The Washington Post “hints as strongly as it can”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30043-2004Sep17.html that the blogosphere’s counterattack against the Killian memos began at the White House.

bq. In another development, the Los Angeles Times reported that an Atlanta lawyer with conservative Republican connections posted the first Web log entry questioning the authenticity of the CBS documents less than four hours after the initial broadcast on “60 Minutes.” The paper identified Harry W. MacDougald as the “Buckhead,” who became a hero of conservative Web sites after pointing out technical problems with the documents, such as fonts and proportionate spacing.

bq. MacDougald declined to say how he learned about the problems with the documents so early. In addition to being released by CBS, copies of the documents were e-mailed by the White House to reporters as “60 Minutes” went on the air.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever know quite what happened, but it seems highly plausible to me that the White House is communicating with bloggers to spin the news. We already know that the White House’s Internet Director thinks that blogs are “pretty important”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30043-2004Sep17.html. Equally, I’d be very surprised if people in the Democratic party aren’t communicating with some bloggers in order to try to get their spin across (if they aren’t, they’re bad at their job). As Kieran “said”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002517.html a couple of days ago, there is a mythology of the blogger that sees him (or more rarely, her) as a lone hero speaking truth to power (or the “New York Times” as the best local approximation). The reality is murkier. To the extent that blogs help set the agenda for the media, pols have an incentive to spin the blogs, just as they have good reason to spin reporters. Blogs aren’t critiquing the system from outside – they’re increasingly part of the system. Expect more of this over time, not less.

Mira Bar-Hillel has an “interesting piece in the Spectator”:http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?table=old&section=current&issue=2004-09-18&id=5036 about the way in which English Heritage has undermined its own role by backing a deal not to reconstruct the Baltic Exchange in the City. I did a little googling to find out what the old building looked like and I was surprised to discover that the whole thing is up for sale in a dismantled state! Not on ebay, but on a web page of “Complete Large Buildings for Sale”:http://www.salvoweb.com/complete-buildings/forsale.html (scroll down). I happen to think that the Baltic Exchange would serve nicely as a new Crooked Timber corporate headquarters, though getting my colleagues’ agreement on location might be difficult.

“Daniel”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002516.html has been worrying about sadistic angels with infinitary choices. But we can get puzzles in the ballpark of probability 0 problems without worrying about infinity. Just thinking about bets on things you (take yourself to) know gets the troubles started.

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A few months ago, when I was doing research interviews in Brussels, I thought about doing a post on EU official art. Nearly every corridor in every building of the Commission, Council and Parliament has two or three examples along its walls – spectacularly bland and uninteresting prints and photographs, always with the twelve stars on a blue flag in there somewhere. The art is contentless and affectless because any strong statement, or even conveyed sense of geographic location, would probably offend somebody in one or another of the member states. There’s something about the EU that seems completely inimical to lively cultural expression.

Not for much longer perhaps. Bruce Sterling, gonzo science fiction provocateur and joint father of cyberpunk, is “getting excited”:http://www.locusmag.com/2004/Features/09_ShirleySocialFuture.html by the unlikely subject of the EU’s “acquis communautaire”:http://kypros.org/CY-EU/eng/04_negotiation_procedure/acquis_communautaire.htm.

bq. What if there were two global systems of governance, and they weren’t based on control of the landscape? Suppose they interpenetrated and competed everywhere, sort of like Tory and Labour, or Coke and Pepsi. I’m kind of liking this European ‘Acquis’ model where there is scarcely any visible ‘governing’ going on, and everything is accomplished on the levels of invisible infrastructure, like highway regulations and currency reform.

This sounds like an unlikely subject for sf, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Sterling. At least two-thirds of his “Distraction”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553576399/henryfarrell-20 is one of the wildest and funniest sf novels about politics ever written (the final section peters out pretty badly). If anyone can make regulatory international bureaucracy sound exciting, it’s going to be Sterling. And he’s onto something – there’s something deeply weird about the EU. It isn’t (and will probably never be) a fully featured state, and instead is, as Sterling says, for the most part a vast body of transnational semi-visible regulation. It’s incredibly boring on the face of it (partly because most of the regulation concerns dull matters like phytosanitary standards), but there’s something quirky and strange about the fact that it exists at all, and that it operates in the way that it does. I’m going to be interested to see whether Sterling manages to get anywhere with this.

I had a surreal day on Wednesday. I drove to Milwaukee for an appointment at the newly re-organised USCIS to get my green card renewed for another 10 years. I forgot my BBC7 tapes of London Particulars, so instead spent the whole drive there listening to my favourite 1970’s boxed set.

The appointment was odd enough — it lasted 10 minutes, and not only was everyone charming to me, but they were charming to the other 3 immigrants (who weren’t white, and didn’t have mock-posh English accents) too. A general reticence about these matters precludes me from publicising the interesting things that happened there. Anyway, that wasn’t the really surreal bit.

