“LEFT IN FORM, BUT RIGHT IN ESSENCE.”

WILL BLOGGING PEAK IN 2007? Heck, I thought it had already peaked back in 2003. Oh, well, as long as it doesn’t happen before February 6th!

UPDATE: Danny Glover thinks the blogosphere will peak in 2009:

Political blogs will be a powerful force during the 2007-2008 election cycle and may even make or break the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. If bloggers choose, they also could be a factor in picking an “alternative” Unity ’08 ticket or vaulting some heretofore unknown third-party movement(s) into political prominence.

The next two years, however, will be the heyday for political blogs. While they will remain influential after that and new ones will continue to go online and gain popularity, their novelty will wane, the growth curve will level, and the blogs quickly will become an unheralded part of a newly merged media/political/activist landscape. The new media revolution will continue, but blogs will become a less prominent part of it.

Old bloggers never die, they just fade away.

MITT ROMNEY WAS IN NASHVILLE: Bill Hobbs was there.

Plus, Mark Warner rethinking his decision not to run? Hey, maybe that’ll drive up interest in our podcast interview with Warner. And even putting that aside, I’d like to see him in the race.

MAYBE I SHOULD GO TO FULLTIME GADGET-BLOGGING: Which post today has gotten by far the most email? The one on Army size? The Palestinian civil war? New Gingrich and the Flying Imams? The cute coed with the rifle?

Nope. The one on circular saws. The mail keeps pouring in.

THIS SUCKS: “Remember that money you donated to help out the poor citizens of Aceh, Indonesia, in the wake of the 2004 tsunami? A portion of it has gone to fund a government enforcing sharia law, employing a corps of religious police that cane men and women alike, some until they pass out from the pain.”

HAS MARC DANZIGER FOUND JAMIL HUSSEIN? Possibly. Upside for AP: This would mean he exists. Downside for AP: A blogger operating from California finds a source in Iraq that AP itself couldn’t produce.

“AND FOR THE FALSE ACCUSER, WHEN THEY ARE FINALLY PROVEN TO BE LYING, it’s like being raped all over again. Except for the fact that they weren’t actually raped the first time. . . . And to the Duke Lacrosse players: Congratulations. It looks like you won this round, what with your daddy’s money, your high-priced lawyers, and your not having done the things you were accused of. But I’m not finished with you yet.”

UPDATE: “When it hits SNL, it’s not funny anymore.”

MICHAEL KINSLEY ON JIMMY CARTER’S BOOK: “Carter is comparing Israel to the former white racist government of South Africa. That is a foolish and unfair comparison.”

UPDATE: Brendan Nyhan is defending Jimmy Carter, but I find the Carter “explanation” a bit weaselly. The title is provocative enough that you can’t take it back in the fine print.

IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER POST ON ARMY SIZE, Austin Bay has put up a lengthy post on the same topic. Since Austin has War College experience and so on, his views are worth a lot more than mine. This bit seems key:

However, the issue isn’t merely military power or “how much” military power. We do a terrible job of “unified action” — uniting our diplomatic, information/intelligence, military, and economic elements of power (DIME is the acronym). Some background on this critical point. The military cannot “win” a global war for modernity; the military is merely part of a winning combination. Winning takes all elements of power applied and applied in a sustained, focused (yet flexible) manner. Victory in the Global War on Terror is an incremental process.

I think that’s right. We like to treat this as a military problem because (1) we’re good at those; and (2) that seems to produce simple questions, like “more troops, or not?” Trouble is, those probably aren’t the right questions.

Our Army size was entirely adequate for crushing Saddam’s forces in short order. It’s probably adequate to doing the same to Iran’s forces. It’s not up to fully policing a big country once we’ve done that. Do we want a military that is? Meanwhile, our diplomatic / intelligence resources don’t seem to be doing nearly as well as the military. “More troops” may be a good idea in itself, but it won’t fix that problem either.

In this, I think that Shaun Mullen has it right: “The debate over whether the U.S. Army should be larger is beside the point. The real question is what kind of an Army the United States should have five years after the 9/11 attacks dramatically changed the global military equation.”

