PERSIAN BLOGGING AROUND THE GLOBE: And a crackdown in Iran. And podcasting around it! (Via Bill Hobbs, who rounds up all sorts of bloggy news items).

BILL QUICK: No more Jeff Gannons!

UPDATE: Take that, Jeff Gannon: Blogger joins White House press corps!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Actually, it’s another Jeff Gannon! Look at the bio of the guy who just got credentialed:

Garrett Graff is vice president of communications at EchoDitto, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based technology consulting firm. A Vermont native, he served formerly as deputy national press secretary on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign and, beginning in 1997, was then-Governor Dean’s first webmaster.

A partisan PR guy disguised as a “real journalist!” He’s even a “dittohead!” Somebody tell Kos. I’m sure he’ll be right on it . . . .

On a more serious note, Tom Maguire emails to say that the real lesson here is “Take that, FEC!” If bloggers are getting credentialed as press, the argument to treat “real” press differently from bloggers collapses.

UPDATE: Jeez, some people have no senses of humor. I’m accused of faking Graff’s bio, but if you follow the link it’s to his bio on the site of the blog he writes. Don’t blame me if it emphasizes his political and PR skills. For the record, and for the benefit of the terminally clueless, I don’t think that he’s a male prostitute — or a “dittohead” for that matter. Duh. But boy, you can’t read that explosion of bile without realizing that to the folks on the left, the gay angle really was the big angle on Gannon, and all the talk about other issues was just window dressing. Not that it wasn’t obvious before.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: Syria is shuddering, and we’d better plan for its collapse. I suspect that we have. I certainly hope so.

JAMES LILEKS has an evil twin.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE:

AN ACCLAIMED young American writer has received a $1m advance for a literary novel based on a child’s experience of losing his father in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. It promises to be the first bestseller inspired by the emotional impact of the outrage in 2001.

Jonathan Safran Foer, 28, has drawn a fictional portrait of a nine-year-old, Oskar Schell, who is haunted by his father’s death. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, published next month, the boy roams New York looking for a lock that fits a mysterious key of his father’s.

Foer won a string of awards in Britain and America for his debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, in which a young man searches Ukraine for the woman who saved his grandfather from the Holocaust.

“Both the Holocaust and 9/11 were events that demanded retelling,” Foer said. “With 9/11 in particular I wanted to read something that wasn’t politicised or commercialised, something with no message, something human.”

Salman Rushdie said the book “completely earns the right to take on the Trade Center atrocity. The powerful emotions generated feel deserved, not borrowed”.

It’ll be out early next month, and it’s already doing very well in the Amazon rankings.

STEROIDS AND BASEBALL: A roundup from Only Baseball Matters.

And, speaking of sports, here’s a case of Big Media not outshining the blogs in the accuracy and diligence category.

NOT AIMED AT: Brian Micklethwait looks at distributed governmental stupidity.

CARBLOGGING: A guide to automotive journalists’ terminology.

LOGICALMEME NOTES that there’s an outbreak of “Lebanese hotties” on magazine covers. He’s right!

I’ve actually been accused of favoring attractive Lebanese women myself. Moi? Perish the thought! But when you search for photos of Lebanese pro-democracy demonstrators, you get stuff like this:

Caption: “Two Lebanese opposition demonstrators stand in a car as they flash victory signs and wave a Lebanese flag during a celebration one day after the Lebanese government’s resignation in Beirut, Lebanon.”

On the other hand, when you search for pro-Assad demonstrators, you find stuff like this:

Caption: “Syrian workers hold pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad as one cuts himself with a knife during a pro-Syrian demonstration in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March 6, 2005. Man cuts himself to show his support and commitment to his president.” [LATER: I didn’t notice this the first time, but is it me or does the guy in the middle give the impression that he’d rather be hanging out with the hot chicks? He’s my brother, he’s into knives and Assad, Mom said to keep an eye on him, what can you do? So, you free Saturday night?]

So that’s what I’m seeing. And I haven’t seen anything to suggest that it’s an inaccurate reflection. But here’s a Lebanese pro-democracy guy, too, just so people won’t feel like I’m playing favorites here:

Like I said earlier, which crowd would you rather hang out with? I hope a lot of Al Jazeera-watchers are asking themselves the same question.

UPDATE: Some interesting polling data from Iraq.

A BIT PRICEY FOR ME, but Michael Demmons has bought his flatscreen TV.

ARAB BLOGS DISCUSSED ON C-SPAN: Video here.

EARLIER, I MENTIONED THE IRAQ-WAR MOVIE GUNNER PALACE, which opened up on Friday. You can see if it’s showing in your area here, which is kind of cool.

BLOGALICIOUS: A look at fast food around the world.

