I’M AT THE SONY EVENT NOW, where everything is blue to promote Blu-Ray. It makes for cool pictures, anyway.
UPDATE: So far the big announcement is that new Bravia TVs will stream HD content via the Internet, in partnership with Yahoo, AOL, and Grouper. The “Bravia Internet Video Link” will be a small module that will fit to the back of the TV, and connect directly to the Internet without a PC. And the service is free.
As always, lots more on CES here.
HERE’S THE OTHER CONFERENCE that’s going on at the same time next door. You might find it more interesting if I were blogging that one, but I think I’ll stick to what I know.
I’ll bet that more of them make use of the “intimacy kits,” though. Oh, who am I kidding — they probably bring along big rolling “intimacy trunks.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m pro-intimacy.
MY FIRST ENTRY IS UP, in the Popular Mechanics saturation coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show. More will follow.
A PEACEMAKER IN THE FORMAT WARS? A hybrid Blu-Ray / HD-DVD player.
UPDATE: A hybrid disk, too!
WAIT UNTIL no one’s paying attention.
As Algeria and the U.S. exchange information on Algerian Islamic terrorists, they find a common pattern. Many Algerian terrorists, who have “disappeared” from view in Algeria, are showing up in Iraq (where they are killed, captured or mentioned by prisoners), in a Western prison, or under surveillance by Western security agencies. Fewer Algerians are going ti Iraq, apparently after noting the high probability of getting killed or captured there. Algerian terrorists are trying to establish themselves in the West (Europe, Canada, Australia.)
I’ve noted the Algeria connection before. Plus, this: “Hassan Hattab, one of the founders of the GSPC, and about a hundred of his followers, have accepted the government amnesty. Hattab was ousted as leader of the GSPC in 2001, and his successor was killed in 2004, and GSPC has been shrinking ever since. Hattab has pretty much stayed in the background since 2001, when more radical members of the GSPC pushed a program of more violence. This turned most Algerians against the Islamic radicals, and led to the collapse of the GSPC.”
JULES CRITTENDEN says we’re at a crossroads.
AS A FOLLOWUP TO THE BIG NONSTICK COOKWARE DISCUSSION from last month, I should note that I picked up one of these Cuisinart nonstick pans a while back, and so far it’s held up well. It’s supposed to be safe for metal utensils, which may solve the InstaWife pan-destruction problem. The nonstick seems genuinely nonstick, and the price is good — I think I paid $29.99 for mine on sale — so even if it doesn’t last terribly long it won’t be a big loss.
HOW YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN VEGAS: The minibar, besides the usual assortment of overpriced drinks and snacks, features an “Intimacy Kit.” The camera’s a nice touch, too . . . .
UPDATE: Reader Jane Chyna emails:
Well, now you’ve peaked my curiosity and I MUST know what’s in the intimacy kit.
I’ll send $10 if you’ll open it and blog the contents.
No need — there’s a label. Two condoms, two “obstetric wipes” and some lube. All you need for, er, intimacy. What could be more romantic?
ISRAEL TO BOMB IRAN? I agree with Allison Kaplan Sommer that this story is being overhyped. The Israelis may decide to bomb Iran — though it seems to me that way too many people are hoping they’ll do so and thus spare the rest of us some tough decisions and tougher tasks — but I’m pretty sure that if they do they won’t leak it first. They didn’t leak the Osirak raid, or the Entebbe plans, or . . . . Well, you get the idea.
I’m sure that they’re making the necessary preparations in case they do decide to launch such an attack. It would be criminal not to. But that’s not the same thing.
TECHNOLOGY MARCHES ON: The Robotic Elvis Head.
DOG BITES MAN: Media Matters Distorts Opponents’ Positions.
UPDATE: Read this, too.
POWERLINE HACKED: Joe Malchow emails: “In case folks are asking, yes, PL was hacked. And probably *not* by a
fan of Mitt Romney.”
HEY, MAYBE THERE’S SOMETHING TO THIS OLD-MEDIA STUFF AFTER ALL: I’m now ensconced in a posh suite in Las Vegas, where I’ll spend the next couple of days wandering around the Consumer Electronics Show courtesy of Popular Mechanics, which will be doing saturation coverage. Blogging still has trouble on the ‘getting someone else to spring for the suite’ front. . . .
