WOOHOO: New Postrel. Virginia is not a daily blogger but she makes up for it by putting up completely quality posts. She brings the level-headedness to blog hysteria, just like you knew she would:

Bloggers have been getting pretty meta lately, writing a lot about the virtues and evolution of this medium. On her site, Joanne Jacobs offers some history, with reader assistance ("Creation of Blogworld"), and links to some blog-related items elsewhere ("Orwell's Bloggers"), with a wistful consideration of the possibility of micropayments-per-read. (It's not going to happen, although here's an alternative model that might work.) Joanne writes more as a reporter than as an advocate.

More typical are the blog promoters. Andrew Sulivan, for instance, brags "Tina Brown's Talk magazine has around the same number of subscribers per month that we have as [sic] visits." Glenn Reynolds goes him one better. His TechCentral Station column proclaims that "what is really going on is something much more profound: it's the end of the power of Big Media." It's the Reformation, says Glenn, citing Jim Bennett of UPI. Glenn is great, but this is ridiculous.

Read the whole post, of course. The Scene page is like two-thirds new stuff today. I note that she notes that somebody in A Beautiful Mind had their institution changed from Rutgers (where the guy actually went to) to Harvard (where Hollywood wants you to think he went to). What a load of crap.

I WOULD LIKE TO BE THE FIRST TO WELCOME OUR SIMIAN OVERLORDS: Boing Boing links to this piece which predicts the next step over humanity in terms of having perfect memories and super math skills will take the form of half-artificial intelligence, half simian cyborg-things. I guess we better stop eating gorillas.

SWEATSHOPS: Tim Blair comically links to this article about the downturn in the Bangladeshi economy since the attacks, which says a hundred thousand people have lost their sweatshop jobs in the past two months. The garment workers, mostly women, have the choice of factory work or going back to the farm. I like the sentiment of Tim's post.

J-E-T-S S-T-I-N-K: The Jets just died with a whimper, with time running out and going for a touchdown that wouldn't even tie the game, a play that went incomplete. The coaching was pretty suspect in what I saw. Bummer. Michelle Kwan won, though, if you were wondering.

HAPPINESS EXPLAINED: Catallaxy Files points out this article on happiness research within economics.

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: Gave the latest speech-of-his-life today --the previous one was when he announced he was allying with the United States. He makes good sense, and seems to be taking a firm stand towards peace with India. He positively channels LBJ at this point:

The second thing I want to talk about is the concept of Jehad in its totality. I want to dilate upon it because it is a contentious issue, requiring complete comprehension and understanding. In Islam, Jehad is not confined to armed struggles only. Have we ever thought of waging Jehad against illiteracy, poverty, backwardness and hunger? This is the larger Jehad.

Pakistan, in my opinion, needs to wage Jehad against these evils. After the battle of Khyber, the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) stated that Jehad-e-Asghar (Smaller Jehad) is over but Jehad-e-Akbar (Greater Jehad) has begun. This meant that armed Jehad i.e. the smaller Jehad was now over and the greater Jehad against backwardness and illiteracy had started.

Pakistan needs Jehad-e-Akbar at this juncture.

I'm not sure about this part, though:

Do we want Pakistan to become a theocratic state? Do we believe that religious education alone is enough for governance or do we want Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare state?

What, those are the only two choices? I think welfare states have generally been proven bad. But this is a dynamic welfare state though. I don't know what that would look like.

MICHELLE KWAN: Just kicked a ton of ass on the tv. She looked exuberantly happy as she finished after hitting all her jumps and everything and not falling down (that's the only thing I know about figure skating, falling down=bad news.) I love the fact that she fired her coach and is doing the Olympics on her own.

Did you know she's dating a hockey player? Just like The Cutting Edge.

STATUE UPDATE: Here's a picture of it. Never mind the race-changing, they took out the guy on the right's pot belly. This is obviously a sell-out to the exercise-promotes-health-and-beauty crowd.

EEP: Charles links to this story about rampant man-boy love in Kandahar, which I thought was the more conservative part of Afghanistan. Apparently this was a prominent part of pre-Taliban life there that is now reemerging in the post-Taliban era. Say what you will about the Taliban, but at least they repressed everybody equally. Now you only get repressed if you're a woman.

Hey, weren't the ancient Greeks like that? Not like the Taliban, I mean what's reemerging after the Taliban which seems to possess a sort of general disdain for women. Not that the Afghans are going to be the cultural titans the Greeks were; more probably it indicates the all-around primitiveness of the culture there. I think.

