Samizdata

Instapundit has a link to ScrappleFace, which looks like it’s worth a regular visit, and a rootle around in its archives. The target, all the time, is the portentously urgent and cliché-riden prose of the mainstream US media.

I couldn’t find any mention at ScrappleFace of Samizdata, but this could be because Scott Ott of ScrappleFace, judging by an early posting about Darwinism, is opposed to such things as Darwinism, as, on the whole, aren’t we. And then again, maybe I didn’t find any mention of Samizdata because I just didn’t find it.

I’m also enjoying the Orrin Judd versus Jonah Goldberg stuff, also flagged up by Instapundit.

Judd’s case is that although blogs won’t replace the mainstream media, and although bloggers won’t make any money, they do still profoundly influence the mainstream. One of the “under the radar” notions that Orin Judd noted as starting in the blogs and only later getting to the regular media is popular hostility to Saudi Arabia. Changing my subject somewhat, to content, it occurs to me that what President Bush may have in mind is that if all goes well in Gulf War 2, the USA will then have itself a new and staunch ally (Iraq) in the Middle East. And from this new Iraq, it can then turn around and start to discuss matters in Saudi Arabia, from a somewhat new perspective. Instead of depending on Saudi Arabia to influence Iraq, Bush will have Iraq to influence Saudi Arabia with. Which just might explain the difference in attitude of the Saudis towards Gulf War 1 and Gulf War 2.

I doubt that this kind of speculation has been much featured on the regular media, if only because the US government wouldn’t want it on the regular media – not just yet. But I bet I’m not the first bloggist to have said such a thing, and I further bet that the comments on this will quickly prove me right. (Prove me right someone – quickly please.)