Any Muslim that denies that terror is a part of Islam is kafir [an unbeliever]

On his talk radio show the other day, a frustrated Michael Graham made the following statement:

Sadly, as it is constituted today, Islam IS a terrorist organization, but the good news is that the major of Muslims--who don't support terror--can change that and take back their religion.

Now CAIR wants Graham fired.

Little Green Footballs and Mens News Daily have more, and Graham elaborates in a column here.

From Tim Blair, there's this bit of unfriendly logic -- that if a non-Muslim is friends with a Muslim, then the Muslim isn't a Muslim:

There’s no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend, so a non-Muslim could be your associate but they can’t be a friend. They’re not your friend because they don’t understand your religious principles and they cannot because they don’t understand your faith. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Trying to analyze this thing is like walking a tightrope. There's so little room for anything resembling even dialogue, much less compromise -- even over the most basic definitions.

Islam, it seems, cannot be called anything -- whether moderate, radical, religion of war, or religion of peace -- without offending lots of Muslims (and plenty of non-Muslims). It isn't so much a question of what the right answer is. There may be no right answer, but being right isn't the point.

I mean, what's really to discuss?

If moderate Muslims aren't Muslims and aren't allowed to be friends, what's to do?

The Inquirer's Tom Ferrick (a staunch supporter of mandatory African American history for all Philadelphia school children -- a subject I posted about here) is asking his readers to test their black history IQ.

Intrigued by this, I took the test, and received a perfect score of 100% correct. I'm not sure how to interpret these results. Does it mean that my education was sufficient? I never took an African American history course, and I have not read the proposed text -- "The African-American Odyssey, by Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine and Stanley Harrold."

In the interest of fairness, I thought I should share the test with my readers. (I'm wondering.... if I know this stuff without having taken any special courses, I'm wondering whether it might be treated part of American history, as opposed to a special, separate-but-equal, diversity-style history.)

Here's the test:

1. True or false: Most blacks who ended up in slavery were captured by European traders who raided the African coast.

2. It is estimated that between 1451 and 1870, nearly 9.3 million Africans were brought to the New World as slaves. Which area got the greatest number?

a) The 13 British colonies

b) Caribbean nations.

c) Brazil.

d) Spanish colonies.

3. True or false: One-third of the captured slaves died in passage to the New World.

4. True or false: After the Revolutionary War, while the South maintained slavery, it quickly disappeared in most northern states.

5. In 1860, there were nine million whites living in the Southern states. What percentage of them owned slaves?

a) 62

b) 32

c) 16

d) 4

6. True or false: Blacks enlisted and fought for the Union cause from the beginning of the Civil War.

7. Under the "separate but equal policy" condoned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896, schools in the South became segregated after Reconstruction ended.

In 1915, in the 23 largest cities of the South, there were a total of 36 whites-only high schools. How many black high schools were there?

a) 36

b) 22

c) 8

d) 0

8. He ridiculed the NAACP as "the National Association for Certain People" and called W.E.B. DuBois a "lazy, dependent mulatto." Name this political leader of the 1920s.

9. True or false: After Pearl Harbor, African Americans volunteered for the armed services in such record numbers that the Pentagon ended its long-standing policy of segregating black and white troops.

10. True or false: The U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965 was very effective in empowering blacks to exercise their right to vote.

OK kids! If you took the test without peeking, you may then click below to score your answers.

(BTW, I sure hope they're going to grade the students who take the course; grades are going out of style these days.)

Coco has a small friend -- a full-grown Shih-Tzu named "Tristan" -- who's known her since she was four months old. Tristan is a neutered adult male (and less than one-third Coco's size), which is why I am surprised and shocked to see that his once-meek habits have clearly turned from friendly to blatantly amorous.

This afternoon's events started out as a lazy afternoon visit to a delightful older estate. Here sit Coco and Tristan, luxuriating in the shade, a stately mansion behind them:

Tristan had other things in mind, though, and soon the older dog's thoughts turned from innocent puppy play to genuine lust. Despite his substantial disadvantage in size, he did his best to mount Coco:

(Penetration, of course, would have been almost impossible.)

But lest anyone doubt the little dog's determination, here's a closeup of his face:

Almost impossible? Not if Coco keeps doing stuff like this:

It's probably fortunate for both of them that Tristan lacks the necessary equipment to procreate. Because if something did happen, not only would the progeny look a bit ridiculous, but what would I call them?

A Pit-Tzu?

A Shiht-Bull?

A Bull-Shiht?

(Damned if I'm not being dogged by definitions again.)

UPDATE: If you are considering linking to this post, BEWARE! Horny ewoks can get you fired!

One of the young men charged with murdering male-to-female teenager Gwen Araujo (with whom he'd had sexual relations) explained to the court what was on his mind:

"Your whole life you think you're a heterosexual. Then you get pleasure from a homosexual. It disgusted me," he said.

"I thought it was impossible to derive pleasure from a man unless you were gay ... I was having serious questions about my sexuality."

I'm at a bit of a loss to understand this kind of massive insecurity. Such insane weakness masquerading as masculine strength. I mean, even accepting the defense argument that he was "tricked" by the trans teen into thinking "he" was a "she," why would such a trick cause someone to question his sexuality, unless there was already some underlying question? (And what sort of insanity dictates that all people must have a "sexuality" which is open to "question"?)

No one likes being fooled, but by definition, when you are fooled, it does not reflect on the real you -- unless you want it to. I notice that there were several young men involved in this murder, and they probably goaded each other on by peer pressure.

In cases like this, I'm always tempted to play devil's advocate, and ask whether anything remotely like this would happen if a homosexual man were "tricked" into heterosexual sex. (Obviously, the idea of a murder occasioned by "straight panic" is laughable.)

Quite some time ago, in the context of reality show trickery leading to murder, I asked,

Is it worse for heterosexual men to be "humiliated and mocked" for suspicion of homosexuality than it is for homosexuals themselves? If so, why?

