UNSCAM UPDATE — Shredding the Volcker Commission archives?

The most urgent implication of Mr. Volcker’s incomplete findings is that his huge and expensively assembled archives must be preserved intact well beyond the Dec. 31 deadline by which Mr. Volcker now plans to start disposing of them. Above all, they must not be handed back to the U.N., where too much related to the corrupt Oil for Food program has already vanished–including, to a fascinating extent, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s own powers of recollection. The former head of the program, Benon Sevan, alleged to have taken bribes from Saddam, was allowed to skip town, U.N. pension in hand. Mr. Annan is even now resurrecting, via a new $4 million U.N. program called the Alliance of Civilizations, the career of his former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, who officially retired earlier this year after it came to light that during Mr. Volcker’s investigation Mr. Riza had overseen the shredding of three years’ worth of documents that might have better illuminated the oil-for-fraud shenanigans of the U.N.’s executive 38th floor.

As it happens, Rep. Henry Hyde, who has led the main investigation into Oil for Food in the House, introduced a bill on Nov. 17 urging that the U.S. withhold $100 million from its U.N. dues for each of the next four fiscal years, or until the secretary of state certifies to Congress that the Volcker investigation’s archives have been transferred, intact and uncensored by the U.N., “to an entity other than the [Volcker] Committee or the United Nations”–and made available for public inspection, at the very least by law-enforcement authorities.

I think they should go on the Web, in searchable form.

GRAND ROUNDS is up! So is the Carnival of Education.

A MILITARY DEFEAT for MoveOn.org, at the hands of the British.

MORE PROBLEMS for the Los Angeles Times. Some people are enjoying their predicament(s), but I’d actually like to see them do better.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE sets the wayback machine for 1998.

A DVD SECOND SEASON for Firefly?

Let’s say that Joss Whedon, creator of Firefly, wanted to bring the series back to air. (Though “back to air” is a TV phrase now as anachronistically quaint as “switching the dial.”) Let’s say he found a million Firefly fans online—and, trust me, they’re not hiding—who were willing to pay, say, $39.99 each for a sixteen-episode season of Firefly. (Not an unreasonable price, given how many people pay about that amount for full seasons on DVD.) Suddenly, Joss Whedon’s got roughly $40 million to play with—and he doesn’t need a network. Or a time slot. Or advertisers. He can beam the damn shows right to your computer if he wants to.

Great idea. But it’s a hypothetical. I actually asked Firefly executive producer Tim Minear about this kind of thing the other day, and he said there’s nothing like this in the works.

Maybe he should have added “yet.” Read the whole article, which has lots of interesting insights. (Via Bill Adams).

And this bit certainly describes my experience to a tee:

This summer, Universal did something kind of weird: It released Serenity, a sci-fi movie based on a poorly rated TV show, Firefly, that had been canceled after eleven episodes. Making movies of hit TV shows has a self-explanatory logic, but there aren’t too many movies based on TV flops. But I saw Serenity and liked it a lot, so I went out and bought the entire run of the Firefly TV series on DVD, watched it, and liked it a lot as well.

I bought the DVD set and enjoyed it too. I’d actually rather watch DVDs than regular TV.

And here’s a Blogcritics review of Firefly.

I DON’T AGREE WITH THIS POLICY AT ALL.

In fact, here’s the InstaPundit policy:

InstaPundit strongly supports the use of violent force to save lives of its workers (er, that’s me), readers, advertisers, or unrelated onlookers should they be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a conflict situation. The use of grossly excessive or gratuitous violence, while not exactly encouraged, isn’t exactly deplored, either.

If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.

CONGRESSMAN JACK KINGSTON is blogging about his trip to Iraq.

HOMELAND SECURITY UPDATE: “Efforts to train thousands of federal agents to protect commercial flights during heightened terror alerts were quietly abandoned more than a year ago because Congress objected to the cost, government investigators said Tuesday.”

BLOGGER / REPORTER MICHAEL TOTTEN is photoblogging Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon.

IT’S NICE TO SEE THAT REPRESENTATIONAL ART hasn’t died.

SOME ANTI-SCIENCE LAWMAKING that has nothing to do with “Intelligent Design.”

SOME AIRLINES ARE ENGAGING IN OPEN PROFILING OF PASSENGERS, without even trying to hide it.

ADVICE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE, from Lorie Byrd.

GOOD NEWS: “South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk’s embarrassing ethical lapses have stalled his ambitious expansion plans in the United States and England, but leading scientists in both countries say stem cell research won’t be seriously disrupted by the scandal.” I still think the scandal is overblown anyway.

EXECUTIVE PAY AND GENERAL MOTORS: Some thoughts over at GlennReynolds.com.

DOES THIS MEAN IT’S A BUBBLE? OR THAT IT’S NOT A BUBBLE? New home sales hit record highs. My guess is that it’s a bubble, but my judgment in these matters doesn’t deserve much weight.

IN THE MAIL: Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre’s Spychips : How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID. Bruce Sterling calls it “a masterpiece.”

Some people would probably like to see us all wearing these.

UPDATE: Tech reporter Hiawatha Bray emails:

I know and like Katherine Albrecht. I’ve covered her for years and think she’s often rather more paranoid than the facts justify. But in Spychips, she and McIntyre have done their homework and rely almost entirely on actual documents from the companies and trade organizations working on RFID chip applications. The book makes a very persuasive case that some of America’s biggest companies want to embed tracking technology into virtually everything we own, and then study our usage patterns 24 hours a day. It’s a truly creepy book and well worth reading.

Yeah, this is a topic that has attracted its share of paranoia. But sometimes the paranoids are right!

BAD REVIEWS FOR BUSH’S IMMIGRATION SPEECH: Neal Boortz: “There was nothing in his speech we haven’t heard before, and his new immigration policy is just as contradictory as the old one. . . . I’m sure representatives of Al-Qaeda are preparing to apply for their guest-worker permits as we speak.”

Michelle Malkin is unhappy, too. And Joe Gandelman has a roundup of reactions.

UPDATE: Bush is charged with rewriting history on the Reagan Amnesty.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Prawfsblawg weighs in: “Yet liberal principles require a drastic reduction of immigration controls. Foreigners flock to our shores because there is demand for their labor. The same principle that supports free trade of goods and services — the law of comparative advantages — applies with equal force to freedom of movement.”

Responses here and here.

JOE LIEBERMAN:

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood–unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn. . . .

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America’s bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

A colossal mistake, but one that quite a few seem ready to make, if allowed.

IN TODAY’S WALL STREET JOURNAL (free link) a look at John Bolton at the U.N.:

What has confounded John Bolton’s abundant detractors, both American and foreign, is how little he has lived up to their caricature of him as the fire-breathing, unilateralist, neo-conservative pit bull during his first four months as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. . . .

Some call what the U.S. is trying to achieve — with significant support from other countries, notably Japan — the GE-ization of the U.N., that is, introducing the modern management mechanisms of global companies. Together the U.S. and Japan provide more than 40% of U.N. funds (the U.S. 22% and Japan 19%). Among the leading opponents are Pakistan, Egypt and India.

Shockingly, much of the opposition appears to revolve around patronage, perks and pork.

CLIVE DAVIS looks at changing media attitudes toward Kyoto.

HMM. RETAIL SALES DOLLARS weren’t as good as hoped over the weekend due to heavy discounts, but online sales are up. Are we seeing a shift to shopping online? Certainly in my household, but we’re probably not typical

MICKEY KAUS offers lessons for the New York Times from Cable TV.

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION to ask those seeking office in 2006 and 2008.