November 18, 2006

HELP A JAILED EGYPTIAN BLOGGER: Tom Palmer has more.

WISHFUL THINKING at the BBC. Larded with a bit of misrepresentation regarding what Tony Blair actually said.

A CONTEST ON FUN-BUT-DEADLY HARDWARE, over at DefenseTech.

FANS OF ALCEE HASTINGS are spreading rumors about Jane Harman that don't seem to be true. Tom Maguire is on the case, remarking: "let me offer a steaming mug of reality to the reality based community, from the NY Times, with helpful emphasis added."

I'll just note that, true or not, the Democrats don't seem to have waited long before descending into circular-firing-squad mode.

UPDATE: Plus, Ann Coulter acquires the power to bend space and time, and incidentally to turn lefty bloggers into Emily Litella. Well, it's not the first time that's happened.

SOME THOUGHTS ON DIGITAL CAMERAS AND VIDEO, from Andrew Marcus, who headed up the Pajamas Media election coverage:

I tested a handful of cameras in the run-up to the production, and in the end I recommended we go with the Canon because of several key factors, most importantly, they run on AA’s. The newer Sony’s have much improved focus and stability over the previous generation, however they seem to be migrating most of these cameras to Lithium-Ion rechargeable. Many people probably prefer it that way, but for capturing news events like this, I never want to be further away from a recharge than the nearest Walgreens, 7/11, or hotel gift shop.

The fold out monitor was another huge plus. The ability to shoot over head, low angle, or turned on one’s self, marks a vast improvement in the quality that can be achieved in this class of camera.

Lastly, this Canon takes a wide angle adapter! I found that it seems to take the f-stop down a notch. The camera didn’t reflect that, but the footage did. The funny thing is that the wide angle is twice the size of the camera itself.

The best part is that almost nobody is intimidated by it (even with the wide angle on), so their guard doesn’t go up. That almost always leads to more relaxed and revealing coverage/interviews.

I've noticed myself that people are far more open and natural than when confronted by a big camera with a big lens. And the folding screen is a real asset, I can see. And I very much agree about the AA batteries. That's why I favor this small Sony. And here's an old post with some general thoughts that may still be useful. And my Sony can take a wide angle conversion lens too, though you also have to get this adapter to make it work. I haven't tried it, but I've often wished that my digital pocket cameras had wider-angle coverage -- though to do so, it's pretty much necessary to make them no longer pocketable. It's those damn laws of physics, again . . . .

Anyway, be sure to share any thoughts you have, for next week's digital camera carnival.

UPDATE: I'd forgotten before, but here's another post on blog-journalism tools. And note this post, too.

THE LONDON TIMES EDITORIALIZES: "A secular society that demands tolerance should also show tolerance."

SOME LEGISLATIVE SUGGESTIONS FOR THE DEMOCRATS, from Victor Davis Hanson.

IT'S BEEN NEARLY A YEAR since I hosted a Digital Camera Carnival -- here's a link to last year's post -- and several people would like me to do it again. So if you've got posts on digital photography -- cameras, printers, video, lights, whatever -- send me a link and I'll put something up soon. Put "Digital Camera Carnival" in the subject line, so that I can find it via an email search.

MICHAEL RUBIN ON IRAQ: He wants to bring back the CERP program, something that I spent a fair number of pixels on here a while back. Earlier entries on that topic here, here, and here.

UPDATE: Rubin emails:

I whole-heartedly agree with you re: CERP, and have long been a fan of the program and concept.

What was edited out because of space is the proposal that USAID, should they balk at losing control of funds, embed everyone necessary to make a decision with various military units out-and-about on patrol. This might have the auxiliary benefit of encouraging some streamlining.

As noted here at the time, dropping the CERP funding was one of the major failures of the early occupation. And check out this StrategyPage piece from 2004.

ARE CONSERVATIVES more charitable? "The book's basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure. Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone's tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don't provide them with enough money."

Apparently they're not big on paying the taxes to support those entitlement programs, either: "Bono demands more of the taxes he won't pay."

EUGENE VOLOKH:

At various law schools, student groups organize what are sometimes called "canned immunity" drives -- if students donate canned food that will end up going to a soup kitchen or some similar charity, the professors agree not to call on them. I've always been vaguely uneasy about this, but I'm not sure whether I should be.

I've never liked that either -- I don' think of being called on in class as a punishment, or being ignored in class as a reward.

BANNING BURKAS in the Netherlands.

ANDREW BOLT notes journalists standing up for censorship.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE has more on the Senators vs. the generals on Iraq.

PRODUCING OIL FROM OIL SHALE at $17 a barrel? If this pans out, it's huge. (Via SerandEz).

UPDATE: Comments from a Chemical Engineering professor, here.

JUDITH WEISS LOOKS AT "the narcissism of politicized grief."

November 17, 2006

JEFF TAYLOR looks at the John Edwards contradiction. "Everyone loves a good hypocrite; they make us feel superior just for being consistent, if not competent. Accordingly the Internets are getting a good snort out of Wal-Mart basher John Edwards getting caught looking for Wal-Mart to hook him up with a Playstation 3. . . . However, the slapstick of the Edwards misstep should not obscure the really big picture, the fatal flaw in his 'Two Americas' spiel. Many thousands of Americans evidently have $600 to spend on a video game machine. What's more, this Christmas is expected to usher in the year of the flat-panel. With price points dropping below the $1000 mark, high-end TVs are moving down-market fast with Wal-Mart leading the way. Contrary to the Edwards' pitch that labor-hostile companies are leaving American workers destitute, somebody is making some money out there in America. More importantly, they are making it in many, many cases without a union card."

IT'S BAAACK!

TIGERHAWK: "Crude oil has hit a 17-month low. National security conservatives and anti-carbon greens should get together now -- before Americans readjust to inexpensive gasoline -- and push through a reasonable tax on carbon-based fuels in return for an extension of the most economically efficient aspects of the 'Bush tax cuts.'"

WE MAY NOT BE LIVING IN THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, but we're certainly living in a better world than most people realize.

A QUESTION: Why are Blu-Ray DVD players so much more expensive than HD-DVD players?

Is it a pricing strategy, an inherent cost difference, or a sign of who's winning the format war?

UPDATE: Several readers point out that the PlayStation 3 will play Blu-Ray DVDs, and it's cheaper than the standard players. Here's a (somewhat mixed, but fairly positive) review of its performance. Downside: The Playstation 3 shows as "currently not available."

IT'S A NEW INSTA-POLL, inspired by events of the past week!

Who will blow it worse over the next two years? Republicans Democrats It'll be a dead heat of dumbness    Free polls from Pollhost.com

UPDATE: "A dead heat of dumbness" is winning in a runaway. Steven Den Beste emails:

There's an old saying among fantasy roleplaying gamers: "You don't have to be faster than the dragon. You just have to be faster than the elf."

