RAND SIMBERG has a pithy response to Susan Sontag.

KATE MCMILLAN WRITES:

The chatter and concern of the past few weeks about Iraq being too insecure for a July transition of power is going to change.

As the countdown to June 30th begins, and there is no sign that the Bush administration is going to move the deadline, the talking points and the media coverage will shift. Holding to the deadline is going to be revised to running away. (Watch for mention of the deadline to be buried deeply, or even dropped from news reports.)

Yes, there’s only one strand of consistency in the news coverage.

UPDATE: More thoughts on constantly moving goal posts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: By the way, here’s the November 15, 2003 agreement that sets the date to hand over sovereignty at June 30, 2004, adherence to which Kate expects will soon be portrayed as some sort of cut-and-run. And here’s the Countdown to Sovereignty website.

SPINSANITY is unimpressed with David Brock’s new Media Matters organization.

MARK CUBAN, MEDIA CRITIC:

We are now in an era where media searches for stories that will generate media coverage of the story. Stories are written not for the value they bring the readers, viewers or listeners, but rather the volume of coverage they will bring.

And, coincidentally, people are increasingly tuning them out.

UPDATE: Reader John Calapa writes:

Concerning the media and the value of the product they are creating today. The last time I saw this type hubris and wrong-headedness from an industry about what the customer wants and the value of quality, it was the American car industry in the ’70’s. Are you Blogonians the Toyotas of modern media?

I don’t think so, exactly. But I think you’re dead-on about the industry. They’re churning out Granadas and Chevettes and telling us that we’re idiots for complaining.

BOMBS, CHAOS, AND PEOPLE WHO HATE US — I think we should pull out of the Olympics.

IRAQI BLOGGER UPDATE: The Carnival of the Liberated, a roundup of Iraqi blog posts, is up.

RICHARD MILHOUS KERRY: Over at GlennReynolds.com.

I THINK THAT THE NANOTECHNOLOGY WARS are settling down:

Melody Haller of the Antenna Group, a public relations firm that represents a number of nanotech companies and Small Times, also raised concern that “marginalizing” people such Eric Drexler and others who believe in the feasibility of molecular manufacturing might create “heroic martyrs” for nanotech opponents to exploit. Drexler is founder of the Foresight Institute and author of the influential 1986 book, “Engines of Creation.”

Modzelewski, normally an outspoken Drexler critic, was unusually courtly toward the group. “Foresight has created some frameworks and guidelines for going forward that people should be looking at,” he said.

In an interview after the policy panel, Sean Murdock, the NanoBusiness Alliance’s incoming executive director, said that with respect to dangers, real or potential, the nanotech world must be proactive about studying safety issues. He also said he believed such risks can be quantified and protected against.

This represents quite a change from earlier attitudes, and I think it’s quite a wise one.

RON BAILEY: “Paul Ehrlich has never been right. Why does anyone still listen to him?”

BARCELONAN BLOGGER FRANCO ALEMAN has his own weblog now. It’s bilingual, though all-Spanish at the moment.

THE DECLINING PRESENCE OF THE BLOGROLL?

I’m not sure about that. Though big ones like mine are a pain to keep up.

SCHWARZENEGGER’S 75% TAX ON PUNITIVE DAMAGES: TaxProf has more.

IT’S “WEDDING PARTY” NEWS ANALYSIS AT THE BELMONT CLUB and it’s quite interesting.

UPDATE: Ralph Peters writes that the U.S. military has to get inside its enemies’ response curve. And he has an interesting analysis of who the enemies are.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Barry Dauphin emails:

I read the Peters article-thanks for the link. 1) I wonder if that’s why the Pentagon wanted such a speedy entry into Baghdad last year, i.e., Rummy gets it as far as need for speed. 2) The worrisome part of the analysis is that he implies our enemies understand our collective psyche better than we understand theirs. If that is accurate (and I’m afraid it is), we have to catch up in that department. The problem is it will mean dispensing with much political correctness which probably isn’t going to happen any time soon or until something significantly more tragic than 9/11 happens.

