WELL, YES: “Google’s decision to censor its search engine in China was bad for the company, its founders admitted yesterday. . . . Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr Brin admitted yesterday: ‘On a business level, that decision to censor… was a net negative.'” And not just on a business level.

This kind of thing is why I’m less pessimistic than Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu regarding the future of Internet freedom.

UPDATE: Big roundup on this at BoingBoing.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Princeton, Berkeley, and Asians.

THE SARAJEVO MOMENT: “Maybe it is already, and the fact is that the fretters exaggerate the impact of the thinkable catastrophe. My lunch companion, for example, argued that a small nuclear weapon exploded in New York, while a horror for the city and its inhabitants, would have roughly the same impact on the financial markets as a moment of delirium on the part of Ben Bernanke.”

HOLLYWOOD’S TERRORISM PROBLEM:

In the history of our time as told by the movies, the war on terror largely does not exist.

Which is passing strange, you know. Because the war on terror is the history of our time. The outcome of our battle against the demographic, political and military upsurge of a hateful theology and its oppressive political vision will determine the fate of freedom in this century.

Television — more populist, hungrier for content and less dependent on foreign audiences — reflects this fact with shows such as “24” and “The Unit.” But at the movies, all we’re getting is home-front angst and the occasional “Syriana,” in which “moderate” Islam is thwarted by evil American interests. But the notion that this war is about our moral failings is comfort fantasy, pure and simple. It soothes us with the false idea that, if we but mend ourselves, the scary people will leave us alone. . . .

In all fairness, moviemakers have a legitimately baffling problem with the nature of the war itself. In order to honestly dramatize the simple truth about this existential struggle, you have to depict right-minded Americans — some of whom may be white and male and Christian — hunting down and killing dark-skinned villains of a false and wicked creed. That’s what’s happening, on a good day anyway, so that’s what you’d have to show.

Moviemakers are reluctant to do that because, even though it’s the truth, on screen it might appear bigoted and jingoistic. You can call that political correctness or multiculturalism gone mad — and sure, there’s a lot of that going around. But despite what you might have heard, there are sensible, patriotic people in the movie business too. And even they, I suspect, falter before the prospect of presenting such a scenario.

(Via Michael Barone, who has further thoughts.)

UPDATE: Related item here.

EUGENE VOLOKH: “OK, I made up the ‘who are also Firefly fans,’ but the rest is true.”

POLITICIZING THE U.S. ATTORNEYS?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is transforming the ranks of the nation’s top federal prosecutors by firing some and appointing conservative loyalists from the Bush administration’s inner circle who critics say are unlikely to buck Washington.

The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they’ve been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors.

Hmm. But doesn’t that pale beside this?

One of President Clinton’s very first official acts upon taking office in 1993 was to fire every United States attorney then serving — except one, Michael Chertoff, now Homeland Security secretary but then U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, who was kept on only because a powerful New Jersey Democrat, Sen. Bill Bradley, specifically requested his retention.

Were the attorneys Clinton fired guilty of misconduct or incompetence? No. As a class they were able (and, it goes without saying, well-connected). Did he shove them aside to thwart corruption investigations into his own party? No. It was just politics, plain and simple.

That’s because it’s a political office.

BIG MEDIA FOLKS used to make fun of bloggers for wasting time on shallow, superficial reports about their sex lives instead of doing hard news coverage. Now the situation has reversed.

THERE’S LOTS MORE GOING ON in the Duke (non) Rape case, and K.C. Johnson is on top of it.

MYSTERIOUS SOURCE JAMS SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS: “Paris-based satellite company Eutelsat is investigating ‘unidentified interference’ with its satellite broadcast services that temporarily knocked out several television and radio stations. The company declined to say whether it thought the interference was accidental or deliberate. The problem began Tuesday afternoon, blocking several European, Middle East and northeast African radio and television stations, as well as Agence France-Presse’s news service. All transferred their satellite transmissions to another frequency to resume operations.”

REMEMBER KOSOVO, where we’ve had troops for years? Things are finally happening.

LOOKING AT THE FUTURE OF WEB 2.0 in the latest Blog Week in Review podcast.

MICKEY KAUS ON UNRELIABLE NARRATIVES:

The video shows Iraqi troops beating three men who’d been caught with a bag full of mortars in their car. I don’t defend the beatings, which at least one American tries fecklessly to stop, but calling people captured with mortars “civilians” is a bit of a distortion, no?

But, sadly, a typical one.

CORRECTING NEIL LEWIS (“This is deceptive reporting, whether by incompetence or design”) and much more on the Libby trial, at Tom Maguire’s.

RALPH PETERS: “For an enthusiastic visitor to Turkey for three decades, it’s been heartbreaking to watch its society and economy come to life – only to fall prey to Islamist vampires.”

YOUTUBE WILL SHARE REVENUE with video creators.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE reunites his blog. Er, blogs. Or something.

CHINESE CENSORSHIP, AND MORE: My review of Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu’s book, Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World, forthcoming in the Stanford Law & Policy Review, is now available online here.

UPDATE: Yes, it’s unusual to use the “F-word” in a law review article. But it fit. (Bumped.)

EXPLOSION IN ISLAMABAD: Roundup here.

BOB OWENS IS TAKING HIS MESSAGE to the top.

SCARY RACIST SYMBOLS, unashamedly flaunted.

ALEX TABARROK explains supply and demand to someone who really ought to know that stuff.

CATHY YOUNG on Jimmy Carter, Brandeis University, and anti-Semitism.

ROBERT GATES: Anti-surge resolution “emboldens the enemy.”

TYLER COWEN on income inequality.

NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN: “In the south, NATO commandos are having success in finding out where Taliban commanders are, and killing or capturing them. There are about three dozen Taliban commanders in the south, and if enough of them can be taken out of action, this years Taliban offensive will collapse. . . . Sensing weakness, more warlords are publicly denouncing the Taliban, and urging young men not to join up.”