I think that the Republicans have gotten spoiled by having the Democrats as their opponents. They don't think they have to be good, or principled, or honest; they think they just have to be perceived as being less bad than the Democrats. In 2006 that strategy failed -- but by gum, they're going to give it another try over the next two years.

Oh, joy.

MISSING MURTHA at the L.A. Times?

A U.S. / INDIA Nuclear Cooperation Agreement has passed. Indians are reportedly delighted. Critics say it will "drive a nail into the coffin" of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

But the nuclear non-proliferation regime has been an abject failure, as Iran and North Korea, among others, demonstrate, because there isn't any actual enforcement, and rogue nations have figured that out. Which means that we're back to balance-of-power diplomacy instead. God help us.

FROM NEW YORK TO APPALACHIA: A rather cool pair of photos from Rick Lee.

THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIALIZES:

Nancy Pelosi has managed to severely scar her leadership even before taking up the gavel as the new speaker of the House. First, she played politics with the leadership of the House Intelligence Committee to settle an old score and a new debt. And then she put herself in a lose-lose position by trying to force a badly tarnished ally, Representative John Murtha, on the incoming Democratic Congress as majority leader. The party caucus put a decisive end to that gambit yesterday, giving the No. 2 job to Steny Hoyer, a longtime Pelosi rival.

Of the two, I think the Alcee Hastings problem is worse than the Murtha problem. Forget the New York Times editorials and the talk of Democratic circular firing squads, the Hastings matter even has people at The Huffington Post worried: "But the damage Murtha's ethics history can do to the Pelosi Speakership is nothing compared to what Alcee Hastings can do. . . . If Rove had been smart enough to make Alcee Hastings a household term during the campaign, the Democrats would not have won as many seats. If Pelosi makes Hastings a chairman, Rove won't miss the shot this time. The Democrats would instantly take over as the party of corruption."

Of course, the Congressional Black Caucus is doubling down on Hastings' behalf, amplifying the circular-firing-squad aspect, at least. . . .

Putting a corrupt guy in charge of intelligence in wartime, in order to play racial politics, doesn't sound like a winning move to me.

GENE DOPING FOR BIGGER MUSCLES: Faster, please -- I spend too much time at the gym.

ANOTHER BLOGGER REPORTING FROM IRAQ: This time it's Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters.

EXTREME MORTMAN: "Shocker: Republicans have a good day!"

Plus: A victory for Robert Cox.

A LOOK AT MONEY IN POLITICS, and where a lot of it comes from.

THIS WEEK'S BLOG WEEK IN REVIEW PODCAST is up!

JAMES TARANTO on the new Republican leadership: "But hey, who better to lead the GOP minority than the men who helped create it?"

MORE good news about resveratrol.

MORE ON MILTON FRIEDMAN: Popular Mechanics Editor Jim Meigs emails:

I loved the Tennis with Milton piece. Did you also know that Friedman was a sci-fi fan?

My father, A. James Meigs, studied under Friedman at the University of Chicago and remained a lifelong friend. We visited Milton and his wife, Rose, at their summer house in New England when I was 15 years old. I remember vividly how Milton quizzed me on what books I was reading. When I mentioned Robert Heinlein he was delighted. We had a detailed conversation about “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” Heinlein’s great thought experiment in radical libertarianism.

I came away struck with his genuine interest in the thoughts of a semi-articulate teenager. My father says this was one of Friedman’s most striking traits as a teacher. “I never met a more gracious professor,” he says.

At a time when every political debate seems to devolve instantly into name calling, it is nice to remember Friedman’s wonderful example of gracious, gentlemanly debate. We could use more of that today.

Indeed we could. And Tim Minear -- of Firefly and Serenity fame -- is working on a filmed version of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Efforts to translate Heinlein to film haven't generally been very successful, but if anyone can do it, it'll be him. We talked with Minear about that project in this podcast interview a while back.

Lots more on Friedman here.

TEXT AND VIDEO OF MCCAIN'S GOPAC SPEECH are available online here. "We increased the size of government in the false hope that we could bribe the public into keeping us in office. And the people punished us. We lost our principles and our majority. And there is no way to recover our majority without recovering our principles first."

COFFEE GRINDING: Reader Thom Hill writes: "Did you buy the KitchenAid burr grinder?"

Nope, it was too pricey. I wound up going with this one instead. Seems to work very well, and it's much quieter -- more of a low rumble as opposed to the circular-saw whine of my old blade-type grinder.

UPDATE: Catching up to InstaPundit, the Wall Street Journal has an article -- subscription only -- on coffee grinders today. It says the KitchenAid is best overall, but they liked the Capresso for the money. That's pretty much the InstaPundit reader consensus, too. They also liked the Solis Maestro, which occupies an intermediate position.

IN RESPONSE TO YESTERDAY'S BLOOD DONATION POST, Clayton Cramer notes my comment that I don't know many people who are eligible to donate blood and asks: "What kind of people does InstaPundit hang with?"

Well, people who've been in Africa, or Europe; people who've been in the military; people with various medical problems, etc. They even ask about acupuncture now.

OUTSOURCING cargo transport to the space station.

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY:

A nation that's defended Europe from aggression in the 60 years since World War II is asking why Iraq can't defend itself. The fact is, Iraqis risk their lives for their country every day.

Clearly the days when Democrats warned of a long twilight struggle and pledged to pay any price and bear any burden to ensure the success and survival of liberty are over, judging from remarks by Carl Levin, incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee.

"We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves," Levin opined Wednesday at a Capitol Hill press conference. "The only way for Iraqi leaders to squarely face that reality is for President Bush to tell them that the United States will begin a phased redeployment of our forces within four to six months."

"We cannot be their security blanket," he added. But why not, if it's in our best long-term security interest?

Yes, we should demand more of the Iraqis. But those who ask whether we can or should stop Iraqis from killing themselves forget that we're in this to stop others from killing us and using Iraq as a base camp from which to do it.

We've been Europe's security blanket for six decades. We are Japan's security blanket. We are South Korea's. It's been said that were it not for us, the French would be speaking German and the Germans would be speaking Russian. In 1938, the West decided it couldn't be Czechoslovakia's security blanket and sold out that country in Munich, Germany. The rest, as they say, is history.

Yes, I'd like to see a timetable for getting troops out of Europe. It's time they took responsibility for their own security and stopped their childlike dependence upon / resentment of America. They need to work on more responsible democratic institutions, too. The Iraqis I'll give a bit longer.

JOHN TAMMES POSTS ANOTHER ROUNDUP of news from Afghanistan.

