TECH QUESTIONS: First, is the Video iPod really as good as Warren Bell says it is? I mean, he’s a TV guy and everything, but still …

Second, I’d like to interview people by phone for podcasts. Is one of the various computer-based VOIP setups — e.g., Skype, Vonage, Google Talk, etc. — easier to use? I’d like to call people on Skype or whatever, record the results to a .wav file, then edit it in Adobe Audition. Will Skype or whatever let you record your calls, or are there third-party solutions to do that? (Is it reWire compatible?)

And is there something that makes it easy to do the same kind of thing with video, to create a video podcast? I’ve been meaning to research this, but why not cut out the middleman and ask you folks . . . .

UPDATE: Spoons emails:

It’s every bit as good as you’ve heard. There are other machines that might be better pure video devices, but iPod is hands down the best MP3 player around, due largely to its integration with the phenomenal iTunes. With the ever-expanding library of video and TV offerings there, not to mention some fantastic video podcasts, there’s plenty of video content available. While flying to Texas for Frank J and Sarah K’s wedding, I watched the entire first season of “The Office”, one of several shows available through iTunes.

As for the gadget itself, the screen is phenomenal. It’s incredibly bright, clear, and crisp. It’s also amazingly easy to watch a screen of that size, even for semi-extended periods of time. If you’re already familar with iPods, you know the controls are simple and intuitive.

I bought the 60GB version not because I think I’ll ever fill more than 30 gigs, but because the battery life is significantly better. Video does suck juice quickly, but even on the 30 you ought to be able to get about 2 hours. I can get at least 3 with the 60. Of course, if you stick to music, the battery will last much longer.

If you’re tempted to buy the video iPod — buy it. You won’t be disappointed.

Dang. I was afraid of that. And Rob Port emails:

First, the video iPod is amazing. My girlfriend and I got each other one (using my PJ Media money) for Christmas. Its my first iPod, and I’m blown way. I wasn’t sure I’d like watching video on the small screen, but its actually pretty good. And hooking the iPod up to my TV is even better. The picture is about what you’d get over an antenna. Perfectly acceptable.

As for podcasting using Skype, I’ve been using a program called Mix Cast Live to record my podcasts with a state Rep. here in ND over Google Talk. It works pretty great. A little bit of echo on the person I’m calling’s end, but that doesn’t show up on the recording and can be minimized by adjusting volume. It works good. Not broadcast quality, but good enough for my purposes.

Thanks.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Don Wolff sends a link to this review from G4TV — they like the Creative Zen Vision better in many ways.

MORE: Evan Coyne Maloney emails:

You ask: “is the Video iPod really as good as Warren Bell says it is?”

One word answer: YES!!!

Also, as a provider of video content, I am impressed with how easy it is to add video podcasts to the iTunes Music Store. There’s a little bit of a wait before the entry appears, but other than submitting the podcast URL and picking a category for it, you really don’t have to do anything. As someone with virtually zero musical talent, it is pretty cool to be able to type your name into the iTunes Music Store and see a listing come up.

Very cool. I’m weakening . . . . Especially as Ian Schwartz emails:

By the way, about the video iPod. I got one about 2 weeks ago and am extremely happy with it. I just ordered a nice skin at www.iskin.com, which I strongly suggest getting if you like to keep your product clean. I used to own an iPod, an old one, and the back of [the metal part] is stained with every finger print on it. Also, tonight I just got this program that lets you convert .wmv to .mp4 (the file type that is used to put video on an iPod) .. so now with videos I put on my site, I put a download link for .mp4 so people can put video on their iPod. Pretty cool if you ask me.

So, basically, all the cool video guys like it.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING REPORT:

Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday’s polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack.

In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Graffiti calling for holy war is now hard to find. . . .

But Saddam loyalists have turned against Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant whose fighters travel to Iraq from across the Arab world to blow themselves up in a bid to spark sectarian civil war.

“Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation,” said a Baathist insurgent leader who would give his name only as Abu Abdullah.

Well, dang. They’ve finally figured that out. Next they’ll catch on that Al Jazeera is a CIA front . . . .

But this can’t be making Zawahiri very happy:

Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri said the global Islamic community had “no hope for victory” until all Muslims signed on to the al-Qaida-led jihad.

Oops. Sorry, pal.

Much more on what’s going on among the various factions in Iraq can be found in this piece from StrategyPage, which has been noting this split for a while.

