PATRICK MOORE AND NICK SCHULZ have thoughts on where the environmental movement is heading.

SALON HAS AN EXTENSIVE INTERVIEW WITH NEAL STEPHENSON up — you’ll have to sit through an ad first, but I think it’s worth it.

You can read this Stephenson interview, by me, without the ad. But it’s not nearly as extensive.

ANOTHER JOURNALIST WHO CAN’T TAKE CRITICISM is lashing out at the blogosphere.

When I see some editor lose it this way, it doesn’t fill me with confidence in traditional media.

More here.

UPDATE: And here.

THE “UNSCAM” OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL hit the British media in today with a splash. Here’s a roundup of the coverage there. (Via the “Friends of Saddam” UNScam blog — which has lots more on this scandal.)

UPDATE: More here.

HERE’S A PICTURE OF BALD RIVER FALLS from my expedition yesterday. I plan to spend a lot more time in the Cherokee National Forest and areas around there. For whatever reason, I tend to go north rather than south on my photo expeditions, but that’s caused me to overlook all sorts of places that I should pay more attention to.

Because the big pictures seem to cause excessive page-load times for some of my foreign readers (who have not just dial-up, but 24K dialup) I’ve compressed this image rather savagely. I’ll have some higher quality stuff posted over at the Exposure Manager site later, but I haven’t had time to deal with that. I got my exams written early this year, which let me take yesterday off, but there’s still a lot of end-of-the-semester cleanup to be dealt with.

At any rate, my photography is a pale shadow of the stuff that Fletch does over at A Smoky Mountain Journal. But that’s the beauty of amateurism: I can do it anyway!

ANDREW SULLIVAN POSTS A LETTER FROM FALLUJAH that’s a must-read.

MERYL YOURISH has a concise but interesting blogosphere roundup.

THIS SOUNDS SUSPICIOUS AS WELL AS DREADFUL:

SEOUL (Reuters) – Up to 3,000 people have been killed or injured in a huge explosion after two goods trains collided in a North Korean station hours after leader Kim Jong-il had passed through, South Korea’s YTN television station says.

Hmm.

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting Korea-related story:

According to the Jo Gap-je, the chief editor of the Chosun Ilbo’s Monthly Chosun Magazine, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney apparently laid down the law to the Chinese during his visit to Beijing. More specifically, he is said to have told Chinese leaders, “If China cannot prevent North Korea from arming itself with nuclear weapons, the United States, too, cannot prevent Taiwan and Japan from arming themselves with nuclear weapons.”

Very interesting, if true.

CHECK OUT THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA BLOGGER CHALLENGE: It’s in a good cause.

MY LOCAL MALL HAS SEVEN — YES, SEVEN — JEWELRY STORES, and I’ve never been able to understand how they can all stay in business, though I assume that colossal markups have something to do with it. My guess is that it’ll be a lot harder for them now that Amazon is selling jewelry online at a discount. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Clayton emails:

Like a lot of purchases that are very “personal”, buying jewelry for most people is what I call a “squeeze the merchandise” business.

If you’re buying a standardized commodity — CD, DVD, book, etc. — e-tailing is a delivery channel, though many people still go to Borders or Barnes & Noble for the “experience”.

There are some things that we just have to “see it/touch it” before we buy it. Jewelry is one of them.

Only not everyone feels that way, as reader Jeff Miller emails:

If you think Amazon selling online jewelry is a big deal, check out Seattle-based Blue Nile, which sells diamonds and jewelry over the Net.

They’re set to go public and, according their S-1, last year they brought in $128.9 million in revenue and made a whopping $27 million in profits. That’s a nice little profit margin.

News to me, but apparently there’s a market. And, it turns out, one of the companies is headquartered in Knoxville, which was also news to me. Reader Andrew Coloctronis emails:

You may be interested to know that Knoxville is the home to a TV and Internet Jewelry sales company, Jewelry Television (formally ACN TV). With over 1,000 employees located at a facility on Kingston Pike, Jewelry Television conducts all its production, shipping, broadcasting and web hosting locally.

I knew we had several cable-sales channels here, but I didn’t know about this one. Apparently, plenty of people are willing to buy without touching.

THE “UNSCAM” OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL is getting more attention:

It worked like this: Iraq would export under-priced oil, import over-priced goods, and cash in the difference through friendly middle-men. This occurred in plain daylight, right under the U.N.’s nose, with the complicity of hundreds of international companies, and possibly, the knowledge of many governments that had seats on the U.N. Security Council.

Beyond the kickbacks, Saddam was able to smuggle an estimated $5.7 billion worth of oil and fuel out of the country in total violation of the sanctions. Hundreds of trucks would enter Iraq from Turkey filled with goods bought under Oil-for-Food – then drive off again with fuel destined for sale on the black market. Other smuggling routes included a pipeline through Syria, and ships sailing Iranian territorial waters.

This sanctions-busting trade provided no benefit to Iraq’s civilian population. In fact, it created drastic fuel shortages inside Iraq. And again, it could not have occurred without the knowledge, and participation, of Iraq’s neighbors.

Kofi Annan made an excellent choice in appointing former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head the independent panel. But let there be no illusions. Despite yesterday’s Security Council vote in support of the Volcker probe, his inquiry will be as popular with the governments of Security Council members as Hercule Poirot’s investigation was on the Orient Express.

Read the whole thing. More background and links here.

UPDATE: Jan Haugland has comments on the Russians’ reluctance to be investigated.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Stefan Sharkansky traces Oil-for-Food money to some American political campaigns. Both Democrats and Republicans are involved.

