TERRORISM IS HITTING HOME in Australia. And in Singapore.

SORRY POSTING HAS BEEN SO LIGHT. The DSL came back yesterday, but I’ve been busy with lots of real work. I’m an outside reviewer for quite a few people at other universities who are up for tenure or promotion and I’ve had to read a mountain of scholarly articles and write nuanced critiques of them.

I was in the office today, and — as usual — so were quite a few colleagues, including one who was back from serving on the Board of Inquiry in the California port strike. “When they saw my fierce visage,” he reported, “they ran for cover.” Well, not really.

It is astonishing how many people I see at the office on Sundays. Just another way in which my experience of law teaching fails to live up to the fantasies of my friends who practice law.

READER GREG BEATO sends this article from FrontPageMag saying that San Francisco is moving to the right. Could it be true?

UPDATE: Alex Frantz says the answer is no. But there’s more to his post than that one word.

INTERESTING ITEM on European views of America and international law, from Tacitus. No, not that Tacitus.

STEPHEN AMBROSE HAS DIED.

YEAH, I’VE LINKED A LOT OF TIM BLAIR’S STUFF TODAY. What can I say? He’s on a roll. Go to his page and scroll freely.

A DEFENSE OF PURE FISKING: Bill Herbert isn’t impressed with CalPundit’s “Fisking” of the Gettysburg Address. He points out that just because it’s possible to do a bad Fisking hardly discredits the form itself. (Any more, I might add, than Madonna’s latest cinematic effort discredits the entire art of film.) The same holds for a number of other allegedly-hilarious parodies that I’ve seen on other lefty blogs.

Herbert points to a recent effort of Tim Blair’s as an example of Fisking done right. I also like this one, where Blair unpacks a lot of dumb hidden assumptions and exposes some rather creative use of quotations, which perhaps explains why so many lefty journalists dislike the very idea of a Fisking. Er, and of Tim Blair, it sometimes seems.

UPDATE: I just got home and fired up the laptop after dinner. On rereading this post it seems a little mean to CalPundit Kevin Drum, which wasn’t what I intended at all. I think that Fisking is a very valuable blogging technique when done well. I also think that it’s fairly hard to do well — and that the harsher it is, the harder it is to do it well (i.e., in a fashion that will convince people who don’t already agree with the Fisker 100%). I don’t know whether Kevin meant for his post to be a critique of all Fisking, or just bad Fisking. I can agree with him on #2, though I read it as #1. What I will say is that Tim Blair can get away with things that I probably wouldn’t try, because, well, he’s Tim Blair and he’s a better writer than I am.

THE ECONOMIST ANSWERS TIM BLAIR’S CHALLENGE:

Australians abroad are obvious targets for Islamic terrorists in the region. The Australian government has staunchly supported President George Bush’s war on terrorism, and Australian troops were sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Americans. Furthermore, some Muslims are angry at the military role that Australia played in helping East Timor to obtain independence from Indonesia.

Me, I’m blaming John Pilger.

THE STRAIGHT DOPE ON THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS: Just ran across this post from Cecil Adams in 1995. Concise and accurate. Excerpt:

In almost every other aspect of law the Bill of Rights has been broadly construed to restrain the states as well as the federal government. Few today would argue that states can abrogate the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Yet many are prepared to let them gut the second, on the grounds that the framers did not foresee urban violence on the scale we face now. Maybe they didn’t, but so what? Civil-liberties advocates don’t accept urban violence as an excuse to curtail other constitutional rights, such as the protection against unlawful search and seizure.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Jim Henley has a long post on the Stephen Hunter / sniper column from the Washington Post that’s worth reading for the comments he interjects amid snatches of Hunter’s piece. It’s a sort of reverse-Fisking.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile, in Britain. . . .

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Clayton Cramer has more on Britain. Gun crime is the highest in a century, despite a ban so comprehensive that the British shooting team can’t practice in Britain. Law enforcement blames “easy availability of guns” to criminals. What — you mean criminals will break gun control laws, too?

THE U.S. AMBASSADOR apparently warned Indonesia a month before the Bali attacks.

READER KEN BARNES, who edits the talk.politics.guns mailing list, writes:

I’ve seen it twice so far on the Sunday talk shows, so it must be in the official talking points for today: “ballistic fingerprinting” has been put forward as a new law that would help catch the D.C.-area sniper. I hope you have an opportunity to debunk this idea. It’s first of all a back door means of gun registration, and secondly, the comment made on NBC’s Meet Tim Russert that it is a proven forensic technique “like DNA for guns” is just not true. The ballistic characteristics of a gun barrel change over time, and they can be altered, unlike a person’s DNA.

Yes, I just this minute heard George Stephanopoulos raise the issue, and I’ll bet it’s featured in faxes from the VPC and the Brady Campaign. I’ve always wondered how this would work — it seems to me that anyone with a file could get around this, and I heard Parris Glendening talking about identifying shell casings which seems dubious to me — what are you going to do, put a barcode on them?

Anyway, I’ll leave the technical issues to someone else, but here’s what I’ve noticed from the anti-gun crowd:

“Saturday Night Specials” (cheap handguns) = Bad, must be banned

“Military Style Handguns” (expensive handguns) = Bad, must be banned

“Assault Weapons” (inaccurate, short-range rifles) = Bad, must be banned

“Sniper Rifles” (accurate, long-range rifles) = Bad, must be banned

I think I’m starting to see a pattern here.

THE STANDARD RAP ON THE INTERNET is that it’s the home of paranoid ranting. Like many raps on the Internet, this turns out to be dubious at best, as it appears that the Internet is favored by people who tend to trust others.

TIM BLAIR THROWS DOWN THE GAUNTLET to the Australian press. I expect someone will pick it up.

VARIOUS READERS have sent this link to a speech by Teddy Roosevelt about the Nobel Peace Prize:

We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.

Moreover, and above all, let us remember that words count only when they give expression to deeds, or are to be translated into them. The leaders of the Red Terror prattled of peace while they steeped their hands in the blood of the innocent; and many a tyrant has called it peace when he has scourged honest protest into silence. Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction.

It’s styled as an “Acceptance Speech,” but Roosevelt actually got the prize in 1906, and didn’t accept in person. It’s good, though I don’t agree with the way some “national greatness” conservatives make use of TR. I’m all for national greatness, but I don’t believe that the greatness of a nation is determined by government programs and jobs for political apparatchiks administering and flacking for them. But TR is right that peace is only one virtue among others, and right to note that neglecting certain virtues, which until recently had become unstylish, is likely to have bad consequences.

