The Only Republican in San Francisco

The difference between Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan

So, not surprisingly, Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit is one of my regular stops in the blogosphere, often several times a day. Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish gets a lot of attention and traffic as well, but I only check him out every week or two, and only if he gets a mention elsewhere.

Now, I've got a long list RSS feeds (four pages worth on live.com), not all of which are voices I agree with. Why haven't I felt the need to regularly read Sullivan? And why do I keep coming back to Glenn?

I think the simplest explanation is which one rewards me the most. On Instapundit, there is a better than average chance that I will learn something — either factual or a point of view — that I wouldn't have found otherwise. I am not the first to say this of course, and my limited efforts at blogging have shown me that providing that consistency of experience is no small task.

On Andrew Sullivan's blog, I will primarily find the author repeating his own opinions and baiting those who don't agree. His opinions are legitimate and sincere. They are intended to make conservatives think hard about their ideology, and it hard to ignore some of his arguments. Yet I gain very little from them week over week.

The best term for this difference is a generosity of spirit. To use a musical analogy, there are artists who clearly wish to give to their audience (think Tina Turner) and those who wish to explore the self (think Indigo Girls). There is a place for both, but as I get older I have much less patience for the latter.

I come away from Instapundit feeling informed. I come away from Sullivan feeling brow-beaten and just a little dirty.

I will continue to read him periodically, if not always with comfort. But I expect to come away having learned not about issues, but about Sullivan.

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Look, I appreciate the challenges that Andrew poses. If his only service is to help us avoid a right-blogosphere echo chamber, then more power to him.

Stylistically, I do wonder about Sullivan's choices. I don't doubt that he is a sincere conservative on important issues — among other things, he has the clarity of mind to oppose hate crime laws — but he is taking on the stereotypical habits of "the left" more and more.

We are treated to daily clips of movies and TV shows — fictions — that are intended to bolster his views in a way that is strictly emotional. We are given pictures like this one and then told that it belonged to Pol Pot or some such. We (you) wouldn't want to be like him, right?

This sort of moral equivalency is a tired variation of Godwin's Law and is beneath someone of Sullivan's stature. He could just as easily point out that the Nazis had guns and tanks. So do we! Hitler wore pants, as Dick Cheney often does. Charles Manson listened to the Beatles. And so on.

Everyone has their own style of persuasion, and emotive imagery does have an effect. But for someone like me, it comes off as an unwillingness to articulate a point.

Moonbat Digital?

Looks like Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) is starting a new game studio called Wingnut Interactive. I am not sure he understands the partisan connotation of the term here in the blogosphere.

What's next, Moonbat Digital?

Smart new gadfly

I got a note from a new blogger, "Grade One Gadfly", here's his blog: http://gradeonegadfly.blogspot.com/

Very tightly written, smart, focused on finance, econ and politics.

CNN knows its audience

Notice the subtle difference in headlining the same story. In the CNN domestic edition, Ahmadinejad thinks the UN is the problem:

But in CNN's International edition, somehow it becomes the United States that is the problem:

I imagine this is more in line with that audience's expectations? Both headlines link to the same story (here). For CNN, it's all about having your red states and eating them too.

A multiplying effect: making the personal political

Glenn has a fun set of links today on feminism and whether it still exists in a form that most of us would recognize. (The kerfuffle started here on Ann Althouse's blog).

I recall talking to a girlfriend about this some time back, and she told me that part of her beliefs were based on the rallying cry of "making the personal political". The problems with this were immediately evident to me, even if I didn't have the cojones to say so at the time.

"The personal" is about the choices one makes, of course, and "the political" is about dictating the choices of others. When we make the personal political, therefore, we take a problem for one and turn it into a problem for many.

Of course, each of those "many" has their own problems, and if they follow our catch phrase above, they spread their problems around as well. Pretty quickly, everyone's personal grievances are assigned to every other person, and we have a exponential increase in the number of problems -- none of which brings any individual closer to solutions.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that modern feminism struggles: it creates more problems than it solves. I'm reminded of the instructions on the plane about putting our own oxygen masks on before helping others...

EU tries to design security software

As a follow-on to my previous article on the EU's interference with Microsoft, today we learn that the European Commission would like to be in the business of a designing security software. They are on shaky legal footing here, and their technological footing is non-existent.

Here is an example of ad-hoc lawmaking:

Responding to expressions of concern by the company over the Commission's stance, EU competition spokesman Jonathan Todd told a briefing it was up to Microsoft, as "a near monopolist," to ensure compliance with EU antitrust rules in the new system.

I don't know a whole lot about European antitrust, but I can't imagine that "near-monopolist" is defined or even mentioned in the text of those laws. Mr. Todd is not basing his opinions on law, but of the opaque judgments of an unelected commission. He is asking Microsoft not to comply with written law, but rather to predict the judgments of that commission in the future.

Further, he postulates on what the market "should" look like:

Open competition and diversity were the best way of improving software security, he said.

"Such diversity and innovation could be at risk if Microsoft was allowed to foreclose the existing competition in computer security markets...by bundling its own security products into its dominant operating system," Todd said.

I agree that open competition, diversity and innovation are the cornerstones of the software business. But Mr. Todd's commission is proposing that Microsoft be prevented from bringing a new product to market.

That means less diversity, less competition and less innovation. The EC would like to force Microsoft to sell a less-functional and less-secure version of their software.