TENNIS WITH MILTON FRIEDMAN: "I sized up his spindly legs, his glasses. Even in tennis whites he really looked the whole egghead thing. But I noticed that his racket looked ominously well used."

OF CAREERS AND READERS at The Los Angeles Times:

This, in a nutshell, is the essential problem with the L.A. Times: Those who work there care a great deal about their careers and very little about their readers. I’m not one of those who think the paper should dismantle its foreign and national bureaus - of course a big-circulation paper in a major city like L.A. should have at least some of its own reporters around the world - but it’s possible to maintain all that while also realizing that readers can now just as easily subscribe to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal for home delivery as the L.A. Times.

So you’ve got to give locals a reason to get their local paper instead, and probably that means a renewed emphasis on local news, even though, yes, being a foreign correspondent is much more glamorous.

A good example of how the L.A. Times constantly fails at all this comes courtesy of Sharon Waxman’s smart, engaging little piece last week in the New York Times, about Carrie Fisher, a Los Angeles personality who’s about to appear in a one-woman show at a Los Angeles theater. So naturally, the New York Times did the story first.

Kaus has been complaining about the LAT's lack of local coverage for years.

LORIE BYRD LOOKS at the difference a week can make.

Meanwhile, The Mudville Gazette sings The Ballad of John and Nancy.

UPDATE: Uh oh: "Bob Wright's post-election euphoria is giving way to nagging doubts about the Democrats' strategic prowess!"

November 16, 2006

JOHN EDWARDS' staffer turns to Wal-Mart for help getting a PlayStation 3 for Edwards' kids. Wal-Mart says to get in line like everybody else. Edwards says he knew nothing about it.

UPDATE: "It's hard out here for a nerd."

BAD BEHAVIOR BY THE FBI: "Two Boston men who spent 30 years in prison for an underworld slaying they did not commit are suing the federal government after the FBI withheld evidence that would have cleared them to protect an informant."

This stuff goes back to the very earliest days of InstaPundit. Alas, I'm not convinced the problem has been fixed.

I WONDER WHAT HIS D.U. HANDLE IS?

A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before drank the "potion" and smeared some on his face.

"I don't hate Americans, but I don't like Bush," said Pamungkas, who believed the ritual would succeed as, "the devil is with me today."

Indeed.

BANKING ON Indian umbilical cords.

HD-DVD & BLU-RAY: DOA? "Both formats will fail, not because consumers are wary of a format war in which they could back the losing team, a la Betamax. Universal players that support both flavors of HD should appear early next year. No, the new formats are doomed because shiny little discs will soon be history."

I'm not so sure. There's some evidence that people like buying shiny discs.

A LOOK AT STUDENT FREEDOM AND ACADEMIC DISHONESTY, from Eugene Volokh.

ADVICE TO THE HILLARY CAMPAIGN: Hire a voice coach, stat!

GOOD NEWS ON OIL SHALE:

The Bureau of Land Management cleared the way for three oil companies to lease public land for experimental oil shale projects in western Colorado.

The federal agency said Monday the research and development projects would have minimal impact on the environment, a claim disputed by environmentalists.

BLM spokesman Vaughn Whatley said the test operations "could begin as early as next summer."

Shell, Chevron USA and EGL Resources want to test technology for extracting oil from shale on five 160-acre parcels of land in Rio Blanco County, in Colorado's Piceance Basin. . . .

The Green River shale deposits in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are estimated to contain 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. And while not all of it can be recovered, half that amount is nearly triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Last month, a Shell executive said he was optimistic about the company's research on oil shale extraction, adding that Shell's project in western Colorado could become reality by the middle of the next decade.

Much more here. Plus, some environmentalists are complaining. Hey, we can always build some nice clean nuclear plants, instead. . . .

Thanks to reader Linda Seebach for the links.

MILTON FRIEDMAN HAS DIED. It's hard to say that someone has been plucked untimely at the age of 94, but it feels that way. His Free to Choose won over many people to the cause of liberty -- as did his Capitalism and Freedom. So, for that matter, did his Free to Choose documentary.

Here's a good Friedman interview by Tunku Varadarajan, from last summer. And there's a lot more over at The Corner and at Reason. He did a great interview on Charlie Rose less than a year ago, but I can't find it anywhere online.

UPDATE: Ah, here it is! Thanks to reader Tom Blumer for the pointer.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The interview is available on DVD, too.

And be sure to read Friedman on the "war on drugs."

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Much, much more on Friedman here.

Still more Friedman video here and here.

And Fausta writes: "If it weren't for Milton Friedman, I wouldn't be a blogger today." High praise, considering the source!

Virginia Postrel: "He was a great social scientist, a brilliant popularizer and polemicist, and a mensch. His intellectual influence, on both scholarly economics and the revival of classical liberalism, can hardly be overstated. And, more than any other single person, we can thank him for ending the scourges of the 1970s: inflation and the draft."

But nobody's perfect: "Somewhat unfortunately, Friedman (at that time still a left-winger) also invented the idea of income tax withholding while working as an economist for the the Treasury Department during World War II. Although Friedman intended it to be a temporary wartime measure, it soon turned into a permanent expansion of government power - a result that the later, libertarian Friedman would surely have predicted:)!"

Here's the New York Times obituary. And Megan McArdle draws some distinctions.

AS THE TWO POLITICAL PARTIES engage in a "dumb off," Mary Katharine Ham plays Dr. Phil in the latest Ham Nation. The two parties as different kinds of loser exes . . . .

WHAT TO DO? Democratic reader Fred Lapides emails:

I have seen you (and of course others) sturggle mightily and willingly and idealistically against the rampant pork madness in our congress. And I have seen you now, same day, badmouth Pelosi and Murtha and then, later Trent Lott...all for the same issue.

What is to be done?

What we have is legislators who get and gain and keep power by handouts; and what we also see is that this is the way of the congressional world. Libertarians and/or any other party will not change things, it seems, and the American public know only to change elected officials or parties when they get upset, though when pork comes to voter districts, those voters are hardly going to rebuke the elected officials who got the pork.

Though I have in the past been opposed to term limits--after all, reward good guys and punish bad--limits might be the only way to slow down the pork parade, though, clearly, if I am in for a short term and know I can not get relected no matter what, I might as well grab what I can for those who put me in and a bit for myself. But at least there is the turnover of porkers, a refertilzation that has worked on farmland,and the compost and manure that is spewed by our elected officials perhaps might briefly nurish the soil but then need to be plowed under and a new crop planted.

I'm beginning to view term limits more favorably, too.

