April 12, 2008

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Heh.

PERFECT HARMONY: Heh.

MICHAEL SILENCE: Obama's campaign rescue plan.

HEH: Hillary: Practically A Redneck Pennsylbaman Herself.

JENNIFER RUBIN SAYS THE PRESS CAN'T SAVE OBAMA FROM HIMSELF:

Much has been said about (and several Saturday Night Live skits have lampooned) the media’s infatuation with Barack Obama. But sometimes a gaffe is so revealing and so encapsulates a candidate’s underlying fault lines (”I actually did vote for the $87M before I voted against it.”) that a sympathetic media can’t spin it away.

I think that's right. And Jonathan Martin writes: "This story may only gain steam in the days ahead. . . . Obama's comments play directly into an already-established narrative about his candidacy. "

This seems to be the story line: "A political tempest over Barack Obama's comments about bitter voters in small towns has given rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a new opening to court working class Democrats 10 days before Pennsylvanians hold a primary that she must win to keep her presidential campaign alive."

Though the "bitter" bit is the least of it. Obama's self-contradiction on trade, guns, and religion is really the more damning part. And Taylor Marsh comments: "I'd say Obama made an amateur slip of the tongue, however, something about this statement, the glib nature of it combined with its specificity, makes me believe he actually feels this way."

UPDATE: A photo essay, of sorts.

OBESE FEEL MORE DISCRIMINATION: On the one hand, since they'll soon outnumber the rest of us, that's hard to believe. On the other hand, we're more likely to elect a black president than a fat one. I don't think William Howard Taft would have a chance today.

UPDATE: Reader Don Wolff writes:

If you look at photographs from a hundred years ago, you’ll see the rich, powerful and elite were often overweight. The poor and working class, then synonymous, were thin. The social critics of the day were outraged by this divide demanding justice to resolve it. America applied itself to correct that issue. Today, the rich, powerful and elite are thin. It is the working class and poor who are overweight. The critics are still unhappy.

Well, being unhappy is their job.

SCIENCE FICTION RECOMMENDATIONS: My bleg the other day in response to a reader question produced a number of responses. Here are some.

Reader Merrijane Rice emails: "My all-time favorite sci-fi author is Orson Scott Card, beginning with his Hugo and Nebula award winning Ender's Game. It's a really good read for teens and adults alike. Card not only creates engrossing characters and storylines, but has the knack of presenting complex scientific ideas in easy (or easier) to understand ways." Yes, it's a good book. We had a podcast interview with Card last year.

Reader Eric Roush emails: "I would add Lois McMaster Bujold to your list. Although perhaps not as 'hard SF' as many of the authors you have already mentioned, she is an excellent storyteller and does a good job at exploring the ramifications of the potential technologies that she does focus on, such as uterine replicators." Yes, her Barrayar books -- Shards of Honor and Barrayar start the series, then Miles Vorkosigan appears to carry the ball -- are good fun, and her Sharing Knife fantasy sequence, starting with Beguilement, is top-notch.

Reader Tom Grant emails: "Everyone will say that you have missed out on a number of 'BEST' science fiction, but I will also add my two cents: Armor by John Steakley. (one of the best ever -- 'You are what you do, when it counts.') The Dosadi Experiment another one of the same caliber." Yes, I've been meaning to reread The Dosadi Experiment, whose legal innovations I think I'd appreciate in a different way now than when I read it for the first time, serialized in Galaxy.

David Masceri writes:

I whole-heartedly recommend the "Book of the New Sun" series by Gene Wolfe. It's a science fiction/fantasy series divided into four volumes spread over two books: "Shadow and Claw" and "Sword and Citadel." I would go so far as to say that it ranks as one of my favorite novels of all time; I would definitely consider it my favorite science fiction book. My recommendation to sci-fi newbies would come with this disclaimer: This is not an easy read. The narrative is first-person and lacks explanation of the dominant technology, politics, or the society as a whole, and Wolfe will use an alien word and never explain it. If a reader likes his/her science fiction prose encyclopedic is in specificity, they won't the "Book of the New Sun." If he/she really enjoys the ability of good science fiction to confront its readers with a completely unheard of reality, I would say "you need to go get this book...now."

I had an idea for a piece on legal education based on a Gene Wolfe story that's a subset of the above -- The Shadow of the Torturer, in which the education of apprentice-torturer Severian struck me as surprisingly similar to the education of budding lawyers, right down to how the professional ethics involved seem to have little to do with client welfare . . . . I had a lengthy conversation with Janet Halley about that some years ago and then never got around to actually writing it. I was busy with Is Democracy Like Sex? then, I think.

Hank Shelton offers a reminder: "Don't forget the Internet Top 100 Science Fiction Books list, (Link). It's been dead for five years or so, but I found a lot of great books there I'd never read. "

Meanwhile, Mark Whittington has his own list of recommended science fiction -- recommended for the Presidential candidates. I certainly agree with his inclusion of Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Starship Troopers. And Poul Anderson's Van Rijn stories are good, though I suspect few politicians would appreciate them.

Reader Solomon Foster emails:

he most interesting new project I've been following is Shadow Unit: http://www.shadowunit.org

It's a completely on-line shared world writing project, with old pros Emma Bull and Will Shetterly joined by relative newcomers Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, and Amanda Downum. It's done TV series style, with a series bible and all -- in Emma's words, "A mystery/suspense show, a cop show, a profiler show--but with a science-fictional problem at its heart." They've released four novellas to the web so far this year, all great reads, with three more and a novel scheduled in the next two months.

Also highly recommended is Elizabeth Bear's recent novel Dust, technology that's hard to distinguish from the usual fantasy tropes. And Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, whichi s basically Patrick O'Brien with dragons added.

Yeah, but that moves us more into the fantasy realm. Good books, though -- I've read 'em all, and that nutshell description is about right.