I’M GOING TO THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW, and not the Association of American Law Schools conference. But if I’d gone to AALS, I could have attended this discussion of academic freedom.
Plus, evidence that law schools are gaming the U.S. News rankings.
THE AP SEEMS TO STILL BE DISSEMBLING about Jamil Hussein, according to Dan Riehl.
IS MALIKI getting serious about the militias? That would be nice.
DO NOT PUT PEOPLE IN WASHING MACHINE: It’s a roundup of wacky warning labels.
The fight in Washington with the army top brass has not just been over whether more or fewer troops are needed in Iraq. It’s also been over a major difference in strategic perception. In order to win in Iraq, it is essential to defeat Iran. This is for the blindingly obvious reason that the principal instigator of the war in Iraq is… Iran. I have never understood how anyone could think that you can win a war by refusing to fight the aggressors and instead running around trying vainly to put out the fires they are starting. As I said last month here and on many other occasions, the coalition cannot secure Iraq without first defeating Iran.
It has also long been clear that Iraq is merely a front in wider regional — and indeed, global — war. Iran declared war on the west in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini announced his intention of conquering the west for Islam. The response of the west has been to ignore the fact that war was thus declared upon it, as was demonstrated by attacks upon it ever since by Iran — along with the Sunni/Wahhabi Islamists, who were both its deadly theological rivals for regional hegemony and at the same time its allies in the war against the free world.
(Via Newsbeat1).
ANN ALTHOUSE: “The cry of ‘eugenics’ always goes up, but what are the people who raise it really worrying about? Not the return of the Nazis. It’s all-too-convenient the way the Nazis pop up to assist in making the argument you already wanted to make.”
If the Nazis didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent them.
UPDATE: Bill Quick responds, but if I understand his point correctly then I think he misses mine. I was commenting — as was Ann — on the trivialization of the Nazis: If everyone you disagree with is a Nazi, then no one is a Nazi. I think that Bill is charging us with trivializing the Nazis, or denying their evil, which is exactly the opposite of the point we’re making. But I’m blogging from an airport — a place that subtracts at least 20 IQ points on a good day — so maybe I’m missing something.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill says more in the comments to his post, but I think we’re still at cross purposes. Yes, there are Nazi-level horrors in the world now. But — as Ann notes — the actual topic under discussion, genetic choice in IVF, isn’t one of them. To be a Nazi kind of thing, the government would be making the decisions, and killing people who resisted. Thus, Nazi analogies in this context, though predictable, are also silly.
ENERGY PROBLEMS for Iran?
PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR AHEAD IN SCIENCE, from — who else — Popular Science.
GEORGETOWN: Home of rich diversity!
A COOL-SOUNDING underwater photography contest. The deadline is tomorrow.
And speaking of photography, Lisa Scheer has some nice stuff posted. We share an affinity for odd signs and graffiti.
STEM CELL UPDATE: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, (free link) reports:
For all the bluster over Iraq, taxes and budgets, the first direct confrontation between the Republican president and the new Democratic Congress may come on an entirely different subject that has gotten relatively little attention recently: stem-cell research.
That reality will become more clear this coming week, when the House has pledged to take up a bill expanding federal support for embryonic stem-cell research. The issue — sensitive because many social conservatives and religious leaders believe it is morally wrong to destroy human embryos to extract stem cells — has prompted the one and only veto President Bush has issued in his term. House leaders now propose to pass the same measure the president killed with that veto last year.
I think the Democrats have Bush in a difficult position here.
PELOSI’S APPROVAL RATING: lower than Bush’s? You wouldn’t know that from the press coverage.
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh notes that things aren’t quite as close as they appear. He’s right to note that, and I should have followed the links myself. I’m guessing, though, that these numbers would be getting a lot more press attention anyway if the party affiliations were reversed.
DUKE (NON) RAPE UPDATE: Lots of new developments at K.C. Johnson’s blog.
TERRY MCAULIFFE charges John Kerry with “political malpractice.” Seems about right to me.
PHOTO- AND VIDEO-BLOGGING Schwarzenegger’s inauguration.
MORE IRAQ REPORTING from Bill Ardolino.
