THE LAW OF THE BLOGGER, as expounded by Gerard van der Leun. (Via Frank Wilson).

GIULIANI IS GEARING UP FOR 2008: In the Ruffini & Hewitt straw polls, he’s done best among InstaPundit readers, with Condi Rice a close second.

DARTBLOG WRITES ON SPEAKING TRUTH TO HECKLERS: “This exchange, as so many in the last three years have, underscores the necessity of making logic classes mandatory as early as elementary school.”

UPDATE: Related questions from Gateway Pundit.

THE COMFY CHAIR REVOLUTION CONTINUES TO EXPAND:

What is this Workspace all about? Well, if you’re one of those people who does most of your work as an independent, and works primarily from home, or at cafes, then Workspace is for you. Bill is renovating a big bright 4th floor space in Gastown (that picture to the right will click you through to a great set of photos by the talented Kris Krug) with a fabulous view of the North Shore. Members will pay monthly for access – half-day, full-day, or evenings. Click here to watch a lil’ videoblog about the idea. There will be dedicated meeting rooms available for booking (no more having to meet with clients at cafes or at their office!), wifi (of course), a cafe (for in-house caffeination), and…tentatively… yoga. !!!

Can I call ’em, or what?

UPDATE: Yes, this revolution, too, requires sacrifice. And, of course, it’s got its power struggles, too.

THE UN-SILENCED BILL HOBBS has a postmortem on the Maine blog libel case, and interviewed Lance Dutson, the blogger.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING LOOK at Lulu, Blurb, and the whole personal book-publishing phenomenon.

WHAT HATH KELLER WROUGHT:

San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, who wrote a book about Barry Bonds’s alleged steroid use, were subpoenaed yesterday to testify before a federal grand jury regarding court documents they used in their articles, the newspaper reported. The subpoenas called for the authors to turn over their copies of grand jury transcripts from the 2003 investigation of a steroid distribution ring based at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, according to the Chronicle. They also were asked to provide the identity of the person or persons who leaked the secret documents to them.

Reaping the whirlwind, to coin a phrase.

TIM WORSTALL is metablogging.

APPARENTLY, DAVE AT ISRAELLYCOOL isn’t the only Australian in Israel.

ANOTHER PLAGIARISM SCANDAL:

Raytheon directors punished the chief executive, William H. Swanson, by taking away almost $1 million from his 2006 compensation yesterday because he failed to give credit for material that was in a management book he wrote. . . .

The similarities between many of the rules in Mr. Swanson’s book and the 1944 text was uncovered by a San Diego engineer, Carl Durrenberger, who then posted his observations on a blog he maintains.

Reader Jeff Barr, who sends the story, also sends this link to the blog entry in question.

PLEASE SEND YOUR PRAYERS AND GOOD WISHES to Ramona Dixon, who’s in that unenviable condition of hoping it’s benign.

IT’S PLEDGE WEEK at Protein Wisdom.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT FOR CHEAP COFFEE MAKERS: “A plain Proctor Silex. We’ve used the same one at work for three years. We run at least five pots through it everyday. No one cleans it. Ever. And yet, it carries on making delicious coffee. It is the Cal Ripken Jr. of coffee makers.”

I HAVEN’T PAID MUCH ATTENTION TO THE PATRICK KENNEDY STORY, but over at Daily Kos he’s facing a call for him to resign. Though not from Kos. (Via Michelle Malkin, who has been paying a lot more attention than I have).

And I should have thought of the Cynthia McKinney angle.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Reader Gerald Hogan emails:

Porkbusters having an effect?

I forwarded the list of the senators who had voted three times against pork to my senators, Chambliss and Isaakson, and asked why their names weren’t on the list. Just now I received a call from Rich in Senator Chambliss’ office. Rich said the senator wanted me to know that he voted against the budget bill this morning. I’m registered as a Republican but have never been active in politics since my days in the Jaycees many years ago. The only thing I get from this is that the GOP is finally understanding that voters are upset. Go Porkbusters!

If you hear anything from your Senators or Representatives, let me know. Please put “porkbusters” in the subject line to help make sure I don’t miss it.

UPDATE: Stephen Lalley has heard from Sen. Patty Murray. Click “read more” for the results.

(more…)

DARFUR UPDATE: “The government of Sudan and the largest rebel faction fighting in the conflict in Darfur signed a pact today to end the carnage there.” But don’t pop the champagne just yet.

THE REAL HONOR IS BEING NOMINATED, but it’s nice to be number one on the National Journal Blogometer poll of bloggers’ favorite blogs. Thanks.

