Via Glenn Reynolds, McQ at QandO looks at the phenomenon called "Wal-Mart Derangement Syndrome" (WMDS) and finds himself in agreement with Jonah Goldberg:

So its a new twist on the old mantra that businesses Wal Mart's job is to provide good pay and benefits to its workers. Not to profit through the delivery of the lowest cost goods available to its customer base. Not to keep to its business model. Not to compete. Deliver pay and benefits at a level acceptable to the Democrats. And while they're at it they need to let their suppliers charge more so they too can do the same for their workers.

And, as has been pointed out ad nauseum to these folks, who are the losers?

Those 127 million shoppers, many if not most of them low income shoppers who now see their buying power shrink.

That is why Jonah Goldberg thinks it's all silly and stupid and can't understand the Democrats continued insistence that Wal Mart is an institution which needs to be singled out and taught a lesson. Frankly, I agree with him.

Again, I get email. The same J. Matt Barber who emailed me about the Minneapolis Police Department also emailed me about Wal-Mart. He's hopping mad, and not because Wal-Mart oppresses their employees by paying them twice minimum wage. Nor because they want to build stores on land which was once home to a rare subspecies of gnat. He's upset because Wal-Mart is catering to anti-family homos:

Matt Barber, Corporate Outreach Director for Americans for Truth, expressed his disappointment with Wal-Mart today for further capitulating to the powerful homosexual lobby by recently partnering with the “National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce,” an extremely influential homosexual organization steadfastly devoted to furthering the ‘gay’ agenda within corporate America.

“It’s a real shame, and I think people who value traditional marriage and the Biblical model of human sexuality should sit up and take notice of Wal-Mart’s recent support of radical pro-homosexual, anti-Christian groups and policies that seek to destroy the time-honored institutions of marriage and family, and further aim to silence proponents of traditional family values,” said Barber.

What radical anti-Christian groups? The NGLCC? Or are there others? And how is Wal-Mart out to destroy families and silence people who disagree? Barber does not say.

While understandably flying under the radar, Wal-Mart’s British subsidiary recently introduced a “gay wedding” line of products, and Wal-Mart corporate has inexplicably re-defined “family” in its corporate policies to include sexual partners of the same gender. It has also added employees who choose to engage in dangerous homosexual behaviors to its anti-discrimination policies.

There's more. Wal-Mart's partnership with the NGLCC means discrimination against everyone else:

“Of course nobody advocates harassment of anyone in the workplace for anything,” said Barber; “but my concern is that Wal-Mart’s recent company policy officially endorsing and promoting the homosexual lifestyle, now discriminates against employees who happen to believe, as Judeo/Christian tradition holds, that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that homosexual behavior is both immoral and unhealthy. What if Wal-Mart decided to hold a “gay-day” like other companies have done? Would pro-family employees then be fired for ‘discrimination’ if they refused to participate because it violated their sincerely held religious beliefs?”

Or might it be that Wal-Mart's "discrimination" consists of holding a different opinion than J. Matt Barber?

Frankly, such a "standard" for discrimination reminds me of the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton discrimination standard.

I guess where it comes to Wal-Mart, birds of a feather flock together!

MORE: QandO's McQ has more on the "right wing" (assuming that's what this is) attacks on Wal-Mart. I this remark just about sums it up:

It's a department store folks, get a freakin' grip.

After my earlier post, I'm not quite sure whether I can tell the difference between religious-based satire and satire-based religion, but I'll try.

I'm not sure how I manage to get on these mailing lists, but an outfit called "Americans for Truth" -- describing itself as "a public policy organization devoted solely to countering the homosexual activist agenda" -- emailed me about the Minneapolis Police Department's suspension of police psychological screener Michael Campion. The AFT calls the MPD's action "blatant, illegal discrimination and anti-Christian bigotry–one which should send shivers down the spine of every person of faith." (Matt Barber has posted the same argument at The Conservative Voice.)

From what I've read in the AFT account and news accounts like this, it appears Dr. Campion was suspended after questions were raised about whether his membership on the board of the Illinois Family Institute -- a group run by well-known antigay activist Peter LaBarbera -- might have introduced bias into his psychological screening of police applicants. La Barbera, by the way, runs an Alan Keyes type of outfit which among other things denounces gay-friendly Republican candidates as "anti family," and common sense would suggest (to me, at least) that someone on the board of his organization might very well not believe homosexuals should be employed as police officers.

But I can't state that for a fact, and the point is not whether I agree with the IFI, or Peter La Barbera, or post author J. Matt Barber. These are hot-button political issues, and it is possible to agree or disagree on them just as it is possible to agree or disagree on a lot of things.

Do I expect the IFI to offer me a job on its board? No. Would I expect them to fire me if I managed to inveigle myself into their organization? Um, yes! (Doh!)

What concerns me is to see religion invoked not only to shield political beliefs and biases, but in such a way as to imply that disagreeing with a particular Christian is to disagree with all Christians. (Or "every person of faith.")

Let's look at Barber's argument:

“What was Campion’s crime? It seems that three years ago, he was a board member with the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a Christian organization which advocates traditional family values,” said Barber, who himself was fired by Allstate Insurance Company last year after writing an online article critical of homosexuality.

“This official government action by the Minneapolis Police Department is a transparent and egregious violation of Dr. Campion’s First Amendment rights to both freedom of association and religion,” Barber said.

There is just as much right to hold antigay views as there is to hold racist views or anti-Semitic views. Whether one bases one's claims on the Bible is irrelevant. If the Boy Scouts have the right to refuse to accept homosexual members, then wouldn't a gay group have just as much right to refuse anti-homosexual members? Does a Jew hater who thinks Hitler was right have a right to work for a Jew? If he claimed justification for his views under the Koran, why would that make any difference?

Those holding the opposite view, however, would not be entitled to protection against discrimination. This gives an advantage to whatever side of an argument is able to invoke religion, and I don't see how it is to be squared with logic or simple fairness. I think it's a warmed over version of "free speech for me, but not for thee."

Interestingly, Barber's argument that religion affords special protection offers no succor to atheists who might dislike homosexuality. They could be fired. Yet I suppose that homosexual Christians like the Rainbow Baptists might be able to claim that because it was their view that Jesus accepted them, any intolerance of them would also constitute religious persecution. (More here on the disagreement-as-persecution quandary.)

Let's take another issue -- abortion. If a pharmacy discovered that one of its employees refused to dispense RU-486 for religious reasons, why should that employee have superior rights to someone who thought the morning after pill was simply evil because it destroyed human life? (Yes, secular opposition to abortion exists.)

The same would apply to the invocation of race. Suppose I owned a company and didn't want people with views I considered kooky working for me. Suppose I considered the idea of reparations for slavery to be a kooky idea, and I fired an employee who believed in that idea. If he were black, would that constitute racial discrimination? I don't see how.

This is getting a bit old. But at the risk of repeating myself, I don't think anyone's religious views breathe special status into the opinions held by that person, or his actions.

Otherwise Muslim anti-Semitism would be more protected than "ordinary" anti-Semitism.

Hmmm....

(Maybe religion can also be used as a sword.)

UPDATE: In an article he wrote for the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation (JASA), Dr. Campion takes the position that homosexuality is a treatable disorder, that homosexuals are hedonists who confuse lust for love, and that stable homosexual relationships are the exception rather than the rule:

The third basic factor is the fact that homosexuality satisfies man's basic nature of selfishness. The homosexual basically confuses lust with love and uses the homosexual relationship in most cases to satisfy his own sexual desires. Because of this there is no need to develop long-term relationships that require day-today submission and a general selflessness in giving to another person. There are, however, rare occurrences where stable relationships have developed, but this is by far the exception rather than the rule.

