HOWARD LOVY has more thoughts on nanotechnology and commerce.

GIVING UP ON THE DUTCH DREAM? “There’s a feeling of injustice that if you do things right, if you work hard and pay your taxes, you’re punished, and those who don’t are rewarded.”

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson:

Only now are Europeans discovering the disturbing nature of radical Islamic extremism, which thrives not on real grievance but on perceived hurts — and the appeasement of its purported oppressors. How odd that tens of millions of Muslims flocked to Europe for its material consumption, superior standard of living, and freedom and tolerance — and then chose not merely to remain in enclaves but to romanticize all the old pathologies that they had fled from in the first place. It is almost as if the killers in Amsterdam said, “I want your cell phones, unfettered Internet access, and free-spirited girls, but hate the very system that alone can create them all. So please let me stay here to destroy what I want.”

Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Brian Dunn doesn’t think we’ll like the new version of Europe, once the culture of passivity departs, either. He’s probably right. Indeed, what worries me most about Europe’s passivity now is that it’s likely to lead to overreaction, eventually. I’m hoping, however, that the “new Europe” will serve as a moderating force against the trends that Dunn warns against.

BERNARD KERIK has withdrawn his name from consideration for Homeland Security Secretary.

UPDATE: Lorie Byrd reports that it’s a “nanny problem” and observes: “The last time that happened the country ended up with Janet Reno. Yikes!”

Yikes, indeed.

PROF. BAINBRIDGE WRITES ABOUT ACADEMIC DIVERSITY AT HARVARD and observes:

Nobody I know seriously claims that Jack Goldsmith is not qualified to serve on the Harvard Law Faculty. . . .

So why are the liberals, including three of the five international law specialists at Harvard, opposing him? Not because he is incompetent, but because they don’t like what he thinks. It is the worst sort of McCarthyism; but, of course, that’s precisely what the academic left is best at.

He accuses Jonathan Chait, and Nick Confessore, of engaging in that sort of McCarthyism themselves — or else of being too dense to recognize it.

UPDATE: More here. And it’s not just Harvard where this sort of thing is an issue:

“Intellectual diversity must be respected at Foothill College,” said Ahmad Al-Qloushi. “This grievance will not detour us from our goal of having Foothill’s Board of Trustees pass the ‘Academic Bill of Rights’ as official school policy.”

In fact, I’d say that Harvard is doing better than many other institutions.

UPDATE: More, including a commenter who defends Foothills, here.

NEW ENERGY NOMINEE SPEAKS:

Mr. Bodman said he’s eager to “implement some of Vice President Cheney’s ideas for achieving energy independence — including a windmill that runs on oil, nuclear energy created by splitting petroleum atoms, and hydrogen fuel made from a mixture of oil and rendered Alaskan caribou.”

Heh.

A JUDGE CRITICIZED BY BILL O’REILLY RESPONDS:

“Somebody who sexually harasses women and then pays millions of dollars in a settlement to get out of it has no place criticizing me,” said Rapkin.

In the words (er, word) of Say Anything: “Ouch.”

DAVE KOPEL: “Tonight is the fourth night of Armed Jews Week, or as it is more popularly known, Hanukkah.”

MY EARLIER POST referencing Charles Stross’s Iron Sunrise — in which a warblogger, for the Times of London no less, is a major character — produced this email from Tim Kyger:

Stross is, IMHO, the best thing to hit SF since…well, possibly the cyberpunk movement of some 20 years ago.

You’ve certainly read Singularity Sky by now?

His story collection, Toast, also has some great stuff in it; I’m now reading his The Atrocity Archives, and it, too, is great fun.

His coming book Acclerando is going to be an award winner. IMHO, of course.

I liked Singularity Sky, in which Stross demonstrates a Ken MacLeod-like ear for absurd political cant, very much. So far I’m liking Iron Sunrise, too. I haven’t read the short stories yet.

UPDATE: Reader Tom Bridge points out that Stross has a blog.