MAINE BLOG LIBEL SUIT UPDATE: “Moments ago, lawyers for the advertising agency suing MBA Member Lance Dutson filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal in U.S. District Court in Maine.”

The Media Bloggers Association has sent out a statement:

The decision to withdraw the lawsuit comes on the heels of a withering media campaign orchestrated by the Media Bloggers Association on behalf of MBA Member Lance Dutson. Hundreds of bloggers responded to the MBA’s call to arms and were joined by media outlets around the world in highlighting the heavy-handed tactics of the state contractor.

“As it should be, the story of ‘Warren Kremer Paino and the Maine Blogger’ is now a cautionary tale”, said MBA President Robert Cox, “future potential plaintiffs would do well to consider WKP’s experience in attempting to silence a blog critic through the Federal courts. Our message is simple: ‘Don’t Mess with the Bloggers'”

A big round of thanks is in order for the lawyers who volunteered their time on Lance’s behalf including MBA General Counsel, Ronald Coleman of the Coleman Law Firm, Greg Herbert of Greenberg Traurig and private attorney Jon Stanley.

“This demonstrates precisely what we have said all along,” said Coleman, “Suits like this are premised solely on the anticpation that there will be no push back from the little guy. Here, there was.”

Yeah, it’s like the little guys have been empowered, or something. Anyway, this is pretty much the dynamic I predicted in my article on blogs and libel for the Harvard blog conference last week.

UPDATE: Ed Cone has it right:

Let’s be serious: There will be successful suits against bloggers who violate copyright laws, or commit libel, or do other bad things. Being a blogger doesn’t give you magic protection powers.

And as Seth Finkelstein pointed out in a comment here not too long ago, no individual blogger out of the millions who publish can count on the MBA or a national blogstorm coming to their rescue in a given instance.

But the lesson is still clear: bully bloggers at your own risk. They have rights, and they are networked, and the big media pay attention to them.

Find a better way of dealing with them, and maybe a better way of doing business.

Yes, being a blogger doesn’t immunize you against libel suits. But on the other hand, the bullying approach doesn’t work very well.

MORE: I guess the coming legal superstorm against bloggers hasn’t arrived yet. But don’t get cocky, kids.

PORTER GOSS HAS RESIGNED as CIA head. He was always a transitional figure, there to clean up the Tenet mess, but I suspect there’s more to it than that because I don’t think that mess has been cleaned up. Regardless of the reasons for Goss’s departure, I believe that Bush will continue to regret not doing a major housecleaning in late 2001/early 2002 (and not just at the CIA), when he had the political mojo to do it. More here.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall says it’s all about the hookers. You’d think that someone with hooker issues wouldn’t pass the security clearance — but then, look at all the other people who’ve made it past the background checks.

UPDATE: At RedState they’re speculating about a connection to the Florida Senate race. And others are at least raising the question. Hmm. Beats me.

Meanwhile a roundup of rumors and speculation here, with this observation:

Following so close to the McCarthy story makes this interesting. If it’s corruption then this is huge, if he’s being painted with Cunningham’s tainted brush and being linked to prostitutes when in fact he has nothing to do with the Watergate-redux than I’d say the CIA cabal theory of things becomes less a tin foil hat scenario than we previously thought.

Hmm. Well, stay tuned.

MORE: Here’s a roundup of reactions, leaning toward the “transitional” theory:

This isn’t a “staff change”, it has nothing to do with Rove. It was understood when he came in what he was coming in for. He did what he came to do.

He swept, now others will collect the dust.

Let’s hope. Seems to me that there’s more sweeping to do, but maybe the new broom will do it.

MORE STILL: “The leak-plugging bastard!”

STILL MORE: The Wall Street Journal reports:

The agency also has been drawn into a federal investigation of bribery that has sent former Rep. Randall “Duke” Cunningham to prison. Just this past week, the CIA confirmed that its third-ranking official, a hand-picked appointee of Mr. Goss, had attended poker games at a hospitality suite set up by a defense contractor implicated in the bribing of former Rep. Cunningham. Friday, people with knowledge of the continuing Cunningham inquiry said the CIA official, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, is under federal criminal investigation in connection with awarding agency contracts.

Mr. Bush didn’t immediately name a successor to Mr. Goss. Current and former intelligence officials speculated that one likely candidate would be Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland-security adviser.

When Mr. Goss took over the CIA in September 2004, officials said they hoped he would bring rigor to an agency that had suffered tremendous morale problems in the wake of intelligence failures before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the run-up to the Iraq war. But instead, problems at the agency seemed to multiply, as insiders criticized the rigid management style of the former CIA agent and Florida Republican congressman. Mr. Goss was thought to have hastened the brain drain at the agency by reassigning much of its upper echelon when taking over, installing a new crop of managers.