I am not trying to be facetious here, but I think it is fair to denounce both forms of prejudice. This is not to advocate sleazy reality shows like this in any way, but I don't see why the anger should be limited solely to the producers of the show. Suppose a Christian man on a reality show were falsely portrayed as a Muslim, and this caused him to be humiliated and mocked by friends and co-workers. It might have been sleazy to make such a false claim, but wouldn't the bigotry be at least as sleazy? What crucial distinction am I missing here?

Samizdata's Guy Herbert made such a brilliant remark that (despite the fact that I'm out for dinner and shouldn't even be using this computer right now) I can't resist sharing it. Otherwise I might forget.

It's about freedom versus so-called "rights."

Freedom has no natural place in a "hierarchy of rights". Freedom used to be what was left over when other people's rights to their choices were taken into account. But the priesthood seems keen to ensure that there are "rights" everywhere, with no space for anything else, and that "rights" are not options, they are compulsions. Lenin would be proud.

I'm not saying there aren't such things as rights. (After all, this country was founded on the Bill of Rights.) But we should be proud of freedom, and stop fetishizing newly invented "rights" which seem more and more antithetical to freedom.

Virginia Postrel's reporting (via Glenn Reynolds) of this shocking display of anti-book triumphalism reminded me of what I saw done to the San Francisco Public Library: a drastic reduction in the number of books, with the former stacks of books replaced by huge uncluttered spaces with Internet terminals here and there. (Plenty of space now for the homeless who live in the place, and for loud undisciplined kids to play there without fear of being shushed so people can read.)

As to the books, they were turned into landfill. When the public noticed, the librarian who did it was fired, but the damage was done:

Dowlin was fired as a result of the scandal involving landfill dumping of books to cover up the botched design of the New Main library, among other failings.

The meme that's going around is that "The Internet has made traditional libraries obsolete."

Has it?

If so, then what's the purpose of all the tax dollars going to libraries?

Charles Krauthammer, noting that one-quarter of all British Muslims sympathize with the recent bombings (and one-fifth have little or no loyalty to Britain), observes that these trends are worse among younger British Muslims. For this he blames a "massive failure of assimilation."

Massive failure of assimilation?

Excuse me, but isn't that the whole idea of multiculturalism?

Or is it just an unintended consequence?

Krauthammer maintains that the British situation is not analogous to the United States, because of our long history of assimilation.

However, the clear modern trend is to move away from assimilation -- in the name of multiculturalism.

From the 1880’s to the 1940’s when millions of immigrants arrived in the United States, Assimilation was the accepted norm in our culture and society. Assimilation can be defined as the process by which groups adapt or change to the dominant culture. When the 1960’s brought with it the Civil Rights Movement, Cultural Pluralism or Multiculturalism replaced assimilation.

The British bombings ought to be seen as an early warning.

For all my Inquirer-based criticism (much of which is over what happened, not the way it was reported), I wish the other MSM outlets showed the Inquirer's foresight where it comes to blogs. Not only does the Inquirer feature a regular column about blogs, they have their own blog called Blinq. It's liberal, (and honest enough to admit it), and it is intelligently written by a seasoned reporter Daniel Rubin.

And in today's front page story titled Blogger Heightens Interest, the Inquirer heaped praise on a blogger who came to the aid of a young woman missing for more than a week:

Thanks largely to the efforts of a local Internet blogger, the Figueroa case is receiving plenty of national coverage, particularly from cable news.

"These missing-persons stories happen every day," said the blogger, Richard Blair, who operates a progressive political Web site at www.allspinzone.com. "But which become newsworthy? A lot of it has to do with skin color and economics, but more important, I think, is what catches somebody's eye. If you get the word out, news organizations will respond. That's what we did."

Late last week, Philadelphia police briefed reporters about the missing woman. But little coverage ensued.

So on Tuesday, Blair, thinking the case deserved more attention, dispatched a pointed e-mail to Nancy Grace, host of a nightly show on CNN Headline News.

I was particularly impressed by a quote the Inquirer ran from a journalism professor who actually likes blogs:

What has happened also highlights the role of bloggers vis-a-vis the mainstream media.

"Blogs can act as a stimulus to traditional journalism," said Richard Craig, who teaches journalism at San Jose State University. "That's what happened in this case. It's a good thing."

It is only fair to point out that Richard Blair is not the only blogger to be assisting a missing person's case.

Glenn Reynolds has pointed his readers to the search for 17-year-old Cheryl Ann Magner, who has been missing since June. (More here.) While I am not sure how important the number of Google hits are to locating a missing person, I notice that Latoyia Figueroa's case has received more attention than Cheryl Ann Magner's, which is why I am mentioning it here. (That plus the fact that I also live in California and have regular West Coast readers.) Even though this blog doesn't normally devote itself to missing person issues, the subject came up, I'm writing this post, and I can only imagine how awful the suffering of both families must be.

Richard Blair and Glenn Reynolds have different political perspectives, but there's nothing partisan about missing person issues, nor should there be.

It's refreshing to see bloggers and the MSM working together for a change.

Because I live on both coasts and have friends both in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the Philadelphia area, I figured the least I could do would be to upload photographs of both young women, because I know that not everyone is going to click on the above links.

Here's a picture of Latoyia Figueroa, missing in the Philadelphia area since July 18:

The following information is from the Inquirer:

Whom to Call

Anyone with information about Latoyia Figueroa is asked to contact the Southwest Detective Division at 215-686-3183 or the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-8477. For more on Latoyia Figueroa's case, go to http://go.philly.com/latoyia.

And here's Cheryl Ann Magner, missing in San Rafael (Marin County), California, since early in June:

The following information comes from this website (with more here):

She has been missing since the beginning of June. She was last seen in Marin County, CA.

Please ,anyone who has seen this 17 year old girl please call the San Rafael police dept. @ 415-485-3000 or www.srpd.org

Any information or help would be greatly appreciated by the family.

This just in from Drudge: Helen Thomas will kill herself if Dick Cheney runs for president:

Veteran wire reporter Helen Thomas is vowing to 'kill herself' if Dick Cheney announces he is running for president.

The newspaper HILL first reported the startling claim on Thursday.

