ARTISTS CREATE CD TO THANK THE TROOPS:

America Supports You is a Defense Department program connecting citizens and corporations with military personnel serving at home and abroad.

Getting this project, which combined the music of Billy Joel, Brooks & Dunn, the Goo Goo Dolls, Jewel, Josh Groban, Los Lonely Boys, Melissa Ethridge, the Neville Brothers, Sarah McLachlan, the Lt. Dan Band, Montgomery Gentry, The Fray, and Five For Fighting, to troops’ ears took true teamwork. John Ondrasik, the singer-songwriter who performs under the stage name “Five For Fighting,” was intimately involved with making sure that happened.

Good for him, and read the whole thing. Our podcast interview with Ondrasik — who seems like a great guy — can be heard here. (Via Michelle Malkin, who has much more). Also see Blackfive’s post, John Ondrasik and his CD for the troops.

DID NSA PUT A SECRET BACKDOOR in the new encryption standard? Is it “Clipper Chip” without the chip?

Then again, private encryption services have their own issues.

IN THE MAIL: Aaron Klein’s Schmoozing With Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal Their Global Plans to a Jew!

SPITZER UPDATE: “Not that the moribund New York State GOP has had much to celebrate, but the recent foibles of the inept Eliot Spitzer have sure provided an opening for them.”

BILL ROGGIO on what’s going on in the wilds of Pakistan. More here.

MY EARLIER POST ON VIDEO SOFTWARE prompted some questions — what did I get? My problem is that although I’ve got an old version of the pro Vegas Video, and Adobe Premiere Professional, neither will edit the AVCHD files from the new Sony HD camera. So I ordered Vegas Movie Studio 8, which is under a hundred bucks. It’s likely to do everything I need — Helen isn’t planning to make any documentaries in the near future — and the interface is the same as the big-brother version of Vegas so it’s familiar. In the unlikely event I need to work on Adobe, I can always save the files in some other format and reopen them there. Note that neither Final Cut Pro HD nor Final Cut Express HD will handle AVCHD files yet, so if you use those platforms you might want to hold off on buying an AVCHD camera. (iMovie ’08 will handle AVCHD, I’m told, but only after a fairly laborious transcoding process. My version of iMovie, which is still ’06, doesn’t recognize the files.)

I haven’t done much with it yet, but it opens the AVCHD files fine, and working with them is quite familiar to me, since I’ve used Vegas before. Some people don’t like Vegas, but I find it quite intuitive — the first thing I ever did with it was this trailer for Helen’s film, and I found it easy and fun.

Although I’m pretty happy with the camera, and the software is familiar, my advice to people looking for a camera for the holidays is to go with something a bit farther back from the cutting edge. Looking around at the message boards, etc., I’m finding that there are still a lot of teething problems with the AVCHD format. This isn’t an issue for me, really, but it might be for you.

UPDATE: Reader John Gibson emails: “Apple just released Final Cut Express 4. It handles DV, HDV, or AVCHD,
with the ability to edit all three formats in a single timeline. Price is $179.99 at Amazon.”

Huh. I just asked at the Apple store last week and they didn’t know anything about it. But you’re right, here it is. Says it doesn’t ship until next week, though.

A “STUNNING MOVE” in financial sanctions against terrorism. My guess is that deals are being made, sub rosa, and this is payoff for one of them. But that’s just a guess.

MICKEY KAUS: “I have seen the new nose (“front clip”) for the Pontiac Solstice. It’s ugly! They’ve styled it along the tongue-thrusting lines of the G6 GXP. If I had a cell phone camera I’d be rich.” That’s too bad. As Kaus notes, the current version of the Solstice, while unreliable, is gorgeous.

ED DRISCOLL ON the most busted name in news.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Progress that “progressives” ignore:

There’s an eery silence out there about what’s going on in Iraq. It’s almost as if the silence is, well, intentional.

Read the whole thing, which includes praise for Michael Yon. (Via Newsbeat1).

SOME ADVICE FROM YOUR public defender.

GENE SIMMONS’ ADVICE TO RECORD COMPANIES: Sue more customers!

THE CNN PLOT THICKENS: “Random” questioner at debate was Arkansas Democratic Party officer in 2003?

A NEW TWIST ON PRETRIAL PUBLICITY: Lawyer cites bloggers, media in bid to move trial tied to murders.

SALMA HAYEK VS. HARRY REID: A SUGGESTION THAT MY PRIORITIES are misplaced.

SOME THINGS never change.

GOT MILK? They’re lining up for it in Maracaibo. More here.

UPDATE: “Why don’t you shut up?”

MORE ON CNN’S planted questions. “It makes me wonder what else CNN is not saying.”

UPDATE: It just gets worse. And more here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Josh Marshall: “Can we just close down CNN?”

SHOWING YOU CARE ABOUT WORKERS by hanging out with celebrities. Isn’t that kind of like understanding poverty by working at a hedge fund?

HDTV AND the female candidate.

WHY THE F-15S ARE STANDING DOWN.

ARE WE ADDICTED TO GADGETS? I can quit any time! Gotta go — about to install my new video editing software. . . .

FROM GOURMET MAGAZINE, the ultimate Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll be cooking the usual leg of lamb, but this sounds yummy.

THE JUGGERNAUT IS GATHERING STEAM: “Lou Dobbs for President? Don’t laugh.”

THOUGHTS ON PEAK OIL, from Chevron’s CTO.