READER (AND KNOXVILLE EXPATRIATE) KEITH SPURGEON writes from New York with news of a Jon Stewart / Susan Sarandon faceoff over terrorism:

The activist actress urged Americans to try to learn what is behind the hate that leads to terrorist acts.

“When you have a guy who thinks the best act is to blow himself up, along with others, you have to ask, ‘What leads to that?'” she asked. “And is the response more violence? A cowboy shoot-’em-up?”

Stewart immediately retorted: “Getting us to understand that is like asking black people to understand why the Klan puts on pointy white hats.” He then called Sarandon a “pinko.”

Affectionately. We think.

Sarandon, however, pressed on: “America is the greatest country, with a tradition of dissent.” Still, Gore Vidal had trouble publishing leftist views in the current superpatriotic climate, she observed.

“He’s out walking around,” said Stewart. “He’s not in jail.”

Personally, whenever people use the terms “superpatriotic” and “cowboy” in discussing American policy, I figure they’ve just stepped out of a time-warp from 1969. Except that some people are the time warp: for them, it’ll always be 1969.

And why is it that among the entertainment crew it’s the comics who are disproportionately making sense on this stuff? Is it because they’re the only ones whose jobs allow them to tell the truth?

FOR THE RECORD, ONE MORE TIME: Bill Quick invented the term “blogosphere.”

SPEAKING OF VIRGINIA POSTREL (which I am in the update just below), if you’re interested in signing her petition against the anti-cloning legislation click on that link and go for it. Time’s a-wastin’.

MARK DB (of Minute Particulars fame) writes about the Newsweek blog article I mentioned earlier:

A two-year old $400 computer? That got me thinking: a free web host with Blogspot, a free blog template, a few bucks for blogger Pro . . . you seem to be the Anti-Kaus in not selling out or putting any monetary investment into InstaPundit. I’m sure that you have the lowest overhead of any of the Blogger Big Guns. Doesn’t Sullivan have an intern or two? And NRO must have a gaggle of support folks. I think your financial nonchalance speaks volumes about what blogging was and still can be. Maybe you should put the Blogger banner back and lower the bar even further?

Well, I wouldn’t even try to match Kaus’s megabucks operation. What makes it even better is that the $400 computer is . . . an eMachine! I may actually upgrade soon, but I have to say that (for me at least) the low-budget DIY esthetic has always had a lot of appeal. One of InstaPundit’s roles has been to show that anybody can do this stuff. And I think I’ve accomplished that. Heck — I get email with, ahem, variations on that theme all the time!

As one journalist said to me: “Your site’s a pure content play, right? I mean, there isn’t really anything else to draw people there.” Nope, there’s not.

UPDATE: Virginia Postrel writes to ask what about the laptop I bought with the tipjar money last fall. I use it, too — but Levy asked what computer I did the majority of my posts from, and that’s this one. It’s the one with the DSL connection. I often blog from the laptop upstairs, and of course I post from my office sometimes too, but there’s no doubt that the majority of my posts come from this eMachine. It also handles audio processing (mastering, etc.) quite capably — though it’s got a soundcard/breakout box combo from Echo that is worth more than the computer to help with those tasks.

A decade or two ago, of course, they’d have called it a “supercomputer.” But it just underscores what Stewart Brand said back in the early 1980s: a personal computer is a communications device, first, second and third.

KNOXVILLE BLOGGER BASH: Well, not much of a “bash,” but a nice late lunch today with Knoxville bloggers Rich Hailey and Gena Lewis. Katie Granju was invited, but couldn’t make it. Why are bloggers always such nice interesting people?

THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS SARGE writes about being a victim of anti-gay prejudice.

STOP IT, DOCTOR, YOU’RE KILLING ME: The real Patch Adams doesn’t sound very funny.

BLACKS, WHITES, AND MIXTURES OF THE TWO are turning up in surprising ways as DNA studies are being done.

MORE EVIDENCE OF FBI INEPTITUDE: Prior warning (well, kind of) of the 9/11 attacks.

ANOTHER GRAY DAVIS FUNDRAISING SCANDAL — Since this story’s in the L.A. Times it may break through into national coverage.

Gov. Gray Davis, whose written policies warn aides against mixing policy and politics, used his Capitol office and had a top government aide with him when he requested a $1-million campaign donation from the California Teachers Assn., people who attended the Valentine’s Day meeting said. . . . “We were talking about various kinds of things, legislation and problems,” Johnson said. “In the middle of the conversation, sort of out of the blue, he said, ‘I need $1 million from you guys.’ “

I’m not in a position to judge how much political damage this will do to Davis, but it can’t be helping. What I wonder is, why are the union representatives telling people about this?