MORE

"The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself," she told the HILL. "All we need is one more liar."

Thomas added, "I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does."

She sounds not unlike the Larouche looney I saw outside the post office today with a little makeshift booth and signs reading, 'Fire Bush and Jail Cheney.'

But then again the so-called 'First Lady of the Press' (an odd designation as you'd be hard-pressed to find a mate for Darth Sidious in drag) is responsible for such damnably sad exchanges as this one with Ari Fleischer, who did an admirable job resisting the temtpation to laugh:

Q My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, the question is how to protect Americans, and our allies and friends --

Q They're not attacking you.

MR. FLEISCHER: -- from a country --

Q Have they laid the glove on you or on the United States, the Iraqis, in 11 years?

MR. FLEISCHER: I guess you have forgotten about the Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein's aggression then.

Q Is this revenge, 11 years of revenge?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, I think you know very well that the President's position is that he wants to avert war, and that the President has asked the United Nations to go into Iraq to help with the purpose of averting war.

Q Would the President attack innocent Iraqi lives?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President wants to make certain that he can defend our country, defend our interests, defend the region, and make certain that American lives are not lost.

Q And he thinks they are a threat to us?

MR. FLEISCHER: There is no question that the President thinks that Iraq is a threat to the United States.

Q The Iraqi people?

MR. FLEISCHER: The Iraqi people are represented by their government. If there was regime change, the Iraqi --

Q So they will be vulnerable?

MR. FLEISCHER: Actually, the President has made it very clear that he has not dispute with the people of Iraq. That's why the American policy remains a policy of regime change. There is no question the people of Iraq --

Q That's a decision for them to make, isn't it? It's their country.

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, if you think that the people of Iraq are in a position to dictate who their dictator is, I don't think that has been what history has shown.

Q I think many countries don't have -- people don't have the decision -- including us.

That sounds like every poetry writing radical I knew in college.

But right now there are dozens of moderate Democrats saying, 'you tell 'em, Helen!' Because politics is a team sport and your man is always safe no matter how far he ran outside the basepath.

According to a headline in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, Air America Radio's ratings are down -- to the point where the network is "stuck in the cellar":

Air America's overall ratings, which rose initially after all the free publicity, faded before the November election and haven't recovered.

Still, it isn't yet time to call the coroner for Air America Radio, even though some conservative pundits are gloating that AAR is DOA.

What Air America's chief spokesman said last year continues to be the truth this year, because all the words spoken by conservative pundits continue to be lying lies!

It is official. They are now all condemned!

MORE: Notwithstanding the words of truth from Baghdad Bob, the chattering away of impudent conservative pundits like Michelle Malkin and the Llama Butchers (butcherers and consumers of unclean animals, no doubt) continues unabated.

They too are condemned!

MORE: It seems that these professional liar/pundits are everywhere in the blasphemous blog-o-spere!

MORE: All lies have to start somewhere, and interested readers might want to know that this entire series of lying lies about Air America started with the InstaLiar himself. Baghdad Bob countered by speaking the original truth here.

UPDATE: Despite clear warnings, Captain Ed thinks Baghdad Bob is a joke!

(Well, he was warned.)

MORE LIES: Kevin Aylward, and Ace, by circulating the lies, have also proven themselves worthy of condemnation! And they are both condemned! Shame on all who have linked them!

EDITORIAL FROM HELL: The Washington Times shows itself to be the mother of all lies!

Do not read it!

MORE: The InstaLiar dares to speak again! In a sneaky claim that "there may be more to this than I had thought," fork-tongued serpent Glenn Reynolds links the impudent (and already twice condemned) Captain Ed, thus damning himself for many more future eternities.

They are all condemned again! Tortures of the damned await them!

How many condemnations will it take before these infidels learn?

I'm unable to resist these fascinating remarks by Beatles producer George Martin (a guy who once was young and hip):

Legendary BEATLES producer GEORGE MARTIN disapproves of modern technology because now anyone can make a record in the comfort of their own home.

Martin sealed his place in history by piecing together a string of classic albums including REVOLVER and SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND - but he fears the advent of mp3 players will dumb down the music industry.

He says, "With iPods, mini-recorders and all the new technology, people can lie in their bath and make a rock record."

And I was just getting used to the dumbing down of the media being blamed on bloggers who conduct bloodbaths in the comfort of their pajamas. . .

Speaking of intimidation, this post from Joe's Dart Blog has so upset the Guardian that they've not only condemned the New Jersey blogger, but the whole blogosphere for "obsessively personal attacks":

Rightwing bloggers from the US, where the Guardian has a large online following, were behind the targeting last week of a trainee Guardian journalist who wrote a comment piece which they did not care for about the London bombings.

The story is a demonstration of the way the 'blogosphere' can be used to mount obsessively personalised attacks at high speed.

Within hours, Dilpazier Aslam was being accused on the internet of "violence" and belonging to a "terrorist organisation" - both completely untrue charges.

As Joe reminds us, the ferocious anti-Semitism of groups like Hizb ut Tahrir cannot be seen in a vacuum:

Contrary to the assertions of the anonymous Guardian defender, Aslam did not belong merely to an "anti-Semetic" political group. Although it would be politically correct to call all Islamic Fundamentalist groups that, it is a deadly misnomer. In these times, eastern Islamic Fundamentalist groups which preach anti-Jewish sentiment and call for the deaths of all Jews are actively pursuing that goal. The Guardian seems content to whisper to itself, "It's just talk... just politics," but anyone who had one eye open on 7/7 knows otherwise.

That was the defense of Julius Streicher, but he still ended up on the gallows, because his words were seen by the Nuremburg Tribunal as a crime against humanity:

Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity.

However, consider the much more recent case of media executives in Rwanda:

The United Nations tribunal in Arusha has convicted three former media executives of being key figures in the media campaign to incite ethnic Hutus to kill Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

It is widely believed that so-called hate media had a significant part to play in the genocide, during which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died.

There is also little doubt that its legacy continues to exert a strong influence on the country.

The most prominent hate media outlet was the private radio station, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines.

