ARMY OF DAVIDS is now up to #37 on Amazon, which makes me very happy. (This link from Hugh Hewitt helped a lot, I’m sure. And this one from Greyhawk.) Thanks so much for all the preorders! I’m sure I’ll be in bed before it updates again, but if it goes any higher, somebody let me know.
Archive for January, 2006
January 31, 2006
SHORT REVIEW: Better than I expected, though that’s a function of my low expectations. State of the Union speeches are generally weak, and Bush is no star as a speaker. But the delivery was, for Bush, good, and the substance was mostly good, too, though the cloning-ban stuff didn’t thrill me. The Presidential Commission on entitlement reform was also very lame, though realistically it’s probably all he can do.
On the energy stuff, see this article from Popular Mechanics on hybrids, and other automobile technology, a topic also discussed in last night’s podcast. (Direct link here, or via iTunes).
Austin Bay has thoughts, too. And reader Meghan Hammond emails: “More Math and Science teachers? Alternative energy resources? Someone has been reading The World is Flat.”
The CNN panel keeps saying how Bush is on the ropes, but he certainly didn’t act like he shared their opinion.
Lorie Byrd reports that it’s not just CNN.
In the Democratic response, Tim Kaine’s (rather repetitive) refrain is “there’s a better way,” which sounds like he’s trying out a campaign slogan. He keeps citing state initiatives as examples. That doesn’t reflect well on the national Democratic party, but it sets things up well for a 2008 presidential run by a Democratic governor. Hmm. Who could he have in mind? . . .
His brief Iraq discussion, however, notably lacked any specifics about the “better way” there, and quickly shifted to a discussion of veterans’ benefits. That’s been the problem that the Democrats have had on this subject all along. They can criticize, but if there’s not an entitlement program, they can’t get motivated.
Still, overall, as with Bush he exceeded my low expectations. SOTU responses, after all, are traditionally even lamer than SOTU addresses.
Brit Hume just said that the “better way” language actually comes from the Robert Redford movie The Candidate, which doesn’t seem entirely promising.
UPDATE: A reader writes: “As an Iranian, I thought this was Bush’s best message to Iranians…it had a perfect balance and he did try distinguish between the Mullahs and the citizens and he did not name a reform group or anything like that.or even use a threatening language, when you threaten Iran people have not choice but to support the Regime..way better than ‘axis of evil’ message… ”
FINALLY: Andrew Marcus shot video of the anti-Bush protests in Chicago, and interviewed protesters talking about revolution and civil war. You can see it here (WMV) or here (QT).
ADVANCE STATE OF THE UNION EXCERPTS: Click “read more” to read more.
To the delight of Republicans, Cindy Sheehan will reportedly be in the audience. GayPatriot will be liveblogging. And RightSideRedux has a lot of reports from the blogger event on Capitol Hill this afternoon; just keep scrolling. And reportedly Rumsfeld took a hand. Daniel Glover has more. This early bird report is amusing, too. But David Corn isn’t excited. The Corner is moreso, and is liveblogging.
UPDATE: Ed Morrissey will be liveblogging, too. I don’t know if I’ll liveblog, but I’ll at least have some thoughts later.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Full text available now — it’s below the excerpts. Just click “read more” and scroll.
Lots more livebloggers here.
“Every year of my presidency we’ve reduced the growth of nonsecurity discretionary spending.” Not a barn-burner of a line. But a bit later he endorses earmark reform, a key PorkBusters goal!
MORE: N.Z. Bear: “George W. Bush — Porkbuster!” The Bear continues: “Having the Presidential bully pulpit keeping Congressional feet to the fire on the need for earmark reform is a Very Good Thing — and one that I sincerely hope is not a This Night Only performance.”
STILL MORE: I don’t like the cloning ban endorsement, though.
THANKS, GUYS! Army of Davids is now up to #78 on Amazon, which isn’t bad for a book that doesn’t come out for over a month. Keep those pre-orders coming; they’re much appreciated!
UPDATE: #66! With a bullet!
And reader Steve Waite says that the book is now Number One on Amazon’s Movers And Shakers list. Cool!
MYSTERY POLLSTER writes on spin and counterspin in State of the Union polling.
NICE WORK WITH THE PRE-ORDERS, FOLKS: An Army of Davids is now up to #119 on Amazon. It was 23,719 yesterday. Thanks!
UPDATE: Reader Patrick Casey emails:
I just pre-ordered An Army of Davids at Amazon. FYI – Amazon suggested that it would be better bought together with James Lileks’ Mommy Knows Worst : Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice. Interesting… Bloggers, apparently, rule, even on Amazon.com!
