September 29, 2007

INDEED: "Call it Spook's Inverse Law of Iraq War Reporting: if you don't see a spate of stories on U.S. casualties at the end of the month, then there must be some good news the MSM is ignoring."

HSU WANTS A REDO:

When a San Mateo County judge accepted Democratic financier Norman Hsu's no-contest plea on a grand theft charge 15 years ago, nearly everyone expected Hsu would return to court a few weeks later and be sentenced to three years in prison by that same judge.

Instead, the defendant went on the lam in 1992. Veteran judge Aram Serverian retired in 2000.

Now that Hsu is finally back in court, his attorney says the old plea agreement should be tossed out because Serverian is unavailable to impose the sentence.

That's an audacious move.

TIM RUTTEN ON AHMADINEJAD AND COLUMBIA: "One of the world's truly dangerous men, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left New York a clear winner this week, and he can thank the arrogance of the American academy and most of the U.S. news media's studied indifference for his victory. If the blood-drenched history of the century just past had taught American academics one thing, it should have been that the totalitarian impulse knows no accommodation with reason. You cannot change the totalitarian mind through dialogue or conversation, because totalitarianism -- however ingenious the superstructure of faux ideas with which it surrounds itself -- is a creature of the will and not the mind. That's a large lesson, but what should have made Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia University this week a wholly avoidable debacle was the school's knowledge of its own, very specific history."

Read the whole thing. And some of the comments to his post show that the Silvershirts' descendants are still active, condemning America and excusing dictators.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

NEWT WON'T RUN: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organization, a spokesman said Saturday."

HMM: Biological Basis For Creativity Linked To Mental Illness.

ERIC SCHEIE starring on XM. They should give him his own show.

DISRESPECTING THE MARINES in Oakland.

UPDATE: Or is the report a hoax?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Apparently not.

INVASION OF THE body politic snatchers?

MONKS AND BLOGGERS in Burma.

MEGAN MCARDLE:

This is basically the narrative of The Big Con: we used to have this terrific economy with low inequality and a growing government share of national income, with everyone except a few rich malcontents happy, then this giant Republican conspiracy to make us all hate taxes came along and lured us off the Yellow Brick Road and onto the Road to Perdition.

This seems an odd belief to hold in a nation that was basically founded in a tax revolt. A modestly comprehensive perusal of pre-1970 literature reveals that Americans seem to have hated taxes all along. And why wouldn't they? Taxes don't need any special conspiracy to make you hate them, at least if you are among the majority of people who would rather have more money in your pocket than less. . . .

But perhaps even more importantly, it's not clear that 1980-2007 are the anomalies in American public sentiment about taxes. On the contrary, I think I can make a better case that 1945-1970 was the oddity. While incomes were growing rapidly, and inflation wasn't, the American public was willing to accept a higher tax burden because even after taxes, they felt a lot richer. As soon as productivity growth slowed (and therefore growth in real incomes), people started to feel the pinch of a growing tax burden, particularly since inflation was pushing them into tax brackets originally meant for "the rich".

What does this say about the next decade?

SOME MORE VERY NICE Manhattan photos.

SOME IMPORTANT fashion advice for men.

A RECIPE FOR FRIED RAVIOLI. It sounds delicious -- and oh-so-dietetic!

LAWFARE: When legal news on the war on terror isn't news.

THE SHORT, HAPPY LIFE of a Russian anti-corruption investigator. Emphasis on the "short."

IN THE AMERICAN THINKER, this analysis: "There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy." Read the whole thing, and hope that he's right.

AT BOINGBOING, some Velvet Underground video.

A GPS ADVICE BLEG.

"FAKE SOLDIERS:" It goes way beyond antiwar faker Jesse MacBeth: "How serious is the problem of 'phony soldiers?' Congress last year passed legislation to allow prosecution of people who claimed medals that they had not earned. It passed both the House and Senate unanimously. It was introduced by Congressman John Salazar (D-CO), whose press release on the measure lists several phony heroes."

IN THE MAIL: Walter Russell Mead's new book, God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. According to the blurb: "With wit, verve, and stunning insight, Mead recounts what is, in effect, the story of a centuries-long war between the English-speaking peoples and their enemies."

MORE ETHANOL DOWNSIDE: "Soaring food prices, driven in part by demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash the amount of food aid the government buys to its lowest level in a decade, possibly resulting in more hungry people around the world this year."

JOHN MCCAIN: Boot Burma out of ASEAN.

THOUGHTS ON FREE SPEECH AND ACCOUNTABILITY, from Adam Blinick.