FROM PLANKTON TO PUNDIT: That’s how Steven Levy characterizes my trajectory in the Blogosphere, in this story on weblogs from Newsweek. It’s flattering, though as a SpongeBob fan I find it a bit troubling to be compared to plankton. . . .

LAWRENCE HAWS explores what it means to be a humanitarian organization these days.

YALE PUNDIT FISKS CHOMSKY: It’s easy, but fun. The Harvard Crimson is a bit nicer about it but still basically reaches the conclusion that Chomsky is a fool.

PERHAPS the American press will be less supportive of the International Criminal Court now that a Washington Post reporter is being subpoenaed. The Post says that’s a violation of the First Amendm… oops!

SAMIZDATA wants a U.S. Senator for Britain. Hmm. Methinks they’re taking this Jim Bennett “Anglosphere” stuff too far.

But then again, Disney has a Senator in Fritz Hollings, and it’s not even a country. So what the hell.

DAVID TELL writes about the Saudi terror subsidy.

A ROOF COLLAPSE at the Baikonur Cosmodrome has killed quite a few people.

JOHN ELLIS calls Howell Raines’ banishment of Andrew Sullivan from the NYT Magazine “idiotic,” but notes:

This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Raines regime. The Rainesian management model resembles a kind of anti-network; in which an ever-smaller number of people are engaged in the guidance and definition of the enterprise. As the network narrows, the center (Raines and his management team) grows in importance. At its worst, this kind of management leads to the Sun God management system, in which The Great Leader is surrounded by adoring sycophants. Raines is a prime candidate to fall into this trap, since his ego needs greatly exceed his management skills.

Ouch! I can’t speak to Raines’ management skills except to note that the Times seems to be getting steadily smugger, sloppier, and more biased. Of course, it may just be that I’m paying closer attention.

CORNEL WEST UPDATE: Via Bill Quick, I found this Harvard Crimson piece from Friday:

Is Cornel West a bigot? Depends on whose standards you’re using. A professional victimologist would immediately red-pencil a statement like this one: “I think in one sense that Larry Summers is the Ariel Sharon of American higher education.” After all, Summers is Harvard’s first Jewish president, and the metaphor seems to hint at Jewish collusion and conspiracy, a lurid pact by powerful Jews to oppress minorities.

Or, you might just say it was Cornel West mouthing off again. There isn’t a whit of evidence West is an anti-Semite; he even coauthored a book entitled Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin with his good friend Rabbi Michael Lerner. A reasonable person would give him the benefit of the doubt.

The point, of course, is not that the former Fletcher University Professor is a closet racist, but rather that when one goes looking for racism, it seems to pop up everywhere. Better to reserve condemnation for those who truly merit it—“racist” is too serious an epithet to be tossed about offhandedly.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stop West from doing just that to his erstwhile boss. When National Public Radio’s Tavis Smiley asked him whether he thought Summers’ criticism was motivated by race, West declared primly, “Of course, I have not invoked this particular factor as an explanatory one”—then immediately added, “But at a certain point you say to yourself, Good God, if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, there’s a very good chance that it is a duck, and so there could be actually some unconscious or conscious elements at work here, and I would leave that up to the soul of Summers himself.” At another point he said, “His attack on me was the wrong person, the wrong professor and the wrong Negro.” While he never outright called Summers a Klansman, the message was perfectly clear.

West is playing an ugly game. He would prefer that the petty bickering of two headstrong academics be seen as a parable about a white power structure uniting to silence a noble black truth-teller. That might satisfy some of his apparently endless penchant for self-pity, but it threatens to poison legitimate racial progress at a university he claims to love.

Yep. The evidence would indicate that West is a selfish, race-baiting narcissist, but of course, I have not invoked this particular factor as an explanatory one. But at a certain point you say to yourself. . . .

May Princeton have joy of his company.

LOOKS LIKE EUROPE IS getting behind the notion of invading Iraq. Yeah, you read that right:

A majority of the European Union’s 15 nations are now expected to support President George Bush’s plans for “regime change” in Iraq, and many of them are prepared to offer military support, a conference of American and European scholars on transatlantic relations concluded Saturday.

“The mood in France has changed after the dramas of the presidential election campaign and the bombing in Karachi that killed 11 French naval engineers last week,” said Jean Haine, who teaches international relations at Paris’s prestigious Sciences Po Institute. “Indeed, I expect France to seek to rejoin NATO’s unified military command later this year.”

