WELL, DIVERSITY IS A GOOD THING, RIGHT?

Saying that they want to ensure that a wide range of views is heard and tolerated on college campuses, a group of state lawmakers is proposing legislation that would ask South Dakota’s six state universities to report periodically on their efforts to promote “intellectual diversity.”

Rep. Phyllis Heineman, R-Sioux Falls, chairwoman of the House Education Committee and the chief sponsor of HB1222, said Wednesday that the goal is to prevent situations already seen in other states where students, speakers and faculty members have been harassed because of their views.

“This is not an indictment at all,” Heineman said. “For us, it is good governance. . . . We are just trying to be proactive and not wait for any incidents, such as the Iraq war veteran who was harassed at Columbia University.”

Indeed.

HOW BAD HAVE THE DEMOCRATS’ PROBLEMS with their “activist base” gotten? Bad enough that Joan Vennochi in the Boston Globe thinks they’re going too far to the left:

Calling for a filibuster makes political sense for Kennedy, who is adored by every left-wing constituency in America. He isn’t running for national office; he can afford to stick to strict liberal principle. He wants to go down fighting. For Kennedy, a filibuster call mollifies the left at no political cost. It is also an attempt to make up for the obvious: He used the wrong tone and tactics during the hearings. Going after Alito as a bigot backfired. Forget about Mrs. Alito’s tears. The moment Kennedy was exposed for belonging to a discriminatory college fraternal organization, it was over. He lost the moral high ground.

Kerry’s enthusiasm for a filibuster is harder to fathom, except as more of the same from a perpetually tone-deaf politician.

Why volunteer to look like a creature of the left if you are plotting a second presidential campaign? The perception helped undercut Kerry’s first presidential campaign. . . .

The longer Democrats and Republicans in Congress maintain the high level of hostile partisanship, the less attractive any would-be presidential candidate who hails from Congress looks. These senators who would be president help the cause of governors — Democrats and Republicans — who hold the same ambition.

I think that’s right, but the Senators are looking at the Kos/Moveon crowd. (Via Paul Mirengoff).

LIBERAL BLOG MYDD has commissioned some professional polling. Here’s the first installment, and here’s a writeup by Mystery Pollster, who lauds the transparency and openness involved, with all the data being put online.

UPDATE: Reader Rachel Walker emails:

I just finished reading MyDD’s opinion on polls. As a liberal I was rather disturbed with the blogger’s wish that Bush’s approval rating was in the 30′s. Does that mean he is so unimpressed by our own party that the only way we could win is to make Bush look bad? With such an attitude, we don’t look so great either.

It’s such whiny and desparate behavior that leads me to more centrist and conservative blogs than anything Kos or DU related. It seems to me liberals have forgotten to be liberal (tolerant, polite, yet firm in belief), and such behavior is why many people, though they do not like Bush or some conservative ideas, tend to distance themselves from the left. I know that’s the reason for me.

Well, wishing for the other guy to go down is natural, I think. I was mostly interested in the poll for its transparency, and because I think it’s good to see blogs out there doing this kind of thing.

That said, I think that lefties are over-focused on Bush, and that the GOP likes it that way. Bush’s numbers may be down (though they seem to be trending up on Rasmussen at the moment, for reasons that aren’t obvious to me; the filibuster talk, perhaps?) — but it doesn’t matter. Bush isn’t running again. The next GOP candidate will run on an “I’m not Bush, but you can trust me on security more than the Democrats” platform — as the elder Bush did in 1988. The Democrats’ Bush-hatred just plays into that strategy. If they were smarter, they’d be building up some people of their own, which among other things would involve keeping them out of the fray of Bush-bashing. The only candidate who seems to fit that bill is Mark Warner, but I suspect the Kos/Moveon crowd won’t like him.

FILM NOIR involving the dread Gizmodo crime family. That’s scary, all right.

PAUL BOUTIN discovers that the Chinese Google filter only works if you can spell.

THE SAD THING IS, I actually kind of want one of these.

CATHY SEIPP:

When journalists go from keeping secrets about sources to expecting sources to keep secrets about them, something in the media has begun to stink with self-importance. I think this corner of the sausage factory could do with some inspection and fresh air, so I wrote about all this on my blog.

Read the whole thing.