Plus, it's always the bloggers' fault when you get caught. "My Jihad plan would have worked, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids!"

ENTITLEMENTS FOR THE UNBORN? Greg Mankiw has some questions about Hillary's baby-bond proposal: "How might this be funded? There are only three groups that could be asked to pay for the new entitlement with higher taxes (or lower benefits): the current elderly, those currently of working age, or the same future generations who are getting the new benefit and are slated to pay for existing unfunded entitlements. Which group do you think Senator Clinton has in mind?"

IN THE ATLANTIC, Robert Kaplan defends Blackwater: "For all the notoriety of private military contractors like Blackwater, they represent an important aspect of the future of war. And that future is not all bad."

September 28, 2007

PARKER V. D.C.: I've got a modest essay on cases that may come before the Supreme Court this term, in the latest issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review. InstaPundit readers are likely to be most interested in my discussion of Parker v. District of Columbia, the case in which the D.C. gun ban was overturned by the D.C. Circuit.

You can download the essay for free right here. The Parker discussion starts on page 13.

VACLAV HAVEL: "The international community's failure to act means watching helplessly as victims of repression in Burma are consigned to their fate."

I'd feel better about things if he were Secretary-General of the UN.

WEALTH AND POVERTY:

Even though the wealth gap is a positive in most economies for driving the economic creativity of those not-yet-rich, much is made of it in the media and among politicians who worry about individual wealth consolidation even more than they do the corporate kind. A quick look at the Forbes 400 would surely assuage some of their fears.

Indeed, of the charter members of the first Forbes 400, only 32 remain today. Far from a country where only the rich get richer, the wealthy in the US are very much a moving target. While there are 74 Forbes 400 members who inherited their entire fortune, 270 members are entirely self-made. Though many attended Harvard, Yale and Princeton, there are countless stories within of high school and college dropouts, not to mention others who grew up extremely poor. Politicians who regularly engage in class warfare would do well to keep the Forbes 400 out of the hands of their constituents, because it makes a mockery of the kind "Two Americas" rhetoric suggesting the existence of a glass ceiling that keeps hard workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. To read the Forbes 400 is to know with surety that the U.S. is still very much the land of opportunity.

(Via Greg Mankiw).

WOMAN STUCK IN CAR FOR EIGHT DAYS, as authorities dawdled in the face of her husband's missing-person reports. It seems they were more interested in seeing if he'd killed her than in finding her:

"I basically hounded them until they started a case and then, of course, I was the first focal point, so I tried to get myself out of the way as quickly as possible. I let them search the house. I told them they didn't have to have a warrant for anything, just ask," he said.

Thursday morning, detectives asked him to come in to sign for a search of phone records. They also asked him to take a polygraph test.

"By the time he was done explaining the polygraph test to me, the detective burst into the room with a cell phone map that had a circle on it," he said.

His wife's car tumbled about 20 feet down a ravine and lay buried below brush and blackberry bushes. The air bags deployed, but she was injured and trapped. Rescuers had to cut the roof off to get her out.

"I know there were delays (in finding her) because of red tape," Tom Rider said.

Nice work, King County. Reader Tom Gunther reports something he saw that's also bad:

During the segment report on GMA it was mentioned that her husband did not notify authorities until four days after she was last scene. The husband then appeared live with (I believe) a King County police officer, and Diane Sawyer asked the husband about this. The husband responded to the effect that the report was not accurate he called earlier but was told by the authorities that her wife is an independent woman and can go where she pleases. Sawyer did not press the King County official about this issue.

After eight days trapped in a wrecked vehicle, I'm sure she appreciates their concern for her freedom.

INSTEAD OF DONATING MONEY TO YALE, I wish I could invest it with them.

EMERGENCY TEXT-MESSAGING.

AT BLACKFIVE, some big news in the world of lawfare.

WELL, DANG: I missed National Punctuation Day.

OUCH: "One could glean a more accurate and comprehensive view of Latin American economic conditions by renting Evita."

ANDREW BREITBART on Hollywood's hostile work environment.

ILYA SOMIN looks at federalism and politics in the United Federation of Planets.

A HYDROGEN HYBRID TOYOTA. With excellent range between fillups.

A "PERFECT STORM OF DISGRACE."

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find out what it means to me.

AL GORE: Missing in Action?

THE SUNSTEIN/REYNOLDS DISCUSSION CONTINUES, at the University of Chicago Law Faculty Blog.

SLOW-COOKER DOWNSIDE: I'm making the Lamb and Guinness Stew, and I'm home, and it smells so good it's hard not to eat some early. The Insta-Wife has been ravenous all day.