HOYER BEATS MURTHA: And it wasn't even close. Arianna Huffington is unhappy, but I think this is good news for the Democrats. And, probably, for the country. Contra Arianna, though, I don't see how this can be anything other than a defeat for Nancy Pelosi.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus: "Pelosi puts her prestige on the line, in a self-conscious display of strong-arm tactics that sound like they were taken from bad movies, and gets creamed. For some reason House Democrats decided they didn't want an old-school influence jockey who couldn't string five coherent sentences together without embarrassing himself to be their #2 national spokesman."

As I say, this is good for the Democrats.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Wonkette: "Steny 'Slightly Less Corrupt' Hoyer was elected Majority Leader, beating out John 'Bribe Me Later' Murtha. The vote in the Majority Leader race: 149-86. . . . expect to see 'Dems Divided: Speaker Pelosi’s Leadership Ability Questioned' pieces in your major papers by sundown."

Of course, it is a victory for Pelosi in this sense: "The Democrats stepped back from the cliff on this one. Two years of Jack Murtha as a visible symbol of Congressional Dems would have gone a long way toward regaining the [Republican] majority in 2008."

Guess that Dennis Kucinich endorsement wasn't enough to put him over the top.

I DONATED BLOOD TODAY, as part of the Blue/Orange blood drive competition with Kentucky. Tennessee had a lead of well over 100 pints, meaning that we've got a decent chance at winning something this weekend, anyway. . . .

Turnout was very good, and once again I was interested to see that the sex ratio -- once skewed heavily toward women -- seemed to have evened out. The blood folks said that was their impression, too. Best button: "Phlebotomists have bloody good ideas!"

The list of questions and exclusions seems to get longer every time I do this. As I've noted here before, I wonder if all these exclusions might not cost as many lives as they save. Since I'm one of the few people I know who's eligible to give blood, I try to do it a couple of times a year, since it's got to come from someplace.

UPDATE: Reader D. Norwood writes: "As the parent of 2 immune deficient children who are alive today because of regular infusions of a blood product (gamma globulin), I want to thank you for donating blood. You literally saved lives today and 2 of those lives are very precious to me."

If you can donate, it's good to do so. We take blood availability for granted but, like a lot of things that we take for granted, it's only there because people do what's necessary.

A RECORD DAY for the U.S. financial markets.

AZIZ POONAWALLA: "I am fascinated by the fascination we muslims tend to have for the Israeili Palestine conflict."

IS THERE A CORRELATION BETWEEN TROOP NUMBERS AND VIOLENCE IN IRAQ? Bruce Rolston does some number-crunching.

IN THE MAIL, AN INTERESTING BOOK ON TRAFFIC: Ted Balaker and Sam Staley's The Road More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More Than You Think, and What We Can Do About It. They argue that traffic congestion does much more harm than is generally appreciated, and that municipalities' programs aimed at making traffic worse in order to encourage people to use mass transit are deeply mistaken. They also argue that fixing traffic problems is easier and cheaper than is popularly thought. I've read the first several chapters and it's very interesting; I hope it gets a broad readership. Interesting tidbit: If you exclude New York, America has more telecommuters than mass-transit commuters.

I've had some related thoughts on this topic myself, here.

THERE ARE SOME SECTIONS OF KNOXVILLE THAT I WOULD NOT ADVISE YOU TO INVADE (CONT'D):

State Sen. Tim Burchett says he caught a group of youngsters during a break-in Wednesday, held them at gunpoint and fed them chocolate-chip cookies until Knox County sheriff's deputies arrived. . . .

The state senator, who said he holds a conceal-carry permit, had a recently purchased 9 mm Glock pistol and a .25 automatic Keltec as a "backup," according to his account. He said he brandished the larger pistol and told the youths to "put your hands up" and then to "put your hands behind your head."

"One of them said, 'Well, which one do you want - hands up or behind the head?' and I said, 'Either one'," Burchett said.

He said they waited about 15 minutes "in the rain and mud" for deputies to arrive. During the period, he said, the youths began talking - one of them basically admitting to the break-in - and he gave them some of the cookies that a friend had given him earlier in the day.

Burchett said he understood from the deputies that one of the youths was 18 years old and the others were juveniles. He said he intends to press charges, fearing that if punishment is left to parents "they might take away the GameBoy for one afternoon."

On the other hand, Knoxville's anti-gun mayor, Bill Haslam, is facing a boycott of his family's Pilot Oil Company by people unhappy with his support for Mike Bloomberg and the Joyce Foundation.

KAUSFILES: "If Harman loses her chair because she supported the war, shouldn't Waxman lose his?"

ALPHECCA NOTES A NEW ORDINANCE that tries to establish universal gun ownership among citizens.

JULES CRITTENDEN ON MURTHA V. HOYER: "Sit back and enjoy."

UPDATE: More comic relief.

November 15, 2006

JAMES CARVILLE: Dump Howard Dean for "Rumsfeldian Incompetence."

Poor Howard. Like Rumsfeld he won a brilliant victory but now he's getting chewed up in the ensuing internecine strife.

A CIRCULATION STRATEGY THAT JUST MIGHT SAVE THE NEW YORK TIMES: Have the Army force people to subscribe!

UPDATE: Alternatively, they could try addressing their diversity problem.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Laura Lee Donoho was on this story months ago.

BECAUSE IT'S ALL ABOUT BRINGING FRESH FACES AND INTEGRITY to the Democratic Party: "Netroots support for Rep. John Murtha (PA) over Rep. Steny Hoyer (MD) for majority leader continues to solidify and strengthen."

Thank goodness the netroots are bringing in fresh blood, fresh faces, and new ideas. Otherwise we'd be stuck with a bunch of tired old Congressional hacks running things!

Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus parses Murtha's Macacaesque effort to recast the meaning of the word "crap," which is hindered by the fact that, unlike "Macaca," the word "crap" has a clear meaning already. Yet the NYT hasn't noticed.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from G.M. Roper.

ANOTHER UPDATE: "The new Congress's 'botched joke?'"

MY EARLIER TV POST generated this email from Jesse Londin:

I did some poking around too, last week finally took the plunge and went with this Philips 42" plasma deal (to be installed on Thursday):

Link

For me it just had to be plasma. Some kind of fetish, I guess -- I've always loved the word. Don't know why. PLAAASMAA. (And I thank goodness Dr. Helen has as yet not noted any particular concerns about plasma-lovers or their behavior. ;) (Come to think of it, I would have thought of you as the plasma type, too.)

Now if I could only find SOME darn thing I care to watch...

Plasma sounds cool and Trekkish, I guess ("Activate plasma screens, Mr. Sulu!"), but my friend Doug Weinstein -- much more of a videohead than me -- favors LCDs for better color reproduction. And it looks like Jesse found at least one show worth watching today.

VARIOUS PEOPLE have written to ask how my brother-in-law is doing. He just completed his first post-chemo round of scans and turned up cancer-free. We're happy about that, as you might imagine.