THE PLASTIC TURKEY THAT wouldn’t die.
PODCAST QUESTIONS UPDATE: Various questions are answered! First, have I considered doing a podcast using Apple’s GarageBand software, now that I have a Macbook Pro? Yes. Haven’t done it yet, but I’ve fooled around with the software a bit, and it’s enough like Acid that it’s easy to figure out.
What kind of microphones do I recommend? Good question. If money’s no object, an ElectroVoice RE-20 is a good way to go. I don’t use those, because money is an object, and besides I already have some other mikes. I use an AKG C3000, and Helen uses a Marshall MXL microphone. For guests I’ve used an SM-57 because I have several of those utility mikes lying around, but I’ve just recently bought this Sennheiser on my brother’s recommendation. I love the SM-57 as an instrument mike but I’ve never been crazy about it as a vocal mike. For vocal podcasting, most any microphone is okay, but ideally it shouldn’t have too much of a proximity effect — in which low frequencies are boosted when you’re close to the mike — because people you’re interviewing tend to shift around. Whatever you get, use some kind of pop screen and you’ll improve your sound a lot, at low cost.
For sound treatment — the new podcast space is a bit echo-y — I had planned to stick up some Auralex foam, but an InstaPundit reader who’s at Ready Acoustics offered me a customized sound treatment if I’d do a review. I’ve gotten some of their bass traps and high frequency panels via FedEx now, but haven’t put them up. I’ll let you know how it turns out — they’re almost certainly overkill for the space, but it should be interesting. The 3D graphic of the room that they constructed after I sent them photos and measurements was kind of cool, too.
If you’re starting from scratch, you might want to consider a podcasting kit like this one. I haven’t used it, but it’s probably quite good, and quite reasonably priced. It says something about the popularity of podcasting that many music dealers and manufacturers are offering products aimed specifically at that market. An earlier post on this topic can be found here.
UPDATE: Tom Spaulding — who as John Fogerty’s guitar tech has lots more audio cred than I do — writes: “I love the M-Audio gear I own. Check this out: M-Audio Podcast Factory.” Looks like a good, cheap solution. I actually use the Mobile-Pre USB audio interface myself. It’s a bit noisy for music applications, but fine for voice.
MEDICAL TOURISM is accelerating. “So we should all be very pleased to see Asian biotech and medical entrepreneurs eating the very lunch out from underneath late-stage researchers and new businesses in the US and Europe. It’s the only way that those insulated folk inside the regulatory fence are going to feel any meaningful pressure to help tear it down – and thus better serve us over the long term.”
JOHN HINDERAKER ON SURGE TALK: “I don’t particularly object to sending more troops to Iraq, but to what end? As long as we implicitly accept the proposition that violence in Baghdad means our effort is a failure, we put our fate in the hands of the extremists on both sides. If some Sunnis and Shiites are determined to kill one another, I doubt that 9,000 more troops, or even a much larger number, will stop them.”
He also observes: “If the principal tangible difference between the President’s position and the Democrats’ is the addition of 9,000 troops on top of the 140,000 already in Iraq, then the differences are even narrower than I thought.” Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Bill Quick thinks the Democrats are being played. But he’s just as uncertain as me about why Bush has given Syria and Iran a pass.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ivo Daalder wants failure in Iraq before 2008. Or something like that.
MORE: Okay, looking at this the next morning my characterization of Daalder is a bit unfair. He already thinks it’s a failure — even though he supported the invasion of Iraq – he just wants to be sure it’s seen as a failure before the election.
STILL MORE: Reader Rachel Walker emails: “Why are people (especially Democrats) declaring Iraq a failure and want Americans to leave? Don’t they realize that A) we will have a real genocidal issue over there and B) the Dems will have to deal with it sooner or later? Thank you very much.”
I think that too many people in both parties are more worried about the 2008 elections than about the actual war. This is a very bad thing.
PAJAMAS VIDEO: Richard Miniter interviews Flemming Rose, “the man principally responsible for the publication of the notorious Mohammed cartoons in that paper last year.”
JOURNALISM VS. JAWBONING.
FRANCE AND GENOCIDE in Rwanda.
WE’RE LOOKING FOR A VISITING PROFESSOR IN BUSINESS LAW at the UT Law College.
