MIKE GODWIN EXPLAINS why Hollywood wants to hack your computer.

CAIR IS ATTACKING DANIEL PIPES, and you can read Daniel Pipes’ response here. I’ve got to say, after CAIR’s dishonest poll — and its even more dishonest explanations of what it did with the poll — I don’t believe much of anything I hear from these guys, and I don’t think they have much credibility generally.

MICHAEL MOORE has lost it, writes former Moore fan Michael Mallon in The Vancouver Sun:

You are invited far too frequently, in Moore’s recent books and films and TV shows, to cheer the man on. Once again, good marketing — a working-class hero is something to be — but often, queasy viewing or reading. In all his work, the blue-collar act often shades over into dangerous anti-intellectual class warfare, especially repugnant coming from someone who lives in a $1.27-million US apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and sends his kid to private school. . . .

Isn’t that what the other side is supposed to be doing? Generalizing, simplifying, pretending to be jes’ one of the common folks? You might argue that when you fight with wolves like General Motors and the Republican Party you must use all tools at your disposal. After all, by any means necessary, said Malcolm X, and the left needs as many strong, charismatic voices as it can get in these days of Bush and Campbell and Le Pen. But Moore’s failings undermine his credibility, and end up undermining the credibility of all voices of protest.

Gee, undermining the credibility of all voices of protest? I thought that was Chomsky’s job. I guess the CIA’s disinformation budget must have gone up, if Moore can afford that apartment. . . .

LOMBORG UPDATE: I’m still getting email but one point that someone made is worth noting now: Lomborg’s critics show the same concern with credentials as Michael Bellesiles’ defenders did.

INSTAPUNDIT makes the Japan Times!

NOT SO FAST: Martin Sieff writes that a Le Pen victory, while unlikely, is not as near-impossible as most pundits are making it sound.

THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN POSTS have generated a lot of email. (So did the interracial marriage post, but more on that later). It was about 90% unfavorable to Scientific American. Here are a couple of examples. Reader Ross Nordeen writes:

To clearly see how bad Scientific American has become, one only has to look at the disparity in the treatment of two people, Paul Ehrlich and Bjorn Lomborg. Ehrlich, who has been wildly wrong about so much, received a fawning profile in the October 2000 issue while Lomborg is subject to repeated attacks for the sin of writing a balanced book on the environment.

Yeah, Ehrlich has a track record that puts him squarely among the “creation scientists” in terms of his legitimate ability to claim the title of “science” for his work, but he does continue to get respect from a lot of people who should — and I suspect, do — know better. Reader Kevin Thompson says:

I agree with Andy Freeman about the decline of this once-great publication. I received a gift subscription as a young boy in the late 1960s, and devoured every issue. I learned a lot of fascinating things. I still remember a neat drawing of how rapidly-rotating neutron stars can produce radio waves.

Alas, over the subsequent decades, Scientific American has become less and less about science. I remember one issue in the last year which had only one (1!) article about real science. The rest were about specific technologies or social issues. During this same period, the non-science content has not only grown (why does an article about injuries due to small arms in war-torn countries belong here?), but displayed an increasingly liberal bent.

The liberal bent started with the steady beat of nuclear disarmament. It has expanded to regurgitate liberal dogma on global warming, anti-religious bias, reasons why missile defense technology won’t work or is a bad idea, the joys of conservation, and, of course, the twin catastrophes of ecological destruction and overpopulation. I distinctly remember one editorial responding to a complaining letter with the statement that Scientific American should serve as a vehicle to promote social issues. After more than thirty years as a subscriber, I reluctantly decided not to renew my subscription this year. The content I loved is gone, and the new content does not do justice to the title.

Reader George Zachar writes:

I’m a longtime SciAm subscriber. They’ve gone whole hog for global warming, as highlighted by their pitched battle with Skeptical Environmentalist author Bjørn Lomborg. They also do a lot of cultural relativist stuff, root cause-y sociology, articles blaring “the [fill in the blank] is threatened with extinction”, predictable-outcome gun control pieces, etc. etc. Sciam is also a willing outlet for press releases by politically correct programs (AIDS research, eg) looking for funding.

