I WAS JUST ON HUGH HEWITT’S SHOW, talking about the dumb Army blogging regulation discussed below.

Bob Krumm observes: “I haven’t yet visited the ‘Netroots’ blogs, but I’m sure that this is being spun as: ‘The Bush Administration is afraid of soldiers being able to report the “truth” about Iraq.’ That angle on this bone-headed Army decision was entirely predictable, and again argues to the public relations obtuseness of the Army.” A quick perusal of Technorati indicates that it’s mostly rightish and military bloggers who are talking about this, but there’s some evidence for Krumm’s suggestion. Just a further reason to think this is indeed a boneheaded move.

On the upside, since this is just an Army regulation, members of other services remain free to blog. If the Marines wind up getting better press because of their milbloggers, perhaps interservice rivalry will do what good sense has not. It wouldn’t be the first time . . . .

UPDATE: Hugh’s suggestion: “Suspend the new policy asap and convene a panel of senior brass and civilians to focus on the blog issue but also on the information war more generally. This pratfall could become the occasion for the Pentagon to ask why we are getting rings run around us in the information war.”

Sadly, one possible explanation is bureaucratic turf protection. Somebody asks “Why are the milblogs doing so much better than our ‘official’ PR efforts?” Response: Shut down the milblogs so nobody will make that comparison in the future!

But, in fact, we are performing very badly in the information war, and there’s no excuse for that at all. As I said on Hugh’s show, there’s been some improvement recently, but it’s been modest, and late to arrive. And this regulation does provide a good opportunity to look into that.

More thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Patterico thinks that concerns here are overblown, though I fear he’s not paying enough attention to the CYA factor.

WHEN REAL LIFE IMITATES THE ONION: Newsweek interviews Wayne Lo, a Taiwanese immigrant who shot up his college in 1992. Check out the first question:

NEWSWEEK: What was your reaction when you heard about the Virginia Tech shooting?

Wayne Lo: When they said it was a perpetrator who was Asian, that really shocked me. The stereotype is that Asians don’t do these things. The Secret Service came and interviewed me for a report on school shooters that they put out in 2002, and even they said Asians don’t really do this.

Look in the mirror, dude, if they let you have one of those in the lockup. The next question: “Did you relate to Seung-Hui Cho because you’re both Asian?”

JONAH GOLDBERG DEFENDS ME against the serious charge of linking to things without commentary.

Yeah, the link itself is clearly an endorsement. Like my comment-free linkage to John Edwards’ poverty plan. Or my bare link to Bill Richardson’s plan for Iraq. Obviously, I support both, and just don’t want the blame associated with admitting it! Which, I admit, might be substantial. . . . [What about your bare link to McCain’s “League of Democracies” proposal? — ed. I’m not sure what I think of that. Hence, a bare link. I could have said “I’m not sure what I think of this,” I guess, but that would have wasted pixels and added to global warming.]

I link stuff because I think it’s linkworthy, not necessarily because I agree with it. And, for that matter, plenty of people send me stuff that I agree with that I don’t ever link, because it doesn’t fit for whatever reason. It’s like DJ-ing — you put in what feels like it goes next in the mix.

Anyway, I understand that some people don’t like that style of blogging. I encourage them to visit one of the 71 million other blogs out there, instead of InstaPundit. Or, if you insist on staying around, I’ll quote the late Rob Smith: “If my blog does not meet your standards, then LOWER YOUR STANDARDS. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”

Nah, I can’t be that curmudgeonly yet. How about this: If you’re not happy, your subscription is absolutely free!

UPDATE: Reader John Davies writes: “I’ve been a reader for years and got it right away. An Instapundit
link means pay attention to this. I keep coming back because what you think is important is 90% what I think is important.”

Those who find otherwise are encouraged to find a blog that suits them better.

THE STOCK MARKET just keeps doing better. “The Dow Jones industrial average hit another record high Wednesday, capping its longest winning stretch in almost 52 years as investors welcomed strong earnings, lower oil prices, media merger news and a strong reading on manufacturing.” So things look great to the market; to me, they look okay, but not this great. Who’s right? I guess we’ll see.

TAKING DOWN THE WHOLE INTERNET? Joel Johnson looks at the risk.

LIVE BY THE USERS, DIE BY THE USERS: Trouble afoot in Digg nation.

THE OBAMA MYSPACE STORY seems to have legs. I’m not sure if Obama’s campaign did anything wrong, but I think it would have been smarter to have made sure this guy walked away feeling good, instead of betrayed.

GREENHOUSE UPDATE:

Jet-setting Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton is a fussy frequent flier who used three different planes in a single day during a recent campaign swing through South Carolina.

The former first lady even grounded one aircraft – a chartered Gulfstream II – in Columbia, S.C., last Friday, demanding a swankier Gulfstream III replacement for a flight out west.

“She didn’t like the configuration of the cabin,” an aviation source familiar with Clinton’s travel told The Post. . . .Clinton, who has warned against global warming from the stump and hyped the need for alternative energy such as ethanol, burned through thousands of gallons of jet fuel swooping along the campaign trail – and it’s not clear why she sent an empty plane to wait for her in South Carolina then flew a different jet from Washington the next day.

How about flying commercial?

UPDATE: Found this story via the Hillary website: “She said she has introduced a bill that requires federal buildings to save energy and her campaign has even pledged to go carbon-neutral _ using energy efficient light bulbs and recycled paper in an effort to cut down on pollution. ‘Please use this as a voting issue,” she told the college students, who made up much of the crowd.”