Again, I don't see what religion has to do with it.

In his recent post on California Assembly Bill 1441 (which would add "sexual orientation" to the long list of categories against which government funded groups may not discriminate) Clayton Cramer analogizes to pork-eating:

I think there's at least an arguable case that this law, by imposing a standard that is contrary to the religious beliefs of individuals and organizations, is contrary to the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religious worship.

For example, let's say that Mississippi passed a law that prohibited use of state funds by any organization that discriminated against pork-eating. The grounds might be that pork is a perfectly safe food, and such discrimination is irrational and contrary to the best economic interests of Mississippi's pork industry. You know that the ACLU would file suit in a flash, claiming that this pork-eater anti-discrimination law, by depriving Jewish or Muslim organizations of an equal shot at applying for Mississippi grants, was a violation of the freedom of religious worship. You could even make a case (quite a bit weaker of a case), that this was a violation of the establishment clause as well, because it put organizations that don't discriminate against pork-eaters at an unfair advantage.

This may be a Catch 22 situation, because the law already prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion (it reads "race, national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, color, or disability").

Here's the full text:

11135. (a) No person in the State of California shall, on the basis of race, national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, color, or disability, be unlawfully denied full and equal access to the benefits of, or be unlawfully subjected to discrimination under, any program or activity that is conducted, operated, or administered by the state or by any state agency, is funded directly by the state, or receives any financial assistance from the state. Notwithstanding Section 11000, this section applies to the California State University.

Unless I am reading the statute incorrectly, wouldn't it already constitute discrimination on the basis of religion to refuse to hire a pork-eater if the objection was religious in nature? And wouldn't it also be religious discrimination for a pork-eating employer to demand that his employees eat pork?

Not so fast! What if the pork-refraining employer also claim that his religion entitled him to discriminate? Is discrimination on the basis of religion permitted if it is based on religion? I don't see how, unless the law is self-canceling.

Thus under current law (even though it is silent on pork) non-pork eaters would not be allowed to discriminate against pork eaters for religious reasons. However, since there is no special protection in the law for pork-eaters, such people might still be discriminated against for non-religious reasons. An example would be a radical vegan employer who refused to hire them because of his moral opposition to meat eating. No protected categories are involved; hence the discrimination would be allowed.

If we move from pork to sexuality, even without the additional category, any organization which refused to hire the "sexual orientation" people (whoever they may be; the law does not say) on religious grounds would be discriminating on the basis of religion -- as would any employer who demanded that his employees be of one sexual orientation or another.

As I see the addition, it encumbers non-religious organizations only. Previously, discrimination based on "sexual-orientation" would have been permitted so long as that was not done for religious reasons.

Unless, of course, imposing a religious test on employees came under an exception or exemption.

Attempting to analyze this stuff is crazy-making, but I'm trying anyway. What gets really crazy is that the statute makes it illegal for an organization to exclude anyone from a "program or activity." Might that mean that ham could not be served lest people be excluded from eating it? What about communion wine and wafers? Aren't they only supposed to be served only to baptized and confirmed practitioners of the religions that serve them? Aren't the others already being excluded? And isn't that discrimination on the basis of religion?

I have to admit, I'm having ongoing conceptual difficulty with the "sexual orientation" phraseology. Not only is it ill-defined, but I'm not certain exactly how and when discrimination is supposed to occur. Clearly, it is not discrimination against anyone to maintain that adultery, homosexuality, or polygamy are "sinful," because that is a belief and a religious opinion. Discrimination would involve not hiring someone, firing someone, or not allowing him to enter a church. Considering the omniscient nature of sin, I'm not entirely sure how the individual religions are supposed to practice discrimination against particular sinners, but let's assume they have some solid religious basis for it. Wouldn't that be analogous to Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, which upheld the right of private organizations to discriminate? But again, I don't see how religions get around the Catch 22 prohibition of discrimination on the basis of religion, unless there is an inherent religious exception. If there is, the addition of "sexual orientation" might be as meaningless as the word "religion" itself. Are Muslims allowed to discriminate against Jews and Christians and vice versa? If they are, then the word "religion" does not mean what it says. So why would "sexual orientation" have any more meaning than "religion"?

I guess we're lucky not to be living in the days when sexual orientation was religion, or religion could be sexual orientation. (Or are phallic cults still alive?)

Cramer also touches on veganism:

Not all of those organizations that get this unfair advantage are religiously based, of course. The ACLU, for example, has no problem with pork-eaters. It is also true that there are non-religious organizations on the other side that would be similarly injured, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Still, would there be any serious question as to the effect (and likely intent) of such a law?

It's tough to say where this is all headed. I think there are too many categories already, and I'm amazed there hasn't been complete legal chaos. If AB 1441 passes, animal rights organizations will not be allowed to run ad saying things like "Lesbian meat eaters need not apply." But could they say "Veiled meat eaters need not apply?"

Only if their reasons were religious?

(Or is that not if?)

Via Glenn Reynolds, I was quite taken with Belmont Club Richard Fernandez's analysis of the role of religion in war:

In those dark days faith, like freedom was sometimes just another name for nothing left to lose. And yet it was not altogether meaningless: it made the margin between victory and defeat.

But perhaps the West, cushioned by its material wealth, has altogether too much to lose for it to care about faith or freedom any more. Mark Steyn, currently touring Australia on a speaking tour, asks whether the West can rouse itself from ennui just long enough to feel the knife at its throat. And the horrifying thing is that Steyn on the hustings swings his lamp and cheerfully calls out for company in a dark, unanswering cultural night made all the more tenebrous by the bright Antipodean sunshine. What Deity, race or tribe might we still raise against the horde of Basiji?

My own guess is that neither Israel nor the West at large can long resist radical Islam without some sustaining faith of its own, a faith it will not find unless it makes up its mind to look for it. Men will fight on for as long as there is something left to fight for and not otherwise. Despair comes when we are finally convinced that even our hopes are futile.

This is a point that the most calculating and cynical of atheists have recognized. I can't think of a better example than Joseph Stalin's literal resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church he had sworn to destroy, and which he had nearly destroyed:

Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917)

Things couldn't have been bleaker. Atheist that he was, Stalin recognized that Communism couldn't possibly provide a sustaining faith for most ordinary Russians. He knew that unless he saw to it that God was solidly on their side, Russia would lose the war.

And so the cynical, evil, godless Stalin held a meeting with the church hierarchs, and opened the churches:

...the Nazis’ obsession with the plan to wipe out this country as a nation turned the world war into a patriotic one. So it was natural that in a bid to overpower the enemy the nation turned to their imperial tradition and to Russian history. The Orthodoxy was the Russian man’s main spiritual basis. Stalin just couldn’t fail to realize this, so it is small wonder that he sought assistance from the Church during that dangerous period of time in this country’s history.

20,000 churches were opened during the war years. In spring 1942 Soviet Government allowed Easter celebrations for the first time in many years. On September 4th 1943 Stalin invited the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Kremlin to discuss the need for reviving religious life in the USSR and the speedy election of a Patriarch.

Of course, Stalin's situation was utterly desperate, as was Russia's.

Avoiding despair during desperate times will try anyone's soul.