Cockroaches

It was established in 1993 and opposed peace talks between the government of President Juvenal Habyarimana and the Tutsi-led rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which now forms the government.

After President Habyarimana's plane was shot down, the radio called for a "final war" to "exterminate the cockroaches."

[Hizb Ut Tahrir] promotes racism and anti-Semitic hatred, calls suicide bombers martyrs, and urges Muslims to kill Jewish people.

And it isn't as if Jews aren't being killed right now.

MORE: Roger L. Simon calls the Guardian's attacks on Joe's Dartblog a "sign of our media times." Unfortunately, he's right. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Daily Pundit's Lastango is encouraging citizens to get involved with self-help terrorist awareness training, and he's citing such programs as the "Highway Watch" and "Eagle Eyes."

Concludes Lastango,

We may one day decide we need to approximate Israel’s level of awareness, where even school children are given terror awareness training.

But many do not. Instead, they resolutely condemn these programs as racist, xenophobic, Orwellian and, yes, even fascistic.

The Eagle Eyes program has been ridiculed as moronically racist, and as downright totalitarian in nature.

As to the Highway Watch Program, here's top anti-fascist Dave Neiwert:

the purpose of the program is not to do anything serious about terrorism: It's to enable these truck drivers in harassing "non-American" minorities.

In the end, it is not significantly different than government law-enforcement actions that encouraged citizens to "crack down" on their neighboring Japanese Americans on the Pacific Coast during World War II.

Aside from ridiculing and condemning citizen involvement, there are bolder means of intimidating those who might be inclined towards self-help. One of them is to make people fearful of becoming embroiled in litigation if they get involved. Recalling my own post-9/11 experience, I speculated about litigation as a possible motivation, and I concluded:

We have to protect ourselves -- hopefully with common sense, but with our lives if necessary.

Even if we get dragged into lawsuits!

I am not saying that fear of intimidation is not a legitimate fear. But I do think that the more terrorism there is, the more likely people are to lose their fear of intimidation. That's because while terrorism is also intimidation, the ultimate fear created by terrorism is the fear of death. The fear of intimidation promoted by political criticism (or by such threats as lawsuits) is grounded largely in social embarrassment (or at worst losing your job). It boils down to the shame and guilt cycle, but I think life-and-death tends to trump shame-and-guilt.

Driving around I saw an improvised sort of bumpersticker, consisting of two slogans on a rear windshield sign:

NOTE: The car and sign are real. The customized license plate was designed by Dennis.

I must say, it's a rarity, as these two slogans in juxtaposition are not available as a bumpersticker for sale anywhere that I can find.

However, the first slogan -- FREE JUDITH MILLER" -- it's doing pretty well at 13,600 hits. There are of course bumperstickers, T-shirts, and even totebags (the latter sold alongside Hillary coffee mugs.)

As to "JAIL BOB NOVAK," I could only find two Google hits for that phrase.

One was from this "Bush the Destroyer website (which demands that Novak be jailed for "treason"); the other from a commenter here who wants to jail him for "sedition."

Treason is spelled out in the Constitution, and the days of sedition laws are long gone. I don't think the "JAIL BOB NOVAK" meme is much of a winner (no tees yet, folks!), but I do like originality.

Speaking of which, that "Bush the Destroyer" site had an amusing Fox News graphic which is also worth sharing:

Now there's a T-shirt idea!

UPDATE: While searching diligently for the dominant paradigm earlier today (at a nearby shopping center) my search was disrupted by this truly loathsome attack on all that I hold dear!

The horror! The horror!

Today must be one of those days. . .

I should be more careful when I complain about things like pulling teeth, putting teeth in laws, etc.

An important liberal blogger (I guess he's liberal) named Billmon likened Dick Cheney to the sadistic Nazi dentist played by Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man, and he supplied a gruesome picture showing the ghastly tortures beginning as the dentist starts to pry open poor Dustin Hoffman's jaws.

Opines Billmon,

Cheney's face has that same dull, soulless aura about it -- the "banality of evil" look. It's way too easy to imagine Dick leaning over Dustin Hoffman with that electric drill in his hand, patiently asking the same question over and over:

"Is it safe?"

Don't worry, I'm not going into that cavity again, a freshly cut nerve is infinitely more painful.

I don't feel very safe speculating about this, but I have some serious problems -- both with Billmon's opinions and with his picture, so I'm shooting my own copy all the way up to blog etherland.

Here's the problem: Billmon thinks the Nazi dentist looks just like Dick Cheney, but I'm more than a little concerned with who the patient looks like:

Who the hell is that, anyway?

Is it safe to hazard a guess? I'm almost sure I was reading something about dental work recently performed on one of the big bloggers, but my mind is starting to go, and even if he said something about dental issues, I can't remember whether he said anything about any connection between his dentist and the evil Halliburton company.

It unfair to speculate about the patient's identity here (and I hate to invade people's medical privacy), but if it's who I think it is, then I suspect Billmon might begin to see the dentist in at least a slightly more favorable light (regardless of whether he's Cheney or the Nazi).

UPDATE (08/01/05): Is it safe to send dentists to the front? Glenn Reynolds ponders putting teeth in civil defense. (Yes, as long as it's no drill.)

I finally saw War of the Worlds, and despite my concerns that it was about the war in Iraq, I think I can safely state that it was not.

At least, I don't think the Americans yet have anything quite as nasty as these.....

Daytime view:

And the same critters at night:

They're really mean, and they frighten children and put people in cages and stuff. They drink people's blood, and cover the earth with ugly red thready material, which probably violates EPA regulations.

Anyway, the film had fine special effects, and solid acting. I'm not even into science fiction, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. If you think about it, it invites a sequel, because the premise of how the aliens came to be destroyed might very well apply in reverse....

The 149th Carnival of the Vanities has been posted at Pratie Place. Host Melinama does an admirable job with innumerable posts, many of which are political in nature -- this despite the fact that she doesn't like political blogging:

I don't enjoy political blogging, but that's the majority of what was sent to me, so that's what you get. Needless to say I am not in alignment with many of the sentiments expressed.