REPORT: Bionic Woman lives up to the hype.

THOUGHTS ON ADVANCING WIND POWER, from Jonathan Adler.

I'D BUY IT! Nanotechnology-enhanced food:

Scientists at Rice University in Houston raised their fruit flies on a diet of yeast-and-nanotube paste, and then used an infrared camera to watch the progress of the tubes as they passed through the flies’ digestive systems, and in some cases were absorbed into the flies’ organs. The study found that nanotube-fed flies grew just as big and lived just as long as flies fed plain yeast, adding another data point to a simmering debate.

Some previous studies have found that inhaling nanotubes causes inflamed tissue in mice and rats, and causes cell death in lab tests. But other tests have found no evidence of toxicity, leading to claims of faulty experimental design on both sides.

But not until they can make it taste like steak. Related item here.

BURMA BLOWBACK FOR CHINA: Boycotting Lenovo Thinkpads.

NATIONAL REVIEW: "The situation with the Romulan Empire is rapidly becoming the defining crisis of our age."

THE ANCHORESS: Not begrudging the rich their riches.

YOU CAN CRACK DOWN, but you can't hide: "Satellite images confirm reports of burned villages, forced relocations and other human-rights abuses in Myanmar, scientists said on Friday."

DEMS IN IRAQ 'TIL 2013: The latest Corn & Miniter Show is up!

JOHN LEO REGARDS LEE BOLLINGER'S RECENT TALK about free speech at Columbia as hypocritical:

Last October, Columbia radicals stormed a campus stage, knocking over furniture, creating pandemonium and preventing speeches by Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist and a colleague. Nobody seemed very upset about this, least of all Lee Bollinger, who issued a tiny bleat about free speech before referring the issue to a committee where it languished for three months. Awakening briefly on Christmas weekend, the committee administered an undescribed slap on the wrist to an unknown number of unidentified members of the censoring rabble and there the matter ended.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), now the most powerful free-speech watchdog in the country, dismissed Bollinger’s "say-one-thing-do-another-act" and noted that Columbia "has a long and distinguished record of suppression of free speech." Mayor Bloomberg echoed the thought, urging Bollinger to get his arms around the problem, because "There are too many incidents at the same school where people get censored."

Several people, myself included, suggested that if Bollinger is as interested in free speech as he keeps saying he is, then he should reschedule the Minutemen and introduce them himself, with enough security around to discourage the reappearance of last year's stormtroopers in training.

A few weeks ago, it looked as though Columbia was about to make a rare lurch in the direction of free speech. Students re-invited the two Minutemen, but after these proposed speakers bought plane tickets, Columbia's pro-censorship DNA re-asserted itself and the two men were once again disinvited. Not a peep out of Bollinger.

Yes, and this hypocrisy is a problem with higher education more generally, alas. It's why people don't take claims that "we're just opening up a debate" seriously -- because, you know, they're basically lies.

Related item here.

DID SHUSTER HAVE IT RIGHT? Apparently, but the confusion displayed along the way would undercut any claim that Marsha Blackburn should have known what took MSNBC this long to figure out.

But the real point, as I noted before, is that the question was a cheap shot that Shuster wouldn't dare ask Hillary, who also voted for the war.

UPDATE: Some related thoughts from Ace on the media's self-destruction. Trust, once lost, is hard to get back. On the other hand: 'I think we'll see an awful lot more of this. It's simply too easy to break with supposed journalistic traditions of objectivity and become a crusading hero to one quarter of the population."

It's going to get kind of tough for the journalistic industry if they're all trying to feed themselves from an audience made up of one quarter of the population.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader James Ivers emails: "I eagerly await Shuster's asking a liberal Rep. if they can name the most recent person to go on welfare in their District. Or the person who most recently died due to 'lack of health insurance.' Until then, he's a hit artist and I'll pay him no attention at all."

I'd settle for Shuster asking the name of the most recent Medal of Honor winner. As for the "no attention" bit, I suspect that'll be the attitude of the other three-quarters. Good luck with that business plan, guys.

SWEET HSURRENDER: Ed Rendell is returning the donations from Norman Hsu. "Rendell and other recipients of donations Hsu gave or helped facilitate have been trying to distance themselves from him over the past month." Do you think?

WHAT HAPPENS IN SULAIMANIYAH STAYS IN SULAIMANIYAH: Vegas-style casino opens in Iraq.

MANHATTAN at night.

IN THE MAIL: Alan Miller & Satoshi Kanazawa's Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do.

TIM WU: Why have municipal wi-fi networks been such a flop?