UPDATE: Et tu, Teddy? A couple of readers saw the term “Red Terror” and wondered if this was another phony quote like the Julius Caesar passage that ensnared Barbra Streisand. No. At least, it’s also on the official Nobel site and — unlike the phony Caesar quote — is in character. A footnote there says — as I assumed without even thinking — that the “Red Terror” TR is referring to is the French Revolution, not the later Red Terrors that succeeded it.

CLAYTON CRAMER has a SpinSanity-like analysis of how the D.C. sniper is being used by pro- and anti-gun partisans, and why those uses are largely beside the point. Interesting reading.

WHY AM I AWAKE SO EARLY ON A SUNDAY? Beats the hell out of me. Woke up at 6:30 wide awake. Maybe it was the nap I took yesterday afternoon.

DEDICATED FOLLOWERS OF FASHION: David Carr suggests that the Helsinki bombing may be an example of the world’s nutcases converging on a model pioneered by Palestinians, for reasons of style more than substance.

CHRIS SEAMANS, of The Unilateral Commission, writes about Afghanistan: “While many Americans wouldn’t trust the United Nations to watch their worst enemy’s dog, that’s exactly who we’ve turned the difficult and important task of rebuilding the country over to. Is this wise?” That’s from this post on nation-building. Also read this earlier one on the same topic.

Something to think about. In a way, of course, the most important thing about Afghanistan is that bin Laden’s supporters (or maybe it was his tools) aren’t in power there any more, as this is the lesson most likely to be taken home by our target audience. On the other hand, there are real benefits to seeing our enemies transformed into friends, or at least not-enemies, over the long term.

I think it’s premature to call the Afghanistan efforts a failure. People forget that the Marshall Plan wasn’t applied to liberated territories while World War Two was still on — in fact, it wasn’t applied until some time after World War Two was over. This war is still on, and what’s happening in Afghanistan is, at the moment, less important than what’s about to happen in Iraq.

UPDATE: This New York Times article by Eric Schmitt is worth reading too, though the item on civilian casualties notes that “estimates” “range from several hundred to a few thousand.” The “few thousand” is, apparently, an oblique reference to the discredited Marc Herold study from last year. To read more about the problems with Herold’s numbers, read this summary by Bill Herbert, and this piece on Herold by the Statistical Assessment Service.

He’s no doubt sharpening his pencils to inflate Iraqi civilian casualties from the coming invasion, too. Heck, he may already have started adding up numbers, and you can be sure that his inflated estimates will be used by opponents of the war, who have already shown a blithe disregard for the truth in such matters. But as Chris Bertram noted:

Who said that only the “bad guys” would get killed? Who believed them if they did? I can’t recall anyone who said or believed any such thing. Those of us who thought (and think) that the Afghan war was just did so in the full knowledge that in any war innocents get killed.

Yes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: David Warren has some thoughts, too.

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE doesn’t seem to be enhancing Norway’s reputation the way it once did.

UPDATE: This editorial from the Sunday Telegraph underscores the point.

STEFAN SHARKANSKY ISN’T PLEASED with Helen Caldicott’s latest.

HERE’S A WEBLOG ACCCOUNT OF THE MICHIGAN DIVESTMENT CONFERENCE by an Israeli who attended. Needless to say, he wasn’t impressed.

UPDATE: Here’s a story from the Washington Post, and here’s a story from yesterday’s Michigan Daily.

MAX POWER responds to charges that a U.S. occupation government in Iraq would be “colonialism:”

What’s wrong with a little colonialism? Are people saying that the brown peoples of Iraq aren’t worthy of Western-style democracy and freedoms?

And I would love to see any of these so-called opponents to colonialism speak out against Wahhabist colonialism in Europe or Afghanistan (or the repeated Arab desire to colonize Israel by force and commit genocide in the process). The failure to do so shows that the objection is not to colonialism but to the West and to democracy. It’s frankly appalling and close to racist to see people complaining that a repressive and murderous dictatorship might get replaced by a democracy because the people leading the transition aren’t the same skin color as the victims of the totalitarian regime.

Indeed.

PSYCHOLOGIST HARVEY GOLDSTEIN WRITES that press and politicians are encouraging the D.C. sniper. Excerpt:

The frequent news conferences themselves seem to be a big part of the problem, mostly because they impart so little actual news. At some of these events, politicians seem to dominate. They thank the police, they thank each other and they praise the spirit of teamwork and cooperation. Are they really doing anything constructive? We are treating the sniper to a political rally on his behalf.

The news media contribute to the situation simply by paying it too much attention. Ever since the O.J. Simpson trial, competition among media outlets has created an obsession with finding “experts” to theorize about every facet of a crime. This current crisis features not attorneys but an endless stream of criminal profilers jockeying for attention, further gratifying the killer. Those experts appearing on TV and radio during the crisis, speculating on every aspect of the criminal’s life and behavior patterns, need to ask themselves whether there is any utility in bolstering his arrogance.

Indeed.

JIM BENNETT’S COLUMBUS DAY COLUMN argues that we’re celebrating the wrong Italian.

SOMEONE IS SERIOUSLY UPSET WITH CHARLES JOHNSON, but they’re not up to the task of crossing swords with him.

SOME THOUGHTS ON BLOGGING AS A PROFESSOR, from Daniel Drezner. I think he’s got a pretty good take on it.

ANOTHER FLORIDA ELECTION SCANDAL — this time involving a “community relations” coordinator who wrote antisemitic and anti-American emails from his Broward County computer. Some other writings by the worker include the following:

“How dare the Jews ask or have the nerve to demand an apology or compensation from their oppressors.”

“The Jews must turn that money over to blacks because they accumulated their wealth through the slave trade.”

“It is difficult for me to find sympathy for what the Jews are calling a holocaust.”

I don’t want this guy counting votes.

(Via Gregory Hlatky).

DAVE TROWBRIDGE offers an interesting perspective on claims that Bush is becoming a “dictator.”

ANOTHER TERROR BLAST, this time in Indonesia. And the tanker attack is now confirmed as terrorism. Saddam’s calling in all his chits — not that it’ll do any good.

UPDATE: James Morrow reports on whitewashing the Indonesia bombing, or at least the Islamic terror connection thereto.

AZIZ POONAWALLA is having an interesting back-and-forth with Steven Den Beste on Islam and the world. Highly recommended.

THE VIOLENCE POLICY CENTER has been trying to cash in on the D.C. sniper by nattering on about “sniper rifles” and the “sniper subculture.” This argument is pretty thoroughly demolished — by a Washington Post movie critic, no less — in this article. Excerpt:

How much does he know about guns? Is he a “gun person,” who reads the shooter’s magazines and goes to gun shows and orders sniper manuals from the reprint houses? No credible evidence exists to prove this. . . .

