WATCHED 13 Going On 30 this weekend with the Insta-Wife and Insta-Daughter. It got lukewarm reviews, but I was willing to watch it anyway because it has Jennifer Garner. It was a lot better than I expected, and a good film for a pre-teen to watch. When you’re 13, it pays to think about how you really want to turn out when you’re 30.
RATHERGATE UPDATE: Or non-update, as the case may be. It has now been two months since CBS President Andrew Heyward promised that the investigation would be over and public in “weeks, not months.”
It’s been months, now. Just another statement from CBS that turned out to be false?
Meanwhile, CBS remains an object of mockery like this from Dave Barry in the Baltimore Sun: “Yes, it is a tragic but statistical fact that every Thanksgiving, undercooked turkeys claim the lives of an estimated 53 billion Americans (source: Dan Rather). Sometimes the cause is deadly bacteria; sometimes – in cases of extreme undercooking – the turkey actually springs up from the carving platter and pecks the would-be carver to death.”
Then there’s this, from Jack Colwell: “Dan Rather received a Turkey of the Year Award for his exclusive on discovery of the original recipes from the time of the Pilgrims for the first Thanksgiving dinner. The Pilgrims apparently printed them on an hp deskjet printer.”
Not good for the brand.
THE NEW REPUBLIC’S REIHAN SALAM rounds up some Democratic contenders for 2008 and leads with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen:
The Democratic governor of Tennessee is a star. Let’s start with the obvious: He is the Democratic governor of Tennessee. What’s more, he was elected in 2002, a year during which the Republican tide was tsunami-like. What better way to widen the electoral battlefield than to nominate a proven vote-getter from deep in the heart of Red America?
I’ve said here repeatedly that Democrats wanting to win a national campaign should look at what Phil Bredesen has done in Tennessee. He’s not a terribly charismatic orator — but unlike, say, Al Gore or John Kerry, he does very well on conservative talk radio, and he’s not afraid to appear and field questions. Interesting to see that people outside the state are noticing. And I may be wrong, but if the budget deficit matters in 2008 — and I think it will — then Bredesen, who has managed to trim spending and put Tennessee into surplus without increasing taxes, will look especially good.
IVORY COAST SHOOTING UPDATE: Aaron at Freewillblog has compressed the video (formerly in unwieldy MPEG format) into something easier to view on the Web. More on the subject here. Despite cautions not to make too much of the video without other evidence, Aaron thinks it’s pretty clear that this was an unprovoked massacre on the part of French troops. I’d certainly like to see some reporting from the scene.
THE NEW PROPERTY: Mickey Kaus has some insightful thoughts on Bush’s “ownership society.” Highly recommended, whether you’re a Bushie or an anti-Bushie.
PARIS (AP) – Major economic powers agreed on Sunday to write off billions of dollars of debt for Iraq in a deal that marked a significant step in U.S. efforts to help put the Iraqi economy back on its feet.
Under the agreement, the Paris Club of 19 creditor nations will write off 80 percent of the $42 billion that Iraq owes them, the group’s chairman, Jean-Pierre Jouyet said.
The Paris Club includes, the United States, Japan, Russia and European nations. . . . The deal represented a considerable concession from France, just as French President Jacques Chirac’s government is pushing to rebuild ties with Bush’s administration that were damaged by disagreements over the U.S.-led Iraq war. France opposed the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
At a guess, this may explain why the Administration hasn’t been playing up the “UNSCAM” oil-for-food scandal.
MODERATE MUSLIMS STEP FORWARD:
Some 20,000 people took to the streets in the western German city of Cologne on Sunday, waving German and Turkish flags, to protest against the use of violence in the name of Islam.
The marchers had two starting points — a mosque and a cathedral — and converged in the middle of the city for the event organized by the Islamic-Turkish Union with the slogan “Hand in Hand for Peace and Against Terror.”
It’s a start.
UPDATE: More pics here.
“BUSH’S INVASION” — of Kosovo?
USING THE CONTROVERSY OVER ALEXANDER THE GREAT as a jumping-off point, The Belmont Club looks at the unwisdom of getting one’s history from Hollywood.
BILL WHITTLE’S NEW BOOK IS OUT: Really, what more do you need to know?
INSTAPUNDIT’S AFGHANISTAN PHOTO-CORRESPONDENT sends this picture, and reports:
Our coalition of Rumanians, New Zealanders, British, Americans, Slovaks and Poles was no match for the Afghanis on Sunday. Not in any sort of fighting, mind you, but a soccer match. Our base put a Coalition team together and played a select team from Parwan Province. The Coalition was bested 3-1. However, the Rumanians did salvage something for us – their goalkeeper was a crowd favorite with his play and some theatrics thrown in for good measure.
One of our officers, 1LT Joshua Walters, a soccer coach when back in the States, was the driving force behind this event [he is even helping the area schools with a coaching clinic and organizing a league they can run throughout the whole province]. Local people told us this was the first time in over 25 years they had a public sports event with a crowd. While I am no great fan of soccer itself, I did see that the people here were absolutely delighted with the whole event. So I guess losing wasn’t so bad after all.
Sometimes it really is about how you play the game. Or even that you bother to.