BURMA UPDATE: IN THE WSJ: (free link) Citizen journalists evade Myanmar's blackout.

RON BAILEY looks at the latest in ozone hole science, after twenty years.

IF YOU MISSED the first PJM show on XM Radio's POTUS '08 Channel, you can listen online here.

I MENTIONED RUTH WISSE'S Jews And Power yesterday.

Rick Richman emails that he liked it a lot.

MICKEY KAUS: "John Edwards is getting grief because the hedge fund he worked for is responsible for some subprime loans and foreclosures in Iowa. But the hedge fund for which Chelsea Clinton has worked is not exactly Landlord of the Year either."

Plus, uninteresting news about Kiefer Sutherland!

FROM THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, a look at nanotechnology and national security. (Via Nanodot, which describes the report as "conservative.")

SIDNEY VS. CHARLES: I think Sidney would be wise to "redeploy."

September 27, 2007

DAN RIEHL SPOTS SOME media battlespace preparation underway.

"WE ARE THE WORLD."

SPACEBLOGGER MATT BOWES HAS DIED: Rand Simberg has more thoughts.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Bringing back fallout shelters.

DUTIFUL sons.

AUSTIN BAY:

America needs a "revolution in diplomatic affairs."

Even the State Department's chardonnay and brie brigade suspects we have entered a new era of grimy, street-level foreign policy. It's an era where effective diplomacy starts with long days in bad neighborhoods, as culturally-savvy diplomats identify the hopes, fears and trends that seed future crises, and -- preferably -- create American-influenced opportunities to positively shape events.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: "The Iranians are in a state of total panic." Well, possibly. I hope so.

GREG MANKIW: How big a problem is lack of health insurance?

RICHARD FERNANDEZ looks at what's going on in Burma.

WALTER OLSON WONDERS how well-lawyered the Lynne Stewart invitation was.

TODD ZYWICKI likes John Lott's new book, Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't.

CONTRA KAY HYMOWITZ, I don't see how this post can plausibly be read as a "taunt." I certainly didn't mean it that way. In fact, as noted in our podcast interview of Hymowitz, I'm in many ways sympathetic to her cultural critique, with the exception of gay marriage, which I don't see as any threat to traditional marriage at all. I certainly don't see where in my post, or elsewhere, I've said that "[G]overnment shouldn’t say anything about the family problem. And neither should anyone else." I don't think the government has much to say, and it'll probably get it wrong if it tries -- I'd be happy if it just avoided screwing things up -- but I've never said that "anyone else" shouldn't say things. Just disagreed with them, sometimes. (That's allowed, isn't it? It's certainly not a taunt.)

I don't like her use of the term "freedom fetishist" to describe libertarians, but Eric Scheie has already said all there is to say on that.

UPDATE: Kay emails: "You're right; you weren't taunting. An editor inserted the word (I had simply written 'wrote') and I didn't catch it on a final read. Really sorry."

That stuff happens. Shame on that editor, though, who changed the meaning and who must not have bothered to follow the link. I'd expect better from Commentary.

THE RETURN OF MONDALENOMICS?

KEEPING OUR SCHOOLKIDS SAFE, with bulletproof backpack inserts.

SLATE: Hillary vs. The Seven Dwarves. But they completely blew the Aznar transcript story.

A LAME DISCLAIMER FROM BEST BUY: "It's still unclear why the company won't just do the right thing and match its own listed prices, but we're willing to bet the suits are patting themselves on the back for their innovative, out-of-the-box solution. Martinis for all!"

MICHAEL BELFIORE looks at Europe's entry into the Space Tourism business.

Belfiore is the author of Rocketeers, a very interesting book on the new private space race, which I reviewed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year.

SINGING THE PRAISES OF the Dodge Colt Vista: "These are available for a song nowadays, and to be completely honest I can't think of a better beater." Okay, I buy that. But this? "The clincher is that I think the Vista is a very attractive vehicle, with an open and honest "face" and a smooth, well-proportioned body." Hmm. . . . Look at the photo and decide for yourself . . . .

WHAT MADE HUGO CHAVEZ POSSIBLE? "Latin America's history shows that populist strongmen keep appearing with astonishing frequency. Understanding why Chavez came to power almost a decade ago and is now poised through a constitutional amendment to become president-for-life is a necessary step in trying to halt the emergence of future populist strongmen."