The last time they did this, consumers ignored it entirely. And why wouldn't they? The EC forced an inferior product on a public that never demanded it.

Mr. Todd's economic theories are speculative, vague, and unsupported by evidence. In the absence of such evidence, the EC must let the customers decide.

Consumers and technology firms are vastly smarter on this topic than a bureacracy can ever hope to be. In truth, the EC is not looking to protect competition, it is looking to protect competitors. Its intentions and methods are the exact opposite of what it claims to promote.

ABC movie factoid; "Not Without my Anus"

You might find this little factoid from Michael Medved interesting, regarding the controversial ABC series.

Bush was president during the period covered by the miniseries (February, 1993, through September 11, 2001) for only eight months; Clinton was president for eight years (less a single month). In other words, Clinton occupied the White House for 93% of the actual historical period under consideration, but his shortcomings occupy less than 70% of the miniseries running time.

I would have to predict that the series is probably more heat than light, high on drama and short on facts. In other words, it's a made-for-TV movie. I can't help but be reminded of the Terrance and Phillip tear-jerker, Not Without My Anus.

But the real, verifiable McCarthyism of the Dems is a sight to behold.

Remember folks, it's controversial.

European Commission annexes Microsoft

Two months ago, the European Commission issued a $357 million fine against Microsoft for allegedly not complying with its antitrust order. Prior to that, in 2004, the EU realized a handsome $613 million dollar windfall from the company. Somewhere in Brussels, some buggy whips must have needed gilding.

To help illustrate these numbers: that amount of money could pay 100 new bureaucrats a $100,000 salary for, um, 97 years.

Further, that amount does not include the 300 people that Microsoft has dedicated to complying with the EC, by writing voluminous documentation. Imagine if these folks were writing software or surveying customers or creating startups. There are good reasons that we don't want government agencies allocating resources, and this is a textbook case.

But that doesn't stop the EC from trying to justify it:

"Microsoft has told me they are now devoting substantial resources to compliance," Kroes said. "It is a great pity they didn't do this two years ago...If they had begun in earnest (then), the burden on Microsoft's staff would have been much lighter."

I am always glad to hear a powerful (and unelected) bureaucrat telling a private company how to organize its employees. Some might call it annexation.

All this despite the fact that Microsoft's are the most documented, reviewed, tested, deployed, hacked, probed and reverse-engineered products on the planet.

The commissioner felt it necessary to add:

"The launch of Vista [Microsoft's next major operating system] next year will hopefully take all this into account"

Put another way: that's some nice intellectual property you got there. Wouldn't want anything to, you know, happen to it.

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Today, we hear a rumor that Microsoft might delay the release of Vista in the European market. Why? For fear of crossing the authorities. And the authorities are dismayed!

The European Commission responded sharply, saying it was "misleading to imply that the Commission could be the cause of delays in launching Vista in Europe."

Actually, such hesitation on the part of Microsoft is perfectly rational. After paying nearly $1 billion in fines, based on an unelected commission's judgment of its products, this caution strikes me as the only reasonable approach.

Thankfully, there are still some folks in the EU who understand that it is consumers who will be hurt by all this:

European Parliament members brought the issue to a head Thursday with a letter to the commission expressing concern that the process could prompt a Vista delay in Europe. [...]

"It is alarming that one of the world's most successful technology companies considers the European Commission's attitude a 'risk factor' that might delay European companies' access to future Microsoft products such as Windows Vista," Chris Heaton-Harris, Peter Skinner, Sharon Bowles and Michal Kaminski wrote in the letter to Kroes.

And a substantial risk factor it is. The likely outcome is that European technology customers -- the ones whose opinions matter most -- will have to wait longer than the rest of the world when it comes to new innovations. And, big tech firms will think twice about investing in places where the EC has jurisdiction.

Microsoft needs to finish the product and get it out the door in those parts of the world where they will not be punished for doing so. Then, they need to circle back to decide if and when it is worth their while to release it in Europe.

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Addendum: In case you are wondering if I am some sort of MS shill, get over it. I use their products, I also use a Mac, plus a lot of Adobe stuff, Firefox, and of course their myriad online competitors such as Google. The crux of my position (not unlike my position on net neutrality) is that the value of technology can only grow via the interactions of creators and consumers.

Google asks no one's permission in refining its search algorithm; no one tells Adobe how to engineer Photoshop. Both are best-of-class products that have made the world a better place, and whose success rests entirely on their customers' opinions of them.

If you think that governments can successfully dictate the design of technologies and markets, I've got a Paykan to sell you.

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Update: John Carroll has a good take on this as well. He points out this important characteristic of antitrust law: an entity cannot know whether they are breaking the law beforehand.

Antitrust is NOT like laws against murder, or theft, or other "crimes" laws have been written to prevent. It's pretty easy to determine whether or not someone has been killed, or something stolen.

Antitrust isn't like that. Antitrust laws don't provide ANY guidance as to a standard by which to judge whether or not a company is a "monopoly," nor any rules - much less limits - governing what should be done once a company is declared a monopoly.

I suspect this will put Microsoft and the EC in increasingly awkward positions as Vista approaches. One of John's commenters calls such laws ex post facto and therefore unconstitutional, as well.

The EC is trying to play gotcha. They are saying that Microsoft has to comply with laws, but won't say exactly what the laws dictate or what compliance looks like. Maybe they are hoping for a post-Vista payday?