IN THE MAIL: A copy of R.F. Laird’s The Boomer Bible. Ten thousand years from now, scholars will still be confused.

Laird’s also at InstaPunk, a site that, like Tom Perry’s IsntaPundit, has a similar name to this one, but very different content. Er, and attitude.

DANIEL DREZNER OFFERS A VERY IMPORTANT POST for your consumption. It’s meaty and substantial.

I’VE BEEN MEANING TO DO A POST on great blogs that I haven’t, for one reason or another, linked to lately, and high on my list of blogs to include was Derek Lowe’s Pipeline. Then I saw where Malcolm Gladwell was praising it. And rightly so.

SANDY BERGER UPDATE:

Former Clinton White House Mr. Fix-It Bruce Lindsey emerged tight-lipped yesterday after testifying before a federal grand jury probing whether top-secret documents were illegally removed from the National Archives. The grand jury probe, reported exclusively in The Post Tuesday, is digging into why another former Bill Clinton aide, Sandy Berger, sneaked the national security documents out of the Archives — possibly in his socks.

Lindsey denied any inside knowledge about Berger’s sticky fingers.

Stay tuned.

RATHERGATE UPDATE: The “we were just hasty, not biased” argument isn’t flying:

If there is one line in the 224-page report on CBS News that has set critics aflame, it is that there is no “basis” for concluding that Dan Rather and his colleagues had a “political bias” in pursuing their badly botched story about President Bush’s National Guard service.

What, they say? No evidence?

“In any fair-minded assessment of how CBS performed and why they so badly butchered their own standards, that has to be part of the explanation,” said former New York Times reporter Steve Roberts, now a professor at George Washington University. “It’s not just that they wanted to be first, they wanted to be first with a story that was critical of the president.”

Indeed.

ED MORRISSEY fact-checks Nick Kristof and finds him guilty of “obscene” errors.

HOWARD FINEMAN ANNOUNCES THE DEATH of the mainstream-media-as-political-party, an entity that he says came into being when Walter Cronkite announced against the Vietnam War and ended this year when it turned out that nobody trusted them anymore: “It’s hard to know now who, if anyone, in the ‘media’ has any credibility.”

Fineman says that “Blogger Nation” has arisen. One example of that is Stefan Sharkansky and SoundPolitics.com, which is covering the Washington recount in a way that Fineman’s colleagues are not. Some people have noticed:

Meet Stefan Sharkansky — “The Shark.”

His efforts show how one small blog — a Web log site with updated entries — can deliver quite a sharp bite.

I was interested in knowing more about Sharkansky because if a new election is ordered, he just might be remembered as the guy who made a huge difference.

More evidence, if it were needed, that Fineman is right.

UPDATE: More evidence still — driving the Insta-Daughter to school just now, I heard an NPR story on the Washington State recount. Nothing at all on the allegations of fraud in King County, but a lot on Democrat Christine Gregoire’s admirable qualities. She was the first in her family to go to college!

HUGH HEWITT has repeatedly noted this new blog by GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz as evidence that General Motors “gets” blogs.

Naw. Lutz does, maybe, but a company as big as GM doesn’t get anything that fast. And for proof, all you need to do is to read this article from the Wall Street Journal on GM’s response to blog leaks regarding the new Corvette:

The Z06 snafu is a high-profile illustration of how Detroit’s decades-old tactics for generating buzz around a new model don’t always mesh with the realities of the digital media universe. Information about products can be passed around the world instantly by Web sites and blogs that don’t always honor news-release embargoes designed to suit the publication schedules of print magazines. . . .

A Texas computer consultant said he stumbled upon photos of a silver-blue Z06 on the Internet and posted them that afternoon on a Corvette online discussion forum he frequents. Five days later, on Nov. 14, two men from Securitas, GM’s contract security firm, knocked on the door of his Houston home demanding to know who gave him the pictures. He said he refused to let them in, and their parting shot was “We’ll see you in court.”

As soon as the security men left, the 36-year-old computer consultant, who requested his name not be used, posted details of the visit from the “two goons,” as he described them, on two Corvette Web sites. He also posted scanned images of their business cards.

Trust me, that’s not the action of a company that understands the Internet. Somebody needs to educate them! Maybe Lutz will spring for a few copies, and see that they get into the right hands.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Nolan emails with this observation, which carries an important lesson:

Your mention of GM and blogs, specific to the new Corvette launch, may actually underscore a point that it’s not blogs that GM doesn’t understand, but rather the power of small parts loosely joined in the form of camera phones.

Most of the spy photos that showed up on fan websites (technically not blogs) were from people who snapped pics of them on car carriers, or driving (with body panels disguised) around the Detroit area, with their camera phones.

Blogs played a big part in this, but were it not for individuals with camera phones who were in the right spot at the right time the blogs would have had nothing to publish.

And that’s one reason why I want as many InstaPundit readers as possible to be carrying digital cameras at all times!