UPDATE: Kevin Drum: “Shockingly, I think I pretty much agree with Glenn Reynolds on something related to national security.”

Plus, some thoughts from The Belmont Club: “The attempt to establish a democratic Iraq, however disappointing the experience has been so far, is unlikely to be abandoned very easily in the near future — and perhaps not for as long as a the ghost of a shadow of a chance remains that it may be attained — not only because the current administration is so invested in it, but because the alternatives of divide and rule and naked power politics, which would have been adopted without a second thought by Empires in the early 20th century, are too cold-blooded and heartless to be easily embraced by an American public which genuinely wishes the Iraqi people well.” Will the American public continue to feel that way in a couple of years, though? And, via The Belmont Club’s comments, this post from Gerard van der Leun.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Kevin Donovan emails:

Reading Austin Bay’s comments on how the diplomatic, intelligence, military and economic arms of the government don’t work together effectively made me think that maybe we need a Goldwater-Nichols like reorganization to bring State, DOD, CIA, etc. together much as Goldwater-Nichols integrated the operations of the various armed services.

Congressional oversight that tried to come up with real solutions, rather than cheap political point scoring, would be invaluable.

Indeed. And the reorganization idea isn’t bad, though I’m not sure how it should be carried out.

NEWT GINGRICH ON THE FLYING IMAMS: “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told an audience in New Hampshire Muslim clerics pulled off a plane for praying should have been charged criminally. . . . ‘Those six people should have been arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists,’ Gingrich said. ‘And the crew of the U.S. airplane should have been invited to the White House and congratulated for being correct in the protection of citizens.'” (Via Don Surber). Newt’s suggestion, however, doesn’t seem consistent with the Bush Administration’s preferred stance on these things. More here.

UPDATE: Reader David Rule notes that the UPI story, characterizing the imams as being “pulled off a plane for praying,” is misleading. In fact, they were heard making anti-American and pro-Saddam remarks, asked for seatbelt extenders (which can be used as weapons) despite not being fat enough to need them, and engaged in other suspicious behaviors. A copy of the police report, and a letter from a passenger on that flight, can be found here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Newt gets praise for stating the obvious: “Which just goes to show, as I was saying in an email to someone the other day, how starved we are for statements of the obvious from our political leaders.” UPI’s tendentious characterization of the facts is noted, too.

And Scott Johnson notes: “It would be enlightening to get the views of other political figures on the incident.” Especially the other Presidential candidates.

PEOPLE KEEP EMAILING for the links to the Digital Camera Carnivals. You can find those by using the search window in the right sidebar, you know, but here they are: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

BLOGGER BILL ROGGIO is embedded with the Iraqi Army:

These soldiers are volunteers, and are highly motivated to kill “Ali Baba” – the name they give the insurgents. There are major shortcomings with the Iraqi Army in Fallujah: logistics, pay and the lack of heavy weapons hold the jundi back from being fully independent (this will be covered in more depth along with the police in future posts on the MTTs/PTTs). But a fighting spirit is not one of these shortcomings.

Read the whole thing.

CUTTING CLASS: The Popular Mechanics folks test circular saws and they like this one best. I have an ancient Craftsman, which is entirely adequate for my once-a-year (if that) circular-sawing needs. What’s disturbing about the test, though, is that many models had bad blade alignment, ensuring that you’d cut at a slant when you thought you were cutting straight. That’s unforgivable. I hear people saying that tools aren’t as good as they used to be. Is that old-timer complaining, or is it true?

UPDATE: Reader Allan Evans emails:

Hey, you finally hit on something I know a lot about, being a 60 yr old framing carpenter. First, circular saws are poor cousins to worm-drive saws. At about half the cost, that’s a given. But poor cuts are caused by two factors generally. Dull blades or cheap ones will guarantee a crooked blade angle and direction. Go for carbon tipped blades for a few bucks more. And the second factor is pushing the saw too hard. Let the blade do the work at its own pace. Requires a feel for allowing the motor to rev just below its max. And plywood will bog down a saw more than solid wood.

I use a Skilsaw mag, but more and more guys out here in San Diego are buying Bosch.

