What terrorism?

Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable -- but rarely heard -- explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.

It is worth remembering that the total number of people killed since 9/11 by al Qaeda or al Qaeda­like operatives outside of Afghanistan and Iraq is not much higher than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States in a single year.

Although it remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of the omnipotent terrorist may have been overblown, the threat presented within the United States by al Qaeda greatly exaggerated. The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists.

Get over it.

Is There Still a Terrorist Threat? | Foreign Affairs

Undergirding Mr. Tolkin’s trenchant take on the small world known as the West Side of Los Angeles — undermining that world, really — is his devastatingly pessimistic vision of the future of the movie business, not to mention of planet Earth.

If you haven't read "The Player" or seen the movie, check them out.

Michael Tolkin Publishes a Sequel to “The Player”

Good news for Afghanistan?

It's been a bad year for Afghanistan. Insurgents are gaining ground and killing more coalition soldiers, Afghan officials and civilians than at any time since the fall of the Taliban government. Reconstruction is faltering. A disenchanted population appears to be pulling back the welcome mat for foreign forces.

But a recent turn of events could have a significant positive impact on Afghanistan’s future.

Judges can put people in jail; it's not clear how they can create legitimate business opportunities for most Afghans.

Order in the Courts

Sloppy or not, Dylan is astonishingly prolific; he has written more than five hundred songs. Most of them are lovely (or angry or joyous or wickedly sly or all of those things together). Many of them are unforgettable. (A new album, Dylan’s forty-fourth, called “Modern Times,” is being released this month. The songs are simple riffs, with laid-back arrangements, and all feature prominently Dylan’s gorgeous late-period croak. It sounds a little the way “Buena Vista Social Club” might have sounded if Cuba had been the birthplace of the blues.) The only comparable pop songbook from the era is Lennon-McCartney—and there were two of them. Dylan is also, despite the silly things people said about his voice when he started out, one of pop music’s greatest vocalists. His chief weakness is a tendency to shout, particularly in performance (and he is, let us say, an inconsistent performer); but, when he is in control of the instrument, no one’s voice, with that kind of music, is more textured or more beautiful.

BOB ON BOB, by Louis Menand | The New Yorker

If the "global war on terror" is unwinnable as currenty conceived, what is to be done? For the United States, here's a five-point alternative strategy.

This alternative strategy will also entail costly exertions over a long period of time. Unlike the current "war on terror," however, it promises to be affordable and sustainable, while holding out the prospect of delivering success in the long run.

NO WIN - The Boston Globe

New Assignment.Net is a non-profit site that tries to spark innovation in journalism by showing that open collaboration over the Internet among reporters, editors and large groups of users can produce high-quality work that serves the public interest, holds up under scrutiny, and builds trust.

A second aim is to figure out how to fund this work through a combination of online donations, micro-payments, traditional fundraising, syndication rights, sponsorships, advertising and any other method that does not compromise the site’s independence or reputation.

At New Assignment, pros and amateurs cooperate to produce work that neither could manage alone. The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion. It pays professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards; they work closely with users who have something to contribute. The betting is that (some) people will donate to stories they can see are going to be great because the open methods allow for that glimpse ahead.

This site is getting a fair amount of play recently.

NewAssignment.Net

Nobody should relish the demise of once-great titles. But the decline of newspapers will not be as harmful to society as some fear. Democracy, remember, has already survived the huge television-led decline in circulation since the 1950s. It has survived as readers have shunned papers and papers have shunned what was in stuffier times thought of as serious news. And it will surely survive the decline to come.

Who killed the newspaper? | Economist

The turmoil over the Danish cartoons was costly in human lives, damaged property and heightened ill will. In the West, the unspoken conclusion of many was that Muslims are overly sensitive, do not understand freedom of the press — and don’t have a very developed sense of humor. This article examines — and quickly dispels — the latter belief. Quite to the contrary, a lengthy history of autocracy has bred a rich tradition of subversive political jokes. And while religion itself might be taboo, its earthly representatives were not, as a multitude of jokes about village mullahs attests. From irreverent bloggers such as the Saudi “Religious Policeman” to stand-up comediennes like Shazia Mirza, whose routine includes a sequence centering around the hajj, to women’s rights activists such as the group “Sisters in Islam” whose magazine uses cartoons to critique “pompous Islamists,” humor is wielded with effective expertise by Muslim reformers and enjoyed from the Muslim club to the Muslim street.

Humor in the Muslim World - the Cartoon Controversy and the Rest of the Story | RAND

The New York Times, in newsprint form, with its daily 1.1 million circulation, and Sunday 1.7 million, makes between $1.5 and $1.7 billion a year (the company does not break out the exact figure). Times.com, with its 40 million unique online users a month, likely makes less than $200 million a year. Cruelly, an online user is worth much less -- because his or her value can be so easily measured -- than a traditional reader.

To replace its $1.5 to $1.7 billion traditional business with its online business ... it could look to MySpace: while the Times's 40 million monthly users generated, in May, 489 million page views -- this is the number that interests advertisers -- MySpace's 50 million monthly users, deeply entertained by its user-created content, generated 29 billion page views.

That's a whopping 580 monthly page views per user for MySpace, versus a measly twelve for NYT. Judging by the statistics for 2005, MemeStreams is more in the range of NYT than of MySpace.

Why isn't MemeStreams stickier? What will it take to get every registered user to visit the site daily and generate 20 page views? There ought to be a plan!

Panic on 43rd Street | Vanity Fair

In my remarks today I will briefly review some past episodes of global economic integration, identify some common themes, and then put forward some ways in which I see the current episode as similar to and different from the past. In doing so, I hope to provide some background and context for the important discussions that we will be having over the next few days.

NYT coverage here.

"Even if these favorable trends continue, there are massive budget problems that most of the developed world is going to face as its populations age," Mr. Rogoff cautioned.

Check out Gladwell's latest for more on that.

Global Economic Integration: What's New and What's Not? | FRB: Bernanke