Anyway, my hat's off to Melinama for hanging in there despite all the politics. She also poses an interesting question:

Question: Do YOU, personally, actually look at any of these entries? Or are these Carnivals like the poetry readings where everybody leaves after submitting their own poem? Please comment.

Editors of poetry journals and literary magazines regularly complain that they receive submissions from far more people than subscribe to their periodicals. They point out there are far more people writing poetry than reading it.

OK, more people would read more poetry if poetry were, in general, less drekky. The same goes for blogs. But new bloggers should be less self-focused. Experienced bloggers understand that they need each other, for encouragement, for ideas, for readers. Sure, it can get recursive (a different problem). But it's less lonely.

Here are a few examples of posts that stood out for me this week:

Anyway, I'm not about to rewrite the whole Carnival, but yes, I do look at the entries, and I usually try to link and comment on them.

(I can't claim I'd fare so well with poetry.)

There's a big fuss being created right now over Senate Bill 397, which would exempt gun manufacturers from lawsuits based on the "criminal or unlawful misuse" of firearms.

I'm getting a bit tired of opponents of this bill saying that it would protect manufacturers and gun dealers against ordinary negligence actions. Here's today's Philadelphia Inquirer editorial:

....the focus of Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) and other Senate leaders wasn't on gun victims yesterday. Instead, they made yet another outrageous attempt to shield gun-makers and dealers from negligence lawsuits.

What's needed are real steps that keep illegal guns off the streets. Too many manufacturers are lax in policing the networks that market guns to dealers. Too many dealers sell to buyers they should suspect are reselling guns illegally.

The answer isn't the gun-immunity measure authored by Sen. Larry E. Craig (R., Idaho), and co-sponsored by both Pennsylvania Republicans, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum. It would effectively scuttle most legal efforts to force industry reform.

Not only would this hardy perennial on the NRA wish-list bar citizens from pursuing any future claims against manufacturers and sellers over the careless distribution of weapons. It would quash existing lawsuits, too. (One such legal claim was filed in Philadelphia last week on behalf of Anthony Oliver.)

Why would gun-makers deserve legal immunity and not the manufacturers, say, of lawn mowers? Answer: the NRA's political clout. The irony is that the Senate postponed work on a defense bill to consider gun legislation that will assure America's streets remain unsafe.

The bill specifically states that it is intended to protect against actions:

....resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a qualified product by the person or a third party, but shall not include--

(ii) an action brought against a seller
for negligent entrustment or negligence per se;

More here.

Like the previous Inquirer article regurgitated by the Kansas City Star and other Knight-Ridder outlets, the Inquirer's editorial also focuses on the price of the gun, calling it a "cheap Saturday-night special."

What is a Saturday night special?

The term "Saturday night special" is of racist origin, and while the "N" word has been dropped, it is loaded language not grounded in logic, but in emotion. Why object to the low price of any item for sale, unless that objection is grounded in a dislike of the technology itself? Safety is not the issue; no one is saying the gun failed to work or that it blew up in someone's face. The sole criteria is price.

In other words, "these guns are so cheap that poor people in the inner cities are able to buy them."

Would anyone say this about low cost computers?

Almost all of the recent torrent of editorials (and "news releases" like this) cite the case of Anthony Oliver, so I think it's worth a look at the allegations. Here's the Philadelphia Daily News:

Anthony's parents, Anthony Oliver Sr. and Sheree Goode, filed suit this week in Common Pleas Court against the gun shop and Phoenix Arms, the Ontario, Calif., manufacturer of the .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

The Saturday-night special used to shoot and kill Anthony was sold by Lou's on Dec., 18, 2003, to a gun trafficker who sold the gun to someone else, said Elizabeth Haile, staff attorney for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Haile, along with Center City attorney Mark J. LeWinter, is representing Anthony's parents.

It's unclear how many times the gun was resold before it got into the hands of Anthony's close friend, Quamere Durham, then 13.

Quamere has told police he bought the pistol for $50 with his allowance near his Wynnefield home, because he was intimidated by a group of kids who had jumped his friend and threatened to return and shoot one of them.

Thinking the gun could not go off, Quamere allegedly picked it up and pulled the trigger, unintentionally shooting Anthony in the abdomen. Quamere and his friends called 911 and tried to stop the blood gushing from Anthony's midsection with paper towels and toilet paper. Anthony died that night.

Quamere faces third-degree murder charges, and he is under electronically monitored house arrest.

Anthony's mother believes Quamere didn't mean to do it. "He didn't know anything about guns. He's a child," she has said.

"I jumped up to see if Anthony was all right... he was moaning, saying, 'Call the cops,' " Scott testified.

He said Durham dropped the gun and called police to the house on the 2200 block of North 51st Street.

"He asked me to hide the gun, so I hid it under the china closet," Scott said.

Police said Durham initially told them he shot Oliver with a BB gun. Then he said Oliver brought the handgun into the house, police said.

Later, according to investigators, Durham admitted in a statement that he bought the gun on the street about a week before the shooting.

Durham said the $50 purchase price came from his allowance.

"I was scared. I didn't want my grandmother to know I bought the gun and had it in the house," Durham told investigators.

And the dealer.

Let's look at the dealer Stanton Myerson, now defendant in this lawsuit. Here's what he told the Philadelphia Daily News:

....Stanton Myerson, owner of Lou's Jewelry and Pawn, said he follows the law and is a responsible gun seller.

"The bottom line is we've been in business since 1921," he said yesterday afternoon. "We've sold guns for more than 83 years, and we abide by the laws at the time.

"The public has to understand we don't approve or not approve anyone to purchase a gun. The state police approves or denies a person through a background check," he said.

"It's the state of Pennsylvania doing the approving, not Lou's. What more can we do?"

Myerson said there was nothing wrong with selling multiple guns to one person.

"There's nothing illegal about a person buying multiple guns," he said.

"The responsibility comes down to the people who buy and own guns and use them," he added.

Philadelphia is plagued by gun violence because some people "lack respect for human life. If they had more respect, there would be less tragedies in the world," he said.

