September 30, 2005

Battle of Algiers

While usually reliable sources are saying that the "97%" affirmative vote in the Algerian referendum is largely a joke, the Chinese People's Daily and their 'friends' are taking it all more seriously.

France hailed Friday as "democratic consultation" Thursday's referendum in which the Algerians approved the "national reconciliation and peace charter."

The referendum is expected to end the crisis and political violence since 1992, which have left more than 150,000 dead and thousands of missing.

Meanwhile, someone may be letting the dogs out. Very scary.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:41 PM
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Peaktalk PJMedia Profile

Besides being a superbly thoughtful and educated blogger, PeakTalk's Pieter Dorsman is clearly a cosmopolitan man of our time. Born in Holland with sojourns in London, Hong Kong and (currently) Vancouver, from his picture, he seems to have an enviable life. From his writing on such important topics as the Van Gogh murder in Amsterdam, not to mention his considerable economic expertise, we know he will be a great asset to Pajamas Media.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:36 PM
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Condi - Live from Princeton

PJMedia contributor TigerHawk (a Princeton man all the way) has a superb report on Condoleezza Rice's speech today at Princeton. You can compare it to the AP here.

Incidentally, this mainstream/blogger comparison is a preview of what PJMedia will be doing often on our permanent site.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:24 PM
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Google... it's everywhere...

Is Google on its way to being the most powerful organization on Earth... or is it already there?

Ever-expanding Internet search engine behemoth Google Inc. confirmed long-running rumors that it plans to develop as much as 1 million square feet of corporate office and R&D facilities within Silicon Valley's NASA Ames Research Center (pictured), a stone's throw from Google's Mountain View headquarters.

MEANWHILE: The fuddy-duddies at the EU are still worried about nation states instead of the real powers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo). No wonder the big Euro countries (France, Germany, Italy) are practically falling off the list. (France is below Malaysia!)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:15 PM
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The Gambler

When I read this morning about Bill Bennett's latest public humiliation, all I could think was "Man, does this guy know how to shoot himself in the foot!" Forget the pompous Book of Virtue. Mandatory reading for Bill Bennett: Doestoevsky's The Gambler.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:04 AM
Comments (67)

The Big Yawn

Maybe I'm wrong, but Judith Miller seems to have lost some weight during her twelve week stay in jail. (No doubt the food was wretched.) If so, this is the only good thing to have come out of this tedious contretemps surrounding the "outing" of a CIA semi-operative whose identity was already available in Who's Who. [But nobody reads Who's Who!-ed. You're right about that.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:52 AM
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Pajamas Man In Beirut

You may have noticed that Michael Totten's logo has changed to Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal. That is partly at our urging (well, Michael wasn't hard to convince about this) because the minute we heard he was about to decamp for Lebanon for six months, we knew we wanted him as PJ Media's "Man in Beirut". Look for his profile on the PJ Media transition site on Monday and his coverage of the Middle East via our website after the launch.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:37 AM
Comments (1)

September 29, 2005

Southern California Fires Rage...

I can really smell it in front of my house tonight - the funky odor of hot cinders blown in by the Santa Anas. It happens almost every year. Sometimes houses go up, sometimes they don't. One I lived in in Malibu burned to the ground the year after we sold it.

You all know who described this best - the poet laureate of Los Angeles...

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge."

* "Red Wind" (short story, 1938)

So far I haven't got the hose out. Just the old Chandler short stories.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:38 PM
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PJMedia Editorial Board MYSTERY!

We have BIG SURPISE in our on-going profiles of PJ Media Editorial Board Members today. I'm not going to say who it is. You're going to have to click. But I will give you the following hints:

She is a woman who - more than just about anyone I can think of - exemplifies the tell-like-it-is-let-the-chips-fall-where-they may attitude I would like to see from PJ Media. She is an author and a national radio personality whose show I always try to catch (and not just because I'm usually stuck in traffic). And as of today she is starting to blog. She is... click here because you have to read her interview. Jill Stewart did a great job on this one.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:06 AM
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Munitions for Mullahs

Apropos Russia's abysmal record in economic competitiveness from the post below, the always-interesting Moscow News is reporting this from another Russan publication, Kommersant - Russia in a Hurry to Sell Weapons to Iran.

Moscow "has stepped up military-technological cooperation with Tehran," the business daily said, citing an unidentified source.

"In either case, such a policy carries a high risk of creating a major international scandal, at the very least," the newspaper commented.

Desperation, greed and stupidity have ruled Russia since the tsars. Why should it change now?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:50 AM
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Roberts Confirmed

78-22.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:59 AM
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It's a Nokia World

For the third year running tiny Finland stood atop the Global Competitiveness Ratings made by the World Economic Forum. On the decline, its former mentor Russia at an abysmal 75 and one-time go-getter Spain, now sinking below its neighbors. (Bring back Aznar!) Comer of the year - South Korea (no surprise there to anyone living in Los Angeles).

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:12 AM
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Global Warming! (LA Style)

... Well for one day anyway... predicted high in my home town today is 100! (then it's going down to more sensible levels).

UPDATE: Uh-oh... AccuWeather has a more "heated" outlook for SoCal in its 15 Day Prediction, unless they mixed us up with Costa Rica.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:01 AM
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September 28, 2005

DeLay DeLoused

House majority leader Tom DeLay has been indicted in a "conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme." I have no idea whether he is guilty or not but I will say this... When I look at a list of today's congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle - DeLay, Hastert, Pelosi, Reid, etc. - I want to stick a finger down my throat. Third party anyone? [No, no. Not Ross Perot. Stop him!-ed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:07 AM
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What Should I Say? - A Pajamas Media Query

In the spirit of John Lennon's "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" and in part, I think, because this guy had a deadline on his book and couldn't show, I have wound up being the keynote speaker at the conference on "Media, Communications & Technology in the Age of the Blogger" in New York on Oct. 26-27.

Now I would be disingenuous to say that I have never spoken in public. I have held forth at numerous writers conferences on such deep philosophical questions as "How do I get an agent?" and "Do you do an outline or do you just make it up as you go along?" But I have never spoken in front of such an august group on matters of such import. (Given the venue, I imagine I will have to wear a tie.) So, to be honest, I am getting a little nervous. I also realize this is an opportunity to organize my thoughts and speak on behalf of the Pajamas Media idea, even if our final name will still be embargoed (drama, drama) until our November 16 launch.

In the fledgling tradition of open media, what I would like to do is open a dialogue on here about what I should say. The comments section of this blog is almost always smarter than I am (okay, always) and I would be a fool not to listen to and/or plagiarize from brilliant people with anonymous names like flenser, chuck and Knucklehead. Or more real ones like Rick Ballard, Jamie Irons and David Thomson. (The list could go on with other superb commenters, but as with my speech there are time and space constraints and you get the idea.)

PJMedia began with the simultaneous goals of raising the profile and credibility of bloggers and providing them more remuneration for their efforts. We are working like beavers to accomplish this but we need your guidance. Perhaps we could start with the most difficult of all conundrums. How do we raise the blogosphere to the next level while maintaining the openness that is the hallmark of new media?

But don't feel constrained by that. Feel free to pitch in with whatever other suggestions you might have. As I said, I could use the help.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:53 AM
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September 27, 2005

"Intelligent Design" is a threat to our economy

Go ahead and believe the "intelligent design" theory if you want to - I think it's claptrap and an insult to theists - but please keep it out of the science classroom. Our social studies and humanities classes are already polluted by enough asinine nonsense from the fuddy-duddy left. We don't need to have science turned into Bible class (covert or otherwise) from the other side.

