MURDER WILL OUT:

RZHEVSKY ARTILLERY RANGE, Russia – They killed them effortlessly, in the signature style of Josef Stalin’s dreaded NKVD secret police: a bullet to the back of the skull, the bullet’s exit shattering the facial bones.

Then, haphazardly, the executioners buried their victims in mass graves, barely disguising their remains under a foot of sagging, sandy soil – year after year, body after broken body. . . .

What lies beneath the mulberry bogs of the Rzhevsky range could be perhaps the single biggest grave of victims of the “Great Terror” ever found in the former Soviet Union. But it appears that the people who died here are a part of a forgotten history Russia would rather not remember.

A year has passed since activists from Memorial – volunteers who have worked for more than a decade to uncover crimes of the communist era – unearthed this burial site: at least 50 graves set just a few paces apart, each containing remains of about 30 people, their yellowed skulls bearing bullet holes that St. Petersburg forensic experts said are telltale signs of NKVD executions.

The Russian government has said nothing so far about the ghastly find.

Irina Flige, head of Memorial’s historical department, said this silence is a disturbing symbol of Russia’s unwillingness to deal honestly with the ugly side of its recent past.

“It’s the kind of history the Russian government doesn’t need,” Flige said.

Historians believe that as many as 20 million people were executed without trial or perished in the labor camps of the Soviet gulag. In 1937-38, at the height of the purges, as many as 40,000 residents of St. Petersburg, then called Leningrad, were put to death.

I’m surprised that this story isn’t getting more attention. But not that surprised, as sympathy for communism is still treated as an amusing foible — rather than the complicity with mass murder that it, in fact, is.

UPDATE: But Marxist scholar Eric Hobsbawm is perfectly fine with mass murder in the name of communism. Despicable.

THE BBC IS NOW VERY MUCH ON THE DEFENSIVE:

Tony Ball, one of Rupert Murdoch’s key lieutenants in Britain, will unveil a survey showing that 51% of viewers believe the £116 annual fee does not represent good value for money.

It is the first time that an opinion poll has shown such dissatisfaction with the BBC, and will fuel the debate about the corporation’s method of funding in the run-up to the renewal of its charter, which sets its remit and method of funding. . . .

The survey, carried out by NOP in June, before the Hutton inquiry, shows that 51% of respondents disagreed with the statement that the “BBC licence fee provides good value for money”. The greatest dissatisfaction is demonstrated in low-income groups.

No doubt the Beeb will try to dismiss this poll, considering its source. But if other polling supports it, it will make things tough. And BBC Resistance is encouraging people to fight the mandatory license fee. (Via Bill Adams).

STEPHEN F. HAYES wonders why the White House continues to downplay the Saddam / Al Qaeda connection. I’ve wondered the same thing.

DONALD SENSING has an interesting post on an Iraqi columnist’s take on Palestinian intellectuals.

ROB SMITH, who’s not afraid of controversy, has his campaign platform all planned out. It’s sad in a whole lot of ways, but I actually think he would be more likely to keep his promises than some of the others who are running.

HERE’S A REVIEW of Lileks’ guest-host spot on Hugh Hewitt’s show. He wins raves.

UPDATE: Here’s another. More raves.

HERE’S A PROFILE OF LARRY SUMMERS from tomorrow’s New York Times. Excerpt:

In general, I found that with the exception of the ideologically driven, almost every student who has actually had contact with Summers has come away liking him. Summers’s indifference to propriety was bracing for students wearily accustomed to the agonized sensitivity that has more or less become semiofficial campus culture.

Summers is less popular with the faculty, whose devotion to the ideological correctness of past decades is increasingly out of step with the sentiments of today’s students.

HOWARD VEIT PREDICTS that the French will be buying genetically-engineered food, as a result of the heat wave’s destroying non-genetically-modified crops.

RX-8 UPDATE: Mazda’s website is now reporting 238 horsepower for the 6-speed RX-8. That’s down from 250 in the early ads, and 247 in the specs in the manual with my car.

Reader Andy Sexton reports:

Now, supposedly dealers are starting to contact people. If the message boards are to be believed, they will be offering owners buy backs or $500 + free servicing for the life of the standard warranty.

I haven’t heard from the dealer on this. However, my 6-disc CD changer turned out to be a single-disc player (you can’t tell from the panel, which looks the same either way), and the dealer will be installing the right one next week. This has to be a bit of an embarrassment for Mazda.

