December 01, 2007

TIM RUTTEN ON CNN'S YOUTUBE DISASTER: "In fact, this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate raises serious questions about whether CNN is ethically or professionally suitable to play the political role the Democratic and Republican parties recently have conceded it. . . . In other words, CNN intentionally directed the Republicans' debate to advance its own interests."

BLU-RAY VS. HD-DVD: I won't say I've taken sides, exactly, but I did buy this Sony Blu-Ray DVD player last week. So far I'm pleased with everything, except the price, which was a bit high. I've watched two films -- Die Hard and 300 -- and the video (and audio) quality is excellent. I've also skimmed around a bit in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is supposed to have an excellent HD transfer and the picture does look very good (though that serves to demonstrate in places just how out-of-date the special effects are). The Blu-Ray player also (and this is what got me off the dime) plays the AVCHD DVDs from my HD camcorder perfectly, and with excellent quality. Setup was easy, and my only real complaint is that the boot-up process seems a bit slow. Yeah, this means I've given up holding out for the combo player -- but with HD-DVD players dropping in price substantially, well, I've still got room for one of those, too.

HAS LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP'S LONELY GENIUS MOMENT PASSED? I don't think so. I've never used research assistants to write my stuff -- and for those who do, I think that their stuff tends to read as if it were written by . . . research assistants.

FEAR THE G-DRIVE? "Google's Gdrive (and Its Ad Potential) Raise Privacy Concerns."

A LOOK AT THE VAST GAP between copyright law and actual behavior. (Via Larry Solum).

A PROBLEM FOR RUDY? "Rudy's flexible interpretation of his marital vows has always been a source of irritation to many conservatives, but if he has indeed used taxpayer funds inappropriately, then he may have trouble on the horizon."

NUCLEAR BOMB: "Lions for Lambs' Could Lose $25 Million." One can only hope.

JASON WHITLOCK ON race, violence, and politics. (Via Brutally Honest).

BOB OWENS RESPONDS TO THE NEW REPUBLIC'S LATEST. Excerpt: "The bottom line is that the Scott Beauchamp debacle was a test of editorial character for The New Republic under Franklin Foer’s leadership. For over four months, the magazine has answered that challenge by hiding behind anonymous sources, making personal attacks against critics, asserting a massive conspiracy against them, while covering up conflicting testimony and refusing to answer the hard questions."

DEATHS FALL AGAIN IN IRAQ. Not surprisingly, Democrats now want to change the subject: "The debate marks a shift from only a few weeks ago when the Iraq war was the dominant point of contention among the top Democrats. With violence down in Iraq and Democratic campaigns eager to distinguish themselves before the all-important Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa, healthcare is emerging as the party's preferred topic." All of this advantages Hillary -- more pro-war (despite her waffling) and more healthcare-oriented than either Richardson or Obama. Oh, and there's Edwards, I guess.

RYAN SAGER on Ron Paul: "While I'd be delighted if the GOP were gripped by libertarianism - that is, a resurgent commitment to economic and social freedom - the truth is actually quite the opposite. . . . Big-government, big-religion, globophobic, populist conservatism - this is the message that's got real traction in the first Republican primary."

THIS WEEK'S CARNIVAL OF CARS is up, with a focus on matters green.

AMIDST A CLOUD OF INK, TNR RETRACTS AND FLEES THE SCENE. Bob Owens comments: "Stay tuned. I'll have much more later, including why Franklin Foer said nothing to justify keeping his job."

UPDATE: Further thoughts from Patterico.

My take? Push the button, Frank.

MORE: Ouch: "pathetic, evasive, self-justifying, self-pitying, and deeply dishonest."

Plus, a gratuitous en passant smear from Foer. It is, alas, consistent with the classless way that he and TNR have behaved throughout.

STILL MORE: The Fog of Foer.

SOME HOME THEATER speaker advice.

EXTREME MORTMAN ON SUBPRIME CAPITALISM: "A government bailout of folks who make bad financial choices and who speculate on the market? Count me in! Er, I’m outraged! My adjustable rate mortgage is schedule to zoom up in the spring. Mind if I send the monthly bill to to the government? Maybe they can put in a hot tub for me."

MORE ON PREPAREDNESS: In response to yesterday's post on wet-dry vacs and other homeowner stuff, reader Peter Gookins emails:

I've never denied being anal retentive, which has been a help with all the disaster recovery / business continuity work I've done over the years (big difference between the two - disaster recovery fixes what
broke, continuity keeps the business operating, and, hopefully, the money coming in. You can't have continuity without disaster recovery, but having a recovery plan doesn't necessarily mean continued business operation). Your recent water emergency reminded me that it's s beneficial for homeowners to take some preventive steps.

I've attached some pics if you're interested. The shot of the garage electrical panel shows a flashlight, a 10 lb ABC fire extinguisher, the T-handled thing is a curb key for shutting water off at the meter, and
the map shows where everything is. The curb key has had the handle ends ground to large screwdriver-tip size so it can be used to open the meter box cover. No additional tools needed. (And, while the garage has a large fire extinguisher, there's also a smaller one in every closet. Extinguishers are cheap.)

Why a map? Not everyone will always remember where stuff is, and if Uncle Harry is visiting he won't know at all. On the map is the address and subdivision name (the blue tape is covering my address) along with
emergency phone numbers. Critical tools are all right there. The pic of the water shutoff shows a 1/4 turn ball valve; faster and easier to use than the typical round-handle gate valve. The gray pipe is a "safety sleeve" to prevent a weed wacker from cutting through the plastic water supply pipe.

The picture of the electrical receptacle shows a number; that's the circuit breaker number that controls the circuit the outlet is on. If one has to shut down a circuit quickly because of a dangerously malfunctioning appliance it's pretty helpful to know which breaker to flip.

Yes, it took some time to get all this together, but a couple of hours spent leisurely assembling the info over the years will pay off if one has an emergency and time becomes critical. And, I do have a wet/dry
vac. Two of 'em, in fact.

Sounds like good advice! Meanwhile, James Rummel notes that this is a neglected side of preparedness: "Most gunbloggers like myself like to write about the big stuff, like emergency supplies needed to keep yourself and your family alive if you have to abandon your house and run for the hills. What is neglected is the little nitty-gritty details on how to handle the costly and potentially dangerous problems that occur inside the house that make it difficult to live there, instead of the huge disasters that come from the outside."

GARRISON KEILLOR ON SUBPRIME MORTGAGES.

DECISION TIME in Venezuela.

THOUGHTS ON L. Ron Hubbard and domestic violence.

A BAD CASE OF SOCK-PUPPET BLOWBACK: I agree that arrest is a gross overreaction, but if the facts are as they appear, it's kind of amusing.

IN THE MAIL: Election 2008: A Voters Guide, by Franklin Foer and the editors of The New Republic. I haven't actually read it, but according to reliable pseudonymous sources it has Hillary mocking a cripple, and Obama driving around New Hampshire with a baby skull on his head, while Bill Richardson runs over dogs in the gubernatorial limo. Or something like that . . . .

DESTROYED TRAFFIC CAMERAS IN GREAT BRITAIN: Apparently, the Anglo-American tradition of "out of doors political activity," as Gordon Wood named it, is not dead.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALEX KOZINSKI, the new Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit. Now if we could just get him onto the Supreme Court . . . .

THE OTHER DAY, I LINKED TO this electronic project kit and suggested it would make a good "hands-on" toy for the right kid. Reader Kat Wilton emails:

The Snap Circuits "toy" you linked to on Amazon is very good! We got it two years ago for our now 11 y.o. daughter, and she's still enjoying it. I would especially recommend this if Mom or Dad is going to join in: there is plenty of opportunity for both the adult *and* child to learn a lot. My husband, who is the Jack-of-all-trades in this family, also manages to use the Snap Circuits to give our Munchkin a jump-off point to learning more about electronics and math.

Excellent, fun, AND educational - can't beat that for a present!

Or for a recommendation. Nice to know. It looked cool -- like an updated version of the Radio Shack electronic project kits I used when I was a kid.

UPDATE: More from reader Ron Mahn:

I bought the Snap Circuits "toy" for my 4 y.o. daughter last Christmas and she loves it. She is 5 now and has some basic electronics down. She knows the difference between conductors and insulators, more resistance means the speaker will put out less sound, and that you have to complete a circuit to make the light work. We got the next bigger one for her birthday in May (because it has a radio, I am a ham and my daughter has been on the air since the day she turned 3). It is a bit advanced, so we do mostly projects from the smaller one. It is a great opportunity to do things together, and hopefully build the foundation for a little bit of communication in her teen years (I hope).

Sounds cool. Sounds like a smart four-year-old, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Katie Kearns emails:

We have the "junior" version for our four year old, and just yesterday he got it out and put together a quick circuit to launch some weird little twirly thing into the air, and then worked on lighting the light bulb. He also learned that, yes, you do need to put the battery in the circuit for it to work. ;)

He can't even read, but he did seem to have the schematics out and I guess they helped him some? :D Having snaps to stick together instead of little wires or clips makes it so much easier to work with.

