark at the top of our 20 minute interview this morning, I received a copy of his book from his publicist on Wednesday, the Dow Jones dropped 512 points on Thursday, and S&P shorted America’s credit rating on Friday.

Now that’s a publicity campaign.

Mark discusses what H.G. Wells’ Victorian-era Time Traveler would think about life amongst the “Eloi” of the 21st century. He offers his take on Bloomberg.com’s presumably unintentionally hilarious headline yesterday, “Geithner Says European Nations Must Get ‘Fiscal House’ in Order.” And he’ll answer the question that’s been on Thomas Friedman’s mind in recent weeks — “Can Greeks Become Germans?”

All this and much more of the most fun you’ll have contemplating the Spenglerian collapse of a nation near you. (And watch this space for a transcript of the interview, hopefully online tomorrow. UPDATE: Transcript added here.)

Click here to listen:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(21 minutes long; 19MB file size. Want to download instead of streaming? Right click here to download this week’s show to your hard drive. Or right click here to download the 6 MB lo-fi edition. And for any of our recent podcasts at the new PJM Lifestyle blog, start here and keep scrolling.)

Update (11:59 PM PDT): A couple of people have complained of difficulties with the Flash player above and/or downloading the audio. Click below on the player below, or click here to be taken to YouTube, for an audio-only YouTube clip.  Between one of those versions, you should find a format that plays on your system.

In the meantime, welcome those clicking in from:

• Instapundit.com
• Hot Air.com
• Ace of Spades.com
• Power Line
• Small Dead Animals
• The Brothers Judd
• Steyn Online
• And the Pajamas homepage.

Update (8/9/11): Transcript of interview begins on next page.

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Over at the new PJM Lifestyle blog, I have an interview with Glenn Reynolds to discuss the state of the DIY culture that he explored in An Army of Davids, and why it’s progressing, while old media, in the form of Hollywood and the recording industry is regressing in quality. Plus a look at the British phone hacking scandal, the state of the 2012 election, and much more. Click here to listen.

Note: No puppies were blended in the making of this interview.

I think.

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Taken from this week’s edition of PJM Political, I interview Gary Bruce, the author of the new book from Oxford University Press, The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi. In this 19-minute long interview, Bruce, an associate professor of history at University of Waterloo in Ontario explains the inner workings of the secret police of the former East Germany in the 60th anniversary year of their founding. He’ll discuss researching in their labyrinthian Kafka-esque archives,  their complex web of informants, and the uneasy coexistence their surviving former members have with the now unified Germany.

Click here to listen.

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Duane Lester of All American Blogger and Radio For Conservatives recently interviewed me about the history of Ed Driscoll.com, a topic I know just a little bit about. It’s an hour-long podcast; tune in here if you’d like to listen.

(Incidentally, greetings from 30,000 feet, as this and the last few blog posts were delivered via American Airlines’ onboard Wi-Fi system.)

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Noel Sheppard writes:

Since CNBC’s Rick Santelli first suggested a Chicago Tea Party to protest President Obama’s plans to “stimulate” the economy and bailout homeowners through unrestrained government spending, organized demonstrations have been occurring across the fruited plain. In fact, as Glenn Reynolds reported moments ago, there’s one happening today in Cincinnati.

Unfortunately, unless you frequent conservative websites, you’d have no idea that such events were being staged.

Of course–because the modern job of the MSM is largely to keep news out, not let it in. Or like the Swift Vets, the John Edwards scandal and Charles Freeman, debate stories on the op-ed pages that the general public is familiar with thanks to blogs and new media, even though MSM’s news departments never bothered to report them.

Related: “Nice To See Kathleen Parker Knows What Is The Cause Of The Demise Of Newspapers.”

Update: Trust me, if it was 2003, and/or there was a Republican in the White House and/or this was an ANSWER-organized protest, this photo would be all over the MSM. On the other hand, as Glenn Reynolds writes, “Yeah, it’s kind of cool the way people are sending me coverage in realtime via Blackberry and cellphone. Somebody should write a book about this phenomenon…” Heh, indeed.™

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As we’ve discussed numerous times around here, when states go from red, or even purple, to hard core blue–residents and businesses vote with their feet. (Even in the big blue states overseas.)