Several readers point to Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End -- and we had a podcast interview with Vinge, too, a while back, and that has links to other works of his that are worth your time.

Also, unless you're a robophobic type like Matt Yglesias, Isaac Asimov's I, Robot is still good -- the InstaWife, who doesn't care that much for science fiction, liked these stories a lot. And, of course, the Foundation trilogy, despite having allegedly inspired both Osama bin Laden and the Aum Shinriyko cult, is still a classic. And while we're talking classics, there's always Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.

That's probably enough for now. I'll try to put up some more later. And if you missed it, there are more links to recommendations here.

UPDATE: Up for like two minutes and I'm already getting criticism. M. Simon emails:

Any list that does not have at least one of the Dorsai novels is not serious.

The Tactics of Mistake is a good one.

Yeah, it is. I met Dickson once -- I think it was when he was guest of honor at Satyricon in Knoxville -- and he was a nice guy, though obviously not too healthy even then.

CORRECTING GARRY WILLS.

HAPPY YURI'S NIGHT! "Party like it's 1961."

HYPOCRITICAL CLAIMS OF BIAS. My sense is that they're not working as well as they used to.

THE ABSOLUT STORY, and the Skyy Vodka response, has reached the cocktailosphere.

ED DRISCOLL: "Leave it to Obama to make John Kerry's Brahmin hauteur seem earnestly goofy in retrospect."

UPDATE: "We're better than you -- and we know it!" You just gotta hate yourself enough to make the change.

NEW YORK'S New Yorkiest.

TOM MAGUIRE: A TYPICAL SORT OF FLARE-UP: "Hmm, how typical is it for a candidate to characterize a huge swath of his target voters as bigoted, gun waving religious fanatics?" And a big roundup from James Joyner, who observes: "Class bias works both ways. Urban elites tend to view rural America, especially Southerners, as a bunch of yahoos. Rural Americans, meanwhile, think big city types are elitist snobs who don’t love America. There are similar resentments between rich and poor, educated and not, and even Ivy League -State College. In private gatherings, where people think they are among the like-minded, one hears shocking bigotry along those lines."

And sometimes it's recorded and circulated on the Internet.

INVISIBLE HOMOPHOBIA: "It's not just homophobia from conservatives we have to worry about. Liberals can be just as baldly antigay -- often without reproach."

CAPITALIZING ON THE ENEMY'S ERRORS:

ABC News' Sarah Amos reports that at North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C., Clinton campaign North Carolina chieftain Tom Hendrickson, a former state party chair, made much hay out of the "small town" comments made by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

Hendrickson was introducing former President Bill Clinton.

"I normally just come and talk about President Clinton and Senator Clinton at these, but today Senator Obama was out at a fundraiser at I guess a brie and chardonnay crowd in San Francisco," Hendrickson said. "But his quote talking about small towns in Pennsylvania -- and which applies to small towns across eastern North Carolina -- which is why it is relevant to this tour we are doing today. And his quote is 'and it is not surprising that they cling to guns and religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant or anti-trade as a way to explain their frustration.'

"I listened to that quote and I got mad," Hendrickson said, "and I wanted to reach out to Senator Obama and say senator, we are from the rural part of eastern North Carolina. We are very proud of our heritage, we are proud of who we are. We are not frustrated. We are not bitter. We turn to our faith because we believe, and we hunt and fish because it is part of our culture and we enjoy it.

Expect a lot more of this.

LOOKING FOR more oil.

Complaints about the drilling bans in ANWR and offshore are a staple of right-wing talk radio. But I remember Malcolm S. Forbes, back in the 1970s, saying that we should drill as little domestic oil as possible. Pump the Arabs' oil as long as it lasts, then -- when oil has become really scarce and valuable -- we'll be the only ones with any left!

TOUCHING LIVES IN THE KEYSTONE STATE: "By cracky, it's like the man sees into my soul!"

COMPOUNDING THE ERROR? "Sen. Obama’s explanation and pushback are actually worse than his original offense." He certainly hasn't helped himself, so far.

UPDATE: The Washington Post put the biggest political story in weeks on page 4. "This may be what makes Pennsylvanians so bitter: Even when they are insulted, the elites don't think it is newsworthy."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Obama’s Elitism, Careerism Now Campaign Issues.

MORE: Heh. Hicks nix clique's shticks. "If you're running as a glamorous blank slate on which people project their own utopian fantasies, you've got to be very careful not to give the game away - especially when the game turns out to be the usual cliched elite disdain for the great unwashed."

Plus, the McGovernization of Obama. "And pundits keep wondering why Hillary won't give up?"

More at Talkleft: "Is he digging himself into a deeper hole? Clinging to anti-immigrant sentiment isn't a bad thing? Isn't he still saying PA voters harbor anti-immigrant sentiment that have been passed down to them through generations?"

STILL MORE: A.P.: "Obama scrambled Saturday to quell the furor."

BILL ROGGIO: Fighting in Sadr City. Meanwhile, InstaPundit correspondent John Tammes sends this: "Just a quick follow up - it is game on down here, and the early results are good. A high ranking Iraqi officer said to me that they 'struck some gold.'"

Stay tuned.

AN "EXISTENTIAL THREAT" to Canada's blogosphere.

ANOTHER BLOGGER BOOK: Ferocious Flirting: Making Marriage Wonderful, by Matt Smith.

THE WORLD'S FIRST all-dwarf soccer team.

ENDLESS WINTER: We're supposed to get snow, in the mountains anyway, tomorrow night. If that's any comfort . . . .

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT blocks San Francisco gun ban.

DEEP BACKGROUND: Austin Bay and I talk about Iraq, with Jules Crittenden, Bill Roggio, and Michael Totten.

