“I GENERALLY VOTE REPUBLICAN, AND I’M ASHAMED OF THE REPUBLICANS:” Here’s video of Dave Ramsey savaging the bankruptcy bill. “You’ve got a bad business model because you give dead people, dogs, and people who shouldn’t have credit cards, credit cards — then quit giving them credit cards! . . . This is bought and paid for by the bankers, baby, and it is anti-consumer — a real bad plan. I am positive that the backers of the plan had their back pocket in mind. . . . It’s wrong.”

A LOT OF PEOPLE are noticing this story from the New York Times about prepackaged fake news from the Bush Administration. But if you read the whole thing, to coin a phrase, you come upon this passing acknowledgement:

The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush’s recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts.

Funny, but I don’t remember much of a stink about it when it happened during the Clinton Administration. However, Peter Morgan and I wrote about the practice in The Appearance of Impropriety and you can read a slightly-different version online here:

Those who followed the uproar of Senator Biden’s speech, or for that matter the more recent flap over Joe Klein’s false denial of authorship with regard to the novel Primary Colors, might have been surprised to know how little of the content in their daily newspaper or newscast actually originated with the producers and editors.

News stories, to a degree seldom appreciated by the general public, are often the product of press releases generated by trade associations and interest groups. Often those releases are converted into news stories by the simple expedient of placing a reporter’s byline on top. Television news stories (especially those appearing on local stations) are often supplied fully produced, with blank spots left for the local news reporter to insert commentary that makes the story appear his or her own. Opinion columns are often “placed” by businesses or interest groups to support a particular point of view — often, they are even written by those groups and then run with the byline of distinguished individuals, or even regular commentators, who have barely read the piece, much less written it. Indeed, the Sasso “attack video” was something of this sort, for the journalists who broke the Biden/Kinnock story did not at first disclose their source.

Most readers and viewers have small appreciation of how little of what they see on television or read in newspapers and magazines is original with the reporters, editors, and producers involved. Yet in fact news organizations are highly dependent on predigested information from public relations firms, government officials, and advocacy groups, information that is often passed on to their readers and viewers with no indication that it is not original. That problem is not new, but it has gotten worse in recent years. . . .

Although a “video news release” is still more expensive to produce than a standard paper press release, they have become much more common. According to a recent poll, seventy-five percent of TV news directors reported using video news releases at least once per day.

These releases, with their high quality images and slick production, are produced by companies and groups who want to get their message across, but don’t want simply to purchase advertising time. They are designed so that television producers at local stations or (less often) major networks, can simply intersperse shots of their own reporters or anchors (often reading scripted lines provided with the release) to give the impression that the story is their own. Their use has been the subject of considerable controversy within the journalistic profession, although some commentators have claimed that they are used no more often, or misleadingly, than written press releases are used by the print media.

A recent scandal in Britain involved network use of a video news release produced by the group Greenpeace that some considered misleading. But of course for every video news release, or VNR as they are called in the trade, that comes from an environmental group there are hundreds that come from businesses or government organizations. Though a keen eye can usually spot a VNR (hint: the subject matter wouldn’t otherwise be news, and it usually involves experts and locales far from the station that airs it) most viewers probably believe that today’s story on cell-phone safety or miracle bras is just another product of the news program’s producers – and hence, implicitly backed by the news people’s public commitment to objective journalism. The truth, however, is different.

It is fair to say that the wholesale use of others’ work is a major part of modern journalism. But news officials are quick to distinguish that from plagiarism. In a mini-scandal at the San Diego Tribune, a reporter’s story was cancelled when editors noticed that it looked very much like a story that had already appeared elsewhere. At first, presumably, it was thought that the story had been taken from the other publication. Then it turned out that both stories were simply near-verbatim versions of a press release. According to the Tribune’s deputy editor, that wasn’t plagiarism. “If you look up the definition of plagiarism, it is the unauthorized use of someone’s material. When someone sends you a press packet, you’re entitled to use everything in there.”

Follow the link, if you want more, including a quote from Daniel Boorstin demonstrating that fake news goes back a long way. Suddenly, however, it’s controversial. Perhaps if “real” news were, well, better, it would be harder to pass off the fake stuff . . . .

UPDATE: Here’s an earlier column of mine on this phenomenon, in the non-profit context.

ROGER SIMON quotes Moon Zappa.

MORE NEWS FROM KYRGYZSTAN: Mixed reports.

HEH. Indeed.

JOHN HAWKINS SHILLS FOR AN ADVERTISER: More than they thought they were buying, I suspect.

INTERESTING ARTICLE ON LIFE EXTENSION in Sunday’s (London) Times. Aubrey de Grey and Leon Kass are featured; you can read my interview of de Grey from a while back here. Meanwhile, Dr. Tony looks at medicine in 2030. Bring it on!

STEPHEN GREEN JOINS THE CULT, having purchased a 30G iPod Photo.

Quoth Stephen: “Did I mention how tiny, shiny and pretty it is?”

UPDATE: How can you resist when Nostradamus predicted the iPod? Or was it the “iSpud?” [The "iSpud" could be a powerful anti-terror weapon! -- Ed. Just call 'em "Freedom Fries."]

GREYHAWK OF THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE has put in his 20 years. In an email, he observes:

As an Active Duty guy this means I can retire and get half my pay (or from another angle, that I’m now actually working for only half my pay) – a figure that can be called ‘modest’ at best. But that and some small advertising income may allow me to devote full time energies to blogging, and I’m seriously considering it.

I wouldn’t quit my dayjob for blogging, but then I’m not eligible for retirement. If you’d like him to go fulltime, be sure to patronize his blog advertisers, buy things via his Amazon links, hit his tipjar, send him positive email, etc. In other words, do what you’d do for any blogger you like.

