PERSIAN BLOGGING AROUND THE GLOBE: And a crackdown in Iran. And podcasting around it! (Via Bill Hobbs, who rounds up all sorts of bloggy news items).

BILL QUICK: No more Jeff Gannons!

UPDATE: Take that, Jeff Gannon: Blogger joins White House press corps!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Actually, it’s another Jeff Gannon! Look at the bio of the guy who just got credentialed:

Garrett Graff is vice president of communications at EchoDitto, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based technology consulting firm. A Vermont native, he served formerly as deputy national press secretary on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign and, beginning in 1997, was then-Governor Dean’s first webmaster.

A partisan PR guy disguised as a “real journalist!” He’s even a “dittohead!” Somebody tell Kos. I’m sure he’ll be right on it . . . .

On a more serious note, Tom Maguire emails to say that the real lesson here is “Take that, FEC!” If bloggers are getting credentialed as press, the argument to treat “real” press differently from bloggers collapses.

UPDATE: Jeez, some people have no senses of humor. I’m accused of faking Graff’s bio, but if you follow the link it’s to his bio on the site of the blog he writes. Don’t blame me if it emphasizes his political and PR skills. For the record, and for the benefit of the terminally clueless, I don’t think that he’s a male prostitute — or a “dittohead” for that matter. Duh. But boy, you can’t read that explosion of bile without realizing that to the folks on the left, the gay angle really was the big angle on Gannon, and all the talk about other issues was just window dressing. Not that it wasn’t obvious before.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Syria is shuddering, and we’d better plan for its collapse. I suspect that we have. I certainly hope so.

JAMES LILEKS has an evil twin.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE:

AN ACCLAIMED young American writer has received a $1m advance for a literary novel based on a child’s experience of losing his father in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. It promises to be the first bestseller inspired by the emotional impact of the outrage in 2001.

Jonathan Safran Foer, 28, has drawn a fictional portrait of a nine-year-old, Oskar Schell, who is haunted by his father’s death. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, published next month, the boy roams New York looking for a lock that fits a mysterious key of his father’s.

Foer won a string of awards in Britain and America for his debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, in which a young man searches Ukraine for the woman who saved his grandfather from the Holocaust.

“Both the Holocaust and 9/11 were events that demanded retelling,” Foer said. “With 9/11 in particular I wanted to read something that wasn’t politicised or commercialised, something with no message, something human.”

Salman Rushdie said the book “completely earns the right to take on the Trade Center atrocity. The powerful emotions generated feel deserved, not borrowed”.

It’ll be out early next month, and it’s already doing very well in the Amazon rankings.

STEROIDS AND BASEBALL: A roundup from Only Baseball Matters.

And, speaking of sports, here’s a case of Big Media not outshining the blogs in the accuracy and diligence category.

NOT AIMED AT: Brian Micklethwait looks at distributed governmental stupidity.

CARBLOGGING: A guide to automotive journalists’ terminology.

LOGICALMEME NOTES that there’s an outbreak of “Lebanese hotties” on magazine covers. He’s right!

I’ve actually been accused of favoring attractive Lebanese women myself. Moi? Perish the thought! But when you search for photos of Lebanese pro-democracy demonstrators, you get stuff like this:

Caption: “Two Lebanese opposition demonstrators stand in a car as they flash victory signs and wave a Lebanese flag during a celebration one day after the Lebanese government’s resignation in Beirut, Lebanon.”

On the other hand, when you search for pro-Assad demonstrators, you find stuff like this:

Caption: “Syrian workers hold pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad as one cuts himself with a knife during a pro-Syrian demonstration in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March 6, 2005. Man cuts himself to show his support and commitment to his president.” [LATER: I didn’t notice this the first time, but is it me or does the guy in the middle give the impression that he’d rather be hanging out with the hot chicks? He’s my brother, he’s into knives and Assad, Mom said to keep an eye on him, what can you do? So, you free Saturday night?]

So that’s what I’m seeing. And I haven’t seen anything to suggest that it’s an inaccurate reflection. But here’s a Lebanese pro-democracy guy, too, just so people won’t feel like I’m playing favorites here:

Like I said earlier, which crowd would you rather hang out with? I hope a lot of Al Jazeera-watchers are asking themselves the same question.

UPDATE: Some interesting polling data from Iraq.

A BIT PRICEY FOR ME, but Michael Demmons has bought his flatscreen TV.

ARAB BLOGS DISCUSSED ON C-SPAN: Video here.

EARLIER, I MENTIONED THE IRAQ-WAR MOVIE GUNNER PALACE, which opened up on Friday. You can see if it’s showing in your area here, which is kind of cool.

BLOGALICIOUS: A look at fast food around the world.

BANKRUPTCY “REFORM:” I’m deeply skeptical of the bankruptcy bill in front of Congress now, and this report on credit-card industry practices goes a long way toward explaining why. Credit extended to people who can’t handle it, absurd hidden fees, high interest rates, etc.: There’s a lot of scamming here. The argument, of course, is that people who sign up for credit card accounts ought to know what they’re getting into. But shouldn’t the companies that extend credit to people who obviously can’t handle it be held to the same standard?