NICE POST: From the USS Clueless on the racial transmogrification of New York firefighters from white guys into ethnically diverse guys in the statue version of that famous Iwo Jima-like flag-raising photo taken at the Trade Center site. Steven doesn't like it, but he posts a dissenting opinion too.

EQUITY WATCH: Here's something on the swing toward research exploring the biological differences between men and women.

BLOG TOOL: Here's the Google New Headlines page. It calls up different versions of the same story from different sources. Found via Boing Boing.

HUH? FILES: New Goldberg File: "Among the better and better-known blogger sites in our cozy little world are AndrewSullivan.com and KausFiles.com. The most promising up-and-comer is Glenn Reynolds's Instapundit." In what sense is Instapundit an up-and-comer?

NEW REPUBLIC PICKS UP ENRON: Yes they do. They have a similar take as The Economist's:

....Democrats want to use Enron as a vehicle for a broader indictment of the White House. They hope to link people's perceptions of the company--a secretive, arrogant, anti-worker institution that hid its cooked budget numbers with good p.r.--to their perceptions of the Bush administration. And in that way, Democrats hope to cast the White House as beholden to corporate fat cats once again--a perception they think was catching on before September 11.

This Enron thing seems to be more about perception than anything else. They also revive older stories about Enron's Kenneth Lay trying to influence White House energy policy.

Also on tnr.com: The new TRB, with Peter Beinart on South Africa's cretinous AIDS policy.

ECONOMIST PICKS UP ENRON: Their point is regardless of whether or not there's been any wrongdoing, appearances alone may hurt the Bush administration:

Whether the Bush administration can ride out the controversy will depend to some degree, of course, on whether there was any wrongdoing on the part of Mr Bush or other officials. But even in the absence of proven wrongdoing, the affair could still turn out to be uncomfortable, and prolonged. It contains elements of a classic political scandal. A huge company based in Mr Bush’s home state of Texas and led by his biggest campaign contributor files the biggest bankruptcy in American history. A small group of top executives sell shares before it collapses. At the same time thousands of employees are barred from selling, and lose not only their jobs but their life savings and pensions as well. Meanwhile there are revelations of frequent contacts between the company and top administration officials.


The problem for Mr Bush is that even if all these contacts turn out to be completely proper, the Enron case still embodies many of the doubts that Americans have about him: that he is too close to Big Business (and the energy industry in particular); and that his concerns are not the concerns of normal Americans. This is the president whom last summer Democrats were skewering for his desire to open up Alaska's oil fields supposedly “for his friends in Houston” and for allegedly letting industrialists put arsenic into drinking water.

DOG-EATING UPDATE: They're really pushing dog cuisine in Korea:

Next Monday's seminar in Koyang city on canine cuisine would feature ``Doctor Dogmeat,'' Chungchong University professor Ahn Yong-keun, who boasts 350 canine recipes, Yonhap news agency said.

Ahn would present a development strategy for the Korean dogmeat industry, suggesting Web sites on opening dogmeat restaurant franchises and developing new recipes, it said.

Also on the weird food front, Ten Turner is opening bisonburger franchises. Of course the first one's in Columbus. I expect the new Doctor Dogmeat's to open next door.

SLATE DIARY THIS WEEK: It's the travails of an immigration lawyer and it's real good. This comment stands out, I have no idea why:

Later in the day, I learn what makes America great: lefties. At the end of my meeting with client H., I write the date of his next appointment in my day planner. H.'s eyes light up: "You're writing with your left hand!" I acknowledge that I am, in fact, left-handed. In H.'s native Congo, apparently children are still strictly forbidden to write with their left hands. "There are so many left-handed people in America!" H. marvels. "Never in my life had I seen so many left-handed people until I came to America!"

I had no idea they were still forcing people to write with the non-sinister hand.

UPDATE: Yes, this is the third time I've said I had no idea in this post. Lousy stupid push-button posting for the people.....

ENRON: Ginger Stampley has what you need to know here and here. Crap, Oliver Willis has a whole page devoted to Enron.

PHILIPPINES UPDATE: We're sending troops there to train their anti-Abu Sayyaf troops. The article explains that Manila does not want foreign troops actually fighting on Philippine territory. There you go.

WHY I LIKE THE INTERNET: I can get pointers on where to get started in following Christian music. Or I could get hipped to obscure Fritz Lang movies. Or I can go on Amazon and read reviews that lead to more reviews of books I should be reading. (Amazon is like a miniature Internet, actually.) Maybe it is all run on love.