Indeed. What’s more, it’s a good recommendation!
FOLLOW THE MONEY?
Sen. Harry Reid has been found with his hands in the Abramoff cookie jar. But is the problem too many lobbyists buying influence or that there is too much influence to buy?
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, hoping like most Democrats that charges of corruption and the depiction of Republicans as the party of Jack Abramoff will help them retake the House or Senate or both, said on “Fox News Sunday”: “No Democrat delivered anything, and there’s no accusation and no investigation that any Democrat ever delivered anything to Jack Abramoff.”
Ah, but there is, as host Chris Wallace dutifully pointed out.
I’m on record as saying this is primarily a Republican scandal, but the more the Democrats try to pretend it’s nothing but, the worse they look. They can’t seem to help overplaying their hand every time.
SUPPORT FREEDOM: Buy Danish!
UPDATE: Here’s much more on that.
ALITO CONFIRMED, 58-42: In theory, if everyone opposed had supported a filibuster, he wouldn’t have been, but that was never really in the cards.
ARMY OF DAVIDS UPDATE: Well, the book officially comes out in just over a month — if you’d like to preorder a copy (and I’d really appreciate it if you would, as the publisher thinks its important to have lots of preorders, and early enough that the books will actually be on-hand and ready to ship that first week) you can do so via Amazon or, if you’re one of the people who doesn’t like Amazon, there’s always BarnesandNoble.com, or your local brick-and-mortar bookstore.
Here’s an advance look at some of the blurbs that will appear on the book (and, someday, on the Amazon, B&N, etc., sites):
“Reynolds shows that technology can empower individuals to determine their own futures and to defeat those who would enslave us . . . a book of profound importance—and also a darn good read.”—MICHAEL BARONE, senior writer at U.S. News & World Report and author of Hard America, Soft America
“Glenn Reynolds has written an essential book for understanding how technology and markets are creating a bottom-up shift in power to ordinary people that is changing business, government, and our world. Packed with fresh ideas and adorned with graceful prose, An Army of Davids is a masterpiece.”—JOE TRIPPI, author of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
“Reynolds shows how average Americans can use new technologies to overcome the twin demons of corporate greed and incompetent government.” —ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, author of Pigs at the Trough and Fanatics and Fools
“A smart, fun tour of a major social and economic trend. From home-brewed beer to blogging, Glenn Reynolds is an engaging, uniquely qualified guide to the do-it-yourself movements transforming business, politics, and media.” —VIRGINIA POSTREL, Forbes columnist, author of The Future and its Enemies
“Reynolds’ beguiling new book tells the insightful story of how an ‘army of Davids’ is inheriting the Earth, leaving a trail of obsolete business models not to mention cultural, economic, and political institutions in its wake.”—RAY KURZWEIL, scientist, inventor, and author of several books including The Singularity is Near
“‘Must read,’ ‘gotta have,’ ‘culture changing,’ –I am suspicious of blurbs with such overused plugs.
But Glenn Reynolds’ An Army of Davids is in fact a must read new book, that you gotta have if you are going to even glimpse the culture changing forces that are unleashed and at work across the globe.
And did I mention that it is the best title in a decade?” —HUGH HEWITT, syndicated talk show host and author of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World.
An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and other Goliaths (ISBN: 1-59555-054-2, $24.99 U.S., Nelson Current) will publish March 7, 2006.
But you can pre-order it now! Did I mention that?
UPDATE: Laurence Simon emails:
Will you be offering signed copies of the Army of Davids book?
I’ve been collecting autographed copies of blogger books.
That and Pez dispensers. But I’m assuming there isn’t a Glenn Reynolds Pez Dispenser.
Sadly, no. But I’ll figure out a way to autograph a copy of the book for anyone who wants it.
MORE: Several readers sent advice like this, from Laura Blanchard: “Signed bookplates… much cheaper to mail than books.”
Great idea. Closer to the pub date I’ll post more on how to do this: An address you can send a SASE to and I’ll return a signed bookplate, or some such.
Meanwhile reader Kathleen Hay observes: “I think this is a shrewd time to release your book. I just received $75 in amazon gift certificates that come from spending money using the amazon Visa card for Christmas presents.”
That’s enough to buy 4 copies!
BRENDAN MINITER: “Mr. Bush’s speech is likely to come as a blow to the status quo candidate for majority leader, Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri.”