He’s certainly on a hot streak — just keep scrolling. Maybe pro-blogging will suit him!

I STILL MISS WILL VEHRS’ PUNDITWATCH, whose hiatus appears to have become permanent. But this roundup of the Sunday shows from RedState is pretty good.

A RATHER NEGATIVE REVIEW of the CBS RatherGate report, in the New York Review of Books.

TODD ZYWICKI continues to defend the bankruptcy bill.

OUCH: Lance Frizzell photoblogs some reasons to keep the U.N. out of Iraq.

STEVEN LEVY SAYS that the blogosphere needs more diversity:

Law professor Susan Estrich has been hammering Michael Kinsley, the editorial-page editor of the Los Angeles Times, for not running a sufficient number of op-ed pieces by women and minorities. Though the e-mail exchange between the two deteriorated into a spitting match, both agreed that extra care is required to make sure public discussion reflects the actual population.

The top-down mainstream media have to some degree found the will and the means to administer such care. But is there a way to promote diversity online, given the built-in decentralization of the blog world?

I don’t think I like the mainstream media method of achieving diversity, though:

I remember visiting Bob Berger, the op-ed editor, back in the early ’90s. An old-style newspaperman, Bob didn’t like the paper’s demands that he demonstrate “diversity” on the op-ed pages. I especially remember his complaint that he not only had to find gay writers but gay writers who would mention that they were gay. No gay foreign policy experts need apply.

Of course, you don’t get to be an editor in a giant, bureaucratic newspaper if you don’t do what you’re told. Bob not only complied but posted a chart on his door to prove what a good job he was doing. It showed each day’s op-ed page as a line of five boxes, one for each article slot. The boxes were colored either blue or pink.

That’s the LAT! Think inside the box! But if you look at the kind of hate that Zephyr Teachout got from her fellow Deaniacs (see the comments to this post), and if you believe, as Ann Althouse seems to, that women are more sensitive to that sort of attack than men are, then more politeness might help.

But is there really a difference there? If I were a woman, would I have been more hurt when Steven Levy called me an “ankle biter?” Should I have been?

I know that a lot of women feel that men are clamoring to get ahead of them, but on the other hand, I know that a lot of men are afraid that women will pile all over them — and play the double-standard “you’re hitting a girl” gender card — if they say the wrong thing. (And there’s evidence for this — ask Larry Summers.) That’s gender dynamics.

Christine Hurt has thoughts on this phenomenon, and observes:

In the blawgosphere, one thing that I have noticed is that a lot of disagreement goes on among fellow blawgers. I was initially uncomfortable with this and would get nervous, “Oh, no — X just criticized Y’s post! What is Y going to do?” Then I realized that life would go on, and next week Y might agree with X. This is the way of intellectual discourse, but I don’t think it comports with the way that women build relationships.

So, we do we change law school and legal practice and the blawgosphere to conform to the way that women are raised to be sweet and build consensus? No. I think we should teach our girls to speak up without fear. To raise their hands and volunteer, even though they may be completely wrong. To disagree with each other without fear of losing respect or friendship. To not fear having others disagree with them. I have noticed that although there are few female law professor blawgs, there are plenty of female law student blawgs. I think the tide is turning.

Me too. This issue seems to appear more or less annually in the blogosphere. At the very least, we’re doing a better job of dealing with it than Bob Berger.

UPDATE: LaShawn Barber has thoughts on the power of email. Don’t be a pest (there’s one guy who emails me every time he updates his blog, which as a consequence I’ve never visited) but don’t be too shy, either. I try to get around, but there are a lot of blogs. I’m more likely to discover your blog if you send me a link to a post that I’ll be interested in. For more useful advice, I recommend Ambra Nykol’s How to Blog Like a Rock Star, which I mentioned a while back.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Chris Nolan blames Big Media: “Big Media reporters prefer to deal with the ‘top-tier’ bloggers and folks in their own part of the world – the East Coast. That’s who they call for TV. That’s who makes it onto dial-a-quote lists. Those appearance reinforce Big Boy Bloggers’ bigger numbers. On Charlie Rose’ blog show, the guest were Glenn Reynolds, Anna Marie Cox and Andrew Sullivan, no one west of the Mississippi. No minorities. Now that’s diversity Big Media style.” I’m an “East Coast blogger?” This is starting to sound like rap . . . .

Meanwhile, Sissy Willis says I am Blogger, hear me roar . . . “

MORE: Reader Anthony Forte thinks that Levy’s view of diversity is too narrow:

I thought that Steven Levy’s complaints about gender and racial diversity were kind of interesting, considering how diverse the “white males” that “dominate” the top bloggers are. A look at, say, the TTLB Ecosystem reveals people with very different political opinions, life experiences, day jobs, and perspectives. To complain that that this is meaningless because they are the same race/gender seems rather narrowminded.

He’s got more on his blog, with an amusing post title.

STILL MORE: Roxanne is merciless. She’s not afraid to speak out! And Gerard van der Leun notes that it all comes back to the Law of the Blogger in the end.

HERE’S A COOL PHOTO BLOG FROM IRAQ, by a civilian who’s working there.

EGYPTIAN OPPOSITION LEADER AYMAN NOUR has been released.

Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh is happy, but also reports that the Mubarak regime is responding with a barrage of anti-American propaganda in government media.

Thanks, Hosni, for playing into our hands. When your regime is toppled, people will give us the credit, now, instead of blaming us for propping you up!

I’M AT THE CAR WASH (FREE WI-FI!) watching Henry Kissinger and Richard Holbrooke talk about Syria and Lebanon on CNN. Kissinger expects Syria to play “cheat and retreat,” while Holbrooke seems a bit more hopeful.

