GOT DAVE CLARKE’S NEW CD, Devil’s Advocate. I’ve only listened through the whole thing once, but I like it a lot, though it’s a bit cold overall. The reviews called it “electro-Goth,” but I think the reviewers were overly influenced by the packaging, which I think is a straight send-up of the Spinal Tap black album. The actual tunes aren’t especially goth-y. The best tunes are the two featuring Chicks On Speed on the vocals, “She’s in Parties” and “Disgraceland.” The latter is especially witty, though like a lot of witty songs it may not sustain repeated listening. (And I love the title, which is also the name of a record label here in Knoxville, though I doubt Dave knew that). If you’re into techno with a capital “tech,” you’ll probably like this album. And it inspired me to the realization that blogging is a lot like producing techno, something I may post more about later.

BOB KERREY ON IRAQ: “Twenty years from now, we’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn’t worth the effort. ”

JEFF JARVIS AND MICHAEL TOTTEN are fighting for the soul of liberalism. So is Armed Liberal, who’s, well, armed.

WHAT’S WRONG with income inequality? My TechCentralStation column is up.

UPDATE: Phil Bowermaster has comments, and looks forward to a future when I’m “marginally less dorky.” Don’t we all!

HERE’S MORE on the increasingly likely India/Pakistan peace talks. I’m not overly optimistic about these (“peace talks” have a rather mixed record, and certainly aren’t synonymous with “peace”) but given that we were worried about all-out nuclear war not long ago, it’s got to be an improvement.

MEGAN MCARDLE comments on Wesley Clark’s tax plan (“Problem: the numbers don’t seem to add up.”) Other comments from Kevin Drum (he likes it!), Steve Verdon (not so much) and Prof. Bainbridge. I notice that Kevin’s sister’s chronic kvetching has become the subject of nationwide punditry.

ASKING THE DO-GOODERS TO PROVE THEY DO GOOD turns out to be controversial, as even The New York Times is noticing:

There are millions of these groups — commonly referred to as nongovernmental organizations, or NGO’s — worldwide, but few are subjected to that kind of meaningful oversight, say the specialists studying NGO accountability. . . .

Even activists like Ralph Nader and the anti-globalization firebrand Naomi Klein, who have often been at the forefront of efforts demanding accountability from corporations and governments, have lashed out at calls for holding NGO’s similarly responsible.

Read the whole thing. I believe we’re seeing a groundswell here. And I’m not the only one:

“Accountability is the central issue of our time,” writes Coralie Bryant, a Columbia University professor who has done a survey of international emergency-relief organizations.

The tax-exempt status of nonprofits and foundations isn’t an entitlement. It’s there because they’re supposed to serve important public goals. Do they? I think it’s fair to ask that question.

HOWARD LOVY: It’s about vision, not nanobots.

DONALD LUSKIN is praising Brad DeLong. Meanwhile Brad DeLong is savaging Daniel Drezner.

MESSAGE TO EDITORS: Michael Totten has been writing for the Wall Street Journal and TechCentralStation, but he’d like to do more writing in 2004. Check him out — he’s worth your attention.

THE DISAPPEARING DICK CHENEY: John Cole notices that now that Halliburton has been cleared of wrongdoing, news stories don’t mention Dick Cheney anymore.

Go figure.

PROF. BAINBRIDGE: “Now the Dean will have to give me credit for the time I spend blogging. Hah!”

THIS MAY BE NEWS:

CINCINNATI — There are reports that fighter jets are escorting a jet into the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport.

The plane is Delta flight 043. It left Paris at 11:20 a.m. and is scheduled to land at 3:20 p.m.

The flight is said to be of interest because of a potential terrorism suspect on board, according to Cincinnati television station WLWT.

Or it could turn out to be nothing. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: In a related development, Andy at World Wide Rant is looking to cancel his British Airways travel plans because of BA’s weak anti-terror stance.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Looks like a false alarm. Better safe than sorry.

DAVID BERNSTEIN: “Just once, I’d like to see the losing Super Bowl quarterback tell the media, ‘Guess Jesus really had it in for me today.'”

MORE ON HOW THE ADMINISTRATION’S careful, multilateral approach to the war on terror is paying off and producing peace around the world.

Meanwhile, Tim Blair has a roundup of European sophistication.

SPACE BABE OF THE YEAR? I haven’t been watching the NASA Mars coverage on C-SPAN, but several readers have, and they seem to find NASA flight director Jessica Collison especially appealing.

BELLICOSE GRANNIES?

Reversing longstanding patterns in the US, residents ages 65 and up are now the mostly likely of all citizens to own a gun.

