Russia’s shutting down AllofMP3.com.

My reaction? Whatever. I never used the site, because it just didn’t feel right to me. But I will say this… can we please end the different iTunes for different countries? It annoys me to no end that people in England can buy songs that we can’t get in America. I happen to enjoy some rather obscure English bands, and as of now the only way I can get them is to pay $30+ dollars to get an import cd when the songs are on an iTunes server somewhere. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

So we’re in the process of buying even more crap for the kids to play with, all because it’s Christmastime and that’s what we’re supposed to do.

Elaine and I are in Toys (backwards) R Us on Sunday night, and I notice that they’re selling Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing and his Snowspeeder. And really, for all intents and purposes, they’re the exact same X-Wing and Snowspeeder that I had as a kid.

Going back to the 1950’s, has there ever been a line of toys that have had the staying power that Star Wars toys have had? Yes, I know GI Joe is still around, but they’re not like the GI Joe’s we played with as kids. Actually, they’re more like the GI Joe’s our dads played with. And of course Barbie is still around and bigger than ever. Hot Wheels, Matchbox cars… okay, I’m negating my theory here.

Has a movie ever spawned such popularity that 30 years after it came out, kids are still buying the toys featuring the original characters? I mean, it’s not just Anakin here. You can buy Han Solo frozen in carbonite. You can buy Cinnamon bun-haired Leia. There’s something about this that I find amazing.

Star Wars toys: bridging the generation gap. I guess that makes up for Jar Jar Binks, George Lucas.

Jim: I think Cam is on to something. Those of us who grew up in the 1980s had a plethora of cool toys, particularly the big three, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and Transformers. I guess we had also-ran toys that didn’t make much of a cultural impact - GoBots, Battle Beasts, some thing where the good guys and badguys chuted along on ribbons strung out across the room. 

Still, it’s kind of hard to see Power Rangers or any of the other toy concepts on the market remaining popular decades from now. Really, it’s the old standbys - Star Wars, GI Joe, Transformers, Barbie, etc., that still dominate the toy shelves.

Indeed, the point about the lasting power of the original Star Wars movies illustrates that we haven’t had too many really distinctive cultural icons appear on the scene recently. Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman, Superman — as entertaining as some of these recent movies have been, all of these characters are decades old.

Am I off-base to suggest that in the Prequel trilogy, the only character that visually memorable was Darth Maul? We all want to be Jack Bauer, but we don’t play with his action figure or dress up as him for Halloween. (Because nobody plays Jack Bauer.) I liked Buffy and Angel and Firefly, but Joss Whedon’s hits were always sort of cult hits. (By comparison, just about everybody knows who Darth Vader is.) The Matrix series stumbled with Reloaded and self-destructed with Revolutions.

On a related note regarding toys, one of the toys that I miss playing with the most are Legos and Construx. I can’t quite understand why using these things to build something is considered something just for children. Somehow its considered perfectly rational and mature to draw a blueprint to illustrate an idea, but if I put a bunch of plastic pieces together to tangibly show a concept or a plan, it’s kiddie stuff.

Friends know that I’m not really a techie. I’m often the last to latch onto the hot new technology. But thanks to my generous employer, I’m trying out a piece of equipment for the weekend.

It’s a Verizon / Novatel EXPD CDMA card.

Now, like I said, I’m not a techie, but here’s what I know: I’m sitting in my car right now, with no access to a traditional wireless network — there’s not a Starbucks for at least a half a mile. But thanks to one of Verizon’s ubiquitious cell phone towers and this little doo-hicky that slips into the side of this exquisite MacBook, I’m pleasantly blogging away.

The service has been great — no dropped connections that I didn’t cause — and the speed has been astonishing — nearly broadband.

All this is to say that we’re getting much close to a world where wires need not contain us at all. And that’s pretty darn cool.

UPDATE: Looks like this is the offering that I’m benefitting from. And here’s the doo-hicky itself.

Jim: Okay, I think Marshall is making this up. I just don’t believe him. You will never persuade me that there is a location in the 48 continental states more than half a mile from any Starbucks. I live within walking distance of a Starbucks in Turkey. Last week they opened up a Starbucks… in a Starbucks.

Beyond that, doohickeys like this present a dilemma - particularly for those of us who will need to persuade our employers that we absolutely, positively need one to work effectively, and thus THEY should cover the monthly expense. The thing is… I like working at a Starbucks, or most other cafes with wireless access.