MORE BOLIVIA NEWS AT PUBLIUS: “The people have spoken. Thousands of Bolivians in many cities have come out and rallied behind President Mesa. Gratifyingly, the news photos showed lots of Indian faces. President Mesa’s victory from his ‘resignation’ seems to have forged a fragile consensus across the country in favor of freer markets, foreign investment and more openness to the world.”

But what will Hugo Chavez say? Or do?

MORE NEWS from Kyrgyzstan and Riyadh.

SUNNY AND IN THE 60S: Went for a walk in Sequoyah Park (pictured here) with the Insta-Daughter. I didn’t get as much exercise as I would have if I had gone alone, but there were other rewards.

BUT I THOUGHT BLOGS DON’T DO ORIGINAL REPORTING? Austin Bay interviews Benazir Bhutto.

INSTAPUNDIT’S AFGHANISTAN PHOTO CORRESPONDENT, Major John Tammes, has come to the end of his deployment. That’s good news for him, but bad news for InstaPundit readers, as his photos and reports have provided a view of Afghanistan that Big Media folks haven’t. (And they’ve wound up in some big media outlets!) Please join me in thanking him for his service to the nation, to the world, and to the blogosphere. Meanwhile, here’s his final report:

I actually got a chance to go “outside the wire” one more time – so this will be my last report before redeploying home. On the way back from Charikar, I saw this remnant of the old “Hippie Trail” days. I gather that hippy-types used to stumble off of Chicken Street in Kabul into buses like this, and head up to Charikar for further “enlightenment”. As I leave here, I hope Afghanistan can one day be a tourist destination again – if for more, er…sober type individuals. . . .

I could not believe that 20 years and one day ago, I had enlisted as a private in the Illinois Army National Guard – and now here I was, one last time, staring out over the Afghan countryside. There is so much more I could tell – I have seen so many things here that break your heart, and many that gave renewed hope – but that will be for another time. I will limit myself, in conclusion, to thanking you for letting one citizen-soldier tell the world at least some of what is happening here.

As I said, thanks are due to you, Major Tammes, and not the other way around. And we’ll see tourism sooner than it seems now, I predict. It’s fitting, perhaps, that an Afghan blog has appeared just as Major Tammes is leaving.

Here’s a self-portrait that Major Tammes sent me a while ago, along with a few of his photos. In most cases you can click on them for the original report.

UPDATE: Some people wonder what kind of camera Major Tammes was using. As I mentioned before at some point, he’s been using an Olympus C-750. I resized his photos, and applied a bit of color-correction and sharpening sometimes.

And at the risk of being snarky regarding the “blogs don’t do original reporting” claim, I’ll note that thanks to Major Tammes, InstaPundit had more correspondents in Afghanistan than most major U.S. newspapers.

HERE’S A REPORT ON HAPPENINGS IN BOLIVIA.

OOPS:

The facts seem simple enough. A rather hum-drum late nineteenth century novelist, Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins (1863-1938), finds late twentieth century cachet when she is identified as an African American author. . . .

Holly Jackson’s discovery shows that Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins was white. Her family knew that all along. Her novels included no people of color. Only the scholars believed Kelley-Hawkins was an African American writer and that her novels betrayed no race consciousness became a matter for interpretation. But why would scholars not have taken the relentlessly white novels of Kelley-Hawkins as a signal that she was white? Did we read them and do the archival research about her or did we simply rely on an earlier authority’s word for their author’s ethnicity?

Sounds like a case of “too good to check.” Or maybe Hollywood is right, and people are just easy to fool.

LIKE CIVILIZATION: Except with mirror balls.

AN AFGHAN BLOG: Via Jeff Jarvis.

IRAQI MERCHANTS BOYCOTTING SYRIA — this is interesting:

After what we’ve seen on TV, we thought that it’s totally unpatriotic to trade with that country; the Syrian government is benefiting from trade with Iraq and using the money they get to fund the criminals who slaughter our people. Not only that; the ordinary people themselves started to prefer products from other origins over Syrian products so we thought that it’s better to search for alternatives for the boycotted items.

This is bad news for Assad, I suspect.

UPDATE: It’s especially interesting in conjunction with this observation from Michael Young:

One should also observe the pragmatism of the Syrian business class. The Assads and Makhloufs are not indispensable to its survival, and any movement away from the regime will have to pass through the private sector at some stage. With the economy searching for a lifeline, and privatization and banking reforms hardly advancing at all, there is surely disgruntlement there. I’m not suggesting a coup is in the offing (who knows?), but the pillars of the Assad regime are eroding: the Alawites are worried; the business class, particularly Sunnis, were disturbed by the Hariri assassination and are, clearly, making less money today; and the political elite as a whole may soon lose a very profitable venture in Lebanon.

Hmm.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: “The Issue the GOP Simply Must Get Right.”

IS DAVID HOROWITZ RECYCLING AN URBAN MYTH? Deadtree organs do that all the time, but that’s no excuse.

UPDATE: Apparently, it’s not Horowitz who’s being inaccurate, here.

VIRGINIA POSTREL:

the spat between Susan Estrich and Michael Kinsley over whether the LAT runs enough women op-ed writers (a.k.a. enough of Estrich’s friends) keeps getting nastier. Estrich has revealed herself as a poorly read, though well-connected, hack–people who are interested in ideas know who Charlotte Allen is–while Kinsley has demonstrated why magazines are generally more interesting than newspapers: Magazine editors (and Kinsley is one, despite his current job) are paid to have vision and confidence, not to bend to pressure groups.

Be sure to follow the link, and read the “pink boxes” stuff.

