JERRY POURNELLE thinks that things are going to get tougher for writers:

Borders is up for sale, and Barnes and Noble are in trouble. Just the kind of news one needs to hear. The independent book stores have been pretty well finished off, with very few left and those mostly in trouble. Now the giants which have been in ruthless competition. And there’s still a great deal of fallout from the Sears / Kmart debacles.

We do live in interesting times. Authors may well have no choice but to build a stable of loyal Patrons/subscribers to assure themselves of enough income to be able to do large projects. Or be born with trust funds. In the 40’s, a sale to the Saturday Evening Post brought Stuart Cloete enough money — $4,000 for a short story, think about $35,000 now or what a short TV script brings — to let him write a novel. But that was back then when the Post was important. Now there’s nothing like that except in TV and you don’t get in over the transom.

Book advances keep falling. There’s still money in journalism and general science, but the computer magazines are thinner every issue.

Well, book advances aren’t falling for everybody. Politicians seem to do fine, as Deval Patrick just scored a $1.35 million book advance. People used to write books to advance their political careers. Now, it seems, you become a politician to ensure a hefty advance for your writing. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Various readers think I’m not being obvious enough in pointing out that fat book contracts can be a way of circumventing campaign finance laws, etc. Yes they can! And reader Lee Willis emails:

I remember reading once that many science fiction authors like writing short stories, but it was difficult for them to find a market to sell them. One either has to package a collection of short stories as a book, or get the short-story published in a magazine.

This may no longer be true, b/c of the Amazon Kindle. You can buy individual short stories from Amazon for a buck or two. This may create a new market for short stories, which don’t have to bundled with a book or magazine.

Good point. I don’t know how much you get per reader via the Kindle, but an author with a following could self-publish and keep it all, I imagine.

SHEILA JACKSON LEE booed by Obama backers.

SADR BLINKS: “Six days after the Iraqi government launched Operation Knights’ Charge in Basrah against the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backed Shia terror groups, Muqtada al Sadr, the Leader of the Mahdi Army, has called for his fighters to lay down their weapons and cooperate with Iraqi security forces. Sadr’s call for an end to the fighting comes as his Mahdi Army has taken serious losses since the operation began. . . . Since the fighting began on Tuesday 358 Mahdi Army fighters were killed, 531 were wounded, 343 were captured, and 30 surrendered. The US and Iraqi security forces have killed 125 Mahdi Army fighters in Baghdad alone, while Iraqi security forces have killed 140 Mahdi fighters in Basra.” But it’s likely a blink, not a major defeat.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey: Remind me again — who’s losing in Basra? “Did our media give anyone this context? No. They reported it as some kind of spontaneous eruption of rebellion without noting at all that a nation can hardly be considered sovereign while its own security forces cannot enter a large swath of its own territory. And in the usual defeatist tone, they reported that our mission in Iraq had failed without waiting to see what the outcome of the battle would be.” No surprise there — that’s what they do every time.

MORE: Heh: “The speed at which the MSM went from ignoring Iraq to proclaiming that we were losing was actually pretty impressive. I didn’t know they could move that fast any more. But when they had to back up their narrative of our loss with facts like ‘230 people have died in Iraq because of this latest battle’ (not saying where those 230 people were or which side they were on) I knew that the good guys were winning.” It’s like deciphering coverage in the old Soviet newspapers.

BATTLING EDS: Ed Cone says Ed Morrissey is wrong about the media coverage. But one of Cone’s commenters disagrees. The NPR coverage I’ve heard was of a similar tone, though I do remember thinking the other day that if this was an effort to stage a Tet it was failing, because NPR spent more time on a story about contaminated Mozzarella in Italy than on the fighting in Iraq.

STILL MORE: Media criticism from Abu Muqawama.

MORE STILL: The Mudville Gazette: “Few have noticed that this round of fighting – the heaviest occurring in Basra and reportedly with flare ups primarily in the Iraqi-controlled southern provinces – is a fair approximation of what both Democratic Presidential candidates (and most everyone else in America from the President on down) desire for a future US military role in Iraq – providing a support function to Iraqi combat troops. Within the next week we’ll have some idea of how close to reality that goal is.”

Plus, comments from Dean Esmay.

AND MORE: Reader Thomas Wictor suggests that this video explains why Sadr backed down:

Intense firefight in Sadr City in a raid conducted by Iraqi and Coalition special forces. It appears that most of the vehicles and troops are Iraqis.

Don’t let all the pundits and analysts fool you: the JAM is now seriously outgunned by the Iraqi security forces.

Given this level of firepower, do you really think Maliki would “cave in” to al Sadr the way the media is spinning it?