You don't even have to have one.

MORE: Already I see that a commenter thinks I advocate embracing religious fanaticism. Actually, I was making a historical point. But to each his own.

I should endeavor to be more open to misinterpretation.

According to the Daily Mail, British women spend nearly two years of their lives on their hair:

The average British woman spends an astonishing £36,903.75 on her hair in a lifetime, according to new research.

She will spend the equivalent of just under two YEARS of her life washing, styling, cutting, colouring, crimping and straightening her locks in salons or at home.

But as to total time I've spent compared to British women, let's see how "pussified" I am.

As a boy I'd get frequent short haircuts, and as I reached my teens and twenties the intervals between haircuts lengthened substantially -- as did my hair. But I soon tired of long hair and eventually went back to short hair and frequent (more or less monthly) haircuts. I think it's safe to estimate a lifetime average of one hour a month devoted to hair, which would cover not only the time spent on haircuts, but the time spent washing, drying, combing my hair (which I've never enjoyed screwing around with or styling). My haircuts started when I was around two, which means I've spent around fifty times 12 hours on my hair. That's 600 hours -- a total of 25 days. Even if I live another 50 years and don't go completely bald (both extremely unlikely eventualities), on my death I will have spent less than two months on my hair.

That's two months versus two years!

The British numbers sound incredible by comparison. Do women really spend 12 hours per month working on their hair? Nearly half an hour a day? If I had to do that, I'd find it needlessly cruel and oppressive.

However, it is unfair to generalize about other men based on my personal experience. And isn't it sexist to single out women? I mean, look at how much time John Edwards spends on his hair.

Sigh.

For me, what really eats time is not hair but traffic. I shudder to think how much time the average person spends in traffic, but I'm sure it dwarfs the time spent on hair by British women (or even men with important hair).

According to Duke University professor Mark Anthony Neal, President Bush is a bad role model for black youth:

For many young black males living in the nation's urban centers, macho means maintaining an image, no matter what the cost.

For some of the men cut off from life's promises, it's a self-made image. In their world, demonstrating sensitivity and emotion is frowned upon. Speaking proper English, a sign of weakness. Going to school, not cool.

It's about adopting what sociologists refer to as the "cool-pose culture," a rigid lifestyle that focuses on the latest clothes and shoes, sexual conquests, hip-hop music, and which, above all, demands the respect of peers.

The cool pose may be an enormous moneymaker in pop culture, admired and even copied by white youth, but it's leading to the slaughter of black youth. African Americans are killing each other at nine times the rate of white youth, often over beefs stemming from nothing more than a perceived slight.

"If you back down, you're a punk," says Duke professor Mark Anthony Neal, who lays out a new, less burdensome model of black masculinity in his book New Black Man. "To negotiate is to be weak. Everything has to be a confrontation."

The message is reinforced widely - from the words and imagery of hip-hop, to the reproachful taunting in sports, even from the White House, Neal tells me.

"Say what you want about [White House] policies, one of Bush's successes was getting across the message that a real man never wavers. You attack first; attack before they attack you. So it's coming from the top."

(Is the professor really praising Bush for "successes"? Can such things be?)

Let's try to be logical for a moment. Whether you like him or not, is President Bush really responsible for the hiphop, gangster-rap, macho culture among young black urban males? Didn't that same culture exist under President Clinton?

Thomas Sowell wrote a book about this phenomenon titled "Black Rednecks and White Liberals." As Sowell sees it, the young urban black macho males of today are the inheritors of specific cultural attributes:

Sowell begins by tracing the origins of black ghetto culture all the way back to the British Isles from which white American Southerners immigrated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These particular immigrants, from the socially turbulent regions of the northern borderlands of England and the highlands of Scotland, brought with them a set of pre-existing attitudes, values and behavioral patterns which, as Sowell points out, had nothing to do with the already existing American institution of slavery. These pre-existing attitudes formed the basis of a “redneck” or “cracker” culture, a culture consisting of “an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship,… and a style of religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery.” This was passed down to the white Southern descendants of these northern English and Scottish immigrants, and would soon become the cultural heritage of many Southern blacks.

Sowell points out that although most Southern blacks and whites moved away from the redneck culture over the generations given its destructively counterproductive effects, it survives today among poorest and least educated ghetto blacks and, since the 1960s, has been revered by today’s white liberal elite.

The entertainment industry loves redneck culture (whether the black or the white versions) in all of its manifestations, because it sells. Whether it took the form of the clueless but loveable Clampetts in "The Beverly Hillbillies," malevolent crackers in "Deliverance, or the gangster rap hype being marketed today, Americans are captivated and entertained by redneck culture.

If Sowell's theory is right, I think we can expect the redneck culture to spread once again from urban blacks to northern white youth. (In many ways, I think it already has.)

But what explains the American fascination with redneck culture?

Might there be natural instincts at work? What if the idea of having "real men" as some sort of standard is a basic ecological niche which will be filled by one group or another? Kim du Toit wrote a bracing, eye opening essay about the pussification of the American male, and much of what he said rings true. (Whether anti-pussification resistence should be permissible only among urban black males is at least debatable, but don't ask me! I don't write the "rules.")

Some men will not be pussified, and resistance to pussification sells. The cultural ramifications of this are poorly understood, and I think the implications are profound.

It strikes me as a bit unfair to blame Bush.

(Even if he isn't a pussy.)

In what's probably a sign of the times in which we live, authorities in tolerant San Francisco are planning a major crackdown, with the goal of eradicating foreign invaders:

SAN FRANCISCO - In an effort to preserve San Francisco’s natural habitat, The City approved a plan Monday that would cut down thousands of non-native trees along hillsides and parks.

Under the Significant Natural Resource Areas Management Plan, a road map to guide The City’s efforts to revive San Francisco’s natural habitat, thousands of eucalyptus trees, shrubs and other non-native plant species would be cut down from 1,100 acres across 29 parks that are part of The City’s natural areas program. The plan calls for replanting native trees in some parks.

I am all for protecting native habitat, and eucalyptus trees were probably not the best choice when much of The City’s forests were planted a century ago, given their encroachment tendencies with other plants and trees and grasses. But it should be pointed out that there are considerably more plant species here today than there were when all of those horrible non-native types arrived, and they’ve managed to survive without NAP’s heavy-handed intervention.

And that would be the only way to describe the group’s style to date, highlighted by the destruction of groves of trees around The City because they were allegedly interfering with the precious native plants the program is dedicated to protect. Indeed, at least one person in NAP’s core group of volunteers has been arrested more than once for cutting down trees without a permit — even in San Francisco you can’t give license to every sand-dune savior who wants to whack down trees they refer to as “alien species.”

Unfortunately, many San Franciscans imagine the pests to be beautiful, and the Eucalyptus trees have been growing there (and all over California) for many, many years. Since at least 1871:

The gold fever came in 1850 and affected the farming life and production of the early settlers, but only for a few years. The elder George Greene was not only a farmer but a miner, and he caught the fever. He continued intermittently as a prospector all his life. He also was one of the first oil men in California, commencing his activities in 1865.

In about 1871 young George Greene conceived the idea of planting their property with eucalyptus trees. The first eucalyptus seeds had been sent here from Australia by Bishop William Taylor. Greene’s father consented to this plan, and George carried it out, Later he further developed their land by planting "Holland grass" on the sand dunes to prevent their shifting with the wind.

