INDEED: “Pundits lose grip on reality when dealing with Internet.” “Bloggers should definitely be open to criticism by the mainstream media. That’s America. But lumping everyone together with the crackpots is neither fair nor honest. And the fact that so many reporters and pundits can’t seem to get the story right just proves the bloggers’ point that too many of them don’t know what they’re talking about on everything else.”

DUKE RAPE UPDATE — or maybe I should say Duke Non-Rape Update: Rape Charges Dropped in Duke Case. Other charges remain, however — though mostly, I suspect, as a testament to D.A. Mike Nifong’s inability to admit that he never had a case to begin with.

More here. And K.C. Johnson observes: “There is absolutely no justification for any continued allegations against any of the players; I suspect this is the beginning of the end for the case against them–and the beginning of the ethical and perhaps legal case against Nifong.”

JOHN O’SULLIVAN’S NEW BOOK gets a rather positive review (“dazzling”) from Michael Beran.

THE INSPECTOR GENERAL’S REPORT ON SANDY BERGER is now available online.

LARRY KUDLOW likes John McCain.

NUTS! Remembering a historical event.

ANOTHER EMORY PROFESSOR is criticizing Jimmy Carter over Carter’s new book: “Carter’s bizarre book is a poisoned holiday gift for Jews and Christians, and a danger to Jews throughout the world.”

I think Carter hoped that this book would cement his reputation for history. And I think it has. (Via Will Hinton).

MORE IDIOCY ABOUT ELLISON taking the oath on a Quran. Jeez. Earlier thoughts here.

ERIC SCHEIE ON JAMIL HUSSEIN: “I soon noticed that there’s a downside to debunking fraudulent people or claims. The people who make them up — and most of those who agree with them — simply don’t care. Because the characters and claims are invented to support what they already believe fervently, debunking them does not ‘count.’ Lies presented in furtherance of a greater ‘truth’ are not really considered to be lies, at least not in the moral sense. The idea is to persuade people, and if fictional people or incidents have to be used, that’s OK, as long as it’s in the interest of the greater truth. The problem I have with this approach is that I don’t like being lied to.”

It’s an exercise that doesn’t sound much like what journalists say they’re doing when they practice their trade.

UPDATE: Jamil Hussein is still missing.

A MARINE’S VIEW on Haditha.

RICHARD EPSTEIN writes on the myth of the big bad drug companies:

Nonetheless, critics like Angell and Kassirer are absolutely wrong to portray the nation’s big drug companies as heartless, avaricious behemoths that act in whatever manner they choose and always get their way. The truth is, the pharmaceutical industry is too heavily regulated. Its big problem today is not that it’s free to run roughshod over the needs of consumers, but that it operates in a hostile and excessive regulatory environment that frustrates sound business decision-making and keeps down pharmaceutical company share prices in the stock market. . . .Because of its high-fixed, low-variable cost structure, the drug industry will never reach perfect competitive equilibrium. But in our second-best world, ponder carefully the different consequences of two strategies. The first seeks to expand supply by avoiding regulation and encouraging the entry of new companies into the business. The second seeks to hold down prices by direct controls.

The second approach leads to low prices today but systematic shortages tomorrow, while the first leads to greater innovation today and greater choice tomorrow. We must be careful not to mistake price controls for a cure when they are in fact a disease. Let our new reformist Congress beware.

Read the whole thing.

THE EXAMINER: “Nearly half of all traffic fatalities are caused by drunken drivers, according to National Highway Transportation Safety Administration data. The NHTSA, along with help from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, tells us that fully 80 percent of all traffic crashes are caused in part by distracted drivers, mostly those talking on cell phones. So why do more drivers encounter radar guns during the holidays than breathalyzers or unsafe driving citations?” Because states and localities don’t make money from saving lives. They make money from writing tickets, and it’s easy to write speeding tickets.

HMM:

The nation’s largest police chiefs’ organization is calling on the federal government to re-establish a national law enforcement commission to help restore confidence in local public safety operations.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police said Thursday that recent incidents involving officers’ questionable use of force and abrupt increases in murder and robbery represent strong evidence for a panel, similar to President Lyndon Johnson’s Crime Commission, which would develop a national anti-criminal justice strategy. The panel would address a wide range of topics from police deployment to prison administration.

“We’re past the time when we’ve needed to do this,” IACP President Joseph Carter said Thursday. . . .

The IACP also cited “highly publicized” police incidents, such as the New York City shooting death of 23-year-old Sean Bell after his bachelor party and the death of an 88-year-old woman during an Atlanta drug raid.

I agree that someone needs to look at this problem. And I’ve suggested that we need legislation stripping officers and departments of official immunity in no-knock raids. I’m not sure what I think of this proposal, but at least someone besides Radley Balko is paying attention.

A LOOK AT moneyball hiring in academia.

THE ECONOMIST: “Democracy grows from the barrel of a gun.”

BLOGGER 1, OLD MEDIA 0:

SHOCKING news – Shock is dead.