PELOSI ON MOLLOHAN: What’s a little federal investigation?
BUT IT’S NOT A PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR: “Assailants gunned down a Muslim preacher known for his anti-Hamas views on Friday, witnesses said, moments after he exited a mosque where he delivered a sermon criticizing the Islamic group’s role in a wave of Palestinian violence. The slaying came as thousands of mourners marched through Gaza City carrying the bodies of seven Fatah men killed in a standoff with Hamas. Thursday’s gunfight was the bloodiest single battle in weeks of factional fighting, and Fatah said it was suspending talks with Hamas until the assailants are brought to justice.”
WHY ARE AMERICANS SIMULTANEOUSLY OPTIMISTIC AND PESSIMISTIC: “A new AP-AOL News Poll finds that while most Americans said 2006 was a bad year for the country, three-fourths thought it had been a good one for them and their families.”
I think the first commenter has the answer.
BARNEY FRANK ACCUSES BUSH OF ETHNIC CLEANSING in Louisiana. I guess by letting Ray Nagin get reelected, thus ensuring that the place would remain a disaster . . . .
A LOOK AT THE MIDDLE EAST, HOMOSEXUALITY, and “Occidentalism.”
DON SURBER: “Forget that investigation of Mollohan. He now chairs the subcommittee that oversees the FBI budget. Some swamps are drained, others are protected wetlands.”
IRAN IS DENYING reports that Khamenei is dead.
A LOOK AT North Korea’s biochemical threat.
MICHAEL TOTTEN REPORTS FROM BEIRUT: “It’s like a Phish concert for terrorists.”
ARE TODAY’S ELECTRONIC GADGETS WORTH THE MONEY? USA Today says that some are and some aren’t:
Tech companies constantly revamp their product lines, as anyone who has ever paid top dollar for a cutting-edge device knows. Driven by brutal competition, they release faster, cheaper, more feature-laden gadgets each year. More than 2,700 companies are expected to unveil their latest and greatest beginning Sunday at the giant Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is expected to draw more than 2,700 exhibitors.
The show’s 140,000 attendees will see firsthand the effects of Moore’s Law, an industry rule of thumb that says electronics roughly double their performance every two years.
But how much have they actually improved this year? Is it worth paying for a pricey, top-of-the-line camera, TV or other device that may be outdated — or obsolete — in a few months? Or would it be better to wait until next year to buy? USA TODAY asked the experts to find out.
I’m going to be attending the Consumer Electronics Show myself, as part of the Popular Mechanics contingent — and yes, it was awfully nice of the PM folks to invite me along. I’m actually going to be doing more gadget reviews, etc., for them in the future.
UPDATE: What about my TCS Daily column? You may well ask. (“I am asking.” “And well you may!”) As some readers have noticed — and thanks for that! — I’m not doing the weekly column there anymore. I liked it, and Nick Schulz is a fine editor, but I wrote that weekly column for five years straight and it was starting to turn into a bit of a grind. Nick was gracious enough to let me go, and I think he’s better off taking the money he was paying me and using it to hire fresh new writers, especially as he has a special talent for finding new voices and encouraging them. I’ve missed the column a bit these past few weeks, but Helen says I’m a lot more fun on weekends. A column’s a lot more work and stress than an equivalent number of words in blog-post form; I’m not sure why, it just is.
I wrote a while back that I was trying to reduce my workload a bit, and I still am. When Helen was sick, this kind of work was a nice escape from thinking about our troubles. Now that she’s doing better, I find I’d rather spend a bit less time at the keyboard.
GREG SARGENT EMAILS: “Glenn, I think I’ve proven that the ‘lonely Kerry’ story is bogus.”
Here’s his post.
UPDATE: Bryan Preston responds.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tom Nesbit emails:
The explanation that Kerry sought out reporters at the meal, to the exclusion of troops, is just further proof of Kerry’s political tin ear. Why in the world would he take the bait over a relatively obscure picture to reinforce the idea that he does not care for the troops? He is in Iraq, in the presence of soldiers, and he chooses instead to eat with reporters. He admits to purposely avoiding the soldiers. What do you want to bet there will be another clarification within 48 hours that only compounds Kerry’s aloofness? Is it a tempest in a teapot? Sure, if it were any other capable national politician. Kerry, though, might just be able to make it a full fledged storm.