Greene's error was compounded when the subsequent owner donated the blighted grove to the city, because the unthinkingly sentimental, aesthetic-minded citizens of San Francisco turned it into a place for open air concerts:

[Mrs. Sigmund Stern] turned it over to the people of San Francisco as a recreation site, deeding it in perpetuity to the city with the express provision that it would forever be used only for recreational purposes.

For this it had obvious advantages – shelter from prevailing winds and fog, unspoiled nature in close proximity to the heart of an expanding city.

The Grove Is Nature’s Music Box

Some additional possibilities soon became apparent. It was Nature’s music box. The terrain, with the help of the accidental sounding board created by the tall eucalyptus massed down the slopes, provided unusual acoustics. William Gladstone Merchant was the architect consulted on the development of the area as a playground and open-air concert place. A pavilion was designed and built. The Trocadero was re-conditioned and today stands virtually unchanged from the days when it was the famous roadhouse. Even the hand-painted wash bowls have been retained to this day.

On June 4, 1932, the city gratefully accepted the gift and the childish trebles of a playground chorus gave the first test to a musical center that now ranks among the world’s finest.

From that day’s inaugural stemmed a steady growth of the city’s musical reputation. For the first time San Francisco, the cultural heart of the Pacific Coast, had an outdoor center to vie in service to the people with Chicago’s Ravinia Park, St. Louis’s Forest Park and Hollywood’s Bowl.

But the Summer Music Festival is the biggest attraction and as one music critic put it — accurately if lightly — the programs “are the only ones given hereabouts that can smell as good as they sound, thanks to the action of sunlight on wet eucalyptus trees.”

It might have taken them some time, but San Francisco is finally showing some sense.

Here here!

URGENT CAVEAT: Please bear in mind that it's sometimes tough to distinguish real life from satire in San Francisco.

Readers looking for in-depth, real-life satire should read about San Francisco's "Natural Areas Program." Going after alien trees is only a start toward the utopian dream of "restoring" Stern Grove to its original sand dune status (by stealth, with the clever introduction of "Trojan turtles") and ultimately kicking San Franciscans out of their parks.

Alien trees are bad enough, but humans are the ultimate alien species.

(None dare call any of this speciesism.)

I'm a little confused about recent events in the kindly, tolerant San Francisco Bay Area.

Last night I read that a Fremont man named Omeed Aziz Popal drove his SUV on a murderous rampage, killing one and wounding 14.

Today I read that the driver was a devout but apparently stressed out Muslim who attended the Abu Bakr Siddiq Mosque in Hayward.

Because I live near a Saudi madrassa, I thought I should check it out to see what sort of stuff they preach there, and the first article I stumbled onto was a writeup of an eerily similar driving incident -- at the very same mosque:

HAYWARD — A 77-year-old man plowed his car into a group of people gathered outside a local mosque after a Friday afternoon prayer service, injuring 11, police said.

Four of the people hit in the parking lot of the Abu Bakr Siddiq Mosque, 29414 Mission Blvd., in south Hayward were taken to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, said Hayward Police Sgt. Corey Quinn.

Seven others, who were not seriously injured, told police that they would seek their own medical care, Quinn said, adding that the driver was not injured.

Members of the mosque are mostly of Afghan descent, which created a sense of fear that the incident might have been intentionally directed at those from the Middle East. But Quinn said police are ruling that the incident was accidental, although it remains under investigation.

(I'm sure the blogosphere is all over this by now, but I thought I'd post this anyway...)

MORE: Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of reactions to the hit-and-run spree.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit and Michelle Malkin explore the incident's proximity to the San Francisco Jewish Center, and Pajamas Media has a roundup of blogosphere reactions.

(I'm not finding out much more about the earlier Hayward mosque incident. It appears to have been an accident in which an elderly physician hit the gas pedal instead of the accelerator. But does that mean the mosque congregation necessarily saw it that way?)

MORE: According to this account, three people had broken legs, and the congregation was described as fearful:

Members of the mosque are mostly of Afghan descent, which created a sense of fear that the incident might have been intentionally directed at those from the Middle East. But Quinn said police are ruling that the incident was accidental, although it remains under investigation.

The San Jose Mercury News account mentions "fears of a hate crime":

Because the members of the Abu Bakr Siddiq Mosque mostly belong to the Afghan community, reports of the incident initially sparked fears of a hate crime, but Sgt. Corey Quinn said police are investigating the incident as an accident.

UPDATE: According to this KTVU video, a witness claimed the suspect referred to himself as "a terrorist."

That's what they call an admission.

UPDATE (08/31/06): The DC Examiner has an excellent analysis of what is being called "Sudden Jihadist Syndrome":

....Muslims who follow the most extreme jihadist advocates of hatred for Jews, Christians, Israel, America and Western civilization, unexpectedly acting on what they have been taught, including the rationalizations for mass murder.

[...]

This meme of Mr. Nice Guy Muslim Neighbor suddenly exploding in a murderous assault upon innocent Americans or other Westerners — often in locales one would never consider likely killing grounds — is becoming all too familiar.

[...]

Considering that U.S. border and immigration controls have been almost laughably ineffective for years, we ought not be surprised to find we have many Sudden Jihadist Syndrome time bombs walking among us.

I'm wondering about something. Considering the human penchant for monkey-see-monkey-do behavior, might non-reporting tend to decrease the incidence of SJS? Is there any way to know?

Here's a famous photograph which received much attention for many years:

While it was (and probably still is) widely seen as a poignant illustration of the social injustice that lies at the root of America, it depicts victims of a 1937 flood in Louisville.

The juxtaposition of black flood victims with a PR billboard showing affluent white people was an amazing photo opportunity, for a very talented photographer -- Life Magazine's Margaret Bourke-White. That's because there was really no logical or causal connection between the National Manufacturers Association's PR campaign and the Louisville flood. The connections are emotional ones, made in the viewer's mind.

Not that there's any denying the terrible racism of the 1930s or the lower standard of living for black people. The irony is that the billboard did not prove it; it only seemed to prove it.

The people standing in line for flood relief might as well have been starving as a result of the depression. Their plight might just as well have been caused by the refusal of affluent whites to share their wealth.

Imagine, manipulating people's emotions by showing them pictures of flood victims!

People must have been really gullible in those days...

In a fit of hurried grocery shopping yesterday, I carelessly grabbed a container of what I thought said "Half and Half" for my morning coffee. Unfortunately, I missed reading the words "Fat Free." No excuse; it wasn't even fine print. Worse, I didn't see the "Fat Free" part until I had opened the container and poured some into my coffee.

Yeccch!

Food critic though I am not, in my unprofessional opinion, this swill tastes for the world as if it's half non-fat milk and half non-dairy creamer. (Probably that's exactly what it more or less is.)

I thought about the language. "Half and Half" is not a brand name, as there are innumerable brands of "Half and Half." It is supposed to be a standardized dairy product consisting of half cream and half milk. The FDA has a specific legal definition of what is legally called "half-and-half":

PART 131--MILK AND CREAM--Table of Contents

Subpart B--Requirements for Specific Standardized Milk and Cream

Sec. 131.180 Half-and-half.

(a) Description. Half-and-half is the food consisting of a mixture of milk and cream which contains not less than 10.5 percent but less than 18 percent milkfat. It is pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized, and may be homogenized.

(b) Optional ingredients. The following safe and suitable optional ingredients may be used:

(1) Emulsifiers.

(2) Stabilizers.

(3) Nutritive sweeteners.