The lawsuit filed this week also alleges that Phoenix Arms, one of the largest producers of Saturday-night specials, should have known Lou's had hundreds of crime gun traces and not supplied guns to this store.

Now, I had to pay a fee for all of this, and I had to wait while the guy was on hold. For the sake of argument, let's assume that I'd bought five guns in the same store previously, and the guy did what the Brady people would apparently have him do, and refused to sell me the gun. He had just run the legally-mandated background check which the state required him to run and which I'd had to pay for, and which I'd passed. I think I'd have an excellent lawsuit against him for refusing to sell me the gun, and I don't think he'd be in business very long. (Perhaps that's what the Brady people want?)

These lawsuits are absolute nonsense, and they are frivolous in the extreme. If I buy dozens of guns, it is my business. The dealer has no control over whether I hang them on the wall, coat them with grease and bury them in my yard, shoot someone, or resell them to others on the street illegally. If I do the latter things they're crimes. I've known people who've collected hundreds of guns; should they have been refused purchase? What duty would they impose on this dealer beyond the considerable paperwork already imposed? And why stop at requiring him to check the number of guns I might have purchased previously at his store? Shouldn't he also attempt to discover whether I've purchased other guns at other stores? I mean, if you're illegally reselling guns, why make it obvious? And if there's to be a legal precedent holding the dealer liable for what I do with the gun, why not require him to ask whether I plan any holdups? Or whether I'm considering suicide? If this sounds laughable, it's no more laughable than the idea that the dealer should check to see how many guns I am purchasing, or whether the gun is "too cheap."

Individuals should be held responsible for their own conduct, not that of others. Blaming dealers and the manufacturers for what ultimate purchasers do with the guns makes no sense at all.

Might as well blame a region.

Oh yes.

There's a notorious "Iron Highway" which brings guns up from the dangerous, evil South.

Interestingly, the above chart does not blame the South for Philadelphia's "gun violence."

The South is only responsible for what goes on in New York and Camden.

Something must be done!

UPDATE: Be sure to read my blogfather Jeff Soyer's continuing updates on S.B. 397. (They keep trying to add amendments like bans on "cop killer" bullets -- as if some bullets kill only cops -- and other such nonsense, like exceptions "for children.") Gun owners need to watch this stuff closely.

I have been busy configuring my new toy, and it's a time consuming process, because I bought it used. (Such a deal!) Anyway, I'm not given to following trends, so after my last MP3 player conked out for the last time, instead of buying a new Apple Ipod, I decided to buy a Creative Nomad Zen. A close friend has one, and I've played around with it enough to know that it's an excellent, versatile, light-weight machine. (Well, light-weight enough for me! Some of these things are too light, and they make me nervous.)

More than one reviewer has rated the sound quality higher than the Ipod, but considering that most of what I listen to was originally recorded in the late 1950s, even if I had the original fidelity of the masters, it wouldn't come close to what's recorded today.

What's taken a lot of time is that this used player has a 30 gigabyte hard drive which arrived two-thirds full (that's 3,756 songs, to be exact), and all I wanted to do was put all my music in there and organize it into three or four groups, so there'd be nothing else to distract me. That way, if I hit the wrong button, I wouldn't be listening to stuff like this.

Remarkably, much as I hate "felon rap," I'm now wondering whether I've become some sort of felon by having it in my possession!

Seriously, the way they write laws these days, it wouldn't surprise me if I committed 3,756 crimes simply by my act of buying a used MP3 player.

(Another reason I hate lawyers.)

Without getting into too much detail, the hypothetical law school exam question for the day is: how do I "do the right thing?"

Should I wipe the hard drive clean and fill it with my legal (mostly obscure, and not for sale anywhere) Doowop collection? Would I be committing a crime if I left the previous owner's music inside the player? Or only if I listened to it? Or would I have to share it with someone else in order to commit the crime of copyright infringement? Am I allowed to "dump" the files onto my computer hard drive, or must I electronically delete them? Need the transfer be electronic, or was this accomplished when the MP3 player was sent to me in the mail? What about intent?

Will any of my readers be willing to pay my bail?

I promise to be good and never buy any used electronic equipment again!

UPDATE: Techdirt links to this New York Times piece in which writer John Schwartz confesses to similar multiple felonies:

Kenneth Chang is a colleague who recently sold me his iPod. After just a few months, he needed one with more storage.

The beauty of the thing is that it lets you carry all of your music with you, thousands of songs. It's like having a radio station that plays the music of my life: WJHN.

After buying the slightly scuffed block of plastic and metal, I was ready to load my songs. But then I stopped. Ken had left more than 3,000 songs on the iPod, and a quick scroll through them showed that there were a lot I didn't own, and many artists I'd never listened to, like a band called "The The," with a wonderfully brutal song, "Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)."

And so I listened.

And it gets worse. Although the writer admits to a certain amount of moral squeamishness, he clearly doesn't understand the profoundly heinous nature of his slide into a life of crime:

...eavesdropping on Ken's iPod worried me. I have read about people randomly plugging in to each others' iPods to figure out what songs are in their friends' heads, or even in the heads of strangers. (They call it "podjacking.") But this was a mind meld.

What if I hated Ken's taste? Would I lose respect for him? I'm not talking about the Paula Abdul songs; we're all entitled to our guilty pleasures. But what if it was all bubblegum, or deeply dull? It would be like opening his closet and finding Star Trek uniforms. I fretted.

Imagine. Prison time for possessing music you never wanted and don't even like!

The world is getting crazier and crazier.

Here's Garrison Keillor, in 1997, on plaid pants:

TR: Get into the mood of spring with a pair of bright, festive plaid pants - the fashion exclamation - plaid pants, one way of saying, "This is me, it couldn't be anyone else."

GK: In primitive aboriginal tribes, the male who wore the brighest colors was the most virile and agressive, and it's the same in this country too.

TR: That's right. If you get yourself the right pair of pants, people will remember you for years afterward.

GK: With bright plaid pants, you'll get faster service in restaurants, and you'll never be struck by a moving vehicle.