Two thumbs up!

Cool.

ANN ALTHOUSE: "Did yesterday's hostage crisis teach us anything about Hillary Clinton?"

A LEAD-FREE TOY FROM CHINA: "Instead, it has asbestos."

Merry Christmas!

THOUGHTS ON SPEAKING ENGLISH in America.

November 30, 2007

ISLAMIC LAW IN NORTHERN NIGERIA has traditionally been on the mellow side. That was changing, but now things seem to be changing back. Part of the reason: "Many early proponents of Shariah feel duped by politicians who rode its popular wave but failed to live by its tenets, enriching themselves and neglecting to improve the lives of ordinary people." Shocking.

POLL: Does the Second Amendment give individuals a right to arms? So far it's leaning very hard toward "yes."

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER ON BUSH AND STEM CELLS. I disagreed with Bush's position, but I also thought at the time that it amounted more to sandbagging of pro-lifers than to standing in the way of research, and that still seems to be the case.

"I'M GOING TO MOVE ON."

THE FROG AND THE scorpion.

CLINTON HQ HOSTAGE SITUATION resolved.

Eric Scheie is googling the hostage taker.

UPDATE: More from Tom Maguire.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More, including video.

REFLECTIONS ON RECOVERING FROM SURGERY from Ilya Somin.

CUTTING GREENHOUSE GASES ON THE CHEAP: Since most of these changes would save money and energy anyway, they -- like most practical greenhouse responses -- are worth doing whether or not you believe in global warming.

THE DEATH OF ENVIRONMENTALISM? Questions for Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger (and Newt Gingrich!)

THE TRIAL BAR ON TRIAL: The Wall Street Journal is gloating. I'll just note that I know a lot of trial lawyers, and their lives and practices don't have much in common with the high fliers like Dickie Scruggs. They have actual clients that they try to help, as opposed to megabuck litigation factories.

TOTAL TIME SPENT ONLINE: Up 24.3% from last year.

YEP: "Congressional Democrats are reporting a striking change in districts across the country: Voters are shifting their attention away from the Iraq war. . . . One House Democratic aide summed up the challenge for the leadership, and admitted that it may be a smart move for Democrats to focus on the economy since they haven't been able to deliver on Iraq."

GADGET HEAVEN: Just got a box from Sony with a teeny-tiny VAIO UX490 PC, in a kit with a bluetooth GPS unit and a bunch of other goodies. It was so small that when I opened the box, I couldn't figure out which of the small wrapped objects was the actual computer at first. No, I didn't buy it. I'm reviewing it, along with several other little computers, for Popular Mechanics. I love stuff like this . . .

EDUCATING JOE BIDEN on the Constitution.

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: "One in five carbon credits issued by the United Nations are going to support clean energy projects that may in fact have helped to increase greenhouse gas emissions, environmental group WWF said on Thursday."

Okay, actually I'm a bit surprised. Only one in five?

BOMB SCARE at a New Hampshire Clinton campaign office. Hostages taken. "A young woman with a 6-month or 8-month-old infant came rushing into the store just in tears, and she said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape.'" Coverage is live on Fox; CNN is covering a train accident in Chicago.

MORE ON THE DISASTER THAT IS ZIMBABWE, but with what might actually be good news: "Zimbabwe's neighbors are increasingly worried about spillover violence and economic damage from Robert Mugabe's self-made war zone." Given that Zimbabwe's neighbors don't seem to care what happens to the people of Zimbabwe, this kind of worry may be the only thing that produces any action.

FEMALE CIRCUMCISION: Now becoming multiculturally correct!

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL -- CNN's policy on debate questioners!

HARVARD CRIMSON: Repeal the Second Amendment.

Rand Simberg calls it "sophomoric," adding: "But perhaps it's forgivable, since it was probably written by actual sophomores." He also notes that calls for the repeal of the Second Amendment are implicit admissions that the Second Amendment is an actual barrier to gun control. Indeed.

UPDATE: Reader Thomas Baker emails:

I read the article calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment in the Harvard Crimson. While poorly reasoned, it is a huge leap forward in intellectual honesty for the gun control movement as it impliedly acknowledges an individual right.

However, the authors obviously believe that the right was initially thought necessary because of foreign threats. As I'm sure you are aware, the primary purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect the citizenry from tyrannical government here at home. That students at a top university are so ignorant of their nation's history is disturbing.

I wonder if I currently enjoy any other constitutionally guaranteed rights that the editors of the Harvard Crimson believe I no longer need? I wonder how bold they would be in trying to strip them away after confiscating my firearms? Scary.

To you. They no doubt believe that Harvard grads will be among the strippers, not the stripees. Which I'll admit is more likely, if the rest of the populace weren't armed.

I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN to give up.

SAVE THE DEBATE, ditch CNN.

INDIANA JONES with a particle accelerator.

OUCH: "Leopard is the new Vista, and it's pissing me off." I haven't upgraded yet. Maybe I'll wait a bit longer.

UPDATE: A more positive take.

MORE ON THE CNN PLANT SCANDAL, from the Union Leader. "This is bad journalism." And read this, too.

IN THE MAIL: The new Halo novel, Contact Harvest, by Joseph Staten. Staten was writer and cinematics director for Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3.

THE MOST BUSTED NAME IN NEWS.

WHY PUTIN DOES IT: Because he can:

Vladimir Putin does not want to win the upcoming Duma Parliamentary elections. He does not want to win big. He wants an overwhelming victory. He wants to annihilate the opposition. And Putin probably will get what he wants.

Furthermore, Putin feels no need for any "seal of approval" from the West. He so circumscribed election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that they can't do their job, so they've withdrawn.

And most Russians, with no great enthusiasm for political freedom in their national character, are okay with that.

SPOTTING CANCER AND ALZHEIMER'S long before you get sick.

SEND ONE TO GARRY KASPAROV: "Polonium Pen a Pocket-Sized Must-Have for Anti-Putin Russians."

ADVICE TO HOMEOWNERS: I've long thought this, but my recent plumbing-problem experience restated its importance -- always own a wet-dry vac. Mine broke a couple of years ago, and I don't use it much, so I hadn't gotten around to replacing it. As my toilet overflowed, I wished I had. I was (barely) able to contain the leakage before it got to the carpeted areas using towels and a mop, but I was really wishing I'd replaced the wet-dry vac sooner. I immediately ordered one -- they're cheap -- and it's my fond hope that I won't need it again. But it's good to have one.

Also, know where your water shutoff valve is and have the necessary wrench to close it, and know where your sewer cleanout is, and have the necessary wrench to open it to relieve the pressure in backups.

UPDATE: Reader Bob Bonsall emails:

In regards to your advice to homeowners, let me also point out that any home renter should follow the same advice. We have had a double wammy of a leaking water heater and a clogged drain in our cellar stairs recently, and there's nothing worse than trying to keep carpets dry that are getting flooded from both sides. My top priority is to get a wet dry vac so I don't have to again enjoy the thrill of soak-wash-dry-repeat with towels at 1 am.

Indeed. And in my experience, once carpets get really soaked, they're never the same.

And while I'm at it -- know where to turn off your electricity and gas, too, and have the wrench for the gas shutoff.

MORE: Another good reader suggestion:

All good ideas, but, here's one important idea to add to the list: have the wrench needed to turn off the gas supply hung close to the shut off valve.

If gas is leaking, or in danger of leaking, you don't want to have to rummage through your tools to find the right wrench - especially if the electricity is off and you're in darkness.

Excellent point.

MORE STILL: Reader Ryan Kelley emails:

All that advice is great but the absolute most important thing to have is home/renters insurance. While not at home I had a 'sewage backup' in my apartment which basically ruined 3 seperate rooms (drywall,
carpet, etc.).

Prevention is great but had I not had that specific flood problem covered I would have been out $10k+. Make sure that all the man-made flood problems that can occur in your home are covered.

Oh and the vacuum you linked to looks fine but for flood/leak control people might want to consider one with more than 2 1/2 gallon space. This one has a 10 gallon tank but still works for most household things and gets very good reviews. Hopefully people can figure out what's best for them but you have earned a lot of trust some might just buy it blindly (and probably be happy with it - that's why you're trusted!)

Yeah, good point. I went with the 2 1/2 gallon one myself -- it came yesterday -- because my house has three floors and it's easy to carry around. My old one was a 5 gallon and seemed bigger than I needed -- but of course if you had a really big flood, you'd want a bigger one. On the other hand, the big ones take up more space when you're not using them, too. To each his own.