(4) Characterizing flavoring ingredients (with or without coloring)
as follows:

(i) Fruit and fruit juice (including concentrated fruit and fruit
juice).

(ii) Natural and artificial food flavoring. (Emphasis added.)

Here's the label:

I have no problem with the marketing of any product, except that I don't see how they get around the FDA's definition of "half and half."

(Nor am I the first blogger to wonder about this.)

Hmmmm....

Might it be the hyphens? The FDA uses them, while the product I bought does not. They'd probably say that because they never stated it was half cream and half milk, that they're not misrepresenting anything.

But half of what and half of what?

They can probably say it is half milk, because the definitions of milk include low-fat, non-fat and other varieties. But there is no FDA definition of "cream" other than those which specify that it must contain fat.

Sec. 131.150 defines "heavy cream" as "cream which contains not less than
36 percent milkfat, while Sec. 131.155 defined "light cream" as "cream which contains not less than 18 percent but less than 30 percent milkfat."

Which means that even if they are allowed to escape the FDA's hyphenated definition by removing the hyphens, that only makes it "hyphen free half and half." There's still the plain meaning of the words. What do they mean?

Clearly, there is no possibility that the product is half cream. Is it half non-dairy creamer? Shouldn't they say so?

Not being a vegan, I don't have to address the highly volatile issue of whether "non-dairy" creamers are in fact non-dairy. But a site on the non-dairy=dairy warpath was kind enough to describe the mysterious product that my fat free half and half container labels "Carrageenan": "a thickener derived from a red seaweed commonly called Irish Moss."

Carrageenan is used as a thickener (which probably means that the stuff would be watery without it) and here's a site which doesn't seem to like it:

Carrageenan is a commonly used food additive that is extracted from red seaweed by using powerful alkali solvents. These solvents would remove the tissues and skin from your hands as readily as would any acid.

Carrageenan is a thickening agent. It's the vegetarian equivalent of casein, the same protein that is isolated from milk and used to thicken foods. Casein is also used to produce paints, and is the glue used to hold a label to a bottle of beer. Carrageenan is the magic ingredient used to de-ice frozen airplanes sitting on tarmacs during winter storms.

I think what is going on here is a literal war of words, with the industry trying to insinuate and weasel its way out of government requirements. Is this product even half milk and half something else? Frankly, I doubt it. There's no assurance on the label that it's half anything.

What concerns me is the plain meaning of English. Unless I am wrong, "Half and Half" is being reduced to a meaningless expression (analogous to the old "5 and 10" stores) which not only doesn't mean half milk and half cream, it doesn't mean half of anything.

If half is not half, what's next? Will whole not be whole?

(I don't want to look.)

If this doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. I'm trying to make half sense, and I'm not even sure whether I'm halving trouble.

MORE: Looking again at the above label, I notice more smoke and mirrors by the listing of the word "MILK" followed by an asterisk which indicates that this alleged "MILK" adds "a trivial amount of fat." But I thought milk had fat!

What about the 0% on the label? Does the word "zero" now exclude any "trivial amount"? Why? Have mathematicians been consulted?

I'm wondering. Can they do this with trivial amounts of Mercury, lead or asbestos? Why not? If zero excludes trivial amounts, and words like "half" are reduced to being trivial, then why can't all dangers be reduced to zero by such word reductionism?

(I think I should go on record as being one hundred percent in favor of half zero tolerance and half zero intolerance, provided the amounts are trivial.)

Will someone please tell me whether "zero" is more or less than "trivial"?

AFTERTHOUGHT: I think this post is a classic example of what can go wrong when logic is applied to things which are not logical. It's obvious that words like "half" and "zero" literally mean half or zero in the logical (or mathematical) sense. In industry terms, "half" is not half, and "zero" is not zero. That's because being "too" literal about these things would probably threaten the economic fabric of society or something.

But what about mercury?

Is there zero relativism?

Coco is in heat right now, which is a bit of a nuisance, but it will all pass relatively quickly.

However, she is taking a keen interest in other dogs, and she seems to have developed a bit of a crush on Bonnie Wren's bulldog, "Mojo."

Coco likes Mojo's style, because not only does he outperform airport security in preventing dangerous intruders, but he's become an expert at home remodeling:

However, I should point out that Coco is a bit jealous of Clara.

As to whether their pups would have any future, arguably they would. Both Coco and Mojo are listed bulldog breeds, and I think a svelte and slim female pit bull might provide just the right combination of genes to please a lot of people. The Olde English Bulldog was arrived at by crisscrossing the related breeds, with the goal of restoring the original bulldog to a healthier, more robust state.

Various genetic crosses have been used in carefully and thoughtfully planned breeding programs to obtain this goal. The foundation of most of today's Olde English Bulldogges can be traced to English Bulldog, American Bulldog, APBT and Mastiff.

These dogs were used very selectively in various combinations to obtain the desired physical and mental traits of the original Olde English Bulldogge. The result has been a good looking Bulldogge of great athletic ability that is much healthier and physically fit without most or all of the problems that plague today's modern English Bulldogs. The goal of all Olde English Bulldogge breeders should be to produce genetically healthier Bulldogges that are free breathers, free breeders, and free whelpers.

Interestingly, "Mojococo" and "Cocomojo" have both been spoken for as names, with the latter being considerably more popular than the former.

Uh oh! I better not let Coco see this picture of Mojo, lest her hopes for bulldog breeding be dashed!

But love is another matter. Coco loves her friends for who they are, and it need not be physical. As regular readers may remember, she has an ongoing platonic relationship with Tristan the Shih-Tzu. (That it's platonic is probably good. For starters, what would you call a cross between a pit bull and a Shih-tzu? And the breeds are not related at all. Do I really need to spend my time building a better "bull shiht"?)

I doubt there's much of moral lesson for Coco here, as she's already learned from Tristan that not all males are available, or even physically interested.

(But Coco is in heat, so I'll try to break it to her as gently as I can.)

In blogging, I've found that the best way to make a fool of myself is to write blog posts about things outside of my areas of familiarity or expertise. Hence my reluctance to get into extensive tactical or strategic analyses of the war against terrorism.

That said, here I go anyway. I know next to nothing about aviation, but I've been wondering, with all the double and triple redundant controls which are supposed to govern these things, how on earth a plane could manage to find itself on the wrong runway, after spending 32 minutes in conversation with flight traffic control, just before the crash:

``The last communication was the takeoff clearance,'' said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, which is participating in the inquiry along with the safety board and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If the news reports are to be believed, the mistake should have been obvious to the pilot, because not only was the incorrect runway only half the length of the proper runway (which caused the crash), it's also said to be only half as wide:

The width of the runways also is markedly different. The longer runway is 150 feet wide; the shorter one is 75 feet.

I might be missing something, but the shorter runway does not appear to be half the width of the longer runway. The two appear to be identical in width. In fact, if you go to the satellite map and zoom in, the shorter runway appears a hair wider.

Reports also state that the larger runway had been repaved just a week before the crash, and I find myself wondering whether someone -- somewhere -- might be in a bit of a hurry to point the finger at the pilot, even though this is a shared responsibility.

Then there's this recent report:

Lexington's airport director says a repaving project a week before the fatal Comair crash altered the taxi route commercial planes take to get to the main runway, The Associated Press reports.

It strikes me that no pilot would want to be on the wrong runway, that pilots would tend to follow instructions issued by the local people on the ground, and that over a course of 32 minutes of conversation the normal assumption would be that they'd have gotten the correct information out to the pilot, and it would have been confirmed.