WELL, I CERTAINLY MISSED THIS STORY:

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. government ran a $1 billion budget surplus in December, helped by a rise in corporate tax payments, the Congressional Budget Office said in its latest budget report released on Friday. The surplus, which compared with an $18 billion deficit in the previous December, helped create a smaller fiscal deficit for the first three months of the 2005 fiscal year, than in the same quarter of the prior year.

Fortunately, there are blogs.

STRATEGYPAGE:

Can the anti-government forces in Iraq win? Some pundits think so. But do you really think the Shia and Kurds will allow Saddam’s thugs to bully their way back into power? The Kurds and Shia Arabs have 80 percent of the population, control of the oil, and American troops to back up their efforts. Iraqis indicate, to anyone who will listen, that they have no intention of folding under Baath pressure, and a growing desire to come down hard on the Sunnis who support the violence. The Kurds and Shia have names, because Saddam’s thugs didn’t wear masks when they ran things for three decades. Guess who is going to lose? But that thought is what is driving the resistance. The Baath Party thugs know what they will have to face eventually, if they don’t regain control of Iraq.

The Baath and al Qaeda campaign against the police and government officials results in spectacular and newsworthy attacks each day. But there are still 7,000 new police and National Guard undergoing training, and another 25,000 waiting to start their training. The attacks are concentrated in two provinces; Anbar (where Fallujah is) and Nineveh (where Mosul is). Because the attacks are killing mostly Iraqis, the attackers are not very popular, even among Sunni Arabs. The police are getting more tips about anti-government activity. This includes information about where roadside bombs are planted, or where gunmen are hiding out. Although the Arab media makes a big deal about how impossible it will be to run the elections, the Iraqi people don’t think so.

Read the whole thing. I’ve found StrategyPage to be pretty reliable, and I certainly hope they’re right about this.

UPDATE: Brian Dunn has related thoughts.

SOUNDS LIKE GEORGE W. BUSH will probably want an iPod Shuffle.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF has another (and perhaps the final) link-rich tsunami news roundup.

Arthur does a great job with these roundups, and deserves a lot of praise for pulling so much interesting stuff together so well.

ROGER SIMON has some interesting things to say about James Wolcott, which is no small feat. But two items from his comments strike me as especially sharp:

(1) Roger, I think you’re missing the most fascinating thing about James Wolcott’s adorable rottweiler puppy attacks on the legs of various leading lights of the blogosphere. By every measure, Wolcott is an established figure in the white hot center of the mainstream media, as a Vanity Fair columnist for some ten-plus years. This is a man who has one of the most envied megaphones in the New York and national magazine publishing scene. Yet for some reason, he now spends most of his time gnawing away at, say, a law professor from an obscure Tennessee college, a part-time columnist from the Midwest, and a moderately successful (no offense!) mystery novelist from Los Angeles. This reversal of polarity would have been unthinkable even a year or two ago.

———-

(2) I subscribed to Vanity Fair for many years. I found that I was always finished reading what Wolcott had to say long before he was finished saying it.

Heh. Indeed.

FREE SPEECH AND ANTI-SEMITISM ISSUES AT COLUMBIA: F.I.R.E is involved.

F.I.R.E. has also released its guide to free speech on campus, which many students, professors, and journalists will find useful. (Via Eugene Volokh, who calls F.I.R.E. “a group whose work I’ve much admired.” Indeed.)

UPDATE: Nat Hentoff has some advice for Columbia University President Lee Bollinger.

THE COUNTERTERRORISM BLOG has a title that makes further explanation superfluous.

A “RACIAL FIRESTORM” at a Boston paper? More here. Surprising.

TWO DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE RATHERGATE REPORT: Patrick Ruffini writes:

To worry that CBS will be able to successfully whitewash Rathergate by trotting out two scions of the establishment unfairly diminishes the blogosphere’s signal accomplishment. They can no more whitewash this than they can sell the idea that John Kerry was a great candidate who just fell a little short, or the notion that some good violin playing was just what was needed after the iceberg opened a huge gash in the Titanic.

On the other hand, Ed Morrissey writes:

The mainstream media would have us believe now that the corruption of CBS and 60 Minutes Wednesday was self-evident and needed no impetus for discovery. They do not want to come to terms with an activist and energized readership, one that refuses to act like sheep any more. These media leaders cannot face their own biases and their desperate grip on the spigot of information, and so they attempt to simply ignore the critical role that the blogosphere played in bringing this debacle to light.

When we talk about whitewashes, let’s remember that history can also be rewritten to hand defeats to the victors and acquittals to the guilty. We can see this process happening before our eyes in the media right now — and the blogosphere had better react to it.

I’m more inclined to agree with Patrick, but there’s no harm in making sure that Ed’s fears don’t come true.

