Author's Guild Sues Google

The issue is Google Print, according to the Washington Post:

A Google spokesman said the company regretted that The Authors Guild had chosen to sue rather than continue discussions.

"Google Print directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the program," Google said in a statement. "Only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more."

A year ago Google began working with five of the world's libraries -- at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library -- to make large parts of their book collections searchable on the Web.

The action by the 86-year-old Authors Guild is part of a push by the organization to roll back efforts by Web sites to make the contents of books freely available online.

In a related case, the group has been seeking for a decade to force online publishers from New York Times Co. to Amazon.com to pay royalties to writers whose stories appear in online databases without their consent.

In August Google said it planned to temporarily scale back plans to make the full text of copyrighted books available on its Internet site.

I've used Google Print, and liked it, yet the question is whether Google Print is actually harming authors or helping them. In the end, I imagine the Author's Guild and Google will come up with some ASCAP or BMI type of royalty scheme, based on click-through counts. All this can be worked out, I'm sure, using digital technology. It's only money...

Department of Homeland Stupidity

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for this link to Michelle Malkin's column on the latest cronyism caper to come out of the Bush administration.

Leon Aron on the Republican Party of Russia

Putin seemed pretty entrenched when I lived in Moscow last Winter, but what if Leon Aron is right?

ONE OF THE MOST POTENTIALLY significant events in Russian politics this year was the national conference of the Republican party of Russia (RPR). It witnessed what may prove to be the last credible attempt to create a democratic opposition with broad enough appeal to contest the Kremlin's control over the Duma (parliament) in 2007 and the presidency in 2008.

Largely forgotten before this year, the RPR is one of Russia's oldest liberal (in the Russian sense--right-of-center, pro-market, and reformist) parties. Founded in 1990, it failed repeatedly to gain a foothold in the Duma, and sank from view. This year, however, the party was back in the headlines, overhauling its rules, adopting a new platform, and installing new leaders.

It was clear on the morning of July 2, in the Rusotel Hotel on the outskirts of Moscow, that this renewal went beyond any mere reorganization. Rejuvenation, even exuberance, was in evidence in the auditorium where several hundred delegates from 58 of Russia's 89 provinces applauded and booed. The gathering overflowed with an energy and optimism I have not seen among Russian democrats since the revolution of the late 1980s.

Most reminiscent of those halcyon days, however, was the abandon with which the delegates criticized the government. Their indictment was remarkable both in its scope and its merciless intensity. It found vigorous expression in the documents released by the conference--an "Appeal to the Citizens of Russia" and a platform--as well as in speeches and debates, which were webcast live on the party's website.

Bush a Decisive Leader--NOT

(ht andrew sullivan)

Karzai to US: "Yankee Go Home!"

Maybe it is due to Bush's Katrina fiasco, but I have long thought that Islam Karimov's eviction of the US military from Uzbekistan, with the support of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, et al.), might have a ripple effect in Afghanistan. Of course, I had no idea that this would happen so quickly. Today, Afghan president Hamid Karzai also seems to be saying: "Yankee Go Home!"
The Guardian has this report:

Karzai demanded an immediate end to foreign troops searching people's homes without his government's authorization. He also said foreign governments should "concentrate on where terrorists are trained, on their bases, on the supply to them, on the money coming to them" - a veiled reference to support that militants allegedly get from neighboring Pakistan.

Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of aiding Taliban rebels and other militants, a charge Islamabad vehemently denies.

"I don't think there is a big need for military activity in Afghanistan anymore,"Karzai told reporters. "The nature of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan has changed now.

"No coalition forces should go to Afghan homes without the authorization of the Afghan government. ... The use of air power is something that may not be very effective now. ... That's what I mean by a change in strategy."

It was the second time Karzai has publicly challenged the U.S.-led coalition. In May, before a trip to Washington, he demanded more authority over the 20,000-member U.S.-led coalition here, but President Bush said they would remain under American control. In addition to the coalition troops, there are 11,000 NATO peacekeepers in Afghanistan.

There's an interesting Eurasianet profile of Karzai by Ahmed Rashid from 2001 that contains this revealing quote:

"The tragedy was that very soon the Taliban were taken over by Pakistan’s Interservices Intelligence (ISI) and they became a proxy for a foreign power. Then they allowed Arabs and other foreigners to set up terrorist training camps on Afghan soil and I began to organize against them," he said. "By 1997 it was clear to most Afghans that the Taliban were unacceptable because Osama bin Laden was playing a leadership role in the movement. I warned the Americans many times, but who was listening - nobody," he added.

And this:

According to a US diplomat, the issue of whether or not to support Karzai provoked a heated debate between the US departments of state and defense. Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly was reluctant to support Karzai out of concern that such a move would anger Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. "There was real anger at Powell from the military because he was accepting at face value whatever the Pakistanis were telling him, when in reality they were doing nothing constructive in the Pashtun belt," the US diplomat said.