POWER GENERATION vulnerable to cyber attacks: "Researchers who launched an experimental cyber attack caused a generator to self-destruct, alarming the federal government and electrical industry about what might happen if such an attack were carried out on a larger scale, CNN has learned. . . . Weiss and others hypothesize that multiple, simultaneous cyber-attacks on key electric facilities could knock out power to a large geographic area for months, harming the nation's economy." Seems like a reason not to connect these things to the Internet.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: House Minority leader John Boehner is saying the right things on pork:

House Republicans have launched a renewed effort to change the way Congress spends taxpayers' money. Our goal: Stop Congress from tucking members' pet spending projects into bills without public scrutiny and debate.

Pork-barrel earmarks were an important factor in the loss of the GOP majority last November. Years of irresponsible earmarks, slipped into bills behind closed doors without public debate or scrutiny, eroded Republicans' reputation as the party of fiscal responsibility and trustworthy custodians of taxpayer funds.

I've never made a secret of my distaste for worthless pork. Just a few months after being elected as majority leader last year, we enacted comprehensive reforms that brought the earmark process out into broad daylight. All taxpayer-funded earmarks had to be publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and debate. If you sponsor a project, we argued, you ought to be willing to put your name on it and defend it--and if not, you shouldn't ask taxpayers to pay for it. These reforms were the right thing to do--and they still are.

The Democratic majority came to power in January promising to do a better job on earmarks. They appeared to preserve our reforms and even take them a bit further. I commended Democrats publicly for this action.

Unfortunately, the leadership reversed course. Desperate to advance their agenda, they began trading earmarks for votes, dangling taxpayer-funded goodies in front of wavering members to win their support for leadership priorities.

Yes. Had the GOP done better with this stuff, Boehner might still be Majority, instead of Minority leader. Will the Democrats take a lesson from that?

TRUST IN GOVERNMENT hits an all time low. This ought to encourage government officials behave in a more trustworthy fashion, but . . . .

MORE HEAVY-HANDED PHOTO FUNNIES.

BILL ROGGIO ON Al Qaeda's last bastion in Baghdad.

I KNEW WIRE SERVICES WERE TRIMMING STAFF, but this is ridiculous.

BAD REVIEWS FOR The Daily Show on Mandela.

MORE ON BURMA: "Intensifying their crackdown despite pressures from abroad, Burmese security forces raided a half-dozen Buddhist monasteries Thursday and opened fire into pockets of demonstrators who continued to demand an end to military rule despite new threats on their lives."

A CELLPHONE WITHOUT BORDERS: Isn't that how things ought to work?

SOME WORLD WAR TWO REMINISCENCES, inspired by Ken Burns.

IN THE MAIL: Ruth Wisse's Jews and Power. It looks very interesting.

UPDATE: I should note that Ron Rosenbaum liked it.

A NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE? "If you're tracking the nuclear power revival in America, last Tuesday, September 25, was a milestone. For the first time since 1973, a new application for building a reactor was placed before the federal government. "

It's greenhouse friendly. And if there's nothing more important than combating the greenhouse threat, then nuclear power certainly should be undergoing a renaissance.

THIS IS JUST PATHETIC.

IF YOU LIKE THE GLENN AND HELEN SHOW, you'll be able to catch us, along with others, on XM Radio's new POTUS '08 channel, starting tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern, XM channel 130.

TAMMY BRUCE vs "the Gestapo." I'm betting on Tammy.

LEAKED IRAQ MEMO doesn't say what the critics think.

JEFF EMANUEL ON DEVELOPING IRAQI POLICE FORCES: "A Long, Difficult, and Dangerous Process - But Not a Hopeless One."

LOOKING AT THE NEW YORK TIMES' ARTICLE ON BLACKWATER, A SURPRISING DISCOVERY: Iraq is a lot safer that you might think:

I don't know about you, but I find those figures – both for Blackwater and DynCorp – staggering, even allowing for the fact that there must be other incidents where convoys come under attack, but keep going without returning fire.

I was under the impression that every time a convoy left the Green Zone it was like the scene in Mad Max II where the fuel tanker (no spoilers in case you haven't seen it) driven by Max leaves the good guys' compound. I pictured insurgents leaping off buildings on to the roofs of SUVs, IEDs going off left, right and centre, and suicide car bombs and RPGs coming from every direction.

Where did I get this impression? From watching the TV news and reading the mainstream news websites. It's almost as if… as if… the media is exaggerating how bad things are in Iraq!

Read the whole thing. It reminds me of when the Soviets used to show newsreels of Vietnam protests as evidence of how bad things were in America, only to have the audience think, "hey, everybody in these films has new shoes!"

BEING Evo Morales' monkey.

UPDATE: More, including video of Jon Stewart and Morales, here.

ILYA SOMIN on regulatory takings and the poor.

SURGING BEFORE the surge was cool.