SIGHTED ON PAGE SIX: “Ann Coulter and ‘Kaus Files’ blogger Mickey Kaus sharing a warm goat cheese salad al fresco at Baraonda.” Poor Mickey can’t escape the ‘stalkerazzi.’
CHIEF WIGGLES is correcting Tom Brokaw and NBC on some important matters.
UPDATE: Read this report, too. And don’t miss this Iraqi’s claim that Western media aren’t so much missing the story, as twisting it.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The Green Side has firsthand reporting from Fallujah. Chuck Yeager’s grandson makes an appearance.
And Power Line has thoughts on media coverage: “as always, the tone of the coverage of the Iraq war reflects the agenda of those who write the news.”
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: David Adesnik says the Washington Post has dropped the ball in today’s story on Iraq.
WHILE SOME OF US HAVE BEEN doing Friday cat-blogging, Fletch has been doing Friday buffalo-blogging. I really like this picture, too.
And while I’m mentioning Texas photoblogging, here’s a nice gallery of things you might see while driving around Texas.
FRENCH TROOPS FIRING INDISCRIMINATELY ON CIVILIANS? LGF has video.
UPDATE: More claims of a massacre here. Why isn’t this getting more attention?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ed Morrissey cautions:
From what I’ve seen thus far, it appears to show French troops shooting indiscriminately at African civilians. A number of deaths appear to have occurred at this incident, including several women. In fact, it seems like most of the dead were women, but that may have been because the cameraman focused on those victims. And that, just like the Marine shooting the faker in the mosque last week, may be the problem.
The video is highly subjective. Just like with any home movie, it starts and stops at different times with no particular purpose, and no time sequences are shown. When the firing starts, you can’t see who’s shooting, where it’s aimed, or why. In fact, you never see soldiers shooting, at least in part II — you just hear the shots and see the aftermath. Just as with the video in Iraq, the entire presentation lacks context. Who starts the shooting? Did anyone in the crowd have weapons and fire back, or fire first? So far, I can’t tell.
Perhaps this might be the French Amritsar, but the video shown doesn’t prove it; it merely suggests it. Before we leap to conclusions, we need a bit more evidence than these videos provide.
I hope we’ll see some reporting on the subject. Certainly Reuters would be all over something like this if U.S. troops were involved. . . .
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s what Reuters has at the moment:
France vigorously rejected on Sunday charges by Ivory Coast’s president and its leading Roman Catholic cleric that French troops had beheaded young protesters there, dismissing the statements as outrageous disinformation. . . .Alliot-Marie accused Ivory Coast’s leaders of manipulating crowds of protesters in an extremely dangerous way.
“The racist and xenophobe statements made about us by Ivory Coast leaders are intolerable,” she said.
It’s datelined Paris, though, not Abidjan.
DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS.
UPDATE: Look, dudes, you were warned . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: This may have been a bigger deal than the original reports suggested. Others, however, are invoking Bush’s rugby days.
TIMES VS. TIMES: IraqPundit says that the New York Times is missing what the London Times has figured out. Ouch.
OVER AT HIT AND RUN, THEY’RE DISSING Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 “best” rock songs. But over at SKBubba’s they’ve come up with their own top 500 list. I’m happy to see that Terry Hill made the cut. (SKB says that Jesse Fox Mayshark was the driving force behind this, which doesn’t surprise me.) See if you don’t think that the Bubba crowd has outperformed the Rolling Stone folks. Though, to my mind, “Slow Death” is the canonical Flamin’ Groovies song.
IS THE NEW YORK TIMES turning Oliver Stone into a cultural martyr? Ann Althouse thinks so. (And what a great quote from Stone: “I don’t want to corrupt history.” Heh. Indeed.) Meanwhile, people in Greece are unamused.
UPDATE: More on the whole Alexander-the-Gay business here at the Agora. Well, that fits!
CATS AND DOGS, living together.
RETAIL SUPPORT BRIGADE SITREP: Went to the mall today. It seemed quite crowded, quite early, for this stage of the shopping season, and judging by the packages and the lines people were buying things. I don’t think we’re headed for a recession.
Also went to Target, notwithstanding Hugh Hewitt’s objections. (What was I going to do — order my cat litter over the Internet? That’s so 1999.) They seemed busy, too, though they’ve licked the cashier-shortage problem. Yeah, they ought to let the Salvation Army ring the bells out front, but I just can’t get myself into a world-beating snit over it. I think I’ll have to side with Lileks and the Turkeyblog on this one. Nonetheless, I welcome Hugh’s protests as proof that, contrary to rumor, the Dayton Hudson conspiracy doesn’t really control the blogosphere.
Besides, if you really want to hurt Target, don’t call for a boycott. Just open up a Samuel’s across the street. Mmmm, Hebrew National and free wi-fi . . . .
DAVE BARRY: “Here’s a newspaper article on blogs, pointing out that they can be inaccurate. It mentions my name: Dave Berry.”
Dan Gillmor’s name is also misspelled. Heh. (Via Tim Blair).
SOME VERY NICE landscape photos from Brazilian photographer Alex Uchoa.