It’s not all beer and skittles, as you’ll see if you read the whole piece, but it’s a lot better news than I expected. It certainly illustrates the stupidity of the Karachi bombing.

UPDATE: Den Beste says that the Europeans are just recognizing who they’re really dealing with.

MORE HATE IN HOLLAND: A Christian Democrat politican has been attacked in the Netherlands, reports Zachary Barbera. He opposes immigration.

I’M NOT DEAD YET! Matt Welch sent this email in response to the Bennett post:

It’s weird; we didn’t get all that much from the U.S. News & World Report thing (which had two links to LA Examiner) … yet you still dominate my referrals list. Wanna know by how much?

Well, here’s the (rounded) data from May (minus three days), which is utterly typical as far as your influence:

InstaPundit 8300
Dynamist 900
Volokh (!) 700
Layne 300
Reason/Nader 250
Kausfiles 200
Tabloid.net 100
Tim Blair 100
Havrilesky 100

In April, you outranked the next biggest referrer 21,000 to 1,500.

Note how rapidly Volokh has risen from nowhere. The blogosphere hasn’t yet jelled into immobility; quality posts get you attention.

FEAR OF GUNS: It’s addressed by Eugene “guns can be fun” Volokh.

NOW THIS ARTICLE IN SALON has what sounds like an interesting blog-related app:

Punch up a URL and if Jason, or Andrew Sullivan, or Sopsy has an opinion about that page, you see their comments in a floating window alongside your main browser window. It’s a simple enough trick: Sites like Blogdex are already tracking blog-borne references to different URLs. All your browser would have to do is send an additional request to a database of blogged URLs anytime you pulled up a page: If there’s a match — if one of the bloggers you’re following has referenced the URL — their comments get sent back to your machine and appear in the floating palette.

I’d pay for something like that. Is this what Bennett has in mind? It doesn’t sound the same, but he’s been sufficiently coy that I can’t be sure.

RICHARD BENNETT says that I’m obsolete, and being replaced by technology. That’s a relief.

Though if you go to Katie Granju’s site, click on her open counter, and select “week view” (or just try that direct link, which seems to work) you’ll see that my links aren’t quite as feeble at sending traffic as Bennett has repeatedly said. (The spikes correspond to references from here). Maybe people just don’t follow links to Bennett’s site?

I do think that Bennett is right about the colossal expansion of the blogosphere since last fall. I try to find new blogs and note them when they’re noteworthy, but it’s like bailing the ocean with a teacup. It’s absolutely true that the blogosphere is far too big and diverse for any single blog to matter all that much. That’s okay with me though. I have a job, and a life. I even have other hobbies besides this one. And I’d rather see the blogosphere grow into a mighty ocean of links and commentary than remain a relatively big fish in a relatively small pond.

As for technologies like more refined forms of blogdex and daypop, well, bring it on. I’ll go quietly. When I’ve been replaced, I’ll just sit around the Punditry Club bar, boring all the young pundits with stories of the glory days, when Alex Beam fell for Bjorn Staerk’s April Fools page (“Oh, he’s not off on that again,” they’ll groan, and I’ll pretend not to hear).

UPDATE: Meryl Yourish says that Bennett has just rediscovered “push technology” (now there’s a blast from the past) and that I don’t get to retire yet. Other people have suggested that Bennett’s just trolling here. Say it ain’t so! He does seem awfully focused on various sites’ Alexa rankings, though Alexa doesn’t seem very accurate to me.

I actually think that Bennett’s trying to generate buzz for his mysterious forthcoming web app. I’ll be interested to see it. I don’t think it’ll replace blogging any more than that robo-newsreader babe on Ananova replaced Laurie Dhue. I read blogs to see what people think more than to find links. The approach that Bennett describes is more likely to replace Drudge than true blogs. I think that Yourish is right that Bennett’s approach won’t do what he claims it will, but I think there’s room for a lot of useful blog-related apps and his may be one. And I absolutely agree with Bennett that there’s way too much stuff out there for one human — even a full-time one, not a hobbyist like me — to cover. But I don’t try to be comprehensive; I just try to be interesting, by writing about stuff that interests me. And while I’m generally one to embrace the machine, not rage against it, I’m not convinced that the human-ness of the blogosphere is going to be replaceable by software any time soon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Well, if Bennett was trolling, it worked. There’s more commentary from Eric Olsen and Jeff Jarvis, who says it’s given him an idea.