March 10, 2007

HISTORICAL IRONY in South America.

MIKE RAPPAPORT: "How is it that Scooter Libby is facing jail time and Sandy Berger got off with a slap of the wrist. At least part of the answer is that Libby was investigated by a special prosecutor, while Berger was not. My guess is that there is more to the story of Berger as well (incompetence at Justice?)" Or something.

THE BLOGGINGHEADSTV INTERVIEW was recorded (at our end) using the Canon GL2 that Helen has used for her documentaries -- it has the remote control that lets you zoom, etc., without being behind the camera. Plus, the aptly-named thrifty light set. That worked out pretty well, although the near-white wall in the background gave a bit of a backlighting effect -- next time I'll do a bit of exposure compensation. It looked fine on the monitor, but just a shade dark in the final version.

JOHN NOONAN: "This war has become, by and large, an exercise in politics. 'Warped Clausewitz' is a good way of framing it. "

WHO KNEW THAT HARRY REID HAD SO MUCH INFLUENCE? "Iran tells US to set timetable for Iraq exit."

UPI REPORTER PAMELA HESS talks about what she saw in Iraq recently, on C-SPAN.

BORN ON THE BAYOU: Novels by Kimberly Willis Holt.

BILL HOBBS: "Michael Silence, the reporter/blogger at the Knoxville News Sentinel is running rings around the The Tennessean's political reporters and their blog on the Fred Thompson story. "

BILL ARDOLINO INTERVIEWS a civil affairs Marine in Fallujah.

IMUS VS. SCHUMER on Walter Reed: Follow the link and see the transcript.

IAN HALPERIN'S JAMES TAYLOR BIOGRAPHY, Fire and Rain, gets a review from Doug Weinstein.

PROTESTING AGAINST ZAPATERO IN MADRID, to the tune of over 2 million people, according to reports collected at BarcePundit. It's a lot of protesters, anyway.

THE APPLE-THEMED ANTI-HILLARY VIDEO that people were talking about last week is still of uncertain authorship. But it's been viewed over 100,000 times because -- as one of the commenters notes -- it's funny.

On the other hand, Andrew Marcus's video from the Secular Islam conference has been viewed over 100,000 times, too, without the aid of humor. That's actually kind of encouraging.

UPDATE: By the way, Andrew Marcus emails to say that he shot that video with this Canon still camera. When I first met Andrew, he was shooting a documentary in HD with, literally, a truckload of equipment and a crew. Not that that stuff doesn't have its place, but he's really been won over by the ease, flexibility, and surprisingly high quality of shooting web video with digital still cameras. And, as he noted in this email, people are far less intimidated by the smaller camera, which tends to produce better interviews.

AN ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER is noted by Tim Blair.

THOUGHTS ON PROSECUTORIAL ETHICS, from Maimon Schwarzschild.

THE GREENHOUSE-FRIENDLY NUCLEAR OPTION IN EUROPE:

The role of nuclear power in Europe received an unexpected boost yesterday as EU leaders hailed a landmark climate change deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and switch to renewable fuels.

Environmentalists complained that an ambitious headline goal to cut Europe’s CO emissions by a fifth by 2020 had been weakened by concessions to the main nuclear nations and the biggest polluters in Eastern Europe. . . . Jacques Chirac, the outgoing French President, welcomed the deal as one of the top three achievements of the EU during his 12 years in the Elysée Palace.

Tony Blair was also pleased with the concession towards the nuclear powers. The outcome will give a boost to his plans to rebuild Britain’s ageing nuclear power stations which suffered a setback last month when the High Court ruled that the consultation process was seriously flawed. Mr Blair said: “There is then the 20 per cent target on renewable energy. In setting that, there will be permission to look at the energy mix that countries have . . . including nuclear technology, which obviously helps the UK as well.”

I think that America should take a "more European" approach to energy policy.

"COMPLETELY SMUGLY, and to the annoyance of my critics."

DAVE WEIGEL on the D.C. Second Amendment decision: "That's huge. And one angle you probably won't hear: This is the direction DC public opinion has been moving toward for some time. "Only one month ago Marion Barry, DC's statesman/punchline who now holds a city council seat, proposed a halt to the gun ban."

Plus, Radley Balko notes the Washington Post's silly, shrill editorial. I should have said, silly, shrill, and predictable. And Jeralyn Merritt comments at TalkLeft.

THE "HARMLESS HABIT" THAT turns men off.

ANN ALTHOUSE AND I appear on BloggingHeadsTV, with a special guest appearance by the Insta-Wife.

HERE'S A LOOK AT THE DIGITAL EFFECTS in the new movie 300. Inspired by the critics' reviews, Dean Barnett is eager to see the film!

I imagine this will help the sales of Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, too. That's good, as I found it to be an excellent novel. So did the whopping 556 reviewers over at Amazon. . . .

UPDATE: I haven't read Pressfield's Alexander the Great novel, but people seem to like it, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: An interesting look at the politics of the film. Apparently it didn't play well in Berlin. But the National Hockey League likes it! I'd think they'd find it insufficiently violent . . . .

DAVE KOPEL ON THE ART OF "INSULTING UPWARD," as practiced by Ann Coulter and her disciples.

HMM. CONGO URANIUM RING SMASHED:

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they have dismantled an international network set up to illegally use uranium mined there.

Scientific Research Minister Sylvanus Mushi said DR Congo's top nuclear official and a colleague were being questioned in connection with the case.

The official, Fortunat Lumu, and the colleague were arrested on Tuesday.