I was pointing out this kind of stuff back when InstaPundit was young — and it certainly hasn’t gotten any better. Is it any coincidence that the companies involved are big campaign contributors? The people behind this aren’t all Republicans by any means, but this is a Republican Congress, and if it passes they’ll get — and deserve — the blame for something that’s a pure giveaway to corporate interests.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

You can be a Republican and hate bankruptcy reform. Banks are making incredible profits on credit cards. There will be a lot of downward pressure on profits if this reform is passed. And an increased number of murders and suicides. You can’t use a pressure cooker without having an escape valve. You really can’t.

As proof of his thesis, the very Republican Jane Meynardie emails:

Amen to your concerns re. the bankruptcy bill. I have no sympathy for credit-card companies and other lenders, including the Federal Housing Authority, who offer easy credit to people who are better off without it and then whine when they default. They price, or can price, the bad debt risk into the interest rate. They are much better equipped to assess that risk than their borrowers are able to assess the risk of doing business with them. (Sorry if that sounds a bit maternalistic.)

I don’t think it does. As I say, people should have to face the consequences of their bad decisions — but that includes their bad lending decisions, especially when the lending is, fundamentally, dishonest.

I assume that the Bush Administration is supporting this legislation, but I really don’t see it as consistent with “compassionate conservatism.” I see it, in fact, as consistent with the worst stereotypes about corporate-friendly Republicanism.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Joseph Britt emails:

I agree completely with what you have to say about the bankruptcy bill moving through Congress. I am sorry to say it is easier to find Democrats working for the credit card companies (Joe Biden, for example) than it is to find Republicans opposing this bill. Among Senate Republicans I can’t find any. Can you?

I don’t know of any. Perhaps someone will let me know who I’m missing. Meanwhile, here’s a long post by Todd Zywicki on credit card debt suggesting that I’m too hard on the credit card companies. But the constant mailings, such as the one I link above, that I get suggest that there’s a lot of abuse here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Blue Dog Democrats have endorsed the bill, and Zywicki observes: “In an era of Washington partisanship, one would be hard-pressed to find many major pieces of legislation with such broad-based bipartisan support.” Why am I not surprised . . .?

Meanwhile, John Cole is unhappy about the bill, too, showing that this really is an issue that crosses the usual blogospheric lines of disagreement. Meanwhile, here’s a letter from law professors opposed to the bill. And there’s more here. [LATER: Some readers think the photo on that site looks a lot like this one. Surely not.]

MORE: Ted Janger, visiting lawprof at Penn, emails:

You are right. As the signatures on the letter show, politics of this bill confound the usual party line divisions.

My sense is that many republicans are voting against the interests of their constituents here. If you take a look at this table, and look at which states have the highest bankruptcy filing rates, you’ll see that the pain associated with “bankruptcy reform” will be felt most deeply in “red” states.

Hmm. I’m not sure that’s to their credit.

MORE STILL: Another “right-of-center” blogger criticizes the bill:

So where does this leave us? I’m very uncomfortable allowing an industry that sends out 4 billion pieces of mail every year that say “You’re pre-approved–borrow from us” to squeeze more money out of people who plainly don’t have it by preventing them from filing for bankruptcy, which it appears will happen if the legislation passes in its current form.

Further, an industry that cynically manipulates the uninformed into getting in over their heads, and then shafts them when they do with $39 late fees, 25%-plus interest rates, and the like should not be permitted to collect their excessive charges from people who don’t have the money by peeling off a large percentage of their future income, which is what it appears the legislation will enable.

Perhaps the real problem isn’t bankruptcy as such, but unaddressed abuses by the credit-card industry. And perhaps those should be looked at regardless of what happens with this legislation. I don’t actually think that credit card companies are evil — the expansion of consumer credit is a good thing — but their marketing practices are dishonest, and their complaints that their loans to poor risks aren’t panning out leave me unmoved.

JIM GERAGHTY: “Coming Monday: The Iranian Mullahs as a bunch of puppies!” Cute, floppy-eared ones.

UPDATE: Freedom for Iran via blender? Whirrrrrr!

BLOGGING IN INDIA: At a tipping point?

LOTS OF ODD EVENTS IN THE UKRAINE as witnesses to the old regime vanish: “Still, one has to wonder how someone shoots himself in the head twice.”

ANN ALTHOUSE NOTICES that The Sims are going to college.

She worries: “I wonder how many actual college kids will let their actual college work and their actual social life slide while they try to make their Sims successful in their simulated college careers.” On the other hand (as I’ve suggested in other contexts), perhaps the Insta-Daughter will learn something useful, when she (more or less inevitably) gets the expansion pack and experiences virtual college.

JEFF JARVIS has created a podcast Fisking of Ward Churchill’s appearance on Bill Maher. It’s devastating, though really Maher’s own comments are devastating enough on their own. Churchill’s, too, but Maher at least pretends not to be part of the lunatic fringe. It’s a pretense that’s worn pretty thin, though, as Maher’s contempt for America and Americans shines through. But don’t question his patriotism!

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER BIG PHARAOH notices something interesting:

Someone punch me in the face because I still cannot believe what I read today on the front page of Al Ahram newspaper. They published a picture of an Iraqi man rescuing a young girl right after a motorcycle suicide bombing in Iraq. The caption under the photo went like this: Iraqi man helps young girl after a terrorist attack in Azamiyah in Iraq.