UNSCAM UPDATE: This isn’t inspiring confidence that the Volcker Report is getting to the bottom of things:

The committee probing the Oil-for-Food (search) scandal says it will correct omitting the name of a U.N. official involved in the international controversy who has a close relationship with the executive director of the panel.

It’s well known that the Volcker commission’s executive director, Reid Morden (search), and Louise Frechette (search) have had a “longstanding professional relationship” for 30 years, according to the Independent Inquiry Committee — dubbed the “Volcker commission” after its chief, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker (search).

Morden was Canada’s deputy minister of foreign affairs in the 1990s. Frechette is U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s No. 2 at the international organization. But Frechette also was Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations at the same time Morden was her boss.

Hmm.

TOM MAGUIRE ON BANKRUPTCY AND LEGAL ACTION:

Guided by the notion that sunlight is the best disinfectant, here is a simple suggestion that left and right ought to be able to accept, if not lovingly embrace: require credit card issuers and consumer lenders to prominently disclose information about (a) penalty rates and fees, and (b) the proportion of clients currently paying those fees.

For example, suppose the next letter you received saying “You are Pre-Approved” also told you, on the front of the envelope, that the penalty rate was 30%, that monthly late fees were $35, and that 8% of current card-holders paid late fees or penalty interest at some point in the last three months. Suddenly, that tired old financial planning advice to be near a wastebasket when you go through the mail sounds very sensible.

And for the credit card issuers with a “kinder, gentler” marketing strategy, there will be an incentive to waive a few fees, and to be a bit less aggressive in collecting penalties, if the benefit will be monthly numbers with better consumer appeal.

Interesting.

UPDATE: More here. I’ve noticed the silence of people like Dave Ramsey and Clark Howard, myself.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Rick Brady emails that Dave Ramsey hasn’t been silent:

Glenn, I heard Dave Ramsey a couple of nights ago rail against the bill as being bought and paid for by predatory lenders. He had very harsh words for the Republican Party in falling for it and accused them all of having their votes bought. He’s not exactly silent on this issue.

Glad to hear it, and glad to be wrong. I listen sometimes, and haven’t heard him mention it, and I couldn’t find anything on his website. I wonder if Clark Howard has weighed in?

MORE: Ask and ye shall receive. Reader Brian Kerth emails: “I heard Clark Howard do his own little rant on the Bankruptcy Bill on Thursday. He is definitely not a fan and urged his listeners to be cautious of the outcome. He hasn’t posted anything on it that I could find.”

Me neither. These guys need to get blogs!

ROB SMITH’S MOTHER HAS DIED: Please send your condolences.

PUBLIUS HAS A LEBANON NEWS ROUNDUP posted.

CULT UPDATE: My earlier post brought a lot of suggestions, but most people agreed that the iPod Shuffle is fine for audiobooks. And quite a few people reported that their 9-year-olds had no trouble with the interface. Some recommended an iPod Mini now that the price gap has closed, but I don’t think it’s shock-resistant enough to ride in a 9-year-old’s backpack. I like the flash-memory aspect, and the cheapness, of the Shuffle. And, yes, there are other alternatives, but my daughter is fully indoctrinated into the cult, now, so they’re not really alternatives at all . . . .

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE: Here’s the link to this week’s Carnival of the Recipes.

MORE TROUBLE FOR WARD CHURCHILL:

University of Colorado officials investigating embattled professor Ward Churchill received documents this week purporting to show that he plagiarized another professor’s work.” . . .

Dalhousie began an investigation after professor Fay G. Cohen complained that Churchill used her research and writing in an essay without her permission and without giving her credit. Although the investigation substantiated her allegations, Cohen didn’t pursue the matter because she felt threatened by Churchill, Crosby said.

Crosby said Cohen told Dalhousie officials in 1997 that Churchill had called her in the middle of the night and said, “I’ll get you for this.”

Sheesh.

UPDATE: This may scuttle a buy-out deal:

Allegations that University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill plagiarized and threatened a professor in Canada scuttled negotiations Friday for a financial settlement that would have ended Churchill’s employment at CU. . . .

The News has also learned that a prominent American Indian artist told law enforcement authorities in New Mexico that Churchill threatened violence against him.

There’s much more in the article. And there’s more coverage in the Denver Post. (Via Cliopatria.)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dave Kopel writes:

For all the ink devoted to the Ward Churchill case, the Denver dailies have done virtually nothing to investigate the dysfunctional campus academic culture which led to the Churchill fiasco.

He goes on to raise a number of questions that he thinks deserve answers.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF CORDITE — a collection of gun-related posts — is up. And was there a Carnival of Recipes this week? Nobody sent me the link.

MYSTERY POLLSTER OFFERS AN ANALYSIS of Gallup’s new poll on blogs. Key bit:

No, the collective reach of blogs is nowhere near that of television or print media, but focusing on the relatively small percentages misses the rapidly growing influence of the blog readership in absolute terms. The 12% that say they read political blogs at least a few times a month amount to roughly 26 million Americans. That may not make blogs a “dominant” news source, but one American in ten ads up to a lot of influence.

All the more so when you look at which ten percent it is.

LAW PROFESSOR MIKE RAPPAPORT has thoughts on filibusters.

DANIEL DREZNER WONDERS why Jeffrey Sachs’ plan for ending global poverty at a cost of $150 billion per year isn’t getting more attention.

PROTEST PHOTOS FROM KYRGYZSTAN — the protesters get extra points for turning out in such frigid weather.

HUGH HEWITT:

After two days of conversations in DC with leading conservatives and officials, it is clear to me that the GOP is the party of expertise and achievement abroad and innovation and new ideas at home, always the superior position in politics. The only serious danger to its leadership is a split over immigration –the sort of split that destroyed Peel’s Conservative Party over the Corn Laws and Gladstone’s Liberals over Home Rule for Ireland and Chamberlain’s theories of imperial preference. The president’s plan will stir a lot of passions, and would best be coupled with an extraordinary push for southern border security in the form of a border length fence and an easy to patrol highway along its length.