My non-cancellation is clearly the triumph of hope over experience.

On the other hand, reader Aaron Bergman writes:

“Churlish”? How would you like it if someone from a field completely unrelated to yours tells you you’re full of crap based on doing some internet research? The sheer hubris of Lomborg is amazing. What’s depressing is that so few recognize it. You cannot make an informed critique of science based solely on secondary sources.

Why are people so surprised when someone who hasn’t gone through any education in a field proceeds to call the vast majority of its practitioners corrupt or naive? Do you dispute the completely thorough refutation of pretty much everything Lomborg has written, or would you rather keep attacking the messenger?

Well, the piece didn’t look like a thorough refutation of Lomborg to me. And I don’t think this is a very fair characterization of Lomborg’s work: since he’s a statistician, examining statistical data, I don’t really see that he’s out of his field, nor is his work any more riddled with citations to secondary literature and websites than, say, Stuart Pimm’s latest book. And Scientific American’s attitude throughout — including its rather nasty demand that he remove its criticisms from his website response — has not been the attitude of a disinterested seeker of truth.

But hell, I’m a lawyer. Everybody offers their opinion on what the law is or ought to be. And I can deal with that. And as a lawyer, I’m pretty good at telling when people are blowing smoke. I’m an agnostic on global warming; I had a lengthy airplane conversation with a pretty famous atmospheric chemist from Berkeley (I’m blanking on his name at the moment) who made a convincing case, but I’ve heard some convincing refutations, too. What I can say with certainty is that the public argument over global warming has long since become one of orthodoxy treating its critics with disdain. That doesn’t prove that the orthodox are wrong, of course. But such a degree of defensiveness bespeaks a lack of confidence in the data.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Not only a sucky magazine, but one that’s cruel to children! Reader Andy Freeman writes:

I stopped subscribing to Scientific American in the early 70s when I noticed that one of the most common topics was nuclear disarmament.

I was a young lad then and I didn’t have much opinion either way, but I wanted science for my science dollar, even though I didn’t understand much of it.

I occasionally pick up a copy at a news stand, leaf through it, and put it down because it hasn’t changed.

I suppose that someone could go through their off-topic stuff and look at how things have turned out. I suspect that they’ve lent their veneer to a lot of dodgy things. However, that’s not the problem.

I still really want to like Scientific American. I still want to subscribe. They still don’t want anyone who wants a Scientific American full of real science. That’s a crappy thing to do to a kid.

Yeah, a content analysis of Scientific American over the past couple of decades would be interesting, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed exactly what Freeman says — that’s certainly my impression. Has anybody done anything like that?

INSTAPUNDIT: Vastly more profitable than AOL/Time Warner! Maybe I should buy them instead of the other way around. [Hasn’t Kaus already done this schtick, with that press release crowing about his $300 in profits or whatever it was? — Ed. Yeah, but he’s already done the whole “phantom editor dialogue” schtick, too, and that’s not stopping you, er, us, er, me, now is it?]

STILL MORE ON THE BLAME-AMERICA MENTALITY, from Ibero-bloggers John and Antonio:

And guess whose fault it is, according to psychologist Andrés González Bellido in the Vanguardia? You guessed it. America’s. “These episodes that once seemed only to occur in the US can be explained (in Europe), says this psychologist, because European society is becoming more similar to American society. ‘Loneliness, individual frustration, and greater and greater social inequalities lead to extreme situations,’ he adds.” These people took Death of a Salesman much too seriously. Interestingly enough, the exact same sort of commentary was made after 16 were killed in Hungerford, England, in 1987, after 14 were killed in Luxiol, France, in 1989, after 17 were killed in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, after 14 were killed in Zug, Switzerland, in 2001, and after 8 were killed just recently in Nanterre, France.