As for the insurance -- absolutely! If you don't have that coverage, you should have it. Sooner or later you'll probably need it. My brother emails: "One of my new colleagues had a toilet line pop off while he and his wife were away for the weekend. Trashed their entire downstairs and basement... repairs will probably come to over $30k. They've had to move out while the place is rehabbed. Eeeeeeeeek."

Eeeeeeeek, indeed.

SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT with Energy Trek! No Shatner jokes, please.

But hey, he's one of those planet-destroying Canadians!

POLITICO: Murtha's comments on 'surge' are a problem for House Democrats. Excerpt:

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), one of the leading anti-war voices in the House Democratic Caucus, is back from a trip to Iraq and he now says the "surge is working." This could be a huge problem for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, who are blocking approval of the full $200 billion being sought by President Bush for combat operations in Iraq in 2008. Murtha's latest comments are also a stark reversal from what he said earlier in the year. . . .

Pelosi, who is scheduled to speak to a Democratic National Committee event in Virginia on Friday, will surely face tough questions from reporters regarding Murtha's statement on the surge.

"This could be a real headache for us," said one top House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Pelosi is going to be furious."

Read the whole thing.

SABBATICALS FOR SOLDIERS? Well, if professors need 'em, soldiers probably do too, right?

Speaking of which, where's my sabbatical?

SO I LOOKED AT EDITOR AND PUBLISHER and there's nothing about the CNN planted-question scandal. There's one story on the debate, but it's a puff piece about a cartoonist getting his video in. Then I looked at Poynter and all I could find was this piece on covering the debates. But I'm not seeing anything about the planted-question scandal. I'm not seeing anything at the Columbia Journalism Review site, either. Journalism, cover thyself!

Well, actually I think they are covering . . . .

SOUNDS . . . MARKETABLE: "Scientists at Stanford have reversed the aging of skin in mice, making it look and act like new skin."

Bring it on. I won't have this baby face forever.

AT OVERLAWYERED, a roundup on the Dickie Scruggs indictment.

JOHN FUND EMAILS THIS on the CNN debacle. From OpinionJournal.com's Political Diary:

Last week, CNN's Anderson Cooper quipped in an interview with Townhall.com that “campaign operatives are people too” and that CNN wasn’t worried if political partisans posed questions at the upcoming GOP debate he was moderating. “We don’t investigate the background of people asking questions (by submitting video clips). It’s not our job,” is how he put it.

But now CNN’s logo has egg splattered all over it, as it scrambles to explain how a co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s veterans’ committee was allowed to ask a video question on gays in the military at Wednesday’s debate and was also flown by the network from California to the debate site in Florida so he could repeat his question to the candidates in person. CNN claims it verified retired Brig. Gen. Ketih Kerr’s military status and checked his campaign contribution records, contradicting Mr. Cooper’s blasé attitudes. Still, they somehow missed his obvious connection to the Hillary campaign which any Google search would have turned up. CNN later airbrushed Mr. Kerr’s question out of its rebroadcast of the debate, indicating that it apparently doesn’t think “campaign operatives” are legitimate questioners at the network’s debates.

Now it appears that an amazing number of partisan figures posed many of the 30 questions at the GOP debate all the while pretending to be CNN’s advertised “undecided voters.” Yasmin from Huntsville, Alabama turns out to be a former intern with the Council on American Islamic Relations, a group highly critical of Republicans. Blogger Michelle Malkin has identified other plants, including declared Obama supporter David Cercone, who asked a question about the pro-gay Log Cabin Republicans. A questioner who asked a hostile question about the pro-life views of GOP candidates turned out to be a diehard John Edwards supporter (and a slobbering online fan of Mr. Cooper). Yet another “plant” was LeeAnn Anderson, an activist with a union that has endorsed Mr. Edwards.

It seems more “plants” are being uprooted with each passing day. Almost a third of the questioners seem to have some ties to Democratic causes or candidates. Another questioner worked with Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s staff. A former intern with Democratic Rep. Jane Harman asked a question about farm subsidies. A questioner who purported to be a Ron Paul supporter turns out to be a Bill Richardson volunteer. David McMillan, a TV writer from Los Angeles, turns out to have several paens to John Edwards on his YouTube page and has attended Barack Obama fundraisers.

Given CNN’s professed goal to have “ordinary Americans” ask questions at their GOP debate, how likely is that it was purely by accident that so many of the videos CNN selected for use were not just from partisans, but people actively hostile to the GOP’s messages and candidates?

(Emphasis added). It makes it kind of hard to trust CNN.

AMY ALKON LOOKS AT domestic violence.

November 29, 2007

CANADIAN BEER DRINKERS THREATEN PLANET!

Sounds like a great plot for the next Bob & Doug MacKenzie movie!

I wish they'd make another Bob & Doug MacKenzie movie. But such genius strikes only once.

HELP IS on the way!

IT'S THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTISM! In Chávez Territory, Signs of Dissent.

SPEAKING OF MISSION CREEP: Googling now counts as stalking. Well, it does if you're, um, crazy. Or just looking for something bad to say without regard to facts.

HOWARD KURTZ ON CNN AND THE PLANTS: Nice that he's covering it. But Kurtz reports it in a way that gives a false impression about yours truly:

Conservative bloggers, some of whom deride CNN as the "Clinton News Network," ripped the network yesterday. At Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds wrote: "Once again, CNN demonstrates an inexplicable failure to background-check pro-Hillary questioners." Scott Johnson of PowerLine wrote that "CNN has shown itself unable or unwilling to act as an honest broker." James Joyner, at Outside the Beltway, said: "If lone bloggers can vet these people in less than half an hour, surely CNN's crack journalistic team should have been able to do so between the time they selected the pool of questions and the airing of the debate?"

I've never called CNN the "Clinton News Network." (I'm not even a "conservative blogger" except in the sense that I've supported the war, but nowadays that's all "conservative" means to most people). And there's a bigger problem.

CNN's problem isn't just bias -- it's a failure of professionalism. Frankly, if bloggers ran some sort of event and were infiltrated in this fashion, the usual media-ethics suspects would be tugging their beards about blogger irresponsibility and praising the superior layers of editors and fact-checkers at Big Media outfits like . . . CNN.

But we learn that CNN did use Google:

He said CNN never spoke to Kerr and had Google, which owns YouTube, bring the retired general and about a dozen other questioners to the debate because their videos were likely to be used, although no final decision had been made.

Using Google for plane tickets is okay. But next time, try using them for . . . Googling. As a commenter at Kurtz's observes: "What should be noted about this issue is that CNN probably has a whole army of interns and low-level producers who could vet the possible questioners. They 'could spend hours Googling everybody', while the top level hacks concentrated on choosing the 'best' questions."

Meanwhile, I'll just repeat what I said earlier: If Fox hosted a Democratic debate and many of the most pointed questions turned out to come from Republican activists, but Fox didn't disclose that, do you think it would pass unremarked?

UPDATE: Roger Simon comments: The Presidential Debates are a National Joke.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Good grief.

MORE: Another line from Kurtz's comments:

So let me get this straight... in the Democrat YouTube debates, the "undecided questioners" are Democratic activists and in the Republican YouTube debates, the "undecided questioners" are Democratic activists.

Well, at least they're consistent.

Heh. Indeed. And a couple of readers note that the media is sometimes more fastidious about who's asking the questions.

STILL MORE: "Because of the irony."

ECONOMY INFLATING? NOT SURE. Weather inflating? Sure looks like it:

With another hurricane season set to end this Friday, a controversy is brewing over decisions of the National Hurricane Center to designate several borderline systems as tropical storms.

Some meteorologists, including former hurricane center director Neil Frank, say as many as six of this year's 14 named tropical systems might have failed in earlier decades to earn "named storm" status.

"They seem to be naming storms a lot more than they used to," said Frank, who directed the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987 and is now chief meteorologist for KHOU-TV. "This year, I would put at least four storms in a very questionable category, and maybe even six."

Most of the storms in question briefly had tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph. But their central pressure — another measure of intensity — suggested they actually remained depressions or were non-tropical systems.

A lot of people seem to be interpreting this as global-warming hype, but it's probably just bureaucratic mission creep. If you're the National Hurricane Center, you need hurricanes to stay in business. If hurricanes fall off, you're tempted to cook the books just a bit. Ditto for the rest of the weather establishment. Blizzards are okay, tornadoes good for a bit of quick fun, but hurricanes are the real money-maker, combining intense fearfulness with multiday longevity like nothing else.

ADVICE TO CNN: "Just stop digging."

IF YOU MISSED IT ON XM RADIO earlier tonight, the latest episode of PJM Political is online now.

HELL FREEZES OVER: Murtha thinks the surge is working.