Interesting. What’s more interesting is why:

“You need to be able to protect yourself, because the police are not always able to protect you at any moment,” he says.

That’s certainly true, though I wonder why people are feeling this way now, when crime is actually down considerably? I suspect that there’s a post-9/11 cultural shift underway here, not just a response to specific risks.

UPDATE: This Mark Steyn column is interesting, too:

As I wrote in September, to expect the state to protect you is to be a bystander in your own fate. It’s interesting that, during the recent security scares, the terrorists seem to have been targeting BA and Air France. They seem to reckon they’ve a better chance of pulling something on a non-US airline. I hope that’s not true, and that when the next shoebomber bends down to light his sock, he’ll find himself sitting next to some gung-ho Brit rather than the “peace and solidarity” type.

You can have a nanny state if you prefer. But not for long.

Read the whole thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, younger women are packing, too.

BARRY SCHWARTZ has been getting a lot of attention for his new book The Paradox of Choice, which argues that too many choices can actually make people less happy.

Not to take anything away from Schwartz, but I wrote something on this very topic in the Yale Law Report (warning: big PDF file) over ten years ago. There’s even a mathematical model of life satisfaction as a function of choices. . . .

THE “NO BETTER FRIEND” PLAN: The 1st Marine Division is going to Iraq, and they’re asking for your help. I think this is a terrific idea, and I encourage you to donate. I’ve bought them 110 Frisbees.

WAR IN 2004? StrategyPage lists some likely locations, unfortunately including Nigeria.

ANDREW SULLIVAN: “When you read a piece like this one by Arthur Miller, you realize that for a certain generation, there’s no chance that they will ever get their heads around the horrors of communism. Here’s Miller, dining with a murderer, thug and dictator, and finding some elegant way to remain committed to liberal principles. . . . He still longs for a world in which Castro might have succeeded, a world which cannot exist, and which never existed – except in the minds of aging Nation-readers. ”

Plus, Sullivan endorses Howard Dean!

JOHN PERRY BARLOW has had a good blogging experience:

So far, I’m impressed with the level of civility I find in these 126 comments, despite profoundly differing political views and cultures. There are occasional gouts of self-righteous napalm blasting from both sides, and the Third Reich has been mentioned more than once, but people are generally acting like rational adults.

I hope this exchange is as useful to its participants as it is to me. Lately I have found myself too easily seduced into a belief that no one who is neither crazy nor dim-witted nor TV-psychotic nor pretending to be asleep could actually support the policies of the Bush Administration. But the Bush supporters who have arrived here are, with a few exceptions, intelligent, articulate, and more courteous in debate than many of my own cohort. This discussion is a great reminder – as if I should need one – that the other side deserves to be taken as seriously as I would have them take me.

Read the whole thing, which offers some useful lessons to, well, all of us. Funny that this whole conversation was really started by Don McArthur, who calls himself “The Misanthropyst.” But hey, he and Barlow have motorcycles in common, too.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis says “right on!”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Don McArthur comments:

I am concerned that this Manichean Hell our politics has descended into has ruined any sort of useful and productive conversation. And that this state of affairs is not an accident, and serves the purposes of a small subset of fanatics, pundits and political opportunists. You don’t have to play along.

Not a complete misanthrope.

GO TO IRAQ. LEARN STUFF. SUPPORT WAR:

One-third of lawmakers have now been to Iraq. Many returning voice stronger support.

In a development that has received little public attention, about a third the US Congress has been to Iraq since May – and the trips are shifting the political dynamic on Capitol Hill about the war.

Unlike during Vietnam, when congressional visits often fueled lawmakers’ opposition to the war, these tours of Iraq are tending, if anything, to blunt antiwar sentiment. In many cases, they are solidifying support in Congress for the military effort. . . .

Still, lawmakers say that the situation on the ground is more positive than press reports had led them to believe: Schools are functioning, new construction projects are starting up at a rate of 100 a day, and troop morale is better than they had expected. While they also see problems, they’re coming back on the side of doing what it takes to make it work.

Conversion of a critic

Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the lone GOP senator to oppose the war in Iraq in 2002, returned from a two-day visit last October convinced that US action had been justified. Others aghast at President Bush’s $87 billion request for reconstructing Iraq last October – atop of a $78 billion request in April – came back committed to voting the full amount. Democrats, who account for a third of 170-plus congressional visits to date, often come back determined to stay and spend what is needed to win the peace.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Here’s more commentary on this article by Cori Dauber.

NOTE TO WILL BAUDE: Yes, I am, in fact, messing with you.

DANIEL DREZNER has the only Britney Spears wedding post you need to read.