Bear in mind that the statistics you read about include incidents like this:

A burglar who kicked his way into a locked store early yesterday found himself facing the shop's owner - who was armed and fired his gun, police said.

Damon Jones, 32, of the 400 block of West Wellens Street, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, authorities said.

The incident began at 5 a.m. in the 5400 block of North Fifth Street, where the owner - who lives in the building that houses his store - heard the burglar breaking in, said Capt. Benjamin Naish of the police Public Affairs Unit.

"The burglar had kicked in the front door and encounters the store owner inside," Naish said. The owner "has been cooperative, and no charges are pending at this time."

Naish said a preliminary investigation was done by homicide detectives, who have sent the case to the District Attorney's Office for review.

Authorities did not identify the store owner because he has not been charged.

Unfortunately, the story was buried on page B-8 of today's Inquirer. I can't state with confidence that this is because of any bias against defensive or justifiable shootings, but for whatever reason, the Inquirer apparently doesn't think these stories are as newsworthy as shooting incidents which occur for reasons unknown. When criminals shoot each other (a common occurrence), it's often front page news. As a matter of routine, the numbers are added to the "death toll" from "gun violence."

Few will notice today's buried story, which is why I'm linking it.

However, what most irritates me about this story is that the criminal's death will be added to this statistical tally of "gun deaths." And "homicides." (Which of course it is.) What that means is that eventually, it will plausibly be spun as "gun violence" and the suspect even turned into a "victim."

More attention needs to be paid to tallying these justifiable killings by private citizens.

I'm wondering . . .

Is there any way to prevent them from being used to buttress the anti-gun position?

Or has it been decided that it is not in our best interest to be able to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable killings?

LEGAL NOTE: "Justifiable homicide" is a tricky concept, and I am not entirely sure about the nuances, and whether an official ruling is required to declare that a death was that. Obviously, a failure by a district attorney to charge someone with a crime is not the same thing as a ruling of justifiable homicide. The law does not appear to be uniform, and in some instances, a coroner's inquest results in such a finding. How many "unsolved" homicides still on the books might be found (if brought to trial) to have involved self-defense? How carefully are killings of felons by felons investigated when (as is often the case) no witnesses come forward? Contrary to popular belief (and de facto police practice), felons do not forfeit the right to self defense. As a practical matter, though, they are far more likely to be charged in the event that they kill in self defense. If Felon A breaks into the home or a car of Felon B and is killed by Felon B, it is unlikely that Felon B will stick around and answer questions. More likely, Felon A's family will insist that the dead man was a victim who had done "nothing wrong" -- and the death will be listed on the books (probably forever) as an "unsolved homicide" -- or even an "unsolved murder."

Any analysis is further complicated by the fact that "justifiable homicide" is not a synonym for "self defense." The former often involves a legal finding by the authorities before a trial, while the latter is a criminal defense raised during trial.

I don't have easy answers. All I know is that I have grown weary of questionable statistics.

(And the pacifist meme that all violence is bad.)

I think we should be glad that this didn't happen at Guantanamo:

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus.

Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad's misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.

"Thanks Allah, now I feel comfort. Today, I had my breakfast. I was just drinking water, nothing else," Mohammad, a grey-beared man in his mid-40s, told Reuters from a hospital bed in the southern central city of Multan.

"We had to take it out intact," said Dr. Farrukh Aftab at Nishtar Hospital. "Had it been broken inside, it would be a very very complicated situation."

Um, I mean, I'm glad he's feeling better, as the whole thing must have been quite an ordeal.

Especially because the man had absolutely no idea how the light bulb got there:

"I don't know who did this to me. Police or other prisoners."

The doctor treating Mohammad said he'd never encountered anything like it before, and doubted the felon's story that someone had drugged him and inserted the bulb while he was comatose.

How different might the spin have been had the same thing happened at Gitmo . . .

Fortunately, it didn't. So the angries of the left won't be carrying on about "suppressed homoeroticism" and cracking jokes like "How many U.S. soldiers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"

While I'm not particularly into journalistic hype, it's hard to resist digging into a piece that starts like this:

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is sitting on his back porch in Berkeley, Calif., listening to the hummingbirds and explaining his plans to seize control of the Democratic Party.

Need more details?

It seems as though the rock-thrower is growing up. Inside, a handyman is remodeling the Moulitsases' suburban living room, where soon the futon will be replaced by a daybed, and the big, boxy television by a sleek new flat-panel.

I've never been a fan of Kos, and I'm still not. But when I see deliberate attempts to influence me by cluttering my mind with irrelevant details, I tend to resist instinctively. And right now, I feel like defending someone I've tended to regard the way one might regard an angry weasel. I never liked Kos (and said so), and I never thought of Daily Kos as a true blog. It's been accurately described as a hive, as it's a huge labyrinth of activity with more writers than probably even Kos can count at any moment in time. Fine for what it is, and I know people like it, but I just can't think of it as a real blog.

Whatever anyone might call the site, Kos has been hugely successful. Still, this was news to me:

. . .in 2003, [] he rose to prominence filling Howard Dean's Internet piggy bank. . .

But never mind. He's now gone from piggy banks to body snatching. So says one nameless Democrat:

By 2006, Daily Kos was drawing some 600,000 hits a day, and Moulitsas's anger over the war—and the Dems' failure to hold Bush accountable—had reached a fever pitch. Yet some Dems fear that Moulitsas's popularity will pull the party so far to the left that it won't be able to win the general election in 2008. "It's a little bit like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with these guys," said an aide to a Democratic presidential candidate who asked not to be identified while the boss was angling for Moulitsas's support. "You like what they're saying when they're coming in, but you don't know what they're going to do once you let them into your house."

You'd think that anyone who'd risen from rockthrowing piggy-bank-filler to body-snatcher of the Democratic Party might warrant, um, a background check, possibly? An investigation, maybe? You know, by the people whose bodies are about to be snatched? They can afford a couple of hundred dollars for the same private investigators who do that sort of thing for humdrum things like divorce proceedings and searches for deadbeat dads.

I think it's reasonable to assume that Kos knows enough about the way the world works to anticipate something like that.

Ah, but no. For even having such thoughts, it's call-the-shrink time. Kos is clearly suffering from "belligerence." And "paranoia":

. . .the strain of the spotlight is beginning to show in his growing belligerence and paranoia. When Kosola broke, Moulitsas e-mailed fellow progressive activists, wondering who might be shopping the story. "I've gotten reliable tips that Hillary's operation has been digging around my past (something I confronted them about, btw, and never got a denial), and you know the Lieberman/DLC/TNR camp is digging as well," he wrote, referring to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and The New Republic. (Aides to Senators Clinton and Lieberman deny the allegations in the e-mails.)