BUT WHAT WILL THE CULT SAY? The iPod Shuffle seems kinda cool, but I’m not sure its appeal would last. On the other hand, the Mac Mini just might.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis puts into words my vague discomfort with the iPod Shuffle, though he seems to feel it a bit more strongly: “The entire point of the iPod is that it gives you control. Hell, the entire point of media that succeeds these days is that it gives you control. But the new, cheap, cute iPod takes that control away by shuffling the cuts you put on it.”

I agree. But for some people, the highest form of control is giving up control. I guess they deserve an iPod of their own, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Several readers say that the Shuffle offers a “play in order” mode that lets you pick. Okay, so much for the gimmick. Don’t all flash players have a shuffle and a play in order mode? As reader Diane Pettey emails:

Your objection to the iPod Shuffle is based on a flawed impression that is almost entirely based on what I think is a very poor marketing decision. The “Shuffle” gimmick is just that: a marketing gimmick. In fact, if you want to play your songs in a particular order, you just need to create an ordered playlist first in iTunes, then download the songs from the album you created. . . .

Given that one has to really dig for this information only after thinking “they CAN’T be THAT insane!” – from a marketing standpoint the team that has performed so well for Apple may have slipped up this time.

On the other hand, we’re talking about it, I guess.

LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS IS BACK ONLINE.

JOHN HINDERAKER: I told you so.

THIS IS INSIDER SPACE STUFF, but Glen Wilson has died.

WAS LINCOLN GAY? Andrew Sullivan cares, and so do the folks at The Weekly Standard. I can’t seem to, though. The guy saved the nation, and I’m supposed to care about where he put his wing-wang?

But if he was, you can’t blame Vanna White.

UPDATE: My use of the term “wing-wang” is criticized.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan doesn’t like it, either: “This, apparently, is Glenn Reynold’s view of what being gay is. And Glenn is on the side of the angels in this. It’s enough to make you despair.”

Andrew is despairing a lot lately, I’m afraid. But if I was dismissive above (and I was) it’s because I’m just not that interested in other people’s sexuality. I don’t even care about Brad and Jen’s split, and not only did they not save the Union, as near as I can tell their whole reason for existence is to promote such interest. (Something that I, by contrast, have done only once, as far as I know . . . .) I’m actually a bit surprised by Andrew’s reaction, as many people who find other people’s sexuality fascinating seem fascinated with the idea of controlling it, which I’m certainly not. Your sexuality is your own, as Lincoln’s was his own, but don’t expect me to be fascinated.

HE’S NO LEFTY: John Derbyshire criticizes Intelligent Design:

Lots of scientists believe in God. Einstein seems to have, for instance. So do I; and so do a great [many] other people who think that ID theory is pure flapdoodle. It is possible to believe in God and not believe in ID; it is possible (as I pointed out in a previous post) to believe in ID but not God.

ID theory posits that certain features of the natural world CAN ONLY be explained by the active intervention of a designing intelligence. Since the entire history of science displays innumerable instances of hitherto inexplicable phenomena yielding to natural explanations (and, in fact, innumerable instances of “intelligent design” notions to explain natural phenomena being scrapped when more obvious natural explanations were worked out), the whole ID outlook has very little appeal to well-informed scientists. A scientist who knows his history sees the region of understanfing as a gradually enlarging circle of light in a general darkness. If someone comes along and tells him: “This particular region of darkness HERE will never be illuminated by methods like yours,” then he is naturally skeptical. “How can you possibly know that?” he will say, very reasonably.

Indeed.

MORE THOUGHTS on Sandy Berger.

AND THE ANSWER IS NO: Reader Hale Stewart emails:

Have you at any time accepted money from the Bush administration or the Republican Party to promote their policies?

No, other than some Republican blogads, which I don’t think count — and anyway, I think I’ve run more blogads for lefty groups and Soros outfits. I think he’s taking his cue from Oliver Willis here. And speaking of Oliver and Soros, where does Media Matters get its money from, again?

UPDATE: Reader Dart Montgomery emails: “You might want to point that blogads ‘don’t count’ because they by their very nature are fully disclosed to your readers.” Yes. And on Media Matters I should note that Duncan Black emailed me a while back to claim that it’s not Soros-funded as many have reported. But he didn’t reply when I asked him where the money did come from. Does anybody know?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oliver Willis emails that the money for Media Matters comes from “progressive donors,” but not George Soros, and says that I should disclose my link to James Glassman’s TechCentralStation. Er, like with the link that says “My TCS Columns” over there at the top right, Oliver?

Sean Doherty, however, has more on Media Matters funding and says that in fact it was set up with Soros money, but calls the funding situation murky. It’s okay with me either way — it’s not like there’s much doubt where Media Matters is coming from, really, so the rest is just details, and I’m already on record as to the pointlessness of too much nitpicking in that regard. Oliver’s gradual transformation into Hesiod, on the other hand, does trouble me.

MORE: David Hardy emails: “I, for one, demand that you disclose your economic and/or emotional connections to any producers of films about murderous satanic lesbians.”

Full disclosure: The blogad currently residing at the upper right was not purchased for cash.

FINALLY: A deal’s a deal, Ace.