I MENTIONED THE RETIEF STORIES EARLIER, but via Scalzi I see that you can get them for free via the Baen Free Library. I prefer books to downloads, even free downloads, but you can’t complain about free.

MICHAEL DEMMONS thinks that Karl Rove is right about Republican prospects in November: “Rove is good at this kind of thing. I very much hope he’s wrong. But, if anything, I’m going out on a limb and saying that his skepticism of the nation polls is factoring into my predictions. I think it’s going to be extremely close. The race for the House will go either way. Rove is no idiot. If he says Republicans are going to win, you’d better take him seriously.”

Democrats had better hope that movie box offices aren’t a predictor . . . .

A MICHAEL STEELE STEM CELL AD that’s pretty hard-hitting. (Via The Captain.)

TOM SMITH: “Is there anything wrong with spending gobs of money on yourself?”

UPDATE: In a classic blog-fallacy, Sloppy Thoughts thinks I’m approving Smith’s analysis by linking it. Er, no — surely anyone who reads InstaPundit much would know me better than that!

Just to be clear, though, the answer to Tom’s question is “no.” And, furthermore, there’s nothing wrong with other people spending gobs of money on me, either! Just in case Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or somebody is wondering about that . . . .

ASTROTURFING THE MILITARY: The Mudville Gazette notes another bogus antiwar story:

As of this writing, over 200 newspapers have carried the story; The Boston Globe, al-Jazeera, The Washington Post, ABC News, Reuters, The (UK) Guardian… but none of the stories acknowledge the orchestration of the event by Fenton Communications.

If Wal-Mart were behind this, they’d be calling it disgraceful and manipulative.

MUCH MORE on the Duke rape case here. And just keep scrolling.

THE INSTAWIFE IS LOOKING FOR ADVICE on Seasonal Affective Disorder.

IN THE MAIL: An alt-history thriller novel by blogosphere legend Arthur Chrenkoff, Night Trains. At the moment, Amazon’s pairing it with Mark Steyn’s America Alone, which ought to help his sales even though Steyn’s book is nonfiction. Er, it’s nonfiction unless we’re lucky . . . .

LOADS OF INTERESTING STUFF over at Tom Maguire’s place. Just keep scrolling.

THINGS ARE HEATING UP IN OAXACA: Pajamas Media has a roundup on developments.

NOSTALGIA for Western Electric telephones.

I wish I had one. I was doing a radio interview with the CBC once while visiting my brother’s and they didn’t like the sound quality. My brother dug out an old Western Electric phone from the closet, plugged it in (via an adapter that turned its 4-prong plug into an RJ11) and the CBC engineer exclaimed “You sound wonderful! How did you do that?”

APPARENTLY, THE VIRAL-MARKETING VIRUS ATTACKS THE BRAIN, at least at Universal Pictures:

“What happens when a film studio and a fanbase get into bed? Fans of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, and the movie by Universal Studios — Serenity — are not amused. After being encouraged to viral market Serenity, the studio has started legal action against fans (demanding $9000 in retroactive licensing fees in one case and demanding fan promotion stop), and going after Cafepress. The fans response? Retroactively invoice Universal for their services.”

This, of course, poisons the viral-marketing well for Universal Studios in perpetuity. Nobody will cooperate the way Firefly fans did, now that this has happened. Naturally, people have the right to protect their trademarks — but when you do viral marketing you also have to relax on that a bit. The Serenity PR people sent me lots of images and art, with the obvious expectation that I’d use them in publicity. When you do that sort of thing, it filters out. This was a bad time to lawyer up. Plus, it violates an important rule of the Internet: “Don’t annoy someone who has more spare time than you do.”

Joss Whedon’s attitude seems more sensible. Viral marketing works both ways . . . .

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE in Virginia.

UPDATE: Heh. “Yes, politics does certainly make for strange bedfellows.”

THIS ISN’T VERY IMPRESSIVE: “The district attorney prosecuting three Duke lacrosse players accused of raping a woman at a team party said during a court hearing Friday that he still hasn’t interviewed the accuser about the facts of the case.”

UPDATE: Reader John Bell emails:

I was a prosecutor for sixteen years before heading out into private practice. From my experience, Nifong is in an awkward position here in regards to interviewing the victim. From what little I have followed on this case, she looks like the kind of victim who has trouble telling the same story the same way twice in a row. The more versions she gives the weaker Nifong’s case. If he interviews her and she strays from previous versions of her story, he generates exculpatory material which goes straight to the defense. If he doesn’t interview her, he looks incompetent. If he does a thorough interview, he runs into all her prior contradictory statements and then has to decide which version of events is the “official” one, boxing him in before trial. Nifong, as I said, is in a bad position, but then, he has no one to blame but himself.

Indeed. And it’s getting worse:

A woman identified as the accuser in the Duke lacrosse rape case performed an athletic pole dance at a Hillsborough strip club at the same time that the accuser was visiting hospitals complaining of intense pain from being assaulted.

A time-stamped video shows a woman at The Platinum Club on March 26. The club’s former security manager, H.P. Thomas, identified her as the accuser.

The video, reviewed by The News & Observer, shows a limber performer. The same woman told doctors at UNC and Duke hospitals around that time that she had been beaten and assaulted and was racked with pain.

This case is looking more and more pathetic.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Schedler emails:

OK, it has been nearly 30 years since I did my short stint as a prosecutor. But, I am still perplexed at the notion Nifong is in a “bad position.” It is only “bad” if the objective truth and justice to the parties is irrelevant to your thinking.