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I’ve spent the past couple of days at the latest in a series of conferences under the name “Priority in Practice”:http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctyjow/September2004.htm , which Jo Wolff has organized at UCL. I don’t think I’d be diminishing the contribution of the other speakers by saying that “Michael Marmot”:http://www.ucl.ac.uk/epidemiology/staff/marmot.html was the real star of the show. He’s well known for the idea that status inequality is directly implicated in health outcomes, a thesis that he promotes in his most recent book “Status Syndrome”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747570493/junius-21 and which first came to the fore with his Whitehall Study which showed that more highly promoted civil servants live longer even when we control for matters like lifestyle, smoking etc. Even when people have enough, materially speaking, their position in a status hierarchy still impacts upon their longevity. One interesting other finding that he revealed was that being in control at home (as opposed to at work) was massively important in affecting women’s longevity, but didn’t really impact upon men. There’s “an excellent interview of Marmot by Harry Kreisler of Berkeley”:http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Marmot/marmot-con0.html in which he outlines his central claims.

The people behind this Web site are smart. Attract people with a fun quiz, show them what they don’t know and offer them toys to help improve their knowledge. You can take a little geography quiz on the site. I scored 9 out of 10, but was fairly lucky by having gotten this group of countries : Colombia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Samoa, United Kingdom, and Vietnam. I know I would have done worse depending on the region of the world most represented among my randomized list. Can you guess which one I missed?

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“Jim Lewis has a piece”:http://www.slate.com/id/2106598/ on _Slate_ about the photographer “Jacques Henri Lartigue”:http://www.lartigue.org/, who is famous for candid shots of “fashionable French people”:http://www.slate.com/id/2106614/ in the early 1900s. The stock story about Lartigue was that he “achieved late-life fame as one of the first masters of the medium, an unschooled amateur who achieved genius entirely by naive instinct.” But there’s plenty of evidence that, in fact, this is rubbish:

His father was a camera buff, and the son was given every possible advantage: the newest equipment, lots of leisure time, and a thorough education in the ways of the medium. Moreover, it was an era when amateur photography was all the rage, when magazines and books were full of instruction, debate, and example.

Still, Lartigue presented his work as the innocent expression of a wonderstruck boy amateur, and MoMA was happy to promote it as such.

I recently came across a nice discussion of this phenomenon in Alan Bennett’s superb Writing Home:

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Imagine that one day, a big bloke with wings taps you on the shoulder. It’s OK, he says, Brian sent me. To offer you this potential wager, on behalf of God, who has more or less given up on the human race except as a subject for philosophy conundrums.

In the envelope in my left hand, he says, I have a number, called X. At some point in the recent past, X was drawn by God from a uniform distribution over the real numbers from 0 to 1 inclusive. You can have a look at it if you like.

In my right hand, he says, I have a mobile telephone which will allow me to receive a message from God with another number, Y, which will also be drawn by God from a uniform distribution on the line 0 to 1 inclusive.

The wager is this; if you accept the wager, and X and Y are equal, then every human being currently alive on the planet earth will be horribly tortured for the next ninety million trillion years and then killed. If you accept the wager but X and Y are not equal, then a small, relatively undeserving child somewhere, will be given a lollipop.

So, do you take the wager or not?

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I think the Instapundit must still read Andrew Sullivan’s site. Does he just skip the parts about how our venture in Iraq is a total disaster? (Honesty compels me to mention that I was a supporter of this invasion, and so am either a) uniquely qualified to pronounce on its disastrousness or b) a certified idiot who should be mumbling apologies at all my anti-this-war-now brethren rather than parading my original bad judgment as a badge of honor. You decide.) I mean, the US military can’t guarantee security in the Green Zone?

At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone’s perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound’s defences.

The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad’s centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it.

I’m very sorry to say this, but we are f%$#ed. I don’t mean particularly to pick on the Instapundit, but he is both a big name and representative. Where is the pro-war blogosphere on this? Is it really all about the pseudo-kerning? Can Hugh Hewitt honestly not think of anything, anything at all the US Congress might better do with its time than hold hearings on “Rathergate”? This is becoming surreal. John comes home from work, not having had time to read the news yet, and asks me over dinner, “what happened in the world today?” Admittedly, I do say, “those memos were fake.” But mostly I say things like, “lots and lots of people got killed in Iraq today and things are looking very very bad.” From Christopher Allbritton:

I don’t know if I can really put into words just how bad it is here some days. Yesterday was horrible — just horrible. While most reports show Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra as “no-go” areas, practically the entire Western part of the country is controlled by insurgents, with pockets of U.S. power formed by the garrisons outside the towns. Insurgents move freely throughout the country and the violence continues to grow.