A LOOK AT THE PROPHETIC AUSTIN BAY: He's a very smart guy. And, as I've noted before, he was more realistic than some.

SO WE HAD THESE HEARINGS ON IRAQ, and generals Abizaid and Zinni are arguing against timetables for withdrawal, which has been the Democrats' main policy proposal.

Did the Democrats know beforehand that this is what the generals thought? If so, were they dishonest in not taking it into account? Maybe they were relying on this sort of thing to keep from having to do what the MoveOn crowd wants, but what they know is wrong?

Or did they not know, making them clueless? Neither one's impressive. But since the big criticism of Rumsfeld, which led to his defenestration, was that he "didn't listen to the generals," what are the Democrats to do now that the generals have spoken?

As Dave Price notes, this is Bush's Iraq trump card:

The bedrock political strength of Bush's Iraq policy is that it rests on the advice of the military, in which public trust runs deep and wide, whatever they may think of the war itself or the decision to invade. Democrats may have no qualms about calling Bush incompetent, but witnessing how quickly they ran away from Kerry's perceived knock on U.S. troops, it's safe to assume they will be very wary about voicing similar opinions regarding the commanders on the ground in Iraq. That public view of the military as nearly sacrosanct is a major difference between now and Vietnam, and it puts the Dems in an awkward position when they advocate a position the military vehemently disagrees with.

Sure, Iraq hasn't lived up to the naive predictions of some ("two to three months of a very strong military presence"), but as wiser heads noted, "Victory in that dark, intricate conflict remains years away. While the operational victory is extraordinary, strategic victory in the War on Terror requires focused and sustained military, political and economic efforts." [Later: See this, too.]

Cut-and-run doesn't fit this strategy, and it's nice to see the Democrats being reminded of it. It's too bad, though, that the media neglected this stuff -- along with a lot of other things -- before the elections, as part of their effort to deliver Evan Thomas's 15 percent to the Democrats. Still, better late than never.

Plus, this seems right to me: "Our goal now must be to focus on projecting power on Iran, and preventing an open Al Qaeda base from establishing itself in Sunni Iraq. And we must protect Kurdistan."

UPDATE: A reader emails:

My son is a Marine and is scheduled to deploy to the sandbox this spring. His first time there, but not the first time the fundamentalists have tried to kill him while in uniform.

While going through SOI (School of Infantry) a couple of years ago, one of his sergeants told the class that this would take over 5 years to get the Iraqi army to the point of being able to defend the country. He also told them not to listen to what people predicted about getting out of Iraq quickly. These guys were going to take some time to build up a seasoned fighting force (meaning Non-Coms) This was not “US policy”, just the comments from someone who knew his job and what it was realistically going to take to complete the task. I knew then that it was questionable if we had the stomach for that long of a commitment.

In case you are curious, the Marines do.

I'm not surprised to hear that.

MORE: Questioning the timing.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION UPDATE:

As convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff reported to federal prison today, a source close to the investigation surrounding his activities told ABC News that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was one of the members of Congress Abramoff had allegedly implicated in his cooperation with federal prosecutors.

A spokesperson for Reid, elected yesterday as the Senate Majority Leader, said the senator had done nothing illegal or unethical. . . .

A source close to the investigation says Abramoff told prosecutors that more than $30,000 in campaign contributions to Reid from Abramoff's clients "were no accident and were in fact requested by Reid."

Abramoff has reportedly claimed the Nevada senator agreed to help him on matters related to Indian gambling.

The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to the tribes that had contributed money to his campaign. . . .Sen. Reid has been an outspoken critic of the connections between Abramoff and Republican legislators.

In a speech earlier this year, Sen. Reid described it as "a program where the lobbyists paid and the Republican members of Congress played."

Corruption, or constituent service? Stay tuned. At the very least, though, this looks like a Foleyesque level of hypocrisy.

MODEST PROGRESS IN PAKISTAN: "Pakistan's national assembly has voted to amend the country's strict Sharia laws on rape and adultery. Until now rape cases were dealt with in Sharia courts. Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery. Now civil courts will be able to try rape cases, assuming the upper house and the president ratify the move."

Of course, not everyone is happy: "Addressing parliament on Wednesday, the leader of the six-party MMA Islamic alliance, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, said the bill would 'turn Pakistan into a free-sex zone'."

Mr. Rahman is a barbarian. It's nice to see civilization trying to assert itself.

UPDATE: An interesting response to the barbarians:

The answer is taking gender-based oppression into account in refuge claims. We could "rescue" every oppressed Afghan woman who wants asylum by simply opening our doors to all female refugees from Afghanistan, and any other regime that doesn't afford full civil rights to women.

The message to patriarchal regimes: Keep this up, and we'll take all your women and children. Heck, if you don't knock off this tin-pot dictator shit, we'll take all your scientists, all your engineers, all your doctors, and all your journalists--regardless of gender! Our gain, your loss.

I'm not sure that would work, but it's worth a try. Maybe some private groups could help pick up travel expenses. I think they could live without the engineers, doctors, journalists, etc., but I'm pretty sure they'd miss the women.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION UPDATE:

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told a group of Democratic moderates on Tuesday that an ethics and lobbying reform bill being pushed by party leaders was “total crap,” but said that he would work to enact the legislation because Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports it.

Meanwhile, another critique: "My objection to Murtha as a leader is based on an opinion I formed watching him on 'Meet the Press' back in June. I just don't think he's mentally with it at all. He was embarrassingly inarticulate and confused."

Seems pithy in this case.

LEARNED NOTHING, FORGOTTEN NOTHING: Trent Lott is back in the Republican leadership.

UPDATE: Andrew Stuttaford has the same take.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: "Suspect on racial issues and pork-friendly. Just the right man to help remake the party."

Dean Barnett: "Is it just me, or is it becoming increasingly apparent that the Republicans and Democrats are determined to engage in a two year dumb-off?"

MORE: Did Santorum clinch it for Lott? If so, then good riddance, Rick.

STILL MORE: N.Z. Bear emails: "I’ll just say this about the so-called Minority Whip Mr. Lott. I’m getting damn tired of hearing from him. He’s been nothing but trouble since 2002…"

Heh.

SO I WATCHED THE HDTV BROADCAST FROM SPACE that I mentioned below. It was pretty good, but it was the images of Earth from space that were really captivating -- they came across as IMAX-like -- and they didn't show enough of those. The stuff from the station interior was okay, be we've all seen people eat in zero gravity before and the demonstrations weren't especially exciting just because they were HD. I would have rather had half an hour of pictures of Earth from low orbit, with only minimal talking-head involvement.