SO JAMES LILEKS' NEW BOOK, Gastroanomalies, showed up today. I spent some time reading it and it's great -- the perfect Christmas gift for the foodies you know. If you liked The Gallery of Regrettable Food, you'll love Gastroanomalies. My favorite so far -- the "Everedy Bacon-egger," a special skillet for cooking bacon and eggs at the same time! Though Earl Warren (yes, that Earl Warren) pitching "the California custom of the olive bowl" has got to be a strong second. But I've only made it to page 23 so these may be eclipsed by more favorites later on -- up next is "The Wonderful World of Aspics!"

RADLEY BALKO defends public defenders. And rightly so.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE: How to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

DEFINING AWAY VICTORY: Hey, whatever it takes.

BLOGGING THE CARIBBEAN EARTHQUAKE: Dan Riehl has more.

THE ULTIMATE HD PACKAGE? A bit much for me, but some people think it's laughably cheap.

UPDATE: Jonathan Gewirtz emails:

Wouldn't you much rather have the .50 cal than the HD system? In ten years the M2 will be worth more than you paid for it while today's fancy-shmancy television system will be obsolete junk. Also, TV is a waste of time but everyone can always use a good gun. This decision should be a no-brainer!

That's assuming you don't already own a machine gun, of course.

MICHAEL YON EMAILS: "Just returned from the Syria border back to Mosul. It would take a conspiracy to hide the progress in Iraq."

He's also got a new dispatch posted on his time with the British last year.

I LINKED MY LIBEL IN THE BLOGOSPHERE piece yesterday, and shortly thereafter SSRN went down for maintenance. It's back up now, so here's the link again if you missed it.

ADVERTISING AGE: "CNN seems intent on finding its few remaining Republican voters and driving them into the arms of Fox News."

Plus, "At CNN, November is planting season."

UPDATE: Bob Krumm: "This is crystal clear evidence that CNN has hired the New Republic to do its fact checking." Ouch!

GRIM ECONOMIC NEWS:

The U.S. economy expanded at the fastest pace in four years during the third quarter, growing at a real annual rate of 4.9%, the Commerce Department said Thursday in making its second estimate of growth for the three-month period. . . . Real GDP has increased 2.8% in the past year, close to the economy's long-run potential.

Well, it's grim news for some people. Wonder how much attention it will get? (Via JWF).

UPDATE: More here: "I don’t expect this revision to break out of the business pages."

IN THE MAIL: Shelby Steele's new book, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.

UPDATE: Some thoughts from the Insta-Wife, who's actually read the book.

50 NERDY PICKUP LINES. "If I was an enzyme, I’d be helicase so I could unzip your genes."

DRUDGE'S CURRENT HEADLINE: BOOB TUBE: CNN 'DUPED' BY HILLARY PLANT AT REPUBLICAN DEBATE.

Message to CNN: It's called Google. Use it.

"NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, get Kasparov."

JOSHUA ZADER has thoughts on hatred, partisanship, and personal integrity.

FRANK WARNER: "The quietest November since Saddam was toppled."

AN L. SPRAGUE DECAMP CENTENNIAL. This post, alas, focuses largely on fandom at the expense of his writing. His writing was excellent, and I'm told by science-fiction authors who knew him that he was a delightful person. And he's the author of this sadly accurate statement: "After forty, it's just patch, patch, patch."

They seem to be reissuing his magic and time-travel stories. I'm glad to see that, as his work deserves to be preserved.

HOW SECURITY WHIZ BRUCE SCHNEIER protects his laptop data.

FROM VIRGINIA POSTREL, a look at science and objectivity. With some thoughts on journalism, too.

JUST HEARD A LENGTHY NPR STORY ON THE YOUTUBE DEBATE, with a live followup from Mara Liasson -- and it omitted any mention of the planted question issue. Hmm. If Fox hosted a Democratic debate and many of the most pointed questions turned out to come from Republican activists, but Fox didn't disclose that, do you think it would pass unremarked?

HANDS-ON TOYS: This looks like it would make a cool present for the right kid.

I REMEMBER WHEN THIS FIRST HAPPENED, but here's the denouement: "Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., has entered a plea days before he was set for trial on assault and battery charges over allegations he pushed a United Airlines baggage employee at Dulles International Airport. As part of the deal he will write a letter of apology to the baggage worker."

A ROUNDUP ON LAST NIGHT'S DEBATE from Stephen Green. Excerpt: "What we really saw tonight was CNN playing out its own agenda in front of a couple million viewers and seven or eight candidates, without anyone calling them on it." Planted questions and all . . . .

STARSHIP TROOPERS gets closer.

HORTICULTURE JOURNALISM 101 -- a gallery of CNN/YouTube plants. "Abortion questioner is declared Edwards supporter . . . Log Cabin Republican questioner is declared Obama supporter; lead toy questioner is a prominent union activist for the Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers."

Other than that, they were just "ordinary Americans."

HMM: Old Allies Abandon Chávez as Constitution Vote Nears. But he's still got some friends.

AUSTIN BAY: Al Qaeda's emerging defeat.

CONSIDER THIS A Christmas hint.

No, not really. I couldn't afford the ammo.

FISH, BARREL: Fact-checking Helen Thomas.

November 28, 2007

HILLARY'S WEAKNESS: Bill.

RON PAUL: He's just terrible, even when -- which is often, once he's off the subject of the war -- I agree with him. His voice is too high, he can't remember who the Kurds are, and he often comes off like a crazy old man in a bus station.

But that's good news, in a way. Paul's doing better than anyone expected. It's abundantly clear that he's not doing it on charisma and rhetorical skill. Which means that libertarian ideas are actually appealing, since Ron Paul isn't. Paul's flaws as a vessel for those ideas prove the ideas' appeal. If they sell with him as the pitchman, they must be really resonating. I suspect Paul himself would agree with this analysis. Er, except maybe the bus station part.

JEFFREY TOOBIN JUST MADE A FOOL OF HIMSELF by saying that Huckabee needed to explain what he meant by abolishing the IRS. Actually, as Toobin should know if he's going to opine on this stuff on CNN, this isn't some wild idea of Huckabee's but the subject of a bestselling book and a national grassroots movement. That's not to say that it's necessarily a good idea, but it's certainly not something new that Huckabee just made up. The audience knew this. And if this was like earlier debates, there were probably hundreds of Fair Tax demonstrators outside. Toobin should have known it, too.

JONATHAN ADLER: Why the public shrugs at global warming.

READER DAVID RICE EMAILS:

I'm hardly one of McCain's people. Before tonight, I could only vote for McCain, Ron Paul, or Mike Huckabee. But tonight, it was clear to me that McCain impressed the most.

And of course, the most dynamic moment tonight was the homosexual 40 year veteran asking whether gays in the military should be condoned by the Republican candidate.

Dynamic, yes. But also a planted question, it appears. Once again, CNN demonstrates an inexplicable failure to background-check pro-Hillary questioners.

UPDATE: Some advice for CNN.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It's not just Hillary: "Oh, my tireless colleague Avi Zenilman back at Politico World HQ does an insta-search on Kerr and discovers he was on the Steering Committee of 'Veterans for Kerry.'"

This -- like the Hillary connection -- doesn't undercut the question. (I'm in favor of gays in the military). But it does make CNN look bad for failing to disclose easily-available information about this guy.

MORE: An on-air apology from Anderson Cooper, saying that CNN didn't know that Gen. Kerr was on Hillary's steering committee: "If we had known that we would have disclosed it before using the question, if we used the question at all."

Suckered by Hillary, again. Try Google, next time. It's not that hard!

MOST REVEALING BIT: Fred Thompson on the Vice President's responsibilities. The person he described sounded a lot like . . . Fred Thompson. That doesn't surprise me.

I do think that Giuliani/Thompson is probably the strongest GOP ticket.

MCCAIN'S PEOPLE are certainly doing the best at bombarding me with emails linking good reviews of McCain's performance. And they've got quite a few. Here's one.

GLOOM FROM BRUCE FEIN: "The United States culture is decaying, growing steadily less capable of supporting a republican form of government."

UPDATE: Reader John Schwab points out that Fein confuses Petrarch and Plutarch. Proving Fein's point about the lack of classical education today!

TRIAL LAWYER -- and Trent Lott's brother-in-law -- Dickie Scruggs indicted for conspiring to bribe a judge.

HEH.

LIVE-BLOGGING THE REPUBLICAN YOUTUBE DEBATE at Ann Althouse's place.

And more from David Weigel.

UPDATE: Much more at RedState. And rare praise for McCain at The Corner.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Live-videoblogging at Team Thompson.

MORE: Liveblogging at the Bitch Girls, where the gun questions went over well.

STILL MORE: Dan Riehl thinks Huckabee is now in the top tier.

Say, didn't the Huckabee surge start shortly after he did this interview? Yeah, that's it. . . .

And here's McCain video.

MORE STILL: D'oh! Stephen Green has been "drunkblogging." How did I miss that?

STILL MORE: McCain gets off another one: "If we'd done what the Democrats wanted to do six months ago, Al Queda would be telling the world, 'we beat America.'"