My jaws dropped when I read this caption. This is the FIRST time Al Ahram, Egypt’s largest newspaper, uses the word terrorist to describe an attack on Iraqi civilians in Iraq!!! It never happened before. Such attacks were simply described as “bombings” without the word “terrorist”.

TigerHawk notes some other changes.

READER MARC LANDERS sends this link to a blog from Damascus. I haven’t read it before, but it looks interesting.

MOLDOVA UPDATE: “Moldova has pro-Western revolution even before poll is held.”

All the front-runners in the poll are calling for Europe’s poorest country to join the EU and withdraw from the Commonwealth of Independent States, which is a group of former Soviet republics.

Despite almost 200 years of Russian imperial and Soviet rule, most of Moldova’s four million people have closer cultural and linguistic links to neighbouring Romania, which will join the EU in 2007.

More here: ” Moldova votes for a new parliament Sunday with the election likely to place the impoverished nation firmly on a pro-European path, the third ex-Soviet republic to turn away from Moscow’s influence in little over a year.”

Meanwhile here’s more on unrest in Kyrgyzstan.

UPDATE: More here.

JEEZ:

The government of Niger has cancelled at the last minute a special ceremony during which at least 7,000 slaves were to be granted their freedom. A spokesman for the government’s human rights commission, which had helped to organise the event, said this was because slavery did not exist.

It is not clear why the government, which was also a co-sponsor of the ceremony, changed its position.

At least 43,000 people across Niger are thought to be in slavery.

(Via Power Line).

NEW YORK TIMES: “Unexpected Whiff of Freedom Proves Bracing for the Mideast.”

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF CORDITE, a shooters’ blog fest, is up.

ANN ALTHOUSE DOES WHAT I HAVE NEVER DARED: And blogs during a faculty meeting.

GRANDMOTHERBLOGGING: We went to have dinner with my grandmother in the nursing home Skilled Nursing Facility tonight. (We took barbecue, from Sonny’s). It was the first time I’d seen her in 3 weeks, because of the Insta-Wife’s surgery. Helen felt well enough to come along, and my grandmother was glad to see her up and around. She gets out in a few weeks, though she’ll still need some transitional help in getting around, and continuing her physical therapy. It amazes me how well she’s managed to keep her positive attitude, in a place that I find rather depressing.

CREATIVITY FROM THE CULT: Recharging your iPod Shuffle with a hand crank.

UNREST IN KYRGYZYSTAN: Gateway Pundit has a roundup.

BUSH TALKS SOCIAL SECURITY IN SOUTH BEND: You can read the New York Times account, and you can read Tom Maguire’s commentary on the New York Times account, or you can visit Brendan Loy’s blog for firsthand reporting, photos, and audio. Not long ago, of course, you would have pretty much been stuck with option one.

AN INDICATOR? “According to the AP, all the Baathists could muster up for their ‘Go Bashar!’ demonstration in Damascus today was three thousand people… not an especially impressive number for a fascist state.”

I actually almost feel sorry for Bashar. I don’t think he really wanted to play the role he’s in now. I hope that he manages a soft landing for the Ba’athist regime, transitioning to a free country without bloodshed, but I doubt his father’s cronies, who remain very much a force, will make that easy.

And speaking of unimpressive fascism, Hugo Chavez’s regime has been busted for photoshop-crowd-enhancement with Venezuelan newspapers picking up a story that started on Miguel Octavio’s blog. Heh.

UPDATE: Jim Lindgren notes that the Syrian pullback winds up concentrating Syrian troops in the perenially suspicious Bekaa valley, rumored to be home to all sorts of interesting things they’d probably rather we didn’t see.

Meanwhile, John Hinderaker notes a contrast that has been pointed out here, as well.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This post on the big picture is kind of interesting, though I’m not a huge fan of Stratfor.

HEH.

TO BOLDLY GO: Ed Cone is defending legacy admissions.

TECH-ADVICE BLEG: I’m thinking of buying a flat-panel TV for the bedroom. I’ve been looking at this one, though the Insta-Wife, somewhat more ambitiously, wants this one, instead. (I stayed in a hotel that had the first TV on the wall recently, and it was quite nice).

I want to mount it on the wall, too. Is a wall bracket like this one a good idea?

But my main sense is that this is a purchase where waiting a few months is probably likely to lead to big improvements on the price-performance curve. Or are we past that phase now? Any advice?

UPDATE: TV Repairman reader Joe Reynolds (no relation) emails:

Both of the models that you linked in your weblog do not contain an HDTV tuner/receiver. These can be purchased as a seperate unit and run generally $250-500. Until June of this year they are legal to be sold w/o the broadcast flag function that controls DRM and may be used legally as long as you own them. I mention this not to encourage piracy, but to let you know the feature will make it really inconvienient to tivo and transfer to any other equipment you may want to use. These units are also available as PCI cards and External USB devices. The bottom line is if you want HDTV with the TV’s you are considering you will need another device. Also LCD-TV prices are plummeting in the current market, you may see even larger discounts soon.