The move comes amid reports that a large quantity of uranium has gone missing in recent years in DR Congo.

State prosecutor Tshimanga Mukeba earlier told the BBC that an "important quantity" of uranium was taken from the atomic energy centre in the capital, Kinshasa, without revealing any figures.

Hmm. I wonder where it went? Here's some speculation: "Patricia Feeney, director of a campaigning organisation called Rights and Accountability in Development says action is overdue. The worry is, who is buying in this nuclear black market. There are rumours it could be Iran or North Korea." Gee, do you think?

IS THE BBC running scared?

MORE ON DEVELOPMENTS AT DUKE, at K.C. Johnson's blog. Just keep scrolling.

MORE ON THE ONGOING disgrace at San Francisco State University.

March 09, 2007

MAYBE BUSH SHOULD TRY TO SELL HIS SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMS AS "MORE EUROPEAN:"

Sweden is close to implementing new surveillance legislation that will include the monitoring of emails, telephone calls and keyword searches using advanced pattern analysis. The objective is to detect 'threats such as terrorism, IT attacks or the spread of weapons of mass destruction' but the proposals have divided the country. In a misguided attempt to put people at ease, the government admitted that Sweden has been tapping its citizens' phones for decades anyway.

'Cause the Europeans are, you know, more progressive than we are.

NOW EUGENE VOLOKH NOTES a Second Amendment error in The Washington Post. It's like they're not even trying to get this stuff right.

UPDATE: More problems for the New York Times, too. Maybe if they'd stop just taking dictation from the Brady Campaign or the Violence Policy Center and actually learn about this stuff, they'd do a better job . . . .

JOANNE JACOBS' BOOK IS NOW out in paperback.

I GUESS SOMEBODY FORGOT TO TELL NEWT: Chris Matthews says that conservatives don't like sex.

MORE ON BUSH'S BRAZILIAN BIOFUEL PACT: Plus, I think I approve of this loophole:

A tortured route around the tariff goes through the Caribbean Basin. There, two dozen small countries are exempted as part of a 24-year-old trade agreement from near the end of the Cold War, designed to combat communism by feeding the U.S. dollar into their poor economies. Even that tariff exception -- which requires entrepreneurs like Mr. White to jump through legal hoops while risking losses from volatility of supply and demand in Brazil and the U.S. -- is under attack. . . .

The Caribbean sugar industry is so antiquated that it can't produce the fuel competitively from its own cane fields. Instead, Caribbean companies take on a middle step in the production process: They dehydrate the ethanol from its original state, then ship it to U.S. refiners, which add gasoline to make the fuel useable in American cars.

The dehydrating meets the U.S. requirement that products be "substantially transformed" in Caribbean Basin countries, if they don't originate there, to escape tariffs. Such techniques to satisfy trade rules often are controversial: In the 1980s and 1990s, Caribbean Basin countries ran afoul of U.S. apparel makers when they started finishing low-cost apparel from Asia and sending it on to the U.S., skirting trade barriers aimed at the Asian products.

U.S. farm-state lawmakers like Sen. Grassley say that merely siphoning water from ethanol shouldn't qualify Caribbean firms for tariff breaks. "It's subterfuge," he says.

We should get rid of the tariff, which -- as Grassley's state-of-the-union behavior illustrates -- is just a subsidy to domestic political interests. More thoughts on that here:

If Mr Bush were serious about ethanol, he'd let Brazil's in more cheaply, preferably tariff-free. This would boost both Brazilian farmers and America's ethanol infrastructure. Once all that expensive stuff starts to appear—pumping stations, distribution networks—American cellulosic ethanol (from switchgrass and whatnot) is a lot more likely to come onto the market and be competitive. Everyone wins but OPEC.

And Grassley's corngrowing constituents.

EUGENE VOLOKH notes some factual errors in the New York Times' coverage of today's Second Amendment decision from the D.C. Circuit.

UPDATE: Plus some interesting stuff from Blackstone on what that talk about "a free state" in the Second Amendment means. Or just go here to see a whole bunch of interesting posts on this case, all on one page.

POLITICAL WINDS shifting on Iraq? Obey's amusing.

UPDATE: More on Obey here. I liked this bit:

When The Hill contacted him Friday about the videotaped encounter, Obey immediately apologized for getting angry with the woman, saying that his immense frustration about “this stupid war” boiled over.

It reminded me of this:

The most memorable part of "Forrest Gump" is a scene set in or around 1968, in which Forrest, who by the way served in Vietnam, has encountered his love interest, Jenny, at an antiwar rally in Washington. Jenny gets into an argument with her hippie boyfriend, who slaps her in the face. Forrest decks the hippie, who later tries to smooth things over with Jenny: "Things got a little out of hand," he tells her. "It's just this war and that lying son of a bitch, Johnson! I would never hurt you. You know that."

Life imitates art imitating life. Or something.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN NOTES THAT the phony Plame narrative continues in spite of repeated debunkings. More here.

THIS SEEMS LIKE PRETTY GOOD NEWS:

The shadowy leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida-inspired group that challenged the authority of Iraq's government, was captured Friday in a raid on the western outskirts of Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman said.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was arrested along with several other insurgents in a raid in the town of
Abu Ghraib, said Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Baghdad security operation. U.S. officials had no confirmation of the capture and said they were looking into the report.

Al-Moussawi said al-Baghdadi admitted his identity, as did another "of the terrorists" who confirmed "that the one in our hands is al-Baghdadi."