CARNIVAL-O-RAMA: I was pretty lame about posting blog carnival links last week, so here’s a makeup roundup. First, the Carnival of Couture, which as always was super-fantastic. Some other highlights: The Carnival of Education, Don Surber’s new Carnival of the Celebrities (Google-bait!), and the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Lots more carnivals, of course, at BlogCarnival.com.

BOB WOODRUFF and an accompanying cameraman have been seriously injured by a terrorist bomb in Iraq.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has thoughts.

FINISHED READING Joshua Palmatier’s The Skewed Throne. I enjoyed it very much — it’s quite good, even leaving aside that it’s a first novel.

UPDATE: He’s got a blog, too. This story about an accidental rejection letter is pretty funny.

I once got a rejection letter from a law review for a piece I’d never submitted to them. On the other hand, I’ve also gotten an acceptance for a piece I never submitted, so I guess it evens out.

ARNOLD KLING: Is blogging a fad?

UPDATE: In a related topic, Terry Teachout and Rick Brookhiser debate the future of e-books.

I SUSPECT that a lot of these too-busy grandparents were too busy as parents, too.

AUSTIN BAY looks at some modest signs of political progress in Kuwait. Meanwhile, Kevin Drum wonders if Kuwait is running out of oil. IAs I understand it, some of this reflects inflated estimates from past years (I had an item on similar questions about Saudi reserves, and I’ve seen speculation that Iran has less than it lets on), but of course it’s in the interest of these countries to inflate their reserves, thus discouraging additional drilling and competition that might lower prices.

Perhaps this is an argument for not drilling in ANWR and elsewhere in the United States yet — leave that stuff in the ground for a few decades while consuming Middle East oil now, and eventually we’ll be selling oil to them. Or not . . .

GOOGLE’S NEW MOTTO: “Be semi-evil. Be quasi-evil. Be the margarine of evil. Be the Diet Coke of evil — just one calorie; not evil enough.”

Lots more on Google at the China Syndrome blog.

UPDATE: BizzyBlog wonders why the lefty blogs don’t seem to be paying much attention to the Google story.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Joe David McReynolds emails:

IMHO your reaction, and much of the right side of the blogosphere’s, to Google’s entry into the Chinese marketplace is wrongheaded. Do you think that if Google doesn’t go there, Chinese internet users will just twiddle their thumbs and not search for stuff? That a blow will be struck to their machine of censorship?

Of course not. There are Chinese search engines that are almost the same, and they will (and have been) use those.

If anything, Google going into China is a net benefit to the Chinese people, same as MSN was.

Why?

American companies censor like the government forces them to, but as we see in the case of MSN, they are FAR MORE LAX about censorship and reporting of suspect activities than similar Chinese companies.

Getting Google into the Chinese market will probably neither slow nor accelerate the demise of China’s ruling regime, when and if that comes; the vast majority of Foreign Direct Investment in China comes from abroad.

As far as the “Resistance to evil” factor, what one might call “washing our hands”, that ship sailed a long time ago. The economic miracle that has been the Party’s foundation of legitimacy in China was financed largely by overseas Chinese, not American multinationals. China is not like the Soviet Union, where dissidents could take comfort that somewhere, out there, there was someone who would fight the Soviets to the end. That just isn’t the case in China, and Google’s decision makes no difference.

I’m sorry that Google’s action makes it harder to feel “clean” of the world’s unpleasantness, but as stated above, if anything this is to the benefit of China’s citizens who would like a free internet.

I imagine you’ll get plenty of e-mail on this topic, but I’d hope this argument (whether made by myself or those more articulate than I) is something you will address.

Yes, my TCS column this week will look at those “constructive engagement” arguments. They’re nontrivial, but still . . . .

MORE: Here’s a defense of google.

MICHELLE MALKIN has a Davos roundup, with video.

CONGRESSIONAL STAFFERS REWRITING WIKIPEDIA to make their boss look good. Charming.

UPDATE: Sean Hackbarth says this is another blow to Wikipedia.

IS CINDY SHEEHAN becoming the voice of the new Democratic Party? Hey, they used to dismiss Kos as fringe, and now he’s mainstream.

UPDATE: Bruce Kesler isn’t happy with this mainstreaming.

G.M. ROPER: “Thursday, January 26th, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Talk about a kick in the teeth.” Drop by and offer him your good wishes.