So unless we assume reporters are simply making up facts here (possible but doubtful), who told the reporters that the shorter runway is half as wide as the wider runway if it isn't?

(I hope they aren't the same people involved with local air traffic control.)

UPDATE: Commenter Mark noticed that the runways are painted differently, with the shorter lane having a narrower lane painted in the middle. If runway width is defined by painted width and not actual width, that would explain the reports, although I don't know whether the paint in the center of the lane would indicate to the pilot that the lane is too short.

Something about this incident makes no sense to me. I don't see how a pilot could have made such a horrendous error on his own.

During my long absence yesterday, I visited the Neue Gallery in New York, where for the first time I saw Gustav Klimt's breathtaking portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

The public clearly loves it, and reviews have been predictably mixed. Here's the slightly snarky New York Magazine:

3. Adele Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy Viennese, may or may not have been Klimt’s lover, which is part of the picture’s beguiling mystery. She was certainly his muse. The painting is an altarpiece for the romantic imagination. Klimt worked on it for three years, embedding Adele in a softly undulating and hypnotic cloud—a melting halo of gold. Her expression is languid, her dress full of fluttering eyes. She kept the painting in her private sitting room.

4. Klimt was inspired by the glorious Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna, Italy, where the gold and jewels flicker in an otherworldly light. At the Neue Galerie, Adele Bloch-Bauer I is well placed in an imposing and handsome room. But the flat and even light, while ideal for many other paintings, deadens the imaginative shimmer of Klimt’s gold. It may take some time before the museum’s curators get just the right sort of glimmer.

Notwithstanding any of these criticisms, I love the work. I think it's a beautiful thing, naively decadent in a good way, reflecting Klimt's absinthe-laced Art Nouveau times. More than one art critic has noticed an underlying defiance of spirit (which might be missed by those who dismiss the apparent foppish estheticism):

the portraits, with their timeless aspect, may be perceived as defying fate. Sleep, Hope (a pregnant woman surrounded by baleful faces) and Death are subjects no less characteristic than the Kiss. Yet life's seductions are still more potent in the vicinity of death, and Klimt's works, although they do not explicitly speak of impending doom, constitute a sort of testament in which the desires and anxieties of an age, its aspiration to happiness and to eternity, receive definitive expression.

The gallery paid $135 million for the painting, the highest price ever paid for any painting. While of enormous interest to art historians, it's simultaneously of great interest to Holocaust historians and legal scholars:

Adele Bloch-Bauer had indicated in her will that Klimt's paintings should be donated to the Austrian State Gallery.[4] She died in 1925 from meningitis. When the Nazis took over Austria, her widowed husband had to flee to Switzerland. His property, including the Klimt paintings, was confiscated. In his 1945 testament, Bauer-Bloch designated his nephew and nieces, including Maria Altmann, as the inheritors of his estate.[5]

As Bloch-Bauer's pictures had remained in Austria, the government took the position that the testament of Adele Bloch-Bauer had determined that these pictures were to stay there. After a protracted court battle in the United States and in Austria (see Republic of Austria v. Altmann), binding arbitration by the Austrian court established in 2006 that Maria Altmann was the rightful owner of this and four other paintings by Klimt.[6] The decision was received in Austria with dismay. After the pictures were sent to America, they were on display in Los Angeles in 2006 before the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was sold to Lauder.

Kennedy, Rehnquist, and Thomas filed a lengthy (IMO persuasive) dissent, and I'm not entirely sure the court reached the right result in the majority opinion. I say this despite the fact that I am delighted that the family got the painting, and that it is now in New York and not Austria. I consider the Austrian government's conduct to have been a shameful ratification of the Nazi theft. The problem is, the damned sovereign immunity laws allowed them to get away with it at the time -- a grievous wrong, if a legal one. Morally speaking, Austria did not deserve the painting. A legal technicality -- a loophole, if you will -- permitted them to get away with it.

Yet the law is built on technicalities, and I'm always concerned when I see retroactive application of any law, even in the most morally egregious situations. If conduct is heinous enough, there seems to be a consensus that laws should be bent.

Whether that's a good idea poses an entirely new moral question. Lots of people think that in cases of things like the Holocaust, or crimes against children, principles like retroactivity should be disregarded. I'd rather see extralegal conduct committed in the name of morality than see legal principles disregarded. The adbduction of Eichmann is a good example. I support Israel's moral right to do that, just as I would have supported their moral right to send a special op team into Austria to seize the stolen Klimt paintings notwithstanding Austria's technical legal rights.

That would make me anarchistic, as well as anachronistic. (But appreciative.)

Today is so stormy that Yahoo weather is actually predicting possible tornadoes:

HAIL AND VERY HEAVY RAINFALL. A COLD FRONT THAT PASSED TO OUR SOUTH WILL RETURN TODAY AS A WARM FRONT. THE AIR AHEAD OF IT WILL BE STABLE...BUT BEHIND IT INCREASINGLY UNSTABLE. SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO FORM ALONG THE BOUNDARY AND DEVELOP INTO SOME VERY STRONG STORMS. DAMAGING WINDS...HAIL...TORRENTIAL RAINS AND EVEN THE POSSIBILITY OF A TORNADO COULD VERY WELL HAPPEN THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING.

But I'm going to spend the day driving through New Jersey.

Whether I should stay or go reminds me of this little captured scene from Friday:

The bright side of the above picture is that there's no need to move.

(I'll return later, possibly today...)

Via Justin, both Coco and I were quite fascinated by the story about "psycho killer" raccoons:

OLYMPIA, Washington - A fierce group of raccoons has killed 10 cats, attacked a small dog and bitten at least one pet owner who had to get rabies shots, residents of Olympia say.

Some have taken to carrying pepper spray to ward off the masked marauders and the woman who was bitten now carries an iron pipe when she goes outside at night.

"It's a new breed," said Tamara Keeton, who with Kari Hall started a raccoon watch after an emotional neighborhood meeting drew 40 people. "They're urban raccoons, and they're not afraid."

Tony Benjamins, whose family lost two cats, said he got a big dog — a German Shepherd-Rottweiler mix — to keep the raccoons away.

The attacks, all within a three-block area near the Garfield Nature Trail in Olympia, are highly unusual, said Sean O. Carrell, a problem wildlife coordinator with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, adding that trappers may be summoned from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove problem animals.

"I've never heard a report of 10 cats being killed. It's something were going to have to monitor," Carrell said.

Meanwhile, residents have hired Tom Brown, a nuisance wildlife control operator from Rochester, Washington, to set traps, but in six weeks he has caught only one raccoon. He and Carrell said raccoons teach their young — and each other — to avoid traps.

Brown said he had seen packs of raccoons this big but none so into killing.

"They are in command up there," he said.

I'm wondering why isn't this happening in rural areas. Might it relate to the phenomenon increasingly called "victim disarmament" (via Glenn Reynolds) -- aka "gun control"?

I'd be willing to bet that the raccoons wouldn't be acting this way in a rural area, because they know they wouldn't get away with it.

If this sounds fantastic, consider that raccoons are highly intelligent animals -- considered more intelligent than cats, and if accounts like this are true, they're certainly smart enough to understand the danger of guns:

Stories about the raccoon's "intelligence" or problem solving ability are based in truth, and many farmers tell you how a raccoon learned to open a chicken-coop door or similar closure.