The arrest of al-Baghdadi would be a major victory for U.S. and Iraqi forces in their fight against Sunni insurgents, especially the hardcore religious extremists who have shown no interest in negotiating an end to their struggle.

It also suggests that we're getting good intelligence, which is very important. Gateway Pundit has more.

MY EARLY WARNINGS about the Patriot Act seem to have borne at least some fruit, though I'll confess that things don't seem to have been as bad as I feared. Still, this is troubling:

The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.

And for three years the FBI has underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.

FBI agents sometimes demanded the data without proper authorization, according to the 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. At other times, the audit found, the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct.

Still, "we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities," the audit concludes.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: At the Counterterrorism Blog, this is called "troubling and inexcusable," but there's also this:

The problems identified by the IG are problems of process in terms of recordkeeping and reporting, which are administrative. The process in terms of operation and use of the information has not been problematic. The IG found no deliberate or intentional misuse of authority, meaning there were no infringements on privacy rights or civil liberties. Even though recordkeeping and reporting was inadequate, actual use of information was appropriate.

That's an important point.

18 DOUGHTY STREET looks at anti-Americanism at the BBC.

FURTHER THOUGHTS on the D.C. Second Amendment decision mentioned below.

MORE NEWS ON A FRED THOMPSON CANDIDACY as Howard Baker confirms rumors that he's pushing Thompson to run. Plus, a roundup here.

LUCAS SAYRE blogged Justice Ginsburg's talk at Indiana University. "Justice Ginsburg seemed to be moving pretty slowly. I realize she is advanced in years, but this echoes an article I read just last week that said she was moving more slowly than usual. That said, she was eloquent and quite engaging."

IN THE MAIL: Checkmate, a thriller by former National Security Council staffer Karna Small Bodman.

A HISTORY LESSON ON IRAQ, for those who need a reminder of what Democrats were saying a few years ago.

D.C. CIRCUIT STRIKES DOWN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GUN CONTROL LAW as a violation of the Second Amendment, adopts individual rights view. Howard Bashman has more, and the opinion is here. This is a very important development.

Some additional background on the Second Amendment can be found here, here and here.

UPDATE: Okay, I've given the majority opinion a very quick read. It's very much in line with the so-called "Standard Model" of individual rights scholarship, and also makes much of the Tennessee cases that I discuss here and that the Supreme Court noted in Miller. Seems like a very strong opinion; the dissent, on the other hand, looks a bit odd. I'm going to have to think about it a bit more to decide if it's really as flimsy as it seems.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Eugene Volokh notes the decision, and has some further thoughts about timing and the 2008 elections.

Perhaps the Democrats would be wise to take the issue off the table politically by passing some sort of federal legislation guaranteeing American citizens the right to own guns.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Tim Lynch at Cato weighs in.

MORE: Strangely, as of 6:45 pm there's not a word on this at Hit & Run. What, the Reason folks don't care about the Second Amendment anymore?

MORE INSURGENT ATTACKS, in Iran.

A.C. KLEINHEIDER calls the Fred Thompson run the campaign that will never happen. Er, unless . . . .

JAMES LILEKS ON CHRISTOPHER ROBIN'S REPLACEMENT:

Here’s the part that makes me truly sad:

The little girl wears a bike helmet.

Because you could fall down in the 100 Acre Woods and hurt yourself.

I swear, they’re going to put airbags on Barbie’s Pegasus next, and require thick corks on the point of all unicorn horns.

Anyway: I don’t mind that they’ve introduced a girl into the 100 Acre Woods, and as the father of a daughter I fully support the addition of female characters with whom my daughter could identify. But I know how I’d feel if I had a young boy. There are 100 acres. There’s not room enough for both?

Read the whole thing.

THOUGHTS ON INTELLECTUALS AND THE MILITARY, at The American Thinker.

HUNTING BIN LADEN in Waziristan. "It seems as if Dick Cheney's visit to Pakistan meant something rather significant for Musharraf. With AQ more active than any time in the last five years, and with Musharraf sitting on his hands, Cheney's visit was meant as an ultimatum for action. If Musharraf won't fight terrorists, then we have less interest in preventing his destabilization. Musharraf responded by arresting two senior members of the Taliban outside of Waziristan, and his lack of response thus far to American operations in Waziristan seems to indicate acquiescence to the new American policy."

JOHN TAMMES POSTS ANOTHER ROUNDUP OF NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN that you might have missed. It's his 50th roundup!

UH OH:

Anybody who has walked by the east side of the Capitol in the last few years knows that there's a big construction project going on. It's for an underground visitors center. Here's the shocking news: It's costing far more than originally planned and taking years longer than expected to complete . . . . If Congress cannot properly oversee a project that's taking place in its own backyard—literally!—then how can it oversee anything?

Is this a trick question?

SO MUCH FOR THE "100 HOURS:" The Democratic takeover of Congress doesn't seem to have done much for that body's public esteem.

Michael Yon sends this photo from Baghdad, and emails: "Saddam said our soldiers couldn't take the heat. He thought wrong."

Visit his site, if you haven't. And remember that he, like other independent blogger-journalists like Michael Totten, Bill Roggio, and Bill Ardolino -- and independent documentarians like Pat Dollard or J.D. Johannes -- is dependent on reader/viewer contributions for support. So if you like his work, consider donating. Meanwhile, I'll note that Saddam also thought our politicians couldn't take the heat, and it isn't clear yet whether he was wrong about that, though he's certainly in no position to find out.