BANKRUPTCY “REFORM:” I’m deeply skeptical of the bankruptcy bill in front of Congress now, and this report on credit-card industry practices goes a long way toward explaining why. Credit extended to people who can’t handle it, absurd hidden fees, high interest rates, etc.: There’s a lot of scamming here. The argument, of course, is that people who sign up for credit card accounts ought to know what they’re getting into. But shouldn’t the companies that extend credit to people who obviously can’t handle it be held to the same standard?

I was pointing out this kind of stuff back when InstaPundit was young — and it certainly hasn’t gotten any better. Is it any coincidence that the companies involved are big campaign contributors? The people behind this aren’t all Republicans by any means, but this is a Republican Congress, and if it passes they’ll get — and deserve — the blame for something that’s a pure giveaway to corporate interests.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

You can be a Republican and hate bankruptcy reform. Banks are making incredible profits on credit cards. There will be a lot of downward pressure on profits if this reform is passed. And an increased number of murders and suicides. You can’t use a pressure cooker without having an escape valve. You really can’t.

As proof of his thesis, the very Republican Jane Meynardie emails:

Amen to your concerns re. the bankruptcy bill. I have no sympathy for credit-card companies and other lenders, including the Federal Housing Authority, who offer easy credit to people who are better off without it and then whine when they default. They price, or can price, the bad debt risk into the interest rate. They are much better equipped to assess that risk than their borrowers are able to assess the risk of doing business with them. (Sorry if that sounds a bit maternalistic.)

I don’t think it does. As I say, people should have to face the consequences of their bad decisions — but that includes their bad lending decisions, especially when the lending is, fundamentally, dishonest.

I assume that the Bush Administration is supporting this legislation, but I really don’t see it as consistent with “compassionate conservatism.” I see it, in fact, as consistent with the worst stereotypes about corporate-friendly Republicanism.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Joseph Britt emails:

I agree completely with what you have to say about the bankruptcy bill moving through Congress. I am sorry to say it is easier to find Democrats working for the credit card companies (Joe Biden, for example) than it is to find Republicans opposing this bill. Among Senate Republicans I can’t find any. Can you?

I don’t know of any. Perhaps someone will let me know who I’m missing. Meanwhile, here’s a long post by Todd Zywicki on credit card debt suggesting that I’m too hard on the credit card companies. But the constant mailings, such as the one I link above, that I get suggest that there’s a lot of abuse here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Blue Dog Democrats have endorsed the bill, and Zywicki observes: “In an era of Washington partisanship, one would be hard-pressed to find many major pieces of legislation with such broad-based bipartisan support.” Why am I not surprised . . .?

Meanwhile, John Cole is unhappy about the bill, too, showing that this really is an issue that crosses the usual blogospheric lines of disagreement. Meanwhile, here’s a letter from law professors opposed to the bill. And there’s more here. [LATER: Some readers think the photo on that site looks a lot like this one. Surely not.]

MORE: Ted Janger, visiting lawprof at Penn, emails:

You are right. As the signatures on the letter show, politics of this bill confound the usual party line divisions.

My sense is that many republicans are voting against the interests of their constituents here. If you take a look at this table, and look at which states have the highest bankruptcy filing rates, you’ll see that the pain associated with “bankruptcy reform” will be felt most deeply in “red” states.

Hmm. I’m not sure that’s to their credit.

MORE STILL: Another “right-of-center” blogger criticizes the bill:

So where does this leave us? I’m very uncomfortable allowing an industry that sends out 4 billion pieces of mail every year that say “You’re pre-approved–borrow from us” to squeeze more money out of people who plainly don’t have it by preventing them from filing for bankruptcy, which it appears will happen if the legislation passes in its current form.

Further, an industry that cynically manipulates the uninformed into getting in over their heads, and then shafts them when they do with $39 late fees, 25%-plus interest rates, and the like should not be permitted to collect their excessive charges from people who don’t have the money by peeling off a large percentage of their future income, which is what it appears the legislation will enable.

Perhaps the real problem isn’t bankruptcy as such, but unaddressed abuses by the credit-card industry. And perhaps those should be looked at regardless of what happens with this legislation. I don’t actually think that credit card companies are evil — the expansion of consumer credit is a good thing — but their marketing practices are dishonest, and their complaints that their loans to poor risks aren’t panning out leave me unmoved.

JIM GERAGHTY: “Coming Monday: The Iranian Mullahs as a bunch of puppies!” Cute, floppy-eared ones.

UPDATE: Freedom for Iran via blender? Whirrrrrr!

BLOGGING IN INDIA: At a tipping point?

LOTS OF ODD EVENTS IN THE UKRAINE as witnesses to the old regime vanish: “Still, one has to wonder how someone shoots himself in the head twice.”

ANN ALTHOUSE NOTICES that The Sims are going to college.

She worries: “I wonder how many actual college kids will let their actual college work and their actual social life slide while they try to make their Sims successful in their simulated college careers.” On the other hand (as I’ve suggested in other contexts), perhaps the Insta-Daughter will learn something useful, when she (more or less inevitably) gets the expansion pack and experiences virtual college.