Newsweek leaves the now paranoid body-snatcher-with-grandiose-plans "back on the porch." (why, that's exactly where he was when the piece started) mouthing strange utterances about Jon Stewart, and radar:

Back on the porch in Berkeley, Moulitsas shows he's learned at least one key trick of being an insider: setting low expectations. "We're going to lose a lot of races this year and a lot of races in '08," he says. "The goals of this movement are long term." Still, he knows that superstardom comes with a time limit. "I'm the flavor of the month; it could be someone else in five months or a year." To avoid an early flameout, he's "going dark" for two to three months so he can focus on his "real work, which is talking about these races and issues." He pauses for a moment, thinking over the implications of what he's just said. "Well, there are always exceptions ... I'd make an exception for Jon Stewart." He pauses again so as not to talk over the handyman's high-powered vacuum. "The reality is I can't go under the radar. There's a point of no return."

(Never imagined I'd defend him, though.)

It's been awhile since I've drawn anything, and this was more or less an exercise to brush up, but I was impatient and didn't put in much effort. The concept was my girfriend's ... and she's a Democrat!

What do you think? For awhile I've been toying with the idea of drawing cartoons for this site. I reckon Eric will have the final say. If we go ahead with it we'll need a clever title.

"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

-- George Mason, quoted in today's New York Sun editorial.

Last night I discovered that Jeff Soyer was written up in the UK's Guardian -- although hardly in a manner which could be called respectful. Aside from quoting Jeff without linking him (a definite blog faux pas -- of the Wolcottian variety when done deliberately), they also paid him a sort of lefthanded compliment by calling him part of "the lunatic fringe of the US right." I quickly emailed Jeff to make sure he knew about this compliment, and this morning he thanked the Guardian for honoring him.

As Jeff noted, though, the Guardian neither linked the post they were quoting, nor was it quoted in context. In his post (about Kalashnikov rifles) Jeff said:

Is the AK-47 being used by bad people? Yes. It's also being used by good people. The firearm is neutral.

If some third-world governments are using the AK's to "trample human rights" then rather than banning the sale and export of them, the UN and other so-called "human rights" groups ought to be making sure that AK's are also available and used to fight for human rights and be provided to those who are being "trampled upon".

Instead, they follow the faulty (and proven wrong) logic that banning guns will stop bad people from having them and using them for evil. Cities such as DC and Chicago prove this everyday when they prevent the law-abiding from handgun ownership, thereby empowering the criminals and thugs to prey on them.

As the saying goes, "God created man... Sam Colt made them equal." (Actually, I suspect the original went, "Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal.")

To me, this is basic ABCs-of-freedom stuff. To the Guardian, an elementary principle of freedom is apparently "lunatic fringe."

Ditto the United Nations and its gun grabbing venture - which wants to use "International Law" as a cover for preservation of the rights of dictators at the expense of people living in places like Syria, Cuba, Rwanda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone. Or China, Iran, Belarus, and Egypt.

Jeff links Cam Edwards, who reports from the United Nations:

The Cambodian genocide took place just a generation ago. Yet already the Cambodian government is disarming its citizens, with the approval and help of the United Nations and its disarmament program. In a perfect world, the United Nations would be holding an armament program for the people of Cambodia. It would understand the right of self-protection. It would understand that the State isn’t always the good guy.

Human history shows that tyrannical governments are an inherent threat to freedom. When people are disarmed, tyranny and totalitarianism flourish. When they are armed, tyranny and totalitarianism hesitate.

Nobody put it better than Jefferson:

When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

If arming citizens against tyrants is a lunatic fringe idea, then by all means count me as part of the fringe.

I'll close with more from the New York Sun editorial:

A ban on arms ensures that these oppressive regimes have a complete monopoly on force. Those struggling for freedom in their totalitarian states will have no means to realize their dreams. The Chinese regime wants to defend its ability to conduct a massacre in Tiananmen Square without people being able to fight back.

The Founding Fathers saw the Second Amendment as a way to ensure Americans never faced the same tyranny that dominates the United Nations. A Second Amendment in other countries would be a gift to freedom seekers. As Madison noted in the same Federalist paper quoted above, if a people have arms and local governments "it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it." This conference instead seeks to solidify the thrones of today's tyrants.

You'd have to be a member of the lunatic fringe.

Here's an in-depth look at a vexing question: Are flip-flops damaging your career? While I'm self employed (and thus don't face such workplace pressures), I'm always intrigued by such cultural phenomena, but to my dismay, the article revealed a distinctly sexist bias:

An online survey conducted for retailers Old Navy and Gap found flip-flops topped the list of wardrobe items that college and high school students planned to wear to work this summer.

More than 31 percent of women said flip-flops were the single "must have" item for work this summer.

But many companies disagree.

"The dress code says no beach wear and flip-flops are considered beach wear," said a spokeswoman for BNP Paribas.

Is there something I'm not getting? Surely there isn't a double standard for flip-flops?

Or is there?

Intrigued as I was clueless, I thought I'd visit the blogosphere's leading expert on the subject. Sure enough, the Manolo, he did not disappoint:

The Manolo’s internet friend the Miss Meghan she is, as usual, exactly correct. Unless you are working as the waitress at the beach cafe, or are the Jimmy Buffet, you should not be wearing the flip-flops to your place of professional employment.

Not that it matters to me personally (as I have no boss who can fire me), but I never wear flip-flops, and I don't even own them. But if I worked for a law firm and wore flip-flops to work with a suit, I'm just wondering . . . If they fired me but didn't fire women for wearing them, couldn't I claim discrimination? Better yet, suppose I walked into court that way. I distinctly remember a California lawyer who was threatened with contempt by a judge for wearing tennis shoes into court. But flip-flops? That might mean an immediate contempt citation -- for a male lawyer, that is. That's because such things are seen as inherently disrespectful when worn by men.

Not, apparently, when worn by women.

And not according to the Seattle school board, when worn by children:

The board voted Tuesday to drop a proposed flip-flop ban on grounds that it would be impossible to enforce.

Two anti-flip-flop board members changed their minds after hearing appeals from parents and students. The panel had taken a preliminary vote on flip-flops two weeks ago.

"I don't see myself how flip-flops are disrespectful," Board President Evelyn Castellar said.