Yeah, you can surf the price-performance curve forever, but I don’t want to move too soon. This has inspired LOTS of email, which I don’t have time to digest now, but I’ll update with it later. Meanwhile, Will Collier weighs in on the side of waiting longer, and reader Tom Westberg sends this link to a review of the Insta-Wife’s fave. Finally, Roger Simon shares his own experience but adds this caveat: “Of course all this advice is already outdated. We did this two months ago!” Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Wow, lots of people care about this. And Jonah Goldberg emails: “Please! Let me know what you hear about the flat-screen TV thing. I’m researching it too and I can’t make heads or tails of all this. My understanding though is that CRT tvs still have better pictures, which surprised me considering all the hullabaloo.” Yeah, CRTs still have the best picture — and the best price-performance — but they get HUGE as screensizes get bigger. For a big room I’d still get a CRT, or a DLP, but for the bedroom I wanted to save some space.

MORE: Updated below — hit “read more” for more. And here’s a big article by Ed Driscoll from PC World, found via NewDave, who observes: “It looks as though the market is about to reach that critical point where demand gets in line with supply. Once that sweet spot hits (somewhere under $750 for 30 inches), things will slide down with a vengeance.” Let’s hope.

Continue reading ‘TECH-ADVICE BLEG: I’m thinking of buying a flat-panel TV for the bedroom. I’ve been looking at thi…’ »

PUBLIUS HAS POSTED another roundup of developments in Lebanon.

UPDATE: More interesting stuff here.

ED MORRISSEY has more on the whole F.E.C. vs. the Blogosphere issue. So does Prof. Bainbridge: “Friends of freedom clearly need to remember this incident if and when John McCain (or Russ Feingold, for that matter) runs again for President. And we need to roast President George Bush one more time for spinelessly signing the excrescence that is McCain-Feingold.”

CHESTER LOOKS AT OUR SCHEMES, and theirs. “Some folks have rightly warned Americans not to become cocky with all of the good news out of the Middle East recently. Others have warned of spoiling attacks. The timing is perfect for one of these.”

WARD CHURCHILL ON BILL MAHER: Jeff Jarvis was watching.

UPDATE: Democrat Tim Russo is unhappy. I wonder if the Hollywood / MoveOn wing of the Democrats is their version of Canada’s Quebec problem?

LEBANON UPDATE:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is expected to announce a redeployment of Syrian troops in Lebanon when he addresses his parliament today, say Lebanese politicians.

Mr Assad’s speech, which the Syrian press agency said would deal with “current political developments” follows unprecedented international pressure on Damascus to withdraw its 15,000 troops and its secret services from Lebanon.

After talks with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, in Moscow yesterday, Walid al-Muallim, Syrian’s deputy foreign minister, said Damascus would soon reveal what he called “an agreement between Syria and Lebanon” which he said would meet the approval of the United Nations Security Council.

Mr Lavrov said he was “satisfied” that Syria would take steps to “correspond” with UN resolution 1559, which calls for all foreign troops to leave Lebanon.

Still too soon to gloat, but this sounds quite promising. Meanwhile, here’s an interesting overview of what’s going on.

JAY ROSEN WRITES ABOUT “DE-CERTIFYING THE PRESS:” But my question is, who “certified” them to begin with?

UPDATE: Jay Rosen responds (same post):

Certified” in this case does not mean legally so, as with a Certified Public Accountant. That would be unconstitutional. Rather, what the Bush team is doing is like de-certification (though not literally so) because it’s a sudden change in accepted status and a rejection of a commonly recognized role.
One answer to “who granted this status?” is “tradition did.” Previous Administrations, Republican and Democrat, established some common and accepted practices without codifying them. Glenn’s a law professor; he should understand why you don’t overthrow precedent lightly (and you don’t deny that you’re doing it when you are.) I have also used the term de-legitimize to describe what the Bush forces are doing. Prefer that? Fine.

Hmm. “Tradition” formed by whom? Not me, and not the large number of Americans who have shouted back at their televisions over the years. It’s just that now people can hear it . . . .

As for “precedent” — well, to be “precedent” in the legal sense a decision has to come from an authoritative body. And, again, which body legitimized the press? It seems to me that the press did. For a while, when it played ball with politicians (e.g., by not mentioning FDR’s polio or JFK’s infidelities) the politicians were happy to treat it as a quasi-government. I’m not sure that was an improvement, really, though I can see why journalists regard it as a golden age.

UPDATE: This observation seems relevant.

MEGAN MCARDLE:

Why is it that people only happen to benefit from sleep deprivation and enforced stays away from their family when they are still in the grip of a legalised cartel that can force them to work investment banking hours for a food service salary, on threat of withholding their medical license if they fail to comply?

I have an idea.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE is writing about Gunner Palace, the Iraq war documentary that’s hitting theaters now. He’s got an interview with filmmaker Michael Tucker.

SAUDI PROMOTION OF TERRORISM: And note Steven Den Beste’s criticism of the Bush Administration, in the comments.

KOS VS. GREENSPAN: I’m betting on Greenspan.

UPDATE: Greenspan has John Cole on his side! But any dirt they dig up on Greenspan will only make Bill Clinton, who also appointed him, look bad! Is this really just a way for Deaniacs to weaken Hillary? Could they be that subtle? . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Or maybe it’s just that tasty Jonestown Kool-Aid. When you take another sip, it covers up the bitterness from the one before. For a little while.

