AS GENUINE AS A DAN RATHER MEMO! The Protein Wisdom Jacques Chirac interview.

SELF-DEFENSE ACTIVISM IN BRITAIN:

Remember Robert Symonds? It is the name of the 45-year-old Putney teacher who six weeks ago was stabbed to death in the hall of his home by a burglar. His body was found by his wife while their two children slept upstairs.

It was as a result of that incident that this newspaper launched our “right to fight back” campaign, which calls for the public to be given an unqualified right to self defence against intruders in their own homes. The point that struck me so forcibly at the time was not just the horror of Mr Symonds’s death, but the fact that had Mr Symonds picked up a kitchen knife before encountering the burglar, and managed to get blows in first, then he would now, as the law stands, be facing a murder trial.

The defenders of the status quo argue that a jury might acquit, on grounds that such self-defence was “reasonable force”. We argue that such cases should never even be considered as crimes in the first place.

I agree. In fact, as self-defense against burglars generates positive exernalities, by reducing the number of burglars, and their willingness to break into homes which might be occupied (thus reducing the risk that people will suffer Mr. Symonds’ fate), there’s a good economic argument that it ought to be not simply tolerated, but actively encouraged and even subsidized.

THE FOLKS AT TIME send a press release with this kicker:

New York – President George W. Bush’s cabinet is more diverse than National Public Radio, Tavis Smiley tells TIME in an exclusive interview. “It is ironic that a Republican President has an Administration that is more inclusive and more diverse than a so-called liberal-media-élite network,” Smiley says.

That’s got to hurt.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the full interview, and here’s the exact quote:

WHAT’S MORE DIVERSE THESE DAYS — NPR OR PRESIDENT BUSH’S CABINET?

Bush’s Cabinet. It is ironic that a Republican President has an Administration that is more inclusive and more diverse than a so-called liberal-media-elite network.

Ouch.

IS THAT AN ORANGE TIE on Bush in this picture? Looks that way.

FINISHED THE HARRY TURTLEDOVE BOOK I mentioned the other day. It was pretty good, but not his best, and not as good as In the Presence of Mine Enemies, much less things like The Guns of the South.

Several readers emailed with various Turtledove observations — one saw him at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Writers’ Assocation last week, where he observed that if he had actually gotten an academic job with his Ph.D. in Byzantine history, that would have been a seriously alternative history.

Speaking of matters Byzantine, I really liked his Justinian, written under the name “H.N. Turtletaub.” In an Amazon review, I asked why the different name, and he emailed me that he already had too many books coming out that year and his publisher insisted that he use a different name. That’s probably his biggest weakness as a writer: He writes too many books. It’s hypocritical of me to say that, since I eagerly await the new ones, but it’s still true.

I’m not sure what I’ll read next. I was planning to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I think it’s too big to fit in my backpack and I need something portable right now. Hmm.

MY KOFI ANNAN / VACLAV HAVEL COLUMN from the Wall Street Journal on Monday is now up with a free link at OpinionJournal.

I THINK THIS IS IMPRACTICAL for a number of reasons, but reader Alan Martin suggests Arnold Schwarzenegger as a replacement for Kofi Annan:

* Proven executive talent.
* Euro-accent.
* Derails 99 44/100ths% of the fuss over repealing the Natural Born
Citizen qualification.
* Places the onus on critics to explain why he’s any *less* qualified
than the man he’d be replacing.
* Establishes an environment where the chattering classes would be so
busy ridiculing him they wouldn’t have the energy to oppose him.
They’d wake up one day to find the institution irreversibly fixed.

Heh. It’s fun to think about. And it’s amazing just how many candidates do well in the “places the onus” department. . . .

Meanwhile, here’s a critical response to the New York Times’ defense of Kofi this morning.

SOME INTERESTING — and likely constructive — goings-on within the Democratic Party leadership.

OUCH: Press watchdog beheaded by razor-sharp tongue.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

The son of Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, lobbied for business contacts at gatherings of UN officials on behalf of a company in the same year as it won an oil-for-food programme deal, it has emerged.

The second disclosure in a week about Kojo Annan’s role with the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection Services, which secured the $4.8 million (£2.46 million) UN contract to monitor goods entering and leaving Iraq in 1998, has raised embarrassing questions for his father.

Indeed.

UKRAINE UPDATE: Newsweek is calling it Putin’s Pratfall:

Dec. 13 issue – To Vladimir Putin, the cheers ringing through Kiev’s aptly named Independence Square must have sounded like catcalls from hell. Only three weeks before, in a ham-handed display of Kremlin bullying, Putin had championed his own dubious candidate for Ukraine’s presidency, ex-convict Viktor Yanukovych. A fraud-tainted election followed, and the Russian leader haughtily dismissed calls for a recount, warning against Western “interference.” But after a long, tense standoff in which tens of thousands of Ukrainians thronged the streets in protest—and only a day after Putin again rejected the idea of a runoff—Ukraine’s Supreme Court last Friday ordered a new election for Dec. 26. When the news was broadcast live on the giant television screens in central Kiev, more than 30,000 supporters of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko went wild, kissing, hugging and blowing noisemakers. Then the pro-Western Yushchenko appeared, declaring: “Today Ukraine is a democratic country.”

Why is that bad for Vladimir Putin? Because he’s got grand plans that don’t necessarily square with a free-thinking demo-cracy next door. The last thing Putin wants to see is another chunk of the old U.S.S.R. disappear down the maw of the ever encroaching West.