JONAH GOLDBERG notes Peter Beinart’s lonely voice, and has questions for Kevin Drum. More here and here.

ONE OF MY FORMER STUDENTS sends this Christmas picture from her outfit in Baghdad.

ANOTHER “WAR CRIMES” STORY COLLAPSES:

When Army Sergeant Dennis Edwards spoke at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School last month, 100 students listened in rapt silence as he told chilling tales of battlefield horror in Iraq and criticized President Bush’s motives for going to war. . . .

Now, Edwards has admitted to his superiors in the elite 82d Airborne Division that the story about the shooting was a lie, Army officials yesterday. As a result, the veteran of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could be charged with making false statements, face a court-martial, and be stripped of his rank.

His confession has also saddened Dennis-Yarmouth teachers and students, who said they felt honored and captivated by his appearance.

”We need to use this as a teachable moment,” Superintendent Tony Pierantozzi said yesterday. ”We need to make sure our students . . . clearly understand that sometimes individuals might elaborate stories or examples for their own benefit.”

Yes, they might. Some such stories are true, of course. But some aren’t. And I suspect that we’re in for more bogus “Winter Soldier” type charges in the post-election milieu.

UPDATE: Bad link before. Fixed now. Sorry.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Treacher observes: “If you create an environment in which stories like that are the only ones given any attention, people who seek attention will concoct such stories.”

Yes.

COVERT ETHICAL CLEANSING AT CBS: Henry Copeland looks at a sleazy attack on bloggers — including Atrios/Duncan Black — by CBS. It doesn’t appear that the “Tiffany network” has done anything to elevate its standards in the wake of RatherGate. Read this, too.

ARNOLD KLING writes on “Why the Left Should Favor Social Security Privatization (and the Right Should Oppose It).”

HOW TO DESTROY YOUR POLITICAL PARTY in one easy lesson.

GOOD NEWS in Egypt?

HARVARD is addressing its academic diversity problem, and it deserves congratulations for that. But diversifying an institution is never easy. As is to be expected, some senior faculty are resisting the new blood. More here: “Goldsmith has been dogged by opponents at the law school, who have continued to argue among themselves over his conservative interpretation of international law and criticized their Harvard colleagues for failing to demand a full investigation of his government work.”

If a lefty were being treated this way, we’d be hearing about McCarthyism and crushing of dissent in John Ashkkkroft’s Alberto Gonzales’ America. Notwithstanding that Goldsmith has been critical of my position on cyberporn and the Commerce Clause, I think that he’s a first-class scholar and a good hire for Harvard. (Related item on Harvard hiring here.)

CAMERA ADVICE: I’ve gotten a lot of emails like this one, from Hiawatha Bray:

I wondered if you could give me advice on digital cameras. I have to select one for my church, and wanted to spend around $500. You’ve used a bunch of them. What would you suggest?

I’ve been very happy with this Sony DSC-P93, which costs a lot less than $500. The fancier DSC-P100 has a better lens — a Carl Zeiss rather than the gussied-up video camera lens that mine has — which matters if you care a lot about quality, but which won’t make a difference in ordinary use. The downside, and the reason I picked the other one, is that the DSC-P100 uses a proprietary battery, which the 93 uses AA batteries.

This is something I feel strongly about, as I think that any camera you depend on should be able to use off-the-shelf batteries in a pinch. (My Nikon D70 uses proprietary rechargeables, but it comes with an adapter that lets you use storebought batteries, so apparently Nikon agrees.) And for a church camera, where there may be crossed wires in terms of who’s responsible for keeping the batteries charged, that seems like an important consideration, too.

It’s probably overkill for a church camera — but maybe not — but the biggest bang-for-the-buck digital camera out there is the DSC-F717 which is available for under $500 and which is capable of professional-caliber results. (See this gallery of cockpit photos by a Marine aviator in Afghanistan for examples.)