Ed Morrissey’s latest post explores similar ground — and it focuses on a state (New Jersey) whose fiscal and gubernatorial woes were the subject of one of our very first podcasts.

Update: This comment underneath Ed’s post crystallizes the opinions I’ve heard from several of my friends and family still in New Jersey.

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For a sneak preview of today’s PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio, check out the podcast of the blogger round-table recorded immediately after Tuesday night’s debate, featuring:

• PJM Political host Steve Green–fresh off his usual soiree into debate drunkblogging, plus:
• James Lileks.
• Glenn Reynolds.
• Jennifer Rubin.
• Produced by your humble narrator and multimedia maven.

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Austin Bay interviews Steve Green, Glenn Reynolds, Jennifer Rubin, and–live from Denver International Airport–James Lileks. In a half-hour interview recorded by yours truly earlier today, they look back at the then just recently announced Sarah Palin pick by John McCain, Barack Obama’s speech last night, and the gestalt of the Democratic Convention in Denver.

>The PJM Political All-Stars: That Was The Week That Was” href=”http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-pjm-political-all-stars-that-was-the-week-that-was/”>Tune in here to listen!

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Ten minutes of video, 55-minutes of satellite radio, 30-minutes of podcasting, and all for the price of your broadband connection; just another week here at Ed Driscoll.com.

Seriously–be sure to check out the latter two items: Steve Green energetically ties together the disparate elements of this week’s PJM Political, and Austin Bay interviews General David Petraeus, who phoned in from Baghdad.

(For any podcasting boffins in the audience, here’s some gear talk: because of the poor phone connection, Gen. Petraeus initially sounded more like a call from here until I applied a massive amount of Izotope’s RX audio restoration plug-in, followed by compressing the daylights out of the recording with their Ozone mastering plug-in.)

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If you haven’t stopped by yet, this week’s PJM Political features:

Jonah Goldberg and Hugh Hewitt discuss CNN’s Virtual Reality during last Wednesday’s GOP YouTube Debate. Also on the show:

Host Bill Bradley discusses the surprising surges of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee.

Mary Katharine Ham explains how she made the leap from the newspaper to new media.

James Lileks uncovers the Huckabee/Hanna-Barbera connection.

Joe Mathieu tells Pajamas’ Austin Bay what makes the POTUS ’08 Channel tick.

Produced by Ed Driscoll.

Tune in here to listen!

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In case you missed it, yesterday’s show on XM satellite radio’s POTUS ’08 channel is available for downloading here. Pretty nifty line-up, too:

Join host Bill Bradley for thoughts on yesterday’s GOP YouTube/CNN debate, plus:

Pajamas CEO Roger L. Simon and Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee interview Sen. Fred Thompson regarding the future of America’s War On Terror.

Should Thompson not get the nomination, Ed Morrissey and Duane Patterson (producer of The Hugh Hewitt Show) discuss his chances as a GOP vice presidential nominee.

Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith discuss the upcoming Supreme Court case involving the Second Amendment with Robert Levy of the CATO Institute.

Liz Stephans and Scott Baker of Breitbart.TV on the role of YouTube and viral online video in the 2008 presidential election.

Produced by Ed Driscoll.

For extended versions of each of today’s segments, and the video of the Thompson interview don’t miss this week’s PJM Political “Director’s Cut Interviews.”

For podcasting techies wondering what I used to record the segments with Liz and Scott, and the previous segments from the last two weeks’ shows all recorded earlier this month from Blog World in Las Vegas, I simply used my trusty Samson Zoom H4 Handy Recorder (which has a pair of pro-style XLR jacks, visible in the photo that accompanies the Videomaker review), a pair of Shure SM58 mics, and a pair of tabletop mic stands. The Zoom recorder uses an SD card, and an 2-gig sized card provides about two hours of audio, which can quickly be ported over to a PC’s hard drive and then into your DAW program of choice for editing and mixdown.