ANN ALTHOUSE: "How odd that Pennsylvania got set apart in time from all the other primaries. What luck for Clinton. All this time for something to go wrong for Obama and for exploiting it — like that awful quote everyone's talking about. . . . I must say that the original statement sounded like a typical law-school-liberal remark. I think it was quite sincere, and I'm rather sure he believed he was being admirably intellectual and raising politics to a new, higher level. Within a liberal law school environment, that statement would be heard as a thoughtful, compassionate insight. Some of your colleagues might think you were excessively, squishily tolerant of what they see as ignorant, bigoted people, but I don't think they'd push you to be more understanding of the alien culture you were observing."

Actually, Obama was just following in Al Gore's footsteps!

UPDATE: Among the snakehandlers.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here: "Moreover, even assuming for the sake of argument that some voters do vote values over economics, Obama may want to explain to such voters why they should do otherwise, given that he has spent the last 20 years in a church known for disavowing 'the pursuit of middleclassness.' . . . In addition, if Obama thinks these voters are clinging to anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment because of US economic policy, he ought to explain why he is exploiting anti-trade sentiment on the campaign trail, but advocating lax policies on illegal immigration, including (but not limited to) providing government benefits like drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens and allowing criminals to become citizens. Once he does that, Obama can explain how he squares his stated position on trade with the advice of his top economic adviser. And when he does that, Obama can explain how his stated position on immigration squares with his labor-induced vote that killed the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill last summer."

Yeah, it's like a perfect storm of phoniness.

EVERYTHING THAT'S WRONG WITH THE G.O.P. IN TWO WORDS: Trent Lott. “I haven’t paid for lunch in 30 years.”

CONGRATULATIONS: Michael Yon's book is currently up to #470 on Amazon, and it's not even officially out yet, though it has started to ship. I hope it's widely read. Buy a copy for each of your Senators!

ANN WOOLNER:

So now, Duke University wants to keep certain people from saying certain things about the disproven rape allegations against the school's lacrosse players.

Now that lawsuits accuse Duke of having helped inflame campus sentiment against the team, this is a good time to be quiet about the whole thing, it seems.

Well, that is a turn of events.

This is the same school where faculty and students loudly demanded jailing -- and worse -- for the young men; where administrators canceled the team's season and fired the coach to try to quell the mob. That same school is now trying to punish players' lawyers for inviting the news media to write about what the school allegedly did wrong.

In response to a suit filed by 38 current and former lacrosse players at Duke, lawyers for the university accuse the players' attorneys of ethics violations in speaking publicly about their case.

Merely insuring, of course, that we're all reminded of how badly Duke behaved. Hey, it's good for Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson.

"A PROVOCATIVE MASKED BALL SET IN THE RUINS OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER:" They do this because they know we won't behead them. Such is the bravery of artists. (Possibly NSFW, though not in any sort of appealing way).

UPDATE: Bryon Scott emails: "The irony of this play isn't that it uses World Trade Center imagery. It's that the point of it is to expose the cruel disparity between the rich and poor in America. This coming from a country who's unemployment rate has been close to double that of the US for the last fifteen years."

The real irony is that if you staged a similarly nasty opera about modern German in America, nobody would care, because Germany doesn't matter that much. And they hate that.

SOUNDS LIKE YOU'VE HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD: "The Olympics are a vulgar, ruinous hullabaloo the chief functions of which are to facilitate graft on a spectacular scale and to act as a vehicle for the promotion of despotic values. They are, at best, unedifying and, at worst, intolerable."

And, from the comments: "I think you're being entirely too kind."

I TOLD YOU I COULD CALL FDR from the vasty deeps.

April 11, 2008

HEH: SKYY® Vodka, Made in the USA, Proudly Supports Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

MORE ON OBAMA'S SMALL-TOWN SCREWUP, from Tom Maguire.

Plus this: "Obama To Rural Pennsylvanians: Vote For Me, You Corncob-Smokin', Banjo-Strokin' Chicken-Chokin' Cousin-Pokin' Inbred Hillbilly Racist Morons." That'll sell. Can't anybody play this game?

UPDATE: Still more:

Barack Obama has done what Democratic candidates for president invariably do — he has revealed the profound sense of unearned superiority that is the sad and persistent hallmark of contemporary liberalism. Obama’s statement today that small-town folk “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations” may be the most distilled example of this train of thought I’ve ever seen.

I still think that knocking the anti-trade stuff is pretty hypocritical given Barack's own position. And wasn't it just the other day he was telling us he's the pro-gun candidate?

I once saw Alan Dershowitz argue an appeal back when I was a law clerk. He made clear from the beginning that he thought he was the smartest guy in the room -- which, as one of the other clerks remarked later, proved that he wasn't. He lost. Must be a Harvard Law thing . . . .

MORE STILL: Heh: Obama Reaches Out to Bitter Religious Pennsylvanians.

Mickey Kaus:

I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances--welfare and immigrants were "scapegoats," part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. ...

And follow the link for Michael Lind's comment: "Hunting is part of working-class American culture. Does Obama really think that working-class whites in Pennsylvania were gun control liberals until their industries were downsized?" How would he know otherwise?

Plus, "Let's have a national dialogue about egghead condescension!" It's got to work better for Obama than the dialogue about race has . . . .

DISGRACE IN DETROIT:

If you respect the NAACP's heritage, you will be disgusted to learn that the organization's Detroit chapter plans to honor a man who says that AIDS is a U.S. government plot to kill black people and that the Sept. 11 attacks were "America's chickens . . . coming home to roost," and who declares: "God damn America." . . .

This appears to be a case of circling the wagons: Wright, a black man, is under attack, so the NAACP, an organization that seeks the advancement of black people, is defending him. In doing so, the NAACP is committing an analytical and moral error. Wright is under attack not for the color of his skin, but for the content of his ideas. To defend him is to countenance those ideas. Through its actions, the NAACP is in effect arguing that anti-Americanism is acceptable, so long as its source is black. The association is sanctioning both invidious ideas and an invidious racial double standard.

Read the whole thing.