I don't blame the biology teachers in Dover, PA for keeping this pseudo-science out of their classrooms. They've got plenty to do getting their high school students prepared for the serious (and worsening) competition of the global economy. (You can bet their peers in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai aren't wasting a helluva lot of time on "intelligent design.")

To be clear. I have no objection to crèches at the mall, the Ten Commandments in court rooms, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, etc., etc. Although I support separation of church and state, I'm happy to respect everyone's beliefs and I'm not particularly scared of this country turning into a theocracy. But the science classroom is for science. Students in Dover, Pennsylvania and other rural areas are just as entitled to a real education as those in Los Angeles and New York. In fact the country needs them to have it, especially in science and math. And in the case of public education, it is not in our interest to waste precious taxpayer dollars teaching mythology in biology.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:04 PM
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The Anne Volokh Conspiracy

The appearance of the profile of blogger... dare I call someone so serious a 'celebrity'?... okay, 'notable'... Eugene Volokh as our PJMedia profile today prompts me to tell a story. (Don't go to sleep now!)

Considerably before I met Eugene Volokh , I met his mother Anne. In 1990, I found myself on a screenwriter's tour of the Soviet Union arranged between our Writers Guild and their Cinematographers Union. Glasnost was already underway and the intention was the usual cultural exchange of that late Soviet period. Anne, a fairly recent immigrant from the USSR to Los Angeles, turned up on the tour to help translate.

One night in Tblisi, Georgia, we were all sitting around late in the hotel drinking the local schnapps. The subject of course - how could it be otherwise in Georgia for foreigners? - was the most famous or infamous of all Georgia's sons - Joseph Stalin. Anne began to tell a story. A school girl, she was sitting in her class room in the Ukraine (I think it was the Ukraine) in 1953 when it was announced that Stalin had died. Every other young girl and boy in the room immediately broke into hysterics, sobbing uncontrollably for the passing of Papa Joe. Anne, as she told us, didn't know what to do. She was terrified that she couldn't cry. Unlike her classmates, Anne's parents - Jews - had secretly told their daughter what a monster Stalin was, although it is hard to conceive that anyone at that time had any idea of the extent, that the man was responsible for tens of millions of deaths. I remember sitting there quietly in the Tblisi hotel, listening to Anne talk, thinking about Anne the teenage girl and feeling a lump grow in my throat. I was reminded of what privileged and fortunate lives we Americans have lived, at least those of us who did not have to flee from the likes of Stalin to get here.

Some time later I became friendly with Anne, attending parties at her house given by Movieline Magazine, which she published, and for Sister City events for St. Petersburg and Los Angeles (an amusing mating). I also heard about her son, the software prodigy. Several years after that I met that son, then the accomplished legal scholar at UCLA and blogosphere legend. We too became friends. I think I can speak for my co-founder Charles Johnson and our Supervising Exec Editor Glenn Reynolds to say we are proud to have him part of Pajamas Media, under its old or new name.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:13 PM
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A New Fox at Fox

I have no idea if this is true (though I suspect it is), but according to MilitantIslamMonitor.org, Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal has bought a large share of Fox News. That's the same Prince who hosts telethons for suicide bombers or - as Fox used to call them anyway - homicide bombers. The website continues:

The purchase of large share of what was considered a conservative station by a Saudi Prince known for his financial support for Islamist activities, shows that Militant Islam not only has come to America, it is taking over significant areas of American life.

Alwaleed bin Talal advocates business instead of boycotts, as the means to conquer America by influencing American public opinion, and the Fox aquisition is a continuation of his strategy.

The Chinese buying part of IBM was one thing, but this is downright creepy. [I thought they were suppposed to be "fair & balanced."-ed. And you said I was naive.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:12 PM
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You *know* the media made a hash of Katrina...

... when the LATimes says so.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:55 AM
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September 26, 2005

Ameritocracy?

The American Thinker's Ed Lasky considers the possibilities. One of several morals: when nepotism's involved, watch your portfolio.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:01 PM
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Jewish New Year is coming up next week....

... So, naturally, I get email from my mother-in-law. This is it.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:40 PM
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Banned in Beijing

BEIJING (AFX) - China's propaganda minders have tightened the rules on domestic Internet sites in an effort to curb 'unhealthy news stories' on the web, state press reported.

Bulletin board services and short messaging services that transmit news stories will also be subject to the new regulations, the report said.

Maybe online monsters Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google will have some comment about this, but don't hold your breath if their previous actions are any indication.

UPDATE: Of course, this current visitor to China may hold the keys to freedom. He certainly knows how to find the seam. Quotations from Chairman Allen anyone?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:26 PM
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(Get) Smarty-pants

Cathy Seipp has an amusing... what would you call it, Cathy - show-bit?... for the recently passed Don Adams of Get Smart fame. La Seipp has the ability to look through the television rather than at it and often comes up with unpredictable observations. (For me TV is a flat-screen Ambien replacement.) What I learned from her this time: The great Buck Henry was a co-creator of "Get Smart." (He undoubtedly earned more from that than his legendary "The Graduate" script.) And Adams himself wrote one of those silly bathroom pamphlets for LA publisher Price Stern Sloan. I can remember pitching to them as well years ago - to no avail. Maybe I needed a TV series.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:29 PM
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Engage with Engage

That's a new website from the UK keeping its eye on the anti-Semitism of today's "intelligentsia." They write: Engage was set up in response to the Association of University Teacher's decision to take steps towards an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

I'm bookmarking.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:17 AM
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Annals of the Reactionary Media

What does this remind you of?

After five days managing near riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the handoff of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice.

I tell you what it reminds me of - Baghdad immediately after the invasion. Remember all those reports of the mass looting of their national museum that turned out to be little more than some minor thefts (most returned), principally by the museum's own directors? Yet the media behaved as this were the mass destruction of antiquities from the cradle of civilization and the US was to blame.

Of course the major intent of the misdirection and distortion in Baghdad and New Orleans was the same - to embarrass George Bush. Frankly I don't care that much about George Bush. He's just one guy. But I do care, intensely, about democracy. The media's dislike of George Bush easily trumps their love of democracy. That's why they're reactionaries.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:35 AM
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Frankly Varifrank

Frank Martin, the superb blogger and thinker, usually from California but now reporting in from Vienna, starts the new week of PJMedia Profiles.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:27 AM
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September 25, 2005

Does Mahmoud Abbas secretly want the Israelis to take out Hamas and Islamic Jihad for him?

I wouldn't be surprised. Stranger things have happened. Meanwhile in Asylum Gaza:

A few hours earlier, gunmen had opened fire at the home of Palestinian Authority Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa. Abu Khoussa, who was home when the shots were fired late on Sunday, said he was not hurt.

Abu Khoussa said the attack was the third attempt on his life in recent days. "We will not accept this physical and psychological terrorism," he said.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:53 PM
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I used to joke with Brother Michael...

... that some day they would build a statue to him in a free Isfahan. Reading his latest piece on Iran - which, inexplicably, I missed for a day or two - I'm beginning to wonder when that day will come. Writing with his characteristic vigor, Michael certainly paints a bleak picture for now:

The mullahs are altogether capable of deciding that events are now running strongly in their favor, and that they should strike directly at the United States. They look at us, and they see a deeply divided nation, a president who talked a lot about bringing democratic revolution to Iran and then did nothing to support it, a military that is clearly fighting in Iraq alone, and counting the days until we can say "it's up to the Iraqis now," and - again based on what they see in our popular press - a country that has no stomach for a prolonged campaign against the remaining terror masters in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Osama bin Laden came to similar conclusions, and ordered the events of 9/11. Why should the Iranians - who have been major supporters of the terror network ever since the 1979 revolution - not do the same?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:42 PM
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The Name of the Rosett

Claudia Rosett is not surprisingly upset with the limited scope and conclusions of the Volcker Committee investigation into the Grand Theft Oil-for-Food.