Kerry does have special talents in that direction.
THE JOY OF CLERKSHIP.
GOOGLE INTERVIEW HORROR STORIES: The one about the military veteran is particularly bad.
Amusingly, one of the Google ads accompanying the story is for jobs at . . . Google!
“CULTURE OF CORRUPTION” UPDATE: A standing ovation for Rep. William “Freezer Cash” Jefferson.
BORDER POST OVERRUN: “A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona’s border with Mexico. According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state’s West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.” Seems like a big story, if true.
IN THE MAIL: Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule’s Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts.
MARY KATHARINE HAM says that the Washington Post was unfair to her church.
Pieces of a spent Russian rocket reentered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming early on Thursday, showering parts of the western United States with space debris, U.S. space monitors said.
Pieces of the Russian SL-4 spacecraft that survived their blazing descent intact most likely landed in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, U.S. Northern Command spokeswoman Air Force Major April Cunningham said.
One of my space law students a few years back brought in a “Skylab Crash Helmet” — a novelty item sold back when Skylab was about to reenter. Bring ‘em back!
MAOISTS VS. GAYS: Many gay activists supported the guerrillas, only to be turned upon when they weren’t needed any more. So maybe gay rights supporters around the world should hire mercenaries . . . .
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Andy Roth reports that Jim Moran seems to be paying the price for his pre-election pork promise that: “When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I’m going to earmark the shit out of it.â€
Moran in fact got shut out of the subcommittee chairmanships. That’s probably a good sign, suggesting that the Democratic leadership is at least ashamed of pork, something that the GOP leadership wasn’t for most of the last Congress. Unfortunately, as Roth also notes, the records of those who did get important Appropriations positions aren’t all that great. Still, this counts for something, I guess.
ARNOLD KLING: Two strategies for avoiding truth.
Some of Kling’s thoughts are echoed in this essay, and in this shorter piece.
MORE ON COMPACT FLUORESCENT LIGHT: Megan McArdle doesn’t like it: “The problem is that after five minutes of sitting under a compact flourescent bulb, I feel like an extra in a Fellini film. I use one in the range hood, and if I had closet lights, I’d install them there. But there’s no way I’m using them as my primary form of illumination unless legally forced to do so; it’s just too murderously depressing.”
I put one in my study; it sucks. I put a different brand in Helen’s study — looks great. Put a third brand downstairs — it sucks even more than the one in my study. I’m told that the quality of light issue is a lot less when it’s in a lamp with a shade than when it’s in an overhead fixture. Still experimenting. . . .
DANIEL DREZNER on the Democrats’ trade policy: “Baucus’ embrace of a service pact with the EU, coming so soon after Angela Merkel’s quasi-TAFTA proposal, makes me wonder if the Bush administration will become more enthusiastic about the proposal — or run away, scared it’s an EU-Blue State conspiracy.”
JOHN CONYERS wants to bring European-style hate speech laws to America.
BLOGGING THE DETROIT AUTO SHOW: At Popular Mechanics.
DARFUR UPDATE: Tim Collins calls for an army of mercenaries: ” So, for $1.3bn – approximately £700m at current exchange rates and half of Sudan’s military spend – you could field, feed and sustain an army for a year that could beat anything in Africa , permitting you to deal with the Sudanese forces and their attendant militias. A cost too far? Well Live Aid raised $300m in a single concert to buy food for a starving Ethiopia in 1985. In the UK alone we’ve apparently just drunk more than £1bn in booze over Christmas. So put in those terms it is not so much.”
There are, as he notes, legal and diplomatic issues.
DEAN BARNETT OFFERS F.A.Q.’s on the new Congress. “Pelosi’s smackdown of CAIR the other day was a symbol that the Democrats know their role has changed.”
THOUGHTS ON THE MILITARY, from Victor Davis Hanson.