HERE’S AN AP story on Michael Yon:

The 41-year-old former Army Green Beret, self-published author and world traveler didn’t know exactly what he was going to do when he got to the war zone last year, nor did he have any particular plans to report what he saw to the world at-large.

But that’s what he did.

After getting himself embedded as a freelance journalist with troops last year, he used his Internet blog to report on the car bombs, firefights and dead soldiers. But he also wrote descriptively about acts of compassion and heroism, small triumphs in the country’s crawl toward democracy and the gritty inner workings of the military machine.

Yon’s dispatches have been extolled by loyal readers as gutsy and honest reporting by a guy who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. He has been interviewed and his blog quoted by major newspapers and TV news networks, and he has drawn comparisons to Ernie Pyle, the renowned World War II correspondent who shared the trenches with fighting soldiers.

Nice story. Read the whole thing.

WRITING IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, Hossein Derakshan blames Bush for the rise of Ahmadinejad. Seems like a bit of a stretch, to me.

UPDATE: A comment here: “Derakshan fundamentally does not understand democracy.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

IMMIGRATION REMAINS THE “SLEEPER ISSUE” in U.S. politics, but I just got a press release from Time suggesting that it may not sleep much longer:

Almost two-thirds of Americans (63%) consider illegal immigration a “very serious” or “extremely serious” problem in the United States, according to a TIME Poll. The majority (74%) believes the U.S. is not doing enough to secure its borders. . . .

TIME’s Poll shows that half (50%) of Americans favor deporting all illegal immigrants back to their home countries (45% oppose). Three-in-four (76%) favor allowing illegal immigrants in the U.S. to earn citizenship if they learn English, have a job and pay taxes. . . . Meanwhile 700,000 undocumented immigrants from around the world continue to enter the U.S. each year, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

I favor making legal immigration easier — essentially under the guidelines above — but I also favor much stricter enforcement against illegal immigration. Which, I think, puts me pretty much on the opposite side of the issue from the Bush Administration.

The issue is, I think, heating up beneath the surface and it’s only been kept from breaking out politically by the extraordinarily low unemployment rates of recent years. Once unemployment, inevitably, moves back up toward historical averages, people will become much more vocal about this issue in a hurry. It would be nice if we could come up with a sensible policy before that happens, as the discussion is likely to be a lot nastier if we wait.

UPDATE: John Tabin has a podcast illustrating some of the politics of this issue.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona has an oped on the subject. He stresses the importance of immigrants adopting American culture.

As Jim Bennett says: “Democracy, immigration, multiculturalism. Pick any two.”

BLOGS OF THE UNION: Chris Lydon’s Radio Open Source invites you to write your own State of the Union address. They’re collecting them for a broadcast on the real thing.

MARK TAPSCOTT: “The pork is not the point about the pork.”

TOM MAGUIRE:

I would guess that blogs and the internet have made the unelectable left even better organized and harder to work around; the days when a candidate could tell Barbra Streisand what she wanted to hear, pocket her check, then tell the public something that made sense are long over.

Indeed.

AUSTIN BAY looks at the Hamas victory and what it may mean. The Belmont Club looks at the money. And Patrick Belton continues to report on Oxblog. My favorite bit is Hanan Ashrawi’s unhappy take:

Not mincing words, she expressed utter disbelief in the Hamas 2.0 hypothesis, said she would not be open to joining a coalition with the party and told me that she thought Hamas would bring the West Bank and Gaza into theocracy.

Sorry she’s unhappy, but her crowd had years and years to do something about Hamas, to get their rampant corruption under control, and — for that matter — to make (and keep) a peace agreement that would have led to prosperity in Gaza and the West Bank. They didn’t, and this is part of the consequence.

Meanwhile, an article in the Knoxville News-Sentinel features interviews with locals with Palestinian roots, and I have to agree with this guy:

Fathi Husain agreed. He said that everyone would like to see peace and working relations in that part of the world, but for now he will wait and see what comes out of this democratic election.

“Democracy is a process, not just an event,” Husain said. “It takes a lot of effort to make it work right.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

UPDATE: Here’s a transcript of Hugh Hewitt and Frank Gaffney talking about this subject.

DAVE KOPEL LOOKS at blogs and the Canadian election.