This is an issue that doesn’t get much coverage in Big Media, but if you listen to the second- and third-tier talk radio shows you’ll hear a lot of anger on the topic. I think that Hugh is probably right.

TANGLED BANK is a blog carnival focusing on science, nature, and medicine.

MORE LATER ON MY SPEECH (I’M BLOGGING FROM THE CAB) but in answer to a question afterward, I’m not necessarily against any regulation of campaign finances. But I think that current election law is quite bad, and that the FEC is a poor choice of regulatory instrument. More details later.

UPDATE: Wizbang is going to post a transcript and video later, so I won’t try to recreate the whole thing from memory. So a few high points:

Scott Thomas, chairman of the FEC, spoke before me. He opened with some rather uncharitable remarks regarding fellow commissioner Brad Smith’s comments on FEC regulation of blogs, but followed up with a discussion of FEC intent that, although it was supposed to be reassuring, actually left me thinking that the FEC was thinking more seriously about regulating blogs than I had previously believed. I wasn’t reassured at all, and the complexity of the reasoning he outlined just illustrated how much discretion — and how little real guidance — the FEC has on these kinds of questions.

That led me to open by saying that Thomas’s remarks were the most cogent argument I’ve heard for the abolition of the FEC. And they were. If you think that there can be objective, predictable, and unintrusive regulation of political speech, well — read the transcript of his remarks and see if you still think so.

Among other things, though, I noted a regulatory problem. Another agency, the FTC, has had its head handed to it when it has tried to impose intrusive regulations on industries that are dispersed across every Congressional district (like funeral homes, or used car dealers). I noted that bloggers have the same characteristic, with politically plugged-in bloggers everywhere.

My suggestion, following from this (and not in the speech) is that bloggers ought to contact their Representative and Senator and suggest legislation that will protect them from FEC regulation, just in case Thomas’s assurances turn out to be inadequate. I think it’s worth a thought. If you call them, and tell them that you’re a blogger/constituent who’s interested in this topic, I suspect you’ll get a hearing.

To be fair to Thomas — as I did note — he’s in charge of administering a dreadful statute, one that the FEC didn’t write, and whose administration is sure to be difficult.

ANOTHER UPDATE: By the way, you can read some thoughts of mine on campaign finance regulation in the Newsday column from 1999 that’s reproduced here.

Meanwhile, for an alternate view, here’s Mike Krempasky’s take on the event.

MORE: Rex Hammock has some pungent thoughts.

FREE SPEECH FOR ME, but not for thee. A look at federal election law.

TOM MAGUIRE turns lemons into lemonade on the bankrutpcy bill, but I’m still sorry it worked out this way. Apparently, the amount of bipartisanship here was surprising all around.

I’VE JUST SIGNED ON TO THIS BLOGOSPHERE LETTER TO THE F.E.C. on regulation of political blogs.

DRAMATIC DEMOCRAPHICS: Here are the blogads reader survey results, which suggest that the people reading blogs are a pretty desirable demographic.

REGISTAN has a collection of firsthand reports from Kyrgyzstan posted.

I’M IN WASHINGTON, where I’ll be speaking at the Politics Online conference later today. After which, alas, I’ll just head home.

THE COOLEST IPOD ACCESSORY I’VE SEEN so far: A whole-house FM transmitter. I would have loved one of these as a kid, especially as it works with everything, not just iPods.

UPDATE: Reader Jim Stanton notes that this one comes with hacking instructions in the reviews. Helpful!

And many, many readers recommend the Apple Airport Extreme with AirTunes, but that’s a lot more expensive, and lacks the cool Mad Scientists’ Club angle. Of course, for that, you really need one of these, which Ernest Miller (natch) reports he’s built.

SGRENA UPDATE: The Italian ineptitude explanation is looking stronger:

The AP reports that the Italian story of Giuliana Sgrena’s release and later wounding at an American checkpoint, which also resulted in the death of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, continues to fall apart. Two Italian newspapers now say that the general in charge of the Sgrena operation did not inform the US that Calipari’s mission was to free Sgrena, and one of them reports that General Mario Maroli didn’t even know it himself.

And Sgrena’s story is changing, again.

MICKEY KAUS wonders if the image of “mooching Boomer geezers” will affect the politics of Social Security reform:

Social Security has always been double-”work-tested”–that is 1) people who got it were seen as too old to be expected to work and 2) they’d worked and contributed payroll taxes when they were younger. But maybe Work Test #1 has now eroded–so many seniors are working that people in their late 60′s aren’t considered too old to work (just as, Gelinas notes, single moms are no longer not expected to work). AARP should worry about this. All those pictures in its magazine of vigorous seniors biking and hiking are coming back to bite them.

Kaus looks at Social Security reform as just another example of welfare reform. He may be onto something.

JOSHUA TREVINO AT REDSTATE calls the bankruptcy bill a “breach of faith,” and observes, “When it passes — and it will — it will be thanks purely to the Republican Party.”

NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION IS IN DECLINE, especially where “quality” circulation is concerned:

The Prudential Equity Group issued a biting 72-page report this morning on the state of circulation and found that both quality and quantity continue to decline.

Among other findings, the report said that “other paid” circulation was up 34% in the last reporting period, which it labled “troubling.”. . .

In the below-average category, the L.A. Times experienced an overall circulation decline of 5.6%. Full-paid home delivery was down 10.8%, much worse than the 2.4% national average, the report said. Home-delivered copies through third party sales decreased “significantly,” said the report.