Er, be careful what you ask for. . . .

“WE WIN. THEY LOSE.” A refreshing theory of the war on terror.

JULIAN SANCHEZ ON THE ANTI-VIDEOGAME BRIGADE:

It’s been a good week for the digital descendants of Thomas Bowdler. As we all know, the best sweeping public policy is guided by our reactions to manifestly insane people who commit acts of violence as extreme in their rarity as their brutality. So as the bones of the Virginia Tech victims are picked thoroughly clean for political red meat, it’s no surprise to find violent video games joining an ever-expanding list of whipping boys, from obvious candidates like deinstitutionalization and the gun culture to (yes, really) feminism and atheism. Killer Cho Seung-Hui may have played Counter-Strike in high school, you see.

I think porn and violent videogames are good for America’s children. And unlike the critics, I’ve got empirical evidence!

PROXY WAR in the Middle East?

BULLET, MEET FOOT:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops’ online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Frankly, the “official” communications efforts on this war have been largely lame and ineffective, and most of the good stuff has come from milbloggers. I understand the importance of security, but this is going to do much more harm than good. Lots of stuff at the link above, and also read this post from Blackfive.

UPDATE: Still more here. Really, this is a bad idea.

DO HILLARY AND OBAMA LOVE GRAVEL AND KUCINICH?

By making Gravel and Kucinich the designated villains of the debate, Obama and Hillary never have to engage and disagree strongly with a more liberal candidate with an actual base of support – somebody like John Edwards. It’s risk-free verbal sparring.

Trouble is, with Gravel achieving rock-star status among the netroots, this could backfire.

CONGRESSMAN JOHN CAMPBELL:

Over the weekend, a local building on Capitol Hill, known as “Eastern Market,” burned down. The place is well known by locals in D.C. and is often frequented by members of Congress — many of whom live nearby. On Monday, Del. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-D.C.), was quoted in several papers stating that she is going to try and get federal funding to help rebuild it. Her justification for this use of taxpayer dollars was the following: “It’s a popular place for members to go.”

I am completely puzzled. Why in the world should the American taxpayer be asked to help pay for the rebuilding of a local market that has no connection to the federal government, except that several members of Congress live nearby?

I would submit that if Del. Holmes-Norton and other members are so concerned about rebuilding Eastern Market than they should dip into their own pockets to help out — not just unassumingly take from the taxpayers. It sure is a lot easier to spend money when it is not yours, than when it is.

Our whole government is built on that notion . . . .

GLEN WHITMAN looks at the economics of romance. Some will find this analysis troubling.

NICE WORDS FOR BILL RICHARDSON from a gun-toting woman.

OBAMA’S SELECTIVE MEMORY: At Mother Jones.

(Via Peter Suderman, who comments: “Obama seems to be hoping that people don’t notice that he opposed the war in Iraq despite believing that Saddam Hussein had developed chemical and biological weapons.”)

I think this is bigger than the MySpace scandal, but both are small potatoes.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire defends Obama against the wingnuts at Mother Jones. “I suppose one might argue that Obama should have skipped the ellipsis and faced the (very faint) music regarding his apparent acceptance of a WMD argument – in this day and age, did he really think folks would not track down a speech posted at his own site? But that said, there is no here here. Which puts me in Glenn’s ‘small potatoes’ camp.”

Meanwhile, the MySpace story is generating robust debate on Slashdot.

PRO-GUN GROUP wants Gonzales to resign.

“HOW BLOGS BLOW THINGS OUT OF PROPORTION:” You’re kidding. This happens?

IN THE MAIL: The Girls Next Door – Season 2 on DVD. Suggested slogan: “The boobs are fake, but the entertainment is real!”

As my brother’s girlfriend points out, it’s almost certainly the most positive portrayal of a heterosexual relationship on TV today. Which surely says something significant . . . .

BERNARD HARCOURT has still more on institutionalization and imprisonment of the mentally ill, and what this means for crime rates. “I’m not only surprised by the results of the regression, I’m almost horrified also extremely concerned by the implications regarding the state of our current knowledge and existing research.”

[Quote updated to reflect change in original. Thanks to Jacob Corre for the tip.]

DIRTY COAL, clean air?

There are at least a dozen proposals on Capitol Hill for sequestering all the carbon from coal burning, and the Senate Energy Committee began hearings last month on how to refocus research on the problem. It’s a challenge that has captured the attention of engineers across the country who hope to perfect a clean-coal technology that could provide climate-friendly energy for hundreds of years at modest cost.

“Coal has to be in our energy mix, because of its value for society and its importance to the country,” said Mark Gray, vice president for engineering services at American Electric Power, which recently announced three projects to capture carbon. “We have enough coal for anywhere from 200 to 450 years.”

We should also be working on producing liquid fuels from coal economically. Replacing oil with coal would be a good thing. It’s certainly possible, but it’s not easy.

UPDATE: Here’s more on turning coal to gasoline. At current gas prices it’s starting to look good.

AT POWER LINE, a new Presidential Candidates’ forum. I think this could be big.

JOHN EDWARDS’ PLAN for eliminating poverty. He’s got a book on the subject, too.

UPDATE: Don Surber thinks this sounds familiar.

RADLEY BALKO looks at free military gear for police departments, and the militarization of law enforcement.

It dovetails nicely with this column that I wrote a while back.