A GOOGLE BACKLASH? I’m getting a fair number of emails like this one from reader Jeff Schneider of Texas Roast:

I run a small gourmet coffee company that does decent business on the internet, thanks to the reach of Google Ad Words. However, I cannot live with Google’s decision to succumb to the wishes of the brutal dictatorship in China. So, as of today, my company has suspended all business with Google. This will have a substantial negative impact on my bottom line, but in some cases principle means more than money. As a veteran of OIF, I know all too well how valuable freedom is and I cannot support a company that helps to suppress it.

I would ask you to encourage any of your readers who might use Google Ad Words to take the same actions and send a message to Google. It is time for Americans to tell businesses when they have gone too far in compromising the most basic principles of freedom and make them pay a price for their actions.

Here’s more on a Google boycott. I don’t know how seriously this will impact Google (boycotts usually don’t do much damage) but I think this will be a good opportunity for any GoogleAd competitors (Blogads, say) to snap up some of Google’s business.

UPDATE: Blogger News Network is stopping Google Ads too.

JAMES LILEKS: “Simple rules for making a fool of yourself on the Internet.”

COMING SOON: CentCom podcasting.

IT’S THE KOS-MOVEON EFFECT:

Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.

These activists — spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns — have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush’s upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts. . . .

“The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. “The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left.”

Yep, that’s the trick.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Ardolino is congratulating Markos.

Also, a Watership Down comparison.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal reports:

Now for the good news. Amid the humiliating publicity about the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, maple syrup research in Vermont and blueberry subsidies in Massachusetts, nearly everyone in Congress is suddenly swearing off pork. . . .

Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona and Senators Tom Coburn and John McCain have one good idea, which is to bring more transparency to earmarking. They would require that every earmark be specifically included in the text of the legislation Congress is voting on. We’d also like to see a requirement that every earmark list its main Congressional sponsor and its purpose (other than to re-elect the Member).

Good idea. And that last bit doesn’t really need spelling out, does it? . . .

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE FRONT: Lots of interesting developments in Iraq that deserve more attention. Insurgent infighting, the Iraqi Army getting stronger — you’d think we were winning, or something.

VIA THE MAGIC OF AMAZON RECOMMENDATIONS, I discovered this: Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies. I haven’t read it, but I think its mere existence is significant, somehow.

Of course, if these guys really knew what they were talking about, wouldn’t they have sent me a copy already? Or wouldn’t I have heard about it from another blog, instead of Amazon? The reader reviews are good, though.

AND NOT IN A CHEAP HORROR MOVIE: Giant Octopus attacks submarine!

“I go full reverse and blast him with all these seabed particles,” said Wood, describing the attack shown in the video. “Finally, he lets go and disappears off into the gloom.

There’s video.

FUR-LINED UNDERWEAR banned in Uzbekistan? As “too erotic?” Go figure.

SAUDI ARABIA AND DENMARK: Where is the anger?

ANDREA SEE TURNS 30: Many happy returns.

GOOGLE HAS pulled its official censorship statement. (Via China Syndrome).

UPDATE: At Davos, Bill Gates is defending Google. Given that Microsoft’s record of cooperation with the Chinese authorities is worse than Google’s, that’s neither surprising nor impressive.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Google responds to its critics on the Google Blog.

Dartblog is unpersuaded.

RICHARD POSNER, in The New Republic: “What if wiretapping works?”

MY EARLIER COMMENTS ABOUT HAMAS get me accused of over-the-line hate speech: “You know there are a lot of nasty things you can say about a group of people but comparing them to Windows ME is beyond the pale.”

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll defends the comparison: “Well, they do both tend to crash and explode quite a bit.”

SHADEGG FOR MAJORITY LEADER: I won’t call this an “endorsement,” because that’s pretentious. I’m just a blogger, and not somebody in a position to issue endorsements.

But it seems to me that the GOP would be very wise to choose John Shadegg to replace Tom Delay as Majority Leader. Blunt, despite some reformist comments, is basically the candidate of business-as-usual. Boehner seems a bit better, but not tremendously different. Shadegg is the only one who seems like a plausible agent for reform, and it’s going to be hard to persuade people who would like to see the GOP get back to its small-government, clean-Congress 1994 roots that there’s any chance of that if they choose a business-as-usual Majority Leader.

Of course, that’s only a start. As Daniel Henninger makes clear, there’s also a structural problem:

Poll after poll says the public thinks both parties are equally corrupt. It depends, of course, on what the meaning of corruption is. If by corrupt you mean lobbyist sleaze, quid pro quo, the pork barrel, earmarks to nowhere and grossing out even the public’s generally low expectations, then yes, both parties are equally corrupt.