ROBOPHOBIA: Matthew Yglesias is being busted for anti-android prejudice. I wish to join in saying that robophobia and hatred directed at our cybernetic friends has no place in a civilized polity, and that someone should report Matt to the ASPCR.

Somewhat related items here and here.

UPDATE: Brendan Loy slaps me for "Robot Dhimmitude:" "Glenn Reynolds's hyperactive sense of political correctness is blinding him to the threat robots pose!"

THE GENERATION THAT WOULD CHANGE THE WORLD IS STILL LOOKING FOR ITS CAR KEYS:

Does former President Bill Clinton regret his error-strewn defense of his wife's Bosnia sniper-fire story? Does he regret mis-informing voters in Boonville and Jasper, Indiana? "I regret that people like you care more about that when whether she served the troops," he told reporters today in Terr[e] Haute, per ABC News' Sarah Amos.

Does anybody know how to play this game?

COSMOTOPIA? All science fiction, all the time.

Meanwhile, reader Aaron Pastula writes: "Have you ever assembled a collection of recommended Sci-Fi reading from your readers? Particularly good places to start for 'first timers?'"

Yeah, but it's been a while. Here's an older post, and here's another. Plus this.

Any reader recommendations?

GUNS AND BITTER: Obama on small-town PA: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia. That's gonna win 'em over.

UPDATE: Owing Austan Goolsbee an apology? "Behind closed doors — among his fellow educated, upper-class liberals — the real Obama sounds very different from the one who threatened to pull the U.S. out of NAFTA."

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Huffington Post has audio. And there's this reaction: "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking." But Armando thinks he'll get away with it. Plus, Obama's response.

MORE: "Why not just call them rubes?"

STILL MORE: Jim Geraghty notes that after the Jeremiah Wright debacle, Obama is in a poor position to cast aspersions on angry, bitter xenophobes.

Plus these thoughts on playing both ends against the middle: "Perhaps when Obama returns to Pennsylvania to ask for votes, he will charm the locals with tales of the aging Bay Area hippies who just do not understand how US trade policy is destroying the our manufacturing base and the lives of upstanding Americans in the heartland who bowl better than he does." Heh.

MORE STILL: Obama had better hope that this reaction isn't typical:

First of all, Pennsylvanians...especially those of us in the western part of the state, really get irked when we are called "midwestern." The Midwest doesn't start until the Ohio border, and unless you've lived in both Pennsylvania and Ohio, you wouldn't get the difference.

Second, the comment about "people who are different" is just so insulting to those of us who live in or around Pittsburgh, an area noted for its ethnicity. I can go 25 miles in any direction from where I live and see churches, temples, neighborhoods, signs, social halls, stores, etc., for many different ethnic groups from every part of the world. I can also pass through many small towns and not notice anyone who is hoping for a remake of "Deliverance." Honestly, Obama is such a sham. He doesn't have a clue about anything having to do with real life. What an idiot.

OK...I've ranted!

Best,
Jean Spik
Moon Township, PA

Like I said . . . .

KENNEDY AND the doctors. Dr. Hans Kraus may have saved civilization.

TOM MAGUIRE is enjoying the Democratic primary season way too much.

CREATING fake grassroots.

I'M NOT SURE THE DIFFERENT FACTIONS WILL EVERY REALLY GET ALONG: "A teenage driver was killed in a car-to-car shooting at a freeway off-ramp early Thursday in the latest in several recent fatal roadway attacks in California."

Striking video. (Via Classical Values.)

UPDATE: Heh: "Made from 100% post-consumer recycled material."

COURTESY OF THE GERMAN GREEN PARTY: Autobahn speed limits? That's just wrong.

ANOTHER WRONG-HOUSE RAID, by the ATF.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE IPHONE: A roundup of iPhone and other cellphone news. My venerable cellphone will have to be replaced sometime in the foreseeable future, but I don't think it'll be with an iPhone.

A REPORT FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY: With photos.

3 Rs AND A B: Blogging added to Tennessee school's curriculum.

HILLARY laughs off Colombia questions.

ED DRISCOLL EMAILS, wondering whatever happened to the Church of Kos?

INSTAPUNDIT'S IRAQ CORRESPONDENT, Major John Tammes, emails:

All of us over here working with the Iraqi Army have been extra busy lately. Your readers are probably aware of events the last few weeks.

What I have seen in the area of Iraq I have been working is an Iraqi Army that is showing that it can adapt and improve. This is a major step forward for them, if you consider their previous Amry's showings against the Iranians and us. They were inflexible, repeated mistakes and feared reprisals for even suggesting a change. To be sure, the Iraqi Army has a ways to go, but what I have seen lately is encouraging.

One other thing I should mention - the attitude of the units I have dealt with seems a little better than I would have expected. When I met some of the jinood (soldiers) recently, they seemed a bit more focused on the job. Again, they have a ways to go - but it is improving.

The photo is of an NCO and a Warrant Officer in one of the transportation units that had been in action lately. They had taken some losses, but were keeping up on their maintenance and keeping the trucks rolling.

Thanks, Major John.

WHY PEOPLE DONATE TO BLOGGERS:

Back in aristocratic days, some aristocrats took real pride, and got real pleasure, from being patrons of scholars, musicians, artists, poets. Today, ordinary people like me can take this pride, and enjoy this pleasure, by supporting you and your work. Thank you for giving me, and many like me, the opportunity to take part in your work by helping to support you financially. I hope this does give you a freedom to think about and write about what you consider most interesting and important.

Every man a king!

HILLARY, OBAMA, AND "street money" in Philadelphia.

DO MEN RUN THE WORLD? As Scott Adams says, you shouldn't get too excited because those are other men.