I've struggled with school dress codes and double standards before, and while they aren't the same (legally or practically) as workplace dress codes, the uproar over flip-flops worn by women is a tacit admission of a similar double standard. Inherently, I think there just is a double standard, and there's no getting rid of it. Hence the flip-flop division. On men, they're slovenly; on women, they're stylish. The difference lies not in the footwear, but in the difference between the sexes.

Of course, whether flip-flops are allowed and whether they're a good career move are two different issues.

I'm wondering whether it would be more "discriminatory" to not allow them at all, or to allow them, but engage in subtle discrimination against women who wear them as opposed to women who don't.

(Bad career moves lead to such subtle forms of discrimination.)

AFTERTHOUGHT: It occurs to me that my hypothetical example of a man wearing flip-flops with a suit might be overkill. Even in a less formal -- or informal -- workplace, a guy showing up in flip-flops is going to look like a slob or a jerk, while a woman wearing the same shoes won't. (Similarly, a waitress wearing flip-flops would be seen as "casual" and maybe "cute," while a waiter in flip-flops could very well cause patrons to lose their appetites -- even call the Health Department.)

There is nothing fair about it, and I don't want to spend time worrying about whether this is rational or logical. Please! Even if I wrote another essay, I doubt I could fully explain the intricacies of sex-based perceptions and judgments.

Just as tobacco has all but been declared a poison (leaving smokers open to indictment for murder), via Ann Althouse I see that Wisconsin has declared alcohol to be a date rape drug:

"Alcohol is the No. 1 date-rape drug, and we've felt strongly that our statutes should reflect that reality," said Jill Groblewski, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

The coalition started lobbying for the change in the mid-1990s, when language on intoxicants was added to the rape statutes in response to a surge in assaults aided by drugs.

"The change in legislation allows prosecutors to hold offenders accountable who use alcohol to facilitate a sexual assault," Groblewski said. "It gives prosecutors additional charging options."

[]

Under state law, having sexual contact with a person incapable of consent because they are under the influence of an intoxicant is defined as second- degree sexual assault. The offense is a Class C felony punishable by a fine up to $100,000 and a prison sentence of up to 25 years.

Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard said the change was "long overdue" and is a good thing primarily for the message about alcohol that it sends - namely, that it can be just as dangerous as other drugs.

Blanchard also stressed that the somewhat lower bar on consent standards for victims does not extend to perpetrators, who can be charged for crimes whether they have been drinking or not.

"Alcohol is not an excuse," he said. "It's our job to help jurors understand that people who want to commit sexual assault many times are going to take unfair advantage to get what they want."

If (as the feminists insist) we are to be non-sexist in our analyses, why must we continue to be so, um, "heteronormative"? Anyone who thinks I am being overly disingenuous, try to imagine this law as applied to a gay couple, both of whom had too much to drink, and both of whom had sex. The next day, both are regretful. Who's the perpetrator? Who's the victim? The one who manages to get to the phone first to call the cops?

My question is why does the law presume that a drunken man can consent, while a drunken woman cannot? Might there be a constitutional issue here?

If you think this is ridiculous, don't look at me. I didn't write the law; I am only trying to analyze it.

I'm not sure who's behind this neoprohibitionist agenda, but drunken sex seems to be going the way of drunken driving.

However, I think there's a key difference, as revealed in this statement by the campus police chief:

[UW-Madison Police Chief Susan Riseling] praised the change in the law, calling it "recognition that just because someone has used alcohol doesn't mean they are any less a victim/survivor."

Not even if they are women who decided to drive home rather than face becoming victims of drunken sex? Let's assume that someone is legally drunk -- and therefore legally incapable of consenting to sex. Assume the same person (too drunk to drive) drives anyway. Is it really fair to call her a "perpetrator" if she climbs behind a steering wheel, but a "victim" if she climbs in her boyfriend's bed?

What is consent?

Ann Althouse has come up with a great new term:

Peter Daou signs off over at Salon, as he leaves to serve Hillary Clinton as "a blog advisor to facilitate and expand her relationship with the netroots." Take note, bloggers! That's a new job description, and you qualify! Blog Advisor, facilitating and expanding relationships with the netroots.

Is it too late to complain about the word "netroots"? It should be two words. I'm seeing troots too much. Or could we just shorten it to troots, which is cute? Cute troots.

While I'm hesitant to call anyone I don't know "cute" (I mean, the word has a double meaning and sensitivities can run high), "troots" is certainly cute as a word, and I see nothing wrong with wishing the right kind of cuteness upon them.

But cute or not, I do hope they're not endangered. Pronouncements like "will reach fuller potential with the participation of Democratic leaders and responsible reporters" sound ominous.

But I don't want my concerns misinterpretated as paranoia. At this point it's too early to talk about slaughter of innocent trootsis. (Or would that be trootsies? I guess the latter term would apply only if they're stricken from the roll. . .)

(Aerial view of Pennsylvania flooding accompanying a story about Red Cross shelters set up nearby -- including one in this county.)

The flooding (which I discussed yesterday) appears headed from bad to worse:

The remarkable siege of rain that has left a deadly legacy of angry, chocolate-brown waters, submerged highways, and forced evacuations threatens the region with yet more flooding today and tomorrow.

The flooding, so far, has been stunningly widespread. Gov. Rendell declared a state of emergency for 46 counties, including Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia.

At least four deaths statewide were blamed on the storm, and residents were ordered or urged to leave their homes in at least 13 towns in Bucks, Chester and Montgomery Counties as rising waters posed life-threatening hazards.

"It is the worst water I've seen since I've been a cop," said West Norriton Police Chief Robert Adams as he surveyed the flooded Riverview Landing Apartments on the banks of the Schuylkill. "That's 33 years, all here."

It could actually get worse as the Delaware River and Schuylkill continue to rise after six days of pounding rains work their way downstream.

It was impossible to put the flooding into any historical context, said Justin Fleming of the Pennsylvania Emergency Agency, for a simple reason: "It's not over."

It must be tough to be in the ranks of emergency officialdom.

As to context, far be it from me to advise those who know better about how to tell people in shelters that they're in a drought -- much less how to put the proper spin on this apparently divine aboutface.

Maybe they should declare it to be the wettest drought in Pennsylvania history.

Can logic be carried too far?

Earlier, when I researched the question of landlord legal liability for tenants' secondhand cigarette smoke, I found an amazing web site, which goes much further than merely saying landlords are liable. According to the site, landlords and all others who allow cigarette smoking are murderers -- even part of a "Tobacco Holocaust."

Now, the guy who writes this site may be a nut (for starters he's trivializing the Holocaust), but I believe in giving the devil his due. And there's a certain perverse logic here which I find disturbing (at least if his numbers and research are correct).