I’ll shift this thread to make an observation: For those readers in cubicle-land who yearn to work from home, I offer words of warning - after a while, you begin to miss co-workers. Even meetings, or the colleague who reminds you of the guy who kept mumbling about his stapler in Office Space. I’ve worked from home since… May 2004 or so. Besides a propensity to work in your pajamas, and an absolute deterioration in one’s table manners and social skills, it’s a bad formula for domestic tranquility. If I’m working at home, I can go through the entire day dealing entirely with the rest of the world by phone, e-mail, Instant Messenger, etc.; making my beleaguered wife, upon her return home, the first live human being I interact with during the day. For her, I’ll be perhaps the fortieth or fiftieth. I’ve got hours upon hours of pent-up conversation; she’s just exhausted.

So there’s something to be said for Starbucks, for the noise of the frothing machines and the orders being yelled back and forth, for the constant buzz of human activity. They make a nice “branch office” for the work-from-home crowd.

My other worry about these devices is that as they become ubiquitous, the market for wireless services at places like Starbucks may dry up; and that once places stop offering that service, people will have to get the devices. Kind of like pay phones. It’s easy to say you don’t need them, until your cell phone goes dead and you need to make a call.

Cam: I’ll agree with Jim that working from home has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, I don’t have an office space, per se. I have a little space at the kitchen table, with a very uncomfortable chair. I’d love to be able to do my work at Starbucks but a) I have a feeling it would get very expensive for me and b) Elaine would beat my ass for leaving her to watch the kids all day.

As for the little wireless doo-hickey… for me, at least, it’s not needed. I have one of those uber-smart phones (the Treo 700), and do you know the most used application for me?

Solitaire. Well, that and Bejeweled. I don’t use it to check my email. I don’t use it to blog that much. I take pictures with the camera, but for the most part I just use it as a phone. Frankly, I don’t want to be so connected that I can be reached at any given moment. I want to have the ability to get away every now and then.

It’s a family Thanksgiving tradition that after dinner, we go and catch a movie. So last night, it was Happy Feet. I was pretty excited about Happy Feet because it has the two things any movie needs to be great — penguins and Robin Williams. Unfortunately, Happy Feet didn’t really live up to my expectations. The script didn’t take full advantage of Williams talent for spontaneous humor, and the story was pretty weak. Nevertheless, the animation and music were amazing, so I didn’t regret the ticket.

The problem with the story was that it was a little jumpy and not terribly coherent. However, to the extent that the script sought to accomplish anything, it seemed to be trying to raise the subject of commericialized fishing for discussion. To wit: the evil villians in the film are the unseen “aliens” who are taking all of the penguins’ fish, and condemning them to starvation. The “aliens” are, of course, people. And when main character Mumble ends up in an aquarium near the end of the movie, he finally gets to meet them firsthand. I won’t spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that the effort to question human fishing practices comes off more than a little ham-handed.

I’m sure that the writers and producers wanted to present a film that would be entertaining and yet have kids asking their parents, “Why are we eating all of Mumble’s fish?” in parking lots after the show. I’m sure they also hoped to spawn a national conversation about sustainable fishing — assuming that their film might spur op/ed writers and editorialists to their keyboards.

And yet, it hasn’t happened. I haven’t seen a single column on sustainable fishing since the film’s release. For example, the Washington Post Style section, which would normally be falling over itself to write a news-like piece to dovetail with a big film that raises important environmental questions, has written nothing but a standard review.

The lack of coverage is a shame. Because Happy Feet does raise important questions about fishing, the health of the oceans, and our responsibilities towards them. I won’t regale you here with the 5,000 word tome that I’ve been written about humanity’s treatment of its environment, but suffice it to say that humans are overtaxing the oceans, and in a way that it is not to our benefit in the short, medium, or long terms. Mumble and his penguin friends aren’t the only ones who should worry. (Here’s a hint: if you like bluefin tuna, stop eating it. Otherwise, it will be gone in a few years.)

Perhaps kids will be asking their parents about Mumble’s fish problem in parking lots after shows. I hope so. And I hope parents can find good resources online for answering their kids’ questions. Because once again, the media has dropped the ball.

Here are a couple of resources that I found:

• Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch. This is a great resource. Tells you what to eat and what not to eat. You can even print or order handy wallet cards.
• Smithsonian Institute’s Seafood Page. A great site designed to accompany a great cookbook called One fish. Two fish. Crawfish. Bluefish. which provides recipes for sustainable seafood cooking.
• Last, a hat tip to the traditional media. A Christian Science Monitor story from April about sustainable seafood.

Jim: I see regular commenter Sharon has a bone to pick.

Look, we on the right can easily make the mistake that because somebody like Al Gore talks about the environment and has cast himself as the earth’s Cassandra and Messiah all rolled into one, that every bit of environmental concern is apocalyptic nonsense, a green cloak to hide a power-hungry statist agenda. And large chunks of green rhetoric are indeed just that.