TR: Plaid pants keep bugs off and distract opponents in golf matches, and they revitalize your marriage or whatever else is going on in your life.

GK: So - get happy. Get a load of pants at Gary's Plaid Pants Warehouse, where the giant pants on the flagpole show you the way to big pants savings. Available only where sold, should not be used when operating heavey machinery.

Since when is PLAID gay?

No, seriously. While I can't believe this has become a matter of public debate, it has. And as a longtime critic of the "fashionista" approach to ad hominem politics, I feel obligated to speak up. What's called a "whispering" campaign of gay innuendo boils down to a picture of John Roberts wearing 1970s-style plaid pants. This, we are supposed to believe, makes the man's sexuality questionable.

Not that I'd care whether he was photographed in drag, mind you. But plaid? Where I grew up, plaid pants were a standard variety of preppie, country club attire, and there was nothing gay about them then. (I've always associated them more with drunken, golf-playing, heterosexuals than anything else.) Nor do I think there's anything gay about them now. Back in the 70s (and 80s, and even into the 90s) the gay scene to the extent I've been familiar with it was best known for a Levis and T-shirts look.

Plaid pants in a gay bar?

I can't remember ever seeing such a thing. It wouldn't have, um, worked.

Yet the meme for today is that paid pants are gay. I'm sorry, but I think they've cooked this up exclusively for John Roberts.

The larger issue, of course, is the outright paranoid anti-gay McCarthyism underlying this attempted smear. (Remember, this comes on the heels of an attempted smear against the man's four-year-old child.)

What I think might be going on is that because most Americans (including conservatives) are less and less interested in personal issues, these smears have to be ratcheted up accordingly to get anyone's attention:

....it is the height of hypocrisy for the (allegedly) pro-tolerance crowd to start questioning someone's sexual preference. It's a strange and twisted tactic for those who are allied with the gay rights movement to try to make an issue out of someone supposedly being gay.

Who cares?

Well, that's just the point: they think we do. They think that they can undermine support for someone among conservatives if they can dredge up some sort of homosexual connection -- or, in this case, just the manufactured whiff of a question.

(Via Power Line, Law Dork, Ann Althouse and InstaPundit.)

Fashionism is getting downright creepy.

UPDATE: Via Michelle Malkin, I see that Justice Roberts' entire family is being attacked for being -- what is it? -- overdressed?

The nominee was in a sober suit with the expected white shirt and red tie. His wife and children stood before the cameras, groomed and glossy in pastel hues -- like a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of Jelly Bellies, three little Necco wafers...

You think I'm kidding? When I was in Nashville, here's what was said about the attire of bloggers:

If the attendees at BlogNashville are any indication, bloggers are very white, very male and very bad at dressing themselves.

(Via Sean Hackbarth.)

I was wearing a suit, so I suppose I could have been attacked for neatness.

Fashionism is a no-win.

This week's RINO Roundup has been posted by Countertop, who begins with a look at one of history's greatest RINOs.

I don't want to spoil it, so go read it. Otherwise, you'll miss it, and you'll also be missing out on posts like these:

According to Variety, Steven Spielberg's upcoming film -- now to be (re)named Munich -- is generating controversy over whether it is based on a book many consider inaccurate (if not apologetic to terrorism):

The Tony Kushner script is under such a lockdown that a Mossad agent would be hard-pressed to infiltrate its cover page.

But Variety can at least reveal what that cover page starts with: "Munich." That's the official title of the film.

Though not very descriptive, Spielberg's inner circle can only hope the title might defuse the notion that the movie is based on "Vengeance," a book based on input from a purported member of the hit team. Its veracity has been widely questioned.

Once it became known that book was among the resources used by screenwriters Eric Roth and Kushner, a chorus of detractors surfaced in press stories. Before he shot a frame, Spielberg had a controversy that rivaled the one surrounding "The Passion of the Christ."

Gad Shimron, a former Mossad officer and author of "The Mossad and its Myth," echoed the sentiments of several Israeli intelligence experts contacted by Variety correspondent Marc Daugherty.

"I know the 'Vengeance' book. It's nonsense, totally baseless," Shimron says. "This sexy plot of an epic squad composed of a German, a Frenchman, an American, a Brit sounds like a bunch of clowns playing partisans behind enemy lines. It never happened that way."

The Spielberg camp maintains "Vengeance" was just one of the resources that went into telling a story they feel sticks close to the truth while taking enough dramatic license to make a compelling film.

"While people think this is based on 'Vengeance,' I'm telling you that there were also memoirs from involved parties from both sides," says Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy. "They did tremendous research on this."

People only think this was based on Vengeance?

Where on earth might they have gotten such an idea?

The film's name, perhaps?

Why would an otherwise ho-hum web site devoted to tracking films have spent nearly a year calling the film Vengeance?

Wednesday 15th February 2005: Vengeance
Steven Spielberg plans a summer start for his postponed movie about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Universal/DreamWorks project had been scheduled to film last year. Casting had begun when Spielberg decided to have "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner do a rewrite on the project, on which writers Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) and Charles Randolph (The Interpreter) also had worked. Universal Pictures will release the film in the USA on December 23.

Wednesday 11th August 2004: Vengeance Update:
Tony Kushner, writer of Angels in America, has been brought in to rewrite the script to Steven Spielberg's olympic drama Vengenace which has been pushed back.

Wednesday 4th August 2004: Vengeance Update:
Director Steven Spielberg has postponed his movie Vengeance which covers the successful hunt for the 17 Palestinians who attacked the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich games becuase of fears of an attack from the terrorist who was never found. Eric Bana is still set to star but the delay has meant Ben Kingsley has dropped out.

Might there be some kind of backtracking going on?

Here's Captain Ed:

It appears that Spielberg has decided to simply work from rumor and innuendo -- much more in the Oliver Stone mode than in the cinema verité of Schindler's List.