MORE: Tom Maguire offers good advice to the Kos crowd, in the serene confidence that it will be ignored:

Is there even a hint of a media strategy here, or do they just figure, the more enemies they make, the better they are doing? Do they really think the Daily (Kos) Show will have more impact after mainstream journalists rally to Andrea and abandon them? Do they really think that, after the Guckert fiasco, this is the best way forward?

Sadly, some do. Though there’s some evidence that sanity is beginning to assert itself.

TOM MAGUIRE REPORTS that Paul Krugman isn’t very good at predicting economic matters. But Tom Maguire is a good predictor where Paul Krugman is concerned!

MCCAIN AND HIS ALLIES are counterattacking against Brad Smith over the McCain-Feingold / blogosphere story.

You can hear what Smith has to say on Cam Edwards’ show at 4:40 Eastern, which is in just a few minutes from now.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Roger Simon is saying shame on Apple for its legal action against bloggers.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Gizmodo has some choice words for Apple, and for companies that might be tempted to emulate Apple.

NEW JERSEY KILLINGS UPDATE:

JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The upstairs neighbor of an Egyptian Christian family found slain in their home in January was charged along with another man Friday in the killings, and authorities said the motive was robbery, not religious fanaticism, as some had feared.

Edward McDonald, 25, who rented a second-floor apartment above Hossam Armanious and his family, pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder, as did Hamilton Sanchez, 30. Both men were ordered held on $10 million bail.

“I didn’t kill nobody, man,” Sanchez said as he was led from the courtroom.

This is actually a relief, in a way, assuming that Sanchez & McDonald turn out to be guilty.

ANTISEMITISM IN AUSTRALIA: Pathetic.

F.E.C. COMMISSIONER BRAD SMITH will be on Cam Edwards’ show about 4:40 p.m. Eastern today, talking about blogs, the Internet, and federal election law. (Via Jim Geraghty). Read this, too.

NOT ENOUGH, BASHAR: Bush rejects partial Syrian withdrawal.

HERE’S A BLOG REVIEW of Gene Healy’s new book, mentioned below.

ELECTIONS IN MOLDOVA THIS WEEKEND: Here’s a story from the Financial Times.

HOWARD KURTZ:

By the way, I’ve seen nothing in the major papers, and only a few mentions on cable, of Robert Byrd appearing to liken GOP tactics to Hitler, which he now denies, even though Jewish groups have demanded an apology (“Hideous” and “outrageous,” says the ADL.) Why is the press giving Byrd a pass?

Good question.

UPDATE: The Rocky Mountain News noticed.

LOTS OF INTERESTING STUFF over at Arthur Chrenkoff’s. If you’re only visiting for his roundups of Iraqi and Afghan developments, you should check it out.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES has responded to Hugh Hewitt’s complaints about its North Korea coverage, but Hugh is still unhappy.

I’M OPPOSED TO A NATIONAL I.D. CARD: But at least if we have such a system, we probably won’t outsource it to the Cuban secret police, as Hugo Chavez is reportedly doing.

AZERBAIJAN UPDATE: Hundreds protest at the funeral of a murdered journalist.

A WHILE BACK, I had a project with the working title of Due Process When Everything is a Crime. It never quite jelled (there’s a chapter in the ethics book along these lines, and I wrote a review essay that drew on some of it) but the full-length project kind of ground to a halt after 9/11 and I never got the momentum back.

Now Gene Healy has produced a new book called Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything, that addresses the same problem: The growth of trivial-yet-potent criminal laws to the point that everyone is a felon, and prosecutorial discretion is the most important part of the justice system. It looks interesting enough that it’s got me thinking of restarting that project.

MIKE ROSEN: “Thank you, Ward Churchill.”

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES IS UP: Read it, and then go grocery shopping!

RALPH PETERS: “Don’t Get Cocky!”

FOR three years, this column has shot down the pessi mists who warned we were bound to fail in the Middle East. Now those of us who see our confidence vindicated must beware a premature euphoria. There’s plenty of work ahead.

Our successes have been remarkable. In the past six weeks, we’ve seen more positive movement in the region than we saw in the preceding six decades. The political landscape of the old Islamic heartlands has changed breathtakingly since our first special-operations team went to work in the wake of 9/11. . . .

From Iran through Saudi Arabia to Egypt, the first breezes of change are beginning to blow.

But they’re not gale-force winds just yet. We would be almost as foolish as the eternal naysayers were we to imagine that our mission is nearing completion.

Excessive euphoria would only play into the hands of those who wanted freedom’s campaign to fail all along. If our rhetoric becomes too exuberant, even positive events on the ground could be dismissed as falling short of our promises.

That’s absolutely right.

UPDATE: And Charles Krauthammer is also right when he says that we need to keep the momentum going:

Revolution is in the air. What to do? We are already hearing voices for restraint about liberating Lebanon. Flynt Leverett, your usual Middle East expert, took to the New York Times to oppose the immediate end of Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. Instead, we should be trying to “engage and empower” the tyranny in Damascus.