CNET HAS A LENGTHY REVIEW UP on the new Canon EOS 20D 8.2 megapixel digital SLR. Here’s another from Steve’s Digicams, and here’s one from DPreview. It looks quite good, though as I’m getting excellent 20×30 prints from my 6.3 megapixel Nikon D70, I’m not quite sure what I’d do with the extra megapixels. I’m sure I’d find something!
And though some emailers have accused me of being a Nikon snob and not giving the Canon cameras their due, I’m sure this is a great camera. I nearly bought the 10D rather than the Nikon, and I’m sure I would have been happy with it. The big deciding factor was that the Nikon’s bundled lens was better and — more important still — the Nikon just felt better in my hand. And that’s why I’d encourage people to try these things out in meatspace, and not just look on the web. I’m sure I would have been happy enough with the Canon, but the “feel” of equipment is important to me, and you can’t judge that sort of thing on the Internet. Er, yet, anyway . . . .
STRATEGYPAGE REPORTS:
American troops now control all of Fallujah and have found extensive evidence of terrorist and criminal gangs using the city as a headquarters. Evidence was found of torture chambers, and video sets used for filming the execution of kidnap victims. Moreover, the body of a woman, thought to be foreign aid executive (Care International) Margaret Hassan, was also found in Fallujah. A video of her murder was recently released by her killers, and it appears that the killing was done in Fallujah. Without Fallujah as a “safe area” for keeping hostages, killing them, and getting away with it, the terrorists have to do their dirty work in cities where there is a strong police presence, and nearby American troops. That’s what’s happening in Baghdad, Mosul and other cities right now. The gangs are trying to control neighborhoods in these cities, and are not succeeding.
The government has ordered the police and army to enter mosques and arrest clerics who continue to preach violence against the government. This has led to a familiar drill where American troops surround a mosque, and Iraqi commandos go in and arrest those wanted, and often find weapons and other incriminating evidence.
Opinion surveys continue to show the majority of Iraqis determined to have elections, democracy and an end of terrorism and Sunni Arab dictatorship. Iraqis are not happy with the way the international (especially Arab) media portrays anti-government forces and terrorists as “freedom fighters.” Iraqis know exactly what the fighters are fighting for, and it isn’t freedom. The violent gangs want to revive Sunni Arab rule over the Shia Arab and Kurd majority. Even many Sunni Arabs don’t care for this outcome, because only a minority of Sunni Arabs benefit when someone like Saddam Hussein is in charge.
By the way, you can subscribe to StrategyPage’s email service from their front page. I’ve found it quite good.
I’M NOT CATBLOGGING TONIGHT, but Brendan Loy is.
TOM WOLFE SPOKE IN — AND TO — SAN FRANCISCO YESTERDAY: Ed Driscoll has a report:
The whole thing reminded me of the Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk explains to a marooned Zefram Cochrane that there’s a whole, growing galaxy out there teaming with life that he can explore. Except that Wolfe was essentially telling an insular and emotionally walled-in left to go visit America for themselves.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Several readers note that Wolfe continues to plug James Webb’s new book. Yeah, I had noticed that. It seems to be selling quite well: it’s at #133 on Amazon.
VW EMAILS ME WITH A HUSH-HUSH LOOK AT THE NEW JETTA: I think it looks like a Prius.
UPDATE: More Jetta pics here. (Via Jalopnik, a new Gawker car-blog I hadn’t seen before.)
KEEP UP WITH THE INDIAN BLOGOSPHERE: This week’s Blog Mela is up!
PAUL BOUTIN: “As a San Franciscan, I need to point out that a stuffed animal fetish is perfectly normal. It’s your neighbors who have the problem.”
THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES IS UP: Yum.
THE SPACE TOURISM BILL, which looked dead, is coming up for a vote this afternoon according to the folks at XCOR Aerospace.
GOOD NEWS ON CLONING: “U.N. diplomats abandoned contentious efforts to draft a treaty that would outlaw human cloning and will likely settle for a weaker declaration that won’t seek a comprehensive ban, officials said. The last-minute agreement on Thursday appeared to be a major blow to President Bush, who had called for a total ban on cloning when he spoke before the U.N. General Assembly in August.”
It’s a blow I’m happy to see.
MORE ON WEB VIDEO over at GlennReynolds.com — and Howard Owens’ award-winning work for the Ventura County Star gets a mention.
THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY has taken the Boeing. Bravo!
DAVID ADESNIK NOTES that even Juan Cole — who is, to put it mildly, no friend of the Bush Administration, or its Iraq strategy — is saying that:
The Marines at Fallujah are operating in accordance with a UNSC Resolution and have all the legitimacy in international law that flows from that. The Allawi government asked them to undertake this Fallujah mission.
To compare them to the murderous thugs who kidnapped CARE worker Margaret Hassan, held her hostage, terrified her, and then killed her is frankly monstrous. The multinational forces are soldiers fighting a war in which they are targetting combatants and sometimes accidentally killing innocents. The hostage-takers are terrorists deliberately killing innocents. It is simply not the same thing.
Indeed.
ON MONDAY, I MENTIONED a collection of house remixes of Lawrence Welk.