MORE ON USMANOV VS. THE BLOGGERS.

It's not like he wasn't warned.

DANIEL GROSS says that the housing bubble is a good thing.

I remember reading somewhere that pulsating ecosystems use resources more efficiently. I don't know if that applies to economies. Gross, of course, has a book on bubbles.

BURMESE MILITARY raids monasteries.

Why am I calling it Burma and not Myanmar? James Fallows explains.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

THE BIG NEWS from last night's Democratic debate: "The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013."

Will this give the Draft Nader movement a boost? It's certainly got to be a disappointment to the MoveOn/Netroots crowd.

LAW SCHOOL AS A SORTING HAT.

HSUT DOWN: "A judge has frozen bank accounts and sealed the Manhattan apartment of Norman Hsu at the request of investors who say the jailed political fundraiser stole $40 million from them. . . . After being a fugitive for about 15 years, Hsu made a name for himself as a political fundraiser for Democrats. He was arrested about three weeks ago and now faces new federal charges in New York of bilking investors out of $60 million. Investigators say he donated some of that money to numerous Democratic candidates and causes."

More here, including this tidbit: "Minkoff asked the judge to issue attachment orders on donations Hsu made to Sen. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Spitzer and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who have either returned the money or put it in escrow."

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY: "There's new evidence the Saudis aren't cooperating in our battle to eradicate terrorists or those who bankroll them. Their negligence is shocking even to cynics." I'd say calling it negligence is kind.

THIS POST on Blackwater, is considerably less well-informed than this post on Blackwater. And the difference in the comments is even more striking.

September 26, 2007

ANDREW BREITBART: "A Brokeback mountain of lies."

DISAPPEARING TRUSTEES at Columbia?

THOUGHTS ON TRUSTWORTHINESS in media and government. Not a lot to go around . . . .

MORE THOUGHTS ON journalists and the blogosphere.

NOAH SHACHTMAN: The Soldier of the Future gets his gear on.

POLLYANNAISH ME: At the University of Chicago Law Faculty Blog.

BLOGGERS VS. AN UZBEK BILLIONAIRE: Go bloggers!

Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has vowed to carry on making allegations against billionaire Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov, despite attempts to silence him and his supporters.

Murray told The Reg: "If the man believes he was libelled then he should take me to court." . . .

Murray's blog was deleted by its host on Friday after threats from Usmanov's UK legal team. It's expected to reappear in the early hours of tomorrow on an overseas server, and will repeat the charges that drew heavy fire from specialist libel firm Schillings.

The ex-diplomat says he has contacted Schillings to ask for clarification of which specific aspect of his allegations they contest, but has not received a response. "They say my book [Murder in Samarkand] is 'grossly libellous and defamatory', yet it has been widely available for a year and has sold 25,000 copies, without their actually taking any legal action," he added.

Murray's criticism of Usmanov stems from his rise in Uzbekistan following the collapse of communism to become one of Russia's richest men. He denies the accusations. His profile in the UK has skyrocketed since he followed Chelsea chairman and fellow oligarch Roman Abramovich into football investment.

(Via Slashdot, where Usmanov isn't getting much sympathy.)

NPR TURNS DOWN AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT BUSH: Hey, he's welcome to do the Glenn and Helen Show if he likes!

But what is NPR thinking?

OOPS: David Shuster's cheap shot backfires. Will an apology be forthcoming?

UPDATE: An apology: Follow the link for details and video. It's a pretty grudging apology, though, leaving out the cheap-shot angle. Would Shuster have asked Hillary that question?

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

MORE: A reader asks why it's a cheap shot to ask a member of Congress to name the last casualty from his/her district? That would seem to answer itself. But -- as noted plainly above -- I strongly doubt that Shuster would have asked Hillary that question, even though she voted for the war. It was a trap.

Interestingly, though, it's a trap that, in its nature, underscores how historically low casualties are in this war. You wouldn't have heard that question in World War II, not only because the press would have been ashamed to ask it, but because casualties then were such that nobody could possibly keep track. That it can be asked in this war demonstrates not only the cheap-shot tendencies of a hopelessly partisan press, but also the small scale of the actual warfare.

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE REELECTED, jack-booted thugs would be dropping the hammer on anyone deemed guilty of lese majeste. And they were right!

I'M NOT DEAD YET . . . I'M FEELING BETTER . . . I THINK I'LL GO FOR A WALK: The Death of Blogs.

CHRIS SUELLENTROP: "How poorly is John Edwards faring in his bid to become president of the United States?"

BLOGS ON BURMA: A big roundup at Slate.