Why would Spielberg decide to focus so heavily on Israel's response instead of the terrorist attacks that initiated their actions? Exactly for the reasons given by Craig, only Spielberg doesn't intend on passing judgment merely on Israel for going after the terrorists that targeted its civilians. If these reports are accurate, he intends on passing judgment on America for going after the terrorists that targeted our civilians on 9/11. Spielberg has long opposed the Iraq War and the Bush administration for its efforts to eliminate the threat of Islamofascist terror and tyranny.

Make no mistake -- if Ross and Craig are correct, then Spielberg wants to use the murders of eleven Israeli athletes to issue an anti-Bush polemic. The film will be used as an argument for inaction and introspection instead of fighting the bloodthirsty lunatics that deliberately target and kill civilians. It will provide the ultimate in moral-relativist thinking and terrorist apologetics.

Here's IsraPundit:

Earlier I had expressed some reservations (and linked to others) about Steven Spielberg's planned movie of the Black September atrocity committed against Israel's Olympic team in Munich, 1972. As Backspin had noted the source for the movie is a discredited book. (More on this from Yossi Melman in Ha'aretz.)

Spielberg's compounded his irresponsibility by hiring Tony Kushner as his screenwriter. Crossing the Rubicon2 has gotten some disturbing sources on the ideology that Kushner is likely to write into the film.

So the movie will the result of lies colored by an extreme leftwing ideology. Not promising at all.

While it might not look promising, it's only fair too point out that the apologizers have a ferocious defender in James Wolcott, who (after pausing to share inside knowledge of Tennessee faculty lounges) comes out swinging:

The right blogosphere is a-throb over disturbing rumors concocted from the far reaches of thin air regarding Spielberg's upcoming movie about the trackdown and elimination of the terrorists who committed the massacre of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. What has the hotheads cross-eyed with preemptive indignation?

One patriot, poring over the parchment maps in the Captain's Quarters, finds damning evidence in the words of a castmember named Daniel Craig that Spielberg intends to demonstrate that "Vengeance doesn't work." According to the Captain Crunch, working from a top-secret report in the Daily Telegraph, a consultant on the film--former Mideast envoy Dennis Ross--was so incensed by Craig's comment that he warned the Israelis what Spielberg is up to.

Yes, it's awfully arrogant of movie studios not to grant script approval to Mickey Kaus, Captain Courageous, and Little Green Footstool before they begin casting and location scouting--their creative input could be just what Hollywood needs to be saved from itself and restored to the towering glory of the Blacklist era.

Yes, that's the ultimate goal of bloggers who criticize films.

How did Wolcott know?

(Well, now that the cat's out of the bag, if others can apologize for the terrorists, maybe I should consider putting in an apology for the Blacklist Era....)

MORE: Rosemary Esmay has some thoughts about the accuracy of James Wolcott's caricature, and offers him some advice I doubt he'd take to heart.

As if we needed another reminder right now that police make mistakes, the front page of today's Philadelphia Inquirer features yet another article (this one written by three authors) about the bumbling police in Camden, New Jersey.

How could 150 law enforcement officers, armed with search dogs, all-terrain vehicles, mounted equestrian units and thermal-imaging equipment, not find the children in the very yard where they were last seen playing? How could no one - not police, parents, or even the dozens of neighbors who helped search - have thought to check that trunk?

The thing is, I make plenty of mistakes myself. We all do. When, as in the case of three dead boys, mistakes are made which cannot be corrected, it is part of the natural human condition for the blaming to start. And, because 150 officers were involved in this 3-day search, many officers can be blamed. Still, there's anonymity and bureaucracy in numbers, and one cop among 150 doesn't really stand out.

Rather than blame any particular officer, I'm wondering what happened to the old expression, "Too many cooks spoil the broth!" It may sound simplistic, but I think one, two, maybe three officers could have done a better job than 150. I think that it's far more likely that the trunk would have been searched. Early, and maybe more than once. I think the presence of 150 officers is probably why the trunk was never searched. (That plus the fact that they weren't looking for marijuana, which always motivates police to open trunks.) They got in each other's way, made assumptions, and created a crowded situation not conducive to individual initiative, and in all probability, clueless officers were looking at each other for cues on what to do next. This ought to be common sense, really; I can write a blog post like this in an hour, but if someone told me to work with 150 bloggers to come up with a "collaborative" post on this same subject, I doubt it would be finished even by Friday. However, the 150 of us would have 150 different excuses why we couldn't get it done, which illustrates -- sadly -- that there's strength in numbers! (A principle I hope is taken into account in the war on terrorism.)

It goes without saying that a committee is investigating this matter, and they're going to submit a report. Naturally, the report is already being attacked -- before it's been issued:

Even the investigative report expected next week has come under fire from police unions and local politicians because two of the three members of the panel helped lead the search. "Who is going to indict themselves?" asked Wilson, a former city police officer who has been collecting information informally. Another group led by former mayoral candidate Keith Walker is investigating on its own.

The offices of Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi - who appointed the three-member panel - and of Camden Police Chief Edwin Figueroa have declined to comment on the case until after the panel's report is released.

It's all so typical.

Fortunately, mistakes by Camden police are local enough issues that I doubt Bush will be blamed.

Bush is lucky that no one thought to summon Homeland Security for assistance. (And that Camden is nowhere near London.)

UPDATE: Eric Berlin (who also comments below) takes the view that this is a case of parental negligence. True; it certainly does. But incompetence of A is never a defense to incompetence of B. Police routinely deal with idiots, insane people, drug addicts and the like, and I don't think it exonerates them that in this case the parents behaved as absolute idiots. As Eric Berlin notes, the parents are guilty of:

letting a mentally retarded 11-year-old play with two kindergarteners, around the wide-open car that has attracted them before, without adult supervision, and then waiting three hours to call the police when they go missing.

In previous posts on the subject, I argued against Toyota being liable, but I still think that under the most basic standards -- whether based on law or just common sense -- the police were under a duty to open that trunk.

Here are three photos taken in desolate places, without much by way of a common theme, I'm afraid.

I don't know what this tiny building was ever for, or why it was painted as it is:

Pollen production in full bore here:

And an unlabeled church which looked awfully vacant for a Sunday:

I'm afraid the only common denominator is yellow.

(Hardly a "theme.")