These people never learn. Here we are on the threshold of what Arabs in the region are calling the fall of their own Berlin Wall and our “realists” want us to go back to making deals with dictators. It would be not just a blunder but a tragedy. It would betray our principles. And it would betray the people in Lebanon who have been encouraged by those principles.

Plenty of time for euphoria when we’re done. Though it’s hard not to gloat at least a little bit in the face of pieces like this one, however grudging, from Fred Kaplan.

BLOGGERS, MCCAIN-FEINGOLD, AND MEDIA CREDENTIALS: A Houston talk-radio station wants to make sure that all bloggers get the media exemption that allows free speech under campaign-finance “reform” law:

As such, we believe that we enjoy the “broadcast exemption” that prohibits the federal government from regulating our speech in the manner they are proposing for “mere” citizen bloggers.

While we still need to talk to some sharp lawyers and nail down the details, if these restrictions come to pass, KSEV and LST are committed to working out a legally sound way in which individual bloggers– of every ideological persuasion and partisan affiliation– can somehow register with us and be credentialed as a press representative of KSEV and LST.

Like Raoul Wallenberg handing out passports, we will start issuing press credentials to any blogger that asks for one.

I trust that things will turn out better for them than they did for Wallenberg . . . .

UPDATE: In response to Josh, I took the Wallenberg reference to be ironic, as was my treatment of it (here at InstaPundit, gratuitous ellipsis is generally a sign of irony). I detected no such irony in Robert Byrd’s comments.

JAY ROSEN WAS ON THE DAILY SHOW, explaining how to make it big in blogging.

RUMBLES IN AZERBAIJAN? Keep an eye on this.

“WHAT HAVE THE AMERICANS ever done for us?” Heh.

GODWIN’S LAW VIOLATOR, BUSTED: Though some would call it an instantiation, rather than a violation, of Godwin’s Law.

MORE HOMELAND SECURITY SCREWUPS:

The U.S. government’s smallpox vaccination program eroded the credibility of federal health officials while leaving no clear indication of how well prepared the nation might be against a bioterrorist attack.

So said Dr. Brian Strom, chairman of an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee which released a report Thursday on lessons learned from the 2002 vaccination effort. The panel presented its findings in Washington, D.C.

While stopping short of calling the program a failure, the report did find what appear to be serious shortfalls in how the initiative was implemented. The report, titled The Smallpox Vaccination Program: Public Health in an Age of Terrorism, is the last of seven reports providing recommendations and guidance to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Unlike earlier reports, however, this one was undertaken at the IOM’s own initiative.

These lessons learned are important because “bioterrorism, unfortunately, continues to be a threat and it is likely that future programs like this will need to be initiated,” said Strom, who is also chairman and professor of the department of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

We’re going to have to do better than this. (Full report here).

ED MORRISSEY:

McCain and Feingold have managed to foster real bipartisanship — they’ve gotten liberal and conservative bloggers alike to detest them. Jerome Armstrong at MyDD, Atrios, and DailyKos all agree — this legislation has become a serious threat to political speech, and John McCain and Russ Feingold have become two of the most dangerous politicians to American liberty since Huey Long. Jerome makes the point that the problem at the moment are the three Democratic FEC commissioners who appear intent on enforcing the law as McCain and Feingold insist, but both parties had a hand in creating this fiasco.

Indeed.

REID STOTT: “I don’t normally watch network TV news, but tonight I just happened to catch about two minutes of Peter Jennings on ABC. And it fully reinforced why I don’t bother with network TV news anymore.”

HUGH HEWITT IS MAKING Walter Durantyesque charges regarding the Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE: More here, from Will Collier.

I’LL BE ON KUDLOW & COMPANY on CNBC this afternoon about 5:40 Eastern time.

UPDATE: You can see video of the first segment here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: All 3 segments are here. I couldn’t get the video to play, but reportedly it’s working for others.

ALTHOUGH I UNDERSTAND THE TEMPTATION, it’s still a bit early for this much gloating. Isn’t it?

CONDI, RUMMY, AND THE Japanese Navy.

UPDATE: Much more, here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Still more from Michael Ubaldi, here.

LAURIE MORROW: “Ave Atque Vale, Phi Beta Kappa.”

MATT YGLESIAS LOOKS AT THE POLLS:

Bush has net negative approval ratings on the economy, on foreign policy, and on Iraq. You would think that would be fatal, but it was the same in late October. Generally speaking, the picture is the same throughout. The numbers make the president look very, very, very weak. But he looked just as weak right before the election, and obviously it didn’t work out. The upshot, I think, is that the Democratic Party’s political problems are really about the Democratic Party and not their opponents. Interestingly, the poll doesn’t find much support for the notion that a dash to the right on cultural issues is the way out. They asked “which party comes closer to sharing your view on abortion” and 45 percent said the Democrats to just 35 percent for the Republicans. They asked “which party comes closer to sharing your view on the legal recognition of gay couples,” and the Democrats got 42 percent to the GOP’s 37 percent.

Which is all by way of returning to my long-time hobbyhorse — to wit: The Democratic Party’s political trouble is explained almost entirely by the fact that the country does not trust it with national security. It may be possible to weasel into office through some other contrivance, but Democratic positioning on both culture and economics is already reasonably successful. Bush is not wildly popular. The obvious growth area is trying to convince people that Democrats can do national security properly.