I threw them all into a suitcase before heading to Vegas just as a lark, but I was astounded at how clean the audio was, even with the roar of Vegas Convention Center crowd all around, which is why I ended up doing so many interviews there. The trick, I think, is the Shure SM58s. There’s a reason why so many rock groups use them on-stage and on live recordings–their cardioid input pattern makes them great at focusing the loudest sounds (which normally should be the person talking/singing/playing into them) and de-emphasizing the background noise.

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Bill Bradley, the host of Pajamas’ PJM Political on XM’s POTUS ’08 channel, has some thoughts on the GOP debate on CNN, in a podcast we recorded immediately after the debate aired on Wednesday night.

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You watched their show, seen their clips from the candidates–now hear how they do it, their thoughts on the YouTube phenomenon and the role DIY video will play in the 2008 presidential channel, as Scott Baker and Liz Stephans of Breitbart.TV sit down with me for a 15-minute audio interview recorded live at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas.

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Well, it’s not that new a podcast–I actually recorded this last December, just as Tech Central Station was transitioning away from podcasting back towards emphasizing traditional print articles. But I didn’t want this interview with author Paul Kengor and his book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism to be abandoned entirely, so I’m sharing it here, as a sort of late summer rerun. While there are a few questions near the end of my interview with the author tied to the then-recent mid-term elections, most of the material discussed is pretty timeless stuff: how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War–and spent much of his adult life preparing for the job.

27 minutes, 33 seconds in length, 25.2 MB file size, and no iPod required–virtually any PC with a broadband connection can download and play a podcast. So click here to listen!

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As I’ve written before, the past 25 years have seen a quiet revolution in home music recording, that’s right in line with the growth of other “Army of Davids” technologies that dramatically empower individuals. In 1982, the breakthrough product that made home recording possible was the cassette four-track recorder. These weren’t one half of the eight-track deck that you had in your ’77 Chevy Vega; they used an ordinary stereo audio cassette, but played that cassette in only one direction, so that there were now four individual, synchronized tracks to record on. You could put a drum machine (another newly designed product) on one track, a bass guitar on another, an electric guitar on the third and a vocal on the fourth, and voila! Instant DIY song. (Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska album was home-brewed using a cassette four-track machine.)

But most musicians wanted to do more than that–and these days, companies such as Boston-based Cakewalk offer products that give the average home musician as many tracks as his PC’s memory and hard drive will hold. Not to mention PC-based software synthesizers that are also infinitely more flexible than their 1980s counterparts. George Martin and Quincy Jones cost a lot more to hire, but the same basic technology they use in their recording studios is increasingly accessible to those recording home.

Having launched in 1987, Cakewalk are currently celebrating their 20th year of business, and my interview with Greg Hendershott, Cakewalk’s CEO, is an attempt to bridge the gap between those early days and now. Ideally, it will make a good overview to those new to PC-based recording, but dying to dip their toes into the water. It’s 20 minutes long, 18.7 MB in size, and can be downloaded here, or via our Apple i-Tunes page. (No iPod required; virtually any PC can download and play an MP3.)

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It’s not quite Tarkenton meets Staubach, Dylan meets Lennon, Prince meets Morris Day, or an even better Minneapolis-themed metaphor that’s eluding me, but James Lileks is interviewed by Pajamas’ own Austin Bay on this week’s Blog Week In Review podcast to discuss the current state of the New, New Journalism.

Tune in here–no iPod required; virtually any computer with broadband can stream an MP3 file.

Related: Maybe Brian Williams should take a listen!

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In this week’s Blog Week In Review podcast, Austin Bay gets Jeff Goldstein and Neo-Neocon’s thoughts on Live Earth: “Rockstars For Whatever“.

And speaking of Live Earth, Tim Blair writes that the party to fight global cooling continues!

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After getting some background on Breitbart.tv for an upcoming article, I realized that its proprietor (who

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