But it gets worse. Congress legislated the system that now exists. Congress planted the seeds back in the ’70s for what is revolting you now with two enactments–the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. Both were marketed as reforms.

The first law turned political Washington into a trillion-dollar industry camouflaged as the federal budget. The second ensured that sitting members of Congress and K Street lobbyists would become the entrenched management of that industry. Compared to this, Enron is a kindergarten game.

He’s right, and there’s a chapter (entitled “The Big Bang”) in The Appearance of Impropriety that discusses this at considerable length. But it’s also true that to fix this requires people at the top who want to fix it. Shadegg seems much more likely to deliver these results than either Blunt or Boehner.

UPDATE: N.Z. Bear thinks that Shadegg is the guy, too.

IRAQ THE MODEL: “Iraqi tribes in Anbar arrest 270 Arab and foreign al-Qaeda members!”

PODCASTING — JUST A FAD? John Hawkins has some thoughts in response to my TCS Daily column on podcasting.

In truth, we don’t disagree that much. He’s right that podcasting isn’t ready for prime time yet. It’s just that to me, that’s part of the fun. A couple of points:

1. Podcast listenership will almost always be less than blog readership.

True. Oh, I get some listeners via iTunes, links from other blogs, etc., but nearly all come from InstaPundit, I imagine. And since not everyone who reads the site, the audience has to be smaller. But it’s not just about audience. I was just talking to a friend who does podcasts for NPR, and he said that after 20 years in radio he feels “rejuvenated” doing podcasts, because they take away the barriers between him and the audience. I feel that way, too. They’re fun!

2. Successful podcasts will just get picked up by radio stations.

Er, is this a bug, or a feature? I wouldn’t mind if my podcasts got on the radio. Would we take a deal to do the “Glenn & Helen Show” for a radio station? Maybe. And somebody smart will start an XM or Sirius channel that’s all podcasts all the time. (We’re not far from that — I heard Chris Lydon’s show on XM last night when I was out getting frozen yogurt for my wife and daughter).

Will podcasts that don’t get on the radio just be “vanity projects?” I guess — but that’s what blogs are anyhow, in a way, isn’t it? The important thing is that they’re fun, and some people like them. Like blogs, podcasts will fork — some will get big, and make money, but most won’t and will be just for fun. And both ways are okay.

UNREST IN CHINA:

China’s Ministry of Public Security admitted that, last year, there were 87,000 riots, demonstrations and smaller protests, an increase of 6.6 percent over 2004. The most common cause of this unrest is government corruption, particularly among Communist Party members. The government has responded by pledging to come down hard on anyone who disturbs the peace, as well as finding and punishing corrupt officials. More restrictions are being placed on public access to the Internet (which over 110 million Chinese use.) All this was the same response the government had last year, when it was announced that unrest had been up for several years.

I tend to suspect that these numbers are, um, optimistic, too. There’s more on events in China at the China Syndrome blog.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON is targeting Tim Russert.

JAMES JOYNER on the similarities between Wal-Mart and academia.

IN THE MAIL: The Skewed Throne, by Joshua Palmatier.

JUNKETING BLOGGERS: I nobly resisted this temptation, by not being invited.

WONKETTE ON ALITO: “The Dems vs. Alito: Let’s Hold Hands and Jump.”

NOT REALLY A SURPRISE:

Canadian broadcasters are among the most vulnerable to an onslaught of new technology that is changing how people watch TV, warns a report titled “The end of television as we know it.”

(Via Newsbeat1).

STEPHEN GREEN:

So let’s say it again: There is no such thing as an efficient dictatorship. Only, when you it this time, think of Google and China.

Yes, it’s true that Google should take great shame in kowtowing to the Butchers of Beijing, but that’s not the whole story.

We take Google for granted, but we shouldn’t. For those lucky enough to live in the US, Google has given has a virtual research library – for free. I’m a better thinker, a sharper writer, and a richer individual thanks to Google.

And what will Google do for China? The answer is: Less than it’s done for us. . . . China is trying to compete in the high-tech economy, while crippling the tools that make such competition possible.

(Via China Syndrome). More thoughts here.

“LOOSEN THE STRINGS:” Some thoughts on improving diplomacy.