This is exactly right. It seems to me that the best hope for the Democrats is for Bush to be so successful at foreign affairs and national security that by 2008 nobody cares anymore.

UPDATE: Reader Larry Weintraub emails:

You forget the more obvious option: For the Democrats to coalesce around a viable National Security policy that the public believes in.

It’d be enough for voters like me (well, specifically, for me), exactly the ones Matt is talking about who voted for Bush but are, domestically and socially, Democrats.

It would probably be enough for me — I’ve been hoping for it for over three years — but it seems increasingly unlikely. Unless they’re smart enough to nominate “the most uncompromising wartime President in the history of the United States,” anyway. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Of course, there’s always the possibility that the NYT poll is just wrong. Or, put another way: “Anyone who relies on the Times and CBS to explain what American voters are thinking deserves the inevitable losses which result.”

HENRY COPELAND’S BLOG READERS’ SURVEY seems to be working fine now. Please take if if you have time (it’s just a couple of minutes), and enter “InstaPundit” as the referring blog.

MORE BAD NEWS FOR ASSAD: Saudis Tell Syria to Withdraw From Lebanon.

ALREADY? A call for Howard Dean’s resignation. Seems premature to me.

QUITE SOME TIME AGO, I mentioned Abigail Kohn’s book, Shooters: Myths and Realities of America’s Gun Culture. I wound up liking it (and the Insta-Wife did, too), but I don’t think I ever posted any more on it. Here, however, is a review from Reason.

HOWARD KURTZ:

Are the Bushies at “war” with the Fourth Estate? Is there an insidious plot to weaken the media establishment, to carpet-bomb its credibility like the Saddam regime?

I wouldn’t go that far. People forget that every administration tries to neutralize the press. There was much hand-wringing about Clinton circumventing the White House press corps when he started going on Larry King and other talk shows. And much talk of stonewalling over the way his White House handled its various scandals.

I would argue that nothing the White House has done has damaged the media’s credibility more than what the profession has done to itself. Bush wasn’t responsible for the fraud by Jayson Blair or Jack Kelley, or for Dan Rather’s botched National Guard story (though I know some have theorized that the administration lured CBS into some kind of trap). Bush didn’t force the media to go overboard on Kobe and Michael. He didn’t force a CNN executive to make some ill-considered comments about the U.S. military targeting journalists. He didn’t force various journalists to keep engaging in plagiarism. He didn’t force Armstrong Williams to take $240,000 from the Education Department (though paying conservative pundits is one of the administration’s innovations). He isn’t responsible for declining newspaper circulation and network news ratings or the sinking poll numbers when it comes to trusting the media.

Nope. But it might be more comforting to blame him than to look at root causes. There’s some constructive advice here: “So take all that money and get yourselves some talented, hungry correspondents. A lot of them. They should be all over Africa, South America, the Mideast and Europe, with talented crews.” I agree. Actual hard-news reporting is the killer app for Big Journalism — if it bothers to do it. They’ve been retreating from that game for 20+ years. Read this post from Austin Bay, too.

Frankly, I think that everyone at CBS ought to have to read this book, and write an essay about the lessons it contains . . . .

YOU DON’T NEED NANOBOTS for working nanotechnology, reports the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology: “No one worries about an inkjet printer crawling off the desk and stealing ink cartridges. Molecular manufacturing systems will be no more autonomous than inkjets. . . . Both scientists and the public have gotten the idea that molecular manufacturing requires the use of nanobots, and they may criticize or fear it on that basis. The truth is less sensational, but its implications are equally compelling.”

WHY TORTURE ENDANGERS US: Thoughts from Gregory Scoblete.

THE SURPRISINGLY POTENT JAPANESE NAVY: With lots going on beneath the radar in east asia, this may become more important.

THE COMING CRACKDOWN ON BLOGGING: Declan McCullagh looks at efforts to regulate political speech on the Internet. (Via Ed Cone).

UPDATE: Rex Hammock is skeptical. PoliPundit has suggestions, just in case.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts, from Josh Claybourn. And Mike Krempasky has background.

MORE: Susanna Cornett has much more. And here’s a must-read post from Professor Bainbridge.

YOU KNOW, MUCH AS I LOVE the nonfiction books that publishers are sending me, I really like the advance copies of science fiction by authors I like. In the mail the other day I got this forthcoming book by Charles Stross, and I’ve still got Accelerando to read. My leisure-reading, alas, has taken something of a hit lately.

THE “RESTORE THE DRAFT” PROPOSAL seems to be getting a chilly reception from quite a few people.

NOBODY TELL TED STEVENS about this!