While I haven't checked the accuracy of these numbers, the site makes the claim that legally speaking, smoke is a poison -- and full of heavily regulated toxins:

Cigarettes contain and emit large quantities of toxic chemical emissions including carbon monoxide. They are inherently dangerous. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking: 25 Years of Progress: a Report of the Surgeon General, Publication CDC 89-8411, Table 7, pp 86-87 (1989), lists examples of deleterious ingredients including but not limited to:

acetaldehyde (1.4+ mg)	arsenic (500+ ng)	benzo(a)pyrene (.1+ ng)
cadmium (1,300+ ng)	crotonaldehyde (.2+ µg)	chromium (1,000+ ng)
ethylcarbamate 310+ ng)	formaldehyde (1.6+ µg)	hydrazine (14+ ng)
lead (8+ µg)	nickel (2,000+ ng)	radioactive polonium (.2+ Pci)

Due to cigarettes' inherently deleterious nature and ingredients, they, when lit, emit deleterious emissions. The term is toxic tobacco smoke (TTS) or, erroneously, ETS. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (DHEW), Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, PHS Pub 1103, Table 4, p 60 (1964), lists examples of cigarettes' deleterious emissions compared to the chemicals' "speed limits" (official term, "threshold limit values" [TLV's] set in the toxic chemical regulation 29 CFR § 1910.1000, available at your local library). It is due to cigarettes excess quantities that deaths result. Notice the emissions vs the "speed limits" [TLV's]:

TTS Chemical	TTS Quantity	TLV
acetaldehyde	3,200 ppm	200.0 ppm
acrolein	150 ppm	0.5 ppm
ammonia	300 ppm	150.0 ppm
carbon monoxide	42,000 ppm	100.0 ppm
formaldehyde	30 ppm	5.0 ppm
hydrogen cyanide	1,600 ppm	10.0 ppm
hydrogen sulfide	40 ppm	20.0 ppm
methyl chloride	1,200 ppm	100.0 ppm
nitrogen dioxide	250 ppm	5.0 ppm

Obviously, cigarettes' toxic chemicals far exceed the "Threshold Limit Values." Wherefore TTS-caused injuries and deaths are common, foreseeable, "natural and probable consequences." TTS exposure causes Increased Risk of Death. There is a common law right to "fresh and pure air," a duty to not endanger people, and, when one does cause harm, to aid the victim. "Fresh and Pure Air" is already the law.

Laws already ban poisoning one's neighbors, in fact, anyone, neighbor or not. Casualties and deaths at apartments/condominiums due to smoking, are part of the overall tobacco holocaust. Such effects arise as toxic tobacco smoke (TTS) from neighbors seeps into apartments, condominiums, and causing disease, fires, deaths, not to mention the preceding annoyances, nuisance, and irritations.

Which means that you're in danger of being killed:

You are in danger. Toxic tobacco smoke (TTS) kills more people than motor vehicle accidents, all crimes, AIDS, illegal drugs, etc. In other words, you are statistically more likely to be killed by your neighbor's tobacco smoke than by his car, his gun, or his AIDS virus. Your landlord or management are aiding and abetting, accessory to this illegal killing, of which (as the body count is at the "holocaust" level) you may well be a future casualty.

Be aware that the sole reason why the issue of a nonsmoker being adversely impacted by tobacco smoke, presenting individualized evidence of harm—why that issue even comes up, is malice, corruption and similar unethical, immoral, and illegal reasons. The government enforces the law with respect to spewing toxic chemicals in all other aspects of life, including on these same exact chemicals (carbon monoxide, cyanide, etc.). Repeat, that government officials do not do so on this subject is due to personal corruption on a mass basis constituting the proximate cause of the ongoing tobacco holocaust at a level of casualties far exceeding that prosecuted in The Nurnberg Trial, 6 FRD 69 (1946).

They are knowingly aiding and abetting and accessory to potentially your death, for which they, like the Nazis at Nurnberg, may be executed in the future. The people they mass-exterminated had no legal obligation whatsoever to offer any suggestions to the would-be killers as to how to avoid doing the killings. You have the same human right. You can remain silent, all the legal responsibilities are on the perpetrator.

I find this troubling, just as I found it troubling to discover that roof runoff is considered a toxic (because of the material leached from the composition of the shingles), but that the laws simply aren't enforced. Yet.

When laws exist but they aren't enforced only because "everyone does it," what are the longterm implications to freedom?

I'm not saying that cigarette smokers or landlords should be prosecuted, mind you. Precisely the opposite. Many of the laws make it a crime simply to move one substance that originated in the ground to another location somewhere in the ground. Where do oil, tobacco, and lead come from? What are the "toxics" in storm water runoff other than things which came from the ground and are returning to the ground in small quantities?

That these laws and regulations exist but are not being enforced means that most of us are committing felons. Considering that government regulations invariably become stricter over time (lest the bureaucrats lose their jobs for not rewriting them), I'd say smoking is just the tip of the iceberg. The existing laws many of us don't know about will be enforced. Things we take completely for granted will become criminal acts.

I don't see much difference between the two major parties on these issues. The current Surgeon General is as much of an anti-tobacco activist as it's possible to be, and I doubt the Democrats' choice would be any better.

Well, I guess we could go back to fighting over condoms on bananas.

(That's always the best thing to do when freedom is at stake.)

I hate it when T-shirts like these clash with reality:

Lest anyone think that the above is the company uniform Joey Vento issues to the employees of Geno's Steaks, it's actually associated with the rock group Clash. From the above website:

Our best seller! This one is for the Clash fans. A faithful reproduction of the enigmatic sticker Joe Strummer sported on his famous Telecaster guitar.

The first use of the slogan that I remember was by the Grateful Dead during the band's early 70s "hypnocracy" era.

Perhaps because of braincell attrition, there doesn't seem to be much discussion so that I can pinpoint with accuracy the Grateful Dead origin of the slogan. After considerable diligence, I was able to find a small piece of archaeological evidence -- in the form of this "Wake of the Flood" matchbook cover.

Wake of the Flood was released in 1973, Joe Strummer chose his name in 1975, and formed the Clash in 1976.

But obviously, the big question today is whether it might constitute discrimination to wear the above T-shirt at all -- much less follow its message by actually ignoring alien orders.

Are there any implications as to intentionality?

(T-shirts, of course, can have a diversity of implications. . .)

It's not every day that I see one of my valued commenters getting bigtime attention, but it has happened.