Sparky, our pet raccoon, craved raw eggs. Once when Thedie, my stepfather, gave Sparky a raw egg after introducing him to a new pen, the animal exhibited what appeared to be intelligence. The new pen had a chicken wire bottom raised about 6 inches above ground level. Sparky held the egg pointed-end upright, bit around it, pried off the excised portion, and began to lap out the raw egg. The egg tilted over, however, and it spilled through the wire to the ground. That had not been a problem in his former, solid, wood-floored pen.

Given another egg, Sparky took it directly to his food bowl, and we never saw him lose another egg through the wire. Was it intelligence or problem solving or just happenstance? In intelligence tests using food as the reward, raccoons took just 800 trials to achieve 75% success on a problem while cats required 7,000 trials to reach the same success rate.

John Lawson in his account of his early travels through Carolina wrote that the raccoon fished by dipping its tail into a stream. When a crab or crayfish clamped onto the "bait" the raccoon was said to withdraw its tail with the attached crustacean. The chances are good that Lawson heard the story from Indians and simply passed it on as a personal observation.

Lawson also wrote that the raccoon was particularly fond of fermented or "rotted" fruit, and that account is true. Sparky proved his taste for alcohol when he climbed onto the shelf created by 2, side-by-side, 5-gallon jugs of fermenting grape wine. He was running free in the kitchen/dining room as mother cooked dinner, and he had gotten quiet. When Sparky became quiet, it was time to investigate.

Mother found him perched on the jugs, dipping one hand down as far as it would go into a jug from which he had removed the cheesecloth cover. His fingers extended about halfway into the bubbling mixture, and he would pull out his hand, lick off the wine, and then reach for more. Mother called me to see what Sparky was doing, and I poured out a saucer full for him. Have you ever seen a raccoon with a "buzz"? We laughed at his antics until our stomachs hurt.

Another account of raccoon smarts:

The intelligence and dexterity of a raccoon is such that it can pick an avocado from a tree, aim, and throw it at a barking dog. Door knobs that can be turned -- without locks -- are no obstacle for a raccoon to open.

I think any animal smart enough to unlock a door is certainly smart enough to figure out whether their victims (or their owners) are capable of an armed response.

There's been a lot of discussion about whether wild animals are losing their fear of man. I think it's obvious that they are, at least in cities.

I mean, what's to fear?

At a number of official websites like these there's all kinds of advice about "what to do" about problem raccoons, and much of it involves highly complex strategies involving specialized animal repellant products, and the use of psychology.

According to the Ohio State link, "densities of raccoons can be twenty times higher in urban areas than in rural environments."

Twenty times higher? Can anything be done? Why is it that so many animals were once afraid of man, and now they're able to terrorize them?

Was it always this way?

Perhaps city people can find the answer by studying history.

In that regard, I found an interesting reference work which might be of some value, and I humbly present it to my readers in the hope that no stone might be left unturned in the search for solutions.

Coco wants a copy!

(I like it when I don't have to photoshop stuff.)

MORE: In their search for solutions, perhaps the city folks could start a new fashion trend when they visit City Hall with their demands....

(Coonskin caps used to be popular when I was a little kid. As seen on TV!)

Another never-ending source of amazement for me is the nature of some of the lawsuits that manage to get filed in court. Via an email, I see that a litigious Pennsylvania woman has recently sued a boy for making the meow sound at her:

JEANNETTE, Pa. (Aug. 23) - Meow. A district judge has been asked to decide whether that word is a harmless taunt or grounds for misdemeanor harassment. Jeannette police charged a 14-year-old boy for "meowing" whenever he sees his neighbor, 78-year-old Alexandria Carasia.

The boy's family and Carasia do not get along. The boy's mother said the family got rid of their cat after Carasia complained to police that it used her flower garden as a litter box.

The boy testified Tuesday that he only meowed at the woman twice. Carasia testified, "Every time he sees me, he meows."

The boy's defense attorney says the suit never should have been filed, and while he's right, since when does being right matter?

The problem is, anything can now be considered offensive, on any number of grounds.

I wouldn't want to try oinking at people with certain religious, um, sensibilities.

And hog-calling on an airplane might really create trouble.

Personally, I think if all humor were made illegal, we'd have a funnier world.

I'm busy entertaining an out of town visitor for the next few days, and while I'll try to find time to write posts, one of the disadvantages to writing this sort of blog is that most of my posts require relatively larger chunks of time than posts like this one, and I'm having a time shortage right now. I'll try to post when I can, but in case anyone wonders why there's not more here, I'll be doing a lot of running around.

I haven't yet found a reliable way to write blog posts while driving and/or entertaining. Sometimes I wish this activity didn't require such concentration.

Hence I don't have time to focus on important issues, such as the impact of Pluto's demotion on astrology:

Astrologers believe that the positions of the moon, sun and stars affect human affairs and that people born under the 12 signs of the Zodiac tend to pick up qualities of the planets associated with those signs. Some astrologers, including leaders of the American Federation of Astrologers and the Astrological Association of Great Britain, are standing firmly by Pluto. They say they will continue to regard the icy orb as a full-blown planet with a powerful pull on our psyche, despite the astronomers' decision.

"Whether he's a planet, an asteroid, or a radioactive matzo ball, Pluto has proven himself worthy of a permanent place in all horoscopes," says Shelley Ackerman, columnist for the spirituality Web site Beliefnet.com. Ms. Ackerman criticized the IAU for not including astrologers in its decision.

No wonder things are so screwed up in the world today.

And anyone who's a Scorpio (or even influenced by one) should be especially worried:

Others warned that Scorpios -- people born between Oct. 23 and Nov. 21 -- should be especially cautious in the coming days because the sign is closely associated with Pluto.

"Scorpios can be extremely explosive, and very direct, and this could be the trigger that makes them explode," says Milton Black, an Australian astrologer who claims to have more than 580,000 clients. Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, take note. All three are Scorpios.

Ye immortal gods! I'm shocked. I mean, my moon is in Scorpio! This could have a profound impact on the lunar side of my self esteem!

And aren't we supposed to be living in a democracy, where these things are democratically decided?

Considering the old FDR rule that there are no coincidences in politics, isn't it obvious that the astronomers are trying to mess with the election process?

Wish I had more time for detailed analysis.

(I should be thinking globally, not Plutonically. I haven't even had time to speculate about Pluto's impact on Mercury!)

MORE: Astrologers and Scorpios are not the only ones worried. This affects textbook publishers, Wikipedia, and important cultural icons.

I'm getting a bit sick of reading about the alleged "risks" of mercury:

Leila Varella's son Darius, 9, no longer munches tuna sandwiches for lunch. His mother now regrets the slabs of shark she tossed onto the grill.

Two years ago, amid national concern about mercury in seafood, they plucked strands of hair to be tested in a national survey of mercury levels in the U.S. population by the environmental group Greenpeace.

Darius' level was slightly high, so Varella nixed the fish.

"Mercury," said Varella, of Philadelphia, "is not something he needs."

It's not something anyone needs. It can interfere with fetal brain development. At high enough levels, it can cause other health problems in children and adults.

As evidence of its harm mounts, regulators and public-health officials have sought stricter controls, especially on the biggest source: coal-fired power plants.

Although the federal Environmental Protection Agency instituted new restrictions on plants in 2005, New Jersey recently trumped them by passing more stringent rules, and Pennsylvania is on the brink of doing likewise.

The industry opposes the Pennsylvania proposal, which calls for a 90 percent reduction in emissions by 2015, while the public has supported it in a record number of comments.