UPDATE: Okay, here's the precise quote, worth breaking out:

Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there. We men like to think we’re in charge because most of the top jobs in business and government are held by men, but I have a shocking statistical insight for you men–THOSE ARE OTHER MEN. The total percentage of men in those top spots is roughly .0000001 percent of the male population. I’m not one of them. I just draw cartoons and write these stupid books. Chances are, if you’re a man reading this, you’re not running the world, either.

Indeed. It is also the case, as the column linked above notes, that the interests of those men who do run the world are often in some, er, tension with the interests of those who do not.

EXERCISE: "Maintaining aerobic fitness through middle age and beyond can delay biological ageing by up to 12 years and prolong independence during old age, concludes an analysis published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine." If there were a pill that could do this, you'd buy it.

DID PRIORITIES FADE WITH THE NEWS CYCLE? Lack of international coordination threatens high-tech early-warning systems for tsunamis. On the other hand, there are low-tech answers, too:

“I can’t tell you how many lives we would have saved,” he says, “if people just knew to run away when the water backed out.”

Indeed.

A LEXUS VERSION OF the Prius?

AN OBAMA grassroots myth?

JACOB SULLUM ON 'Human rights' in Canada.

SHOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME HERE: Olympic 'Thugs' Rejected By Japan: "Chinese security guards who have been encircling the Olympic flame as it makes its way around the world will not be welcome in Japan."

IN THE MAIL, a new book by famed stats-blogger Iain Murray: The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About-- Because They Helped Cause Them

Plus, Randy Barnett's new casebook, Constitutional Law: Cases in Context. And yesterday it was Terry Heaton and Michael Yon. Blogger books everywhere!

ANOTHER KNOXVILLE PICTURE, but this one's not sunny. It's from the Downtown Grill & Brewery last night, where -- though I may have appeared to the casual observer to have just been having a beer with my brother and his girlfriend -- I was actually hard at work producing material for this blog. Successful blogging requires constant effort . . . .

TALKLEFT: "Where's Obama on Israel and the Palestinians? On both sides."

AUSTIN BAY on Petraeus, Iraq, and Congress:

Since Gen. Petraeus' and Ambassador Ryan Crocker's September 2007 testimony, "the Anaconda" (the incremental synergy of this complex war-fighting and nation-building process) has dramatically squeezed al Qaeda. No, it hasn't crushed it — but the organization is physically damaged. Moreover, with the "Sunni Awakening" and similar programs, al Qaeda has suffered extraordinary political and information defeats as Sunnis publicly turned on the jihadis.

Is this victory in Iraq? No. But it suggests we've won a major battle with potentially global significance, the kind that in the long term squeezes al Qaeda's ideological appeal in all corners of the planet. . . .

The Iraqi army and Iraqi government planned and executed the operation themselves. Failure? Don't think so. This is progress. As time passes, it is increasingly clear the Iraqi army did a far better job than the Shia gangsters.

But we all know why the complex chart gets ignored and successes are glasses half-empty: A presidential election campaign is on, and the Democratic Party has bet its soul on defeat.

"Hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, but most of all speak of no progress in Iraq." Thus Sen. Joe Lieberman, a member of the Armed Services Committee, deftly summed the last two years of Democratic Party posturing as well as the Democrats' talking points in the latest hearings.

Mr. Lieberman's maverick pal, Sen. and Republican presidential nominee John McCain, spoke more bluntly, "Congress should not choose to lose in Iraq, but we should choose to succeed."

Read the whole thing. And read this report from the New York Times, too, which is at considerable distance from the earlier NYT analysis that Mickey Kaus is mocking today. But then, it involves actual reporting.

And don't miss these appalled thoughts on the Petraeus hearings from Iraq blogger Alaa. "I was watching the Interrogation of General David Petraeus and the ambassador. What struck me most was the attitude and words from some of the Democratic senators. It seemed as though the enemy for these ladies and gentlemen was not Al-Qaeda, the terrorists or people like that."

NO DINOCHROME BRIGADE JUST YET:

This is how fragile the robotics industry is: Last year, three armed ground bots were deployed to Iraq. But the remote-operated SWORDS units were almost immediately pulled off the battlefield, before firing a single shot at the enemy. Here at the conference, the Army’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey, was asked what happened to SWORDS. After all, no specific reason for the 11th-hour withdrawal ever came from the military or its contractors at Foster-Miller. Fahey’s answer was vague, but he confirmed that the robots never opened fire when they weren’t supposed to. His understanding is that “the gun started moving when it was not intended to move.” In other words, the SWORDS swung around in the wrong direction, and the plug got pulled fast. No humans were hurt, but as Fahey pointed out, “once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again.”

So SWORDS was yanked because it made people nervous. Meanwhile, the V-22 Osprey program has killed 30 people during test flights, but the tiltrotor aircraft is currently in active service.

Read the whole thing.

T.J. RODGERS on Green Nukes.

DEBUNKING THE CLIMATE-DISEASE CONNECTION.

ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS for the McCain campaign? They've got about a month to get any problems under control. But this passage should serve as a wake-up call: "Regular PW visitors may recognize in this piece many similarities to Hillary Clinton’s dysfunctional organization." Though fortunately many of these problems have already been addressed, at least to some degree.

MORE ON THE COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT:

DEMOCRATIC presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may have their hearts in the right place in opposing a trade agreement with Colombia. It's their better judgment that is mistaken.

The two candidates are wrong about the Colombian human rights violations they cite and the jobs they hope to save for Pennsylvania workers.

The agreement, which President Bush sent this week to Congress for an up or down vote, essentially makes permanent the trade preferences that Colombia has had for 17 years. What is new is that the treaty opens the Colombian market to US exports.

The Colombian government is making the bigger sacrifice because a permanent agreement removes uncertainty for investors. Trade, combined with US support for Colombia's military and justice system, have helped Colombia beat back a leftist insurgency, largely demobilize right-wing paramilitaries, and spark a boom that has reduced poverty, unemployment, and the economic weight of drug mafias.

