Archive for 2006

“FAKE BUT ACCURATE:” ANN ALTHOUSE responds to Larry Tribe’s defense of Judge Taylor’s opinion.

MACACA UPDATE: James Joyner says the Washington Post is gunning for George Allen, and offers a psychological explanation: “One gathers the Post is more offended by the insinuation that inside-the-Beltway elites aren’t part of ‘real America’ than about the ‘racist overtones’ of the Macaca incident. Perhaps Allen’s remarks hit a wee bit close to home?”

Nah. It’s all just misdirection to let them report the real damaging news that Allen is half French. . . .

JOE GANDELMAN looks at Republican pundits deserting Bush, which does seem to be a phenomenon. Bush — who, as I’ve said before, has always been politically weak, just stronger than Kerry or Gore — is in the “sweet spot” on the war, fighting hard enough to anger the antiwar folks but not hard enough to please the prowar folks. This might argue that Bush is getting it right, but I suspect not. If you’re going to fight a war, you should probably fight it full bore or not at all, raising the troubling possibility that both sets of critics are right simultaneously. But perhaps a nuanced approach is called for.

On the other hand, the Hotline Blog suggests that Bush-bashing has gone too far, asking, “What’s next, blaming Bush for ATM fees?”

UPDATE: Ron Coleman has had some related thoughts on waging war. So does Josh Trevino. They don’t agree, though.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

JAMES PINKERTON wonders if AIDS has “pushed planetary politics to the right.”

And colonialism isn’t entirely out of style: “I heard a torrent of sex-drenched verbiage from white people, all aimed at browbeating mostly non-white people into changing their traditional ways.”

IS THE ANGLICAN CHURCH splintering? My Nigerian relatives are Anglicans, and my sense is that the Nigerian church is far more conservative than the American or English versions.

SOME INTERESTING DATA ON PODCAST AUDIENCES, from Nielsen:

More than 6% of U. S adults, or about 9 million web users, have downloaded podcasts in the past 30 days, according to The Economics of Podcasting, a report released today by Nielsen Analytics, part of VNU’s Media Measurement & Information Group.

In a first quarter 2006 study, conducted by Nielsen Analytics at Nielsen Entertainment Television testing facilities in Las Vegas, more than 1700 participants were surveyed on their podcasting usage. About 6% of respondents described themselves as regular podcast downloaders – more than 75% of whom were male. The findings show that a significant percentage, approximately 38%, of active podcast downloaders say they are listening to radio less often.

“The incredible popularity of podcasting is the latest demonstration of consumers’ willingness to take control of their media experiences,” said Larry Gerbrandt, general manager and senior vice president of Nielsen Analytics. “While essentially still in nascent form, podcasts offer free audio and video content that is inexpensive to create, easy to access and on a portable platform that has already reached mass distribution. This exciting new medium has only just begun to stretch its legs.”

Judging by the numbers they give for popular podcasts, the Glenn and Helen Show is doing awfully well, though as with all Web stats its hard to be sure that you’re comparing apples and apples. In the same spirit, I don’t think that Nielsen will learn anything useful by sampling the habits of 400 iPod owners. First, most people listen to podcasts on computers, not iPods. (Even most people who listen on portable players tend to listen on other brands than iPods.) Second, Apple users tend to be disproportionately left-leaning, and while that’s probably less true for iPod owners than it is for Mac owners I think it probably injects some potential bias. And finally, given the vast diversity of offerings out there, 400 listeners isn’t nearly enough. Even 4000 would be a pretty coarse measure.

UPDATE: Reader Douglas Winship takes me to task, which, er, provides me with a great opportunity to showcase the self-correcting nature of the blogosphere:

I am curious about your assertion that Apple users as a whole tend to lean left. I know it is a common assumption, and Apple certainly has a tendency to lean left in the culture it uses in its advertising, but have there actually been studies on this? Could you cite one, just for grins?

I am curious, because my own experience does not support this. I know plenty of users who range from full-blown BDS sufferers, to California Libertarians (OK, there may not be a difference there….), and a bunch of moderate to conservative Republicans like myself. Now, I am aware that we all gravitate socially to like-minded people, but I find it hard to believe that Mac users gravitate that significantly Left.

He’s right to call me. You hear that about Apple users leaning left all the time, but I don’t have a study on that. Anybody know if I’m right, or just recycling commonly held stereotypes? I’m probably also wrong on the iPods vs. other players issue, as their market share (I looked this up myself) has risen to an astounding 82% of the retail market, and may be headed higher. Even allowing for the large base of preexisting players from other brands out there, iPods are probably an absolute majority of players in use. Also, interestingly, the percentage (not the number) of iTunes users subscribing to our RSS feed has dropped, as lots of people have started subscribing via Firefox and other agents. I assume those folks are listening on their computers, mostly, and certainly not on iPods.

I stand by my point about 400 iPod users not being a big enough sample, though.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chad Irby emails that the iPod has actually dropped to a “mere” 75% of the market. But mobile phone listeners are coming on strong. We certainly get some of those.

I’LL BE ON CNN’S RELIABLE SOURCES at about 10:30 Eastern this morning, talking about George Allen and related items.

UPDATE: Hot Air has video thanks to Ian Schwartz.

LEBANON UPDATE: Jules Crittenden offers translations from the French:

In recent weeks, France stepped forward to act as a broker of peace in Lebanon. “Act” is the key verb in that last sentence, as it now would seem that the only other verifiable part of the sentence is “in recent weeks.”

To correctly parse that sentence, one must understand that when France suggested it wanted to broker peace in Lebanon, it did not necessarily mean “broker” or “peace” or “Lebanon” in the way we might understand those words. The same is true when France further suggested it wanted to “lead” a “strong” “multinational” “force” there.

Read the whole thing.

TOM W. BELL HAS THOUGHTS on victim disarmament policies. And Dave Kopel notes a Darfur connection.

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch has some new stuff on behind-the-scenes efforts along those lines in the Clinton years. Bill Clinton thought that gun control cost him the Congress in 1996, and there’s some evidence that Democrats have taken that lesson to heart, though as the party moves left I don’t know if it will stick.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, on the Darfur front, here’s a site that scores members of Congress on their efforts regarding the genocide there.

SOME MAP-READING ADVICE for the media: “Really with the ease and speed of web sources there is no excuse for reporters, or at least their editor when the reporter is in the field, to not check the web for correct locations, place names and other facts.”

MUTINY ON FLIGHT 613:

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny – refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

The two guys were likely entirely innocent, and didn’t deserve this, but this is the kind of thing that happens when people don’t trust the authorities to protect them. Over time, I fear that excessive political correctness on the part of governments will breed the reverse elsewhere.

UPDATE: Somewhat related item here.

PALLYWOOD: More fake imagery.