ALITO’S CONFIRMATION AS AN “IDEOLOGICAL COUP:” Ann Althouse is unimpressed with the imagery.

STUCK ON 1968: Arnold Kling writes:

If 1968 were an influential thinker, it would have many disciples who share its folk beliefs. Those folk beliefs are the mental security blanket still being clutched by my liberal friends, even those who are not old enough to remember 1968.

I want to contrast the way the world might have appeared to a reasonable liberal in 1968 with the way events have unfolded since then. Afterwards, if you still prefer the folk beliefs of 1968 to my views today, so be it. But at least you have an opportunity to reconsider.

Read the whole thing.

MORE ON THE HAMAS VICTORY at Winds of Change. M. Simon responds with thoughts on control theory.

Patrick Belton, meanwhile, envisions it as an incomplete software update. So Hamas is like the WindowsME of Palestinian governance?

JONAH GOLDBERG: “Chuck Norris is the new 1970s/1980s male nostalgia icon.”

HUGH HEWITT AND JONATHAN ALTER: An interview transcript.

TIGERHAWK: “Cindy Sheehan gives away the game.”

I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT THIS WAY: “Kerry has become the Paris Hilton to Al Gore’s Nicole Ritchie on the stage of American politics.”

SINCE I DON’T SKI, I don’t really care.

I don’t need sex therapy, either.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, DANA MILBANK, TIM RUSSERT: Too conservative. Indeed.

ON THE ANNIVERSARY, James Oberg looks at 7 myths about the Challenger disaster.

DID IRAQI WMD GO TO SYRIA? Once we invade them, I guess we’ll know.

IRAQI MAYOR VS. SCOTT RITTER: Who to believe?

A SCHOOL LAWSUIT over bias against boys. I expect we’ll see a lot more of those.

EUGENE VOLOKH looks at what is, and is not, McCarthyism.

JIMMY CARTER’S APPEAL TO HAMAS seems to have gotten the usual response.

HEH. Pretty much the last word on the should-InstaPundit-have-comments subject.

And if anyone actually tried to swamp me with hate-email, I didn’t notice. Message to trolls: Not only do I crap bigger than you, even my spammers crap bigger than you. No surprise, really.

KARL ROVE on the NSA intercepts, and more. Hugh Hewitt interviewed him; transcript and audio are here.

MAYBE IT “TAKES A VILLAGE TO CONFRONT WAL-MART,” but apparently it takes the population of a small city to apply for jobs there:

A year and a half after some Chicago alderman stopped Wal-Mart from opening a store on the city’s South Side, 25,000 people applied for 325 job openings in the company’s new store, located just one block west of the city’s boundary in south suburban Evergreen Park, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Sounds like it might be a more attractive place to work than some people realize.

UPDATE: Bill Quick wonders how many jobs the anti-WalMart folks created in January.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Freeman Hunt emails:

I’ve never worked there, but I do know that it is one of very few companies where you can start at the very bottom and work your way to the top. I grew up in Bentonville, Arkansas, the home of Wal-Mart and most Wal-Mart executives. I think people would be surprised at how many of the people at the top started out working at Wal-Mart stores. One man I knew in particular was one of the VPs in the international division making a six figure salary, and he started with Wal-Mart as a cart pusher. I think “cart pusher” is probably the lowliest job you can get at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is definitely a company where someone can work his way up. No wonder so many people applied for those jobs.

You know, to me Wal-Mart is a lot like George W. Bush. It’s not that I’m that big a fan in the abstract, really, it’s just that the viciousness and stupidity revealed in its enemies tends to make me view it more favorably than I otherwise would.

HOWARD KURTZ has more on China and Google.

STUART BUCK fact-checks claims that the Secret Service is being remade into a national “Gestapo.”

I’ve noted before that the Secret Service has management problems and a heavy-handed approach (see this post collecting examples) but this sort of over-the-top claim just makes the claimer look dumb, and actually serves to distract attention from the real problems.

SOME INTERESTING THOUGHTS on cyber-disinhibition, and its tendency to lead to flaming. (Via Matoko Kusanagi.) Some people are obviously more susceptible to this phenomenon than others . . . .

GADGET UPDATE: I bought this cool Olympus digital recorder with an eye toward podcast interviews. So far I’ve just tested it out recording my classes, but it’s been very good at that — I was quite surprised by the quality, both with the builtin microphone and the plug-in remote microphone that came bundled with it. I bought a stereo microphone separately, but haven’t tried it out yet.