Congress has been extending the temporary preferences for months at a time. Kill the trade agreement and the preferences by all logic should be killed, too. That undercuts hundreds of thousands of Colombians who work in the higher-paying new export industries.

But the unions decided that they had to show their ability to stop something, and chose this. Merits don't matter when it's all about demonstrating clout.

THE BEST REMEDY FOR RADICAL ISLAM? Exposure to radical Islam:

After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach. In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”

Read the whole thing. (Via Classical Values).

IN TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL, AN OPED FROM MICHAEL YON:

It is said that generals always fight the last war. But when David Petraeus came to town it was senators – on both sides of the aisle – who battled over the Iraq war of 2004-2006. That war has little in common with the war we are fighting today.

I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous. . . .

This leads us to the most out-of-date aspect of the Senate debate: the argument about the pace of troop withdrawals. Precisely because we have made so much political progress in the past year, rather than talking about force reduction, Congress should be figuring ways and means to increase troop levels. For all our successes, we still do not have enough troops. This makes the fight longer and more lethal for the troops who are fighting. To give one example, I just returned this week from Nineveh province, where I have spent probably eight months between 2005 to 2008, and it is clear that we remain stretched very thin from the Syrian border and through Mosul. Vast swaths of Nineveh are patrolled mostly by occasional overflights.

We know now that we can pull off a successful counterinsurgency in Iraq. We know that we are working with an increasingly willing citizenry. But counterinsurgency, like community policing, requires lots of boots on the ground. You can't do it from inside a jet or a tank.

Read the whole thing. And buy his book! Get a second copy to send your congressman.

FEELING RIGHT: A new fitness-and-health blog from Robert Mayer. Here's one helpful post: 5 Easy Dinner Habits You Didn’t Think Of.

MORE OF THE WRIGHT STUFF: "Just to keep up to date, the noxious Rev. Jeremiah Wright will speak at the Detroit branch of the NAACP 53rd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner. I would have jumped on this one yesterday, but given that NAACP chair Julian Bond has compared the GOP to the Taliban, given an award to someone who called Condoleeza Rice a murderer, and engaged in bizzare conspiracy theories about Hurricane Katrina, it is far more predictable than outrageous (though it is that also)."

UPDATE: Related item here.

IN PHILADELPHIA, "FIGHTING CRIME" BY OPENLY BREAKING THE LAW. They don't call him "Mayor Nutter" for nothing, I guess.

NYT: Fight For Sadr City a Proving Ground for Iraqi Military.

Plus, was Basra a failed Iranian takeover bid?

April 10, 2008

DAPHNA ZIMAN RECEIVES A FULL APOLOGY FROM REV. LEE for his anti-semitic rant.

TIGERHAWK: "I have to admit, the evidence that John McCain is a Cylon is fairly persuasive, and that's without considering his proven ability to withstand both physical and psychological torture."

MORE ON MINIMUM SOUND LEVELS FOR CARS: I just want mine to make that Jetsons-style warbling noise as I go by.

BLUE-ON-BLUE: Over at Larry Johnson's No Quarter blog they're still hammering Obama and Jeremiah Wright. They're getting so much traffic they were knocked off line for a while today. Some of the comments are kind of ugly.

UPDATE: Oliver Willis: "This is what a small yet vocal sector of the liberal blogosphere has turned into. " I agree, except for the "small" and "turned into" part . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: "Anyone InstaPundit links to is servicing Republicans." And now I've linked to that, so . . . .

Didn't Captain Kirk freak out an alien supercomputer this way once? . . . .

MORE ON THE CRUSHING OF DISSENT IN CANADA, from Eric Scheie. "So, in fighting the growing censorship movement, every little bit helps. Because it can happen here." Follow the link to see what you can do.

BOINGBOING TV: The Miss Hooker 2008 beauty pageant. I suppose it's an honor just to be nominated.

KILLING PEOPLE in the name of safety?

SOME LAST MINUTE tax tips. And more here.

JESSE WALKER: "It might sound odd coming from a libertarian, but I wish the Pelosi-Reid Democrats had more in common with Franklin Roosevelt. Not the Franklin Roosevelt who occupied the White House from 1933 to 1945, but the Franklin Roosevelt who aspired to the White House in the election of 1932. The Democratic platform of that year is a remarkable document, considering the way the party's candidate went on to govern." Was it just there to fool the rubes? If so, it worked!

DON'T FORGET: Saturday night is Yuri's Night. 173 parties in 49 countries on 7 continents!

ORIN KERR ON THE FOURTH AMENDMENT, JOHN YOO, and "domestic military operations."

ED MORRISSEY: "Life on the road covering a confirmed presidential nominee apparently bores reporters to tears. Instead of covering news, they literally make up controversy to keep themselves from falling asleep."

POLL: McCain erases Obama lead. It's a long time until fall, but this probably indicates the extent of the continuing damage from Rev. Wright.

Meanwhile, advice to McCain -- don't get cocky! "But herein lies a trap for the McCain team: the temptation to run on biography alone. Biographical campaigns did not treat Bob Dole or John Kerry well."

CYBER-SLAPP.

EXTREME MORTMAN: "When Joe Biden lives vicariously through Dick Cheney, we really ought to be concerned."

THE CHURCH OF OPRAH?

CALIBRATING YOUR HDTV.

FABRICATING OLEDs with nanotechnology.

THE BAKKEN OIL FIELD ESTIMATE is out, and the number is 3.65 billion barrels. That's not chopped liver, but it's not the 200 billion figure that was floating around the blogosphere, either. Report here.

ORWELLIAN CONCERNS about a robo-restaurant. But isn't this just the old automat revisited?

NAACP INVITES Jeremiah Wright to speak. There must have been a Hillary operative or two behind that decision.

ROGER SIMON: "Reverend Eric Lee of the Southern Christian Leadership Council has responded to accusations of anti-Semitism by Daphna Ziman of Children Uniting Nations. But has he raised more questions than he answered?"