And Shawn Clemons writes:

The quality of new tools (or complete lack thereof) is a major issue. In order to get anything worth owning, you’re enerally better off spending more money to get into low-end professional/commercial tools, even for homeowner use.

I do a fair amount of work around the house. Everything from steel fabrication/welding to wood framing/renovation. I learned long ago that it was never a good decision to scrimp when shopping for tools. Most “homeowner” grade stuff that you buy nowadays simply isn’t worth owning.

Compare that to the old DeWalt, Craftsman, and B&D stuff that my dad or grandfather still own — much of it 30+ years old, and still quite functional. I don’t think many manufacturers think it’s in their best interest to sell quality tools anymore. Better to sell a tool that only lasts a year or so and has to be replaced, than to sell one that lasts a lifetime.

BTW — I own the Milwaukee saw picked in the PM article. In fact, I own quite a few Milwaukee power tools. They’re all great. They’re also guaranteed for five years, should you ever have a problem with them. Most power tools only have 1yr warranties, and many aren’t even covered for that long. Oh, and speaking of Milwaukee — several Milwaukee drills come with a spare set of motor brushes stored in the handle. How’s that for a promise of reliability? The manufacturers expect that you will wear the motor completely out (likely only after many years of hard use), and have to replace the brushes in order to continue using the tool. The old brushes are easily changed through an access door on the side of the drill body. Swap them out and keep on working.

That is kind of cool.

BUT IT’S NOT A CIVIL WAR: “Fighting between Hamas and Fatah escalated Sunday, as the foreign minister’s convoy and the president’s Gaza residence came under attack. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Hamas will boycott an early election called by the president.” Unless it’s in Iraq. Hmm: Palestinian politicians fighting each other with private armies, Sunni and Shia terrorists fighting each other in Iraq, bombings in Iran . . . . That whole unified-Caliphate thing doesn’t seem to be coming along very well. But as others have noted, what we sometimes see as Islam-vs.-the-West is really a civil war within the entire Islamic world.

UPDATE: Still more Palestinian infighting. If the mortars are out, does that make it a civil war? Or is that just politics as usual, in Palestinian circles?

ANOTHER UPDATE: De-escalation? “Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah said they had agreed to a ceasefire on Sunday after a day of bloodshed in which President Mahmoud Abbas’s offices came under mortar fire and his Fatah forces seized two ministries.” Only if they’re better at keeping truces with each other than with Israelis.

A DIFFERENT FACE for collegiate athletics.

But not a bad one.

UPDATE: Don Surber emails: “Good to highlight what may be the only coed sport in the NCAA. To cut costs they tried to eliminate the WVU rifle team. Talk about your lead dirigibles. You’ll take our rifle team when you pry it from our cold dead fingahs!”

RICHARD CARLSON, author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, has died suddenly.

I read that book a while back. At one level — like most self-help books — it’s all obvious. But people need to be reminded of the obvious sometimes, and he did a good job of that.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “If you want to know why I am no longer a lefty, just read this series on MyDD about PIRG, the organisation that supervised my transition from ultraliberal to libertarian. I have never worked at any organisation, including the Catskills hotel that basically used foreIgn temporary labour in sweatshop fashion, that treated its employees as shamefully as PIRG. People talk about workers being disposable, but no other business model I have encountered depends on its employees having an average tenure of two weeks, the better to funnel their lost wages up the hierarchy to god-knows-where.”

A RESPONSE TO VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, from Bill Quick.

DAN RIEHL FINDS SOMETHING TO LIKE in Democrats’ positions on Iraq.

IS THIS A BUG OR A FEATURE? “Secret ‘watch lists’ have nabbed more members of Congress than terrorists.”

WELCOME TO Muslim-friendly Tennessee!

JAMES RUHLAND OFFERS advice to the Democratic Congress.

THE EPISCOPALIANS ARE REVOLTING. Well, some of them anyway. A lifeboat from Nigeria?

THE FCC IS ELIMINATING THE MORSE CODE REQUIREMENT for amateur radio licenses. (Via TechMeme).

TIME’S PERSON OF THE YEAR: You!

It’s a recognition of a phenomenon that some of us have been talking about for a while. Danny Glover has more.