CHINA SYNDROME is a new PJ Media blog set up to track the way foreign businesses like Google and Microsoft suck up to China.

JUSTIN FOX IN FORTUNE:

For members of the Old Media, Davos remains stuck in a blissful time warp where they still matter and there’s no Matt Drudge or Instapundit or Daily Kos around to cause trouble.

Enjoy it, guys.

FRANCE, IRAN, AND TERRORISM: They seem to be taking a tougher line:

What is so surprising is that Mr. Chirac’s government has in the past favored an approach of conciliation or even appeasement toward Iran and the Arab nations. He was, after all, the vociferous foe of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and a hard line against Iran. That approach benefited French companies that were able to obtain lucrative contracts in competition with corporations based in the land of the great Satan. So, what happened? There are two contributing factors. The first is the civil unrest in France several months ago, which involved nightly riots and a myriad of car burnings in many areas of the country. This violence had the same kind of impact upon Mr. Chirac and the French government that September 11 had upon the United States.

In his speech, Mr. Chirac bluntly declared, “In numerous countries, radical ideas are spreading, advocating a confrontation of civilizations.” Mr. Chirac now understands the problem. The jihadists are attempting to capture town by town, areas within Western Europe. As one French government official put it, “This is more than a clash of civilizations. It is a cancer within our country that if unchecked will destroy all of France.”

With his statements, Mr. Chirac is warning Iran and the Arab countries to desist in supporting and encouraging residents of France who launched last year’s attacks and are undoubtedly planning to do far worse. His approach is to cut off terror at the source. This resembles the policy being pursued by the U.S. government, although it is hard to imagine how great the public outcry would be if President Bush threatened to use nuclear weapons.

Indeed. Read the whole thing. (Via Newsbeat1).

A HAMAS VICTORY in the Palestinian elections:

The Islamic militant group Hamas captured a large majority of seats in Palestinian legislative elections, officials in Hamas and the ruling Fatah Party said Thursday – a devastating upset that is sure to throw Mideast peacemaking into turmoil.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his cabinet ministers submitted their resignations to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday. “This is the choice of the people. It should be respected,” Qureia said. “If it’s true (the results), then the president should ask Hamas to form a new government. For me, personally, I sent my resignation.”

Patrick Belton, who’s been there covering the race for OxBlog writes:

It’s not clear anyone wanted this, least of all Hamas, who in assuming the administration of the Palestinian national authority’s creaking and often corrupt bureaucracy single-handed in a moment when its sole lifeline of European and other international support appears threatened, may just have stumbled into the biggest molasses patch the Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah has ever faced. Unlike the Lib Dems of 1985, Hamas did not go to its constituencies to prepare for government. It had prepared for a coalition, or possibly pristine opposition, but not this.

Read the whole thing, and here’s a blog-roundup from PJ Media.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey is depressed about the results.

GEORGE GALLOWAY, voted out.

UPDATE: Ian Schwartz has video.

ROY BLUNT STUMBLES: Ouch.

SLATE rounds up a lot of blog posts on Google’s China capitulation.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN has an idea on how to cut pork.

So we interviewed Norah Vincent, author of Self Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back. Helen does most of the talking on this one, as Vincent talks about dating women as a man, the importance of fathers, and why being a man isn’t nearly as easy as most women think.

You can listen to the show (no iPod required!) by clicking here, or via iTunes.

We thought it was really interesting, and we hope that you will, too.

Music: Strange and Beautiful (intro) and The Crush (end) by Audra and the Antidote.

And as always, the lovely and talented producer of this show is soliciting comments.

WELL, this certainly fits.

SOME THOUGHTS ON CIVIL DISCOURSE from Louise Slaughter.

I DON’T THINK I MAKE A VERY GOOD ANA MARIE COX, but I’m guestblogging over at Wonkette today.

CINDY SHEEHAN says that Clinton killed more Iraqis than Bush. I wonder how widely reported this will be.

I’M DOING a live online chat over at the Washington Post site starting in just a minute. You can submit questions now.

UPDATE: Not everyone approved.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reuters proves my point about comments and the press very nicely, with a quote from LGF. Thanks, Reuters!

(Said AP earlier. Fixed.)