ISLAM IN EUROPE: Interviews with Bruce Bawer and Claire Berlinski. Excerpt (from Berlinski):
The problem — which we see in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Italy, Britain, everywhere in Europe, in fact — is that every single European country has imported a huge body of ill-educated, unskilled immigrants who for both cultural and economic reasons cannot be assimilated and who do not see themselves as part of the larger story of Europe, and do not feel that they have been able to claim their proper share of the postwar European bounty. Neither France nor any European country can solve this problem because they are insoluble, at least within the parameters almost every European country has rigidly defined, in the postwar era, for solving social and economic problems.
Read the whole thing(s).
LILEKS has a new screedblog up. I think that universities are being infiltrated by agents in service of a clever Evan Coyne Maloney marketing campaign.
OVER AT TCS DAILY, James DeLong is defending Google. On the other hand, my TCS Daily column on Google is somewhat less positive.
Dean Esmay, meanwhile, is less temperate. (Via China Syndrome).
UPDATE: Andy Kessler is harshing on Google today, too — his piece is in the WSJ, subscription only, but the link takes you to his blog where he’s posted a copy. His analysis is more like mine: Google has lost a lot of moral capital.
CALL ME CRAZY but this report makes me deeply suspicious:
TBILISI, Georgia, Jan. 30, 2006 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) — Iran started exports of natural gas to Georgia on Monday in answer to Tbilisi’s appeal for help for its severe energy shortage, and Georgia’s president vowed to reduce his U.S.-allied nation’s energy dependence on Russia.
Mysterious explosions Jan. 22 on the Russian pipeline network that transports gas into Georgia cut off supplies to the ex-Soviet Caucacus Mountain state, leaving millions of Georgians shivering in their homes in bitterly cold temperatures.
“Mysterious explosions,” eh?
January 30, 2006
AN AMUSING remix contest based on the sounds of failing hard drives.
JAMES JOYNER: “As President Bush prepares to give his annual address on the State of the Union (I predict it will be ‘strong’) it is time to reflect on the state of our enemy.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. THE BLOGS: Jason Kottke looks at how a long bet is going.
ANOTHER PODCAST: It’s guy stuff, with interviews about boys in school and hybrid cars. Michael Gurian, the author of The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life (and subject of this Newsweek cover story) talks about how boys learn differently, and how changes in education have hurt their progress. He also offers some solutions, and some thoughts on videogames, character, and violence.
As you might imagine, Helen has some thoughts on that subject too, and the discussion is very interesting.
Also (beginning at about 18:30), Popular Mechanics editor Jim Meigs talks about hybrid hype and reality. For an article in their next issue, the PM folks tested some hybrid vehicles wheel-to-wheel with their purely gas-powered counterparts and discovered some interesting things. He also talks about the prospects for future energy-efficient (and maybe gasoline free) automobiles.
No word, though, on when I can expect my flying car. I forgot to ask. Maybe next time!
You can listen by clicking here (no iPod needed) or via iTunes. We hope you like it! As always, the lovely and talented producer is soliciting comments.
NOT VERY CLOSE: Filibuster on Alito broken, 72-25.
A CINDY SHEEHAN FOR SENATE BLOG: Why not?
GETTING IT WRONG: It’s an issue of The Economist from November, but the “Lexington” column, which is often quite good, contains this howler: “The rumor-mongers interpret Mr. Cheney’s recent ubiquity as more proof that he is desperately trying to save his job.”
Er, except that, you know, the Vice President can’t be fired. Cheney holds an independent office, and doesn’t work for Bush. It’s possible that he might be persuaded to step down in favor of someone (*cough* Condi *cough*) else, but there’s no desperation involved. He could spend the next almost-three years hunting pheasants and fly-fishing and nobody could say boo. Any “rumormongers” saying otherwise are probably fellow British journalists who don’t understand that either . . . .
I don’t want to be too hard on “Lexington,” which is actually quite a good column in general. But I showed that passage to several colleagues (none of them people who would likely be upset if Cheney were fired) and all of them laughed. At least, said one, it wasn’t an American journalist making that mistake, though that would be no great surprise if it happened. Perhaps someone should set up seminars for foreign journalists on how the Constitution works.
UPDATE: Various readers note that Cheney’s widespread responsibilities within the Adminstration aren’t part of his official VP duties, and he could be relieved of those any time Bush wanted a different straw boss. True enough, but that’s a bit different from “desperately trying to save his job.” Others note that Cheney would probably step down if asked, for the good of the party. No doubt, and in fact I kind of expect him to do so before too terribly long, to help set up a successor. But that’s not the same, either.
EUGENE VOLOKH does the math.
YOU CAN HEAR ME and some other bloggers talking about political blogging on KQED here. I come in about halfway through.