Volcker's report is at best a beginning, and a skewed and incomplete one at that. To be fair, credit is due to some of the investigators on Volcker's staff, who have conducted many interviews and toiled down many byways of the U.N. paper trail to produce such items as footnote 64, page 27, Volume III. Here we find that "kickbacks were levied on all or nearly all contracts" among the thousands of U.N.-approved deals done by Saddam Hussein, as the program, during its final years, hit its full multibillion annual stride. The investigators have also painstakingly documented such findings as the one on page 124 of Volume III. Here we find that, during Oil-for-Food, Secretary General Kofi Annan, his deputy secretary-general, Louise Frechette, and his chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, "were all informed of the issue of kickbacks, but remained passive."

But somewhere between the Volcker committee's labors on the ground and the conclusions of the three commissioners at the top--former Fed chairman Volcker, South African justice Richard Goldstone, and Swiss lawyer Mark Pieth--a fog descends. Despite the load of detail, illuminating and deeply damning to the United Nations, the result is a patchwork of dropped leads and watered-down judgments, leading in some cases to unwarranted and even bizarre conclusions.

You can read the rest at the Weekly Standard site, but suffice it to say that, taking her work together, Claudia has left a paper/digital trail on this scandal that will give future historians a field day evaluating the work of Mr. Volcker.

As a mystery writer, my question is why the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve would risk his considerable reputation promulgating a report that threatens to be ultimately regarded as a whitewash. Perhaps he feels secure the New York Times and the Washington Post will take no more than a desultory interest in investigating further. After all, this is not about Nixon. It's only about the United Nations. And since Mr. Volcker is 78, perhaps he is unaware that 1000 Woodward & Bernsteins are blooming all around.

But even so, it is peculiar. I am not searching for a MacGuffin in this crime as historically redolent as the one in the original The Name of the Rose (Aristotle's Comedy). Paul Volcker is not a man of the complexity of Umberto Eco (to put it mildly). But, given that any serious UN reform has now apparently evaporated into thin air, I would like to know... as the saying goes... cui bono?

Ironically, we may find out more from, of all people, Henry Hyde. As Rosett concludes:

It's all enough to raise questions about the agenda of the Volcker probe itself. As it happens, Rep. Henry Hyde's Committee on International Relations is planning to do just that. Hyde's investigators expect to focus on, among other things, why one of Volcker's lead investigators, Robert Parton, defected this past April with boxes of evidence. Parton explained via his lawyer that he had resigned on "principle" because the second of Volcker's three interim reports had been too soft on Annan. Volcker went through the courts to silence Parton, but that arrangement is about to end. Hyde's inquiry is expected to issue a report on the United Nations later this fall. Coleman's investigators into Oil-for-Food are also due to check in. Federal prosecutors have issued a number of indictments related to U.N. corruption. And--who knows?--Volcker next month gets one more chance.

Parton, as many readers will recall, is of special interest to this blog. I will be watching closely.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:02 PM
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India Votes with US, on Iran

Some had predicted it would be otherwise, but India has thrown its considerable (and growing) weight behind the struggle to deny nucear weapons to the mullahs.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:36 PM
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The Brutal Truth

I have been aware of gender inequality on college campuses for some time, but I was a little surprised at the ratio quoted in the new USA TODAY story cited by Instapundit this morning - 135 women to every 100 men and widening!

The implications of that for society are extraordinary. Many will offer explanations for this trend. Some will have their limited validity. But the brutal truth may be found.... as it often is... in the lyrics to a Grateful Dead song.

(Of course this Calypso song pre-dates the Dead. Here is a photo of the author.)

UPDATE: I was amused by the somewhat predictable commments below from the largely-male blogosphere audience. And, yes, I agree that there is considerably more practicality (and honor) in studying automobile mechanics than the PC maunderings of most college English departments... but medicine?... Console yourselves, brothers, with the thought that there are no female Shakespeares or Einsteins... yet. But first examine history and how it has played out.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:07 AM
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September 24, 2005

"Speaking Truth to Power"

Neo-neocon "deconstructs" a famous phrase. I have another one for her when she has the time - "With all due respect..." Whenever someone says that to me, I know they want to break my knees with a baseball bat.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:22 PM
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A PJ Media Exclusive

Baron Bodissey files what he refers to as his "first primary-source Pajamas Media report (with visuals)." Soon enough - November 16 to be exact - such reports will not be filed here or at Instapundit or at Little Green Footballs, but at our permanent site.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:15 PM
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Israel Back in Gaza

It didn't take long, but then the religious psychopaths in Hamas gave the Israelis no other choice. Look at it this way - if a major social group in Mexico was sitting in Tijuana lobbing missiles at San Diego and the Mexican government did nothing about it, would the United States have the right to respond?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:48 PM
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Turn on, tune in, drop out in Tehran

Tim Leary's famous quote - or the alternative bourgeois lifestyle from which it grew - probably doesn't mean much to Iran's poor. They're not doing drugs to be cool or transcendent but to escape from arguably the world's most repressive regime. What's not surprising is that Iran now has the world's highest addiction rate, according to this fascinating/depressing Washington Post article. No surpise either in who makes all the money from the drug sales. (Hint: it's not the "Bear". Okay, give up? Answer here. And it's not just for the profits.... How do you stop a revolution? Get everyone stoned.)

While infants play in Washington, the Iranian people continue to suffer. Go figure.

UPDATE: The dope peddlers in Tehran, of course, have other things on their mind as well.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:24 AM
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September 23, 2005

Talking Points Memo (Authors Guild Style)

Since the Google Print controversy generated such a spirited discussion on here, I thought you would be interested in some talking points sent by the Authors Guild to its members regarding the internet behemoth.

Heading to a dinner party this weekend? Here are some talking points on the suit to share with friends:

1. Google is a commercial, not a charitable, enterprise. Google is worth roughly $90 billion, making staggering profits through its online advertising programs. Its investment in Google Library is intended to bring even more visitors and profits to its website and ancillary services. The Guild is all for profit, but when the profit comes from the works of authors, the authors should be properly compensated.

2. Google is scanning entire books, not just "fair use snippets." Google is digitizing countless texts, your books, in their entirety -- every sentence, every carefully chosen word -- without your permission. That Google chooses to present users with short selections from your work doesn't change that.

Read the rest here. In the interest of full disclosure, I am not currently a member of the Authors Guild. (I let my membership lapse not out of disinterest - I applaud the organization - but out of a combination of writers club overload and good old fashioned sloth. This link was sent to me by a friend who keeps his membership in good standing.)

UPDATE: Dartblog has a suggestion.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:45 PM
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Firefox bug fixed

The security bug bugging Firefox, the web browser used by many readers of this blog, has allegedly been firefixed or something. I'm uploading it now. It's available here.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:08 PM
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Help Wanted - Not Necessary to Work in Your Pajamas

The New York Times may be laying people off in droves, but Pajamas Media is hiring - well, a little bit anyway. Right now we're looking for a System Administrator to work with our Director of Technology Magnus Kempe. We are also looking for a part-time intern in the tech area. The latter would be non-paying and more for a college student who wants hands on experience at a new media start-up.

Don't reply here. Please check our site for info and how to proceed.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:34 PM

"Big Apple, Big Easy"

A lovely atmospheric piece on New Orleans by my friend Michael Ravitch is in today's NY Sun.