I’ve also felt that we don’t understand our potential friends in the Middle East either. I think we grossly underestimated the long term toll living under a totalitarian regime would have on the people (despite the recent collapse of the Soviet Union). Mass passivity is one possible outcome from that. Although many Iraqis are becoming active in many ways, a great deal of the population probably just wishes the trouble to all go away without taking any risks themselves. Saddam butchered so many and terrorized the rest. How many Iraqis survived by looking for ways to not cause trouble? That would be a hard habit to change. Second it could also feel shameful that one’s liberators are infidels.

Interesting points.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This military blogger says that Ralph Peters is right on the problem, but dangerously wrong on the solution.

COLLIN LEVEY WRITES on the rush to ignore WMD discoveries.

And Neal Boortz observes:

The latest? It was only a “very small trace” that was discovered. About one gallon of sarin, in liquid form, is a “very small trace” to the Times. Yesterday on the Neal Boortz Show we learned that there is enough sarin gas in four liters to kill over 60,000 people. That would make just one gallon of this stuff an arsenal. To the Times, though, it was just a small trace.

Remember the template.

It’s pretty obvious that they’re working from one.

MARINE SGT. PAUL LAVEN sends this link to a photo of more anti-New York Times graffiti.

By one of Kaus’s rules of punditry, two examples constitute a nationwide trend! It’s a popular revolution against Big Media!

Well, if the target were different, I’ll bet Maureen Dowd could write a column with no more basis than this.

If you see any more, send me a photo. Maybe I’ll start a gallery.

UPDATE: Ted Barlow emails:

Aren’t you concerned that you’re encouraging your readers to create anti-New York Times graffitti and then photograph it? Honestly, that was the first thing that I thought of.

That hadn’t crossed my mind. Don’t do that! I’m only interested in found graffiti, not made graffiti.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This Freudian slip from the Times is delightful.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Quite a few readers say that it’s probably lefties, or more specifically Anarchist / antiglobo types, spraypainting the Times. I guess that makes sense — such disrespect for private property is their hallmark, after all. I guess that’s why it didn’t cross my mind that InstaPundit readers might do that.

MORE: On the other hand, maybe it’s not anarchists, as reader Kipp Mohr sends this email:

It was my picture that you posted today of the graffiti of the New York Times today, and I just wanted to thank you for doing so.

I took it at the Medical Center stop on the red line of the DC Metro while I was visiting Sgt. Laven across the street at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. I can only assume it was one of the families or friends of a soldier wounded or killed in battle that attempted to deface a paper that has shown so little respect for their loved ones’ efforts and valient bravery. The only improvement in the effort I would’ve make would be to cut out the middle-man–spray it right across Ted Kennedy’s face!

Needless to say, InstaPundit does not approve of spray-painting Senators.

CHALABI’S HOUSE RAIDED: No, I’m not sure what to make of this either, though this may be a clue:

U.S. officials declined to comment on the raid targeting a longtime ally of the Pentagon. Privately, however, American authorities have complained that Chalabi is interfering with a U.S. investigation into allegations that Saddam Hussein’s regime skimmed millions of dollars in oil revenues during the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.

Go figure.

UPDATE: Reader George Peery emails: “The raid by US forces on Chalabi’s home may finally give him the “legitimacy” among Iraqis that he has so notably lacked. (Is the fix in?)” Such cynicism.

I’m not sure how to reconcile these events with this stuff.

BLOG HAIKU? Why not?

TIM RUSSERT: Censor?

KERRY BLOWS IT ON GAY MARRIAGE, according to Eugene Volokh:

Kerry apparently wanted to make a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages seem momentous and pregnant with threat to our Bill of Rights protections. (I take it that’s the chief argument against “touch[ing] . . . the Bill of Rights” — if you lessen some Bill of Rights protections, then you’re making it easier for others to lessen still other such protections.) The trouble is that his claim was inaccurate, and if it impressed people rhetorically, it did so by misleading them.

Maybe he was just tired. On the other hand, he’s not doing very well on judicial appointments, or Iraq, either.

A MARINE WRITES FROM IRAQ:

RAMADI, Iraq — This is my third deployment with the 1st Marine Division to the Middle East.