The weirdness continues, as several readers emailed about The Pink Panther’s Penthouse Party, a Henry Mancini remix collection that includes, among other things, a Fischerspooner remix of the Pink Panther theme, and similar efforts by the likes of Dmitri from Paris, Fatboy Slim, and Ursula 1000. (You can hear samples — which, really, is probably all you’d want to hear . . . — by following the link.)
What’s next? Hard-house versions of Pat Boone? Why not? It’d be bangin’. . . .
UPDATE: It’s not quite hard house, but reader Rob Port notes that Pat Boone did release a collection of heavy metal tunes some years back, entitled No More Mr. Nice Guy. I had forgotten that. There are streamable samples there, too — I think his cover of “Crazy Train” is my favorite. Er, if “favorite” is the right word. . . .
Lisa Lashes, call your office!
THOUGHTS ON FALLUJAH, IN SLATE:
The very job of a rifleman is to close with and destroy his enemy—in essence, to kill the bad guy before he can kill you. But what separates the Marines from the rabble is their professional discipline—what a Harvard political scientist called the “management of violence” in describing the U.S. military. And so, this incident stands out for two reasons. First, it shows a breach of discipline, albeit under very stressful circumstances. But it also shows the extent to which the U.S. military will throw the book at one of its own. Already, the entire 1st Marine Division staff is involved with the case, and the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Tuesday that “[I]t’s being investigated, and justice will be done.”
On the same day as this story, the tragic news broke that CARE International worker Margaret Hassan had been executed by her captors in Iraq. Already, there have been cries of moral equivalence. One Iraqi told the Los Angeles Times: “It goes to show that [Marines] are not any better than the so-called terrorists.” Al Jazeera fanned these flames of anti-American sentiment by broadcasting the shooting incident in full while censoring Hassan’s execution snuff tape. (U.S. networks refused to air actual footage of both killings.) There is a simplistic appeal to such arguments because both events involve the killing of a human being and, more specifically, the apparent execution of a noncombatant in the context of war.
Yet it is the differences between these two killings that reveal the most important truths about the Marine shooting in Fallujah. Hassan was, in every sense of the word, a noncombatant. She worked for more than 20 years to help Iraqis obtain basic necessities: food, running water, medical care, electricity, and education. The Iraqi insurgents kidnapped her and murdered her in order to terrorize the Iraqi population and the aid workers trying to help them.
By contrast, the Marines entered a building in Fallujah and found several men who, until moments before, had been enemy insurgents engaged in mortal combat. A hidden grenade would have changed everything, and the Marine would have been lauded. As it turned out, the Iraqi was entitled to mercy, but Hassan was truly innocent. There is no legitimate moral equivalence between a soldier asking for quarter and a noncombatant like Hassan.
There is another key difference that reveals a great moral divide between the Marines and insurgents they fought this week in Fallujah. The insurgents choose the killing of innocents as their modus operandi and glorify these killings with videos distributed via the Internet and Al Jazeera. They recognize no civilized norms of conduct, let alone the rules of warfare. The Marines, on the other hand, distinguish themselves by killing innocents so rarely and only by exception or mistake.
Nice that someone’s noticing.
UPDATE: More here, in a must-read post by military blogger Baldilocks.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad the reaction to the shooting is “good riddance.”
HOWARD KURTZ: “I don’t remember anything like all this live coverage when Bush 41 opened his library, do you?”
SLATE’S EMILY YOFFE LEARNS TO SHOOT:
So anathema are guns among my friends that when one learned I was doing this piece, he opened his wallet, silently pulled out an NRA membership card, then (after I recovered from the sight) asked me not to spread it around lest his son be kicked out of nursery school. My entire experience with guns consisted of a riflery class at summer camp back when Millard Fillmore was president, and an afternoon 20 years ago shooting at tin cans with a friend.
But things soon change:
The ammo itself made me uneasy, as if it could explode on contact, and I fumbled as I tried to load the shotgun. The first few shots didn’t go well. I could hear my blood pumping in my ears, and I realized that when you close both eyes as you pull the trigger, your clay target will fall to the ground intact. I slowed my breath, forced myself to keep one eye opened, and miraculously hit the thing. In the end I blasted 11 out of 25. Ricardo was thrilled and so was I. I felt even better about myself when, after I made Ricardo shoot a box of ammo, he hit only two more targets than I did.
It’s not unusual for a woman to quickly shoot well, he said. “She tends to listen to detail more precisely, and she has no preconceived notion she knows what to do.” . . .
Before I slinked back to my now-embarrassing Volvo, I stopped to watch two men shooting. They were fast and fluid and the targets shattered one after another. I am happily married, but I found myself thinking these two—whose faces I couldn’t even make out—were awfully attractive.
Another bellicose woman is born. What’s next? This?
CONDI RICE ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT: Dave Kopel has the scoop.
UN employees were readying on Friday to make a historic vote of no confidence in scandal-plagued Secretary General Kofi Annan, sources told AFP.
The UN staff union, in what officials said was the first vote of its kind in the more than 50-year history of the United Nations, was set to approve a resolution withdrawing its support for the embattled Annan and UN management.
Annan has been in the line of fire over a high-profile series of scandals including controversy about a UN aid programme that investigators say allowed deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to embezzle billions of dollars.