Ever since fate brought me to live in New Orleans, I have been full of complaints. First of all, like most life-long New Yorkers, I couldn't imagine living anywhere else but New York City. Plus I never could get interested in the commercialized decadence of Bourbon Street; the flowery cliches of haunted mansions, and jazzy joie de vivre rubbed me the wrong way. All that romantic nonsense seemed to me like a bad perfume, covering up the real stink of a troubled city.

An attenuated version is here. Unfortunately, you must subscribe to the Sun (free trial) for the rest.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:05 AM
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No, no, how many times do I have to tell you... I don't want to subscribe

A local sport in Los Angeles among some people I know is bragging about how cheaply you subscribed to the LA Times. That paper, hemorrhaging readers, will do practically anything to keep subscribers. I just resubscribed for $1.99 a week, mostly to get the sales operator off the phone. I should have asked her if they had a cheaper deal just for the Food Section, which is the part I read.

Further indication of the precipitous decline of dead tree media is this report on Time Inc.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York asked for information from Time Inc. on so-called sponsored sales programs, such as courtesy copies of magazines given to doctors' offices or promotional copies for other uses, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

A spokeswoman for Time Inc., which publishes 155 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated and People, said the company was subpoenaed for information on its circulation practices but could not specify the scope or the direction of the federal prosecutor's investigation.

Does this mean I'll have to take my own reading matter to the dentist? Maybe he'll get WiFi.

UPDATE: My pal Online Wizard Andrew Breitbart claims he gets the LAT for $52 a year (half what I'm paying, the rat, and somewhere around a tenth of the newstand price). Can anyone top that?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:54 AM
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A Site I Just Bookmarked

The National Hurricane Center.

Meanwhile, a litte optimism from the markets - Oil Prices Slip As Hurricane Rita Weakens. Unfortunately, that article is datelined Budapest, Hungary. People closer to the scene are a bit more nervous.

Here's the latest from the WSJ's Storm News Tracker:

8:10 a.m.: Forecasters said it appeared Houston and Galveston could avoid a direct hit as Rita veered slightly to the east, threatening its 140 mph winds at the Beaumont and Port Arthur area about 75 miles east of Houston. An 8 a.m. EDT advisory from the National Hurricane Center said the winds remained at 140 mph. The storm marginally revised its track toward the northwest, and the NHC discontinued a storm watch alert for the southern coast of Texas and Mexico.

And a bit earlier:

7:30 a.m.: The Associated Press reports from Houston. Richard Fernandez, a spokesman for the City of Houston Aviation Department, said Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports were overrun by people who didn't have confirmed reservations and were hoping to get on a flight. Adding to the problems, the Transportation Security Administration said a little less than half of the 430 security screeners who work at the two airports skipped work because they live in areas under mandatory evacuations. "We started planning for that and we supplemented our work force with screeners from other airports," a TSA spokeswoman said.

Sounds like a normal day at LAX.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:17 AM
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September 22, 2005

Feingold Fine, Feinstein Not So Fine

Watching final speeches and voting for the Senate Judicary Committee hearings on the Roberts nomination, it was interesting to see who were thoughtful public servants and who were the partyline hacks. I was surprised to find my generally sensible senator Dianne Feinstein falling so definitively into the latter category. In fact I would characterize her performance as pathetic - she read the most banal imaginable text laden (or leaden) with hoary liberal shibboleths in a rote manner that convinced you she couldn't possibly believe a word she was saying. Whatever the cause - campaign contribution desperation, fear of her left flank - I think the woman made a fool of herself.

On the other hand, Russ Feingold, whose core political beliefs are far more liberal than Feinsteins, followed the Constitution and voted yes. You may disagree with Feingold but he is not a fake. That is what democracy should be.

As for Biden, well, I can't say I blame him for voting no. If Roberts had made as much of a fool of me as he did of the Senator from Delaware, not only would I have voted no on the nominee, I would have wanted to break his kneecaps.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:37 PM
Comments (39)

PJ Media - Singleton Singled Out

Okay, I should have put up a BPA (bad pun alert)... but in these days of disastrous hurricanes when people are correctly concerned with generosity to others, we are pleased to be profiling Don Singleton - a man who has done a lot - on our PJMedia transitional site. Don blogs from Tulsa.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:24 AM
Comments (0)

Remember when smoking was cool?

In a new study, even 1-4 cigarettes a day are a ticket to the morgue. But there's "good news" for men.

Also, light smoking has a greater impact on women than on men, particularly as far as lung cancer [not heart disease] is concerned. Men who smoked 1-4 cigarettes a day were at a three times greater risk of developing lung cancer, while women who were light smokers presented a fivefold risk.

And there's this food for thought for those who insist on the right to smoke in restaurants:

Passive smoking presents similar cardiovascular risks to light smoking, the results of the study show. A non-smoker living with a person who is a heavy smoker has 1/3 of the risk of that person, even if he/she inhales only approximately 1% of the smoke (the equivalent of 1 cigarette every 5 days).

I eat out a lot and, though sympathetic to many libertarian views, am glad I'm not putting myself at risk every time I go scarf a little sushi. The mercury problem is enough, thank you.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:28 AM
Comments (19)

Brazile No Nut

Some people on here and elsewhere questioned the authenticity of Donna Brazile's response to Katrina and her published endorsement of George Bush's commitment to rebuilding from the hurricane. Someone even sent me email suggesting I had gone belly up as a mystery writer because I hadn't realized Brazile was conning us.

Well, if she is, she's doing a helluva job of it. These people should have a look at the Cindy Adams column in today's New York Post. (Brazile to Adams: "Girl, I only tell you, I applaud this president for stepping up.") If you read this column and still disparage Brazile's remarks, well, we're not on the same wavelength.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:03 AM
Comments (12)

Yes, and the sky is blue...

Those brilliant sleuths at the FBI once concluded that John Lennon was "too stoned to be a [revolutionary] threat." They might also have concluded that Real Revolutionaries do not tend to live at the Dakota.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:54 AM
Comments (16)

"Despair is never an option."

Elie Wiesel speaks at Princeton. Fausta was there.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:07 AM
Comments (3)

September 21, 2005

You never write, you never call, you never email!

That sounds like a new version of an old Jewish Mother Joke, but it's actually how I (as an author) feel about Google's new project Google Print. The Authors Guild is on my side:

The Authors Guild and three other writers filed a class action suit on Tuesday against Google Inc. over the Google Print program. The lawsuit charges Google with massive copyright infringement.

The Authors Guild, a society of published writers representing over 8,000 U.S. authors, charges that Google has not sought the approval of authors to include their works in the program.

I don't know whether they plan on scanning any of my books, but they certainly haven't contacted me - nor have they, to my knowledge, contacted any other writers. Of course, according to IT World,

Google does allow copyright holders to exclude their books from the program. However, traditionally, content users must have affirmative authorization from a copyright owner to use the copyrighted material, said Terence Ross, a partner and copyright law specialist at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a Washington, D.C., law office. "Merely saying that if we don't hear from you we assume it's okay has never been accepted by any court and I doubt it would ever be accepted," he said.

Most of us wouldn't even know how to contact them.

UPDATE: According to Forbes, The individual plaintiffs are Herbert Mitgang, a former New York Times editorial writer and the author of numerous fiction and nonfiction books, including The Fiery Trial: A Life of Lincoln; Betty Miles, the award-winning author of many works for children and young adults, and Daniel Hoffman, the author and editor of many volumes of poetry, translation, and literary criticism, who was also the 1973-74 Poet Laureate of the U.S.

