October 13, 2005

Today's Reading List

Tech: I want one of these. Related: Here's a good Business Week analysis of why Apple killed off the iPod mini at the peak of its popularity.

The War: Donald Sensing has a good post with links to key stuff today, including a Max Boot article about our chances for success in Iraq. He also has a good analysis of why Iraq isn't Vietnam, and al Qaeda is wrong to pin its hopes on a Vietnam-style ending.

Politics: Anklebitingpundits.com is reporting that GOP Majority Leader Roy Blunt is considering holding a vote on Social Security Personal Retirement Accounts on the House Floor - but not to try to actually pass the much-needed reform. Instead, ABP reports, Blunt is doing it only to allow some vulnerable GOP congressmen to vote "No" which will allow them to put some room between them and President Bush. Bob Krumm has four good posts today, including some thoughts about a sanctimonious state senator, an unethical state senator, and whether a certain legislative caucus that hasn't been following the law regarding its finances gets taxpayer funding. (Yes it does.). His fourth post wonders why would anyone run for public office. And Jay Bush has a long email from former Senate candidate Ed Bryant about President Bush's Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

Religion: Tod Bolsinger writes about being from another world.

The Media: Google News has a list of articles about ConvergeSouth, the big blogapalooza in Greensboro, N.C. Also, Sarah Moore engages in some humorous media criticism. And Terry Heaton looks at the new deal between Apple and ABC to sell TV shows to people to watch on their new video iPods and says, "what's really happening is that in today's distributed media world, middlemen are increasingly unnecessary. It is inevitable that program producers will distribute directly to consumers, and that's true of all forms of media." ... It is also inevitable that, increasingly, those people called "consumers" will also become producers of video programming, which they'll distribute directly to other people via services like iTunes.