Is no one interested in actual evidence?

I should be, because my mouth is full of the stuff. But the available hard science doesn't seem to think that's dangerous:

Children who got "silver" dental fillings containing mercury amalgam showed no neuropsychological or neurobehavioral differences compared with kids who got fillings of a polymer composite, say two new studies out Wednesday.

The studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association try to resolve a heated debate over amalgam fillings, but groups that believe mercury in amalgam is harmful disputed the findings and the ethics of testing them on children.

No large, randomized trials had previously been done to address the possible affects of mercury ingested from mercury amalgam dental fillings. A known potent neurotoxin, mercury is believed by some to pose a danger as minute amounts of it enter the body through the mouth.

Mercury amalgam has been used in dentistry for 150 years. Fillings made from it are 40% to 50% mercury. For over a century amalgam was believed to be inert, but about 25 years ago researchers discovered that amalgam fillings emit small amounts of mercury vapor.

Mercury, of course, is a natural element; not man-made. In ground coal it is measured in parts per billion, and overall US mercury emissions from coal are a small fraction of the worldwide total (half of which are natural emissions:

World wide mercury emissions are estimated at 5,000 to 5,500 tons/year with natural emissions half the worldwide total depending on volcanic activity. The US generates 117 tons/year (40 tons/yr from power plants).

Volcanic emissions are unpredictable but average around 700 tons/yr worldwide. There are over 5,000 surface and submarine volcanoes in the world with over 50 eruptions each month that can cause worldwide emissions to spike in any single year.

With respect to natural emissions in the U.S.: Roaming Mountain Wyoming researchers established that mercury emanating from a clay hillside were over 250 times as high as background levels away from geothermal areas. The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Lab issued a report in 2004 that Yellowstone Park could emit as much mercury as all of Wyoming's eight coal burning power plants. Illinois researchers have demonstrated that coal fired power generation could account for only a fraction of the mercury in the soil, indicating that most of the mercury in the soil was present before coal was used for generating electricity.

They also ought to issue a cease and desist order against me, for my teeth are loaded with mercury -- at levels far above that occurring in ground coal.

Why, I'm so loaded with mercury that it's unsafe to cremate me! Seriously, the people who are worried about burning coal should read this!

Additionally cremation of those with amalgam fillings adds to air emissions and deposition onto land and lakes. A study in Switzerland found that in that small country, cremation released over 65 kilograms of mercury per year as emissions, often exceeding site air mercury standards(9), while another Swiss study found mercury levels during cremation of a person with amalgam fillings as high as 200 micrograms per cubic meter (considerably higher than U.S. mercury standards). The amount of mercury in the mouth of a person with fillings was on average 2.5 grams, enough to contaminate 5 ten acre lakes to the extent there would be dangerous levels in fish(2). A Japanese study estimated mercury emissions from a small crematorium there as 26 grams per day(10). A study in Sweden found significant occupational and environmental exposures at crematoria, and since the requirement to install selenium filters mercury emission levels in crematoria have been reduced 85%(11). A study of assessing hair mercury in a group of staff at some of the 238 British crematoriums found that the groups hair mercury were significantly greater than that of controls(12).

Me and my mouth! I never imagined my mouth was more hazardous than coal.

In Maine, legislators have proposed yanking the fillings from corpses before cremation.

Getting through the hysteria to any actual science is like pulling teeth.

I'm wondering...

Maybe this is a law school exam question, but if the hysteria over mercury were to make me grind my teeth, which in turn made me emit numerous parts per trillion, wouldn't that mean that the hysteria would a contributory cause of the pollution?

MORE: These days a lot of false or unsubstantiated claims are made, and bloggers are often accused of less than full disclosure. While purely personal details about me are irrelevant to most of the things I discuss, in this instance I have made a claim based on such personal details. Because of the well-established principle that details should be verified in order to be trusted, I'm all too glad to oblige, and provide photographic proof that what I say is true:

That's only my lower jaw; the uppers are similar.

UPDATE (08/26/06): There's benzene in soft drinks! But the levels are apparently not as dangerous as drinking tap water. Nevertheless, that didn't stop a massive lawsuit:

District of Columbia Superior Court judge Mary Terrell dismissed that case Friday morning.

BellyWashers are juice drinks that come in reusable bottles featuring Spiderman, Hello Kitty, Scooby Doo and other well-known characters.

Crockett, the Coke spokesman, said Vault Zero is safe.

"There is no supporting documentation to prove how these lawyers conducted these tests," he said. "Their own press release indicates that they have abused the product with heat prior to testing.

FDA officials say there is no safety concern and that levels are still relatively low compared with other sources of exposure to benzene.

The soft drink industry agrees and says the amount of soft drinks people consume is much less than the amount of tap water they are exposed to.

I've never been a fan of hate crime legislation, because I think that crime is crime, and an attack by one person on another person is inherently heinous. If the fact that the victim belonged to a particular group was a motivating factor, that might make the attack especially heinous and depraved, and it is a factor which should be taken into account at sentencing. However, I don't think the victim's membership in a group or class should make an attack a special crime beyond the actual crime, as this invites all sorts of legal mischief, as well as endless demands for the inclusion of new groups into the special hate crime categories.

The latest group under consideration? The homeless:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Tara Cole, who had been living on the streets of Nashville for more than three years, spent her last night alive sleeping on a boat ramp along the Cumberland River.

She was killed in the early hours of Aug. 11, when two unknown males pushed her into the river, according to witnesses. Other homeless people couldn't save her.

"She was one person, but it terrorized the whole homeless population," said Howard Allen, a homeless man who has helped organize a nightly vigil for Cole.

Authorities said the fatal attack was unprovoked, and homeless advocates say such violence is on the rise across the nation. Often the attackers are teenagers or young adults who are more affluent than their victims, experts say.

The increase in violence may be loosely linked to the increasing popularity of so-called "Bumfights" videos and imitation videos which show homeless people fighting one another and performing dangerous stunts, he said.

Four producers of the "Bumfights" videos pleaded guilty in June 2003 to charges of conspiracy to stage an illegal fight for their videos.

And a 20-year-old man in Los Angeles has been convicted for beating two homeless men with a baseball bat in August 2005 after watching a "Bumfights" video.

Internet site Bumfights.com, which sells the videos, says their purpose is to call attention to poverty and violence. "Please do not miss the point of these videos! Educate yourself. Help those who are less fortunate. Spread love not hate," the Web site says.

Not all heed the warning. The Web site includes one viewer commenting, "Let the idiots kill each other for my amusement."

No one responded to an Associated Press e-mail to Bumfights.com seeking comment for this story.

In cases where the perpetrator of attacks on homeless people is known, 76 percent are people 25 or younger, Stoops said. About 80 percent of attackers are white, he said.

"This might give an immature or drunk or high young adult encouragement to attack homeless people," Stoops said. "Were they to do this to any other minority group, there would be a national outcry."

I don't know why, but if the above report -- and this NPR report -- are any indication, the race of the assailants seems to be of more interest than the race of the victims, and seems related to the push for adding a new "minority" to the already encumbered roll:

Police described the assailants as a group of young white males and say they used baseball bats and sticks to beat homeless men sleeping in three separate locations. The brutality of the attacks -- one of which was captured on surveillance video -- has stunned the city, which has recently won praise for its treatment of the homeless. The incidents have also renewed calls to make attacks against the homeless a hate crime under federal law.