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.