CONSUMER COMPUTING goes corporate.

Makes sense. My UT email has been down for 2 days. Google is never that unreliable.

“HURRY — IT’S NOT TOO LATE!” I notice that Amazon is pushing overnight delivery — and Saturday delivery in some places — pretty hard, to try to squeeze in some last-minute orders today. But I wonder if having Christmas on a Monday has been bad for online sellers, since it more or less ends the Christmas shopping season today, four days before Christmas. I guess the longer than usual season makes up for it to some extent, but procrastinators who miss today’s deadline may have to — shudder — actually visit a mall! ( I also suspect that the plethora of gift cards and online gift certificates means that the “Christmas season” will really extend into January in some sense.)

Here’s a bit more on the subject. It’s very interesting to see how much sellers and shippers have managed to speed up the process in the past couple of years.

UPDATE: Jay Caruso emails: “Saw your entry about Amazon and shippers speeding up the process. Include Dell in the mix. I ordered a new computer this past Saturday afternoon with ground shipping which is supposed to be 3-5 business days. It was at my door by Tuesday.”

Cool. And here’s a good Amazon experience, too.

ADOLF HITLER ON FEDERALISM: He was against it.

MARIO LOYOLA:

For those convinced that “more is better” when it comes to U.S. force levels in Iraq, Rumsfeld was a favorite target, because it was inconceivable that the generals on the ground really didn’t want more troops. Well now, with Rusmfeld gone, and the head of Central Command speaking his mind, it emerges that the generals really don’t want more troops.

One unintended effect of the Baker-Hamilton report has been to so thoroughly politicize issues of strategy, operations, and even tactics, that the military is getting increasingly sidelined in the decision-making. President Bush is in danger of committing the one mistake of the Vietnam era that he vowed never to commit—to allow military decisions to become politicized. Recent reports describe the widening rift between political appointees in Washington and the generals on the ground.

That is an ill omen. The generals know what they are talking about: There is no reason to believe that an increase in force levels will have any effect at all on the levels of violence in Baghdad. . . . But political pressure creates politicized strategies. The president has a problem: all the violence in Baghdad makes it look like we’re losing the war, regardless the pace of reconstruction or political progress. Now the violence in Baghdad has become the political determinant of victory and defeat—and hence the primary focus of military strategy.

As I’ve said before, I’m an agnostic on the “more troops” question. But I’m pretty sure we’ll get farther by addressing the problems that Bill Roggio identifies than by adding 20 or even 40 thousand more troops.

Jed Babbin asks some useful questions, too.

And in a related post, Don Surber observes: “Congress authorized the war in Afghanistan 5 years ago and the war in Iraq 4 years ago. This is not “M*A*S*H.” Wars are not sitcoms. You cannot cancel them after a few seasons because they are unpopular.”

UPDATE: On the Army-size issue, John Barton sends this link to a table of military size over time. We’re well below the average for recent decades even though we’re at war.

ADAM BELLOW: A pamphleteer for the 21st century.

NOT EVERYONE’S AGAINST PORK: A look at lobbying and higher education:

Colleges and universities and others with a direct interest in higher education — including associations, accrediting groups and lenders — reported spending nearly $94.6 million on lobbying Congress and top executive branch officials in 2005, an Inside Higher Ed analysis shows. That is about $15 million, or 18 percent, more than the $80 million they reported spending in 2004. . . .

But most of the growth in recent years in higher education lobbying – particularly that done by individual colleges and universities – has been in hot pursuit of federal earmarks, known popularly by the less generous term of pork barrel projects. Institutions that hire outside firms to lobby for them, rather than hire their own in-house lobbyists, are almost always primarily seeking earmarks, says Savage of UVa, because “private firms are all about earmarking.”

How noble.

WELL, I SHOULD HOPE SO: Most Americans have had premarital sex.

WHO SAYS MARXISM CAN’T BE PROFOUND? “Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy”.

I WAS NEVER VERY IMPRESSED with the various “science court” proposals, going back at least as far as Arthur Kantrowitz. (Though the notion of a “science court” has a certain Planet Krypton sort of appeal.) But Tom W. Bell has an interesting look at the use of prediction markets where science claims are concerned. (Via Larry Solum).

A GIULIANI-GINGRICH ticket?

RUDY GIULIANI HAS LAUNCHED his exploratory committee website.

THIS IS INTERESTING: “Obese people have more digestive microbes that are especially efficient at extracting calories from food, the researchers said, and the proportion of these super-digesting organisms ebbs as the people lose weight. Moreover, when the scientists transplanted these bacteria from obese mice into lean mice, the thin animals start getting fat. This provides more support for the provocative theory that the bacteria that populate the intestine play an important role in regulating weight.”