But staffers said the trigger for the no-confidence measure was an announcement this week that Annan had pardoned the UN’s top oversight official, who was facing allegations of favouritism and sexual harassment.
Stay tuned.
KARL ROVE’S BRILLIANT, SECRET PLOT to get rid of Michael Moore!
Daniel Casey observes: “Karl Rove, you magnificent bastard.
It is genius. And it can’t be traced back to you at all . . . ”
UPDATE: A contrary theory, here.
THE HIDDEN COST of media-circus trials. I think Fox, CNN, and MSNBC ought to pick up the tab. . . .
I KNEW I WOULD COME TO REGRET IT, when my brother started to blog.
TODAY MAY HAVE BEEN the last nice day where the leaves were still on the trees. Here are a couple of pictures from campus.
SOME ADVICE TO CONDI RICE from some anonymous insiders at State.
REPORTING FROM FALLUJAH: It’s not very reliable.
“ANTI-DANDER SHAMPOO?” No, not the veterinary kind.
JUST GAVE BLOOD as part of the annual Blue/Orange blood drive competition with the University of Kentucky. The list of questions they ask just keeps getting longer, and I continue to wonder how much good (or harm) it’s doing, given that as a regular donor I get plaintive “we’re short of blood” calls on a regular basis now. (More on this here and here.) At any rate, they’re screening out so many people that I encourage everyone who is eligible to donate — there aren’t that many of us left.
One interesting observation: This is the first time I’ve donated on campus where there were more men than women giving. Usually it’s quite lopsided in the other direction. One of the techs there told me that it’s been that way this year; no idea why.
SOMETIMES I WONDER what people did to amuse themselves before there was PhotoShop.
(Via Physics Geek).
ASYMMETRICAL INFORMATION: No, not the blog. The situation, as described by Cathy Seipp:
One of the election lessons for Democrats is that while the Left doesn’t understand the Right, the Right can’t help but understand the Left, because the Left is in charge of pop culture. Urban blue staters can go their entire lives happily innocent of the world of church socials and duck hunting and Boy Scout meetings, but small-town red staters are exposed to big-city blue-state values every time they turn on the TV.
That’s true.
OLIVER STONE’S PREEMPTIVE STRIKE: Seems plausible.
UPDATE: Steve Sturm is using Michael Moore as a benchmark for Stone:
Moore pulled in something in the ballpark of $150+ million – for a movie that didn’t play too well with red audiences.
So, let’s set that as the bar – anything less than $150 million and Stone can’t blame America for his lousy movie… not that he won’t try, of course…
I hear it’s a stinker. Stone’s remarks suggest I’m right.
THE TRANSATLANTIC INTELLIGENCER is a new blog looking at U.S. / European relations.
ANTISEMITISM ON THE LEFT: David Bernstein observes: “Folks on the Left have been throwing around the term ‘Likudnik’ to refer to any non-left-wing Jew who differs with them on foreign policy, even when the relevant issue has nothing directly to do with Israel, Iraq being exhibit A. . . . Not surprisingly, the phrase ‘Likudnik’ is gradually becoming a general anti-Semitic term for Jews whose opinions one doesn’t like.”
I guess they’re just taking their cues from the United Nations.
HMM: “North Korea’s Dear Leader Less Dear:”
North Korea’s official radio and news agency has dropped the honorific “Dear Leader” from its reports on the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il.
The report by Radiopress, a Japanese news agency that monitors North Korea’s radio, follows news this week that portraits of the North Korean leader have been removed from homes and offices.
“Powell: North Korea May Be Easing Stance on Nuclear Talks:”
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says North Korea may be ready to resume multi-party talks to defuse a crisis over its nuclear ambitions.
Mr. Powell told reporters en route to Chile for the APEC summit that the United States has seen signals coming out of North Korea where it said it never insisted the crisis be solved only through negotiations with the United States.
What’s going on? Beats me. Roger Simon has more thoughts.
HOWARD KURTZ has the best one-sentence take on the Tom Delay stuff I mentioned yesterday: “If lots of people are really getting indicted without cause, shouldn’t the House hold hearings on it, rather than worry about shielding indicted Republican leaders?”
Yes they are, and yes they should. But no, they won’t. Here’s an explanation.
ANOTHER DISCONNECT between news and editorial at the Times. Jon Henke suggests: “Time Saving Tip: Run N.Y. Times Editorials on Corrections page.”
The wall of separation was supposed to keep editorial opinion from infiltrating the news — not to keep factual information from infiltrating the editorials. Recent evidence suggests, though, that it’s doing more of the latter than the former. . . .
MARK CUBAN HAS THOUGHTS on the FCC as marketing partner.
AUSTIN BAY writes on Arafat’s true legacy.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, stories about the real cause of Arafat’s death abound. Here’s the official Arafat death Canard-o-Matic (shouldn’t Mad magazine get royalties for these things?) and Israelpundit has been following the rumors for a while.
JIM BENNETT has a website for his new book, The Anglosphere Challenge. But where’s the blog?
By the way, if you follow the book link you can see an interesting review by Lexington Green of the ChicagoBoyz blog.