The report noted a curious trend at the Times regarding other-paid circulation, calling the fluctuations and changes “peculiar.” As one category drops another gains, with the rough total remaining constant. “A 158% increase in discounted copies also signals to us more trouble with circulation and selling at the cover price,” the report said.

I cancelled my newspaper subscription — not out of pique, as is probably the case with many LAT subscribers, but because we weren’t reading it any more, and copies just piled up. They sent a guy to my house to offer me a free subscription. I said no, but last week they just started delivering copies again anyway. I thought it was just a mistake by our carrier, but now I wonder if it wasn’t a circulation-boosting strategy . . . .

More thoughts on the subject here. Is it a “media Enron?” I don’t know, but people sure seem to be doing their best to make the numbers look as good as possible.

BLOGS VERSUS MCCAIN-FEINGOLD: “One other thing, according to Technorati there are now 7,718,207 weblogs. That’s a whole lot of people – and voters! Just to put a John McCain spin on it – that’s about two million more people than the entire population of Arizona.”

BAHRAINIS PROTEST BLOGGERS’ ARREST: More here.

THIS EDITORIAL FROM THE NEW REPUBLIC echoes my democratization is a process, not an event theme:

But liberal democracy is more than just regime change and elections. It can succeed only if it is cultivated–which means devoting time and money to building civil institutions like a free press, nurturing liberal political parties and politicians, and generally inculcating liberal values through all available means, including popular culture.

Though they get in some shots at the Administration, the key point — about the need to support democratic reforms abroad — is clearly right.

I MEANT TO LINK TO THIS LETTER FROM A YEMENI JAIL the other day, but somehow failed to. Now a reply from an American blogger has been published in a Yemeni newspaper. There’s also a petition.

PUBLIUS HAS ANOTHER LEBANON NEWS ROUNDUP that’s chock-full of interesting stuff, including more reports that the Syrians were busing in ringers for the pro-Syrian protest.

DAN RATHER VISITS STATELY INSTAPUNDIT MANOR, and learns who was really behind his demise, in another Chandleresque thriller from IowaHawk.

HEH: “Fatwa issued against bin Laden.”

MICKEY KAUS: “An entrenched institution of the rich attempts to influence the news … and the craven corporate media caves!”

CATHY SEIPP LOOKS AT the demise of department stores. I wouldn’t mind, if they were replaced by Samuel’s.

DON’T MISS THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES, where bloggers you may not have heard of before strut their stuff. Check ‘em out — you may find somebody you like better than InstaPundit!

I SAID NOT TO GLOAT, but at first it sounds as if Jeff Jacoby wasn’t listening:

The Axis of Weasel is crying uncle, and much of the chorus is singing from the same songsheet.

Listen to Claus Christian Malzahn in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel: ”Could George W. be right?” And Guy Sorman in France’s Le Figaro: ”And if Bush was right?” And NPR’s Daniel Schorr in The Christian Science Monitor: ”The Iraq effect? Bush may have had it right.” And London’s Independent, in a Page 1 headline on Monday: ”Was Bush right after all?”

Even Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s ”Daily Show” and an indefatigable Bush critic, has learned the new lyrics. ”Here’s the great fear that I have,” he said recently. ”What if Bush . . . has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may . . . implode.”

For those of us in the War Party, by contrast, these are heady days. If you’ve agreed with President Bush all along that the way to fight the cancer of Islamist terrorism is with the chemotherapy of freedom and democracy, the temptation to issue I-told-you-so’s can be hard to resist.

And yet, I think it should be resisted at this point, and Jacoby actually agrees:

It is being called an ”Arab Spring,” and Bush’s critics are right to give him credit for helping to bring it about. What his allies need to bear in mind is that cracks in the ice of tyranny and misrule don’t always lead to liberation.

In 1989, a global wave of democratic fervor brought tens of millions of anticommunist demonstrators into the streets. In Eastern Europe, that wave shattered the Berlin Wall, freed the captive nations, and eventually ended the Cold War. In China, by contrast, it was stopped by the tanks of Tiananmen Square and the spilling of much innocent blood.

”At last, clearly and suddenly, the thaw has begun,” said President Bush on Tuesday. Let us all pray that it continues and that the long winter of Arab discontent is finally giving way to a summer of liberty and human rights. There will be time enough for gloating if it does.

We’re just beginning with this. Don’t get cocky.

A PROCESS, NOT AN EVENT: Here’s more Ukraine news.

UNREST IN IRAN: Dale Amon rounds up a number of reports.

UPDATE: Read this, too.

SHOCKINGLY, MATT HALE MAY BE INNOCENT: A bizarre twist in the Lefkow murder case.

DOUG KERN thinks we’re blurring the line between misdemeanors and felonies. But I think it’s worth noting that we’ve blurred the line both ways, by making felonies of comparatively minor crimes.

MY DAUGHTER HAS JOINED A CULT: The Cult of the iPod. She’s borrowed my iPod from time to time, and she’s been listening to the audiobook version of Number the Stars, and to the Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian, among other things. (This is a big hit with her crowd; I predict a revival of ’80s girl bands.)

Now she wants one for herself, but I’m not so sure. My iPod seems a bit pricey to entrust to a 9-year-old who’ll use it outside of my supervision. So my question for the Cult is, will a 9-year-old be able to handle the non-display interface of an iPod Shuffle, and will the cheap 512MB version hold an entire audiobook?

HERE’S A PROPOSAL for a cross-blogosphere coalition in opposition to the bankruptcy bill. I note that Tennessee will be one of the states most affected by it, and wonder why my local media outfits haven’t paid much attention to that. (Via Tunesmith).

