DAVE KOPEL LOOKS at blogs and the Canadian election.

A GOOGLE BACKLASH? I’m getting a fair number of emails like this one from reader Jeff Schneider of Texas Roast:

I run a small gourmet coffee company that does decent business on the internet, thanks to the reach of Google Ad Words. However, I cannot live with Google’s decision to succumb to the wishes of the brutal dictatorship in China. So, as of today, my company has suspended all business with Google. This will have a substantial negative impact on my bottom line, but in some cases principle means more than money. As a veteran of OIF, I know all too well how valuable freedom is and I cannot support a company that helps to suppress it.

I would ask you to encourage any of your readers who might use Google Ad Words to take the same actions and send a message to Google. It is time for Americans to tell businesses when they have gone too far in compromising the most basic principles of freedom and make them pay a price for their actions.

Here’s more on a Google boycott. I don’t know how seriously this will impact Google (boycotts usually don’t do much damage) but I think this will be a good opportunity for any GoogleAd competitors (Blogads, say) to snap up some of Google’s business.

UPDATE: Blogger News Network is stopping Google Ads too.

JAMES LILEKS: “Simple rules for making a fool of yourself on the Internet.”

COMING SOON: CentCom podcasting.

IT’S THE KOS-MOVEON EFFECT:

Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.

These activists — spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns — have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush’s upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts. . . .

“The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. “The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left.”

Yep, that’s the trick.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Ardolino is congratulating Markos.

Also, a Watership Down comparison.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal reports:

Now for the good news. Amid the humiliating publicity about the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, maple syrup research in Vermont and blueberry subsidies in Massachusetts, nearly everyone in Congress is suddenly swearing off pork. . . .

Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona and Senators Tom Coburn and John McCain have one good idea, which is to bring more transparency to earmarking. They would require that every earmark be specifically included in the text of the legislation Congress is voting on. We’d also like to see a requirement that every earmark list its main Congressional sponsor and its purpose (other than to re-elect the Member).

Good idea. And that last bit doesn’t really need spelling out, does it? . . .

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE FRONT: Lots of interesting developments in Iraq that deserve more attention. Insurgent infighting, the Iraqi Army getting stronger — you’d think we were winning, or something.

VIA THE MAGIC OF AMAZON RECOMMENDATIONS, I discovered this: Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies. I haven’t read it, but I think its mere existence is significant, somehow.

Of course, if these guys really knew what they were talking about, wouldn’t they have sent me a copy already? Or wouldn’t I have heard about it from another blog, instead of Amazon? The reader reviews are good, though.

AND NOT IN A CHEAP HORROR MOVIE: Giant Octopus attacks submarine!

“I go full reverse and blast him with all these seabed particles,” said Wood, describing the attack shown in the video. “Finally, he lets go and disappears off into the gloom.

There’s video.

FUR-LINED UNDERWEAR banned in Uzbekistan? As “too erotic?” Go figure.

SAUDI ARABIA AND DENMARK: Where is the anger?

ANDREA SEE TURNS 30: Many happy returns.

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.”

NOT REALLY A SURPRISE:

Canadian broadcasters are among the most vulnerable to an onslaught of new technology that is changing how people watch TV, warns a report titled “The end of television as we know it.”

(Via Newsbeat1).