MORE GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS, from Jules Crittenden.

VIDEO-PEDICURE BLOGGING. As far as I know, this hasn't been done before . . . .

March 08, 2007

WHY IS THIS NEWSPAPER going after a blogger who reported (truthfully, it appears) on a local politician? Rogers Cadenhead wants to know: "I've been reading the Record for a decade. I can't recall a single time where it conducted an effort to catch a rapist, robber or murderer anywhere near the scope of this manhunt for a blogger."

RANDY BARNETT plugs the Institute for Humane Studies summer seminars.

WILL REUTERS BE AN EARLY ADOPTER? "A suite of photo-authentication tools under development by Adobe Systems could make it possible to match a digital photo to the camera that shot it, and to detect some improper manipulation of images, Wired News has learned."

DON SURBER: Fire Alberto Gonzales: "The Bush administration has gone after corporate and congressional crooks, regardless of party. The actions of Gonzales allow that sterling record to be smeared. Kick him to the curb. Hard. Fast."

ETHANOL HYPOCRITES: If Bush is for it, they're against it. Maybe that's his new way of helping out his oil buddies . . . .

TOM SMITH: "Here's what we should do: Give veterans enough benefits so they can afford to get the care they deserve from private sources. You could do this with medical vouchers. It would be cheaper than supporting the inefficient and notorious VA hospital system, and it would result in better care for people who really deserve much better care than they are getting. The line I used to hear from LWJ when she rotated through VA hospitals in her training was, it's a good thing veterans are so tough, because VA care would kill anybody else. That ain't right. "

OBAMA'S STOCK TRADES: Professor Bainbridge thinks there's no scandal there for Obama, though he notes a larger Congressional issue.

JIHAD OR INSURGENCY: Richard Fernandez looks at what's going on in Thailand. "Largely ignored by, and hence unknown to the West, it is the most lethal insurgency in Southeast Asia. In the wake of the most recent attacks an army spokesman believed that unidentified insurgent forces were trying to intimidate ethnic Chinese — who celebrate the New Year holiday — into fleeing the predominantly Muslim region. Even so, no organization has claimed responsibility for the direction of the insurgency."

YAHOO! BEING SUED for ratting out Chinese dissident. And Yahoo! is getting slammed by the VOA.

535 ways to make a point.

WISCONSIN UPDATE: "Sensitivities take precedence over truth and academic freedom."

And they shouldn't.

UPDATE: "Process overdue."

MICHAEL TOTTEN GOES on the record with IDF Intelligence.

WELL, IF YOU INSIST: "PorkBusters, take a bow. After 20 years of writing editorials denouncing this crap and seeing only occasional success, it is nice to see bloggers take up the cause and carry the ball forward." But don't get cocky.

IT'S ALL FRED THOMPSON, ALL THE TIME, at Michael Silence's News-Sentinel blog. Just keep scrolling!

PORN FREE: Jeff Goldstein weighs in on a scandal I've barely noticed. Hey, that's why the blogosphere is a big place. I don't have to notice everything!

UPDATE: Jeff's post is fine, but if you're worried about NSFW content you might want to be careful about following some of the links.

HMM. IT SEEMS AS IF THIS deserves more attention: "The Senate’s anti-terrorism bill would relax visa requirements for foreign travelers coming to the United States, a move that some worry will leave the country more vulnerable to a terrorist attack."

On the other hand, as long as it's that easy for Saudis to get here, how much difference does it make?

FITZI'S HONOR: Tom Maguire has some uncomplimentary thoughts.

CAPITALISM FOR CAMPESINOS: "At stake is the liberation of the poor."

AN ARMY OF STACEYS: Just found out that one of my cousins has gone into the online chocolate business. Looks yummy, but so far my family connection has failed to yield any free samples. Probably just as well for my waistline, though chocolate does count as a health food nowadays . . . .

The Glenn and Helen Show: Duncan Hunter on Why He Wants to Be President

We talk to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) about why he wants to be President. We caught up with Rep. Hunter as he was getting ready to go to Iraq, and talked with him about the war, gun control, stem cell research and cloning, and much more. (His core principles statement is online, but we noticed a surprising omission.) Plus, what his son learned serving in Fallujah.

You can listen directly -- no download needed -- by going here, or you can download the entire file by clicking right here. A lo-fi version suitable for dialup is available by going here and selecting lo-fi. And, of course, you can subscribe for free via iTunes, and you should!

As always, my lovely and talented cohost is taking comments and suggestions.

Music is by Doug Weinstein's acid jazz band, XTemp, from the album Bugsy's World. (Sadly, it's not available online.) This podcast is brought to you by Volvo USA.

A LOOK AT genocide in Zimbabwe.

AUSTIN BAY WAS ON NPR THIS MORNING, talking about his new book, Embrace the Suck: A Pocket Guide to Milspeak. You can listen to the story here.

Nice pic of Austin, too.

C-SPAN OPENS UP: "Under pressure from bloggers and other Internet activists, the network that broadcasts congressional hearings has agreed to grant public access to many of its video feeds." Read the whole thing.

And bravo for C-SPAN, as this is an excellent thing. And might I suggest that they make it possible to embed video in a YouTube fashion -- or better yet, like MotionBox, which lets you set links to multiple locations within a video.