I wonder if you could make money with a cable channel that just showed pictures from a low-earth-orbit satellite in HD? It would certainly be cool -- bringing the "Overview Effect" down to Earth -- though I don't think the technology's really there for that yet. Speaking of which, there was an interesting communications delay -- about three seconds -- that must be due to digital latency; they explained it as speed-of-light, but the station would have to be on the Moon to produce a lag of that order, and I don't think that even multiple satellite hops could account for it. The camera also seemed to develop an increasing number of stuck pixels as the broadcast went on, for some reason.

Worth watching, anyway, if this kind of thing interests you. It'll be rerun tonight at 9 pm Eastern.

UPDATE: Several readers say that I'm channeling Al Gore. Well, I don't think he had a commercial venture in mind, or HD, and I think he wanted the L₁ libration point instead of low-earth orbit. But I certainly agree with him about the power of images of the earth.

IN THE MAIL: (Actually, delivered by a colleague) Otis Stephens' and Richard Glenn's Unreasonable Searches and Seizures: Rights and Liberties Under the Law -- plus a copy of the Encyclopedia of American Civil Rights and Liberties.

And, in sort-of-related news, the 9th Circuit, per Kozinski, upheld a six figure damage award against police for 4th Amendment violations. An excerpt from the opinion:

The facts are remarkable. Plaintiff, Susan Frunz, and her two guests were in Frunz’s home in Tacoma, Washington, when police surrounded the house, broke down the back door and entered. The police had no warrant and had not announced their presence. Frunz first became aware of them when an officer accosted her in the kitchen and pointed his gun, bringing the barrel within two inches of her forehead. The police ordered or slammed the occupants to the floor and cuffed their hands behind their backs—Frunz for about an hour, until she proved to their satisfaction that she owned the house, at which time they said “never mind” and left.

These no-knock raids are a pet peeve of mine, and I'm glad to see some hefty damage awards. In light of the facts, in fact, this seems quite minimal. Such "dynamic entries" should be limited to cases where there's solid reason to believe that someone's life may be in danger, which was clearly not the case here.

JOHN WIXTED LOOKS AT ECONOMICS AND FERTILITY IN EUROPE.

RALPH PETERS ON IRAQ: "With political correctness permeating our government and even the upper echelons of the military, we never tried the one technique that has a solid track record of defeating insurgents if applied consistently: the rigorous imposition of public order. That means killing the bad guys."

ON THE EDGE IN LEBANON: Michael Totten has a podcast interview with Lebanese blogger Tony Badran about what's been going on there, and what's likely to happen next.

NASA WILL BE BROADCASTING LIVE FROM SPACE IN HDTV at 11:30 Eastern today. It'll be on the Discovery HD channel.

And yes, I'll be watching it (I think I get Discovery HD) on the TV I mentioned earlier -- the reader advice was mostly positive, and while the inevitable wait until the new technology appears in a few months advice was persuasive, it always is and you have to buy something sometime. I'm very happy with the picture, and as several readers point out, Consumer Reports liked the JVC line a lot, too. I didn't buy it off Amazon, but from the local H.H. Gregg outlet, which wanted a lot more but which I persuaded to match the Amazon price.

ED CONE LOOKS AT REGIME CHANGE IN CONGRESS and invokes Pete Townshend.

Meanwhile, Betsy's Page looks at Murtha's candidacy for Majority Leader and thinks Pelosi has gotten herself in a box:

And don’t forget that this is one guy who was all against any plans to limit earmarks. Is he really the guy that the Democrats want as their poster child for their efforts to supposedly remake the House?

It will be interesting to see if Pelosi is going to go to the mattresses to get her guy elected Majority Leader. She has made her support so public that it will be taken as a defeat for her if Steny Hoyer defeats Murtha. But a Murtha victory will immediately taint the new Democratic majority with a very strong whiff of corruption plus being tied to a guy who is a past master of pork and earmarks. Is that their new image for disposing of the "culture of corruption?"

Republicans, on the other hand, should be happy with Murtha as the face of the "New" Democratic majority in Congress.

UPDATE: The New Republic is criticizing Pelosi's effort to put the impeached-for-corruption Alcee Hastings in as Chair of the Intelligence Committee:

Ordinarily, few people would take Hastings seriously for such an important job. In 1981, Hastings was a federal judge in Miami. He was accused of conspiring with a friend to take a $150,000 bribe in exchange for issuing light sentences to a pair of mobsters. A Miami jury acquitted Hastings (while convicting the friend), but three different federal judicial panels later referred him to Congress for impeachment. "Judge Hastings attempted to corruptly use his office for personal gain. Such conduct cannot be excused or condoned even after Judge Hastings has been acquitted of the criminal charge," concluded one panel, composed of five circuit court judges. . . .

There's ample reason to think that Americans cast a negative vote last week--not so much for Democrats as against Republicans. Over the next two years, voters will be watching to see whether Democrats are up to the responsibility of governing, and doing so with the national interest in mind. If Nancy Pelosi bases her decision about such a critical position on a combination of personal feuding and identity politics, she won't just do Republicans a favor by giving them a readymade bogeyman to attack. She will have shown voters that she's unable to push aside petty institutional politics in the name of the national interest.

Read the whole thing. So far I'd say the Dems are off to a weak start.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Bevan has more on Murtha's problems:

What irony. One of the left's main knocks on President Bush over the years is that he's been too blinded by loyalty and that his administration has suffered from cronyism. Yet here you have the new Speaker of the House, whose drapes haven't even been measured or hung yet, pulling out all the stops to install an ethically-challenged pal for Majority Leader out of blind loyalty and passing over another perfectly competent member (Jane Harman) out of pure pique to turn over the Chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee to a man who was impeached for taking bribes. Not the most auspicious of beginnings, I'd say.

Neither the GOP nor the Democrats seems to have taken the lesson of the '06 elections to heart.

THOUGHTS ON DIVERSITY AND ACADEMIC VALUES: "Schmidt's point is that he feels disrespected by the letter, because he voted for the amendment and he's getting the message that his university thinks people like him are bad: Why is there no concern about his feelings? Isn't part of caring about diversity making people who believe different things feel welcome in the university environment?"

LEARNED NOTHING AND FORGOTTEN NOTHING? Trent Lott wants back in the Senate leadership. Capt. Ed isn't excited about this: "My opposition comes from Lott's attitude towards pork, and especially his attitude about the people who oppose pork spending."

Given the Democrats' anti-pork positioning of late -- and the importance of issues like pork and corruption, which sat at the top of the exit poll issues list, to voters -- it seems to me that picking Lott would be a big mistake for the GOP if they want to recover in 2008. As Ed puts it:

Republicans need to show that they have learned a lesson from their midterm drubbing. They lost their majorities because voters perceived that they had lost touch with the electorate on policy as well as attitude. We sent Republicans to clean up Congress, not to clean up for themselves in porkfests that rival anything that came before them. Trent Lott represents the worst of that class, and the mere idea that he remains in consideration for a leadership position after his commentary this year proves that the GOP hasn't listened hard enough.