For one thing, he’s chosen quite a prosaic, low-cost system. It so happens we are in a period of remarkable advances in long-distance shooting, not merely with those laser range finders, but also with a whole batch of ultra magnum cartridges of very recent vintage, that make shots at heretofore undreamed-of distances possible for the common man as opposed to the skilled professional or heavily committed amateur shooter. He doesn’t appear to be using any cutting-edge technology.

His choice of weapon reveals something as well. It’s notable that he hasn’t selected a firearm or a cartridge that’s linked to sniping as it’s practiced professionally.

“No credible evidence” — just PR from an advocacy group with a bad record for trustworthiness.

NAT HENTOFF wonders why Robert Mugabe’s depredations aren’t generating more outrage:

While a critical mass of anger and indignation in this country helped end South African apartheid, there is scarcely any awareness here of the facts on the bloody ground. . . .

Why, in this country, are there only whispers, if that, from most civil rights activists and organizations, the clergy of all colors that finally awoke to the slavery and mass rapes in Sudan, editorial writers, women’s rights groups, and such trombones of the people as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? . . .

By the way, Zimbabwe is a proud member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission—along with Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Sudan.

Like the Nobel Peace Prize, the Human Rights Commission is losing its lustre.

(Via Orrin Judd, who has a lot of other observations on the subject.)

UPDATE: Here, forwarded by a British reader, is a report on an attempted “citizens’ arrest” of Mugabe by gay human rights activists in Britain. I had never heard of this, but it shows that someone was on the job.

BELLICOSE WOMEN OF THE FUTURE: Went to a kid’s birthday party with my daughter this morning. It was at a laser-tag place, so the kids all suited up and ran around darkened mazes happily shooting at each other. They were pretty good, and the girls seemed to like it as much as the boys. My daughter had never done it before, and she loved it. She wants to go back, and has decided to have her next party there.

It’s funny because (as you may guess from the frequent Barbie references) she’s a girly-girl in most of her play activities. “But this is fun,” she said, by way of explaining the difference.

RALPH PETERS ISN’T BUYING the “Chickenhawk” argument:

THERE are few things more repugnant to a soldier than a coward who claims to speak on his behalf. At present, there seems no end of politicians and pundits claiming we dare not strike Saddam because of the danger of friendly casualties. Self-appointed voices of conscience warn of tens of thousands of American dead.

That’s nonsense. And when those who despise the men and women in uniform invoke the welfare of our troops to further their failing agendas, they transcend the commonplace cynicism of Washington. This is hypocrisy as a moral disease. . . .

Make no mistake: The anti-war voices long for us to lose any war they cannot prevent.

Don’t mince words, Ralph. You’re a columnist now — say what you really mean.

I think that Peters is right about certain sectors of the antiwar movement, who really do see the United States as the evil empire. On the other hand, I think that there are other people who are antiwar out of concerns distinct from anti-Americanism. Unfortunately, the former category has gotten most of the attention, because it includes a lot of people who are vocal and good at getting publicity. Here’s a response to those in Category Two.

Heh. I’ve never seen anyone use this title before, though it seems so obvious.

EUGENE VOLOKH has a characteristically thorough and thoughtful discussion of the Washington University affair. And scroll up from this item for still more discussion.

BAN CHEVY ASTROS! It was only a matter of time before someone made this proposal. Scroll down for a very gentlemanly admission of error in response to Eugene Volokh, too.

“VISHNU SENDS A LETTER OF GRATITUDE TO AMIRI BARAKA FOR CLEARING HIS NAME.” This makes sense, but only if you read Vegard Valberg’s latest “Misting.” And you should.

WHEN PEOPLE ASK how I’m able to post so often, I always credit the fact that I’m usually close to a high-speed always-on Internet connection. Whenever I’m not, like now, I realize just how true that is. Dialup sucks.

MAJOR BOMBING (?) AT A MALL IN HELSINKI. There was also a car bombing there last summer. What gives? The news coverage offers no suggestion of a motive, or even of the nature of the perpetrators — the story about today’s explosion even suggests it was an accident, though other information casts doubt on that. Very curious.

UPDATE: Several Finnish readers (I’ve got Finnish readers? Yep.) emailed in response to the above. The earlier car bombing was inept, (which hardly rules out the terrorist crowd) and appears to have been about drugs. The most recent explosion is still unexplained, and is looking somewhat less likely to be an accident. Finnish blogger Teemu Lehtonen is keeping an eye on things.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jaako Haapasolo emails from Finland:

An interior ministry press conference was given at 9:15 local time, that’s about 45 minutes ago. They (including the interior minister and the national police chief) confirmed that they now suspect a crime in the mall bombing. They reported that traces of an explosive were found at the scene. At least 7 people died, at least one of them a child. The number of wounded is reported varyingly from 50 to over 80, ten of whom are wounded seriously.

No one at the press conference (including the reporters) uttered the word ‘terrorism’, I would guess by some sort of consensus decision, to avoid panic or whatever… that may change of course. I’m sure it is one of the most pressing questions on everyone’s mind here.

The shopping mall, one of the largest in the region, is located in Vantaa, a suburb of Helsinki, some 12 km north of Helsinki city centre. The blast happened at Friday night when there were around 1000-2000 people shopping there.

It is a sickening feeling. As a regular reader of Ha’aretz, I am all too familiar with the ‘drill’: Friday night, a report of an explosion, initial confusion, then the steadily rising numbers of dead and wounded…

The car bombing last summer was definitely established as criminal on criminal, a debt collection gone bad if I remember correctly. This time I fear it could be very, very different.

This is all that I know so far. I can’t find any good links in English beyond what Reuters has.

I can’t confirm this report at the moment, but there seems no reason to doubt it. Vantaa, I believe, is near an area where immigrants tend to cluster.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Looks like it was definitely a bombing. Oh, and I just noticed that Teemu says so too.

A DISTURBING ARTICLE on nuclear proliferation, from Technology Review. And here’s a scenario that we’ve heard elsewhere, too:

Unlike weapons-grade plutonium, (which is typically contaminated with Pu-240, a spontaneous neutron emitter), U-235 is difficult to detect without active probing, as with a thermal neutron source). It emits alpha particles and some energetic gamma rays, but these can be shielded with lead. This makes HEU relatively easy to smuggle. The easiest way to get a bomb into the US is probably in a shipping container. We wouldn’t detect it unless we were tipped off about where to look.

Let’s imagine a bad case. Saddam sets off a bomb in Washington D.C. Unlike the designers of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, he derives great pleasure from mass death. Unlike bin Laden, he takes credit immediately for his terrorism. He announces that he has additional weapons, and that if the U.S. retaliates, he will start setting them off in major U.S. cities.