Meanwhile, there are supporting pro-democracy protests in Chicago:

Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Chicago Saturday to rally for the Ukraine. They’re supporting a decision to go ahead with a new vote for president.

Saturday in Chicago a much smaller but strikingly similar demonstration by those with ties to the Ukraine.

“All Ukranians around the world ar eunited to build a free society for the Ukraine,” said Dr. Yuri Melnik.

“What we would like is for the eyes of the world to be on Ukraine right now. This is a burning beacon of the world. We want it to burn even brighter,” said another demonstrator.

Some here carry signs that demand Russian President Vladimir Putin “not” meddle in the affairs of the former Soviet Republic.

I actually feel somewhat sorry for Putin. He’s tried to consolidate his power in Russia in ways that are sometimes plausible — in many ways, his writ doesn’t run far from Moscow, even now — but he’s overreached. The question is whether he’ll be smart enough to climb down gracefully, rather than doing things that make matters worse.

UKRAINE UPDATE: Nick Kristof has some advice to President Bush — wear orange:

Here’s a suggestion for President Bush from the protesters behind the democratic “orange revolution” here: Wear an orange tie.

“If he wore an orange tie, people here would be crying,” said Yuri Maluta, a protester from Lviv. “It would show that the American president supports democracy here.”

The request says something about the lighthearted and pro-American spirit on the streets. Since my father grew up in what is now southwestern Ukraine, I decided to come here to join my people – and I found that waging revolution has rarely been such fun.

Young people enveloped in orange scarves, hats and ribbons alternately chant slogans for freedom, boogie to rock music, eat oranges, warm up and flirt at McDonald’s, and disappear into their downtown “tent city” to make love, not war.

I have a suggestion of my own as to what President Bush might wear. Hey, some of us have been wearing orange for years! In fact, here you can see about 100,000 people wearing orange. . . .

VIA GLENN FLEISHMAN’S WI-FI NET NEWS I found this Salon article by Linda Baker on how wi-fi and related technologies are revitalizing public spaces by getting people out of their offices.

I think that’s right. In fact, it goes nicely with this piece of mine from a couple of years ago, and this one from last summer.

I wonder if this planned “lifestyle center” mall in Knoxville will take advantage of that sort of thing?

I THINK VACLAV HAVEL has a better chance of replacing Kofi Annan than this guy, despite his worldwide reputation.

LEARNED MEN ARE BLOGGING, OF WAR AND WAR’S ALARMS, but John Hinderaker is channeling Yeats.

RIPNREAD is a blogger podcast, featuring audio excerpts from a number of blogs every day.

WENT TO THE MALL with the Insta-Daughter and one of her friends. Build-a-Bear was absolutely jammed, providing still more evidence (if any were needed) of my inability to tell when a business is going to make it.

We saw the SpongeBob Squarepants movie, and while it didn’t suck — it was lightyears better than the last cartoon movie I saw, which I thought was pretty bad — it doesn’t say anything good about Oliver Stone’s Alexander that SpongeBob beat him out at the box office last week.

I actually like SpongeBob, though I wouldn’t have gone to see the movie on my own. But if you’re not being dragged by a kid, I’d recommend one of the tv episode collections on DVD over the movie. SpongeBob is funnier in shorter doses.

UPDATE: Hey, here are some SpongeBob movie customer reviews from other people. Some liked it more than I did, some less. Best line: “If I were Sandy Cheeks’ agent, I would be on the line for my client wanting to know what happened to my character’s part.”

PHIL CARTER writes in Slate that Kerik was a good choice: “Most of all, Kerik knows that the most likely person to stop or encounter a terrorist attack is not an FBI agent or CIA analyst, but a cop walking the beat or a transit worker who sees something suspicious.”

VERIZON SHOULD GIVE ME A COMMISSION: Evan Coyne Maloney was inspired by my experience to get a Verizon wireless card for his PowerBook, and he’s very happy with it so far.

UPDATE: Reader James Foster sends this link to a very positive review of Evan’s new documentary, Brainwashing 101.

MEDIA ENRON UPDATE:

Just how deep is the newspaper circulation scandal of 2004? Combined with other substantial circulation losses, how damaging will it be to the bread and butter of advertising revenues for 2004, for 2005 and by extension in years to come? Is it yet another sign of the gradual but inexorable decline of the industry and the medium in which many of us practice journalism? . . .

Lately the party line in the industry is that the worst of the scandal part is behind us. Industry leaders say the tally of recent losses, while admittedly bad, is not quite as bad as some had predicted. Business is getting back to normal, they say.

Not so fast, we are here to tell you. We stumbled serendipitously on a set of facts suggesting that the impact to date is actually 50 percent worse than we and others who track the industry had thought.

If it were any other industry, the press would be all over this story. I wonder if there will be prosecutions.

UPDATE: A reader points out that Newsday deserves credit for covering this scandal aggressively in a way that other media, even those organs not involved in the scandal, haven’t.

I SHOULD BE CELEBRATING events in Kiev with a shot of this Ukrainian “Presidential Vodka” from Bill Clinton’s 1995 visit. (My brother had a girlfriend in the Embassy back then, and picked this up when he was visiting her.) That’s Bill in the hat.

Maybe later.

HOWARD LOVY is back blogging on nanotechnology.

BIG CHEMICAL PLANT EXPLOSION in Houston. Right Side of the Rainbow is blogging it.

POWER LINE WONDERS “why oil prices seem to have risen and fallen in synchrony with the American campaign season?”

“SHOW US YOUR –TS:” Meryl Yourish obliges. Nice pair.

UPDATE: Another fine set from Kimberly Swygert.