Indeed.

RON ROSENBAUM: "A Second Holocaust is now virtually Iranian state policy."

IS DEMOCRACY LIKE SEX? My TCS Daily column is up.

MICKEY KAUS: "Murtha claims he's the victim of a 'swift-boating attack' when really it's just the MSM playing post-election catch up . . . . Of course, more Murtha thrashes around like a frantic whale, the more attention he attracts--and the more he puts Pelosi's rep on the line, and the more he makes her pull out all stops to help him."

Meanwhile, here's more on Murtha and the "culture of corruption."

November 14, 2006

AUDIO, TRANSCRIPTS, AND MORE: Over at TTLB's questions for the Republican leadership page.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Abramoff testifies.

OUCH: "The Harriet Miers of RNC Chairs."

MEGAN MCARDLE ASKS: "What would nationalised health care look like here?"

UPDATE: More on government and health care here.

IS DAILYKOS pro-Chevron?

Personally, I've always preferred the old Pure Oil Company, though since they were bought by Unocal, which was bought by Chevron, I guess there's no real difference.

THINKING ABOUT CARBON: "You know the energy picture has changed when some of the world’s biggest companies are making news by joining forces on nuclear energy—a sector that’s been, well, radioactive in the United States for a generation."

A MOVE FOR TRANSPARENCY IN HIGHER EDUCATION?

Universities don't like this, but it's hard to (1) tell everyone how important higher education is to America; (2) take lots of government money while providing it; (3) support regulation of every other industry; and (4) argue for laissez faire in your own.

JIM GERAGHTY ON EVENTS IN TURKEY: "In my current neck of the woods, the secular vs. Islamist fight is starting to heat up a bit, with a bunch of flashpoints coming up in the near future. Bulent Ecevit died recently, a four-time Turkish prime minister. (There probably aren’t many people who can say they have led their country four separate times.) While he made plenty of controversial decisions, he was and is remembered as a staunch secularist. His funeral turned into a rerun of an event earlier this year, when the funeral of a judge slain by an Islamist turned into a massive, and more than a bit angry rally against the current political leadership and Islamist elements in the country. What was different was that this time, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current prime minister showed up for the memorial service and got booed soundly."

He continues: "A lot of EU members are about ready to give Turkey the finger; the Turks are about ready to give it right back, with the percentage of Turks wishing to join the EU dropping into the thirties. How does this effect Americans? Well, if the Turks give up on the EU and grow disgruntled with ‘the West’ as represented by Europe, where do they turn to next? Iran, Russia, and China are all eager to build ties to a potential new ally."

I'm still unhappy with how the Turks treated us in 2003, but I think the Bush Administration should be making nice to Turkey. Maybe we could cut a favorable trade deal with them that would be a consolation prize for not getting in to the EU? We certainly don't want them drifting off in an Islamist direction.

UPDATE: Emailing from Istanbul, Claire Berlinski writes:

A favorable trade deal is always a nice thing, but if we really want to make nice with Turkey -- and I completely agree that we should, for the reasons you mention -- then we will have to offer them what they really want, which is PKK heads in a box. The KDP and PUK provide refuge for the PKK in Iraq, which they use to attack Turkey. The Turks want us to go after the PKK directly, and failing that, to let them do it -- to supply them with intelligence so that they can invade northern Iraq and clean out the PKK pockets. We're of course reluctant to go after the PKK (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) for fear of destabilizing the one part of Iraq that seems to be a success, but from the Turks' point of view, we've just decided to sell them out. I agree, we have; it's analogous to European states that refuse to support Israel's counter-terrorism actions in Lebanon and Gaza on the grounds that they're "destabilizing to the region." Well yes, they are, but what are you supposed to do if you're being attacked? If we were the victims of regular PKK terrorist attacks of the kind Turkey has suffered, we'd do to the PKK what we did to the Taliban. If we're at all serious about waging war on terrorism generally, and not just on terrorists who target Americans, we would take the Turks' request for help seriously. That would go a long way toward restoring the US-Turkey relationship, and it would also be the right thing to do. (I have a certain sensitivity to the issue: More than once I've opened the news to read that the PKK tried to blow up a restaurant or neighborhood I was in only a few days before.)

I love the Kurds, but the PKK are bad people.

DAVID WEIGEL looks at complaints of election fraud and dirty campaigning and says there's no there, there.

MICHAEL BARONE looks at the post-election political balance.

VIA KESHER TALK, a reference to what looks like an interesting book: Nonie Darwish's Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. From the book description, Darwish seems to be one of those outspoken Muslim women who seem to be springing up these days. We need more of them, and Islam really needs more of them.

THOUGHTS ON engineering better human bodies. I could use one of those about now.

BIAS AT THE BBC:

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has accused the BBC of bias against Christianity and says the broadcaster fears a terrorist backlash if it is critical of Islam.

The archbishop, the second most senior figure in the Church of England's hierarchy, said Christians took "more knocks" than other faiths at the hands of the BBC.

"They can do to us what they dare not do to the Muslims," he said. "We are fair game because they can get away with it. We don't go down there and say, 'We are going to bomb your place.' That is not in our nature."

The Ugandan-born archbishop nevertheless said Christians must be more forceful in promoting their beliefs.

The BBC, through its -- now admitted -- biases on this subject is merely encouraging other people who don't like its coverage to become violent. That is deeply unwise, as well as unfair. (Via Biased-BBC).

SOME THOUGHTS ON GOING HOME, from Neo-Neocon.

A LOOK AT MULTICULTURALISM AND THE FOSTERING OF DEPENDENCY IN BRITAIN: It reminds me of the line from The Rainmakers -- "They'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please."

That song (Government Cheese) isn't available online. But my one of my favorite Rainmakers songs -- Let My People Go-Go -- can be heard here. I'd rather that politics comported with that vision than with the rather gloomier, and more accurate, one in Government Cheese. But at least the music's good! And there's a video for Downstream. Check out the Harry Truman line.

TERRY HEATON'S BLOG has a new URL. And he reports this horrifying tale of greed at Hilton:

I just got back from a series of meetings in a conference room at a Hilton hotel here in Dallas, during which the hotel wanted us to pay for wireless internet access on a per-user basis. Here’s the scenario:

There were 11 of us in a small conference room with a table that seated 12. Naturally, we all wanted access to the net, but the charge for that was $175 per person! That’s $1,925 for internet access for the group. We (I) pitched a fit, and they agreed to cut it significantly, but it was still far more than what we were willing to pay.