I will be following this case carefully, not because it will substantially affect my royalties (I doubt that) but for its implications. Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google act these days almost as transnational online super states with no one to restrict them. If I were a sci-fi writer, I would see this as a harbinger of a new world order controled by Internet mega-companies. Its almost a cliché and it may already be here.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:04 AM
Comments (56)

Pajamas Media Not Alone

Some people are upset that Pajamas Media will be changing its name in time for our November 16 launch. I can understand that. I feel the same way to some extent. But I must remind myself that all things change. It's the way of our existence. And in the end, the market prevails.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:45 AM
Comments (15)

September 20, 2005

Could money have something to do with it?

The NYT does not mention filthy lucre as a possible motivation for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's surprise announcement yesterday that he is voting no on the John Roberts nomination for the Supreme Court. But fund-raising from his base is the only motive that makes sense to me for such a politically tone-deaf move after the country witnessed Roberts giving one of the more deft performances in front of a Senate committee in recent years.

The Washington Post amplifies in their editorial: IN ANNOUNCING his opposition yesterday to the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to be chief justice of the United States, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) made a remarkable statement: "The president is not entitled to very much deference in staffing the third branch of government, the judiciary." Leave aside the merits of the Roberts nomination, which we support; if Mr. Reid regards Judge Roberts as unworthy, he is duty-bound to vote against him. But these are dangerous words that Democrats will come to regret.

Most probably... And as for Reid, I doubt deep down he really opposes Roberts. It's all a political game. And if the Minority Leader is ultimately trolling for dollars here, he is basically undermining the intent of the Founding Fathers regarding the Supreme Court nominating process. They doubtless would have agreed with the WaPo which also points out in its editorial: This country has only one president at a time.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:54 PM
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"Urging Democracy onward is not for the faint of heart. Or stomach."

Rich Galen gives the word from Bamiyan, Afghanistan in an interesting column on their recent elections - Democracy Happened. (In case you don't remember - I didn't - Bamiyan is the place where the Taliban blew up those giant statues of Buddha.)

(ht: Rick Ballard)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:57 PM
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Listen to Steve

Steve Jobs, who has done more for the music industry in this era of high tech elevator music than any of that moribund indutry's own executives, had this to say on their pricing of digital downloads:

"If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy," Jobs said. "If the price goes up, (consumers) will go back to piracy, and everybody loses."

Including Apple, obviously. But what he says makes sense.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:53 AM
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In Memoriam - Simon Wiesenthal

The man who survived five death camps has passed away at 96.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:54 AM
Comments (4)

Free Psychotherapy at Pajamas Media

Who says we're not an all-service organization? Well, okay, not free psychotherapy, but the closest thing to it - a profile of psychotherapist/blogger Neo-Neocon - a longtime favorite of this site for her ground-breaking analyses of why and why not people are capable of change.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:58 AM
Comments (3)

Annals of the MRL

One of the peculiar things about the MRL (modern reactionary left) is that in their strange obsession with George W. Bush - calling him a racist, sexist, Jehovah knows what else - they almost entirely ignore the brutal and virtually unchallenged real misogyny and homophobia of a large part of the Islamic world. It's one of the more extreme versions of the "enemy of enemy is my friend" that one could ever imagine.

GayPatriot here offers a corrective. Warning: disturbing image.

UPDATE: The Anchoress weighs in. [Did you actually write that?-ed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:36 AM
Comments (22)

September 19, 2005

Just when you thought he couldn't get any more reactionary....

'Honest' Dan Rather comes back from the dead to set us straight in an 'emotional' speech about the media at Fordham Law.

"It's been one of television news' finest moments," Rather said of the Katrina coverage. He likened it to the coverage of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

"They were willing to speak truth to power," Rather said of the coverage.

I'm not even going to comment on that bizarre statement, but you've got to hand it to Dan. If most of us had been caught lying like he had on national television, we would have moved to South America by now.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:01 PM
Comments (40)

Deja Vu All Over Again....

Or why politicians are among the living dead.

WASHINGTON - Two Democrats who might seek the White House again in 2008 criticized President Bush for his response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, assailing the suspension of wage laws while urging a concerted effort to aid the poor.

Sen.John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Sen. John Edwards spoke separately Monday on the government's handling of the catastrophe and on the broader issue of poverty in the United States.

As if these gentlemen have ever done anything more than blab... or , in Kerry's case, buy cars and houses for himself.

In an interview after his speech, Kerry said: "What the president has done with FEMA has degraded it, politicized its responsibilities. It's irresponsible."

But wasn't it the Democrats who put FEMA under Homeland Security? Oh, never mind.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:27 PM
Comments (24)

The Great Blogosphere UN Secretary General Poll

Captain Marlow has been outdoing yours truly in his Oil-for-Food coverage lately (it helps to be more fluent than I am in Italian) and notified me of the sinister/amusing (depending on your outlook) news today that notorious Saddam apologist Father Benjamin has been caught with his self-righteous hand in the Oil-for-Food cookie jar to the tune of 140K. (Known in Italian as the scandalo "Olil for Food")

Using that as a prelude, and being generally future-oriented, I think it's high time, as Captain Marlow again recommends, that we have a Great Blogosphere UN Secretary General Poll. Who should succeed Kofi Annan when the smooth-talking Don of Turtle Bay finally releases his iron grip on the world body? I'd vote for Claudia Rosett myself, but let's try to be realistic and pick people who might conceivably be candidates for the job. The Ukraine has already announced it is backing Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski.

Put down your selections here and I will try to cull out a list of finalists. [Like you don't have enough to do.-ed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:11 AM
Comments (83)

September 18, 2005

North Korea Dreaming....

According to many reports, a last-minute breakthrough was made in the six-party talks with North Korea and the NORKS are pledging to abandon their nuclear weapons program in return for the usual list of favors. Of course, there are devilish details to be worked out and all might collapse at any minute, but, as the NYT points out:

Progress in the talks may also give the United States and European countries some diplomatic momentum in their negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program, which is not considered as advanced as the North Korean one.

Let's hope.... The Times continues further on:

The accord finessed what had been the biggest sticking point in the latest round of talks - the light-water nuclear reactor - by leaving it to be resolved in future discussions. North Korea demanded throughout the week-long session that the international community agree to provide it with a light-water reactor before it took steps to dismantle its nuclear program.

The United States firmly rejected that demand, though it did not rule out the possibility that the North could retain some kind of civilian nuclear program down the road if it abandoned its weapons program.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:32 PM
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Paralysis in Deutschland

The results of the German election do not augur well for change in that country where unemployment is double the U. S. Also, it seems the exit polls were slightly tilted in favor of Ms. Merkel.

With 298 of 299 districts declaring, the results showed Merkel's Christian Democrats party with 35.2 percent of the vote compared to 34.3 percent for Schroeder's Social Democrats. Voting in the final district, Dresden, was delayed until Oct. 2 because of the death of a candidate. But that outcome was not expected to affect the final result.

One leading possibility: a linkup between her Christian Democrats and Schroeder's Social Democrats, viewed by some as a recipe for paralysis in a country plagued by 11.4 percent unemployment.

Better news here.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:47 PM
Comments (10)

Here's Michael!. (Barone PJ Profile Up)

If there is a journalist who knows more than Michael Barone about American politics, I don't know who he or she is. Election night, Barone is the man we rely on when only eighteen votes are in from some obscure county in Northern South Dakota and they completely conflict with the fifteen votes in from an even more obscure county in Southern North Dakota to make sense of it all. He also has the ability to make sense of the larger picture of our national life as few others. Next time you have a three or four hour plane ride, take along a copy of Hard America, Soft America and you'll see what I mean.

Now as many of you know - and I have noted before - Mr. Barone also blogs. But even though he does, and even though he and I have friendly personal relations, I was absolutely thrilled when Michael told me he would be pleased to serve on the PJ Editorial Board. I dropped everything else and immediately pinged my colleagues Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stewart. "Guess who we've got?" I said. "Now we're legitimate!"