ALEX TABARROK writes that space tourism isn’t ready for takeoff: “The problem is not the monetary expense, there are enough millionaires with a yearning for adventure to support an industry. The problem is safety. Simply put, rockets remain among the least safe means of transportation ever invented.” That’s true, though some people also have a fairly high risk threshold for voluntarily adventurous activities.
UPDATE: David Nishimura agrees with me, and has the numbers to prove it.
ZEPHYR TEACHOUT looks back and asks: “If there had been no Internet, what would have been different in this election?”
Jim Geraghty, who’s back from his post-election vacation, has some related thoughts.
And Mystery Pollster has more on exit polls, and says that there’s no evidence of electronic-voting fraud — apparently, the exit polls were just as wrong everywhere, regardless of voting method. (Here’s the original item, an interview with exit-pollster Warren Mitofsky, that he’s writing about.)
WHY THEO VAN GOGH WAS MURDERED:
But why kill Theo Van Gogh, of all the people who have expressed hostility to radical Islam? Perhaps it was mere chance, but more likely it resulted from his work’s exposure of a very raw nerve of Muslim identity in Western Europe: the abuse of women. This abuse is now essential for people of Muslim descent for maintaining any sense of separate cultural identity in the homogenizing solution of modern mass society.
In fact, Islam is as vulnerable in Europe to the forces of secularization as Christianity has proved to be. The majority of Muslims in Europe, particularly the young, have a weak and tenuous connection to their ancestral religion. Their level and intensity of belief is low; pop music interests them more. Far from being fanatics, they are lukewarm believers at best. Were it not for the abuse of women, Islam would go the way of the Church of England.
Hmm. I’m not sure of that last, but read the whole thing.
UPDATE: A long and interesting post on Europe and Islam, including this observation: “If European politicians are already thinking in terms of fighting against the USA, then they are not going to be in any hurry to oppose the wave of Islamism which is currently the USA’s most active enemy. Just as France supported North American rebels against the British Empire in the 1770s, and Britain and France supported the Confederacy against the Union in the 1860s, these Europeans are likely to be sympathetic to any minor power that is likely to weaken the USA.” That last “proxy war” point has been made before. To the extent that this is actually European strategy, it strikes me as deeply unwise. But then, deeply unwise European strategy has been at the root of most of the world’s troubles over the past several centuries.
SOME MORE BABY PICTURES: Various people email to say that I was unfair to my brother in my earlier post. Well, you can decide which of us is the smart one, and which is the good-looking one. (Though one of his students once opined that “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between us, which we both chose to take as a compliment. . . .)
And here’s a picture of Victoria, who’s clearly better looking than either of us.
There’s no need even to get a second opinion on that. As Stephen Green once opined, both of us Reynolds boys have married well.
We wouldn’t argue.
UPDATE: Robert Racansky emails: “Your brother looks like you, but with a beard. Sort of like Spock & Mirror Universe Spock.”
I find that observation, er, fascinating . . .
SOME BLOGGERS ARE CRITICIZING KEVIN SITES: Power Line is defending him, and so is The Confederate Yankee.
UPDATE: A related post from Donald Sensing.
JUST SAW JEFF JARVIS ON AARON BROWN, debating Rebecca Hagelin of Heritage regarding broadcast indecency and the Nicolette Sheridan Monday Night Football commercial.
I saw the commercial for the first time in that broadcast, and I have to say that it was an absolute disgrace, and that it should not have been allowed to air. It didn’t show nearly enough of Nicolette Sheridan to justify all the hoopla, and that’s a tragedy because, despite her perhaps overdone plastic surgery, she’s still hot.
The Aaron Brown show was good TV, though. Although I’ve chastised Jeff in the past for making the FCC’s indecency crusade — which, remember, has been led by a Democrat — into some sort of Bush/Religious Right campaign, he’s refined his approach since. As I’ve said before, I’d be happy to lose the broadcast indecency standards, which have no First Amendment basis. I have to say, though, that if you have standards at all I’m not shocked to see the Howard Stern and Janet Jackson complaints. (The Sheridan spot, however, really did seem quite tame and I don’t understand the fuss.)
Jeff also made a good move by in essence accusing Hagelin of being anti-American — he said there’s nothing evil or raunchy about American culture. Nice rhetorical move, and basically a good point.
To me, though, the whole debate seems a bit surreal. Broadcast TV is rapidly diminishing in importance, and broadcast radio isn’t far behind. It’s not yet like debating buggy-whip design, but it’s heading that way.
UPDATE: Reader Chuck Pelto doesn’t like this post:
All of our ‘best’ television glamorizes adultery. There’s nothing higher in our culture than sex. Nothing at all.
And just what denomination of “christian” are you? I want to make sure I avoid that particular group. They’ve got serious problems if you are representative of their beliefs.
I’m a Presbyterian. But I’m not very happy with the growing antisemitism I see in the leadership.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Perhaps the real sacrilege here was against football. Reader Sam Lindsey emails:
Actually, I didn’t see the promo when it aired, just replays. I agree with you that she is still hot. However, I thought the spot was notable for its tastelessness; if I want to see sexy sluts, I will tune to “Desperate Housewives”; when I want to watch football, I want to see football, not a mix of the two.