Washington only decided to support Karzai in the first week of November - four weeks after the bombing campaign started - and only after the Pentagon had taken the decision to support a Northern Alliance attack on Mazar-i-Sharif.

Interesting, the Pentagon supported Karimov against the State Department's support for human rights NGOs. Sounds like a familiar situation. So, stay tuned...

Remembering Simon Wiesenthal

Roger L. Simon mentioned that Simon Wisenthal had passed away. Here's the story in Haaretz.

Putin Grants Pushkin's Descendants Russian Citizenship

According to this RIA Novosti report, they currently live in Belgium.

Will Safavian Sing?

If he does, this could be big news:

The Bush administration's top federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government. It was the first criminal complaint filed against a government official in the ongoing corruption probe related to Abramoff's activities in Washington.

The complaint, filed by the FBI, alleges that David H. Safavian, 38, a White House procurement official involved until last week in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, made repeated false statements to government officials and investigators about a golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002.

(HT War and Piece)

Musharraf's Historic Speech

Daniel Pipes praises the Pakistani leader for opening up to Israel and the Jewish diaspora:

Most news coverage of the Musharraf speech focused on the prospect of Pakistan opening diplomatic relations with Israel (Reuters: "Pakistan leader urges US Jews to help make peace"), but what is potentially of lasting importance about the Musharraf address – beyond the mere fact of its being delivered to a Jewish organization – was the president's respectful, accurate, and constructive comments about Jews.

He began with the important observation that Jews and Muslims "have many similarities and few divergences in their faith and culture," then listed three specifics: belief in the oneness of God, shared ways of greeting, and a common phrase in the Talmud and Koran. And Moses, he pointed out, is the prophet most often referred to in the Koran.

Mr. Musharraf noted how "our experiences and histories intertwine" and then elaborated on what he called the two communities' "rich and very long" history of interaction. He mentioned the "shining examples" of Cordova, Baghdad, Istanbul, and Bukhara, the golden period of Muslim Spain, and the joint experience of the Spanish Inquisition. Generalizing from the inquisition, he correctly asserted that Jews and Muslims "have not only lived together and shared prosperity, but also suffered together."

A Russian-American Alliance?

That's the stated aim of this website. I found it on a link at Registan. It looks a lot more Russian than American, Gleb Pavlovsky seems to run the show. Right now, it looks unlikely. But stranger things have happened. I don't know who is lobbying for this type of thing on the American side right now. On the other hand, maybe Putin helped Bush out with the Korea talks. And if Hillary Clinton becomes President...

Ben Paarman's Central Asia Blog

Has some nice photos posted today...

Human Rights Watch Condemns British Antiterrorism Plan

Their headline:U.K.: Detention Plan Amounts to Punishment Without Trial

Moscow Cat Theatre Comes to NYC

We saw the New York Times article announcing the Moscow Cat Theatre has come to New York, and thought about going. Our Moscow friends said it was sort of a cat circus, but if you had a cat, you'd seen the show. So we don't know yet if we'll go. But we do know that we like their website.

More on Uzbekistan

My account of Shirin Akiner's appeareance at Johns Hopkins University to discuss the Andijan violence in now online at Registan.

Judy Miller's Jailhouse Guest List

Carol D. Leonnig writes in today's Washington Post that some of Washington's most powerful figures have visited Judy Miller in jail.

Locked in the Alexandria Detention Center for the past 11 weeks, New York Times reporter Judith Miller is cut off from the world. She has no Internet access and precious little opportunity to view CNN. Her phone calls are limited, friends say. Her daily newspaper arrives a day late.

But for 30 minutes nearly every day, the world comes to her: A parade of prominent government and media officials, 99 in all, visited Miller between early July, when she was jailed for refusing to be questioned by a federal prosecutor, and Labor Day, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.

Her visitors have included Bob Dole, John Bolton, and Tom Brokaw...

Cashing in on Katrina

The Project on Government Oversight has posted this list of government contracts for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. (ht War and Piece)

No Deal

According to MosNews, Putin and Bush could not come to an agreement at the Washington summit:

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave no support to his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush in his bid to to bring Iran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions and acknowledged he has not yet forged an international consensus on how to deal with Tehran’s alleged nuclear program.

Peter Baker's Washington Post account of the meeting can be read here.

Yale Russian Chorus Alumni Concert in Washington, DC

A friend from Russian class has invited us to the Yale Russian Chorus alumni concert in Washington, DC. Admission is free, so if any of our readers lives in the national capital area, it might be worth a trip. Here are the details:

When: Sunday, October 2, 4:00pm
Location: George Washington University Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC View Map
Phone: (202) 994-6800

Heres a picture of the chorus meeting President Clinton (a Yale Law alumnus):

A Democracy Blog

Just found Democracy Rising,through a link in Registan's comment section.

Roger L Simon Remembers Robert Wise

A short and sweet tribute to the director of West Side Story and The Sound of Music...