Having gotten through the break-in period, I have noticed that the car — while very quick — isn’t as much quicker than similar cars as the weight vs. horsepower would suggest. (It seems, in fact, roughly comparable subjectively to the 190hp Eagle Talon I drove about ten years ago, which was very fast, but which had, well 190hp and probably weighed about the same or more. I just assumed that my standards had risen.) Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Ramsey emails:

Glenn, the actual HP rating is only partially relevant. That motor of yours produces prodigious HP and torque throughout its incredably wide power band, with the capability to turn RPM’s that would explode all but a formula one racing engine.

The light weight and small size of the wankel have a profound effect on the balance of the whole machine.

Feel is one thing, results another. The RX-8 would leave the eagle talon behind on any road course in the world.

Good reason for Mazda to come across with some lovin’ for its goof. No reason for any RX-8 owner to get into a blue funk.

All true. I’m not in a funk at all — the car is terrific, and I’m very happy with how it drives. I do wonder how a mistake like this is possible, though.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mazda has had this problem before, with the Miata. That makes it even more puzzling that it would happen again.

HERE’S AN L.A. TIMES STORY about the Earth Liberation Front’s pro-terrorism website, which has been mentioned here a time or two.

IT WASN’T EVEN CLOSE: Al Franken won his publicity victory lawsuit with Fox. No surprise. He was right; they were wrong.

Now if he were just funny. . . .

UPDATE: Ernest Svenson has posted an analysis of the decision, over at BlogCritics.

10,000 FRENCH HEAT DEATHS? I’ve found it hard to believe these numbers, but they seem fairly solid:

PARIS — Europe’s deadly heat wave claimed more than 2,000 lives in countries outside of France, where an estimated 10,000 have died, according to official reports. Italy, which had refused to release figures, bowed to public outcry over increased deaths and agreed yesterday to investigate the toll.

The Associated Press compiled reports from hospitals and local and national governments about the deaths from 18 countries. Outside France, the highest official estimates came from Portugal, with 1,300 deaths, and the Netherlands, with 500 to 1,000.

It’s hard for me to believe that the French government would exaggerate the toll, given what political dynamite this is likely to be. It’s a colossal tragedy — one-fifth of total (U.S.) Vietnam casualties, but in a couple of weeks instead of a couple of years.

I don’t have any good ideas on why things should be so bad — except that heat can be quite dangerous, especially if you’re not used to it, and when it continues day and night. We’ve seen that in some heat waves in the United States, but even Northern cities in America are better equipped to deal with heat than most cities in Europe. Air conditioning and iced drinks are quintessentially American because, well, we need ’em here. This story blames vacations:

Many of those who died were elderly people left alone at home by families taking holidays in the traditional vacation month of August, Raffarin said.

This seems a bit hard to swallow as the main cause for so many deaths.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn wonders why this isn’t a bigger political deal in France than it is.

Meanwhile reader John Nowak sends this from France:

I’m in kind of a weird position here; I’m an expat working in Puteaux outside of Paris and my godmother died in a heat wave last year in Queens.

Click “More” to read the rest. And here’s a column by Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia, suggesting that energy conservation played a role. The anecdotal evidence in Nowak’s email would tend to support that, though I suspect that other factors were more important. [LATER: Merde in France has more, including a link to a Reuters story (in French) that says the death toll is even higher.]

(more…)

HERE’S AN INTERESTING ARTICLE from Slate, on the spread of Sharia in Nigeria.

ARIANNA UPSIDE: She’s got a campaign blog. Downside: The top item involves the resignation of her campaign manager.

DAVID ADESNIK RESPONDS TO HIS CRITICS, who, he says, “include the blogosphere’s entire center-left brain trust.” Congratulations, David — you’ve achieved fame!

THE BLOG OF CHLOE AND PETE HAS MOVED. Make note of it.

SO, I WROTE A POLITE RESPONSE to a critical email — accusing me of hating Israel, of all things — and got this back:

Thank you for your e-mail. In an effort to address the growing spam issue and to therefore respond to your e-mail sooner, your e-mail message with the subject of “Re: from little greenfootballs.” has been placed in a temporary holding file. It will be delivered immediately after you complete this simple one-time process of checking the link below, in the future, all of your e-mails to me will automatically be delivered:

Let me be as polite as possible: buzz off. Why should I jump through a bunch of hoops in response to your unsolicited email, so as to ensure that you don’t get unsolicited email? Give me a break. And if you use these services, don’t bother writing me. (And yes, I know that this post is a lot like one that Jeff Jarvis put up a while back. Now I know why he was so irritated. Jeez.)