AN ARMY OF DONS: Don Williams was a regular columnist in my local paper, the Knoxville News-Sentinel. He left the paper over creative differences, and has now started writing for Randy "SKBubba" Neal's local news/opinion site KnoxViews. Don and I disagree rather sharply on the war, etc., but he's a good guy -- plus, as is common with these "sharp political divisions," we actually agree on lots more stuff than we disagree on, really -- and I'm helping him get set up with blogging, too. What's interesting is that he will probably wind up reaching more people this way than via the News-Sentinel's oped page. And given their niggardly payments to outside columnists, he may even make more money.

MORE GOOD NEWS FOR GIULIANI: "A new poll shows Rudy Giuliani taking two of the three crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio from Hillary Rodham Clinton by winning over independents and nearly breaking even with her bread and butter - female voters." He does even better against Obama. But as I've noted before, it's awfully early yet. Still, I suspect this will stoke pre-emptive attacks against Giuliani in the media.

UPDATE: It's already started. But if this is the best they can do, it won' t do much.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

IF YOU HAVEN'T CHECKED IT OUT YET, the New York Sun's Politics Blog is worth a look.

DALE CARPENTER LOOKS AT THE HATE-CRIMES TEMPTATION:

Aside from punishing offenders — which should happen anyway under existing law and which could be enhanced without creating special categories of protection — the purpose of a hate crimes law seems entirely symbolic. While I'm not unmoved by the symbolic value of law, I'm opposed in principle to criminal laws of purely symbolic value. Opposition to purely symbolic criminal laws was a good reason, for example, to oppose sodomy laws, which were a largely symbolic (and very partial) reinforcement of traditional sexual morality. . . .

No doubt national gay-rights groups are looking for some kind of win early in the new Congress to show long-suffering donors they can be effective. Winning on hate crimes may also reassure members of Congress that they can vote for a pro-gay bill without serious repercussion. Other important issues — like a federal employment protection bill and repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" — are on the horizon. An "anti-crime" measure is the easiest first step to take and may actually get President Bush's signature, leading to more progress later.

But I am concerned that passing this seemingly symbolic bill may instead give the new Congress a "pass" — freeing it to avoid the harder and far more consequential questions of employment, military service, and protecting gay families in the law. These are all issues about which Congress really can do something of practical value.

Read the whole thing. The "hate crime" approach has been a disaster in Europe, and I think it would be a mistake to emulate it here. We discuss this topic with Presidential candidate Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) in our Glenn and Helen Show podcast that will be up later this morning.

WELL, DUH: "More Tennessee women carry guns." Nice to see this bit, though:

Officials from the Tennessee Department of Safety say it is not clear why women have signed up to carry handguns at such an increased rate the past two years. Before 1996, local sheriffs' offices issued the permits.

But gun experts, such as Barbara Oonk of Nashville, say that women are increasingly exercising their gun ownership rights in light of concerns about crime.

"Why should we not have something to protect ourselves?" said Oonk, the Tennessee representative for the Second Amendment Sisters, a national organization promoting female gun ownership. "Why should we let someone else have their way, when you could protect yourself?

"There is so much crime going on, and it is proven that states that have carry laws see less crime. If everybody is carrying, there would be less crime."

There was a time when passages like this wouldn't have made it into mainstream media.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE LOOKS AT DEFENSE PORK, with a Walter Reed twist.

SONY UNVEILS A FREE VIRTUAL WORLD for owners of the PlayStation 3. It's sort of like Second Life:

Comparable to Second Life, PlayStation Home is a virtual community of PS3 owners living together in both public and private environments. Users will be able to login, chat with both text and speech and play casual games together such as pool, bowling and even embedded arcade machines. And when the old stand-bys grow stale, users can invite one another into other PlayStation Network titles outside of PlayStation Home.

Every user will have their own virtual apartment to decorate with furniture, their trophies from various games (see: achievements) and content from their own PS3s. For example, Phil Harrison took a snapshot of us in the crowd, slapped it onto a USB stick and right into a picture frame in his virtual flat. Not content at just images, users will also be allowed to share both music and videos with friends inside their private homes, which will most likely lead to some sort of underground pornography syndicate on the PlayStation Network.

Follow the link for photos and video. I have to say, it looks pretty cool. Put this together with Sony's Internet HDTV project and it's clear that they're pushing into the Internet in a big way. The PlayStation 3 still seems kind of hard to get, though.

NEO-NEOCON EXPLAINS how to do podcasting on the cheap. And the product is pretty good!

March 07, 2007

GOOD NEWS:

A former Iranian deputy defense minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guard has left his country and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran's ties to the organization, according to a senior U.S. official.

Ali Rez Asgari disappeared last month during a visit to Turkey. Iranian officials suggested yesterday that he may have been kidnapped by Israel or the United States. The U.S. official said Asgari is willingly cooperating. He did not divulge Asgari's whereabouts or specify who is questioning him, but made clear that the information Asgari is offering is fully available to U.S. intelligence.

The mullahs can't be happy about this.

A RIGHT TO VIDEOTAPE PUBLIC MEETINGS in New Jersey. Makes sense to me.

GIULIANI IN THE LEAD: "A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that among Republicans, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has climbed into a solid lead for his party's nomination for the White House. Boasting support across his party's ideological spectrum, Mr. Giuliani leads Arizona Sen. John McCain by 55% to 34% in a head to head match of the two top Republican candidates." But it's early yet.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Here's some good news:

Tax money spent on small projects that only benefit one congressional district or region are often slipped into legislation at the 11th hour — a time-worn and much criticized part of Congress known as pork-barrel spending.