The only response to such a threat, of course, would be the nuclear obliteration of Iraq — and I mean obliteration, using scores, or even hundreds of nuclear weapons. Because, even in the face of such a threat, you don’t want anyone else to think they can get away with this. As for the countries downwind, well, that will give other countries’ neighbors an incentive to ensure that no one threatens the United States. Lots of people will die, and the only consolation is that, maybe, it will prevent worse in the future.

A grim scenario? Yes. Which is why Saddam can’t be allowed to get that far. It’s nice to see that Congress understood that.

BACK LATER. Maybe the DSL will be back up, though the BellSouth guy wasn’t too hopeful when I talked to him.

THE READER WHO SENT THIS CARTOON from the Durham paper says the signs are verbatim from a “peace” rally held at Duke yesterday. The sweatshirt, I suspect, is entirely the cartoonist’s idea.

UPDATE: Dr. Manhattan has some observations on a related topic.

THIS NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL ON ELDRED V. ASHCROFT has it exactly right:

The Constitution says that Congress may authorize copyrights only for “limited times.” It is always difficult for a court to determine the precise meaning of broad constitutional phrases like “limited times” or “cruel and unusual punishment,” or “a speedy trial.” But at some point the Constitution’s words are violated. The court should hold that the latest extension goes too far.

There is clearly a correlation between copyright and creativity. No one but a blockhead writes except for money, Samuel Johnson said, and those who subscribe to that view would be unlikely to write if, the minute they completed their work, others could copy it with impunity. But it is a highly reluctant artist — and one with extraordinary concern for his heirs — who will not create unless his work is protected for a full 70 years after his death.

The purpose of the 1998 Congressional extension was not protecting artists, but enriching media companies that hold property rights in their creations, virtually in perpetuity. The founders did not envision copyright being put to this use, and the Supreme Court should not allow it.

The Times is right, even though I think they just called me a blockhead.

JOHN SCALZI’S ADVICE ON WAR:

If you’re going to do it, then you should make sure your opponent ends up as a grease spot on the wall, and that his country is reformulated so that it never ever bothers you again.

There’s more, and it’s worth reading.

JERRY FALWELL may be a prototype Idiotarian, but Clayton Cramer explains how his dumb comments can cause deaths in India.

Hey, nobody said idiocy was harmless.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh gently takes me to task for the above. He says that Falwell isn’t morally at fault because a bunch of idiots riot in response to his remarks.

This is true, more or less. But nasty remarks concerning religion have a historical tendency to cause violence that no one in Falwell’s business should be able to miss. That’s particularly so at present when the situation is tense to begin with. That’s what made Falwell’s remarks “dumb.” (Well, it’s one of the things that made them dumb).

When Falwell made his remarks, he didn’t “cause” the riots in the sense that Eugene seems to think is important. But, in wartime (to quote the oft-maligned Ari Fleischer), people should pay attention to what they say. Falwell didn’t, and he should have.

Please note — and some readers who sent me angry email on Falwell’s behalf seemed to have trouble with this, though Volokh does not — that I did not advocate censoring Falwell. It’s not just those on the Left, apparently, who associate criticism with censorship.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Now Stuart Buck is chiding me too, somewhat less gently. Hey, I was nicer to Falwell than Stephen Green was. A lot nicer!

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: It’s Sunday and I’m watching This Week, and Fareed Zakaria is, basically, agreeing with me. He says that the comments made by Falwell, Robertson, et al., are hurting efforts to portray the war as being not a war against Israel. George Will is also blaming CBS for magnifying Falwell into a bigger figure than he really is. There’s an interesting back-and-forth between Zakaria and Will about the significance of Falwell, and I think Zakaria has it right here.

Zakaria calls for “American moderates” to condemn Falwell’s statements. But, Fareed, I have!

ALABAMA’S SEX TOY BAN has been declared unconstitutional. And how many DJ’s in Birmingham honored this decision by playing “Good Vibrations,” I wonder?

DSL IS DOWN: BellSouth is having some sort of major problem. I’m posting this via the backup dialup connection. Blogging will remain limited for a while.

I’M KIND OF BUSY, and will be for another hour or two. In the meantime, you can read this piece by John Lott on guns and the election. You might also want to look at BlogStreet’s top 100 weblogs ranking, just updated, and Eugene Volokh’s prediction that the Supreme Court will strike down the law in Eldred v. Ashcroft. I hope he’s right. Also, this post on OxBlog about Vaclav Havel’s support for the war on terror.

I AM NOT PRO-LIFE, as any regular InstaPundit reader knows. But what Washington University is doing to a pro-life student group is embarrassing.

THINGS SEEM TO BE GOING TO HELL IN NORTHERN IRELAND. Here’s a post that rounds up recent events, which haven’t gotten a lot of attention over here.

MEGAN MCARDLE on the Montana hairdresser commercial:

I have to agree; it reeks homophobic to me. . . . They couldn’t have made their message any clearer without, say, a shockwave of him prancing around in a maribou robe, singing excerpts from Judy Garland’s greatest hits while waving a sign that says “Queer as a $3 bill!”

Andrew Sullivan agrees. (And if you missed this yesterday, you can read much, much more here).

UPDATE: Adam Bonin, who is quoted in the earlier post as saying he didn’t see the gay angle, has watched the commercial again and emails:

I didn’t catch the little reach-down at the end of the ad the first time I saw it. Yeah, they’re insinuating. Please scrap what I said before.

Sorry — it’ll live forever in the Google Archive! Er, and mine. But the correction is noted. It sure looked that way to me.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Howard Kurtz thinks the ad just makes Taylor look “goofy.”

I DON’T THINK THESE TWO SCENES ARE EQUIVALENT. And I think it’s monstrous that some people do.

HYPOCRISY AT THE FCC: Jesse Walker is on the case.

READING THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TEA LEAVES: William Sjostrom spots an agenda. Meanwhile ScrappleFace is hailing the Committee’s success.

Personally, I think it’s just another shameful year in which Arthur C. Clarke’s contribution was overlooked.

And if you’re looking for something a bit more recent, these guys did more for peace than Jimmy Carter has done. Here’s some perspective on Carter’s commitment to human rights. And here’s what another Peace Prize winner is doing.

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner has posted this defense of Carter, which you should read to get the best possible case for Carter getting the prize. Me, I’ve never liked the guy. I thought he was phony and inept when he was President, and whenever he’s opened his mouth on public issues afterward he’s reminded me why I thought that.