(Um, "Lo Ping Wong" is not my most valued commenter, of course, but all commenters at this blog are by definition valued! That's because the values meme in this blog's name operates like a tar baby -- inextricably smearing with value all who dare touch! Beware . . .)

Anyway, here's the Protein Wisdom comment that many people are now reading:

Your son is going to grow up to be a cockslapping faggot just like you Jeff.

Posted by Lo Ping Wong

You lemmings should go to Neiwert's site and read his "Rush, Newspeak and the Rise of Fascism." It's pretty unequivocal, what the right is doing, and David's exegesis is really quite good. We in the reality-based community think highly of it. Your mileage may vary.

Exe, exe, exewho?

In the very next comment, Justin, self-appointed spokesman for all lemmings, couldn't resist imitating my exclamatory, um, style! as well as exegesis itself:

Oooooh, he used exegesis in a sentence!

I'll bet he reads The Economist! I am so very impressed, let me tell you! He must be terribly, hugely intelligent! And Eric, didn't I warn you a year ago about exclamation mark abuse? When you said it was fun, and I should try it? I guess you were right! IT IS FUN!! Now I must march into the sea with my furry retarded brethren.

Interesting how our self-proclaimed champions of civil rights go right to the gay jokes when they’re looking to denigrate someone, is it not? Even if it is a two-year-old? Which, I seem to remember a certain outrage coming from the nuanced arbiters of truthiness over such behavior in the not too recent past. Dr Andrew? You there? WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?

I've seen this so many times that it never surprises me. It's related to the way racial epithets are routinely hurled at Condi Rice, Colin Powell or Ward Connerly.

But the anti-gay epithet is a little different. I've noticed that in these political arguments, homoeroticism tends to imputed not to homosexuals (for that would not only be redundant, and might verge on actual bigotry), but to heterosexuals with whom the invective hurler disagrees. (I've discussed examples, such as James Wolcott's statement that "the fighting keyboarders drool with barely suppressed homoerotic envy" as well as "homoerotic ardor for Bush.")

I think the popularity of this sort of attack is grounded not only in the leftist exemption, but in the feeling that it's a magic sort of insult against which there's no defense. Only a right-wing bigot could possibly object to being called gay, because after all, why would anyone object unless he thought there was something wrong with being gay? And in the minds of the name-callers, because they are on the left (and because they've earned their Certificate of Non Bigotry by the simple act of saying they're for gay marriage), there is absolutely no possibility that they might harbor feelings of prejudice against homosexuals, is there? The burden all falls on the accused.

If they don't like being called "faggots," why, they're obviously bigots!

And anyone who doesn't agree with their logic is likewise a bigot. (And don't forget -- bigotry now includes not caring whether someone is gay.)

Lost in all of this is common sense. Common sense would suggest that calling someone a "faggot" is by definition bigotry.

I guess the lesson here is that if you're "reality-based," there's no need to worry about common sense. Members of that, um, "community" are free to insult those who disagree with them by calling them "faggots."

And, of course, it follows that those who don't like being called "faggots" are bigoted lemmings unable to suppress their homoerotic ardor -- an exegesis headed straight for the cliffs!

I don't know which crisis is worse: Pennsylvania's drought or Pennsylvania's flood. We're having both at the same time!

I'll start with the floods:

Heavy overnight rains, falling on an already saturated landscape, have led to the flooding of streets and neighborhoods around the region.

Although some streets have reopened, such as the Vine Street Expressway, conditions in some areas near rivers are expected to get worse, as they swell with water from tributaries.

Flood-stranded residents had to be rescued in Pottsville.

Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer ordered residents of low-lying neighborhoods to evacuate by 10 a.m. today, because the Delaware River could crest at a level higher than the floods of September 2004 and April 2005.

A reverse 911 call was being sent to residents of Trenton's Island and Glen Afton neighborhoods. Police had set up a mobile command post and were spreading word of the evacuation door-to-door, said Ken Ashworth, a spokesman for Palmer.

But that hasn't stopped the drought:

The state issued the drought watch April 11 after a lack of winter snows combined with lower-than-expected spring precipitation. A voluntary 5 percent drop in water use is still urged.

My lawn is a swamp; and I'm urged not to water it? Who's writing the state's water policy? Rodney Dangerfield?

Being from California, I'm used to insane bureaucrats who declare a flood and a drought at the same time, but I never thought the idea would spread across the country.

But I want to give the bureaucrats a fair shake, and their argument is that considering the state as a whole, March was too dry:

DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty put all 67 counties under the drought watch after rainfall averages across the state were below normal for more than 60 days.

"Two-thirds of our counties are 50 percent or more below their normal precipitation levels," Ms. McGinty said. "The remaining counties are reporting a deficit of at least 25 percent."

Western Pennsylvania is still in pretty good shape. After a January that was wetter than usual, Pittsburgh's rainfall averages in February (1.74 inches) and March (2.12 inches) amounted to about 73 percent of what we usually get.

Erie received about 94 percent.

But the central and eastern parts of the state have been parched, with most areas receiving less than half their usual rainfall. According to John Gresiak, a senior forecaster with AccuWeather in State College, the Philadelphia area had its driest March on record.

"The main culprit was March," Mr. Gresiak said.

Instead of "smale fowles maken melodyes" now is the time for announcements like these:

"Although conservation is a year-round responsibility, now is the time for residents to manage water resources even more carefully to avoid serious problems if precipitation levels do not return to normal in the coming weeks," McGinty said.

But I'm worried that at the rate the rains are pouring water resources down on me, I may be at risk of drowning, and I won't be able to refrain from flushing the toilet.

What is to be done when floods and droughts occur simultaneously? Is there such a thing as a state of bureaucratic emergency?

Via Pajamas Media, I'm sorry to read about the death of Rob Smith, aka ACIDMAN.

"A Real Life" is how PJM described Rob, and I think that's a fitting tribute. Despite innumerable and complex health problems, the guy kept blogging right up until his last day on the planet. (No indication in that post that he knew it was his last.)

I found the man inspiring. I wish I had his kind of raw honesty. To the extent that I do, my circumspection and lawyerly training sometimes gets in the way, but I think it was cool that he showed -- by personal example -- how to really let it rip.

You won't be forgotten, Rob!

Glenn won't forget him. Nor will La Shawn Barber, who has a roundup of other bloggers who won't, including Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Baldilocks, Hog on Ice, The Other Side of Kim, Smoke on the Water, and John of Argghhh!.

I think Kim du Toit (who called Rob an "angry bastard with guns") put it quite well:

The world will definitely be a less-interesting place from now on . . .