And SayUncle emails:

Line of the night from Fred Thompson on guns: I own a couple but I'm not gonna tell you what they are or where they are.

That's an indication Fred knows guns.

It was better than Romney's "I didn't inhale" answer, too.

EVEN MORE: SayUncle follows up: "I was impressed that Giuliani really did his homework on Parker/Heller. He still seems to think there's some urban exception to the Second Amendment. He didn't convince me but he knew his stuff."

And I love the Mars question.

FINALLY: Hillary manages to plant a question! Shockingly, it slipped past CNN's google abilities.

And lots more observations from Bob Krumm.

HMM. I MENTIONED A WHILE BACK that the Houston police were secretly testing an unmanned aircraft. Now it turns out that the same aircraft is reportedly being used in Iraq.

UPDATE: Drones in Miami.

"KLUB KLIP" OR "CARRY-IT CLIP"? Explanation, and a poll, here. Klub Klip sounds more marketable, but I'd just market the same thing under each name to different demographics . . . .

WEIGHT LOSS AND the importance of puttering.

CRACKING THE CODE OF THE ZOMBIE. Zombies seem to be everywhere, but I mind this kind less than most . . . .

PADMA LAKSHMI: Tangy, tart, hot and sweet. And in the accompanying photo she looks to be all of those things herself . . . .

Plus, the joys of abandoning vegetarianism!

THE MAKERS OF TASER respond to the United Nations torture committee.

MICKEY KAUS: "The trouble for Hillary is that when it comes to sex rumors she and her husband (unlike, say, John Edwards and his wife) have no credibility. They threw that away when the philandering charges they righteously denounced in 1992 and 1998 turned out to be basically true."

CAN'T ANYBODY PLAY THIS GAME? "The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call."

A LOOK AT Hillary's managerial experience. Plus, Fabio on politics and diplomacy!

AIR AMERICA:

The Air Force is looking for a few good men and women like Ms. Fauci: flight attendants who staff Air Force One and 16 other luxury planes that ferry government dignitaries around the globe.

It's not as easy finding recruits as one might think. The 150 members of the Andrews-based group and about 70 others stationed elsewhere -- all Air Force enlisted personnel, trained in survival skills, aircraft emergencies and the culinary arts -- take on duties that would make commercial flight attendants want to pull the rip cord.

For security and historical reasons, it's up to them to plan menus, buy food and supplies, prepare meals, load luggage into the cargo hold and then, dressed in understated navy suits, tend to powerful and demanding passengers on trips that can last weeks.

I wouldn't want that job.

FOR THE U.N., "humiliation" over Darfur.

REWRITING HERSTORY?

MORE FROM ROGER SIMON on why Hollywood's antiwar movies are bombs.

JOE KLEIN AND THE LEFTOSPHERE: I've been sort of vaguely aware of this dust-up, but haven't really been paying attention.

ED DRISCOLL INTERVIEWS Liz Stephans and Scott Baker of Breitbart TV.

IN THE MAIL: Richard Epstein's Supreme Neglect: How to Revive Constitutional Protection for Private Property.

THE FINAL VERSION OF MY Libel in the Blogosphere piece is now available online, as it appeared in the Washington University Law Review.

WHY VIOLENCE DROPPED IN IRAQ: Noah Shachtman writes that it turned out the critical networks were social, not electronic.

UPDATE: A predictable response to the good news.

A CLINTON flipflop on Iraq.

ANOTHER GRIM MILESTONE: Bank of America drops the New York Times to a "sell" rating. It's an investor quagmire, with no exit plan. Er, except maybe for "Pinch" Sulzberger. . . .

A MOOD SURGE ON IRAQ, as public opinion shifts dramatically: "To put it in perspective, because MSNBC doesn’t, that’s … let’s see … 18 points. Double-digit increase."

UPDATE: More: "In other words, what too many have yet to grasp is that when the U.S. loses a war, we leave lock, stock and barrel (e.g. Vietnam) but when we win, (or at least don't lose) we remain to support our alliies (e.g. Bosnia, South Korea, Japan and Germany)."

THOUGHTS ON ABU DHABI, CITIGROUP, and the recycling of petrodollars: "Frankly, I'd rather that those dollars be spent and invested in the United States directly than wait around for them to be laundered through the economies of Japan, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom who knows how many times before they make it home again."

DUANE PATTERSON: "Should We Trust CNN And YouTube In The Debate Wednesday Night?"

OFFICE MATE OR BAD DATE: The Insta-Wife reviews Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding--and Managing--Romance on the Job.

NEWS FROM THE global war on germs.

TRYING TIMES: "Let me get this straight - Democratic aides to a Democratic Governor in a Democratic state were talking to Nick Confessore of the Times (and formerly of The American Prospect, so presumably a Democrat), and they chose to liken Spitzer favorably to Reagan and Giuliani? Are they really unable to come up with any no-nonsense Democrats?"

November 27, 2007

INSTAPUNK ON STEPHEN KING. But, really, this stands on its own:

STEPHEN KING: So who's going to be TIME Person of the Year?

TIME: I really don't know, there's a very small group of people who make that decision.

[KING:] I was thinking, I think it should be Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

But read the whole thing.

THE PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT looks at the Second Amendment as involving an individual right.

SCAREDY SQUIRREL gets a lesson about risk. Preparation is good. Worry is not.

DAVID BROOKS: Lou Dobbs is winning. (Via Taylor Owen).

JAPAN, 1947: Lou Minatti is posting a lot of photos, and would like some captioning help on some of them.

A HUGO CHAVEZ meltdown?

MARINES bring aid to Bangladesh.

MORE ON THE PARIS INTIFADA: "More than 100 officers have been wounded, several of them seriously, according to the police. Thirty of them were hit with buckshot and pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, Patrice Ribeiro, a police spokesman, said in a telephone interview. One of the officers lost an eye; another’s shoulder was shattered by gunfire."

The French haven't taken this seriously enough. Perhaps they should ask this guy for advice.

UPDATE: Somewhat belatedly, Clive Davis mocks my suggestion that the French could learn something useful from Lieutenant Colonel Chris Dowling in Fallujah. Based on his comments, I doubt that Davis actually read the pieces I linked.

LEFT HOOK.

"PISS CHRIST" is for wussies. You want subversive art, here it is.

MATT WELCH takes over Reason magazine. No Reasonoids were harmed. Best question: "So, does Matt get a leather coat now?"

THOUGHTS ON the importance of handwashing.

MORE ON THE MYSTERIOUS "YOUTHS" who are rioting in Paris.

Further reporting here.

THOUGHTS ON blogging the political conventions.

CHEAP, CLEAN ELECTRICITY -- from Google?

VENEZUELAN STUDENTS fired on by regime.

HEH: BoxBux Sux as Stix Hix Nix Xmas Flix.

UPDATE: John McGinnis emails:

Heh. Why should I spend somewhere in the neghborhood of $40 to watch a box office bomb when I can NetFlix really great old standards online or in the mail? My favorite line up every year --

* White Christmas
* Miracle on 34th Street
* It's a Wonderful Life
* The Shop Around the Corner
* Were no Angels
* A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott version)

Dip in the eggnog, throw another log on the fire and hit 'play' on the media center and I am set.

I think there's a lot of that. The trouble is, the new movies need to be better than the old ones to compete, and instead they're usually inferior.

NO, IT WASN'T ME SHOOTING THE REDLIGHT CAMERAS IN KNOXVILLE: "I'm not sure I'd want to encourage this kind of behavior, but I can't help enjoying it."

JONAH GOLDBERG'S NEW BOOK gets a nice review from Publisher's Weekly. They didn't comment on the amusing cover, though.

A SOLID COMPLAINT about the New York Times' list of "Notable Books for 2007:" There is not a single science book on the list of "Notable Books" for the year. (Via Kevin Drum, who observes: "Basically, though, the entire list consists of history, memoir, cultural criticism, and (non-science) biography. Quite an eclectic taste those Times book reviewers have, eh?").

WITHOUT A COURT ORDER, Google gives up IP of anonymous blogger.

UPDATE: Compare Amazon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on the Amazon case from Orin Kerr: "Seems kinda weird to me: can bad reporting by the press make perfectly lawful investigations unlawful?"

MORE: Further thoughts here: "In terms of the law, here's what I don't get, or rather, here's one of the several things I don't get: If public misunderstanding of Judge Crocker's decision makes the otherwise constitutional subpoena unconstitutional, can't Judge Crocker write his opinion in a calming and soothing way to make the subpoena constitutional? Or are bloggers and their fiery rhetoric really that incorrigible?"

RON BAILEY ON THE RISE OF techno-optimistic environmentalism.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE REELECTED, people who even dared to complain about speech restrictions would be in trouble. And they were right!

JOHN TIERNEY: Who’s Afraid of “Soulless Scientism”?