This is the third time I’ve heard the quavering cries of the talking heads predicting failure and calling for withdrawal.

This is the third time I find myself shaking my head in disbelief. . . .

Just weeks ago, I read that the supply lines were cut, ammunition and food were dwindling, the “Sunni Triangle” was exploding, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was leading a widespread Shiite revolt, and the country was nearing civil war.

As I write this, the supply lines are open, there’s plenty of ammunition and food, the Sunni Triangle is back to status quo, and Sadr is marginalized in Najaf. Once again, dire predictions of failure and disaster have been dismissed by American willpower and military professionalism.

Read the whole thing.

MILT ROSENBERG has a sleek new blog design.

“A TRAVESTY OF A MOCKERY OF A SHAM:” James Glassman says that the Bush Administration is blowing the war of ideas:

This job — promoting the national interest by informing, engaging and influencing — is called “public diplomacy.” We used to be the best at it. With institutions like Radio Free Europe and the USIA, public diplomacy helped win the Cold War, and it has the potential to win the war on terror, saving American lives and money.

But, after the Berlin Wall came down, the U.S. started to dismantle the apparatus of public diplomacy, or P.D. The worst blow came when we disbanded the U.S. Information Agency. Today, the State Department spends just $600 million on public diplomacy — a joke. Some in the administration even see P.D. as sissified, not for tough policymakers. . . .

“A year ago,” said Mark Helmke, key aide to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind). “I reported that American public diplomacy was a mess. I said it lacked a strategy, a vision, and money. Today, that situation is worse. American public diplomacy is a disaster.”

Read the whole thing.

VIRGINIA POSTREL looks at diminishing returns for highway spending.

To which I’d add that I often wonder how long it takes for the time saved by improved highways to make up for the time lost due to delays during the construction phase, especially if you discount to present value.

UPDATE: Via email from Bill Hobbs, an answer to my question:

A new report finds that motorists can lose more time in road construction delays than they will save in years of driving on the newly “improved” road. The national report, Road Work Ahead: Is Construction Worth the Wait? by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, is being released Thursday and uses case studies to examine whether road expansion projects are ultimately worth the wait for drivers.

The study found that construction delays can be so long, and the time savings from the expanded road so small, that it can take years for commuters to break even. In the case of the Springfield Interchange reconstruction outside of Washington DC, commuters are projected to never make up the time that they will lose during the eight years of construction. Drivers now sitting through the construction of I-15 in Salt Lake City are not expected to break even on their time investment until 2010, eight years after the project is completed.

This makes sense to me. More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s a further perspective:

I agree that we should consider time lost due to construction in the cost benefit analysis of highways. There are a couple of other things to consider as well. First and foremost, a highway bill is a jobs bill. $300 billion being spent on highways puts a lot of people to work. Don’t forget to include the multiplier effect. In addition, the reduced cost of maintenance on a vehicle saves every person who drives a considerable sum each year. Those reduced costs, along with reduced fuel costs (in cases of new highways) are also realized in either higher profits or lower costs for any product shipped by truck in the US.

There was a study out about a year ago, (sorry, I couldn’t find a link) that showed the increased cost of vehicle maintenance for Missouri residents compared to Kansas residents. As a Kansas City native, it is obvious that Kansas spends considerably more on roads than Missouri does. Anyway, the study had a range of $500 to $2000 per year in lower maintenance costs for Kansas residents.

Duane Simpson
Chief of Staff
Kansas House Majority Leader

I’d like to see more analysis of these factors. I find the “jobs bill” bit unpersuasive, though, as I suspect that the same amount of money, left in taxpayer pockets, would actually create more jobs. They’d just be jobs that elected officials couldn’t take credit for. . . .

I DON’T THINK POLLS MEAN MUCH this far from election day, but this Daschle / Thune poll can’t be making the Daschle folks very happy.

I’m sure that Thune’s shrewd use of blogads is what’s closed the gap. . . .

UPDATE: More in this column from Jon Lauck.

IDIOTARIAN ALERT: Yeah, that word’s so 2002. But the underlying reality is still there! And what else do you call someone who says we should ban gay marriage because allowing it will make terrorists mad?

Sheesh.