Each year the Citizens Against Government Waste exposes that pork in its annual "Congressional Pig Book." The group had no problem sniffing out the pork this year, although it says it "will be a smaller pig than usual."

The private, nonpartisan organization says that reduction is a welcome change from past pork-barrel spending levels.

Why the change in 2006 spending? Partly because only two of the 11 proposed spending bills were passed last year, giving legislators fewer places to hide the pork. Also, the new Democratic Congress enforced a moratorium on earmarks, the projects that members slip into appropriations legislation usually without the full scrutiny of Congress.

Pelosi has been pretty good on pork so far. Let's hope she sticks with that. And certainly the overall reduction in pork is good news.

UPDATE: Does PorkBusters deserve more credit than the ABC article gives it? Probably, but I was trying to be modest . . . .

OXLEY recants. No word yet from Sarbanes . . . .

IOWAHAWK OFFERS a dialogue on civility. Featuring Ann Coulter and Bill Maher.

"BY GEORGE W., I think she's got it."

CLINTON LIED, PEOPLE DIED: Over at AlterNet, a lefty critique of Hillary Clinton on the war:

Hillary Clinton knew years before she voted for the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs -- Bill Clinton lied about Iraq's weapons programs to justify attacking the country in 1998. . . . While many Americans today condemn the Bush administration for misleading them with false claims of unsubstantiated threats which resulted in the ongoing debacle we face today in Iraq (count Hillary among this crowd), few have reflected back on the day when the man from Hope, Arkansas sat in the Oval Office and initiated the policies of economic sanctions-based containment and regime change which President Bush later brought to fruition when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Well, that part's certainly true, as the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 illustrates. But he says that like it's a bad thing.

UPDATE: Reader Jon Deur emails:

When you said “that part’s certainly true” were you including the notion that “Hillary Clinton knew years before she voted for the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs -- Bill Clinton lied about Iraq's weapons programs to justify attacking the country in 1998”? There seem to be more people who are buying into the notion that Bush lied—and so did everyone before him. It’s preposterous. Care to clarify your post?

I meant the part about regime-change as a policy originating with Clinton. Sorry -- that seemed obvious to me.

ANTHONY LEWIS: "I do not think the press can have both the Sullivan decision and a privilege not to testify in civil cases. Otherwise the decision would be a license for reckless or even deliberate falsification, which the author of the Sullivan opinion, Justice William J. Brennan Jr., certainly did not favor."

But read the whole thing.

SITTING ON THE STORY at the Nashville Tennessean.

Plus, "carbon offsets" as an employee benefit? I think I'd prefer a dental plan.

UPDATE: Here's the Nashville Scene article.

HOCKEY FANS AT GITMO, with John Ondrasik, who played for the troops at Guantanamo Bay. Plus, "an iguana the size of my five-year-old daughter." Ondrasik is writing a regular column for Sports Illustrated's website now. You can hear our podcast interview with him here.

MORE ON THE WISCONSIN STORY at Inside Higher Ed.:

Certain kinds of statements “trigger fast reactions,” Knight said. “There have been occasions when the reactions were well founded,” he said. “But there have been others that were not well founded or were somehow in between, so a dose of prudence and caution is always useful.”

Knight said he was not bothered by administrators acknowledging the pain felt by those offended by something alleged to have been said — the pain being real even if the person never said the words in question. But Knight said he worried about holding forums for people to express their pain when the facts were still being gathered, as happened at Wisconsin. “That can create its own dynamics, which is a problem,” he said. “In creating a forum, inevitably that will suggest that there is a real problem. The forum is not being held to discuss a perception, but what seems to be a reality i.e. that someone has said something that is racist or sexist or vilely offensive.”

He added that while it is “laudable for administrators to pay heed to community sentiments, that can come at a quick and high cost to the sense of freedom necessary for faculty to teach controversial and sensitive subjects.”

Administrators with a bit more backbone would be nice, too. Law schools are supposed to understand due process.

GREEN ENERGY FROM underwater wind turbines.

Plus, Tim Blair takes on "abundance denialists."

THE WASHINGTON POST ON THE LIBBY PROSECUTION:

The fall of this skilled and long-respected public servant is particularly sobering because it arose from a Washington scandal remarkable for its lack of substance. It was propelled not by actual wrongdoing but by inflated and frequently false claims, and by the aggressive and occasionally reckless response of senior Bush administration officials -- culminating in Mr. Libby's perjury.

Mr. Wilson was embraced by many because he was early in publicly charging that the Bush administration had "twisted," if not invented, facts in making the case for war against Iraq. In conversations with journalists or in a July 6, 2003, op-ed, he claimed to have debunked evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger; suggested that he had been dispatched by Mr. Cheney to look into the matter; and alleged that his report had circulated at the highest levels of the administration.

A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false -- and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife. When this fact, along with Ms. Plame's name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.

The partisan furor over this allegation led to the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame's name. In fact, he learned early on that Mr. Novak's primary source was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, an unlikely tool of the White House. The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert.

It would have been sensible for Mr. Fitzgerald to end his investigation after learning about Mr. Armitage. Instead, like many Washington special prosecutors before him, he pressed on, pursuing every tangent in the case.

Indeed. (Via Extreme Mortman). I suspect that the press will come to regret the precedent set here.

UPDATE: More thoughts here -- plus, waiting for David Gregory.

BACKSTAGE AT THE SECULAR ISLAM SUMMIT: A video report from Andrew Marcus.

UPDATE: Motionbox video player removed because it was slowing page loads for some people. You can still see the video by following the link above, and I highly recommend it.

