GOOGLE HAS pulled its official censorship statement. (Via China Syndrome).
UPDATE: At Davos, Bill Gates is defending Google. Given that Microsoft’s record of cooperation with the Chinese authorities is worse than Google’s, that’s neither surprising nor impressive.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Google responds to its critics on the Google Blog.
Dartblog is unpersuaded.
RICHARD POSNER, in The New Republic: “What if wiretapping works?”
MY EARLIER COMMENTS ABOUT HAMAS get me accused of over-the-line hate speech: “You know there are a lot of nasty things you can say about a group of people but comparing them to Windows ME is beyond the pale.”
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll defends the comparison: “Well, they do both tend to crash and explode quite a bit.”
SHADEGG FOR MAJORITY LEADER: I won’t call this an “endorsement,” because that’s pretentious. I’m just a blogger, and not somebody in a position to issue endorsements.
But it seems to me that the GOP would be very wise to choose John Shadegg to replace Tom Delay as Majority Leader. Blunt, despite some reformist comments, is basically the candidate of business-as-usual. Boehner seems a bit better, but not tremendously different. Shadegg is the only one who seems like a plausible agent for reform, and it’s going to be hard to persuade people who would like to see the GOP get back to its small-government, clean-Congress 1994 roots that there’s any chance of that if they choose a business-as-usual Majority Leader.
Of course, that’s only a start. As Daniel Henninger makes clear, there’s also a structural problem:
Poll after poll says the public thinks both parties are equally corrupt. It depends, of course, on what the meaning of corruption is. If by corrupt you mean lobbyist sleaze, quid pro quo, the pork barrel, earmarks to nowhere and grossing out even the public’s generally low expectations, then yes, both parties are equally corrupt.
But it gets worse. Congress legislated the system that now exists. Congress planted the seeds back in the ’70s for what is revolting you now with two enactments–the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. Both were marketed as reforms.
The first law turned political Washington into a trillion-dollar industry camouflaged as the federal budget. The second ensured that sitting members of Congress and K Street lobbyists would become the entrenched management of that industry. Compared to this, Enron is a kindergarten game.
He’s right, and there’s a chapter (entitled “The Big Bang”) in The Appearance of Impropriety that discusses this at considerable length. But it’s also true that to fix this requires people at the top who want to fix it. Shadegg seems much more likely to deliver these results than either Blunt or Boehner.
UPDATE: N.Z. Bear thinks that Shadegg is the guy, too.
IRAQ THE MODEL: “Iraqi tribes in Anbar arrest 270 Arab and foreign al-Qaeda members!”
PODCASTING — JUST A FAD? John Hawkins has some thoughts in response to my TCS Daily column on podcasting.
In truth, we don’t disagree that much. He’s right that podcasting isn’t ready for prime time yet. It’s just that to me, that’s part of the fun. A couple of points:
1. Podcast listenership will almost always be less than blog readership.
True. Oh, I get some listeners via iTunes, links from other blogs, etc., but nearly all come from InstaPundit, I imagine. And since not everyone who reads the site, the audience has to be smaller. But it’s not just about audience. I was just talking to a friend who does podcasts for NPR, and he said that after 20 years in radio he feels “rejuvenated” doing podcasts, because they take away the barriers between him and the audience. I feel that way, too. They’re fun!
2. Successful podcasts will just get picked up by radio stations.
Er, is this a bug, or a feature? I wouldn’t mind if my podcasts got on the radio. Would we take a deal to do the “Glenn & Helen Show” for a radio station? Maybe. And somebody smart will start an XM or Sirius channel that’s all podcasts all the time. (We’re not far from that — I heard Chris Lydon’s show on XM last night when I was out getting frozen yogurt for my wife and daughter).
Will podcasts that don’t get on the radio just be “vanity projects?” I guess — but that’s what blogs are anyhow, in a way, isn’t it? The important thing is that they’re fun, and some people like them. Like blogs, podcasts will fork — some will get big, and make money, but most won’t and will be just for fun. And both ways are okay.
UNREST IN CHINA:
China’s Ministry of Public Security admitted that, last year, there were 87,000 riots, demonstrations and smaller protests, an increase of 6.6 percent over 2004. The most common cause of this unrest is government corruption, particularly among Communist Party members. The government has responded by pledging to come down hard on anyone who disturbs the peace, as well as finding and punishing corrupt officials. More restrictions are being placed on public access to the Internet (which over 110 million Chinese use.) All this was the same response the government had last year, when it was announced that unrest had been up for several years.
I tend to suspect that these numbers are, um, optimistic, too. There’s more on events in China at the China Syndrome blog.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON is targeting Tim Russert.
JAMES JOYNER on the similarities between Wal-Mart and academia.
IN THE MAIL: The Skewed Throne, by Joshua Palmatier.
JUNKETING BLOGGERS: I nobly resisted this temptation, by not being invited.
WONKETTE ON ALITO: “The Dems vs. Alito: Let’s Hold Hands and Jump.”
So let’s say it again: There is no such thing as an efficient dictatorship. Only, when you it this time, think of Google and China.
Yes, it’s true that Google should take great shame in kowtowing to the Butchers of Beijing, but that’s not the whole story.
We take Google for granted, but we shouldn’t. For those lucky enough to live in the US, Google has given has a virtual research library – for free. I’m a better thinker, a sharper writer, and a richer individual thanks to Google.
And what will Google do for China? The answer is: Less than it’s done for us. . . . China is trying to compete in the high-tech economy, while crippling the tools that make such competition possible.
(Via China Syndrome). More thoughts here.
“LOOSEN THE STRINGS:” Some thoughts on improving diplomacy.
ALITO’S CONFIRMATION AS AN “IDEOLOGICAL COUP:” Ann Althouse is unimpressed with the imagery.
STUCK ON 1968: Arnold Kling writes:
If 1968 were an influential thinker, it would have many disciples who share its folk beliefs. Those folk beliefs are the mental security blanket still being clutched by my liberal friends, even those who are not old enough to remember 1968.
I want to contrast the way the world might have appeared to a reasonable liberal in 1968 with the way events have unfolded since then. Afterwards, if you still prefer the folk beliefs of 1968 to my views today, so be it. But at least you have an opportunity to reconsider.
Read the whole thing.
MORE ON THE HAMAS VICTORY at Winds of Change. M. Simon responds with thoughts on control theory.
Patrick Belton, meanwhile, envisions it as an incomplete software update. So Hamas is like the WindowsME of Palestinian governance?
JONAH GOLDBERG: “Chuck Norris is the new 1970s/1980s male nostalgia icon.”