ARLEN SPECTER is calling for a probe into a possible Iraqi connection to the Oklahoma City bombing.

77-23: ANOTHER BIG WIN FOR BUSH in the Senate. Here’s the text of the resolution. Meanwhile, the Administration has a plan for the postwar occupation of Iraq. And Stephen Green has already redrawn the map.

Of course, we do have to win the war, first.

MICHAEL MOORE’S BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE may have been flacked on CNBC tonight, but it sure gets panned by John Powers in the L.A. Weekly:

ONE OF THE MOSQUITO-BITE IRRITAtions of being on the left is finding your ideals represented in public by Michael Moore, whose ball cap, burgeoning belly and self-promoting populism have made him an international brand name. When his documentary Bowling for Columbine played at Cannes this May, it was received with wild enthusiasm — predictably so, for it seems to have been made to delight European intellectuals and anyone else who believes that America is a land of bloodthirsty yet comical barbarians. . . .

Although he’d have made a crackerjack ad man, he’s a slipshod filmmaker, and the movie quickly collapses, burying its subject beneath bumper-sticker rehashes of received ideas: the demonizing of black men, fear-mongering TV news, Canada’s progressive health-care system and the Bush administration’s partisan use of scare tactics. At once punchy and incoherent — Moore contradicts himself vividly every few minutes — the film has the scattershot shapelessness of a concept album made by a singles band. . . .

Does Moore really think that Osama bin Laden ever gave a damn what happened to Salvadoran campesinos? Does he really think U.S. foreign policy caused those two high school kids to gun down their schoolmates? Moore never says, but he does emphasize, that on the same day as Columbine, U.S. bombers dropped an especially heavy payload on Kosovo. So what? Absent any serious historical analysis, his implication seems to be that this country is incorrigibly murderous. You don’t know whether to be outraged or yawn.

Oh, I know.

(Via Matt Welch).

INTERESTING COMMENTS ON FRENCH INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENTS, from Innocents Abroad. (Scroll up from this link for more). Excerpt:

I referred earlier to French intellectual arrogance and the perennial French view that Americans are dim-witted. This too may be changing. It’s long been the case that Americans have neglected more cerebral studies in favor of pragmatic pursuits. As a result, accusations of boorishness coming from the vast parade of French philosophic and revolutionary thinkers has often gone unanswered by the practical Americans. So it was a bit of a surprise when intelligent Americans, especially intelligent conservatives, hit back this time around. What may be even more surprising to Americans is that the French themselves were not entirely impressed by the knee-jerk anti-Americanism in their midst. . . .

That some of the best French intellectuals are now liberals in the classical sense and no longer slaves to the Marxist vulgate, suggests things may be changing. Just as the rise of an educated and philosophically conversant conservative movement had a lasting impact on the United States in recent decades, a similarly well-educated and thoughtful liberal tradition seems to be growing in France. It’s unfortunate that Germany seems unable to follow the French lead.

Yes, it is.

I PRETTY MUCH AGREE WITH TED BARLOW on what I hope will come next. War isn’t something to be entered into lightly, nor are we.

JUAN GATO DOESN’T MUCH LIKE Robert Byrd’s take on the war.

BLOCKED! A reader writes:

I try to keep up on the latest from the bloggers each day at work, but I’ve encountered a problem when trying to access Instapundit.com. Your site is the only one that is categorized by WebSense (our network filter software) as an ‘Advocacy Group’, preventing me from viewing it. Doesn’t make sense to me!@#$

Well, first I’d have to be a “group.”

LARRY MILLER ISSUES A VERY GRACEFUL CORRECTION in the Weekly Standard. Turns out the story was true, but the band was wrong — it wasn’t the Buzzcocks, it was Blink 182 that cursed Bush and was booed. Apparently, it’s even in Rolling Stone this month.

NICK DENTON is pooh-poohing claims that the D.C. sniper is a terrorist, which he attributes to gun-rights folks’ wishful thinking. He thinks it’s a typical nutjob, but argues that even if guns create more murders it’s worth it to have an armed citizenry:

[T]here is still an honest case to be made for the Second Amendment. It goes something like this. Guns do result in more fatal murders, but that is a small price to pay to guarantee freedom. The balance between the individual and government is ultimately determined by force. All the rights — to privacy, a fair trial, of free speech, to property — are underpinned by the power of individuals to organize against overmighty government, demonstrate, and ultimately take up arms. At a time when we are giving central government more powers, the counterweight of a people’s militia is more important than ever. Even as a madman runs amok in the DC suburbs.

Well, the criminological evidence on guns causing crime is, at best, mixed — even the opponents of widespread concealed-carry have been reduced to arguing that it doesn’t reduce crime, having largely abandoned claims that it will produce rivers of blood in the streets. But Nick makes an important point: rights can have costs, and still be worth it. That’s true of all rights, but many people seem less willing to admit this in the gun area. Antigun folks refuse to admit that the costs might be worth it, while many gun rights advocates deny that the costs exist. I tend to think that the costs, to the extent that they exist, are minor — but I don’t really care. Just as I’d support First Amendment protection for pornography even if someone could prove it led to more sex crime, I would support Second Amendment rights even if someone could prove they produced more gun crime. In both cases the alternative — an overpowerful government — is worse.

At the moment, Bush’s stance on the Second Amendment eases my mind somewhat over fears of tyranny. No tyrant, or would-be tyrant, champions an armed populace, the number-one antidote to tyranny — and the American public is growing better-armed all the time.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Andrew Stuttaford notes anti-gun-rights advocates trying to cash in, and calls them “vultures.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rand Simberg emails:

I’d be a little more sanguine if the actions actually matched the words. I haven’t seen Ashcroft’s Justice Department actually do anything to support their stated interpretation. None of the Clinton-holdover Justice positions in ongoing court cases have been changed, as would be required if they really believed what they said.

Meanwhile, I’m watching a CNBC story by Pat Dawson which is, ahem, asking, whether the sniper will “reignite” the gun control debate. The story itself didn’t suck, but the presentation made clear that some folks at CNBC are doing more “hoping” than “asking” in this department.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh, hell, now they’re shilling for Michael Moore’s movie, and interviewing him. And as the interview progresses, the bias is pretty obvious. So I guess I knew where that was going. My wife, who knows a lot about Columbine, thinks Michael Moore is an idiot.

Later: Well, Brian Williams is still sucking up. Moore’s off on a riff about how “we armed Saddam Hussein” and it’s all our fault. This is pathetic.

JASON KOTTKE HAS DISCOVERED A CLUE in the D.C. sniper case.

