DON SURBER WONDERS WHY Bill Keller wasn’t defending Robert Novak. And he’s pretty hard on his fellow newspaper professionals:
TV is run by pretty faces. The Internet by people in pajamas. Newspapers have to stand up for the rights. We’re the heirs of Voltaire.
Newspapers let Novak down.
Those pajamas aren’t looking so bad.
TURNING THE TABLES: I’m a podcast interviewee over at the new Townhall.com site.
AMERICAN JIHADISTS: Connecting the dots, over at Hot Air.
ISRAEL ENTERS LEBANON: Here’s a big roundup from Pajamas Media.
THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE offers journalistic advice to the Washington Post.
VARNAM HAS MORE UPDATES on the Mumbai bombing.
UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has more, too.
JULES CRITTENDEN: “Sixty-one years after the end of World War II, Japan is on the verge of becoming a mature, responsible democracy.”
These things take time.
THIS IS COOL:
A converted missile blasted off Wednesday carrying an experimental inflatable spacecraft for an American entrepreneur who dreams of some day building a commercial space station, officials said. . . .
The launch was a first for Bigelow Aerospace, founded by Las Vegas real estate mogul Robert Bigelow, who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain.
Bigelow envisions building a private orbiting space complex by 2015 that would be made up of several expandable Genesis-like modules linked together and could be used as a hotel, or perhaps a science lab or college. He has committed $500 million toward the project.
“We’re ecstatic. We’re just elated,” Bigelow said in a telephone interview from Las Vegas. “We have a sense of being on a great adventure.”
Despite the successful launch, the spacecraft still faces challenges.
No kidding. I hope it works, though.
BIZZYBLOG looks at TV news viewership.
Maybe all those missing viewers are watching vlogs.
UPDATE: Bizzyblog link changed to the cross-post at Newsbusters, as he emailed that I was killing his server again. Sorry!
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Mona Charen is warning the Republicans, and I think she’s right:
Does anyone remember the heady days of 1994 when Republicans took control of the House? Does anyone remember one of the grand themes that enabled Newt Gingrich to grasp the Speaker’s gavel? Why, it was corruption. The Republicans were going to clean house. No more smarmy House bank scandals. No more cozy perks. No more exemptions for Congressmen from the laws they enacted for everyone else.
Clearly Speaker Denny Hastert has long forgotten that bit of lore. His response to the FBI search of Democratic Congressman William Jefferson’s office could not have been more maladroit. Hastert rushed before the cameras to defend the privileges of the House, thereby lending his prestige to the vacuous Democratic argument that large principles are at stake here. They aren’t. Jefferson froze cash in his freezer and kept ill-gotten gains in his House office. Those are very quotidian crimes. His reach for the “Speech and Debate” clause was laughable.
And so was Hastert’s defense, which only caused people to wonder what Hastert has to hide.
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW EDITOR JASON PONTIN emails: “You were so right! NO ONE won the SENS Challenge!”
NOVAK SPEAKS, Tom Maguire listens.
REBOOTING YOUR DOCTOR: My TCS Daily column is up.
A LOOK AT what’s going on in Iraq.
MICKEY KAUS: “Kos explicitly endorses ‘the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms.'”
Looks like my long-term plan to win him over is working!
So those 12 nervous moderate Democrats can probably breathe easier as the change takes hold. . . .
UPDATE: Bill Quick says it’s not a move to the center — it’s just the left returning to its roots.
TOM MAGUIRE POSTS a contest for journalism students.
MORE ON MUMBAI: Amit Varma writes on avoiding the backlash.
UPDATE: Daniel “Guess I picked the wrong week to quit blogging” Berczik posts a letter from his daughter who was in Mumbai for the blasts.
“RED CARDS” in the blogosphere.
I think Dan Riehl is ready to throw one on Glenn Greenwald.
UPDATE: Various people are piling on Greenwald, rather harshly.
I’m no fan of Greenwald, who tends to misrepresent what I say and then explode in outrage over his own version of my views, to the delight of his readers who are mostly too lazy to follow the links. But I’m saving my condemnation for Frank J. He’s not only a right-wing hater, he’s got people in the Bush Administration dancing to his tune!
ANOTHER UPDATE: More questioning of Greenwald’s reading comprehension. But I’m pretty much over Greenwald. I quit reading Misha, the ostensible root cause of this latest kerfuffle, because, although his schtick amused his audience it got old for me fast. (And ironically, I think Misha still blasts me for being too sympathetic to the ACLU.) Greenwald’s not much different, he’s just more earnest, and not funny.
MORE: Patterico isn’t laughing. It’s comedy — it’s just not good comedy.
NICK GILLESPIE LOOKS AT CleanFlicks vs. Kate Winslet’s breasts. I’m not surprised to discover that Kate Winslet’s breasts had the victory.
THE TIMES OF INDIA REPORTS: “The terror attack on Mumbai trains was carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and local Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists and was designed to trigger communal conflagration in the country’s financial capital, intelligence sources said.”
UPDATE: And, at home: “The Lebanese man arrested in an alleged plot to bomb New York transit tunnels under the Hudson River had been recruited by al-Qaeda three years ago and members of his cell had been attempting to seek help from the organization for the attack, U.S. and Lebanese officials said yesterday.”
HOEKSTRA PROMISES A LEAK CRACKDOWN: Allah is skeptical.
CHINA’S SECRET ARMS TRADE: It’s based on stolen U.S. technology.
LONG TAIL RADIO! We interviewed Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, about his new book, The Long Tail : Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More,
Anderson talks about how the future is going to be oriented more toward smaller markets, individuals, and cottage industry. He also stresses that, notwithstanding some reviews, he’s not proclaiming the end of hit movies, hit records, or big businesses, just a different kind of market running alongside the old fashioned one. Plus, we talk about non-monetary incentives, how many people will nonetheless manage to make money in niche markets, and how little it takes to be branded a techno-utopian Pollyanna type these days. Also, why blogging is like DJ-ing!
You can listen to the podcast directly — no iPod needed — by clicking right here. You can subscribe via iTunes here, there’s a lo-fi version for dialup here, and there’s a complete podcast archive at GlennandHelenShow.com.
As always, my lovely and talented cohost is soliciting comments and suggestions.
Music is by The Opposable Thumbs.
UPDATE: Chris Anderson says the podcast bumped him into the Amazon Top 10. He probably exaggerates our influence but I’m glad the book is doing well; it’s good.
A WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTER witnessed the Mumbai bombings and reports on her experience here. (Free link.)
A NETROOTS CIVIL WAR? They said they’d be greeted as liberators. . . .
Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus observes: “Can a cheap headline featuring hot-button words ‘Kos’ and ‘Coulter’ goose a blogger’s hit count? The stats are in and the answer is … unfortunately … yes.”
I guess it’s all about Blog Sweeps Week Month! Call me crazy, but I prefer the bikinis.
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