The whole video is shot in Infrared, and it’s interesting how you can see the targeting lasers all over. Michael Yon was just telling me about that the other day, but this is the first time I’ve seen it.

DARFUR UPDATE: “The Arab League is under increasing pressure from Moslem organizations, to pressure Sudan to stop the atrocities in Darfur. The Arab League has defended Sudan to the world, accusing critics of being anti-Moslem. But many Moslems know better, and are appalled at the suffering of the Moslem victims of Sudan’s ethnic cleansing program in Sudan.”

IT’S HARD TO ARGUE: “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday branded Zimbabwe’s president a ‘disgrace’ to his people and to Africa, and expressed concerns about verifying whether the country held free and fair elections.”

IN THE MAIL: Jack Bauer for President: Terrorism and Politics in 24.

CASH-FLOW MANAGEMENT at Hillary’s campaign: “Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys, but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small business circles.”

PROPERTY LAW in The Lord of the Rings: “Sadly, literary critics have neglected this crucial aspect of Tolkien’s masterpiece for too long.”

GORE-MENTUM BUILDS! Senior Democrats mull Al Gore’s nomination.

UPDATE: Brendan Loy notes a snarky response: “You know you got a problem if the answer is Al Gore.”

“KILLING FIELDS” PHOTOGRAPHER Dith Pran has died.

UPDATE: A Dith Pran slideshow.

ANN ALTHOUSE LOOKS BEYOND the Obama “law professor” controversy. “So, the ‘law professor’ puffery is something on its own. Not all that much, but something. Now, consider the other 9 items, and judge for yourself whether the Clinton campaign has made its point.”

UPDATE: A reader emails disagreement: “Hey, there is a lot to Obama presenting himself early on as a Chicago law professor. It might pass as just an embellishment now, but a year ago it carried some gravitas. To this layman, anyway, being a professor meant that at some point it was a full time job. So my first take on Obama was a law professor who was also politically active, especially in less privileged areas of the community. And that was cool. And that was not true. First appearances matter. But it did help get him in the door. Now I’m watching him try and get the super duper new vacuum working on the carpet and Hilary’s outside with the encyclopedias screaming about how I should never have let him in.” Hmm. Hillary and Obama as competing door-to-door salesmen. Sounds like an I Love Lucy episode — SNL writers take note!

AN ELECTION REPORT FROM ZIMBABWE:

Lines were long at the polling stations here well before morning had unscrolled its first light. And when the doors did not open exactly at 7 a.m., voters in the impoverished township of Warren Park rushed the schoolyard gate, most of them desperate to cast a ballot to oust the man who has been president for most of their lives, Robert Mugabe. . . . Still, Mr. Mugabe is so often accused of stealing the last presidential election that many Zimbabweans scoff at the very notion of a fair vote. In 2002, reported results had challenger Morgan Tsvangirai piling up a big lead. Then, suddenly, the announcements stopped. When they resumed, hours later, Mr. Mugabe was well ahead.

At the moment, the opposition is claiming an early lead, but don’t hold your breath. But there’s lots of coverage, including reports of the various swirling rumors, at the blog This Is Zimbabwe.

UPDATE: More here: “Zimbabwe’s opposition said on Sunday it had won the most crucial election since independence, but President Robert Mugabe’s government warned premature victory claims would be seen as an attempted coup.”

THE CARNIVAL OF THE LIBERTARIANS IS UP, over at The Line is Here.

MORE ON EVENTS IN IRAQ, from Bill Roggio.

IMMIGRATION IDIOCY, from Michael Totten.

TEACHING ABOUT RESPONSIBLE DRINKING. Unsurprisingly, the bluenoses turn out to be wrong.

MOHAMMED FADHIL: Whither Sadr and the Madhi Army?

EXTREME MACHINES: Wild Wheels.

ATTACKING EPILEPSY PATIENTS via computer exploits?

The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.

The attackers turned to a more effective tactic on Sunday, injecting JavaScript into some posts that redirected users’ browsers to a page with a more complex image designed to trigger seizures in both photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epileptics.

Good grief. That’s just tacky.

A CTHULHU SIGHTING in Knoxville?

BEER YOU CAN LISTEN TO! Er, or something like that. It’s Craft Beer Radio.

MORE RESVERATROL NEWS: “Mounting evidence shows red wine antioxidant kills cancer.”

Drink up!

NORM GERAS ON Zimbabwe’s “elections.”

ANGELA MERKEL will boycott the Chinese Olympics.

OBAMA’S LATEST CAMPAIGN AD. Plus, James Pethokoukis on Obama and the budget.