STEPHEN GREEN:

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.”

HUGH HEWITT AND JONATHAN ALTER: An interview transcript.

TIGERHAWK: “Cindy Sheehan gives away the game.”

I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT THIS WAY: “Kerry has become the Paris Hilton to Al Gore’s Nicole Ritchie on the stage of American politics.”

SINCE I DON’T SKI, I don’t really care.

I don’t need sex therapy, either.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, DANA MILBANK, TIM RUSSERT: Too conservative. Indeed.

ON THE ANNIVERSARY, James Oberg looks at 7 myths about the Challenger disaster.

DID IRAQI WMD GO TO SYRIA? Once we invade them, I guess we’ll know.

IRAQI MAYOR VS. SCOTT RITTER: Who to believe?

A SCHOOL LAWSUIT over bias against boys. I expect we’ll see a lot more of those.

EUGENE VOLOKH looks at what is, and is not, McCarthyism.

JIMMY CARTER’S APPEAL TO HAMAS seems to have gotten the usual response.

HEH. Pretty much the last word on the should-InstaPundit-have-comments subject.

And if anyone actually tried to swamp me with hate-email, I didn’t notice. Message to trolls: Not only do I crap bigger than you, even my spammers crap bigger than you. No surprise, really.

KARL ROVE on the NSA intercepts, and more. Hugh Hewitt interviewed him; transcript and audio are here.

MAYBE IT “TAKES A VILLAGE TO CONFRONT WAL-MART,” but apparently it takes the population of a small city to apply for jobs there:

A year and a half after some Chicago alderman stopped Wal-Mart from opening a store on the city’s South Side, 25,000 people applied for 325 job openings in the company’s new store, located just one block west of the city’s boundary in south suburban Evergreen Park, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Sounds like it might be a more attractive place to work than some people realize.

UPDATE: Bill Quick wonders how many jobs the anti-WalMart folks created in January.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Freeman Hunt emails:

I’ve never worked there, but I do know that it is one of very few companies where you can start at the very bottom and work your way to the top. I grew up in Bentonville, Arkansas, the home of Wal-Mart and most Wal-Mart executives. I think people would be surprised at how many of the people at the top started out working at Wal-Mart stores. One man I knew in particular was one of the VPs in the international division making a six figure salary, and he started with Wal-Mart as a cart pusher. I think “cart pusher” is probably the lowliest job you can get at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is definitely a company where someone can work his way up. No wonder so many people applied for those jobs.

You know, to me Wal-Mart is a lot like George W. Bush. It’s not that I’m that big a fan in the abstract, really, it’s just that the viciousness and stupidity revealed in its enemies tends to make me view it more favorably than I otherwise would.

HOWARD KURTZ has more on China and Google.

STUART BUCK fact-checks claims that the Secret Service is being remade into a national “Gestapo.”

I’ve noted before that the Secret Service has management problems and a heavy-handed approach (see this post collecting examples) but this sort of over-the-top claim just makes the claimer look dumb, and actually serves to distract attention from the real problems.

SOME INTERESTING THOUGHTS on cyber-disinhibition, and its tendency to lead to flaming. (Via Matoko Kusanagi.) Some people are obviously more susceptible to this phenomenon than others . . . .

GADGET UPDATE: I bought this cool Olympus digital recorder with an eye toward podcast interviews. So far I’ve just tested it out recording my classes, but it’s been very good at that — I was quite surprised by the quality, both with the builtin microphone and the plug-in remote microphone that came bundled with it. I bought a stereo microphone separately, but haven’t tried it out yet.

CHINA SYNDROME is a new PJ Media blog set up to track the way foreign businesses like Google and Microsoft suck up to China.