EMBRACE THE MACHINE!

An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by South Korea.

The Robot Ethics Charter will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007.

It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer.

The South Korean government has identified robotics as a key economic driver and is pumping millions of dollars into research.

"The government plans to set ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots as robots are expected to develop strong intelligence in the near future," the ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said.

Interesting. Remember, robots are people too -- or at least they will be someday!

TALKING ABOUT a Libby pardon?

JOHN ROSENBERG: The New York Times,The Nation, et. al. Were Right!

NORAH VINCENT'S BOOK, Self-Made Man, is now out in paperback. You can hear our podcast interview with Norah here.

PANIC IN TEHRAN: "The disappearance and possible defection of former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asgari has the Iranian government deeply worried — and for good reason. . . . Asgari’s disappearance is a sign that cracks are appearing in Iran’s intelligence community. The very fact that someone as senior as he was able to disappear without a trace, is in itself a signal that the regime may be losing its grip on observation and security of major human assets." Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Here's more from Jules Crittenden.

A NEW GLOBAL WARMING STRATEGY: Where do I purchase "sirloin offsets?"

MORE CRITICISM OF "THE JEWISH LOBBY."

PICKING A FAIR USE FIGHT with C-SPAN.

ANOTHER BIG-MEDIA plagiarism scandal. But it's no big deal, because . . . er, just because.

A SWINDLE? Surely not.

MICKEY KAUS: "I come down somewhere in between the 2001 Sullivan and the 2007 Sullivan. Maybe 2003. ... But there's always 2008!"

IT'S NEVER TOO SOON to get ready for Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Plus, board books for babies.

RON BAILEY:

You Wonder What Universal Government Health Care Might Look Like....

Well, look no further than the scandalous mess at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Crappy hospitals, endless waits, mountains of paperwork and, at the end of the day, no real accountability from the people who run the joint. Folks, if the government can't or won't take good care of our injured soldiers, what makes you think that it will take good care of little Sally or Uncle Bill?

Health care in the United States is screwed up. This is largely due to bad government policies, e.g., third party payment encouraged through the tax code and multiplying state insurance mandates that unnecessarily boost costs. As the example of Walter Reed is warning us, putting total control of all health care in the hands of those who wrecked it in first place--Congress, states and federal agencies--is the wrong way to go.

Indeed.

THE WEATHER STORY that's not topping the news.

COMPUTER PROGRAM BUSTED FOR practicing law without a license. Well, sort of.

IN RESPONSE TO MY POST ON BRIAN WILLIAMS, BELOW, Michael Yon emails: "Here's a photo that's not been published. Brian Williams, Richard Engle and GEN(R) Wayne Downing. They are staying a few tents down from me."

If you haven't been checking out Yon's site, be sure to do so.

UPDATE: Sissy Willis emails: "Surfing last night, I caught the tail end of a fascinating bit of the unwatchable O'Reilly Factor. They were showing clips of the Brian Williams report and saying NBC had been driven by market forces to send him over there to get something original. Won't it be grand if the bottom line forces the MSM to get the other half of the story?" Ah, the power of those market forces. . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Readers are suspicious. Shirley Nelson emails: "Isn't it quite a coincidence that now when Democrats are obviously not going to be pulling the plug on the war until after 2008 elections that we see the MSM reporting some 'good news' over there about the surge? I don't buy the free market argument for why they are reporting there since that pressure has existed for quite some time. It gives the Democrats some breathing room when things aren't so 'bad.' We won't hear MSM utter a good word about Bush for the next two years regarding the war, that's for sure. Just wait until the 2008 elections get nearer, we'll hear nothing but doom."

And John Eddy looks at the bright side of cynicism: "The cynic inside me says NBC is starting the process of slowing down the 'pull out now'" meme to save the Democrats from themselves. The optimist in me says the cynic is right, but who cares? It's time the MSM took a stab at actual reporting." They can't leave it all to Michael Yon, I guess.

March 06, 2007

ANOTHER radio payola scandal.

ERNEST GALLO DIES AT 97. Maybe wine-drinking does extend life! I'm not going to take any chances . . . .

But beware the counterfeit wines!

MICKEY KAUS: "Impeach Cheney or impeach Russert? Arianna must choose!"

PROTESTS in Iran.

THE NIKON 18-200 VR LENS: I wrote about it a while ago. Since then I got one, and I've reviewed it for Popular Mechanics, with some sample photos. You can read the whole thing here.

THOUGHTS ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, and Love.

BRIAN WILLIAMS' REPORTING FROM IRAQ GETS HIGH MARKS FROM THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE:

Kudos to Brian Williams and NBC.

Read the whole thing. Also note this from Williams on Hardball, and this report from ABC on good news about the surge.

JEFF JARVIS LOOKS AT 18 DOUGHTY STREET:

On 18 Doughty Street, the network, Dale is making at least five hours of live TV a night, five nights a week from 7p to midnight and he’s about to expand into America with a deal to use the Arlington, Virginia, studios of the Leadership Institute, and an offer to use the Heritage Foundation’s satellites. So they will feature more American guests and will rebroadcast their shows so East-Coast Americans can watch from 7p-midnight local time. Dale is amazed — as am I — that no one has done this in America and if he weren’t busy in London, he’d make that American network. Someone surely will.

18 Doughty has nightly news updates, talk shows (one with bloggers), and hour-long interviews with politicians (even they are surprised they get to talk for so long). They are about to enable viewers — 100 of whom (including a deputy assistant secretary of state in the U.S.) were given video cameras — to upload pieces; the best will be aired each night.