DEREK LOWE on the Tripoli Six: “Speculation is that all of this will come down to paying Libya some sort of ‘compensation.’ That’s a nice word for what’s really just an ugly, immoral shakedown – the sort of thing that the better class of gangster might feel is beneath them. Not the government of Libya, however. The Libyan people deserve better. The medics in this case, for their part, deserve to be freed immediately.”

Healthcare providers should boycott Libya — and Libyan bigshots who travel abroad.

VARIOUS PEOPLE have been emailing me about Ms. Dewey.

It’s sort of cute, though the degree of interactivity isn’t very high. They’ve obviously got a few custom responses — try searching “condom helmet” or “librarians are sexy” or “bloggers” or “janina gavankar” (the actress who plays Ms. Dewey) or “ricardo” — but most of the chatter is pretty formulaic. it’s designed to generate buzz for Microsoft’s new search system.

UPDATE: A reader suggests searching “Frodo.” Heh. I got a pretty good result with “Jamil Hussein,” too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Cam Edwards emails:

Try typing in National Rifle Association, 2nd Amendment, or NRA and you’ll get a custom response. Actually I’ve seen three different gun-related responses.

Interestingly enough, no such custom response for an inquiry about the Brady Campaign.

That’s because Ms. Dewey is about the future.

DEAN BARNETT: “A mere 63 months after the 9/11 attack, the first steel columns for the Freedom Tower have been planted at Ground Zero. The fact that it took over five years to take this baby-step is a metaphor for a lot of things, none of them good. “

OKAY, MAYBE I’M MISSING SOMETHING, but this looks like a triumph of marketing over, well, everything: A breast self-exam kit? I saw one of these while waiting in line at the drugstore last night and thought, Isn’t that called “hands?”

UPDATE: Allen Thorpe emails that at least it’s better than this.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader named Sabrina emails: “Yeah, you’re missing something ;-) I tried one of these things once–they are kinda like a goo-filled pad, and they seem to magnify any lumps underneath while simultaneously making it easier to slide over the surface being examined. Plus, without getting too graphic about it different women have different “grainyness” of breast texture, which can seem like lumps when it isn’t. The aid makes it easier to figure that out too. I don’t know that it is $20 wonderful, but it is useful.”

I stand corrected. Many readers are also amused at what “Customers who bought this item also bought.”

WE’RE STARTING TO SEE SOME MEDIA PUSHBACK on the Jamil Hussein story and on criticisms of media reporting from Iraq in general — Howard Kurtz has a roundup. But I think the media’s self-justification misses the point. Just because things are bad in Iraq doesn’t justify false reports using phony sources, something that the AP’s defenders seem to be suggesting. “Fake but accurate” isn’t a standard to be raising, is it? The fact is that we’ve seen a massive institutional failure on the part of the media.

Here’s what I said nearly three years ago that still seems about right:

HERE’S A LETTER TO THE EDITOR from a recently returned Iraq vet. Like many other such letters, it says that thngs are much better there than media reports suggest.

I tend to believe that — things are better almost everywhere (except Cuba) than media reports suggest., But as I’ve said before, the biggest problem with the Iraq reporting isn’t that it’s too negative, though it is, it’s that it doesn’t tell us what we need to know. The CERP issue, for example, was probably the most important single thing going on last summer/fall but it got very little attention from the media. Likewise, the big media were slow to follow up on Zeyad’s war-crime scoop. And I ran an email regarding problems at the CPA that haven’t been addressed by big media much, but that are quite important if they’re as bad as my reader suggests.

Despite last week’s hysteria, which made factional fighting — ugly but limited — out to be a massive popular uprising, it’s clear that the real issues in Iraq are political, not military. Is our government doing a good job? It’s hard to tell. And the tendency, knowing that the media are overplaying some negatives, is to apply Kentucky windage and assume that things in general are better than they say. This may be true, but it may also be true (as the above examples suggest, and as I’ve noted before on multiple occasions) that there’s not just good news, but bad news, going unreported.

That’s especially unfortunate, because good reporting doesn’t just inform ordinary folks like us. It’s also a check on reports that flow up within the chain of command, making sure that real problems get noticed and not papered over. I’m afraid that the White House, understandably tired of the unrelenting negativity that has given us the Brutal Afghan Winter of 2002, the Invasion-Killing Sandstorm of 2003, and the Mass Popular Uprising of 2004, may have started tuning out negative reports.

I think that’s bad, but given that there are good reasons (like, you know, open admissions) to suspect an agenda in media reporting on Iraq, it was an understandable factor. Journalists like to assume a quasi-official status with all their “fourth estate” talk, but they haven’t done a very good job of living up to the responsibilities that implies. “Fake but accurate” claims won’t help them.