WHAT THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD HAVE DONE: The House just voted overwhelmingly in favor of the war resolution. The Senate is expected to follow suit. The upshot of this is that the Democrats have angered their core NPR/Nation constituency by supporting the war, but done so slowly enough that (1) they look unpatriotic after shows like those put on by Reps. Bonior, McDermott and Thompson; and (2) they’ve let the campaign season turn on Iraq-related issues. This seems to be hurting them in a number of ways.

This problem probably could have been avoided had Daschle and Gephardt said in August that they didn’t think Congress needed to do anything. “We believe the President has authority under previous resolutions.” This would also facilitate weaselly second-guessing if the war goes badly. (That will happen anyway, of course, should circumstances allow, but it’ll be made more difficult for those who voted in favor of the war).

So why didn’t they do this? Beats me. There are several possibilities. One is that they favored a vote because they believed that Congress has a constitutional responsibility to address important issues like this. Another is that they were bluffing, and Bush called their bluff by going to Congress. Still another is that they lacked the party discipline to pursue the foreclosure strategy, since important Democrats (especially in the Senate) would make that impossible anyway. I’m guessing the reason is number two. But I think that Daschle and Gephardt will wish that they had made this go away in August.

UPDATE: This poll tends to explain why the vote is going this way.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader thinks I shouldn’t be lumping Daschle and Gephardt together, and he’s right:

Daschle has obviously been acting with a view to politics first and policy a very distant second. That, I think, has become obvious to voters (look at his lousy favs/unfavs in national polls). His great skill as Democratic Leader has been to keep his Caucus together. On this issue, on which his Caucus is divided down the middle, he has played caucus politics with little regard to the national

interest.

A pretty pathetic performance. The best way to handle things, when your caucus is divided, is to play it straight, as Gephardt has done. To try to bounce things around to achieve the best partisan result, as Daschle has done, is to lose all around.

Yes, I think that Gephardt has been motivated by what he sees as the national interest. Daschle, I agree, seems more opportunistic.

ALL THE HOSTESS COMIC BOOK ADS on one page — it doesn’t get cooler than this.

FEDERALISM, AND WHY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS WRONG on medical marijuana. Good piece by Dave Kopel and Mike Krause from a while back, worth noting again in light of California’s lawsuit on the subject.

THE MYSTERY OF SPONGEBOB’S SEXUALITY HAS BEEN SOLVED! Rand Simberg emails a link explaining that he can’t help it:

Sponges reproduce by both asexual and sexual means. Most poriferans that reproduce by sexual means are hermaphroditic and produce eggs and sperm at different times.

Well, that settles it. I guess this won’t shed any light on the Montana election, though.

WE’VE DISCOVERED THE EQUIVALENT: An Act of Congress is roughly equal to three Mexicans with shovels. And I’ve got proof:

The Rio Grande is flowing all the way to the Gulf of Mexico again, thanks to three men from Mexico who skipped the red tape and put their backs into it.

Armed only with shovels, the trio dug a 400-foot ditch in two days to free up the Rio Grande at Boca Chica Beach and send the water on its way for the first time in almost a year. The ditch is designed to relieve residual flooding caused by the clogged river.

“It almost takes an act of Congress to do something like that,” Xavier Rios, supervisory Border Patrol agent in McAllen, said in the Brownsville Herald Wednesday. An official dredging project failed after four months because the flow wasn’t enough to prevent sediment from rebuilding.

Q.E.D.

MEDIA MINDED says Harry Belafonte is an honorable man.

FACT-CHECKING AND BIG MEDIA — READER BEN WHITEHOUSE EMAILS:

“Seventeen” has ranked the 100 “coolest” colleges. Apparently the first 50 were worthy enough to be investigated. I guess they didn’t look too closely at numbers 51-100. I’m proud to say that my alma mater – Wabash College – made the list at number 76. Unfortunately the editors forgot to check and see that Wabash is one of only three colleges exclusively for men still left out there. Has been since 1832. I guess this is further proof that rankings don’t mean too much. Although given their criteria and the enriching experiences that women have had while visiting Wabash – I’m not too surprised.

Well, to be fair, Seventeen says it was looking at the “coolest schools where girls can get the best college experience.” It didn’t say “as a student.”

VENEZUELA UPDATE: Jorge Schmidt emails:

Venezuelan media report that more than a million people are marching against the Chavez government. They call for his resignation and early elections. If the date for new elections is not announced in the next ten days, there will be a general strike beginning on October 21st. There has been sporadic violence, mainly outside Caracas, as Chavez supporters blocked roads leading to the city.

But the political opposition to Chavez remains fragmented. Unless they field but one candidate, it’s possible Chavez could win another election on the strength of his hard-core base.

The BBC has a report here. And here is a post from El Sur with links to many photos. Scroll up and down for more information.

READER RICK VOGEL EMAILS:

Apparently this slipped under the blogosphere’s radar. Since it’s not the linkable media, I partially understand. On her Oct 9 show Oprah made a strong case for the invasion of Iraq – sooner rather than later. She had the author of the Threatening Storm, Kenneth M. Pollack on to make his case and hawk his book – it climbed to number 3 from the mid 40′s on Amazon within hours. . . .

A lady in the audience made a comment to the effect that there were Iraq problems with Bush 1, then no problems with Clinton, and now Bush again and more problems. OPRAH SAID…”So you think it’s a Bush thing? Don’t you think that the problems were there with Clinton, he just looked the other way?”

This German woman really began tearing up when she spoke of the fact that Germans – and the world — looked the other way while Hitler built his empire and committed genocide. It took a world war to take him out.

She also had on a Hussein survivor, a guy who gave first hand experience with the brutal regime. He said Iraq is the only government in the world who has rapists on their payroll. Saddam pays to have dissident women raped.

This is news to me. There are reports of this on both Free Republic and Democratic Underground, and Oprah’s page indicates the topic, but doesn’t indicate what was said. Anybody out there see this?

UPDATE: Reader Tom Williams emails:

I saw a fair bit of the show yesterday. It seemed quite clear to me that Oprah supported military action against Hussein. In addition to the exchange your other reader mentioned, I was especially impressed by Oprah’s response to an audience member who said that we were just being fed Bush-administration propaganda about Saddam. The look on Oprah’s face was priceless. She paused a bit, and then said, in an almost brutally dismissive tone, “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.” The addition “even though it’s idiotic” was as clear as if she had uttered it aloud.

And reader Eric Kolchinsky emails a transcript. I’ve skimmed it and it’s consistent with the above, right down to the dismissal. I may post an excerpt later.

HENRY COPELAND REPORTS that the New York Times is now more of a web publication than a DeadTree publication: “The jump in daily users puts the site’s daily readership solidly beyond the newspaper’s 1.2 million weekday circulation. An average of 1.3 million unique daily users is projected for October.”