Access in a room at the hotel is $12, but $175 for the same access in one of the conference rooms. “It’s standard in the industry,” I was told by the frightened girl I confronted in Conference Services (this challenges the meaning of that word). Can anybody say rip-off?

I think a lot of people can.

UPDATE: Whenever I post criticisms like the above, I get email like this:

I'm surprised to see you use the term greed to describe Hilton's paractice of charging $175 for wireless internet accesss.

What do you suggest, that the government regulate it? The wirless is Hilton's property and they have the right to charge whatever they want. If the customer doesn't want to pay it, they should go somewhere else where it's cheaper, which I suspect they will do next time.

What Hilton did was not greed. It was bad business practice, for which Hilton will end up paying.

It was a bad business practice motivated by greed. And now a lot more people know about it, and can take their business elsewhere without facing the problems Terry describes. And did I call for government regulation? No. If it helps you, think of criticism of stupid business practices as my InstaPundit business practice, which by the logic above puts my posts beyond any criticism, apparently. . . .

Meanwhile, reader Fred Boness emails:

I've heard that same "industry standard" line. Where I come from - manufacturing - there are true industry standards and they are written out in excruciating detail. What these service/support people mean by industry standard is no more than "the other kids are doing it."

If it wasn't so heavy, I'd carry a copy of Machinery's Handbook or the National Electrical Code just so I could drop four pounds of book on their desk and say in my best Paul Hogan, "You think that's an industry standard? THIS is an industry standard."

Heh.

ALTHOUSE ON INTERNET ADDICTION: "Uh-oh, I'm sensing convoluted recovery-movement styles of deploying power. I'm siding with the guy who says you can't be addicted to an environment."

MICHAEL KINSLEY WONDERS WHO ELECTED THE BAKER COMMISSION:

If we had wanted our country to be run by James Baker, we had our chance. He was interested in running for president in 1996 but discovered that his interest in a James Baker presidency was not widely shared. . . . People like Baker always favor a bipartisan consensus.

They don't really believe in politics, which is to say they don't really believe in democracy.

In this, "people like Baker" make up a large part of the political/journalistic class.

UPDATE: Greg Djerejian takes a more positive view of the Baker Commission: "A huge challenge, to be sure, but the good news is that the last best hope for Iraq might well involve a mixture of policy positions some of which are popular with Democrats and others with Republicans."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts from Jon Henke, who thinks that Nancy Pelosi might be onto something by saying Iraq isn't a war: "If it were a war, we could win it by killing people and blowing stuff up. While security problems necessarily involve the occasional application of force, the dominant difficulties in Iraq simply aren't force-on-force problems. The remaining problems are sociopolitical. No amount of firepower is going to resolve the intractable conflicts of interest between the Shiites and the Sunnis, or between various subgroups. No US troop level will convince the rival Iraqi factions that pluralism is better than asserting their own interests. They'll either find it in their interest to moderate. . .or they won't."

I think that's right -- as I've said before, it's a political rather than a military issue, which is why I've been unpersuaded by the more-troops argument. We'd prefer for Iraq to be a military problem rather than a political/diplomatic one because . . . well, because we have a lot better military than we have politicians or diplomats. Though I have to admit that the Sunnis haven't been as smart about things as I'd thought they would be, either.

MORE: Various readers call foul, noting that Greg Djerejian's father is the director of the Baker Institute. I thought everybody knew that.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: "A perfect storm may be brewing in Lebanon."

A LOOK AT A MAJOR KILLER:

WHAT kills more than five times as many Americans as AIDS? Hospital infections, which account for an estimated 100,000 deaths every year.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which are calling for voluntary blood testing of all patients to stem the spread of AIDS, have chosen not to recommend a test that is essential to stop the spread of another killer sweeping through our nation’s hospitals: M.R.S.A., or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The C.D.C. guidelines to prevent hospital infections, released last month, conspicuously omit universal testing of patients for M.R.S.A.

That’s unfortunate. Research shows that the only way to prevent M.R.S.A. infections is to identify which patients bring the bacteria into the hospital. The M.R.S.A. test costs no more than the H.I.V. test and is less invasive, a simple nasal or skin swab.

Staph bacteria are the most prevalent infection-causing germs in most hospitals, and increasingly these infections cannot be cured with ordinary antibiotics. Sixty percent of staph infections are now drug resistant (that is, M.R.S.A.), up from 2 percent in 1974. . . . Among developed nations, the United States has one of the worst records of curbing drug-resistant infections, according to the Sentry Antimicrobial Surveillance Program, an international effort to monitor drug-resistant germs. In this country, M.R.S.A. hospital infections increased 32-fold from 1976 to 2003, according to the C.D.C.

In the 1980s, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands faced similarly soaring rates of M.R.S.A., but nearly eradicated it. How? By screening patients and requiring health care workers treating patients with M.R.S.A. to wear gowns and gloves and use dedicated equipment to prevent the spread. The Dutch called their strategy “search and destroy.”

This is a subject that deserves a lot more attention.

November 13, 2006

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This sounds promising:

Democrats aim to open the next Congress in January with a new rule that identifies lawmakers who use legislative "earmarks" to help special interests — a change Republicans promised but didn't implement.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said her first agenda item after being elected House speaker will be a vote to require sponsors of earmarks to be identified. Currently, lawmakers can remain anonymous in sponsoring an earmark, which is language in a bill that directs funds or tax benefits to a business, project or institution.

"There has to be transparency," the California congresswoman told USA TODAY last week. "I'd just as soon do away with all (earmarks), but that probably isn't realistic."

Let's keep an eye on this -- if it works out, it would be a good thing. And yeah, I know that Pelosi's done plenty of earmarking herself, but that's not the point. If a former earmarker couldn't support earmark reform, there wouldn't be very many votes on the good guys' side . . . .

But where does John Murtha fit in?

UPDATE: Another soiled angel who needs reforming -- the Los Angeles Times reports:

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to make reform of congressional earmarks a priority of his tenure, arguing that members need to be more transparent when they load pet projects for their districts into federal spending bills.

But last year's huge $286-billion federal transportation bill included a little-noticed slice of pork pushed by Reid that provided benefits not only for the casino town of Laughlin, Nev., but also, possibly, for the senator himself.

Reid called funding for construction of a bridge over the Colorado River, among other projects, "incredibly good news for Nevada" in a news release after passage of the 2005 transportation bill. He didn't mention, though, that just across the river in Arizona, he owns 160 acres of land several miles from proposed bridge sites and that the bridge could add value to his real estate investment.

Reid denies any personal financial interest in his efforts to secure $18 million for a new span connecting Laughlin with Bullhead City, Ariz.