50 MARATHONS IN 50 DAYS: This guy’s a machine. Or maybe an eating machine:
You wouldn’t believe the stuff Karnazes consumes on a run. He carries a cell phone and regularly orders an extra-large Hawaiian pizza. The delivery car waits for him at an intersection, and when he gets there he grabs the pie and rams the whole thing down his gullet on the go. The trick: Roll it up for easy scarfing. He’ll chase the pizza with cheesecake, cinnamon buns, chocolate éclairs, and all-natural cookies. The high-fat pig-out fuels Karnazes’ long jaunts, which can burn more than 9,000 calories a day.
I’m speechless.
“PLEASE DON’T MAKE BLOGS INTO FACULTY MEETINGS:” I don’t think we should make anything into faculty meetings, except perhaps as a last desperate weapon of war.
WES CLARK’S FOOT IN MOUTH: At least this time around he’ll know about the hand sanitizer.
JAMIL HUSSEIN: IS HE OR ISN’T HE? Bob Owens has some thoughts.
UPDATE: Mickey Kaus on Hussein’s apparent existence: “That’s one important component of credibility!”
I’m expecting Michelle Malkin to get to the bottom of this.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ OF THE BELMONT CLUB talks about Iraq and Andrew Sullivan on Hugh Hewitt’s show. Audio at the link.
DON SURBER: Blogs can save newspapers:
One of the things I have seen going recently are newspapers. Particularly afternoon newspapers. Did I mention the Daily Mail publishes in the afternoons? If the Dead Tree Media is a herd of dinosaurs, the PM newspaper is the sick member of the herd.
PMs have been sick for the 30 years that I have had the pleasure to be a newspaperman.
Blogs could save them.
But for newspapers to be saved, newspaper people will have to get over their fear of blogs, as Surber has done.
CINDY SHEEHAN, making Democrats look good:
The Sheehanoids managed to cow Rep. Rahm Emanuel into shutting down his press conference. And from the Angry Left bloggers who once cheered her on: silence. Browsing the homepages of the Daily Kos, Atrios, Talking Points Memo and the Puffington Host, we can’t find a single mention of the erstwhile moonbat heartthrob.
It comes as a relief to realize that many of those who once treated Sheehan as a heroine did so merely out of partisanship, not hatred of country.
Indeed.
IRAN’S SUPREME AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI is reported to be dead.
UPDATE: What does this mean? Is it true? I don’t know, but oil prices are down.
DANIEL GLOVER looks at rumblings in the Republican blogosphere.
Plus, Patrick Ruffini returns to blogging.
MOVING THE GOALPOSTS in Congress.
VICTORY IS SWEET for Dean Barnett. “After almost three years of blogging, I have taken home one of those prized ‘Wanker of the Day’ awards that that Atrios guy gives out. I couldn’t be prouder.”
HDTV ON YOUR LAPTOP: I review an interesting gadget for Popular Mechanics.
UPDATE: Reader Gary Boyd emails:
Got one of the Pinnacle Pro Sticks for my son for Christmas. Rather than buy a TV for his dorm room this seemed a much better deal, particularly since he has an enhanced laptop display. Set up time was reasonable and the mini-remote works great. Both analog and HD signals come in from the local channels with the included antenna and the cable hookup is painless.
Highly recommended.
Thanks for the second opinion.
THE NEGROPONTE SHUFFLE: Bob Owens has it all figured out.
IN THE MAIL: (Actually, something I ordered for a project I’m working on). Travis S. Taylor et al.‘s book, An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion.
I had an interesting discussion on this topic with some NORAD guys when I spoke at the Air Force Academy several years ago. The book looks okay, but not as focused as I’d hoped — though admittedly the topic itself is pretty unfocused. The Amazon reader reviews are good.
SINCE THE DEMOCRATS WON, NOBODY CARES ABOUT ELECTRONIC VOTING FRAUD ANY MORE, but the problem hasn’t gone away. Had just a few thousand votes in some key districts gone the other way, we’d be hearing about Diebold conspiracies ad nauseam. But regardless, the subject remains important, and it deserves attention between election cycles, when there’s actually time to do something about it. Certainly we need to get our act together before 2008. And, of course, there are lots of non-electronic problems, too.
More on that subject here.
JULES CRITTENDEN: “Iran wants war. Iran just doesn’t want to fight it.”
It’s been obvious that Iran is behind much of the internecine slaughter in Iraq. I don’t understand why we haven’t been returning the favor by fomenting insurrection in Iran — or what made the mullahs so confident that we wouldn’t. I continue to wonder if they’ve managed to deter us from significant action, somehow.