Why if the New York Times can just make as much per Web reader as I do, they’ll be as profitable as InstaPundit! . . . Uh oh.

Actually, it’s not that bad:

Cannibalization is not an issue, says Calder. On the contrary, the site is “critical to newspaper’s growth in national markets and younger user groups,” he said.

“As a whole, the newspaper industry is challenged by fact that readers are getting older and aren’t reaching a whole generation brought up on AOL and CNN. We’ve been extremely successful in offsetting this,” Calder said.

That makes sense to me.

LOOKS LIKE A BIG WIN FOR BUSH on the war. The Democrats may wonder, when this is done, why they didn’t get this over with in August. Their base is unhappy with their support for the war, but the delay and kvetching has probably cost them votes with people who favor war.

UPDATE: The resolution has passed the House 296-133.

ANOTHER UPDATE: My Congressman, “Baghdad John” Duncan, voted against the resolution. No explanation given. I called his office, and they said that they didn’t know why he voted that way. Weird, as he’s said nothing that I’ve seen to suggest that he was opposed to the President’s position on this.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails me a statement of Duncan’s from July, saying that we shouldn’t turn the “Department of Defense” into the “Department of War.” Boy, this hasn’t gotten any local coverage that I’ve seen. And no, nobody’s actually calling him “Baghdad John” — though I imagine that he’ll get some criticism over this one.

MONTANA HOMOPHOBIA ALERT: Poryhrogenitus asks: “When Is Playing on Homophobia OK? when it’s done by Democrats.”

Here’s a link to the story from the Billings Gazette, which reports:

State Sen. Mike Taylor, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, will withdraw from the race this afternoon, saying a Montana Democratic Party television ad has destroyed his campaign.

Taylor, who has scheduled a press conference in Helena for 2 p.m., said the ad, which he said insinuated that he was a gay hairdresser, had pushed his poll numbers through the floor.

Unconfirmed rumors have Taylor being replaced by former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, who is now chairman of the Republican National Committee.

That seems fair, though I think that Taylor should just call in SpongeBob for an endorsement. Here’s the report of Taylor’s withdrawal. MTPOLITICS.NET is posting regular updates.

UPDATE: Here’s more from Sean Hackbarth.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Cole has the Democratic response drafted.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Adam Bonin sends this link to the commercial (streaming video, courtesy of The Smoking Gun) and remarks: “I don’t see the ‘gay’ thing at all. Just cheesy ’70s stuff.”

The confusion there is understandable. . . . I looked at the commercial and I’d say that the gay thing is there. They maintain plausible deniability, but the shots of Taylor massaging around the guy’s eyes, etc., look to me like they’re going for gay. It’s certainly gayer than SpongeBob. You can watch the video and decide for yourself.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader writes:

The commercial is indeed implying that Taylor is gay. I work in the film and television industry and every clip, every moment that you see on television, with few exceptions, is heavily scrutinized. I know that they intended the shot to imply that Taylor is gay for the following reasons:

1) Taylor made several television appearances on this show, over a long period of time. All or many of which deal with hair and skin maintenance It is not a mistake that the clip of him massaging another man’s face was the one chosen for this commercial.

2) The commercial talks about Taylor owning and operating a school and a beauty salon, yet the clip shows him giving a facial. Now, while this may be a service offered at many salons, the overall teaching curriculum and services in beauty schools and salons focuses on hair cutting and style, the commercial does not show him at any time cutting hair, they chose to focus in on his skin to skin contact with another man.

3) Facials by nature are relaxing, pampering, and indulgent, now while some would say that this clip was used to highlight his “indulgent and corrupt business practices,” I would say that the clip plain and simple showcases one man pleasuring another.

Yeah, I saw it the same way.

ONE MORE UPDATE: Josh Marshall has looked at it, and says his reaction is “equivocal.” Meanwhile Kathryn Jean Lopez asks what people would be saying if a Republican had run this ad about a Democrat.

REALLY, THIS IS THE LAST UPDATE: Ted Barlow has posted a lengthy analysis.

AN INTERESTING REPORT ON WHAT AL QAEDA HAS LEARNED about fighting Americans, from StrategyPage.

THIS CASE LOOKS LIKE A LOSER TO ME. California is suing the federal government over its prosecution of users of medical marijuana, which is legal under California law. As a staunch advocate of states’ rights, I naturally tend to look on this with favor, but I think the real function is to embarrass the advocates of federalism within the Bush Administration. Which seems fair to me.

HOW TO PRODUCE TECHNO: A primer. Heh.

MORE EVIDENCE in support of the “cut their pay and send them home” approach. Obviously, there’s not enough work to do to justify a full-time position.

CATHERINE SEIPP writes that “Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton just played the race card against Hollywood and lost.”

Yeah, I think that Harry Belafonte is in the process of doing the same thing with Colin Powell. That stuff has been overused to the point that it just doesn’t work anymore. Big question: will Trent Lott still share star billing with Belafonte at this fundraiser?

UPDATE: Vinod Valloppillil draws some lessons from development economics and asks: “What this incident also calls into question is the continuing legitimacy of “group leaders” in an environment of (generally) rising political enfranchisement.”

THE GOOD NEWS is that there are promising developments in protecting troops from chemical weapons. The bad news is that they won’t be ready in time to help us with Iraq.

MORE ON THE MORAL STANDING OF MULTILATERALISM:

A senior Kremlin official indicated yesterday that Russia would demand a high price for its support in the campaign against Iraq but that it would not ultimately stand in America’s way.

With Tony Blair due in Moscow this afternoon, the Kremlin’s senior spokesman said Russia would adopt a “pragmatic” position over Iraq, shorthand for a demand that it must receive substantial financial compensation.

See, Russia is worried that the price of oil might fall — which would be bad for Russia, though good for a lot of poor countries elsewhere — and wants guarantees that that won’t happen.

Yeah, good thing we’re not going about this in a self-interested, unilateral manner. Because then it would be, you know, all about oil.

RAVE ACT UPDATE: Talkleft reports that Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has introduced a House version of this dumb bill. And it may move fast.

Don’t they have anything better to do? If Congress thinks it should be focusing on this crap in wartime, I say, “Cut their pay, and send them home.”

IS IT 1984 IN AMERICA? Some people will say so in response to this indictment. But as a reader points out: “Check the photo.” It’s got to have his defense lawyers worried.

UPDATE: Another Airbrush Award Nominee? The photo — which showed the defendant in traditional garb brandishing an AK-47, no longer accompanies the story. In fact, there’s no record that it was ever there, or explanation of why it was removed. I’ve emailed the Post to ask why.