Go figure.

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM: H.D. Miller has a good item on the European blame-America mentality and how it backfires.

MATT WELCH says that there are few things that turn you off of journalism more than listening to journalists talk about what a great job they do.

Boy, I agree. One of the most offensive things on C-SPAN is the way panels of journalists will take calls, often calls featuring intelligent criticism, and then look at each other and agree that, actually, journalists do an excellent job, and the critics don’t know what they’re talking about.

UPDATE: You can stream RealAudio of Welch here if you want. And if you’ve got RealPlayer on your computer. I don’t have it on this one, so I’m passing along this link blind. Er, deaf? Whatever.

RACIAL ASSUMPTIONS: William Raspberry writes that there is a shortage of educated black men and that as a result, successful black women aren’t getting married. This, he says, is a tragedy.

And I suppose it is. But, you know, buried in Raspberry’s piece — and no doubt in the minds of the women he describes — is the assumption that black women should only marry black men. Isn’t that kind of, you know, racist?

THIS CHURLISH REPLY to Bjorn Lomborg in Scientific American — which misstates his qualifications knowingly — is more proof that that once-proud magazine has become a miserable sham.

I first noticed its slide downhill several years ago when it published a hit-piece on nanotechnologist Eric Drexler (stunning, idea-refuting revelation: he puts milk in his iced tea!), then was very weaselly about responding to the storm of refutations it received from well-known scientists. Scientific American is now biased, nasty, and unreliable. Too bad. I used to like it.

MICHAEL LEDEEN — who to the disgrace of just about everyone else who ought to be covering it, owns this story — has another interesting article on what’s going on in Iran. Here’s his conclusion:

Our leaders need to say, over and over again, that it is time for the mullahs to submit to the just desires of their own people. As the Iranian people have been chanting for many months in the streets of the country, there should be a referendum on the Iranian government. Let the people decide if they want to continue the Islamic republic, or if they prefer a secular republic or a constitutional monarchy. We have no horse in that race, and our leaders must stress that we are not supporting any individual or any group; we support an Iranian government chosen in a free and fair election.

The stakes are very high. The fall of the mullahs in Tehran would send a devastating message to the entire Islamic world: Theocracy has been tried, and it has failed. Osama bin Laden’s vision has been rejected by the people of Afghanistan and the people of Iran, by Sunnis and Shia alike. We must help the Iranian democrats. We must give money, urgently and immediately, to Iranian National TV, now struggling to stay afloat in Los Angeles. We must assist the student and labor leaders, who are often forced to choose between feeding their children and heating their homes. We must help them communicate with one another. Can’t we provide some wireless PCs to the Iranian opposition?

The most important thing is our leaders’ words to the Iranians. We want the fall of the regime. That is what the war on terrorism is all about. To remain silent is to be complicit in the repression of Iran. There is no diplomatic “solution.” We want a free Iran. Don’t we?

Yes, we do.

GEORGE W. BUSH: The “first Hispanic President!” It’s in Salon, natch.

SOME PEOPLE WON’T LIKE THIS, but I do:

“The problem with America,” a college professor told me recently, “is that it can’t get over the idea that it is somehow special among nations.” His name is Robert Jensen and he teaches journalism at the University of Texas, Austin. He’s flat wrong. The problem with America and Western civilization in general is that it lost confidence in itself and started accepting relativist arguments.

Today, we launch a new Monday column on OpinionJournal, “The Western Front.” Many readers will recognize the reference to the Erich Maria Remarque novel about the Western world tearing itself to pieces in World War I. It was that war that accelerated Western civilization down into a dangerous pit from which it may now be emerging. The main purpose of this column will be to argue for rebuilding confidence in the West’s ideal of human freedom–spiritual, political and economic liberty.

Bravo.