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:51 PM
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TigerHawk Takes on Kristof

Nicholas Kristof asks if Bush has wimped out on genocide? According to TigerHawk, the column NYT columnist should know better:

This is a profoundly unfair charge, as Kristof sorta kinda acknowledges in the penultimate paragraph of the column ("[p]perhaps it's unfair to focus so much on Mr. Bush, for there are no neat solutions and he has done more than most leaders"). But even in recognizing the unfairness of the attack Kristof is wrong about why it is unfair to denounce the United States for refusing to shoulder an "obligation" to respond to genocide. It isn't that the United States has done more than most other countries. It is that in many situations the United States is the only power that is capable of responding to or preventing genocide. Sure, other good countries can contribute troops and money, but what other country is even theoretically in the position to organize a major military intervention to prevent a genocide that is not in its own backyard? No other country has a large enough navy, and no other country has the airlift capacity. For the United Nations to declare that there is an "obligation" to respond to genocide is to demand that the United States deploy its military on a determination of the United Nations. This is free-riding of the worst sort, and the United States would be nuts to agree to it.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:35 PM
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Monopoly of the Cyber Enablers

The Washington Post has a brave and important editorial today - Obeying Orders - about Yahoo's recent cooperation with Chinese authorities. As readers will recall, the cyber giant provided an email address to those authorities that resulted in a ten-year sentence for journalist Shi Tao. (Subsequently, Yahoo's chief Jerry Yang gave a particularly odd explanation for his company's behavior.) The WaPo editorial concludes in this manner:

This is not merely an abstract business ethics issue: Yahoo's behavior in China could have real consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Over the past two decades, many have argued -- ourselves included -- that despite China's authoritarian and sometimes openly hostile government, it is nevertheless right to encourage American companies to work there. Their very presence has been thought to make the society more open, if not necessarily more democratic. If that is no longer the case -- if, in fact, American companies are helping China become more authoritarian, more hostile and more of an obstacle to U.S. goals of democracy promotion around the world -- then it is time to rethink the rules under which they operate.

Indeed, as Instapundit (where I found this link) would say. And it is not just Yahoo! that is involved here but, as we know, its co-cyber enablers Google and Microsoft whose China policies are similar.

But, to be honest, as one of the decision-makers at PJMedia, I am left here with an uncomfortable conundrum. As we set up our permanent site, one of the necessities will be links to mainstream media. Most of those links, and often the best and most efficient ones, come through the companies above. What to do?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:54 AM
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Good-bye, Gerhard (we hope)

One of the more tedious politicians of our time, Gerhard Schroeder, appears to have gone down in defeat today, although not by a margin sufficient to make him completely extinct. Schroeder, not surprisingly, is not conceding this defeat and will try to form his own coalition government despite having the odds stacked against him. Here are the numbers:

An exit poll by ZDF public television showed Merkel's Christian Democrats at 35.7 percent and the Social Democrats 33.6 percent. Merkel's preferred coalition partner - the pro-business Free Democrats - had 10.4 percent, while current Schroeder coalition partner Greens received 8.2 percent.

The Christian Democrats' projected totals were considerably worse than expected. Merkel's party consistently polled above 40 percent during the campaign.

It will be interesting to see how these exit polls stack up against the actual count.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:37 AM
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Taheri on Iran's War Goals

I don't know enough to evaluate Amir Taheri's new article on an increasingly warlike direction from Iran, but the bellicose speech by their new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes me pay attention.

Incredible though it may sound there are signs that Tehran may be preparing for a military confrontation with the United States, and has convinced itself that it could win.

Taheri's piece is not short on details. (via Doctor Zin)

UPDATE: Interesting post with disappointing news from India at Thomas P. M. Barnett. (via WitchitaBoy in the comments)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:20 AM
Comments (24)

September 17, 2005

Was a SAM fired at an America West jet at JFK yesterday?

LGF reported the story several hours ago with appropriate caution. Michelle Malkin has already followed up with the airline. Something did happen and an investigation is under way. Whether a missile was fired, however, is not confirmed. Now that the blogosphere has looked into an extraordinary and, if true, hugely important story, it will be interesting to see how and if the mainstream media follow up.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:23 PM
Comments (9)

Will the real Hugo Chavez please stand up?

The supreme leader of Venezuela seems to be playing his own one-man version of good cop, bad cop these days. On Nightline he is saying that the US is planning to invade his country using a secret plan called "Balboa." Playing hardball of a sorts... "In the event of a U.S. invasion, Chavez said the United States can 'just forget' about receiving any more oil from his country."

But meanwhile... in another AP story posted only three minutes ago... (The first was from 3:02PM. Who knows if the second reporter read the first?) Chavez Backpedals From Recent Remarks:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that he would attempt to improve his relations with Washington, which have been rocky in recent months.

"I love the people of the United States," he said.

And their money.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:09 PM
Comments (9)

Donna Brazile - American First, Democrat Second

From her Washington Post column:

On Thursday night President Bush spoke to the nation from my city. I am not a Republican. I did not vote for George W. Bush -- in fact, I worked pretty hard against him in 2000 and 2004. But on Thursday night, after watching him speak from the heart, I could not have been prouder of the president and the plan he outlined to empower those who lost everything and to rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Way to go, Donna! (via Mark in Mexico)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:08 AM
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First PJ Ed Board Member Up - David Corn!

We are now beginning to post profiles of the PJ Media Editorial Board members on our site. That they come from various sides of the political spectrum should be evident by the fact that the first one is David Corn - Washington editor of The Nation - and the second one will be Michael Barone - Senior Columnist of US News & World Report. Besides being superb writers, both of these men share something else - they blog. Despite years of professional journalistic credits, they have seen the future of media and have had the flexibility to move with the times. Both men, moreover, are not ideologues. They are committed to rational dialogue and debate, something we hope will be a hallmark of this company going forward.

And since this is David's day (weekend) on our site I will add a personal note. Although I have known his writing (as a journalist and a crime writer) for some time, we had never met until a couple of months ago when we had breakfast at the fabled Nate & Al's in Beverly Hills. We hit it off and I look forward to sharing a drink again in DC, LA or at our launch in NY on November 16. But this time not coffee.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:43 AM
Comments (30)

September 16, 2005

Portrait of a Religious Psychopath

Should that be a new category in the next DSM? If the author's of that manual want an example, they should use Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi who informs us that the Sunni women of Tel'afar had "Their Wombs Filled with the Sperm of the Crusaders".

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:30 AM
Comments (20)

Germany and the Flat Tax

Angela Merkel - that distaff Steve Forbes clone running for Chancellor of Germany - seems not to be as much of a shoe-in as earlier polls indicated. The Germans may be headed for a Grand Coalition, which pretty much means super-stasis, as I understand it. But I confess a slight rooting-interest in seeing Angie win. Besides being sick of Gerhard Schroeder, a depressing hack who leaves even our politicians in the dust when it comes to pandering, I am curious to see what actually would result from a flat tax if put into action by a modern industrial state. That might clear a lot of things up - one way or the other.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:08 AM
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The Inverse Square Law of Mainstream Media

Am I the only one who likes Bush more every time he is excessively attacked by the mainstream media? Hurricane Katrina is a case in point. Apparently, twenty-four hours into the catastrophe the President had not reacted sufficiently. I say apparently because I really don't know, but I will assume that to be the case. Some kind of communications screw up probably occurred because it is hard to believe a sitting president of any party would want to be perceived as ignoring such a disaster even slightly. These people are politicians.