UPDATE: My former student Brent Snyder emails:

As you know I somehow ended up being a bankruptcy attorney at the busiest firm here in Knoxville. There has been some media coverage of the bill, attorney Ann Mostoller was on the talk radio news a week ago or so, my office was called last week as well. The sad fact is that this is a horrible law, designed to feed credit card companies more money. What is worse is that the even more diabolical provision, especially concerning attorney liability has not been mentioned in the senate debates at all.

For instance, if a client lies to me about assets and they are later discovered by the trustee or a creditor, I am personally on the hook. There are many other provisions in the bill designed to either keep people from filing or make it so that bankruptcy attorneys look for other avenues. Something is wrong when the majority of bankruptcy attorneys and trustees think it is a bad idea, Hank Hildebrand the Chapter 13 trustee for MDTN has written an article detailing all the flaws, and this is from someone that stands to benefit from the increase in 13 filings after the amendments are signed in to law.

I am concerned that Zywicki thinks the bill is a good idea, I mean I can understand his assertations that reform is needed and maybe that a means test is the way to go, but the other provisions are so one sided it ‘s comical.

It seems that way to me.

UPDATE: More here.

THE LONDON AND PARIS “STREETS:” They’re not marching for Arab democracy:

Why are so many Westerners, living in mature democracies, ready to march against the toppling of a despot in Iraq but unwilling to take to the streets in support of the democratic movement in the Middle East?

Is it because many of those who will be marching in support of Saddam Hussein this month are the remnants of totalitarian groups in the West plus a variety of misinformed idealists and others blinded by anti-Americanism?

Or is it because they secretly believe that the Arabs do not deserve anything better than Saddam Hussein?

Those interested in the health of Western democracies would do well to ponder those questions.

Some of us have, and we’re not happy about the conclusions we’ve reached.

TEDDY ROOSEVELT: MANLY MAN: “The theorists today who say masculinity is a social construction often give the impression that there’s nothing to it; society waves a wand and a nerd is made manly. No, it takes effort to become manly, as Teddy Roosevelt says. The more manliness is constructed, the more effort it takes.”

APPARENTLY, I’M INSUFFICIENTLY PRO-WAR, according to a reader from, of all places, Canada:

Tell your readers why the following can’t impact on your Bush-spin sotted brain: respect for freedom of conscience does not negate contempt for the unconscionable. Islam is the most perfected form of tyranny ever concocted. You have learned to write off people like me, who would turn Mecca and Medina and Qom and Karbala into charcoal. Why don’t you focus your hate – and it really is Western self-loathing, in deference to Eastern savages – on the mortal enemy of our way of life?

Impartially, objectively and properly: you are a pathetic pollyanna, who is incapable of discerning pure evil. And you are in the way.

Sigh. This is a rather inaccurate and ahistorical view of Islam. As was noted here shortly after 9/11, many American mistake Wahhabism for Islam, when Wahhabism is in fact a rather out-of-the-mainstream variety. The Saudis would like to encourage that mistake, and Osama bin Laden hoped to provoke a major religious war (though I don’t think he understood the likely outcome), but I’d prefer to see neither get their way.

UPDATE: Adding to my bemusement is this email from reader John Mendenhall:

Re your reader who accused you of being of an insufficiently discerning take on Islam and the threat Islam, as a polity, poses to Western life:

A very simple, if no particularly elegant, thought exercise will isslustrate what he means. If, say, renegade Lutherans were suddenly to take to the airways, blow up big buildings in Malaysia, behead Muslim hostages, sink (what–dhows owned by Muslim governments) with maximal casualties, blow up as many innoncent Muslims as they could get their hands on–

Would the Western response be to:

a: send them money
b: build them schools
c: march enthusiastically in the streets with each fresh atrocity
d: publish blood libels in the national press, or
e: stop them in their tracks right now right away first thing this afternoon whatever it took.

If you chose any answer but (e) the reader is right is assessing your dhimmitude. Though the reader didn’t say so as well as others might have, the dhimmitude of Europe and its cousin the dhimmitude of American liberalism is the Chamberlainism of our time. Except there were not very many Nazis and there are billions of Muslims.

(I am married into a Minnesota family and am keenly aware that the words “renegade” and “Lutheran” don’t work so well together these last five hundred years.)

But wouldn’t what the reader above suggests be the equivalent of blowing up Pentecostals and Catholics for the actions of those Lutherans?

Sorry, but being called a soft-on-terror liberal is just hard for me to take seriously. I guess I’m just one of those peace-and-love-addled Wolfowitzian idealists.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Geoff Matthews has it right, I think:

Your Canadian reader has it all wrong. The War on Terror (current phase) is being waged so we don’t have to bomb Mecca. Right now, radical Islam is not a terrible threat. But because it is a threat, and has the potential to become a terrible threat, we need the War on Terror. While radical Islam has been given a pass, at best, or supported, at worse, in Islamic countries, the whole point of the War on Terror is to change that. Basically, we need to reduce the credibility of the radical elements of Islam to the same level as white supremacists in the U.S. (ie, less than zero). The democratization of Iraq will improve the lives of more Arabs than anything Islam has done, much less the radical elements of Islam. That, more than anything, will undermine these radical elements of Islam. Young men who are building homes, programming in Java or designing Linux networks have better things to do than martyrdom.

However, if radical Islam becomes the ‘norm’ in the middle east (or at least wields enough power to be the perceived norm), then bombing Mecca may be an option. But we aren’t there yet, and given the War on Terror, and how things are developing, I don’t see it happening.

But, if the USSR won the cold war and 9/11 happened to them, would their response have been as reasoned as the coalition of the willing? Every day Muslims should be grateful that Reagan won the cold war.