PUNS: HSUPER? OR HSTUPID? A reader emails: "Ok enough with the puns on Hsu's name please."

On the other hand, people keep mailing in suggestions. So it's time for a poll!

What do you think of the Hsu puns?
	Hsuperb! Keep 'em coming!
	Hstupid and Hsilly! Ditch 'em!
pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: Okay, we've broken the 2,000-vote mark and Hsu-puns are winning by better than 2-1. That's a hstupendous margin!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More questions about porkmeister Don Young:

Hopefully we're about to get closer to learning how Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) $10 million Coconut Road earmark made its famous post-vote change. A Washington watchdog group filed a complaint today with the House ethics committee asking for an investigation into the drastic edit, calling it "an extraordinary case of the House of Representatives’ integrity being undermined." . . .

Initially, Congress approved a bill that would have given Florida $10 million for a highway widening project, but as we've explained before, during a 13-day window between the bill passing Congress and the President signing it into law, the earmark changed. It was the only such change among 6,000 earmarks in a pork-filled bill. The new Coconut Road wording redirected the money to a project that would be a boon to a real estate developer and major campaign contributor of Young's.

Read the whole thing.

A CHEMERINSKY FOLLOWUP from Jon Wiener: "The fact is that we still don’t really know the sources of the pressure that led Drake to act against his newly-appointed dean. And at this point, with Chemerinsky himself calling for a focus on the future, it seems unlikely we will ever know."

CALLING IN THE BOMB SQUAD: To protect bridges from terrorists.

"SOFT FASCISM" in Britain?

LOOKING TOWARD CHRISTMAS (already?) a roundup of favorite toys.

SECRETS OF PRODUCTIVITY, from Vincent Van Gogh. Okay, I don't smoke a pipe, but otherwise, yeah.

LOSING WEIGHT the Castro Way!

VIOLENT CLASHES IN BURMA: And here's something on China's role in propping up the junta.

SOME INTERESTING AHMADINEJAD VIDEO from Andrew Marcus.

341-79: House condemns MoveOn "Betrayus" ad. Plus, a Joe McCarthy comparison from David Obey.

THE NEFARIOUS "WE." But don't question their patriotism!

LA SHAWN BARBER ON CNN: Ian Schwartz has the video. La Shawn observes: "That was fun!"

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS about the Tesla Roadster.

IN THE MAIL: Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes' The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country--and Why it Can Again.

IS DICK CHENEY UNCONSTITUTIONAL? I don't usually put pieces on SSRN until they're published, but a colleague suggested posting this one now. So I have -- you can download a copy here. It's an essay, quite short by law review standards.

UPDATE: SSRN was having server problems earlier, but everything seems to be working fine now.

THOUGHTS ON WHAT TO DO about private military companies like Blackwater.

WHY SOME PEOPLE fear bloggers.

NYT CYA.

LEARNING ABOUT LEGAL ETHICS from a lawyer convicted of assisting terrorists.

It's a bad month for higher education. As one commentator says, "you can't make this stuff up." Sadly, you don't have to.

UPDATE: More on Stewart here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More discussion at the WSJ Law Blog.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: "Look, there are bad people out there. The folks who run Iran would be at or near the top of my list. But divestment is a bad solution to the problem."

Plus, thoughts on the UAW strike.

UPDATE: The strike is over.

A SECOND AMENDMENT DEBATE: Dave Hardy has all the links.

HSU HSPREADING MONEY AROUND:

Disgraced fund-raiser Norman Hsu did a lot more than just pump $850,000 into Hillary Clinton's campaign bank account: He also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local, state, and federal candidates who have endorsed Clinton or whose support she courted. . . .

In at least some cases, Clinton or her aides directly channeled contributions from Hsu and his network to other politicians supportive of her presidential campaign, according to interviews and campaign finance records. There is nothing illegal about one politician steering wealthy contributors to another, but the New York senator's close ties to Hsu have become an embarrassment for her and her campaign.

Obviously there was a closer connection than mere check-writing. It sounds like he was an integral part of the campaign.

NORM GERAS HAS THOUGHTS on the denial of human nature.

IRAQI CIVIL WAR AVERTED? "I suppose that Karen DeYoung's story could have been buried deeper in the Washington Post, but it would take some effort."

GARRY KASPAROV ON PUTIN: "In Kasparov's view, the main goal of Russian foreign policy is to raise the oil price, no matter what - that's why the tensions in the Middle East are so important to Putin." This would explain a lot.

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of Little Rock.

BEAUCHAMP UPDATE: Apparently heads are rolling at TNR, just quietly. (Via Bob Owens).