UPDATE: Hey, somebody should ask top antisemitism crusader Barack Obama to weigh in!

NATIONAL HEALTH IS NOT POLLING WELL: "Twenty-nine percent (29%) of American adults favor a national health insurance program overseen by the Federal Government. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 39% oppose such a government-led initiative while 31% are not sure." This is particularly interesting given the media's general friendliness to the idea.

I KNOW THE YAHOO/AOL STORY IS BIG, but this picture is just plain creepy.

THE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATION is going on the offensive for free trade. Note the Castro/Chavez ad on Colombia, also available in PDF here.

UPDATE: Related item here, including strong words from USTR on the Colombia agreement and Congress's action.

Plus, Cuba si, Colombia no?

STATES OF NATURE. Jonathan Adler is unimpressed.

THE BRIDGES TO THE FUTURE WEBCAST on infrastructure, etc., can be watched by going here and hitting Play. Background here.

ADVICE TO DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHERS: When you get back from a picture-taking expedition, immediately copy the photos to your computer and then burn a CD or DVD of the files. Label the disk and file it. I needed a picture I took four years ago, and was able to go straight to the disk and pull it up in about two minutes from scratch. That's despite a hard drive crash and a couple of computer changes.

I don't do this quite as regularly with the family snapshots, but I do it there, too, whenever the camera starts to fill up.

BARACK OBAMA: Our leading warrior against anti-Semitism? Jake Tapper is unimpressed. (Via Hot Air, where it's noted that Palestinians have a different view. So who are the rubes this time?).

QUIET ELECTRIC CARS: Murderers of the blind? Don't worry. Decisive action has been taken.

JULES CRITTENDEN: Reality Checks.

IN THE MAIL: Terry Heaton's new book, Reinventing Local Media: Ideas for Thriving in a Postmodern World.

And I notice that Michael Yon's new book is now shipping from Amazon, though it doesn't officially come out for a few more days.

PEOPLE SEEM TO LIKE the cheery photos from sunny Knoxville, so here's another. Also a D300 shot, from Cherokee Park.

UPDATE: Yeah, the colors are kinda cartoony. I took these that first day when I was following Ken Rockwell's recommendation to turn the saturation up. I've turned it back down since . . . .

MORE ON THAT Canadian blogger lawsuit.

"SURRENDER OR THE PUPPY DIES!"

I'm thinking, I'm thinking!

BRIAN MICKLETHWAIT: Exflux from Islam? I remain unconvinced.

I should note that I think Brian's view of Islam is overly negative. But in a world where even "human rights commisions" view the anti-Western, anti-Semitic variety of fundamentalist Islam as the authentic variety, I suppose such misunderstandings are inevitable.

PARDON ME, BUT YOUR DOOR IS TERRIBLY OFFENSIVE: "At a public university, such common displays of individual preference would presumably fall under the protections of the First Amendment. But not when such displays are offensive to others, according to officials at Lake Superior State University, which threatened to reprimand a tenured professor whose door boasted cartoons and other images of a conservative political bent." F.I.R.E. is involved. "FIRE and Crandall, who could not be reached for comment, point out that other professors at the university are able to post politically charged pictures and phrases on their doors without consequence, presumably because their perspective is liberal or leftist rather than conservative or right-wing." Again, if right-leaning students choose to take offense in the fashion that has become traditional for leftists, there will probably be many more such door-carton cases.

My door features a large "Is your coworker a Cylon?" poster. So far no one has been offended.

UPDATE: Of course, some McCain supporters might be upset.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More Cylons in surprising places.

MORE: Reader Ted Pannkokke says door-cartoons play an important informational role:

The professor's-door-as-billboard is one of the most important course-scheduling tools a student has. When I was a history major and law student walking down Office Hall for whatever reason, a door plastered with Tom Tomorrow cartoons was a good marker for what professors - and hence courses - to avoid like the plague.

Well, Dan's gotten a bit shrill lately, but he's done some funny work. In fact, as I've noted before, that cartoon was the inspiration for the "A.G. Android" character.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT The Huffington Post and antivaccinationists.

LIEBERMAN CAMPAIGN CRASHED OWN WEBSITE: "The server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured." That's like when people send me a link to their underpowered WordPress blog, then it produces a "Database Error" message when too many people try to actually read it. I hate that. (Yeah, this happens elsewhere sometimes, but low-power WordPress blogs seem particularly susceptible.)

UPDATE: More on the WordPress problem.

BARACK OBAMA'S "typical awful white grandmother." Typical?

Plus, psychoanalyzing Barack.

UPDATE: Reader Jim Shirey thinks the top link is mean. Yes, like much of what's going on in the Democratic primary.

LAWMAKERS FOR SALE: When you give them power, especially over things where money is involved, they inevitably resell it to the highest bidder.

BLOGGINGHEADS: The loneliness of the pro-Hillary blogger.

UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!

AN 11-YEAR-OLD HERO: "The 11-year-old boy who steered a runaway school bus to safety said Wednesday he did it because he saw a truck coming at them and because his brother also was on the bus. David Murphy said he worried afterward that he might get in trouble for jumping into the driver's seat, but he said police and fire officials reassured him that he did the right thing, and so did his classmates."

I seem to vaguely remember a similar case where the girl who seized the steering wheel did get in trouble, but I can't find it. Glad he's receiving proper acclaim.

UPDATE: Ah, here's the story I remembered. She got detention because she was skipping school. Thanks to reader Jim Chandler.

AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, the Ontario Human Rights Commission backed down over the Mark Steyn case, but not without issuing some anti-Steyn dictum in spite of its self-confessed lack of any jurisdiction. Here's a news story on the event, and note this passage:

This qualified exculpation -- Ms. Hall compared it to a judge making comments in a written judgment -- was the latest chapter in the growing controversy over free speech in Canada's human rights bureaucracy.