Nevertheless, the mainstream media, or much of it anyway, proceeded as if this were a case of noblesse oblige with racist overtones. Of course, in the process they fanned the flames of racism and made the situation worse based on false premises. What again could not be more obvious was that Bush - a normal politician - would have seized on the events (had he been aware of their gravity) to look good and curry favor with African-Americans to go after their votes, just as he is doing now. Racism? Pshaw!

The willful ignorance of the media in their zeal to get Bush is peculiar. Reuters yesterday reached a buffoon-like level. What is most surprising to me is how psychologically-ignorant these people are. Perhaps hatred and envy trump normal common sense. The more these attacks continue in this manner the more Bush will thrive. That's the way humans react to unfairness. Sure Bush's poll numbers went down in the short run, but he is already bouncing back. The mainstream media's numbers - lower to begin with - are not moving.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:12 AM
Comments (58)

September 15, 2005

More Gaza Fallout

Israeli PM Ariel Sharon seems to have gotten some postive feedback for the Gaza pullout during his visit to the UN. It's no surprise to hear praise for his courage from Australia's Howard... but from Qatar?.. that's interesting.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:23 PM
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If Saddam Hussein were still in power...

... he wouldn't have to go as far as Niger or anywhere near that for for help in obtaining nuclear arms. He could get all the assistance he needed right next door, according to this AP report:

UNITED NATIONS -Iran is willing to provide nuclear technology to other Muslim states, Iran's hard-line president said Thursday. Hours later, European nations renewed an offer of economic incentives if the Mideast nation would halt its uranium enrichment.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the comment after talking with Turkey's prime minister during a gathering of world leaders at the
United Nations, Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said.

Those of you who were wondering what the United Nations is still good for can feel reassured - the exchange of nuclear information.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:45 PM
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"Robert Wise... Robert Wise... Robert Wise"

Fledgling film directors are often taught to mutter those words to themselves before yelling "Cut!" in order to get those magic vulnerable moments when the actor has run out of words or instructions. (I have tried this myself and it works, sometimes anyway.)

Why Robert Wise? I don't know. Perhaps because he was such a superb craftsman. In any case, the man who edited Citizen Kane and directed The Sound of Music is now gone. One of the greats.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:54 AM
Comments (1)

A new blogging book....

...blog! is being published in October with interviews of some well-known conservative and liberal bloggers. Or is it the other way around? [What do those terms mean anyway?-ed. You know, it's that old Celtics vs. Lakers thing.]

David Kline, one of the author/editors of this book, has a blog of his own.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:06 AM
Comments (6)

Pajamas Media Road Map up

A general road map for what to expect on the Pajamas Media site through November 16 has just been posted. Why November 16? That is the date we have chosen for our big launch event in New York City with panel discussions, pompous and not-too-pompous speeches and party! The venue(s) will be disclosed shortly, but down payments have been made - so the date can't slip!

More details - including the identities of members of our Editorial Board - will be revealed in coming days. We're very excited about that board because it mixes well-known bloggers with well-known MSM people (sympathetic to blogs - some blog themselves). They also come from all sides of the political spectrum. What we intend to do is tone down the rhetoric and increase the dialogue. We don't know if this is possible, but we intend to try. It's that democracy thing, doncha know?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:14 AM
Comments (6)

The War Against Women continued...

... in this unmasking of a CAIR Photoshop by Robert Spencer. I guess they couldn't get her to bow her head. (via LGF)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:37 AM
Comments (2)

The "Dwarf-Kicking Contest"

Kesher Talk has a brief account of the Hitchens-Galloway Debate with some links.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:17 AM
Comments (4)

September 14, 2005

Health Shocker!

This one is actually worth one of those over-heated Drudge headlines. The annual cost of health insurance, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Education Trust, has gone up to $10,880 per family of four! It's been rising steadily for the last five years and there's no immediate cause for optimism that this will be reversed. The article explains:

Consolidation in the hospital industry, which gave hospitals more power to raise prices, has been a factor. So, too, are higher prescription drug costs and less competition among insurance companies. In addition, more people are developing health problems as the population ages.

This could easily be the Democrats biggest issue in '08, but more importantly it's a huge concern for all of us. I don't even want to compute the premium if health insurance costs continue to mount at current double-digit (or near) rates.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:26 PM
Comments (56)

Where there's life, there's hope...

Everybody's a comedian when it comes to the Senate Judiciary Hearings where nominee Roberts is evidently tying a gaggle of bloviating senators into knots. (Is gaggle the right word? They remind me of geese.) Logging in now is Dana Milbank with this amusing lede.

Efforts to get an answer out of John G. Roberts were going nowhere at yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, so Sen. Charles E. Schumer went Hollywood.

" 'Dr. Zhivago' and 'North by Northwest,' " the nominee deadpanned. The crowd scored it another point for Roberts. Jane Roberts gave her husband a kiss. Schumer went outside to the cameras, where he observed, a bit wistfully, that Roberts "is a very, very smart man."

Reason for my headline? Well, there's hope because Chuck Schumer finally admitted someone on the other side of the aisle could be intelligent. This is indeed progress for humanity.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:29 PM
Comments (18)

Oil may be up but...

Black market prices for weapons dropped sharply, with the price of AK-47 assault rifles nearly cut in half, to $1,300, and even steeper reductions for handguns.

In case you're wondering, that fire sale on AKs is in Gaza, according to the AP. [Wear a mask if you go shopping.-ed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:52 PM
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Peaktalk gives me credit....

... although I am certain I had nothing to do with "Hollywood Does Van Gogh" - the plans by actor Steve Buscemi to bring three of assassinated Dutch Filmmaker Theo Van Gogh's films to the screen in American indie versions. Peaktalk's Pieter Dorsman concisely states what is also my reaction:

Van Gogh's movies were not exactly material for the masses and it will be interesting to see what Buscemi and friends will make of some of the material. The proof will be in the pudding: how will the publicity be handled once these productions are released? How much of it will be spent on the moviemaker's life and in particular, his death?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:36 PM
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Kanye West may think Bush is a racist...

But some other bigtime pop music figures... well, at least one... feel differently, according to this AP report on the President's address to the United Nations today:

Irish rocker Bob Geldof, who organized the Live Aid concerts and campaigns against poverty, said he was sitting in the General Assembly chamber with U.N. anti-poverty chief Jeffrey Sachs and they couldn't believe what they heard.

"I think he's really throwing down the gauntlet. It's a very bold move," Geldof said of Bush's trade tariff proposal, adding that he was impressed with the president's acknowledgment that terrorism "comes from despair and lack of hope."

Reactionaries like West are unlikely to... [Hey, be easy on the dude. He was just tryin' to sell some albums.-ed. Right. I forgot. I'll start over.] Gentlemen songsters like West are unlikely to comment on Bush's challenge to world leaders to abolish all trade tariffs, even though that could arguably help diminish world poverty more than all the charitable donations by all the charitable organizations in history combined, nor will 'progressive' states like France and Germany likely show much interest in his proposal... but it is one of the more interesting ideas to come down the pike in some time. New York Times... Washington Post... how're you going to cover this one? Same old... same old... I suppose.

MORE on Bush's proposal in this report:

Bush's call to eliminate all trade barriers would essentially create a worldwide free trade zone, something that goes far beyond the goals of the 148 countries who are seeking to wrap up a new round of trade liberalization talks known as the Doha Round, for the city in Qatar where the talks were launched in late 2001.

Saying that the Doha negotiations would eliminate farm subsidies, Bush said, "Today I broaden the challenge by making this pledge: The United States is ready to eliminate all tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to free flow of goods and services as other nations do the same. This is key to overcoming poverty in the world's poorest nations. It's essential we promote prosperity and opportunity for all nations."