But we shouldn’t assume that there’s no reason to be concerned about pollution and ecosystems, either. I’m sure that everybody, no matter where they are, has some environmental-related issue that worries them - chemical runoff into the Chesapeake Bay, responsible forestry, strip-mining, overdevelopment and sprawl, insufficient shade in urban areas…

As I understand it - and I have yet to look at Marshall’s links - overfishing is a serious problem, but a lesser known point is the fact that U.S. fishermen are among some of the most responsible in the world; where you really get fishermen cleaning out the sea is off the coasts of Russia, continental Asia, Japan, and all of those northern European countries with herring that are always being held up as semi-Socialist paradises at think tank conferences.

What I would love would be for the international environmental movement to stop berating Americans for refusing to sign the Kyoto treaty, and acknowledge that most of the biggest threats to the world’s environmental health come from countries and cultures very different from the U.S.. The Soviet Union did more to wreck their environment than any other nation; the successor states are not much better. The most polluted city I’ve ever been in is Cairo. The biggest piles of trash, sometimes burning, I’ve ever seen was in the empty lots of Amman, Jordan. I’m sure we’ve heard of the thick black smog that envelops most Chinese cities, limiting vision to less than a block sometimes. This is to say nothing of the enormous trade in endangered species’ body parts in Chinese markets. Turkey’s making an effort to reduce coal-burning in winter, but I haven’t seen the mountains in the distance past central Ankara since I returned.

The grim fact that no greenie committed to multicultralism wants to admit is that some cultures respect the environment far more than others, and that America’s record in this area is actually pretty good. The biggest threats to the world’s environment come from cultures that don’t have the same respect for nature, where an ethos of responsible stewardship has never taken root. And the most devastating acts of environmental pollution and abuse have come from authoritarian, communist, and socialist nations - who are always putting the glory of their Dear Leader or Triumphant People’s Revolution above the interests of plants, animals, waterways, etc.

THAT would make a great environmental message for a kids’ movie. But I doubt will be seeing it at the multiplex anytime soon.

Marshall: Jim is right, as always. First, Sharon’s comment is an excellent one, and worth reading. Second, Americans most certainly do not et enough credit from the environmental left for the good things that they do.

As an example, when it comes to fishing — and especially the continued fishing of species on the brink — the supposedly sophisticated Japanese are by far the worst offenders. The fact that bluefin tuna are now on the precipice is due mostly to the insatiable Japanese appetite for toro.

Interestingly, to the extent that Happy Feet tries to make a case that something needs to be done, it’s through images of multi-national cooperation and negotiation. Now, anyone who knows my records knows that I’m no particular fan of world organizations. But much can be done through negotiation among states. And the U.S. is in a strong position to force other nations to make progress on environmental issues through trade agreements and the like. To be sure, our nation has items on its priority list that rank ahead of protecting oceanic fisheries. (Like fighting terrorism.) But that doesn’t mean that protecting fisheries shouldn’t be on the list at all. Quite the opposite. We can, in fact, focus on morethan one thing at a time.

Bottom line: the scientific evidence is undeniable. We can do something, or within a generation or two, many of the fish that we most enjoy eating will simply disappear.

On Friday, Republicans in the House and Senate elected their leaders for the coming Congressional session. Unfortunately, the members of the House conference left the current leadership structure largely in place. To be sure, Speaker Hastert will leave leadership, but that was by his own choice. Congressmen Boehner and Blunt were reelected as leader and whip, respectively. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether the qualities that it takes to be a successful leader in the majority are the same as those needed to lead a party in the minority.

Of course, that assumes that the leaders were successful leading the majority. In the case of Mr. Boehner, it’s hard to tell. He wasn’t on the job long enough for us to make any fair judgements, so I’m happy to give him a chance to demonstrate that he’s the right man for the job. Mr. Blunt, on the other hand, had a chance to establish himself as an effective whip and never did. Indeed, he has never been able to extract himself from the shadow of scandal-tainted former Majority Leader Tom Delay with whom Mr. Blunt was bound at the hip for much of his Congressional career. With apologies to my friends who have worked for Mr. Blunt and know him to be a friendly and caring man, it seems apparent to me that the House conference would have done better to select a new whip — someone ready to be an effective leader in the minority.

Beyond that, I don’t really have any great insight on the rest of the House leadership. I hope they’ll be effective. Most importantly, I hope they’ll be able to settle on an agenda that brings the conference together around shared principles: smaller government, better control over spending, common sense reform of entitlement programs.