Hachette Filipacchi Media CEO Jack Kliger pulled the plug on the controversial picture magazine Shock yesterday after only eight issues. Eight people including Editor-in-Chief Mike Hammer were handed their walking papers.

“I’m still stunned,” said Hammer late yesterday afternoon. . . . The monthly Shock is based on weekly French magazine Choc, which was one of the more successful launches in France in years.

The American version became ensnared in controversy almost from Day One when it ran a picture of an American soldier cradling a wounded Iraqi girl who was fatally injured in a roadside ambush.

The photographer, Michael Yon, objected, claiming that the photo had been purchased from a photo agency that had never obtained the proper rights.

Hachette apologized and offered to make a settlement, but when talks broke down, the photographer launched a campaign that succeeded in getting the magazine yanked from some large retail chains.

That hurt the magazine, since it was designed to be supported mainly by newsstand sales.

Maybe it’s stuff like this that accounts for the sudden wave of anti-blogger sentiment from old media types? Or is it that beleaguered AP editor Kathleen Caroll, still stonewalling the Jamil Hussein case, is on the Pulitzer Prize Board? Surely the press is above that kind of sucking-up.

UPDATE: While the Wall Street Journal’s Joseph Rago was sneering at blogs, the WSJ’s Bill Grueskin was noting that he’s comfortable with them. I’ve corresponded with Grueskin a good deal over the past few years, and he’s always struck me as comfortable with blogs and willing to pursue opportunities for symbiosis.

Plus, a funny take on bloggers versus the Associated Press. Heh. Bet it won’t win a Pulitzer, though.

And read this from Stephen Spruiell, too.

“MUST WE TALK about Mary Cheney’s baby?” Plus: “An opinion pinata addicted to sticks.”

WHILE THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’S JOSEPH RAGO WAS SNEERING AT BLOGS, the WSJ’s Bill Grueskin was noting that he’s comfortable with them.

What’s the difference? I’m guessing it’s that Grueskin has responsibility for meeting a payroll, while Rago has worries about staying on one.

Plus, bloggers versus the Associated Press. Heh.

And read this from Stephen Spruiell, too.

GOOD NEWS:

Local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide.

American Muslims “believe we have to learn the lessons of history and commit ourselves: Never again,” said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, standing before the eternal flame flickering from a black marble base that holds dirt from Nazi concentration camps. . . .

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad organized last week’s conference after Western countries protested his comment last year that the slaughter of 6 million Jews was a myth. The two-day meeting drew historical revisionists and such people as David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Major American Muslim and Arab-American organizations have condemned the Iran conference. The Muslim speakers at yesterday’s ceremony did not mention that event but called for recognition of the suffering Jews experienced in the Holocaust and condemned religious hatred. Asked afterward why they did not single out Iran, the Muslim leaders said the problem was broader than the recent conference.

“The issue here is: There might be somebody from X and Y country, a Muslim, saying the same thing,” Magid said. If anyone wants to make Holocaust denial an Islamic cause, he said, “we want to say to them: You cannot use our name.”

Good.

JONATHAN MARTIN debunks claims that Harold Ford, Jr. lost because of race. Also note Mark Blumenthal’s analysis at Pollster.com:

Ford did as well as any Democrat could have, adding that a candidate like Jim Webb won in Virginia only because Virginia is less Republican than Tennessee.

The exit polls for Tennessee and Virginia tend to support that point. Both Democratic candidates received exactly the same percentage of support from Democratic partisans. Ford’s race was certainly no unique barrier to those that identified as Democrats, although Webb did slightly better among independents (though one might quibble about the statistical significance of that difference. Similarly, in the Maryland Senate race, African American Republican Michael Steele did precisely as well among Republicans (94%) as Corker in Tennessee and Allen in Virginia.

Read the whole thing.

PANTS, SOCKS, TRAILER, TRASH: More on Sandy Berger, and the soft-pedaling the story has gotten from the press.

UPDATE: Jonathan Adler observes: “So, Berger stole and destroyed classified material on multuple occasions — some of which had hand-written notations that are permanently lost — and his only punishment was a fine, some community service, and the temporary loss of his security clearance. At the very least, Berger should never have access to classified documents again.”

At the very least.

A BIG YEAR-END war retrospective at The Mudville Gazette.

Plus, this British observation:

IT IS now becoming common to hear anti-war Americans point out that “Iraq has now lasted longer than World War II.” . . .

Beg pardon, cousin, but by my count World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. Those of us who arrived for the fight on time put in several years of hard work before you intervened. Iraq still has a while to run yet before it outstrips the Big One.

Good point. We were late to that one; we were early to this one.

JONAH GOLDBERG FEEDS THE TROLL: I know, it’s hard to resist sometimes.

THE ECONOMIST ON BUSH and free trade.

ANCHORESS TO ERIC BOEHLERT: “Sir, that’s not quite what I said.” More on this phenomenon here. And is it just me, or have the Big Media folks been in a real circle-the-wagons mode the past couple of weeks? What gives? It can’t all be about the Jamil Hussein scandal, can it?

UPDATE: Michael Silence writes: “It’s called corporate profits.”