SETTING A NEW HIGH IN JOURNALISTIC LAMENESS: The Details power list. Really, this reads like a parody. And it is one -- just not necessarily an intentional one . . .

EVERYBODY MAKES MISTAKES: "Honey, I doomed the Universe."

But hey, space aliens have probably already done this anyway.

ANDREW LUBIN:

Now that the war in Iraq is over . . . what can the military do better in Afghanistan?

OK, we’ve not exactly won, but Gen Petraeus is sending a BCT home from Diyala Province and not replacing it. The “Concerned Citizens” Groups south of Baghdad, the Sunni “Anbar Awakening” are standing up in numbers and professionalism that was unimagined even 18 months ago. Do the Iraqi’s like us? Hard to say, but so long as they’re not killing us, let’s be thankful for these small victories and let's pray that the trend continues.

Now, can we do the same in Afghanistan? We’ve got the same impressive military, AND some reasonable support from NATO. Plus we’ve been at it since 2001…so why aren’t we rocking thru Afghanistan?

Because our message sucks.

Read the whole thing. It certainly seems that a lot of different people are worried about our approach in Afghanistan.

GREENHOUSE UPDATE: Has geoengineering's time come at last?

JOEL KOTKIN on the rise of family-friendly cities. "Married people with children tend to be both successful and motivated, precisely the people who make economies go." I've been a fan on Kotkin's for a while -- this contrarian book, written at the height of Japan-related American declinism, argued that America's resilience would win out over Japan's bureaucratic planning. And he was certainly right.

DANIEL SOLOVE ROUNDS UP new books about law and related topics.

EDUCATION ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT, from Naomi Wolf: "Few young Americans understand that the Second Amendment keeps their homes safe from the kind of government intrusion that other citizens suffer around the world; few realize that 'due process' means that they can't be locked up in a dungeon by the state and left to languish indefinitely."

UPDATE: A couple of readers think that Naomi Wolf meant the Fourth Amendment, not the Second, but I'm sure they're wrong. First, she's writing about Constitutional ignorance, so I'm sure she took time to review the Bill of Rights herself. Second, if she had made that kind of error, one of the layers of editors at the Post would have caught it. Third, her statement is correct on the merits.

CAR LUST: Remembering the Jensen Interceptor.

DON SURBER: "We won."

Perhaps a bit premature, but read the whole thing.

JOURNALISTIC MALPRACTICE at The Christian Science Monitor. They're usually better than that.

HITLER WASN'T SO BAD: At least he would have killed off all the bloggers!

HEH: "Universal's CEO Once Called iPod Users Thieves. Now He's Giving Songs Away."

IF I WERE A SHAREHOLDER, I THINK I'D COMPLAIN: "Dismal returns for politically themed films in 2007 won’t stop the genre from continuing well into next year."

It's as if they don't care about shareholder returns at all in Hollywood.

CITIGROUP AND ABU DHABI -- A "MADE FOR DEMAGOGUERY MOMENT:" Can a Lou Dobbs Presidential run be far behind?

IN THE MAIL: National Lampoon's Balls! An in your face look at sports, by Steve Hofstetter.

MERYL YOURISH: Girls with guns.

MICHAEL TOTTEN POSTS a new report from Fallujah:

"You're probably safer here than you are in New York City,” said Marine First Lieutenant Barry Edwards when I arrived in Fallujah. I raised my eyebrows at him skeptically. “How many people got shot at last night in New York City?” he said.

“Probably somebody,” I said.

“Yeah, probably somebody did,” he said. “Somewhere.”

Nobody was shot last night in Fallujah. No American has been shot anywhere in Fallujah since the 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment rotated into the city two months ago. There have been no rocket or mortar attacks since the summer. Not a single of the 3/5 Marines has even been wounded.

But read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Okay, I have to mention this -- news to warm Al Gore's heart:

Brand new solar-powered street lights line the main roads. Now that insurgents no longer sabotage the electrical grid, Fallujah gets around twelve hours of electricity a day on average. (It used to be a lot less.) Getting street lights permanently off the electrical grid not only frees up power for televisions and air conditioners, it prevents the city from going dark even when the power is out.

Reducing the incentive to shut the power down, of course. And it's greenhouse-friendly!

EVAN COYNE MALONEY: "People will rarely admit they favor surrender. But if we buy in to the politically correct thinking of multiculturalism, that’s exactly where we’ll end up." Just ask Rowan Williams!

FOER'S LAST STAND? Bob Owens notes new developments in the New Republic /Beauchamp affair.

DEFINING "RICH" DOWN: But $97,000 a year?

MICKEY KAUS: "Who Says the Press Isn't Covering the Issues? We're Covering Who's 'Electable'!"

VIRGINIA POSTREL IS BACK TO BLOGGING: Welcome back to the 'sphere, Virginia. We missed you!

I GUESS I SHOULD REMIND YOU that James Lileks' new book is shipping now.

Otherwise, terrible things might happen: "If it doesn't do well, I will have to give up the Bleat for a year to write something that will make money for (G)Nat's college fund." (Bumped, because Gnat needs to go to college, and we need The Bleat.) Also, Lileks will be on NPR's Talk of the Nation today at about 4 Eastern.

PARIS RIOTS: Now with shotgun-toting "youths!"

LIBERTARIAN ROBERT BIDINOTTO on Ron Paul's noninterventionism.

GREENHOUSE UPDATE:

The IPCC Conference on Climate Change is taking place this Dec 3-14 in Bali, Indonesia.

The conference will have about 12,000 participants from 189 countries, and since Bali is in the middle of nowhere we can assume that the average participant flies 1/4ths of the Earth's circumference to attend, or about 6,000 miles.

Passenger air travel costs 0.18 kg CO2/passenger-mile, for long-distance flights. Of course, many participants will be taking private jets, which will throw this calculation way off.

So the total carbon emissions for travel to-and-from the conference are 26 MMT CO2 (million metric tons).

The average American emitted 24.1 MT CO2 in 2006, so travel to-and-from the Bali conference is equivalent to 1.1 M American-years of carbon expenditure. Or about what the city of Portland, Oregon spends in two years. . . . This is just for travel, and does not include travel on private jets, which is likely to be large.

They're certainly not acting like global warming is a crisis.

UPDATE: But David Appell's math is wrong. I should've noticed, but I hadn't had my coffee yet. But reader Bill Sommerfeld emails:

Check his math; it's off by a factor of about 1000.

0.18 kg/mile * 6000 miles/person = 1080kg / person (~ 1 metric ton)

Double that because folks will be flying both ways: 2160kg/person

2160 kg/person * 12000 people = 25,920,000 kg = 25,920 metric tons =
0.02592 million metric tons. This is ~1100 american-years or what the
city of Portland emits in 17 and a half hours.

But it's an underestimate because it doesn't include private jets.

That said, I agree with your basic point.

I think David's units got mixed up between kilograms and metric tons at some point, but I'm still on coffee number one, so . . . Anyway, the carbon-hogging isn't as bad as he makes it sound. Perhaps our planet will survive a bit longer. But it's still a big waste when they could do the whole thing via Internet videoconference.

And don't ignore all those private jets, so numerous that they'll overload the Bali airport.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh: "Let's just say I doubt the salt march would have been quite so successful had Gandhi been carried the whole way by Sherpas."

November 26, 2007

JOHN MCCAIN: Don't hate me because I'm smarter than you.

ED MORRISSEY WONDERS WHY THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT RETAIL SALES is being ignored:

Retailers expected a boost between 4-5% on "Black Friday". They got almost twice that, as shoppers flooded the malls on the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional kickoff of the Christmas shopping season. Consumers shrugged off the credit crunch and the rhetoric of the doom-and-gloom Democrats, who promise that poverty lurks just around the corner.

One might think that this would make headlines -- but despite the AP's report, few of its clients appear to have selected it for the Sunday papers.

Hmm. This sounds familiar. Where have I heard something like it before? Oh, yes, right here:

I have found over the years that there is often a huge disconnect between belief about the economy and the true economic state of affairs. Until the statistics are actually published, people tend to assess the economy through the eyes of the national media. In 1992, when Bill Clinton won the presidency based on worries about the economy, the statistics that came out after the election showed that the period leading up to November had actually been a period of record growth. . . . In his 1996 State of the Union speech, President Clinton said we had the best economy in thirty years -- a statement that sent a flurry of reporters to check actual statistics rather than popular political movements and sweeping, politically motivated statements. The more people looked at the facts, the more they agreed, and six months later, there was near-unanimity that the economy was in good shape. Had the economy changed? No, what had changed was knowledge about the true facts of the economy.

Hmm. Wildly incorrect ideas about the state of the economy in 1992. A focus on facts that showed the good economic news in 1996. What could account for that change? And why does it seem to have worn off in the 2008 season?