Most Third World poverty has been intractable for generations, making the term "Developing Nations" no more than a euphemism. What we need now are radically new approaches and Bush has offered one.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:51 PM
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Pritikin?

How plebeian. With his money, I'd have booked the Golden Door.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:07 PM
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The Night of the Boxing Matches

Two knock-down, drag out political fights are occurring today.

The first -- "Trotsky's Nightmare" Christopher Hitchens vs. "Not-So-Gorgeous" George Galloway. Hurry-hurry! That one goes off at 6:00PM Eastern! Available on line here.

Next up... at 8PM Central... I think it's Central anyway... Victor "The Big Viceroy" Hanson vs. Arianna "I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll Blow My Seven Million Dollar House Down with My Prius"! Fisticuffs here.

UPDATE: Error on the KPFT Houston site. Hitchens/Galloway debate is at 7PM Eastern, not 6.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:35 PM
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I'm just Biden-ing my Ti-ime...

Two head scratchers from the loquacious Senator from Maryland, er... Delaware... to Supreme Court-nominee Roberts at the confirmation hearings:

BIDEN: "You've told me nothing with all due respect..."

BIDEN: "You are one of the best witnesses to come before this committee. And I have been here 30-some years."

[Well, you know, those two statements are not necessarily contradictory.-ed. I know what you mean.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:14 PM
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Barone's Blog

If there is any sign that blogs have arrivés, it is that Michael Barone, the dean of American political analysts in my estimation, is blogging and doing it in a committed manner. (No comments yet, but you can't ask too much on US News & World Report) This is the kind of guy who spends his off hours rereading Gertrude Himmelfarb's The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments.

In Barone's most recent post, he examines a quote from Himmelfarb on the two systems of morality in civilized society and uses it to put forth Adam Smith as a modern political pundit.

"The 'liberal' or 'loose' system, favored by 'people of fashion,' was prone to 'vices of levity'-'luxury, wanton and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of chastity . . . ' The 'strict or austere' system, generally adhered to by 'the common people,' regarded such vices, for themselves at any rate, with 'the utmost abhorrence and detestation,' because they knew-or at least 'the wiser and better sort' of them knew-that these vices were almost always ruinous to them; a single week's dissipation could undo a poor workman forever. This is why, Smith explained, religious sects arose and flourished among the common people, for they preached the system of morality conducive to the welfare of the poor."

Of course it's Barone's intent to bring forth this dichotomy into our times.

You can also see what Smith describe in today's politics. It's most visible in Wyoming, our smallest state. Wyoming is full of what Smith calls "the common people," and in 2004 it voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush. He carried every county but one. That was Teton County, which includes Jackson Hole, the ultraexpensive resort inhabited primarily by what Smith calls "the people of fashion." This is what I called the trust-funder left in a column last March, and you can see their influence in the huge majorities for John Kerry in such trust-funder havens as San Francisco and Berkeley, Aspen and Telluride, Martha's Vineyard and Manhattan.

There's plenty more at the link above.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:02 AM
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September 13, 2005

Requiscat in Pace - the United Nations

Of course, it will still be there in name, serving discount lunches to diplomats in the cafeteria, and the Secretariat Building will not yet be turned over to The Donald to be retrofitted as a gold-plated hotel/casino in Turtle Bay, but it might as well be, considering the pallid reform package the General Assembly was able to muster today. The Washington Post sums up:

The negotiators were forced to put off action on some of the thorniest and most ambitious goals, including proposals to expand the U.N. Security Council, to create an independent auditing board to scrutinize U.N. spending, and to impose basic membership standards for a new Human Rights Council so that chronic rights abusers will not be able to join.

So, despite all, the Volcker Report on Oil-for-Food's call for independent auditing evidently had no impact (the endless corruption spigot's still on), ditto the Koizumi electoral smash. Despite its vastly stronger economy and healthier system, Japan stays off the Security Council for the benefit of trivial France and dysfunctional Russia. It's hard to see what Cuba and Venezuela - the only countries not to sign the compromise document - have to complain about. They can employ whatever totalitarian pactices they wish and still be assured places of importance on the UN Human Rights Commission, possibly edge out Libya for the presidency.

Over the next few days, speeches will be made by world leaders, advances proclaimed and journalistic appraisals written, but what we are watching are the death throes of an organization. Even after the revelation that the United Nations had presided over the greatest financial scam in world history, the Iraq Oil-for-Food programme, the organization was not able to make the most paltry effort at reforming itself. No one - certainly not the United States - is going to give it serious funding from now on. The UN is now a ghost ship, heading up the East River. Wave good-bye. It's gone.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:52 PM
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Two Pajamas Profiles Up

Don't miss them if you haven't seen - the mysterious Grim of Grim's Hall (sounds like Kenneth Grahame, but he acts more like LeCarré) and Daily Pundit's Bill Quick - the man who started it all. Hell, he invented the name blogosphere. What more can you ask? Oh, yes, and he wrote more books than anyone but Simenon. Well, almost anyone.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:38 PM
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What did Abbas say?

I first learned seriously to distrust CNN as a journalistic enterprise when Eason Jordan made his appalling admission in The New York Times - the cable network had cooperated with Saddam and soft-pedaled his activities in order to gain access to the fascist dictator's Iraq. It's hard to believe an organization after that, so I became slightly suspicious today when I read their reporting on the television address to his people by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. To quote the network...

"Today Gaza, tomorrow the West Bank and (East) Jerusalem," he said, referring to the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

The paratheticals around 'East' are there in the CNN text. But what did Abbas actually say? How do we - or CNN - know he was really talking about East Jerusalem and not Jerusalem in its entirety. We do know that Yasir Arafat played this game many times, talking one way to the Western world and another talking to his people in Arabic - as Abbas was here. We are relying on CNN, of all organizations, to tell us the paranthetically-enclosed 'East' was intended. Perhaps someone who knows Arabic and is familiar with the speech can help us out here. What did Abbas say?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:30 PM
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Orianna, we hardly knew ya...

The City Lights Bookstore, of all places, has banned Orianna Fallaci as a "fascist" writer. Perhaps they mixed her up with Arianna.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:40 PM
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The Re-Hijacking of Flight 93

Mark Steyn tells it all. And Charles reminds us that "it may not be too late to stop this amazingly inappropriate memorial from being built; the National Park Service will make the final decision, and you can contact them here: Flight 93 National Memorial - Contact Us."

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:00 AM
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Bush Takes Responsibiilty

It will be interesting to see how his myriad critics respond to Bush's assumption of responsibility for the federal government failures in response to Katrina.

As if that isn't enough, now the President has to appear in front of the UN whose unctuous Secretary General has already thrown down his corruption-infested gauntlet. As Claudia points out, in an interview with The Independent, Kofi Annan issued the following not-so-veiled threat to the US: "They are the host. You cannot be a host and destroy the party."

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:16 AM
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Excellent, but bleak foreign policy analysis by Paul Mirengoff...

... over at Power Line. Reading the Julian Knapp oped on which Paul bases his post, it's hard to imagine how the Germans would act towards us if they didn't have to sell us Mercedes and Audis. Being the world's only superpower isn't always fun. Of course living in Hollywood... where half of life is motivated by envy... I'm used to this to some extent. But you never really get used to it.

UPDATE: According to Reuters, Germany appears headed for a coalition government.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:27 AM
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The Lessons of Oil-for-Food in Hurricane Land

According to the AP, it sounds as if someone is getting smart:

A team of investigators is being sent to the Hurricane Katrina-ravished Gulf Coast to follow the money - namely, billions of dollars in relief aid the federal government is pouring into the region without normal co