THE BOSTON GLOBE has done some actual reporting on Jenin — instead of just recycling Palestinian statements uncritically as most reporters seem to have done — and reports that there wasn’t a massacre:

Palestinian Authority allegations that a large-scale massacre of civilians was committed by Israeli troops during their invasion of the refugee camp here appear to be crumbling under the weight of eyewitness accounts from Palestinian fighters who participated in the battle and camp residents who remained in their homes until the final hours of the fighting.

In interviews yesterday with teenage fighters, a leader of Islamic Jihad, an elderly man whose home was at the center of the fighting, and other Palestinian residents, all of whom were in the camp during the battle, none reported seeing large numbers of civilians killed. All said they were allowed to surrender or evacuate when they were ready to do so, though some reported being mistreated while in Israeli detention. . . .

Meanwhile, a British military adviser to Amnesty, Reserve Major David Holley, was quoted yesterday by Reuters news service as dismissing the Palestinian allegations of a massacre and predicting that no evidence would be found to substantiate them.

Of course, almost as lame as the Western reporting on the subject is the Israeli PR operation, which hasn’t done very well at getting this story out.

On the other hand, this should discredit a lot of critics — or it would, if anyone paid attention to the critics’ track records.

HOLLYWOOD’S UNITED FRONT IS CRACKING, reports the Los Angeles Times. Well, heck: why not? There are splits in the Saudi regime and splits among the Palestinian terror groups. It’s not easy holding an Empire of Evil together, you know.

A REPORT FROM BROOKINGS says we need to focus more on preventing high-casualty terrorist attacks like those involving nuclear or biological weapons. This is probably true — but I think the best way to prevent these isn’t to add security, but to kill the terrorists before they can strike.

THIS COLUMN BY NEAL POLLACK has almost Lileks-like moments, and there’s no higher praise:

A young man approached me on the quad. He wore a Leonard Peltier for President t-shirt, and a lovely pair of acid-washed Che Guevara for Men jeans.

“Hey,” he said. “Are you Noam Chomsky?”

“No,” I said. “I just look like him.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Well, do you support Palestinian liberation?”

“I dunno,” I said. “What’s in it for me?”

“Nothing. You just should.”

“Why?”

“Because Israel,” he said, “is stupid.”

I thought about his penetrating statement. The last time I’d visited Israel, Amos Oz and I had taken ecstasy at a disco in Haifa and had met these three Spanish architecture students and we had a crazy gang-bang on the beach until dawn. The next day, I interviewed Yitzak Rabin, which also went pretty well. But that was nearly 10 years ago. What if Israel had become stupid since then? What a story!

I whipped out my cell and called The New Yorker.

The adventure continues well beyond this point.

AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ON THE TUNISIAN BOMBING says that Islamist terrorists are more interested in “taking back their homelands” than in war on the West. Er, well, except that the “homelands” they want to “take back” include places like, you know, Spain.

CRACKS IN THE FACADE OF PALESTINIAN UNITY: This article from Ha’aretz says that there’s a growing split between religious and nationalist Palestinians. It also suggests that some United States efforts there are bearing fruit.

RALPH PETERS, who wrote the excellent essay on stability in Parameters that I linked to a while back, has an piece today in the Wall Street Journal arguing that the Arab world is hopeless, though the Islamic world is not. I think he’s absolutely right, and it’s important not to conflate the two. The Arabs were hopeless before Islam, they were hopeless at Islam’s peak, and they’re hopeless today. They’re the target of considerable resentment within the non-Arab Islamic world, which views them at times as colonizers who make mockery of Islam’s claims of equality. We should understand that, and take advantage of it.

Send a copy of Peters’ essay to your Senator.

MICKEY KAUS is defending the Los Angeles Times’ Sebastian Rotella against assaults from Andrew Sullivan and many other parts of the Blogosphere. But I think Kaus himself is wrong when he says, “Europe’s only just begun to deal with the problem of welfare-subsidized ghettos.” A fairer statement would be that Europe has only just begun to acknowledge the problem of welfare-subsidized ghettos. Actual dealing will come later, if at all.