UPDATE: Just to avoid confusion — I’m paranoid after the Ashcroft and Barlow affairs — the email in question didn’t come from Charles Johnson, who I rather doubt would do such a thing, but from one of his readers, for whom he’s not responsible. [LATER: If I’d thought about it, I would have just removed the “subject” reference above, because it had nothing to do with Charles. But I was focusing on the “spam” aspect; the LGF connection didn’t seem important to what I was saying.]

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Alan Martin notes:

It would be more productive to remind people to put the addresses that they send messages to on their safe list. Of course this would be avoided if the services that use this type of spam filter did this automatically.

Yes, that way you wouldn’t be offloading your own spam-filtration work onto your correspondents. I don’t mind getting unsolicited email — but I do mind having to jump through hoops to reply to it.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, in retrospect (it’s Saturday now) I was probably a bit testy, for which I apologize. But my testiness was authentic — I felt like someone who got a phonecall during dinner, only to have the caller switch me to voicemail. Note to anti-spam developers: you’re going to have to come up with something better than this.

STILL MORE: Jim Davila doesn’t like this software either.

I LOVE WI-FI: I’m wireless-blogging from the Downtown Grill and Brewery, which is yet another in the list of wifi equipped local businesses.

I note that Shannon Okey is playing up the idea of free wireless hotzones as tools for downtown redevelopment. I think that there’s a lot of room for that sort of thing. Knoxville’s Market Square, downtown, has wireless access now. I’d like to see that sort of thing spread.

Of course it may be — as Paul Boutin suggests — that businesses will take care of this everywhere. (That’s actually how it is in Knoxville — the City hasn’t done squat). And in fact, as Boutin also points out, the biggest hassle and expense in setting up a for-pay wifi hotspot is the billing setup. I think that means that wireless internet access may really be “too cheap to meter.” Though perhaps that will change as wifi becomes more popular. In the meantime, be sure the hotspots have backup power, so that people can post photos to their blogs during blackouts!

UPDATE: Then again, maybe — as this Paul Boutin article suggests (he’s everywhere these days!) — it’ll all be beside the point as broadband cellular becomes ubiquitous.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s more on wifi as a lure to development.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, this is inspiring business plans! Virginia Postrel, meanwhile, has her own view.

I’VE GOT SOME THOUGHTS ON SECURITY OVER AT GLENNREYNOLDS.COM, inspired by Bruce Schneier’s new book on the subject.

Meanwhile, here’s an observation worth repeating:

A cement truck laden with explosives plows into the Baghdad headquarters of the United Nations and, presto-chango, there are “terrorists” in Iraq. That’s right, not “guerrillas,” not “resistance fighters,” but “terrorists.” And the press is appalled at their wickedness. Suddenly journalists and pundits who could scarcely bring themselves to utter the T-word now find themselves compelled to use it. Strange how when a U.S. serviceman is killed while guarding a hospital or when Israeli women and children are obliterated on a city bus, the perpetrators are often referred to as “militants,” “extremists,” or simply “bombers” and “gunmen.” But when U.N. officials are the victims… Pardon me. Considering who does the talking, it isn’t strange at all.

Indeed.

IS ORRIN HATCH ANOTHER JIM WRIGHT?

WASHINGTON — As he was seeking political favors, a friend of Sen. Orrin Hatch bought a whopping 1,200 copies of Hatch’s largely self-produced music CDs, for which Hatch receives $3 to $7 each.

Hatch, R-Utah, and his friend, Monzer Hourani, a Houston developer who twice before has landed Hatch into major ethics controversies, say he wasn’t trying to buy political help with those CDs and they merely share a love of his music.

Hey, music-lover — you can buy 1200 of my CDs any time you like!

MORE EVIDENCE that outsourcing will be an election issue — this time in the California recall.

SORRY for the limited blogging today. The Insta-Mother-in-Law got out of the hospital this morning after some nontrivial surgery. She’s doing fine now.

JOSH CHAFETZ RESPONDS AT LENGTH to critics of his BBC piece, with links and quotes. You won’t be surprised to hear that I think he comes out on top.

LEE HARRIS WRITES on standing up to terrorists. And to apologists for terror.

UPDATE: Read this piece, on Jessica Stern’s recent oped. “Her resume is impressive. She has studied this subject much more than I have. Therefore she has no excuse.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s more on Stern.

GOOD NEWS ON LOW-POWER RADIO: I meant to blog this yesterday, but got distracted. Michael Powell is opening up low-power FM. That’s a good thing. Maybe he’ll speak out in favor of
250&CID=1051-052003B”>Internet freedom, next.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis makes a good point, too.