In the Senate, I am thrilled that Senator McConnell will be the party’s leader. He’s an outstanding tactician, has a firm grasp of Senate rules, debates well, and is willing to stand on principle even when that stand is unpopular. He’s also tough as nails. I think he’ll do a great job.

But as my sarcastic, quicky post on Thursday suggested, the Senate conference’s decision to putt Senator Lott back in leadership is almost comically stupid. To be sure, Mr. Lott demonstrated a thorough knowledge of Senate rules during his prior service as whip and leader, but he also demonstrated no ability to stand up to the Democrats or hold his conference together in tough votes. Then there was the whole thing where he got drummed out of office for idiotic comments at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party.

Leadership matters an awful lot in Congress. Leaders are the public face of the party. They also have important day-to-day responsibilities for moving — or holding up — legislation and making sure the party is effective.

From that standpoint, it’s hard to believe we couldn’t have done better. And the next two years are important. If we can’t recover the majorities in 2008, history suggests that, at least in the House, it could be along time before we do.

Jim: I’m not optimistic. I think one of the most depressing things I read during the whole leadership battle were the lame comments various GOP leaders made in response to Dean Barnett’s no-brainer question, “What books on the war on terror have you read lately?” Basically, none of them could name one. I’m not saying I expected these members to have read all of the latest bestsellers, but I would have liked for at least one of the candidates to have said, “I really liked Robert Kaplan’s latest.” Or Mark Steyn. Or “The Looming Tower.” Or Peter Bergen, or one of the Miniter brothers, or Bruce Hoffman, or Melanie Phillips. Even if they could have named one, and said, “I’ve been meaning to read it,” I would feel better about the answer.

(By the way, I didn’t expect any of them to have read my book; my book is about the political effect of terrorism, not terrorism itself.)

In the last book I finished, “The Way to Win” by Mark Halperin, they suggest that Washington reporters — the “Gang of 500″ that ABC News’ The Note refers to — don’t read books, or don’t read many of them. If that’s accurate, and the three potential GOP leaders are representative of Congress as a whole, we’ve got an entire political governing and media class that gets all of their information from television, newspapers, and magazines. (If that.) Thoroughly depressing, since that I think a good book can expand one’s knowledge and understanding of difficult topics exponentially.

On Thursday, the Democrats elected Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer as their Majority Leader, rejecting the endorsement of their incoming Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

On the day she announced that she was endorsing Congressman John Murtha over Hoyer, I told two of my Democratic friends that it was a tremendous blunder. Pelosi could have accomplished the same thing — at least as far as her caucus was concerned — with a few phone calls. But by making her endorsement public, she made the race about her. And now that her favored candidate was squarely defeated, she appears weak — both internally an externally.

Pelosi faces serious challenges in keeping her caucus together. Many its newest members are moderates — likely to be sympathetic to the Republican position on a wide range of issues. By undermining her own authority right from the outset, Pelosi has made it much more difficult to manage these new members. And now she has an avowed enemy as her number 2.

That’s fine with me. Between the somewhat-shrunken Republican conference and a handful of blue dogs, there might be a working majority for some conservative legislation. Certainly, the combination is enough to stop any particularly egregious legislationf from coming out of the House.

In any case, Pelosi’s endorsement was unnecessary, ineffective and will ultimately undermine her ability to leader her caucus.

Next verse same as the first…

I have a column at Townhall and Human Events today suggesting that rather than merely acknowledging our veterans today, we need to be more active. We need to stand up, find a veteran, and thank them for their service — person to person.

On Veterans Day 2004, I wrote that “In a perfect world, Veterans Day would be one of our most important holidays, and we would use it to build and expand a profound understanding of what our heroes have done for us and our nation while expressing our infinite gratitude for their sacrifice.”

I’m not holding out hope that we’re going to get there anytime soon, but translating our appreciation into action that reflects our gratitude and our respect would be a good first step.

UPDATE: Jeff Harrell has an excellent post on Veterans Day here.

My friends at the Center for Individual Freedom made their first ever endorsement today. They’re backing Mike Pence for Minority Leader.

This is an interesting move, and one that CFIF did not take lightly. It also speaks to the sentiment among grassroots conservatives that it’s time for new leadership in the House. I suspect we’ll see other organizations following shortly.

I’m huge fan of the space program, and a big fan of NASA. But, I mean, come on guys.

It seems that NASA doesn’t want the shuttle up for New Years because it’s not sure how the computers will react to the change of years.

In all seriousness, that’s a strong testament to just how obsolete the shuttle’s systems really are and the critical need for a new fleet of orbiters.

So, my message to the next Congress: get busy. It’s time to get the shuttle replacement back on the drawing board.