A LETTER TO LOU DOBBS on the middle class.
SOME QUESTIONS, from Victor Davis Hanson.
A SEMESTER LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT: Don Surber on Duke University:
The DNA cleared them in April. I saw it then. Any reasonable person saw it. Helen Keller would have seen it. Instead the anti-jock, anti-male, anti-white, and anti-intellectual biases politicized the case and it continued.
The cowardly university president and his silent partners — where were the Duke law professors? — just killed Duke. The school’s new name is Duke lacrosse team. The players aren’t to blame; those who refused to speak up for the players are.
Yes, this has been a PR disaster for Duke, and the Duke Administration has helped to make it so.
JEFF BEZOS’ SECRETIVE PRIVATE SPACE COMPANY, BLUE ORIGIN, has unveiled its new spacecraft.
More here. Bezos says his goal is to lower costs so that ordinary people can travel into space. I’m cool with that.
Plus, he’s hiring!
AT BLACKFIVE, some thoughts on strategy for the Long War.
Plus, some thoughts from The Belmont Club. Also here.
ANTI-WAR PROTESTERS protesting the Democrats. Well, they did vote for the war.
As Ann Althouse comments: “Aaagghh! Now, everyone’s sick of Cindy Sheehan. ” Video here.
The antiwar crowd destroyed the Democrats once; they’re set to do it again.
MAKE YOUR CAR a wi-fi hotspot.
UPDATE: Plus, wired beaches.
NEWS FROM SOMALIA:
There was not a hijab or niqab in sight as clubbers at the Global Dance Hall worked up a sweat to gangsta rap and Kenyan hip-hop. Instead, women shook their hair and stole glances at the men lining the wall.
Quite what Mogadishu’s Union of Islamic Courts would have made of the occasional flash of ankle beneath the long dresses is anyone’s guess. But no one cared as they celebrated their new freedom.
It’s something.
Does marriage still matter? We talk to the Manhattan Institute’s Kay Hymowitz about her book, Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age. Hymowitz talks about the role of marriage in childrearing, wealth accumulation, and more — and how the unequal popularity of marriage is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. It’s interesting stuff, though I remain unpersuaded that gay marriage is any threat, and remain unclear on how that fits with the rest of her analysis.
You can listen directly — no downloads needed — by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player. You can download the file by clicking right here, or you can get a lo-fi version suitable for dialup, cellphones, etc. by going here and selecting lo-fi. A free iTunes subscription — the best way to go — is available by clicking here.
This podcast is sponsored by Volvo Motors at volvocars.us.
Music is by The Have Nots.
As always, my lovely and talented cohost is taking comments and suggestions.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Duke does the right thing at last:
For the second time in as many weeks, the Duke administration has taken a powerful step toward bringing this disastrous affair to a close. This afternoon, on behalf of President Brodhead, Vice President of Student Affairs Larry Moneta formally invited Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann to return for the spring term.
The symbolism of this move cannot be missed: with the decision, the Duke administration is formally saying that the presumption of innocence no longer can be ignored and strongly implying–through its deeds–that no one in the upper levels at Duke any longer believes in the credibility of Mike Nifong’s allegations. Coupled with Brodhead’s repeated demands that Nifong recuse himself, this act signals a dramatic, and welcome, shift by the administration on the case, and a statement that from here on out, Brodhead will stand on behalf of due process.
Better late than never. But still late.
UPDATE: Reader Brian Gates is unimpressed:
Wow. The school canceled their sports season, the faculty publicly condemned them, and they had to leave the university. But a year later, Duke has decided these young men are entitled to the presumption of innocence. That’s mighty white of them.
I’m no law prof, but isn’t the presumption of innocence most useful before a pile of facts come out indicating that the accused are, in fact, innocent?
Yes.
CLAYTON CRAMER is planning his book tour, in support of his new book, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie, so if you’re on the East Coast and would like him to stop by, drop him a line.
PAJAMAS MEDIA: Free Blogger Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman! I’ve written about him before, but he’s still in jail. Follow the link to see what you can do.
THE “REVERSE SUCKUPATHON:” This seems rather common.