September 25, 2007

TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES FOR LAWYERS? That's surely in service of the public good!

PRE-GAMING TOMORROW'S Larry Craig hearing. Can't he just resign?

ANOTHER MEMBER OF CONGRESS RETURNS FROM IRAQ, with a report.

THIS SHOULD BE FUN: Nader 2008!

DAVID BERNSTEIN on politics in academia.

A SAFFRON REVOLUTION? Richard Fernandez on what's happening in Burma.

THOUGHTS ON a culture of efficacy.

ANDREW BREITBART to David Ehrenstein, in the Los Angeles Times: "I have no false hope that the Gulfstream-flying, eco-warrior billionaires that propagate Westside L.A.'s convoluted, one-way dialogue will begin to show their gratefulness to this country. . . . Just don't try to sell me that Brian De Palma and George Clooney are making brave gestures when they churn out antiwar films and make self-congratulatory award show pronunciations. Just admit it: Your idols simply toe the company line."

HILLARY'S BRILLIANT STRATEGY, REVEALED: "I'm ready to vote for her if she maintains that hawkish edge. That is, I think there's a hawkish edge in there somewhere, since she going to so much trouble to hide what must be it."

On the other hand: "Edwards isn't dumb and confused. He's smart and strategic."

MIKE HUCKABEE is not a libertarian.

AMAZON IS NOW SELLING DOWNLOADABLE MP3s without copy protection. Megan McArdle tried it, and likes it.

DAVE KOPEL FINDS A RIGHT TO ARMS in a surprising place.

LANGUAGE TOOLS.

MICHAEL SILENCE: "So, what, now we need the increased cigarette taxes to pay for monitoring purchases of cigarettes in other states?"

ONE BILLION BULBS has reached its Phase Three goal of 100,000 energy-saving CFL bulbs installed. Nearly a fifth of those come from InstaPundit readers! They've now got a database of CFL reviews, too.

JENA UPDATE: In Slate: "The mismatch between the complex and layered racial tensions in Jena and the one-issue rallying cry of 'Free the Jena 6' suggest that the tactics of last century's civil rights movement may be an anachronism for today's racial conflicts."

COPS COMPLAINING ABOUT cops writing other cops tickets.

RAND SIMBERG IN POPULAR MECHANICS, on a lunar refueling station.

A CREDIBILITY PROBLEM for higher education? Well, it's been a bad couple of weeks.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Okay, this looks pretty damn piggish:

The Senate on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill authorizing $23 billion in water resource projects, including $3.5 billion in work for hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, despite warnings from some lawmakers and watchdog groups that the bill did not provide crucially needed changes to the Army Corps of Engineers, which would do most of the work. . . .

But opponents, led by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, made a forceful, if futile, case that the bill would fail to address the most important needs, even in Louisiana, which is the biggest beneficiary of the measure.

“After a decade of government and independent reports calling for reforming the corps and pointing out stunning flaws in corps projects and project studies, and after the tragic failures of New Orleans levees during Hurricane Katrina, the American people deserve meaningful reform,” Mr. Feingold said in a speech on the Senate floor. “How many more flawed projects or wasted dollars will it take before we say enough is enough?”

Especially since Hurricane Katrina, the corps has been criticized as mismanaged and lacking oversight and accountability.

The White House has said that President Bush will veto the bill because it is too expensive and stuffed with political pork. In a letter to Congressional leaders, Rob Portman, the former budget director, and John Paul Woodley Jr., the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, noted that the Corps of Engineers already had a backlog of $38 billion in projects. They urged Congress to pass a cheaper bill.

Not likely, alas. Plus this: “We are diverting our spending for the high priority projects to the political priority projects." Indeed.

CONGRATULATIONS TO MY UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEAGUE JAY RUBENSTEIN, who just got a MacArthur genius grant.

DAVID BROOKS says that the adults are in charge in the Democratic Party now.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan: "If Clinton is that comfortable with a permanent occupation of Iraq at this point in the election cycle, how comfortable do you think she's going to be next year? You think a politician so obsessed with gaining and wielding power is happy to relinquish any in the Middle East? . . . Hillary is Bush's ticket to posterity. On Iraq, she will be his legacy."

Hey, maybe she will turn out to be "the most uncompromising wartime President in United States history" after all. Science fiction sometimes comes true . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Can you say "inherent authority" to go to war? Hillary can.

A ROUNDUP OF UNCOMMON MEATS: I've been cooking with buffalo more lately -- we had buffalo steaks the other night and they were delicious, lean, and (this is what surprised me) very tender.

Plus, survival of the fittest . . . M&Ms? "I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world. "