UPDATE: More bad news for Zawahiri: “Moderate Muslim clerics in about half a million mosques across Bangladesh on Friday preached that suicide bombers are the enemy of Islam.” Heh. Indonesia isn’t looking so good for him either: “Volunteers from Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation will guard churches across the world’s most populous Muslim nation on Christmas amid fears of terrorist attacks on those places, the group said on Friday.”

Did I say “heh?” Well, I’ll say it again. Heh.

A PACK, NOT A HERD:

A Mexican national is in federal custody in Honolulu after witnesses said he threatened a sleeping baby and lunged toward the cockpit during a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu Saturday night.

Passengers arriving on Saturday night’s Northwest Airlines flight told authorities they were scared when Santiago Lol Tizol, 37, raged through the aisles, ignoring the flight crew and threatening to kill the baby.

He was believed to have been traveling alone, authorities told KITV-TV in Honolulu.

Passengers tackled and restrained Tizol when he lunged toward the cockpit.

Another air-safety success, without the involvement of the Homeland Security folks.

CATHY SEIPP offers advice to the L.A. Times: “Staff writers at The Times often turn in very little copy (one story a week is not atypical), which means some are getting paid around $2,000 per mediocre, grudging piece. Wouldn’t it be better to spend that money on freelancers (or bloggers!) who, if they can’t work themselves up into something worth reading, don’t get paid? Let the heads roll, I say.”

Read the whole thing. It certainly seems clear that bloggers know more about the L.A. Times than the L.A. Times knows about bloggers . . .

UPDATE: Meanwhile, way back in 2001, Matt Welch was writing:

What I mean to say is that there’s a new wind blowing, friends, and people who have been domesticated in mono-daily newsrooms these past 30 years will not be the ones to detect it first. . . .

It’s not just a question of underappreciated genius anymore. Something has been going on these past three months (not to mention the five years before that), yet 95% of large media companies – especially monopolist newspapers – seem utterly ignorant of it, or at best powerless to react to it. Have you ever been the hiring man at a newspaper? I have, twice. One of the fundamental duties of that job, it seems to me, is to be hyper-aware of the talent fermenting in your own back yard, and nimble enough to make room for it on your staff. Think that happens at any dominant newspaper in the country? This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we mean by the term “uncompetitive industry.”

And yet, they still haven’t learned.

MORE: Reader Michael Gebert emails:

I think you’re being unfair to staff writers at the LA Times. If Mickey Kaus is right about the layers of editors at that paper, writers may only write one piece a week, but I’d bet they write it ten times before it runs.

Glad I don’t own stock.

GATEWAY PUNDIT has photos and video from the Dongzhou massacre in China.

THE MEANING OF “GOOD NEWS:” Phil Bowermaster does some research and learns some things about the press.

RACE RIOTS IN SYDNEY: (Via NewsAlert).

Tim Blair has much more.

UPDATE: Bill Quick has a question.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

TOM MAGUIRE looks at Viveca Novak’s tale.

THE POTATO GUNS arrived yesterday. I’ll post a report later.

UPDATE: A smashing success. I wish you could have seen the Insta-Wife and Insta-Daughter chasing each other around and giggling.

TIGERHAWK looks at the geopolitical significance of the Miss World contest.

MORE MEMORIES OF RICHARD PRYOR. And Bill Quick remembers Eugene McCarthy.

FROM CNN’S RELIABLE SOURCES THIS MORNING:

On the media and U.S. v. insurgent propaganda

[UPI CORRESPONDENT] PAM HESS: If there’s a criticism to be made of the American media…[it] is that we are quite vigilant about U.S. propaganda. We are less so about insurgent propaganda. The 24-hour news cycle feeds into that, but we don’t quite know what to do with the information that they send us, so it becomes he said-she said reporting.

It’s not online yet, but they emailed it to me.

UPDATE: It’s online now, here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ian Schwartz has video.

GEORGE WILL on law schools and the Solomon Amendment:

A striking alteration of America’s political landscape since 1960 has been the marginalization — actually, the self-marginalization — of the professoriate. An inhospitable campus climate has prompted the growth of public policy think tanks and publications that sustain a conservative intelligentsia that helps elect and staff conservative administrations. And faculties have adopted increasingly adversarial stances toward an increasingly conservative public and its institutions.

Today’s schools bristle with moral principles that they urge upon the — so they think — benighted society beyond their gates. But as Roberts blandly reminded the schools regarding their desire to bar military recruiters: “You are perfectly free to do that, if you don’t take the money.”

Somehow it makes me think of Dan Aykroyd in Ghostbusters:

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.

Too many people in academia don’t seem to realize that the money has to come from somewhere. And you hear people talk about how academia needs to adopt an “adversarial stance” toward the larger culture, without thinking much about why the larger culture would want to pay for that.