As I understand it, the duty of the prosecutor is to do justice, prosecuting crimes being the principle means to that end. One cannot ascertain just how justice will be served unless and until one has the facts in hand. A prosecutor doing his or her duty would interview the complainant & get to the bottom of the matter. If the allegations hold up, then he or she can assess how justice would be served by prosecution. If the allegations collapse under investigation, then justice admits of only one course: dismissal.

Avoiding the facts and leaving innocent people hanging out is, in my view, a disgraceful abdication of duty.

Yes.

I FINISHED JOHN SCALZI’S NEW BOOK, The Android’s Dream last night. I thought it was quite good, though it was nothing like Old Man’s War or Ghost Brigades, it was more lighthearted and focused on interstellar diplomacy. Not quite in the vein of Keith Laumer’s Retief stories, but occasionally I got a bit of that feel.

We did a podcast interview with Scalzi a while back: It’s here.

DEFENDING AMERICA FROM THE AUSTRALIAN NUCLEAR THREAT?

HERE’S MORE ON HAND SANITIZERS AND POLITICS:

Like so many other people involved in politics these days, Mrs. Ryun has become obsessive about using hand sanitizer and ensuring that others do, too. She squirted Purell, the antiseptic goop of choice on the stump and self-proclaimed killer of “99.99 percent of most common germs that may cause illness,” on people lined up to meet Vice President Dick Cheney this month at a fund-raiser in Topeka.

When Mr. Cheney was done meeting and greeting, he, too, rubbed his hands vigorously with the stuff, dispensed in dollops by an aide when the vice president was out of public view.

That has become routine in this peak season of handshaking, practiced by everyone from the most powerful leaders to the lowliest hopefuls. Politics is personal at all levels, and germs do not discriminate. Like chicken dinners and lobbyists, they afflict Democrats and Republicans alike. It would be difficult to find an entourage that does not have at least one aide packing Purell.

They’re playing catch-up, but at least they’re on the story. Meanwhile, according to this unreliable report, Purell has released a new product for politicians — mouth sanitizer:

While the hand gel is shown to kill 99.9 percent of germs and bacteria which are often spread by human contact, the new mouth sanitizer was formulated to prevent the viral spread of dirty, bitter and vitriolic political speech.

According to a news release from the company, “Just a quick squirt, swish and spit before stepping up to the microphone and Purell Mouth Sanitizer eliminates not only the words that make others sick, but it even protects a politician from speech that can harm one’s own career, thanks to a special ingredient we call Gaffe-B-Gone.”

If only.

UPDATE: More on sanitizer here. And is the Times story above a “rowback” of its hand-sanitizer item about Bush and Obama last week?

VAL MCQUEEN: “In the last few days in Britain, three events have caused what was already a small crack in the paper-thin edifice of ‘multiculturalism’ in Britain to widen to a noticeable fissure.”

MY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION is now many years in the past, but I was never taught that Pontius Pilate was a great moral thinker. Rather, he was portrayed as a man who used superficial doubt as a means of avoiding responsibility.

UPDATE: Frank J. emails: “I hope Pilate is a great moral thinker. He’s running for judge in my county.” Heh. That’s got to be something of a handicap.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mark Przekwas emails:

If you read Mr. Judge’s original story, in particular the transcript of the conversation, you would notice that just before the Pilate comment Mr. Hewitt is discussing Plato’s Allegory of the Cave – the name Plato being mentioned several times. Now, is it not possible that in Mr. Sullivan’s reply he misspoke and said Pilate instead one Plato – when referencing Plato’s comments on the unveiling of truth in the Allegory of the Cave?

Well, that would make more sense.

MORE: A reader emails:

Yeah, except…um, why would he misspeak and say “Pilate,” while meaning to say “Plato,” when in fact quoting Pilate?

I said it would make more sense. I didn’t say it was likely.

YEAR-ROUND DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME? I’m all for it. Morning sucks regardless, but I like the extra hour of light in the evening. If it saves as much power as a big nuclear plant would generate, well, so much the better.

DO YOU WANT AMERICA TO WIN?

CAPTAIN ED did a two-part interview with George Allen. Here’s part one, and here’s part two.

PHOTOBLOGGING FROM THE STANDS at the World Series.

IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED: Though I think Andie MacDowell would fit the part better than Angelina Jolie.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON:

Watching and reading the recent Washington punditry, whether in print or on television, is a depressing spectacle. Almost all—Charles Krauthammer is the most notable exception—have somehow triangulated on the war, not mentioning why and how in the B.C. days they sort of, kinda, not really called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. For some the Road to Damascus was the looting or Abu Ghraib, for others the increasing violence. Still more now say the absence of WMD did the trick.

But almost none of the firebrands of 2003 speaks the truth behind the facade: They supported the war when it looked like few casualties and a quick reconstruction and thus confirmation of their own muscular humanitarianism—and then bailed along the way when they realized that wasn’t going to happen and the unpopular war might instead brand them as “war mongers”, “chicken-hawks” or just fools.

Instead of that honest admission, we get instead either cardboard cut-out villains of the “my perfect three-week war, your screwed-up three-year occupation” type—a Douglas Feith, Gen. Sanchez, or Paul Bremmer—or all sorts of unappreciated and untapped brilliance: from trisecting the country to “redeploying” to Kurdistan, or Kuwait, or Okinawa?

Read the whole thing.