Just as I failed to care about the sex life of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, I'm equally uncaring where it comes to the sex life of Rush Limbaugh. (At least, I'm assuming that's what Viagra is used for.)

Oddly enough, I find myself in agreement with Atrios:

Grabbing people in airports 'cause they have a bottle of Viagra is pretty silly, assuming that's all it was about.

(Especially if you don't know them, and they've recently popped a few pills.)

I tend to be distrustful of propaganda packaged as education, so naturally my attention was aroused when I read (in a piece titled "After the trigger is pulled") a Philadelphia schoolteacher's comparison of street crime to the Holocaust:

Tuesday, March 14 - In a lecture room at Temple University Hospital, a color slide flashes on the screen: It's a close-up of a throat slashed open, the windpipe still visible in the bloody scene.

Cynthia Vega, 13, whose eighth-grade class is studying violence and writing about it in diaries, looks down and begins to cry and rock in her seat.

"You OK, baby?" asks Temple staffer Scott Charles.

Cynthia nods but does not look up. She is thinking of her 20-year-old cousin, shot in the neck two months earlier. He can barely speak now.

A classmate turns around in his seat and hands her a tissue.

Charles continues: "I don't care how many memorials you get, how many spray-painted murals they put in your name, this can't really be worth it, can it?"

Less than two weeks after sharing poignant diary entries about their absent fathers, the "Freedom Writers" of Grover Washington Jr. Middle School are seeing the blood-and-guts aftermath of violence.

"I wanted them to get a better perspective on the finality - or the desperate reality - that occurs when things turn from a little conflict into guns so quickly," explained their eighth-grade teacher, Michael Galbraith.

He also planned to have them meet a genocide survivor from Sudan and read about the Holocaust.

Not that a connection might not be made between guns and Sudan, or guns and the Holocaust. However I'm just a little too cynical to believe that Nazi gun control or the Warsaw Ghetto are going to be prominent topics. And while I could be wrong about this, I also doubt that the lessons on Sudan will point out that gun control was genocide's best friend, or that the right to bear arms could have saved the Darfur victims.

Galbraith's guns>Sudan>Holocaust technique reminds me of the Michael Moore Bush-plays-golf-Iraqi-children-die method.

No doubt it's "empowering" -- at least for somebody.

But is it teaching?

Considering that the apparent use of taxpayer's money, I'd like to see both sides presented to the kids.

John Steinberg thinks Ann Coulter is heaven-sent manna for the Democrats -- a Republican version of Michael Moore, and that the key to Democratic victory should involve asking every living Republican whether he agrees with her:

The question, "Are you an Ann Coulter Republican?" should confront every Republican running for every office in the land, from President to dog catcher. Every Democratic candidate should accuse his or her opponent of being in favor of poisoning Supreme Court Justices and killing Congressmen. At every opportunity, every Republican should be made to answer: "Do you agree with Ann Coulter that the 9/11 widows are witches and harpies?" And George W. Bush, Tony Snow, Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and Barney (the only lapdog with a good excuse) should be confronted with these questions as well.

Many lefties wonder why we give Coulter the prominence she so clearly craves. They think we lose by raising her profile. But I think she is exactly the hate-contorted face we want on the Republican Party. We need to make Ann Coulter the third rail of Republican politics, just as Michael Moore was for Democrats two years ago. (They can be equally significant as symbols; there is obviously no comparison in talent or accuracy.)

There's no denying, of course, that Ann Coulter is a Republican. But does this means that every other Republican can be held answerable for her?

As I've pointed out, in addition to being a Republican, Ann Coulter is also a Deadhead. This point was really hammered home recently when Pajamas Media linked James Hudnall's exploration of Ann's cosmic closet. The dancing skeletons were laid bare for the world to see in an exclusive interview by Taylor Hill (which was limited to the Grateful Dead, um, issue):

Oddly enough, I like the music. No one believes that I never took drugs at Dead shows (except for the massive clouds of passive marijuana smoke) but I went because I really liked the music. There are various groups I get enthusiastic about for awhile, but of all the music I've listened to over the years, the Grateful Dead is the one band I never grow tired of. Apparently, the same is true of me for ski-lift operators.

Moreover, I really like Deadheads and the whole Dead concert scene: the tailgating, the tie-dye uniforms, the camaraderie – it was like NASCAR for potheads. You always felt like you were with family at a Dead show – a rather odd, psychedelic family that sometimes lived in a VW bus and sold frightening looking “veggie burritos.” But whatever their myriad interests, clothing choices, and interest in illicit drugs, true Deadheads are what liberals claim to be but aren't: unique, free-thinking, open, kind, and interested in different ideas. Also, excellent dancers! Watching a Deadhead dance is truly something to behold.

I'd like to ask every last one of them the following:

Are you an Ann Coulter Deadhead?

Don't we have a right to know whether the other Deadheads are in favor of "poisoning Supreme Court Justices and killing Congressmen"?

I for one am sick of the fact that the gutless media cowards allow them to duck the tough questions by hiding behind their tie-dyes. (Or their skulls wrapped in the American flag!)

I'll say this for Taylor Hill. He might not have been able to confront the "fetid, malodorous bog that is the Deadhead ecosystem" head on in his interview, but he was able to force the acid-tongued-head to name a few names which reveal the extent of the collaboration:

. . . to answer your question, Senator, I personally have loads and loads of friends who are right-wingers and Deadheads. I couldn't possibly name them all. For starters, obviously, there's Angela Lansbury. She gave me my first psychedelic tie-dyed tube top at a Dead show just outside Tucson. Just kidding. There are: Peter Flaherty, President, National Legal And Policy Center; John Harrison, top official in the Justice Department under Reagan and Bush and now a law professor at UVA; Jim Moody, MIT grad and libertarian attorney (and Linda Tripp's lawyer); Gary Lawson, former Scalia clerk and currently a law professor at Boston University Law School; Andrew McBride, partner at a DC law firm; DeRoy Murdoch, conservative columnist; Ben Hart, right-wing author of “Poisoned Ivy” out of Dartmouth. Oh, and the conservative talk radio host Gary Stone in Palm Springs is a Deadhead and kindly plays the Dead as my intro music. When I worked at the Justice Department during law school, I'd be leaving with a whole slew of Reagan or Bush political appointees to see the Dead at RFK. Finally, I believe the great New York subway vigilante Bernie Goetz was a Deadhead.

But really Jerry!

Much as I used to hate it when the big media types used to blame you for Deadheads gone wrong, on this Ann Coulter thing, I think this time you have a lot of 'splainin' to do.