Yes. And these considerations explain why I’ve supported the Wolfowitzian project.

“COURAGE!”

HERE’S MORE ON KYRGYZSTAN, where the OSCE folks aren’t getting good reviews.

JOHN SAMPLES, IN REASON:

Bloggers were one of the big political successes of the 2004 election. This motley group of opinionated writers used their cyber soapboxes to attack and defend the presidential campaigns and the two major parties. Their websites offered a fresh look at politics and implicitly undermined the Establishment media that so many Americans have come to distrust. In other words, bloggers used freedom of speech to improve American democracy.

Naturally the federal government is about to come down hard on bloggers.

We have the word of two Senators that this isn’t true.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey lacks confidence in these reassurances.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Simon thinks that politicians aren’t dumb enough to go after bloggers.

DAN RATHER IS LEAVING, but his legacy remains. Heh.

HERE’S VIDEO of Jeff Jarvis’s blog roundup on MSNBC’s Connected Coast to Coast. Among other things, he notes the left/right agreement that the bankruptcy bill is bad.

AS I KEEP SAYING, democratization is a process, not an event. This post from Iraqi blogger Ali makes that clear.

KOS HAS A LIST OF DEMOCRATS supporting the bankruptcy bill. No point running a list of Republicans who opposed it, as there don’t seem to have been any.

Kevin Drum asks:

The more I read about the bankruptcy bill the more perplexed I get. Liberals don’t like it. Moderate liberals don’t like it (Bill “DLC” Clinton vetoed it the last time it cropped up). Conservatives aren’t really very excited about it. And it’s sponsored by the credit card industry, which is roughly the 21st century equivalent of being sponsored by the German Bund.

So how is it getting such wide support?

Why, indeed?

UPDATE: I’m getting a number of emails like this one:

I thought libertarians were in favor of respecting private property, individual rights, individual responsibilities, freedom of contract, etc. Isn’t present Bankruptcy law (the fundamental purpose of which is to allow a party who freely entered into a contract to repudiate their obligations under the contract) contrary to basic libertarian values? Wouldn’t the present reform proposal help correct the anti-freedom nature of bankruptcy law?

Well, as I wrote earlier, it seems to me that many of the credit-card industry’s come-ons are near-fraudulent. Libertarians aren’t supposed to approve of fraud. And if people are supposed to live with the consequences of their actions, then why shouldn’t credit-card companies live with the consequences of extending credit to poor risks?

At any rate, if bankruptcy law is “anti-freedom.” then what’s pro-freedom? Debtor’s prison?

VITAL ANALYSIS from the folks at InstaPunk.

MIKE KREMPASKY RESPONDS to criticism from Garance Franke-Ruta.

UPDATE: Much more from Chris Nolan.

PUBLIUS HAS A ROUNDUP OF NEWS FROM BOLIVIA: The earlier report that its government had fallen appears to have been wrong.

BLOGGER SUED BY COLUMNIST: Tom Maguire has the scoop.

UPDATE: Okay, the headline above is really wrong. It’s really the publisher. And it’s only a threatened suit yet — one that I strongly doubt will proceed, as I doubt the defendant wants to answer the inevitable discovery requests regarding its marketing practices.

PROTESTERS SET UP A YURT CITY in Kyrgyzstan.

JON HENKE NOTES armor revisionism at The New York Times.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF EDUCATION IS UP: Don’t miss it if you’re interested in education. And you should be.

PUBLIUS HAS NEWS FROM MOLDOVA: From which there hasn’t been much news lately.

MORE THOUGHTS ON LEBANON, here. It also occurs to me that with so much attention being paid to developments there, it would be a good time to do things elsewhere that might escape notice.

IT’S PLEDGE SEASON at Baseball Musings. If you’ve enjoyed his blog, consider donating. It’s good for the environment!

IT’S BEEN IMPOSSIBLE to separate the Insta-Daughter from this book, which she keeps recommending that I read — once she’s finished. I will: It’s kind of cool to have her recommending books to me now.

THE NEW YORK TIMES doesn’t like the Patriot Act (well, neither do I) but it’s interesting that the Times is okay with the idea of depriving people suspected of terror ties of civil rights on a bureaucrat’s say-so under some circumstances.

Maybe they’re just refusing to succumb to “libertarian panic!”

IT’S RAINING BULLETS — SORT OF: Not very impressive. Meanwhile, reader Joseph Fulvio emails with further thoughts on the increasingly dubious Sgrena affair:

Europeans have long been conditioned to assume the worst about Americans. No surprise there. But it’s interesting how quickly the American Left accepted, with little reservation, the word of a politically-blinkered writer who openly crusaded against this war (no bias there!). Yet, it refused to give benefit of doubt, much less a full hearing, to its fellow citizens, members of the most highly trained and disciplined military organization in the world. But don’t question their patriotism – they support the troops™.

Here’s a column by Austin Bay that’s more informed and thoughtful than most of what you’ll read on this. And there’s some more interesting background on Sgrena on his blog.

UPDATE: More photos of the car here. If U.S. troops were firing as much as Sgrena claims, they should all be sent back to the shooting range to requalify.

ANTI-SYRIAN LEBANESE are getting support, and affection, from Iraq.

VIETNAM: THE NEXT IRAQ? Heh. I want bumper stickers that say that.

WELL, THIS HAS GOT TO HURT:

Has Powerline no shame? I can think of nothing more contemptible, really. To think, here they are posing as citizens who happen to be interested in writing their thoughts, when in reality they are Dartmouth-educated attorneys who have written for publications before!

Fortunately, they’ve been “outed” by a real journalist at a nonpartisan publication. The Republic is safe!

IT’S EAT AN ANIMAL FOR PETA DAY: Yum.