Very cool.

CAROL PLATT LIEBAU WENT TO LAW SCHOOL WITH BARACK OBAMA, and has nice things to say about him.

GIULIANI ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: A report from Austin Bay.

THE ALTHOUSE VORTEX claims another victim. What's with Campos going after one lawprof after another? I imagine him thumbing through the Directory of American Law Teachers every week in search of a column topic . . . .

JEFF GOLDSTEIN ON free speech, political identity, and the post-Coulter debate.

I continue to think that ignoring Coulter is probably the best policy, but alas that's not always possible, which is why I signed the letter suggesting that she not be invited back to CPAC. Related thoughts here.

UPDATE: Goldstein's also having a fundraising drive.

ZUMBO IS BACK, and SayUncle is convinced.

MORE RUMORS of a Fred Thompson candidacy.

JUST A REMINDER THAT THE LIBBY CONVICTION DOESN'T VINDICATE JOE WILSON:

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

Just a reminder.

A LOOK AT THE HAWKISH AL GORE: Could we have that Al Gore back, please?

IF YOU CAN'T CONTROL THE VIOLENCE, you can at least try to control the reporting:

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

Bah. (Via Rand Simberg).

CONFESSIONS of a (former) Verizon sales rep.

THE RUSSIANS DON'T SEEM TO LIKE the idea of a McCain Presidency.

"ASK ME ABOUT MY GRANDBABIES:" Nice bumper sticker, bad campaign slogan.

TONY MAURO notes that it's the 150th anniversary of Dred Scott.

LIBBY GUILTY: Tom Maguire has the scoop: "Let's be clear - when the Yankees lose, I am both disappointed and surprised; today I am disappointed."

UPDATE: Liveblogging.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's a big roundup on the Libby verdict from Pajamas Media.

Will a pardon be forthcoming? My guess is Bush will wait till the end, a la Clinton and Bush I, but who knows?

MORE: Mark Daniels wonders if Dick Cheney will resign.

STILL MORE: Further thoughts here: "The whole Libby affair remains something of a mystery. President Bush ordered all executive branch personnel to cooperate with the Fitzgerald investigation. Other people, apparently including Dick Cheney, told investigators that they had discussed Wilson and Plame with Libby. It's hard to understand why Libby's testimony was so out of step with that of the other Executive Branch witnesses. At the end of the day, imperfect memory seemed as good an explanation as any. But the jury didn't see it that way." Nope.

A juror is interviewed.

Plus, is the GOP doomed in 2008?

And Intrade has already opened a futures market on whether Libby will be pardoned.

MORE STILL: A roundup of comments from legal experts at the WSJ. It's a free link to nonsubscribers.

CHANGING POSITIONS ON IRAN: It's actually a brilliant strategy to keep the mullahs guessing about our true intentions!

FORGET POLITICS: Doug Weinstein has set up a new blog about movies and HDTV. Trust me, he's playing to his strengths!

AN AMUSING LOOK AT cell-phone feature bloat.

IN THE MAIL: Dennis Ross's Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World.

Any guy that Jimmy Carter's afraid to debate can't be all bad. Though that's a big list these days . . . .

FAIR, BALANCED, and censored.

THE SECULAR ISLAM SUMMIT hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. But here's a column by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal. (Link should work for a few days). Excerpt:

Undersecretary Hughes is not at this summit, of course, nor is anyone else from the State Department, nor is the U.S.-funded al-Hurra Arabic TV station -- facts archly noted by the conferees. In the quasi-official U.S. view, the speakers at this conference amount to an exotic, publicity-seeking fringe group, with whom close association is politically unwise.

Al-Jazeera, however, is here, suggesting that the real Arab mainstream better appreciates the broad interest the conference's speakers attract in the Muslim world, as well as their latent power. Perhaps this is the flip side of the appeal of extremist Islam, an indication that what Muslims are mainly looking for are radical alternatives to the unpalatable mush of unpopular autocratic governments, state-approved clerics like Sheikh Tantawi, and Saudi-funded "mainstream" organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations. . . .

A fair bit of U.S. government money is being spent on conference security, including from the FBI. Still, it's remarkable that the government, given the huge resources available from places like the National Endowment for Democracy, provides no funding or support for this conference or its various participants.

Here are two questions for the government: If Mr. Warraq, Dr. Sultan et al. are really irrelevant to the larger Muslim debate, why are the jihadists so eager to kill them? And if the jihadists want to kill them, don't they deserve support as well as security?

Read the whole thing, and reflect that the Bush Administration still seems to be behind the curve on the "public diplomacy" front.

There's also the conference's St. Petersburg declaration, which is well worth reading. (Video at the link, too.) Excerpt:

We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience. We believe in the equality of all human persons.

We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.

We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. These values do not belong to the West or the East; they are the common moral heritage of humankind.

And while the media have mostly ignored this, Gateway Pundit has been all over it. Here's video of Nonie Darwish, and here's video of Wafa Sultan. Plus, don't miss this big roundup. Who says bloggers don't do original reporting?

KIDS GET FATTER OVER SUMMER VACATION?

Why children would become less fit over the summer is not clear. It may be, the study said, that outside the limits of a school setting, children are even less physical and eat even worse.

Jeez.

BOOMERS COMPLAIN MORE ABOUT THEIR HEALTH than people the same age from earlier generations, leading John Tier