COSMIC UPDATE: While I don't like to dwell unnecessarily on cosmic matters, Glenn Reynolds (a Leo with Moon in Scorpio) has raised the astrology issue by linking a post by Ann Althouse (of undetermined astrological etiology) which argues that astrology is for lowbrow types. I fear that both may be missing a significant, possibly important, point: Ann Coulter is a quintuple Sagittarius!

Every one of her personal planets is in Sag and they all square Pluto, for her venomous sarcasm and unconscious hatred of everything good and right about democratic values, principles and ideals.

Sag is the sign of opinions but it also rules truth and when you lie about someone or something to the point that you become a mockery of journalistic integrity, a line needs to be drawn. She can't help but tear down that line with every word she utters.

She's an angry person because her Mars in right on her Sun and less than three degrees from the Moon, a conjunction that is known as combustion.

The ego, or personality is taken over by the nature of the combust planet, in this case, Mars, affecting her emotionally, as well as her personality, making her rather masculine.

(May the Other Ann forgive me. . .)

Sometimes I think I really should be more ashamed of myself.

John Grogan's latest Inquirer column highlights the unrepresentative nature of what we often call "public opinion":

I caught a blistering earful from readers across the country after I criticized Michael Berg last week for denouncing the U.S. air strike that killed the terrorist who beheaded his son.

Two guided bombs dropped near Baghdad this month took out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the man believed to have personally executed Nick Berg, 26, in Iraq in 2004.

Michael Berg, a vocal pacifist and Green Party candidate for Congress, believes any killing, even that of a remorseless mass murderer, is unjustified and only perpetuates the endless cycle of eye-for-an-eye violence.

He said George Bush was no less a terrorist than Osama bin Laden. He said he would have sentenced his son's killer to community service in a children's hospital.

I called the elder Berg, formerly of West Chester and now living in Delaware, a naive idealist and said some people, the most evil among us, will be stopped by only death.

Boy, did I hear about it.

Of the dozens of letters I received, most faulted me for being overly hard on a grief-stricken father and blind to the virtues of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Many angrily voiced their disgust over the falsely justified and monumentally botched war.

Typical was Diane Vernon of Ambler, who wrote: "This time you have gone WAY, WAY too far. Can't you see that forgiveness is part of healing?"

Obviously, this Bush-is-worse-than-Zarqawi meme has some adherents, but in the real world they are in a small minority. That's why Michael Berg's candidacy is pretty much a joke. (Very much a joke, actually. Even Democrat challenger Dennis Spivack has little chance against a "seven-term incumbent who won the last election with 69 percent of the vote." Berg seems mainly to be helping the Green Party achieve greater visibility.)

I think the kind of people who would write letters to columnists are not representative of public opinion, so much as they represent vocal, hard-core activist opinion. Ordinary people (the kind who vote), most likely rolled their eyes when they read the railings of Michael Berg in John Grogan's first column. They wouldn't even think of wasting their time writing in. Even I -- opinionated though I am, and even though I wrote about Michael Berg in this blog -- never gave a thought to writing to Mr. Grogan.

People I have known who are familiar with the talk radio business have told me that actual callers represent a small percentage of actual listeners, and I think the same holds true for blog commenters. On a typical day, a small fraction of one percent of visitors here will leave a comment. Whether a commenter agrees with me or not, it would be a big mistake for me to think that a single comment spoke for most of my readers.

Considering the Philadelphia Inquirer's circulation (plus the fact that John Grogan is a popular columnist and best-selling author) I doubt a few dozen letters (or emails) are a fair representation of his readers.

Of course, this may beg the question of who represents anyone. I don't think I represent anyone except myself, and considering the arguments I have with myself, I'm not sure I do all that great a job with self representation.

I mean, what about that part of me which doesn't argue with me, but just goes along with my "flow"? My inner minority is the loud part, which clamors to be heard -- often over my great, silent, lazy majority, which would rather not be writing anything at all. So my blogger side may not be speaking fairly on behalf of the live-and-let-live side of myself. How do I fairly represent my unrepresented self?

(Silence might be misinterpreted as agreement.)

I've been busy with out of town visitors, so I haven't had time for blogging today. But please read the George Santayana Edition of this week's RINO Sightings Carnival, where Searchlight Crusade's Dan Melson supplies historical context for each post.

If you want to know what the invasion of Sicily, the Battle of Midway, Solon, the Cross of Gold, the Battle of Bosworth Field, Sulla (and more) all have to do with what today's RINOs are thinking, why, don't condemn yourself to repeating history. Go there now and find out!

(Great job, Dan.)

This is getting interesting.

According to CAIR, the seven men arrested last week for plotting to wage war against the United States (and blow up the Sears Tower) are not Muslims -- and we are not to refer to them as Muslims:

CAIRO — The Council on American-Islamic Relations, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has urged the media not to associate the seven suspects arrested on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in the US with the country's Muslim minority, insisting they were not Muslims.

"Given that the reported beliefs of this bizarre group have nothing to do with Islam, we ask members of the media to refrain from calling them Muslims," Ahmed Bedier, Director of CAIR Florida chapter, said in a statement e-mailed to IslamOnline.net.

If only there were an equivalent group for Christians! I get so tired of not knowing who's a Christian and who's not, as usually, I take people at their word.

CNN quotes the group's leader as wanting to wage Islamic war, and uses the term "jihad" quite freely, but I don't frankly care what these people believe, and I guess I should be glad they are not Muslims.

I'm glad CAIR has enlightened us.

But the problem is, there's a disagreement. Another Muslim organization, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, says they are Muslims:

In a statement issued on Friday, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago expressed “relief and concern” at the arrest of the accused men before they could carry out their plans.

“The fact that another attack on our country was in the works is something that concerns us deeply,” said Council chairman, Abdul Malik Mujahid. He appealed to Imams across the US to offer Friday sermons about “the sanctity of life in Islam and the heinousness of terrorism.”

Mr Mujahid urged journalists and editors to exercise caution in linking Islam to terrorism as this case develops, since those arrested are Muslim.

The indictment alleges that, beginning in November 2005 and continuing to the present, Bastiste recruited and supervised individuals to organise and train for a mission to wage war against the US including a plot to destroy the Sears Tower by explosives.

It goes without saying, of course, that whether they are Muslims has nothing to do with whether they are terrorists.

Right?

It's getting harder and harder to know the rules.

I'd like to know who gets to officially decide.