OVER AT SPACE LAW PROBE, Jesse Londin posts the first blog review of An Army of Davids.

SCIENCE FICTION UPDATE: Just got the paperback reissue of Vernor Vinge’s first novel, Tatja Grimm’s World. Amazon reviews are mixed — it is a first novel — but what the hell, it’s Vinge.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

George Galloway faces the prospect of a criminal investigation into his activities by the serious fraud office, which has collected evidence relating to the oil-for-food corruption scandal in Iraq.
A four-strong SFO team returned from Washington with what a source close to US investigators calls “thousands of documents” about the scandal. The team is expected to produce, within the next four weeks, a report for the SFO director, Robert Wardle, as to whether a full criminal investigation should be mounted into UK individuals and companies involved, including Mr Galloway.

Ed Morrissey has more on this. And then there’s this damning evidence. Of, er, something . . . .

AUSTIN BAY takes a look at the Palestinian elections. “This is a slow civil war, but at the moment a slow civil war with the chance to change into something far less violent.”

Meanwhile, Patrick Belton is on the scene and posting reports at OxBlog. Just keep scrolling.

JIM BENNETT offers advice for new Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

His legislative agenda probably needs to focus on government process — transparency primarily, to decouple the Liberals’ cash machine, and secondly disintermediation, to finish the end run around the CBC and the press oligopoly. The Bloc Quebecois and to some extent the New Democratic Party can get behind that agenda, even if as leftists they cannot support much of the Conservative substance.

But aside from that, the Prime Minister’s office is a pretty good bully pulpit, and he would be smart to use it to start deconstructing the Trudeavean deconstruction of the old Canada. He should make sure the Canadian troops in Afghanistan are decorated in a visible and public ceremony, exactly what has been denied to them to date. He should make a show of honoring the Canadian WWII veterans conspicuously and repeatedly, and having a substantial ceremony on every one of the big Canadian military anniversaries: Vimy, Dieppe, D-Day, etc. He might bring back the Red Ensign in a historical context — ordering it flown as a “veteran’s memorial flag” on select days like D-Day, and for Canadian ships to fly the Blue Ensign on a suitable day as well, maybe November 11th. It would be very hard for people to criticize him for remembering the veterans more conspicuously. And perhaps he might even consider a surprise visit to the forces in Afghanistan. . . .

The Liberals and the media are waiting for him to become a “clone of America” — but by taking an Anglospherist tack he can throw them off balance and turn the negative Canadian nationalism (in the form of anti-Americanism) into positive Canadian patriotism. America (and the Anglosphere) doesn’t need a lackey of America on its northern border — it needs a neighbor that has abandoned its touchy defensiveness and can take its proper place in the English-speaking community, of which it used to be a leading member.

I’m certainly no expert on Canadian politics — though I think that increased transparency has already helped matters — but I encourage interested parties to read the whole thing.

SO I SAW THE LINK AT BAINBRIDGE’S PLACE and naturally, I took the quiz. I guess it works!

I’m a Mazda RX-8!

You’re sporty, yet practical, and you have a style of your own. You like to have fun, and you like to bring friends along for the ride, but when it comes time for everyday chores, you’re willing to do your part.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

UPDATE: Okay, I seem to have killed their server with the picture link, so I’ve substituted one of my own. Here’s another.

AHMADINEJAD escapes bomb blasts in Iran.

ERIC S. RAYMOND has thoughts on Academia and the Internet.

ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ARE TAKING OFF — Again! My TCS Daily column is up.

GOOGLE CAPITULATES TO CENSORS: “Google announced that it is officially launching its services in China, a move that will require the Internet firm to subject itself to self-censorship.”

UPDATE: Publius has more, and points out the oddity of Google being more willing to cooperate with the Chinese than with the American government. “Perhaps they should change their motto to, ‘It’s just business.’”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rebecca MacKinnon notes in mitigation, “Google seems to be trying to minimize its evilness in several ways.”

MORE: David Pinto: “I’ve removed Google AdSense from my website due to their agreement to censor searches in China.”

STILL MORE: Jonah Goldberg writes: “I think Google’s a great product and company, but doesn’t this just demonstrate that their principles are marketing tools more than anything else?”

CAPITALISM AND TECHNOLOGY: The conversation continues over at Cato Unbound.

FRANK WILSON: “Apparently, there are now only five stand-alone newspaper book sections in this country.”