Her statement drew harsh criticism from a progressive Muslim leader who said the commission had sided with Islamist fundamentalists in the debate among Canadian Muslims over the acceptance of traditional Canadian values.

You'd think that promoting "traditional Canadian values" is what a Canadian "human rights" commission would be about. But you'd be tragically wrong. Plus, "Scrutinizing the Human Rights Machine." And this:

This is why Ontario’s human-rights commission hasn’t yet suffered the sort of signature embarrassment suffered by its federal counterpart at last week’s Marc Lemire hearing.

But instead of counting their blessings, the folks at the OHRC are complaining that they’ve been left out of the censorship party. And they want in.

Wednesday’s Orwellian communiqué reads like something the Chinese communist party might put out on Xinhua — except that the role of anti-Chinese “traitors” and “saboteurs” has been replaced by evil-doers (such as Maclean’s magazine’s Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant of the Western Standard) who peddle “destructive, xenophobic opinions.”

There would seem to be many opportunities for investigative journalism here, for anyone interested in examining things closely. Perhaps Macleans should undertake the effort . . . .

And here's still more on the disaster that the Canadian "human rights" bureaucracy kakistocracy has become. At least this is getting attention in the Canadian press.

UPDATE: Okay, I have to quote this, too:

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote "human rights," the HRC's agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the Lemire case, Steacy was asked "What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?" -- to which he replied "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value." (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

Jeez.

MR. SMOOT, MEET MR. HAWLEY: "The Democratic Party's protectionist make-over was completed yesterday, when Nancy Pelosi decided to kill the Colombia free trade agreement."

MORE ON THOSE CHRISTIAN-NEWSOM KILLINGS, which got a lot of blogosphere attention a while back.

THE MEDIA'S SACRED TRUST IS NOT A TRUST FUND: Plus, a shocking Glenn Greenwald / Bob Dole parallel. Well, you never see them photographed together, you know.

April 09, 2008

A LOOMING THREAT: "It'll be like the The Great You Don't Express Your Feelings Or Make An Effort For Me Crisis of the 1990s."

Plus, an excellent suggestion: Keep it equal: jail the demagogues, too.

"HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION" TO MARK STEYN: Case dismissed, but you're guilty anyway! "I'd be interested to know whether the Justice Minister of Ontario thinks this is appropriate behaviour. At one level, Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall appears to have deprived Maclean's and me of the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence and the right to face our accusers. But, at another, it seems clear the OHRC enforcers didn't fancy their chances in open court."

TORCH DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO: Reader Dyema Manusov sends this report and photo:

Turn out was (and still is) amazing. As of 2:25 Pacific time it appears that the route has been diverted, so things are winding down. Seems like most of downtown SF turned out, or stood in the windows and rooftops of their office buildings. I would be surprised if any work at all got done this afternoon in the law and banking firms of the SF financial district. It seems that pretty much everybody, regardless of their background or affiliation, can agree that Tibet should be free. I guess its just one of those issues. I only saw one guy trying to conflate Tibet with Iraq or Chinese policies with US polices, and he was wearing a suit but had a home-made sign that said "First Things First: US Out of Iraq" - but he looked pretty lonely and I think I may have even heard a boo or two as he walked by. Didn't get a picture of him unfortunately.

One bizarre thing was the fake "party" in Justin Herman Plaza, where a band was trying to rock covers of "Get Down On It" and "Lets Go Crazy" for about a hundred-fifty pro-China folks (paid shills?), while surrounded by about three thousand pro-Tibet folks.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Your poster on torch day wondered if the pro-China folks are paid shills. I strongly doubt it, as there are plenty of PRC nationals in the bay area and they're all anti-Tibet freedom. It's worth mentioning that this is an issue that pretty much extends over all Chinese. "Tibet has always been a part of China" is their slogan -- the historical record is pretty spotty, but that's their really quite emotional assertion.

I'm a 2nd-gen Chinese-American; I don't think much about these issues -- it's the privilege of being an American. But my interactions with my family and the PRC nationals that I work with tells me that the Chinese have a real fear about their territorial integrity. Between Taiwan and Tibet, they could easily lose a pretty big chunk (~10%?) of their national territory. That's something that would give any nation pause.

I hate the PRC regime (they've killed my family members); I think they're evil and I hope for their demise. But to assume that the Chinese people aren't as nationalist as their government is wrong.

I'm sure that's right.

JEREMIAH WRIGHT, REDUX? An anti-Semitic rant mars an award ceremony in Los Angeles. There's video.

UPDATE: Some thoughts on those Hollywood Jews, from Roger Simon.

TAYLOR MARSH: "My position on the D.C. case has been made clear. Residents should be able to own handguns. Period."

WARNING TO KARL: The lefties get very upset when you talk about this stuff. Some of them, if you can believe it, even mocked this photo as insufficiently manly. Hard to credit, I know, but there you are.

PAUL VOLCKER: A dollar crisis resulting from Fed efforts to contain damage from the housing/subprime crash. "The present climate, Mr. Volcker told his audience, reminded him of nothing so much as the early 1970s. Then as now, certain commodity prices were rising fast – he cited oil and soybeans as two examples. Then as now too, these were explained away as speculative price run-ups and not as a harbinger of a broader inflationary trend."

GOOD QUESTION: Reader Eric McErlain emails: "Glenn -- I've been doing just a little reading about these Texas polygamist group that was raided by Child Protective Services. I couldn't help but notice that nobody needed to call in any armed troops to perform a search and remove those kids -- a far cry from the Waco debacle. Why isn't anybody mentioning the difference in execution between the two operations?"

Yeah, they do seem to have managed it without burning everyone to death. Maybe somebody learned some lessons, or maybe the Waco raid was just criminally inept. Story here.

UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Bennight emails: "As a life-long Texan, I c