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch emails: “I think at this point the question is, is the media, consciously or no, designing its coverage to make a bad situation appear worse? I also think that’s a question the media, all of it, is desperately trying to avoid. Because they know the answer.”

And Ron Wright emails: “OK life is difficult for everyone in Iraq. However the bottom line is folks need to get the facts straight. Either we have charred bodies and six burned mosques or we don’t. ”

Jamil Hussein says we do. But the AP can’t seem to produce him. So I’m guessing the answer is “we don’t.” Does that mean things are going well for the war? Nope. It just means that they’re going badly at the AP. As Burch suggests, that’s a distinction the AP and its defenders want us to ignore.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Jamil Hussein here.

MORE: It’s bad to push back at bloggers by misquoting them.

More here and here.

STILL MORE: Heh: It’s those layers of editors and fact-checkers again! “Our co-blogger Major Leggett sends this story about his unit, from the LA Times. He’s quoted in the article, which you wouldn’t know from the article itself — since he is identified as ‘Maj. Joel Garrett.'”

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: “If, when reading an article about the debate over Iraq, you come across the expression ‘the realist school’ and mentally substitute the phrase ‘the American friends of the Saudi royal family,’ your understanding of the situation will invariably be enhanced.”

(Via Mike Rappaport).

MORE ON SANDY BERGER’S THIEVERY:

The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger – who had been President Clinton’s national security adviser – was removing classified documents from the Archives in the fall of 2003, they failed to notify any law enforcement agency.

Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.

The report said that when Berger was reviewing the classified documents in the Archives building a few blocks from the Capitol, employees saw him bending down and fiddling with something white, which could have been paper, around his ankle.

However, Archives employees did not feel at the time there was enough information to confront someone of Berger’s stature, the report said.

Brachfeld reported that on one visit, Berger took a break to go outside without an escort.

“In total, during this visit, he removed four documents … .

“Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building).”

Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.

I still wonder what he took, exactly. (Via Hot Air).

SCOTT ADAMS:

Al-Jazeera just broadcast the 15th recorded message from al-Qaeda’s #2 guy, al-Zawahri. He appeared in front of the same brown background as before, with his same rifle propped against the wall.

Am I the only one who thinks al-Zawahri has his own cubicle at al-Jazeera?

I imagine al-Zawahri coming to work every day with his turban and robe and plastic rifle, a cup of coffee in one hand, a copy of The Jihad Gazette tucked under his arm. The al-Jazeera station manager sees him and calls out, “Hey Showtime, we have a slow news day. Can you do one of those taped message thingees?”

So al-Zawahri takes his brown sheet and plastic rifle into the break room and tells the employees who are eating their figs to be quiet for a minute while he makes his recording.

Read the whole thing. Zawahiri: Doubleteamed by Scott Adams and Scrappleface. He might as well surrender now!

DOING DONUTS, instead of eating them.

BOTTOMS UP:

Moderate drinking may lengthen your life, while too much may shorten it, researchers from Italy report. Their conclusion is based on pooled data from 34 large studies involving more than 1 million people and 94,000 deaths.

According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Helen’s cardiologist is now encouraging her to have a glass of wine most days, which I think is good for most of us. Plus, it can add life to your years, which is important, too.

Hey, maybe this present isn’t just for Stephen Green!

ZAWAHIRI: “I imagine that this greeting may come as a surprise.” Heh.

ROBOT RIGHTS:

Visions of the status of robots around 2056 have emerged from one of 270 forward-looking papers sponsored by Sir David King, the UK government’s chief scientist. The paper covering robots’ rights was written by a UK partnership of Outsights, the management consultancy, and Ipsos Mori, the opinion research organisation.

“If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,” said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The idea will not surprise science fiction aficionados. It was widely explored by Dr Isaac Asimov, one of the foremost science fiction writers of the 20th century. He wrote of a society where robots were fully integrated and essential in day-to-day life.

In his system, the ‘three laws of robotics’ governed machine life. They decreed that robots could not injure humans, must obey orders and protect their own existence – in that order.

Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans’ rights to be extended to them.

Yes. If you’d like a nice view of what such a world might look like, read Greg Egan’s novels, Permutation City and Diaspora. Or you can always visit the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots. Motto: “Robots are people too! Or at least, they will be someday.”

UPDATE: Hey, I had forgotten this column on the subject from 2003.

PEOPLE ARE STILL EMAILING ME about Joseph Rago’s rather embarrassing anti-blog screed. I thought that it was already pretty handily dealt with by today’s Day By Day cartoon, which I linked earlier. I notice that Rago has fixed the typo, though, after just a few hours, a speed that is only a bit slower than the average blogger.