KOS TAKES A BOLD STAND AGAINST AFFIRMATIVE ACTION and in favor of pure merit.

Hey, maybe he really is the voice of moderation in today’s Democratic Party . . . .

THE TROUBLE WITH THIS REPORT is that you have to ask yourself: Would you have relied on the French?

More importantly, the persistence of the whole issue demonstrates the colossal folly of the Bush Administration’s effort to take the United Nations seriously in 2002, something that — like Bush’s failure to fire a lot of people at the CIA following 9/11 — has led to considerable grief and no discernible benefit.

UPDATE: On the “would you have relied on the French?” point, reader Betsy Gorisch emails: “Well, that’s one trouble with the report. The other trouble with it is, why would you believe them about it now?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader George Gooding emails:

If the French knew in 2001 and 2002 that the Niger reports were baseless, why was the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director for Nonproliferation telling the United States on November 22, 2002 (per the SSCI report) that they had intelligence showing that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Niger?

For more on this, and some pertinent questions that need to be answered Link

There are a lot of questions.

OIL DEPOT EXPLODES IN BRITAIN: Here’s a big roundup, and Sean Hackbarth has more, including photos.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOT MUCH: Michael Crowley’s item in the New York Times Magazine about how conservative blogs are more effective is up and, well, it’s not much. Especially in light of all the brouhaha about it. It’s about 200-300 words, quoting only “liberal activist Matt Stoller” and (indirectly) other unnamed Democrats, about the message discipline of Republicans. OK. Whatever.

UPDATE: Yes, the bit about Drudge being quick to pass on the latest tidbit from the blogosphere is also dubious. Drudge is, in fact, pretty aloof where the blogosphere is concerned. In fact, the whole “superior message discipline” theory seems doubtful to me.

The Democrats’ real problems come from their positions, and their candidates, not from Republicans’ media operation. They’re still in denial about that, though, and Crowley’s story couldn’t be better for the Republicans if Karl Rove had written it himself.

RADLEY BALKO has much more on the Maye case in Mississippi. There’s more here, and you should probably just scroll around his blog as he’s got other posts as well. I hope that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour will look into this ASAP.

IT’S A BUSH LANDSLIDE! First one of those I’ve seen, actually . . . .

HERE’S A NARNIA ROUNDUP, and here’s an article from the (London) Times condemning over-literalism.

UPDATE: Reader Melissa Feagins emails with this review:

Leaving aside the Christian allegory and opinions as to the writing ability of C.S. Lewis, my husband and I took our three kids to see The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe today. The theater was full and not just of parents with kids. I saw teens and several older couples with no children along. My eight-year old dubbed it, “the best movie ever!” It’s a two and a half hour movie and my five-year old sat almost perfectly still through the whole thing and there was none of the usual chatter you hear from children in theaters. More unbelievably to myself, I sat through the whole thing. I have arthritis in one of my hips and I never sit down for more than an hour at a time anymore and that not very often. I left the movie stiff and limping, but more than entertained. It was well worth the $25.00 it cost us to see the show. If you haven’t taken the InstaFamily to this film, please do. It’s wonderful in every way: faithful to the book (the beginning scene does explain how the children come to be living with the Professor, but that’s the only real difference and a great addition, I think), marvelous acting, great cinematography and effects. I’m no expert on literature or film, but I LOVED this movie and highly recommend it to all.

The audience reviews seem to be quite positive.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up! More blog carnivals here.

STEPHEN HAYES:

FOR THE SECOND TIME IN recent weeks the Department of Defense has denied a request from The Weekly Standard to release unclassified documents recovered in postwar Iraq. These documents apparently reveal, in some detail, activities of Saddam Hussein’s regime in the years before the war. This second denial could also be the final one: According to two Pentagon sources, the program designed to review, translate, and analyze data from the old Iraqi regime may be shuttered at the end of December, not just placing the documents beyond the reach of journalists, but also making them inaccessible to policymakers.

As a consequence, the ongoing debate over the Iraq war and its origins is taking place without crucial information about the former Iraqi regime and its relationships with presumed U.S. allies and known U.S. enemies.

Read the whole thing.

SOUND FINANCIAL ADVICE from Megan McArdle. Especially the stuff about spending and debt.

One other piece of advice: Marry someone who has a level head about money. I’m always amazed at how often people’s financial problems are really marital problems.

MICHAEL TOTTEN is now blogging from Cairo.

Meanwhile, Bill Roggio is blogging from Ramadi.