THE SECOND TIME AS FARCE: Steve Chapman looks at communism's comeback in Latin America. This part seems clearly true: "If the Venezuelans who go to the polls next month give Chavez what he wants, they are likely to discover a paradox: They can bring about dictatorship through democracy, but not the reverse."

ETHAN DAVIS: A toast to the free flow of liquor across state boundaries. I'm for that!

TURNING IRAQ INTO KOREA?

ABU MUQAWAMA: "If there is good news to report from Iraq these days, the situation in Afghanistan grows worse."

Michael Yon's been saying that for a while, too.

DESPITE CLAIMS OF MY "LIKELY INVOLVEMENT" let me be clear: I have never had a lesbian affair. Er, or perhaps I'm getting my rumors confused. At any rate, where Huma Abedin is concerned the prospect seems more than usually appealing.

BIRTH OF A GADGET: A look inside the industrial design process.

A ONE-WEEK REVIEW, by Robert Scoble, of the Amazon Kindle. He's fairly critical, but concludes: "Would I buy it? Yes, but I’m a geek." The customer reviews seem similarly mixed.

Meanwhile, Brannon Denning emails with praise for the underappreciated Sony Reader:

As an (uncharacteristically, for me) early adopter of the Sony Reader, I have to say that I am very pleased. It has a long battery life, is easy-to-read, light, and extremely portable. I traveled a bunch during the month of October, and found it indispensible for waiting out delayed flights and would-be talkative seatmates.

Kindle looks like it's trying to do too much. Who cares if I get wireless access to books; I need a PC to download music into an iPod. And do I really need another device that texts or sends e-mails . . . or even one that plays music? (The Reader plays MP3s and you can look at pics, but I doubt I'll ever use these features.) It's also uglier than a man's ass, as my father-in-law would put it. Advantage: Sony Reader!

My one hope is that more academic publishers begin formatting e-books (and maybe journals) to be read that way, and, perhaps like Kindle, that Reader 2.0 will allow one to annotate the text.

My problem is that the Kindle looks like it would be a great portable web browser, but I don't think it'll do that.

ERIC SCHEIE HAS A POLL: Where would you be more likely to need a gun -- Iowa, or Philadelphia?

IS NORTH KOREA on the verge of collapse? I hope so, but I've been hearing that for a while. Eventually it'll be true -- but two things we know about totalitarian regimes are that they tend to hang on longer than they should, but that when they go it's often with astonishing suddenness.

J.D. JOHANNES: "When one guy with a camera is beating Hollywood in rate of return and almost beating Hollywood in gross receipts--Hollywood has a problem."

Yeah, the Insta-Wife's movie has outgrossed and outdrawn Redacted, too.

WSJ VIDEO: Looking at "Cyber Monday."

My thoughts are here.

FRED THOMPSON: A "leave me the heck alone" conservative?

ARE MAGLEV TRAINS THE FUTURE? Well, they have been for my whole life, but maybe the future is drawing closer.

PAUL LOEB: "When Democrats worry about Hillary Clinton's electability, they focus on her reenergizing a depressed Republican base while demoralizing core Democratic activists, particularly those outraged about the war, and thus maybe lose the election. But there's a further danger if Hillary's nominated--that she will win but then split the Democratic Party." Check out the HuffPo comments. [LATER: DailyKos commenters have a similar take.]

Plus this: "Democrat Hillary Clinton would lose to all major Republican White House candidates, according to a hypothetical election matchup poll Monday, reversing her months of dominance over potential 2008 challengers." I wouldn't make too much of that poll -- it's from Zogby -- but it comes as another blow to her inevitability-based campaign.

UPDATE: Obama smells blood.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It's on!

TOM MAGUIRE on 9/11 conspiracy theories. Anyone who thinks the Bush Administration could keep that kind of thing secret hasn't been paying attention. [That's what they want you to think! -- ed. Good point.]

A "DELICIOUS FIELD ROAST:" I'm sure it's good, but I'll bet the pot roast I made last night was better.

PATRICK RUFFINI: "He won’t win the nomination. He won’t win any primaries. But for Ron Paul’s quixotic bid for the White House, it’s 'Mission Accomplished.' . . . Pat Robertson’s 1988 campaign signaled that Christian Conservatives had arrived in the GOP. Ron Paul is doing the same for libertarians."

THE NEW GRINCH: Relatives with eco-friendly gifts! Hey, nothing wrong with a nice compact-fluorescent stocking stuffer. But that this is being mocked in the New York Times suggests that overearnest environmentalism is getting tiresome even in PC circles.

My present for Al Gore this year? A commercial airline timetable. [Hope it works out better than that book on filmmaking did. --ed. I thought it would just be a harmless hobby!]

BRENDAN LOY: Hurricane forecasters say seasonal errors are hurting their credibility. I think they're right.

MICHAEL YON: More on British forces at war.

Plus, Iraq: Beyond the drop in violence.

I HAVE TO SAY that when the Clintons were off the national stage, I didn't miss stuff like this.

UPDATE: Or this, though technically the Huma Abedin story is new.

SARKOZY INSPIRES more admiration from Americans.

JEFF SOYER on gun control as a wedge issue in 2008.

WITH A PUBLICATION DATE OF NOVEMBER 28, this comes out just a little too late for me. Up late last night with sudden plumbing problems. Ugh. I knew enough to do first aid by opening the cleanout pipe to relieve the pressure, but it took Roto-Rooter to do the rest. The guy showed up just before midnight and did a good job; not bad for the Sunday night after Thanksgiving.

WHO'S FUNNY on the Supreme Court.

KILL YOUR KID, get alimony?

COULD THE YOUTUBE REVOLUTION backfire?

ADVICE TO THE DEMOCRATS, from Abu Muqawama.

MCCAIN POUNDS CLINTON ON IRAQ: And actually some others:

“Is that the same Sen. Clinton that said she had to suspend disbelief in order to acknowledge to that the strategy of the surge was succeeding?” McCain said in reference to Clinton’s statement that the United States should stop trying to intervene in a “civil war” in Iraq. “Clearly, it’s succeeding. You would have to suspend disbelief to believe that it’s not.”

McCain later said Clinton’s support for a phased withdrawal from Iraq “would have been a catastrophe for the United States of America.”

“Look, now the same people who were saying seven or eight months were saying you can’t succeed militarily, we’ve succeeded military. Sen. Edwards used to call it the ‘McCain strategy.’ He doesn’t call it that anymore,” McCain claimed. “Their record is wrong on this. My record is right.”

He's giving them both barrels.

MICKEY KAUS wonders why D.C. didn't back down in the Heller case: "How stupid were the gun-controllers in the D.C government to persist in their cause? The result may be a ruling that after 200 years actually gives meaning to distressingly clear language of the Amendment. Couldn't gun-controllers from the rest of the country have talked them out of it?" I believe that there were some efforts to get the ordinance in question repealed, but obviously they weren't enough.

I GUESS THE PORKBUSTERS LEFT HIM "TOO DAMN TIRED" TO CARRY ON : Trent Lott will resign. He will not be missed.

UPDATE: A Trent Lott roundup.

IT'S GREENHOUSE FRIENDLY! "Gordon Brown will call for an acceleration of nuclear power today in a speech to business leaders designed to show he is focused on the long term and will not buckle in the face of negative headlines."

FINALLY, SOME GOOD FROM TERMITES: "Termites -- notorious for their voracious appetite for wood, rendering houses to dust and causing billions of dollars in damage per year -- may provide the biochemical means to a greener biofuel future. The bellies of these tiny beasts actually harbor a gold mine of microbes that have now been tapped as a rich source of enzymes for improving the conversion of wood or waste biomass to valuable biofuels." (Via Rand Simberg.)

SANDY LEVINSON:

According to a blog published by the New York Times, Hillary Clinton has told Iowa voters, “I believe in the Second Amendment, and I don’t see any contradiction between the Second Amendment and laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals.” The irony in this statement is that her husband did a great service to the Republican takeover in 1994 by relentlessly pushing his symbolic "assault weapons ban." According to Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina, it probably cost the Democrats at least six seats in the House (including Speaker Tom Foley from Eastern Washington and Jack Brooks, the long-time Texan head of the House Judiciary Committee) . . . So I take Sen. Clinton's declaration of support for the Second Amendment--the next question, of course, is what precisely she "believes" the Second Amendment means in 2007--is the best evidence possible for the new-found respect it gathers, at least rhetorically, across the political spectrum.

Indeed. I can't say I'm surprised by Hillary's reaction. Or Obama's.

HUCKABEE VS. THE SAUDIS: "Consumers are financing both sides in the war on terror because of the actions of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday. . . . 'The United States has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women,' Huckabee said on CNN's 'Late Edition.'"

November 25, 2007

TOMORROW IS CYBER MONDAY, the online shopping world's equivalent of Black Friday. I wonder, though, if the greater penetration of home broadband means that people will be doing less of their shopping at work. I note that Amazon did a big Black Friday sale, but I'm not seeing anything on their site about a Cyber Monday sale. Does this mean they agree?