STRATEGYPAGE ON SYRIA’S BASHAR ASSAD:

The elder Assad’s untimely death put Bashar in command, but not in control, of Syria. His dad’s cronies control most of the bureaucracy, armed forces and security organizations. There is no agreement among all these chiefs about what to do to stay in power. Thus we have the bizarre contrast of Syrian police turning over Saddam’s half-brother and 30 of his henchmen, while Syrian agents facilitate the assassination of a prominent anti-Syrian Lebanese politician, and a suicide bombing inside Israel. All within two weeks. No senior Syrians will admit that no one is completely in control in Syria. It is feared that there may be a coup, as some of the senior generals and security officials push Bashar Assad aside and take over. Bashar is seen by his father’s old timers as too inexperienced. But the problem is that Syria is simply in a very bad situation. Like Iraq, Syria adopted the Baath Party to run the country decades ago. Like Iraq, the socialist dictatorship of the Baath Party led to corruption and economic decline. This has made enemies of Syria’s neighbors, and the Syrian people. The Syrian Baath Party has run out of credit, and credibility. The bill is now due, and no one wants to pay.

I hope the collapse is graceful, rather than deadly. But I certainly hope for the collapse.

UPDATE: Some interesting translations.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More trouble for Assad, from the Arab League. And Russia looks to be jumping ship, too.

MORE: Oh, this is a heartbreaker:

If the European Union follows Israeli recommendations this week and places Hezbollah on a list of official terror organizations, the economic consequences of sanctions would “destroy” the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah’s leader told Arabic language television.

Heh. But will the EU actually follow through on this?

STILL MORE: The bandwagon continues to roll, with TigerHawk noting this report:

Russia and Germany joined an international chorus of demands for Syria to leave Lebanon, and President Bashar al-Assad was expected to travel to Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks diplomats said would focus on a pullout.

TigerHawk also observes: “The anti-terror coalition that fractured over Iraq has needed an issue to rally around without offending domestic constituencies or the internationalist media. It is Bashar al-Assad’s enormous misfortune that Syria’s occupation of Lebanon has become that issue.”

ROLLING STONE:

The Online Insurgency

MoveOn has become a force to be reckoned with

They signed up 500,000 supporters with an Internet petition — but Bill Clinton still got impeached. They organized 6,000 candlelight vigils worldwide — but the U.S. still invaded Iraq. They raised $60 million from 500,000 donors to air countless ads and get out the vote in the battle-ground states — but George Bush still whupped John Kerry. A gambler with a string of bets this bad might call it a night. But MoveOn.org just keeps doubling down. . . .

But many party insiders worry that an Internet insurgency working hand in hand with a former Vermont governor will only succeed in pushing the party so far to the left that it can’t compete in the red states. “It’s electoral suicide,” says Dan Gerstein, a former strategist for Joe Lieberman’s presidential campaign. MoveOn committed a series of costly blunders last fall: It failed to remove two entries that compared Bush to Hitler from its online ad contest, and its expensive television spots barely registered in the campaign. One conservative commentator, alluding to MoveOn’s breathless promotion of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, branded the group the “MooreOn” wing of the party. All of which leaves political veterans wondering: As MoveOn becomes a vital part of the Democratic establishment, will its take-no-prisoners attitude marginalize the party and strengthen the Republican stranglehold on power?

I think that this insurgency will be around a lot longer than the one in Iraq.

UPDATE: Les Jones thinks he sees a consistent message.

MORE on Lebanon and Syria.

THE ADL IS UNHAPPY WITH ROBERT BYRD:

New York, NY, March 2, 2005 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed outrage at the remarks of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who suggested that some Republican tactics on judicial nominations were similar to Adolf Hitler’s use of power in Nazi Germany. . . .

It is hideous, outrageous and offensive for Senator Byrd to suggest that the Republican Party’s tactics could in any way resemble those of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

The Senator shows a profound lack of understanding as to who Hitler was and what he and his regime represented.

Senator Byrd must repudiate his remarks immediately and apologize to the American people for showing such disrespect for this country’s democratic process.

Plus, he violated Godwin’s Law.

MORE EDU-BLOGGING at The Carnival of Education.

DARFUR UPDATE: THE SUDANESE GOVERNMENT IS DOOMED: My brother is blogging against them, too.

MORE ON LEBANON at GlennReynolds.com.

UPDATE: Why a duck? [Why a no chicken? — Ed. Exactly!]

TOM MAGUIRE NOTICES SOMETHING TROUBLING in a story on the Lefkow killings.

UPDATE: Via David Neiwert, we find this troubling passage from the New York Times story, too:

Sympathizers abound. “Everyone associated with the Matt Hale trial has deserved assassination for a long time,” read an Internet essay posted Tuesday by Bill White, editor of The Libertarian Socialist News. “I don’t feel bad that Judge Lefkow’s family was murdered today. In fact, when I heard the story, I laughed.”

Never trust anyone who calls himself a “libertarian socialist.” They’re bound to be deeply confused, at best.

UPDATE: More on White, here. Yes, he’s deeply confused.

SEN. TED STEVENS’ (R-AK) plans for regulating cable and satellite TV have produced this sage observation from Ace:

Any party that tries to take away the titty-channels from a red-blooded American man is a party that’s looking to go the way of the Whigs.

Read the whole post, which contains some sensible advice, even after you get past the funny part.

I THINK THE SUPREME COURT’S GETTING A LITTLE CARRIED AWAY with its citation of foreign authority. Heh.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES IS UP: And it’s full of rich, bloggy goodness.

LA SHAWN BARBER AND ROBIN BURK were on MSNBC’s Connected today. You can see video here.

PUBLIUS HAS POSTED ANOTHER Lebanon news roundup. There’s a lot going on.