I’ve also been really happy with my Toshiba, which you can find for sale dirt-cheap now that Toshiba has gone out of the digicam business. It shoots video, and will even take an external mike, which makes it kind of cool for blog journalism. It’s not nearly as pocketable as the Sony, though. But it’s cheap! And although it’s only a 3.2 megapixel camera, its excellent Canon lens produces good images. (Sample picture here).

And speaking of cheap, I’m giving this Kodak digital camera to the Insta-Daughter for Christmas. (She never reads InstaPundit, so I can post this safely.) It’s reportedly very kid-friendly, and largely indestructible. And it’s cheap enough that it it turns out to be not quite indestructible, it’s an annoyance not a disaster.

The truth is that it’s hard to go wrong in the digital camera marketplace right now. There are a lot of good cameras out there, and they’re cheap. Some other photo posts here, here, here, and here.

And if you wind up buying Nikon or Canon digital SLRs, be sure to note that there are rebates available on both. Don’t miss ’em.

UPDATE: Here’s a New York Times review of ten digital cameras under $300, by David Pogue.

ADVICE TO BRITISH CRIME VICTIMS: Adopt a stance of “active passivity.” The Belmont Club is not impressed with this advice, notwithstanding its eminent source.

THE COALITION of the crooked and unfree? Sadly, that pretty well describes it.

BRITISH POLICE say they have averted a “Madrid-style attack” in London.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

No one is ever asked to resign for wrongdoing at the United Nations. Indeed, since Minnesota Sen. Norman Coleman suggested that the secretary general should fall on his sword for presiding over the Oil-for-Food scandal, there has been a positive rush of diplomats and governments from all over the world to his defense. . . .

Americans tend to be baffled by these reactions. They look at the multiplying scandals around the United Nations and wonder how the man in charge can avoid being held responsible for any of it by other countries.

But the explanation is simple: Kofi Annan is the symbol of the United Nations’ lack of accountability. He is never held responsible for what goes wrong, because the United Nations is never held responsible, either. It sails in a cloud of noble idealism over the actual failures, hypocrisy, corruption and outright criminality that attend some U.N. actions on the ground below.

And there is a polite consensus outside the United States not to notice the glaring contradictions between idealism and reality. Too many influential people and institutions have invested too much in the United Nations and the U.N. system to see its flaws clearly.

Indeed. The U.N. needs to be either fixed, or crippled so thoroughly that it can no longer harm U.S. interests in the slightest. Whether it is aware of it or not, the “international community” seems to be opting for number two.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER WONDERS why events in Afghanistan haven’t gotten more attention:

Afghanistan is the first graduate of the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy in rather hostile places. A success so remarkable and an end so improbable merits at least a moment of celebration.

Indeed. Then there’s this:

KABUL: The US-led military in Afghanistan said on Wednesday that it had been contacted by Taliban members willing to lay down their weapons following an arms-for-amnesty offer by the US envoy to the country.

Seems like good news to me.

SORRY FOR THE LIMITED BLOGGING: I’ve been taking it easy, and reading Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross. Excerpt:

“Are you Frank the Nose?” asked a female voice.

Frank pulled his shades right off, rather than dialing them back to transparency. “What the f— eh, what are you talking about?” he spluttered, reaching for his left shoulder with his left hand. It was the young woman he’d seen in the corridor. He couldn’t help noticing the pallor of her skin and the fact that every item of her costume was black. She was cute, in a tubercular kind of way. Elfin, that’s the word, he noted.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, it’s, like, I was told you were a warblogger?”

“Who wants to know?” he finally asked, surprising himself with his mildness.

I was quite amused when I hit that passage.

FROM SOCIAL SECURITY TO FRENCH PRISONS: Tom Maguire is on a roll.

CATHY SEIPP PREFERS the real Gilligan’s Island to its latterday avatar, The Real Gilligan’s Island:

Consider this: Some years ago, actress Dawn Wells visited one of the remotest islands in the already remote Solomon Islands; she was, in fact, the first non-native woman to set foot there. The chief’s wife stared at Wells in surprise when she came out of her hut. “Mary Ann?” she asked in amazement.

But of course.