And I have irrefutable proof. Behold what my Google start page presented to me when I got home this evening:

Ardmore, PA 74°F
Bryn Mawr, PA 122°F

A difference of forty-eight degrees in only three miles? This truly is an inconvenient truth, as I must brave those temperatures in the morning to pick up and cash a check.

Damn you all and your bloody SUVs!

UPDATE: As of 11PM Google says it's 140 degrees in Bryn Mawr -- nearly twice as hot as in Ardmore. I'm going to sleep with the air conditioner on and hope this problem doesn't spread.

There's nothing more degrading than debates over degrading definitions. And it's especially degrading when the definition degrading the debate involves the definition of "degraded."

Up here in the Blue State of Pennsylvania, the Phildelphia Inquirer's Trudy Rubin thinks the degrading debate is "shameful." That's because for her, "degraded" means things that can be kept under the kitchen sink:

I'm surprised [Santorum's] nose didn't grow a foot when he claimed a recent Army intelligence report proved Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The report - released under Republican pressure in the midst of the debate - says that, since 2003, about 500 munitions have been recovered in Iraq that contain "degraded" mustard or sarin gas.

Mind you, these munitions were picked up in ones and twos and date back to Iraq's war against Iran in the 1980s. There was no operative Iraqi chemical weapons program after 1991.

Such weapons deteriorate over time. According to David Kay, the head of the U.S. team that hunted for WMD in 2003-04, these gases by now would be "less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink." Their "poor condition" was affirmed by intelligence officials in a media briefing.

But down in red state of Texas (a place most Philadelphians would consider the Wild West), they still think that even degraded Weapons of Mass Destruction are too dangerous to keep under the sink. At least, the Houston Chronicle's Kathleen Parker claims that degraded WMDs are still dangerous:

According to the document, coalition forces have recovered some 500 weapons munitions since 2003 that contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agents. Other key points are that these chemical agents could be used outside Iraq and that "most likely munitions remaining are sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles."

Which is to say, we don't know what other stores may remain, or where they are, or who else may know about them.

Most significant, perhaps, is the assertion that while agents degrade over time, "chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal," according to the released document.

In other words, the word "degraded" doesn't necessarily mean "nothing to worry about." Moreover, Wednesday's document is but a small piece of a much larger document that remains classified and that Republican insiders consider "very significant."

How far does it go? I'm reminded of that guy who ate his daily DDT for all those years, just so he could announce to the world that DDT was perfectly safe. (Rachel Carson put him up to it with Silent Spring or something, but I don't think debate needs to be carried that far.)

So don't look at me. I'm staying out of this one. . .

But not because I'm scared, mind you! I'm not scared of any piddly-assed little degraded WMDs! What do you think I am, a degraded-WMD chickenhawk? Hell no! It's just that I'm afraid for my dog Coco. Despite her vast experience with all sorts of WMDs, she gets into everything, and dogs have very different disgestive systems than we do. What might be perfectly safe for us can have devastating consequences for a dog. For example, I take Tylenol as if it's candy, but Tylenol can kill a dog. And, you know, just because I can put some degraded Sarin in my coffee along with the half-and-half, Coco might be very Sarin-sensitive. I just don't want to expose her even to that slight risk. Likewise with that mustard stuff. Tom Ferrick can bravely put it on his hot dogs, but I just don't want it in my fridge, again because Coco goes in there when my back is turned, and she might be degraded-mustard-intolerant. (The blister stuff, I don't know much about it, and I'm sure it's perfectly safe, but same deal; I'm worried about the dog, and I don't want to bother the vet.)

I think it's fair that since Trudy Rubin and the Inquirer staff brought up the safety issue, I should just let them be the guinea pigs.

(As to my view of degradation, such things are my own affair.)

UPDATE (06/30/06): According to Raw Story, ISG Inspector David Kay says the 500 chemical weapons are WMDs, and while old, they're still dangerous.

Advantage, Houston.

I'll be busy most of the day, and I'm pressed for time and suffering from a thought shortage .

Coco, however, thinks. She plots. . .

Why Coco can't be more like Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, I don't know. I've tried to encourage her to blog. But what I'd really like would be for her to find a better role model than me. That way, she could really play online pit bull politics -- and command her minions in much the way David Brooks (via LGF) describes Kos (the ideal role model for Coco):

The Keyboard Queenpin, aka Coco B. Scheie, sits at her computer, fires up her Web site, the Daily Coco, and commands her followers, who come across like squadrons of rabid pit bulls, to unleash their venom on those who stand in the way. And in this way the Queenpin has made herself a mighty force in her own mind, and every knee shall bow.

Very flattering, but how do I break it to Coco that every knee has not yet bowed?

To be sure, Coco's skills exceed mine. Her expertise with document shredders is unsurpassed. (A skill closely related to her documented ability to send faxes.)

And she is very proud of her investigative skills. Here she is -- just yesterday -- posing with a suspicious cylinder that I previously dismissed as a nitrous oxide tank, but which Coco is now absolutely certain might very well possibly contain WMDs!

Nice "point," no?

But is it an important discovery? I'd be very hesitant to disagree with Coco, but I don't think so. I think that even if the tank contains WMDs, that they're degraded, which means that they aren't really there. (But disagreeing over degradation is a degrading experience.)

On top of all that, Coco is a sex star. Plus, while she's into plenty of whiffs, there's never been a whiff of any scandal connected with her.

Can anyone say that about her role model?

Is it fair that the Daily Kos succeeds, while no one knows about the Daily Coco? (Well, the latter is a term, but it refers to a morning beverage, not a blog. But because of my background as a Berkeley student, Daily Coco and Daily Kos both sound imitative of the Daily Cal. I might enjoy a satirical knockoff -- but alas, even the Daily Kass seems to be taken. Sorry, Justin!)

None of this is fair.

I hate to ruin a nice rainy day by straining Michael Corleone and the Sopranos' quotation again, but EVERY time I engage in satire, reality draaags me back in! In this case, maybe it's the other way around, but no matter. When satire and reality meet, there's no telling them apart.

Anyway, I have been satirizing the recent permutations of the Glenn Reynolds/Daily Kos, um, train of events. I didn't spend as much time as maybe I should have on the "Kosola" scandal, but that's because I just don't like the aroma. I don't especially care whether there's any fire behind the smoke, either. The whole thing reminds me too much of conventional politics -- something I tend to disdain in favor of the more enlightened (supposedly more civil) blogosphere. Naive though it may be, I cling to my denial, and it is my fervent hope that if I stay within the relative safety of my blog, I'll be able to just think what I think, and not have to worry too much about political conse