ROBERT ALT posts an interesting report from Baghdad.

UNDER THE RADAR?

Think the Republicans got lost somewhere in cyberspace? Think again. The GOP’s underreported e-campaign may lack the media razzle-dazzle of the Deaniac phenomenon, but it promises to leave no less a mark on the annals of political campaign history.

It all comes down to a difference in style and strategy.

Interesting report. The Bush blog has certainly improved of late. It’s also interesting to see Larry Purpuro saying some things about Internet campaigning that seem a lot more progressive than his famous dissing of the blogosphere.

UPDATE: Here, by the way, is a Washington Post story on BlogAds and candidates that I meant to link earlier but forgot to.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Bush blog’s new Morning Reads feature seems to be quite well done.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, I GUESS:

A U.N. fact-finding team is set to travel to Sudan’s Darfur region to investigate claims of genocide by Arab militias against black African residents.

Violence in the country’s oil-rich Darfur region has raged for more than a year, displacing as many as one million people inside Sudan and forcing over 110,000 into neighboring Chad, according to U. N. estimates.

Rebel groups accuse Sudan’s government of arming Arab militia groups to carry out attacks.

Oxblog has more.

IT’S STEVEN DEN BESTE vs. a French reporter. You make the call.

LOTS OF INTERESTING DISCUSSION regarding illegal combatants and habeas corpus over at The Volokh Conspiracy. Just keep scrolling.

AMERICA’S MOST INFLUENTIAL LAW PROFESSORS? LawTV is taking nominations.

BOTH ZAPATERO AND MICHAEL MOORE appear to be mistaken. Related developments here. Meanwhile Iraqi blogger Mohammed has some birthday thoughts, including this one: “Why should I be strong while watching others run away; Spain, Honduras, Thailand, human organizations, the UN and all the others who want (and it’s their right I must say) to avoid the dangers. But why did they disappoint us? Why abandon us in this moment when we really need them? . . . Why do others get discouraged easily? Don’t mistake me. I’m upset but will NEVER run away like some people did.”

THE “UNSCAM” OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL IS GETTING MORE COVERAGE:

Iraqi oil pumped under Sevan’s direct supervision for seven full years was openly sold to whoever lined Saddam and Sevan’s pockets. . . . The former Iraqi oil minister claims that the UN “was stealing money from the Iraqi people,” alleging that as many as 300 UN bureaucrats were employed to administer the programme. “We were not pumping oil to feed Iraqis, but to feed (300) UN bureaucrats in New York.”

Before Sevan’s recent mysterious disappearance into the nether world, facilitated by boss Annan, who shrewdly packed him off on long leave before retirement, Sevan nonchalantly admitted, ” that as much as 10 percent” of the programme’s revenues may have been “ripped off,” telling a TV channel: “Even if 10 percent of the revenue was stolen, 90 percent got to the people it was intended for. Why does nobody report that?” he asked peevishly.

More here:

In the 12 months since the fall of the Iraqi dictatorship, a clear picture has emerged of how Saddam Hussein abused the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program. The Iraqi Governing Council has begun to release critical information detailing how, in the words of The New York Times, “Saddam Hussein’s government systematically extracted billions of dollars in kickbacks from companies doing business with Iraq, funneling most of the illicit funds through a network of foreign bank accounts in violation of United Nations sanctions.” In effect the program was little more than “an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and kickbacks.”

Read the whole thing. And there’s new blog set up to follow the oil-for-food scandal that’ll probably be a must-visit site over the coming months.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to today’s Congressional hearing testimony on UNSCAM, and here’s a story on the U.N. Security Council probe going ahead. I suspect a certain amount of halfheartedness on the part of those UN bureaucrats, however.

Tom Magure has more, with many links. And there’s more here.

REALITY ON THE GROUND: A report from Iraq.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn says that mideast instability is a good thing.

DANIEL DREZNER has advice for bloggers interested in reviewing books.

SLATE’S “EXPLAINER” has an interesting item on NASA Planetary Protection Officer John Rummel, whose job is to prevent cross-contamination between the Earth and other planets. I’ve met Rummel on one or two occasions and he seems quite sharp. Here’s a column I wrote on related issues a while back.

IS AL JAZEERA CONNECTED WITH THE TERRORISTS? It seems likely. Quite some time ago I linked a military blogger’s report of Al Jazeera reporters paying people to shoot at Coalition troops. Now Robert Alt writes: “While telling half of the story is bad enough, there is substantial evidence that outlets like Al Jazeera are in fact acting in concert with terrorists to generate overtly false and misleading news reports.” Imagine that.

UPDATE: More evidence here.

WENT OFF DRIVING AROUND THE MOUNTAINS today — down to the Cherohala Skyway and Bald River Falls. Back blogging later.

In the meantime Virginia Postrel has several interesting, and worrying, posts on malaria and DDT. Go read ’em.

ROGER SIMON on the “UNSCAM” oil-for-food scandal:

As a supporter of the United Nations (yes, I believe it necessary), I find this potentially immensely destructive to the organization. If the Oil-for-Food allegations are true, and it increasingly looks as if they are, without a deep and full bloodletting (probably including the resignation of Annan) the UN will never recover the confidence of the American people, nor should it. By not being on this with Watergate-style intensity, the media is aiding and abetting the downfall of the organization they wish to save.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Austin Bay — also a UN fan — has more thoughts on what this scandal means: “If the United States doesn’t force the United Nations to come clean about the deeply corrupted Oil for Food program and account for billions of skimmed Iraqi oil dollars, then we’re not merely fools, we’re party to the further degradation of a vital international institution.”