AN0THER UPDATE: Still no word from the post, but reader Michael Kuhl forwards this link to Yahoo, where the picture is still available at the moment. It seems to have disappeared from quite a few places, but there’s no explanation of why. If there were an obvious reason — say, if it weren’t actually him — shouldn’t there be a correction to that effect?

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Daniel Drezner reports (at the end of an interesting post on terrorist financing) that the Defense position is that the person on the photo isn’t the same guy. With that in mind, here’s a link to a slideshow from a German newspaper that also identifies the picture (it’s #5) as the defendant Enaam Arnaout. There are quite a few photos showing him in compromising positions (one with Osama bin Laden). Presumably, the Defense will argue that none of these are Arnaout, and of course I can’t possibly say. In some cases, maybe nobody will be able to — some of the pictures are pretty indistinct. Others are pretty clear, so presumably there will be a definitive answer forthcoming.

LILEKS ON BLOGGING:

Shortly thereafter Internet access went out for the entire building.

I felt cut off from the world. It was as if my window had been bricked up. I needed to know what was going on out there.

Keep in mind that I had this feeling in a newspaper, where I had access to every wire service on the planet.

That’s actually rather telling. I’ve come to depend on the krill-filtering mechanisms of blogs and news sites, because they’re far more interesting than the wire feeds. I read a wire story, and that’s that. A wire story consists of one voice pitched low and calm and full of institutional gravitas, blissfully unaware of its own biases or the gaping lacunae in its knowledge. Whereas blogs have a different format:

Clever teaser headline that has little to do with the actual story, but sets the tone for this blog post.

Breezy ad hominem slur containing the link to the entire story.

Excerpt of said story, demonstrating its idiocy (or brilliance)

Blogauthor’s remarks, varying from dismissive sniffs to a Tolstoi-length rebuttal.

Seven comments from people piling on, disagreeing, adding a link, acting stupid, preaching to the choir, accusing choir of being Nazis, etc.

I’d say it’s a throwback to the old newspapers, the days when partisan slants covered everything from the play story to the radio listings, but this is different. The link changes everything. When someone derides or exalts a piece, the link lets you examine the thing itself without interference. TV can’t do that. Radio can’t do that. Newspapers and magazines don’t have the space. My time on the internet resembles eight hours at a coffeeshop stocked with every periodical in the world – if someone says “I read something stupid” or “there was this wonderful piece in the Atlantic” then conversation stops while you read the piece and make up your own mind.

I’m serious. I was sitting at a terminal at a major American daily, and I thought: I feel so uninformed!

I know what he means. And I think the point about how the link changes everything is key. I get the occasional complaint from old-line journalists about my “bias” in the way I characterize something I link to. But that’s the difference: unlike old media, I link to it. Readers don’t have to take my word. They can make up their own minds. My comments are like the chatter of the guy at the newsstand as he hands you the paper: “Those bums are gonna blow the pennant again, looks like.”

Okay, actually that mostly happens in old movies. But, like his comments, mine are at no extra charge (“extra” charge?). They may send you to a different newsstand where you like the comments better, or they may bring you back. Your call. The story’s the same regardless. And you can make up your own mind who’s going to win the pennant.

HERE’S A STORY FROM TIME EUROPE on the trial of the 1995 subway bombers in Paris:

Boualem Bensaïd was standing just meters away from people whose lives he is accused of tearing asunder in a 1995 bombing campaign in the Paris Métro. He showed no feeling save contempt. The alleged Islamist terrorist from Algeria — on trial last week with co-defendant Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem for three blasts in which eight people died and more than 200 were injured — dismissed both the charges against him and those in court who “claim to be victims of an attack.” Insisting that “We are not the extremists here,” Bensaïd, 35, refused to explain his illegal entry to France just before the bombing spree began. “That’s none of your business,” he told the court. “I do as I please.”

Hey, where are the critics of “unilateralism” now?

UPDATE: Hey, criticism of unilateralism in the terror world has gotten results!

MERYL YOURISH RESPONDS to a Harvard Crimson piece in favor of divestment from Israel. She’s not impressed.

BORDERS IS RETURNING TO LOWER MANHATTAN, according to this report on Blogcritics. My local Borders still has a picture of the World Trade Center store up on the wall, marked R.I.P.

HERE’S A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT of a brush with the DC Sniper investigation.

FBI AGENTS ACCUSED OF THEFT FROM WTC INVESTIGATION. Boy, this fills me with confidence. I know you find bad apples everywhere, but once again this seems to suggest that Homeland Security isn’t exactly a well-oiled machine.

“I SUPPOSE THIS OFFICIAL U.N. REPORT MEANS NOTHING TO YOU?”

NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I was going to say that the issue was settled by the fact that Spongebob wears tighty-whities, but a quick Google search demonstrated that those weren’t quite as stereotypically straight as I’d assumed. Live and learn.

I CONFESS that I haven’t followed the Tom White / Paul Krugman / Jason Leopold story very closely at all. But for those who have, Leopold has posted his side of what went on. That it’s on a site operated out of New Zealand may indicate that he’s having trouble getting his message out — or, in this age of transglobal communication, may not. At any rate, though I don’t know enough about this matter to make a judgment, those who have been following it more closely may find this interesting.

UPDATE: Brian Carnell — who’s no Leopold fan — posts what he calls a condensed version of the history on this matter, with links.

MAIL: Jeez, I post that I’m going to be offline a while, and you folks send more mail than usual. It was, er, rather a lot more than the measly 65 unread emails that Eugene Volokh was complaining about the other day. Sorry if responses are slow or nonexistent; I’ll do my best.

UPDATE: At least I was missed.

THE ANTIWAR EFFORT isn’t getting off to much of a start at Williams College. Worse yet, the Chaplain seems to be, well, lying:

For his part, Spalding said his intention was never to advance his partisan goal, but rather to help Williams students get in contact with key Senators to express their opinions on the war with Iraq – whatever those opinions might be.

Gundersen, however, questions why Spalding only contacted the SSJ if he was truly interested in opening the event to both sides of the discussion. “It seems to reveal the true purpose that only one organization with a predictable point of view was contacted,” Gundersen said.

That’s real moral leadership. This seems to tie in with what Donald Sensing says about the moral seriousness of antiwar religious efforts.

CLAYTON CRAMER WILL BE ON THE AIR in Minneapolis tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 7:20 CST on FM 107. Call and ask him a question.

ORRIN JUDD says that Gray Davis is right, and I agree with Orrin. . . .

STUDENT READERS: If you buy used textbooks, read this.