By the way, I think everyone is complaining to the wrong person; complain to the NFL, not the FCC.
That last point is a good one.
A READER JUST EMAILED that blogs are playing a role in tonight’s West Wing. I’m guessing bloggers won’t be the heroes of the episode. But since I don’t generally watch the show, I could be wrong.
UPDATE: More here. It’s supposed to be Wonkette?
LETTER FROM A MARINE — it’s a must-read.
UPDATE: More thoughts from military bloggers here. And read this, too. And this.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a link-rich roundup on the subject, with this observation:
This is an information war; just as Al-Jazeera didn’t play the Italian or CARE snuff film murders and nobody showed the pictures of the horror we stopped in Falluja, and just as the pornographic obsession with Abu Ghraib dominated media, this will become a way to weaken the American center of gravity of public support. This is a warfare tactic as surely as cryptography use or artillery employment.
I wish that wasn’t true.
THE TIMES OF LONDON is making its content free online now. I recommend reading this story in its entirety:
Such is the fear that the heavily armed militants held over Fallujah that many of the residents who emerged from the ruins welcomed the US marines, despite the massive destruction their firepower had inflicted on their city.
A man in his sixties, half-naked and his underwear stained with blood from shrapnel wounds from a US munition, cursed the insurgents as he greeted the advancing marines on Saturday night.
“I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months,” he said, trembling. Nearby, a mosque courtyard had been used as a weapons store by the militants. . . .
The same story of arbitrary executions was told by another resident, found by US troops cowering in his home with his brother and his family.
“They would wear black masks, carry rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs, and search streets and alleys,” said Iyad Assam, 24. “I would hear stories, about how they executed five men one day and seven another for collaborating with the Americans. They made checkpoints on the roads. They put announcements on walls banning music and telling women to wear the veil from head to toe.”
It was not just pedlars of alcohol or Western videos and women deemed improperly dressed who faced the militants’ wrath. Even residents who regard themselves as observant Muslims lived in fear because they did not share the puritan brand of Sunni Islam that the insurgents enforced.
These are Michael Moore’s “minutemen.” Read the whole thing. And here’s a claim that the U.S. press is soft-pedaling the terrorists’ behavior in Fallujah.
(WEB)VIDEO KILLED THE TV STAR: More thoughts on this subject over at GlennReynolds.com.
UPDATE: Heh.
AIRBORNE WI-FI: I wrote about this a while back, and now it’s starting to happen. “With Lufthansa, you’ll eventually be able to circle the world without losing your broadband. Battery life, however, is another story.”
AN IMPORTANT VICTORY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS in Illinois.
ADOPT-A-SNIPER: Now there’s a charity. . . .
RACIST CARTOONS ABOUT CONDI RICE: Various offenders are identified over at The Democracy Project.
But of course, these cartoons can’t be racist, because they’re about a Republican.
UPDATE: Bob Beckel goes berserk in a discussion of these cartoons.
ANOTHER UPDATE: OVERT RICISM: Michael Demmons wonders how gay Republican appointees will be treated by cartoonists.
I’VE FINALLY FIGURED OUT what Frank J. is up to.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Don’t change the rules for Tom Delay.
Amy Ridenour, however, dissents.
MORE WIRELESS INTERNET: I’m lunchblogging at the Kingston Alley Ale House, another of the many fine Knoxville establishments offering free wireless Internet. It’s a good place, but it’ll be getting a lot more of my business — and quite a few others’ I expect — in the future because of the wi-fi.
I love this stuff.
A GLOBAL CLONING BAN: Just another bad idea from the U.N. — so why is the Bush Administration going along?
UNSCAM UPDATE: Claudia Rosett writes:
With estimates soaring of graft and fraud under the United Nations Oil for Food program in Iraq, we are hearing a lot about the need to “get to the bottom” of this scandal, the biggest ever to hit the U.N. To get to that bottom will need a much harder look at the top–where Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself resides.
That violates all sorts of taboos. But so, one might suppose, does a United Nations that allowed Saddam Hussein to embezzle at least $21.3 billion in oil money during 12 years, with the great bulk of that sum–a staggering $17.3 billion–pilfered between 1997-2003, on Mr. Annan’s watch.
Indeed.
RICH, BLOGGY GOODNESS: This week’s Carnival of the Vanities is up.
A DEMONSTRATION FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS in front of the Saudi Embassy: “It’s a start.” I agree.
UPDATE: Here’s another small positive development.
MORE INTERESTING ELECTORAL MAPS: Is population-density the best predictor of voting?
WEB VIDEO: I’ve been talking a lot about the growing importance of web video. It looks like The Wall Street Journal thinks it’s important, too, as they’ve set up a new video page. It’s free. The WSJ seems to be doing a lot of cool new stuff with their site lately.
UPDATE: Speaking of Web video, Amazon has another short movie up on its website. It’s called “Agent Orange,” and it’s directed by Tony Scott. And they’re soliciting filmmakers for future projects, which makes me think it’s more than just a marketing stunt.