JEFF JACOBY: "Blind opposition to war that seems lost is understandable. But can Democrats be so invested in defeat that they would abandon even a war that may be winnable?"

Tom Maguire smells another flip-flop coming.

RIAA SCARED OF HARVARD? They should be. Harvard could literally buy and sell them. Except that its portfolio managers wouldn't make such a poor investment.

IT'S EASIER TO GET SPOTTED DICK THAN YOU THINK, even in America. Consider yourself warned!

Sorry, I ran across that and couldn't resist.

FIRST-CLASS PRISON ACCOMMODATIONS -- IF YOU PAY: A symposium on "Pay to Stay" prison programs in First Impressions, the online companion to the Michigan Law Review.

THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE CATO SUPREME COURT REVIEW is now available for free online.

GREENHOUSE UPDATE:

While he had been invited long before being named co-winner of the 2007 Nobel peace prize, the tabloid daily Oesterreich claimed it had acquired a copy of the contract laying down generous conditions for Gore's 40-minute talk to 800 invited guests.

Not only would the organisers make a private jet and luxury limousine plus bodyguards available to Gore, they also agreed to cover his entire travel costs and his hotel, restaurant and telephone bills, the newspaper said.

I guess commercial air tickets and a Prius were out of the question.

A TORT LAW POEM from Stuart Buck.

THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD:

Few have been granted permission to see these marvels.

Indeed, the Italian government was not even aware of their existence until a few years ago.

But the 'Temples of Damanhur' are not the great legacy of some long-lost civilisation, they are the work of a 57-year-old former insurance broker from northern Italy who, inspired by a childhood vision, began digging into the rock.

(Via Brian Micklethwait, who comments: "This reminds me of that thing about how if you owe the bank very little it’s your problem but if you owe them a lot it’s theirs. In this case, if you want retrospective planning permission for a patio extension, you lose. But, if you want it for several miles of ornately decorated underground caves illuminated with fabulous stained glass windows, no problemo.")

MORE UNREST in Paris.

CHEAP SPACESHIPS in New Zealand.

I'LL BE ON ROB PORT'S Say Anything podcast in just a minute.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL on the Second Amendment:

The phrase "the right of the people" or some variation of it appears repeatedly in the Bill of Rights, and nowhere does it actually mean "the right of the government." When the Bill of Rights was written and adopted, the rights that mattered politically were of one sort--an individual's, or a minority's, right to be free from interference from the state. Today, rights are most often thought of as an entitlement to receive something from the state, as opposed to a freedom from interference by the state. The Second Amendment is, in our view, clearly a right of the latter sort.

As a practical matter on the Court, the outcome in D.C. v. Heller might well be decided by one man: Anthony Kennedy, the most protean of Justices. However, in recent years he has also been one of the most aggressive Justices in asserting any number of other rights to justify his opinions on various social issues. It would seriously harm the Court's credibility if Justice Kennedy and the Court's liberal wing now turned around and declared the right "to keep and bear arms" a dead letter because it didn't comport with their current policy views on gun control. This potential contradiction may explain why no less a liberal legal theorist than Harvard's Laurence Tribe has come around to an "individual rights" understanding of the Second Amendment.

Indeed. It will be very hard for the Court to maintain its unenumerated-rights jurisprudence if it attempts to explain out of existence an enumerated right in which most Americans believe.

A BAR EXAM SCANDAL in South Carolina.

UPDATE: More here.

HEALTH CARE: Embrace the fantasy!

THE DECLINING DOLLAR: Good news?

TERRORIST SPEAKS: From his Turkish jail, a senior terrorist claims a key role in atrocities around the world.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON offers a history lesson for the risible Rowan Williams.

RETRO-FUTURISTIC ART: Visions of a future that never happened.

SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE: The Gucci line of baby gear. "Sure, you could save $750 by going with a Baby Bjorn instead of the Gucci baby carrier, but you’d be risking serious damage to your fashionista cred." Uh huh.

WHO DO YOU TRUST: A.P. or Wikipedia?

UPDATE: Jawa may have more useful information than A.P., too. . . .

FRED THOMPSON unveils his tax plan.

GREAT COUNTERINSURGENCY, KID -- don't get cocky: "I had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with General Petraeus. Very interesting series of helicopter flights to several bases. Bottom line is that progress is clear and real, but there are tough days ahead and al Qaeda, for instance, is far from dead. The mood is of cautious optimism, with a concern that some of the very positive media lately might set expectations too high. (That’s right: many military leaders are concerned that the media lately might be too positive.)"

CLAUDIA ROSETT: "You might suppose that with inquiries underway into the scandals surrounding the UN Development Program activities in tyrannies such as Burma and North Korea, the UNDP would be at pains to preserve its records for investigators." Well, some people might expect that. I'd expect just the opposite, myself.

IS REDACTED Hollywood's biggest bomb ever? It makes Heaven's Gate look like a hit.

UPDATE: Panned by Kurt Loder at MTV.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: "You had better odds of being struck by lightning than seeing this bomb."

OUR FRIENDS, THE SAUDIS: "In Saudi Arabia, a 19-year-old woman is sentenced to 200 lashes. Her crime? She had been sitting alone in a car with a man who was not her husband when the two were abducted and raped by a gang of seven men. Had she not been raped, her "crime" would not have been prosecuted. Were that not obscene enough, now it seems her attorney will lose his law license for handling her defense too aggressively." Remember this, whenever the Saudis pretend to be part of the civilized world.

IN WIRED, a review of the Canon HV20 HD camera.

THE CRANKY PROFESSOR isn't convinced that springing for a big TV is the way to go.

On the other hand, there's this observation: "Whenever you watch TV on your non-HD refrigerator, do you think to yourself, 'Man, I wish this was in high-def'? I know I do." But does it offer 6.1 surround sound?

I KNOW THAT A GOOD CHRISTMAS RETAIL SEASON IS IMPORTANT, but this headline kind of bugs me: Increased patrols aimed at keeping shoppers moving.

DOING WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.

IN THE MAIL: Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin's novel, Kill Zone. He's also the author of Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper.

TAKING THOSE Internet political quizzes.

THE RETAIL SUPPORT BRIGADE CONTINUES TO OUTPERFORM EXPECTATIONS: "The nation's retailers had a robust start to the holiday shopping season, according to results announced Saturday by a national research group that tracks sales at retail outlets across the country. According to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets, total sales rose 8.3 percent to about $10.3 billion on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, compared with $9.5 billion on the same day a year ago. ShopperTrak had expected an increase of no more than 4 percent to 5 percent."

Plus, praise for consumers.

HILLARY CLINTON learns from experience.

CANADA cools Kyoto.

I'M OKAY WITH THAT: The gangs of Iraq are killing each other off.

Related item here. And an item on reporting, here.

"LAUDABLE AGITPROP" against the troops. Well, it's agitprop, anyway. Of course, since my high school football team attracted bigger crowds than Redacted got nationwide, it's also ineffective agitprop.

NEW YORK TIMES: "AIDS has peaked."

MARK STEYN has thoughts on diversity.

A POST-SPIN ELECTION?

WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT: “Really, the only thing worse than killing a bear is explaining why you didn’t kill the bear that killed a 3-year-old child.” It's a David Baron problem. I've had some thoughts on this before.

UPDATE: Okay, this passage is too good not to quote:

A little later, we were in the woods above the field when we encountered a bear grazing along a path. It looked up at us and licked its mouth, a long strand of saliva dripping nearly to the ground. We were 20 feet away — in Homstol’s opinion, too close for comfort — so she whispered to turn and walk slowly toward the field. This we did, and when I looked back, the bear was 15 feet behind us, frozen in place. Once again, we walked toward the field, and when I turned again, the bear had closed the gap — it was 10 feet off, still making eye contact, still caught in that strange stop-motion pose. Like an image raised in a microscope, the bear kept getting closer and closer, though we never once saw it move. When I asked Homstol what that behavior meant, she said, walking swiftly toward her truck, “I have no idea, and I don’t want to stick around to find out.”

I think I have some idea.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So this guy was attacked by a bear while deer hunting. But why didn't he -- or one of the other hunters -- you know, shoot it? The story doesn't say.

FRED THOMPSON in Paradise.

UPDATE: The Tennessean reports that, contrary to the "lazy" charge, Thompson is campaigning hard.

KILLING SNAKES.

LIBERTARIANS: Redirecting politics, according to this piece in the Washington Post. I will say that although poll-spamming and email-spamming gave Ron Paul an astroturf image with a lot of people (including me) early on, it seems clear that there's plenty of grassroots enthusiasm for him in my neck of the woods.

UPDATE: Ron Paul won't do Glenn Beck's show? That's kind of weird.

THOUGHTS ON JOHN HOWARD'S DEFEAT, from Tim Montgomerie.