Current and former federal intelligence officials familiar with Mr. Goss’s thinking say the former congressman had become disenchanted with his diminished role after Mr. Negroponte, a veteran national-security official, was appointed to run the new White House intelligence directorate, and had complained that he no longer felt he had the support he needed from the White House to turn the agency around.

Scandal, turf wars, or both? I’m betting both. If “insiders” were unhappy with Goss’s style, that seems to me to be a good thing, but I’m wondering if the CIA isn’t beyond repair. I also wonder if the Negroponte shop isn’t intended to gradually replace the CIA, relegating it to back-office status over time.

Time, meanwhile, says that Goss’s replacement will be Gen. Michael Hayden, and says that Goss’s resignation was the result of a turf war between him and Negroponte. Plus, “one House Democrat promises ‘a partisan food fight’ during the confirmation process.”

Nice to see some people handling national security matters with their customary degree of maturity.

COULD TECHNOLOGY AND ALT-MEDIA make a third-party candidacy in 2008 more successful than past efforts? Some thoughts over at GlennReynolds.com.

JOE KATZMAN has a big future-of-Europe roundup.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “When Iran’s mullahs acquire their coveted nukes in the next few years, the number of Jews in Israel will just be reaching 6 million. Never again?”

Given the Iranians’ words and actions, I think that Israel is legally and morally justified in launching whatever sort of preemptive strike it chooses.

TENNESSEE SENATE RACE UPDATE: Out running errands just now, I heard a radio commercial for Bob Corker, who’s one of the three running for the Republican nomination for Bill Frist’s seat. The commercial called him a “conservative Republican,” stressed his “pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-traditional marriage” views and used the word “conservative” more times than I could count. Harold Ford is (now) the only Democratic candidate. I was going to blog about the commercial, but when I got home I also got an email from the Ford Campaign that provides some background. Excerpt:

From Charlie Cook in today’s National Journal:

Tennessee

Strange as it might seem, Democrats have a shot at an open Senate seat in the South. Their Tennessee nominee, Rep. Harold Ford, may be their strongest recruit of the cycle in terms of raw talent, political skills, and fundraising ability. Ford, though, will have to wait until August and the outcome of a three-way Republican primary before he will know what kind of general election contest he’ll have.

Former Rep. Van Hilleary, the GOP’s 2002 gubernatorial nominee; former Rep. Ed Bryant, a 2002 Senate candidate; and former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker are competing for the GOP nod. Hilleary and Bryant are vying for the conservative vote while attacking Corker as a tax-raising, abortion-flip-flopping, Democratic-primary-voting, disaster-of-a-mayor moderate.

Corker, on the other hand, argues that he has always opposed abortion rights and that he raised taxes and cut the size of the city’s government to erase a budget deficit and put Chattanooga on the road to financial stability. He acknowledges voting in two Democratic primaries. More important, Corker has vastly outraised each of his Republican rivals and, according to the latest FEC reports, had more than $4.2 million in the bank compared with less than $1.2 million for Hilleary and under $1.1 million for Bryant. Corker is the least well-known candidate, but his war chest can go a long way toward fixing that problem. He recently launched a six-week, $1.6 million advertising campaign.

The bottom line is that Hilleary and Bryant are likely to split the conservative vote, creating an opening for Corker to win the nomination.

While Ford is a strong candidate, he is not without obstacles. The first is that since Reconstruction the South has never elected a black candidate to the Senate. The second is that his politically connected family constantly attracts negative attention. An uncle who had to resign his state Senate seat after being indicted on extortion charges is set to stand trial in October. That certainly won’t help Ford’s chances.

Admirable of them to mention the family problems — the Fords are a sort of black Kennedy family for Tennessee. You can hear our podcast interview with Harold Ford, Jr. here.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: “Even the United Nations’ own employees don’t trust it to deliver justice. Just ask Cynthia Brzak, an American who has worked for the past 26 years at the U.N. refugee office in Geneva, Switzerland. Despairing of a U.N. system that operates immune to any normal jurisdiction of law, Brzak, who two years ago brought an in-house allegation of sexual harassment, is now going outside the institution to ask for a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court.”

THAT MAINE BLOGGER LAWSUIT doesn’t seem to be working out very well: “A Maine legislator, Stephen Bowen, has written to the state tourism office to request the suspension of Warren Kremer Paino Advertising’s contract with the state.” I can’t say I’m surprised.

UPDATE: Ron Coleman proves that great minds think alike. Or something.