I wish I could point to a solution, but I don’t see one. People continue to email me, telling me to report the “truth” of all the good things that are going on in Iraq. I’m not seeing a one. A buddy of mine is stationed here and they’re fixing up a park on a major street. Gen. Chiarelli was very proud of this accomplishment, and he stressed this to me when I interviewed him for the TIME story. But Baghdadis couldn’t care less. They don’t want city beautification projects; they want electricity, clean water and, most of all, an end to the violence….
In the context of all this, reporting on a half-assed refurbished school or two seems a bit childish and naive, the equivalent of telling a happy story to comfort a scared child. Anyone who asks me to tell the “real” story of Iraq — implying all the bad things are just media hype — should refer to this post. I just told you the real story: What was once a hell wrought by Saddam is now one of America’s making.

Could we please have a national debate about this war?

UPDATE: In Hewitt’s defense, I wrote this last night. Now there is one sentence on his blog about Iraq. Of course, it points to this post explaining how all the casualties the US suffered this month were the right sort of casualties, the kind that indicate how little the situation in Iraq is descending into chaos.

SECOND UPDATE: Henry rightly pointed me to these posts by Orin Kerr, Volokh conspirator, who is bucking this trend.

THIRD UPDATE: if, like some commenters, you want to hear at length about how I was totally wrong on Iraq, and what I should have thought instead, then you can read about it here.

Having been distracted by wonkish obsessions like current account deficits, fiscal bankruptcy and the situation in Iraq, Indonesia and other unimportant countries[1], I haven’t been able to keep up with the US election campaign as closely as I would like. But, following a quick tour of the press and the blogosphere, I’ve come up with the following shorter[2] (© D^2)version for others who may be in a similar position.

The crucial issue is to determine which candidate has the better record on Vietnam, and will therefore make the better president. As I understand it:

* Kerry fought in Vietnam, but then came back and denounced the war
* Bush didn’t fight, but supported the war
* There are a lot of memos

That seems to be all I need to know[3]. Have I missed anything important?

fn1. Such as Australia, which is also holding an election.

fn2. Thanks to commenter Luis over at my blog for tech support on the copyright symbol. Now if I could just do a copyleft symbol! DD points out that it’s been released to the public domain, but I still like to acknowledge him.

fn3. Or would be, if I had a vote in the election that will actually determine Australian policy on most issues, rather than our local exercise in democracy.

Johnny Ramone died in his sleep last night. Ben Weasel, one of my favorite punk rockers, has a tribute to the late, great pioneer.

Johnny Ramone was never recognized as a revolutionary guitarist. Chuck Berry gave us rock and roll guitar playing. Hendrix showed us what the instrument was capable of in the hands of somebody with the ambition, vision and tenacity to bend it to his will. But what Johnny Ramone contributed to rock and roll guitar playing was just as important – maybe even more important – because he took the instrument away from the rock gods and handed it back to the rest of us. Johnny turned the guitar back into a brutal, primal, stunningly effective tool. He proved that you didn’t need to be a virtuoso to be a great guitarist. He reminded the world that rock and roll was supposed to be fun.

Here is another tidbit in the CBS memo saga, but with a different twist: a case of mistaken identity.

My name is Robert Strong, and I am indeed a college professor. I am not, however, the Robert Strong who spoke to CBS. I never met Killian, I never lived in Texas, and I never served in that state’s Air National Guard. But on the Internet none of this matters.

Ever since the 60 Minutes broadcast, I have been getting angry e-mails from Bush supporters who are sure that I am a key player in a vast left-wing conspiracy bent on diminishing the president’s not extraordinary record of military service.

How did I become the enemy du jour of all those spiteful Republicans? I guess it has something to do with Google. Last week, if you typed the words Professor Robert Strong in the popular search engine, a webpage that happens to be about me appeared at the top of the list. For those who have been filling my e-mail inbox with vicious vitriol, that was apparently evidence enough. CBS says that its Bush-bashing documents have been authenticated by Strong; Google tells everyone on the Internet that I am Professor Strong. That’s it. I am guilty as Googled.

At first, I found all of this a bit funny. Here I was in the midst of my 15 minutes of fame, and it was just a case of mistaken identity. But the more e-mails I read, the less amused I became. The meat they contain is more raw and distasteful than any spam I have ever encountered.

Read the full article for more. (Access to the article does require registration, I’m afraid.)

Since I don’t often agree with Paul Wolfowitz, it’s worth mentioning it when I do, particularly when he comments on an issue close to home. His opinion piece in todays NYT denounces the bringing of criminal defamation charges against the editor of leading Indonesian magazine Tempo for a piece criticising a powerful businessman[1].

Here’s a story in the Australian which makes it clear that the businessman in question is of the class who would be described, here in Australia, as colourful.

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