What did I think? It’s not a bad short, though the dialogue was a bit, er, cartoonish. . . (Here’s the permalink in case you’re reading this later in the archives). And I think that Bruce Sterling’s new lamp should have made an appearance! But I’m more interested in this venture as a harbinger than anything else. I think it’s significant that both Amazon and the WSJ are making a big run with this stuff. And I think that smaller operators can get involved, too.
KITTY KELLEY IS BEING CHARGED WITH PLAGIARIZING A BLOG:
Seven paragraphs of material in the book, totaling about 400 words, repeat verbatim or closely track sections of Mr. Wilson’s article, titled “George W. Bush’s Lost Year in 1972 Alabama.” The article, which can be found at www.southerner.net/blog/awolbush, was published on Feb. 2 on Mr. Wilson’s Web site, Southerner Daily News. Ms. Kelley’s book was released on Sept. 14. . . .
Ms. Kelley could not be reached for comment. Through her literary agent, Wayne S. Kabak, she referred questions to lawyers for her publisher. In its legal answer to the lawsuit filed in the court in Alabama, Random House Inc. denied Mr. Wilson’s claims and said that if any material was copied or wrongfully appropriated, it was not protected by copyright, was of minimal scope, did not damage Mr. Wilson and was covered under the legal doctrine of “fair use.”
Hmm. As I’ve written before, you have to know a lot about context to tell whether something is really plagiarism or not, but this isn’t the most unqualified defense I’ve ever heard. It’s hard to believe that anyone could be dumb enough to plagiarize a blog — but it’s happened before.
I’VE MENTIONED HERE BEFORE that I’m a big fan of Gilligan’s Island. Now reader (and fellow Gilligan fan) Karl Rotstan emails:
I thought I’d let you know that TBS is now running ads for their new reality show, The Real Gilligan’s Island. They’ve gone out and found a real Skipper, First Mate, Millionaire (and his wife), a Movie Star, a Professor and a Mary Ann and will dump them on a desert isle, although it’s not clear if they will arrive after a 3-hour tour. Anyway, details can be found here.
I can’t believe that they were casting a Professor and nobody even thought of me. . . .
YESTERDAY, I mentioned that GarageBand.com was resurrecting lost MP3.com sites. I managed to get the Mobius Dick site up and running, though it still needs some tweaking. If you’re a former MP3.com artist you may want to take advantage of this while you still can, as I gather they won’t be offering this service forever.
SPACE WARFARE: My TechCentralStation column is up.
DAVE SHEARON PHOTOBLOGS MT. LECONTE in the Great Smoky Mountains.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE looks at Big Media folks who do, and don’t, get it. Meanwhile, James Lileks observes:
The Administration is clearing the decks for the second term. Out with the old & tired,, in with new ideas, etc. How’s about the mainstream media does the same? Burn up half the deadwood, ease the ossified elements off the stage, bring in new writers and editors and announcers and producers. If they can do it at State, they could do it at CBS.
Yes, yes, I know. The State Department is just that. But CBS is the news.
Indeed. And here are some more thoughts on the Administration shuffle from Greg Djerejian. And read this on goings-on at the CIA.
SORRY FOR THE LIMITED BLOGGING: The InstaWife has been feeling a bit under the weather, so I mostly hung out with her today. She’s now cheering herself with a copy of James Lileks’ new book, which showed up from Amazon this afternoon.
RUDE AND CRUDE at The University of Chicago. And this time it’s not Garrison Keillor.
THE BELMONT CLUB offers thoughts on the shakeup at the CIA.
PEOPLE KEEP ASKING ME ABOUT RATHERGATE: I should note that RatherGate.com is still going strong. Just keep scrolling.
RYAN SAGER notes a surprising resurgence of interest in federalism:
Republicans have sometimes been the party of federalism, railing in the 1990s about “unfunded mandates” from the federal government making it impossible for states to run their own affairs and complaining that federal involvement in education was ruining local schools.
Unfortunately, the party has been willing to abandon this principle whenever it’s convenient — with President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law recently, and for years over the issue of states wanting to legalize medical marijuana.
But now a large number of disenfranchised Democrats seem willing to form a leave-me-alone coalition. They don’t want Bush and his theologians deciding whether or not to fund stem-cell research, they want California to step in if the federal government won’t. They don’t want a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, they want their individual states to decide.
Meanwhile, I suspect that at least some Republicans will find their interest in federalism flagging further as their majority position looks more secure.
UPDATE: Julian Sanchez has more on the new new federalism on the left.
FALLUJAH MARINE IN TROUBLE FOR “PULLING A KERRY:”
Patrolling the Bay Hap River, Kerry and his crew discovered they were about to be ambushed by a Vietcong soldier who had just popped up at the shoreline with a loaded rocket launcher in his hands. With the VC about to fire, Kerry crewmate Thomas Bellodeau shot and wounded the attacker, saving the entire boat.
Only then did Kerry leap to the shore to chase the wounded enemy down – finishing him off behind a hootch.
When critics suggested that Kerry’s actions that day were something less than heroic, they were hooted down by the press.
Certainly the as yet unnamed Marine in Fallujah deserves, if not the Silver Star, the same slack the press cut Kerry.
This is a twist.
UPDATE: Bigwig says it was a fully justified Kerry.
