James Kunstler's blog has a new headshot up. Oddly enough, it makes him look like Al Gore. I know this will sound strange, but I think the look suits him. Gets him away from that unfortunate grinning shroom-devil look. As for any new content of substance, I must regretfully report that I sought in vain for it.

Wind, solar, bio-fuels, tar sands, coal-derived-liquids, used french-fry oil, nuclear fission -- none of these things will rescue American suburbia from the twilight of oil and natural gas. There is a great wish abroad in the land that these alt fuels would come to the rescue, but I believe it will never get beyond the wish stage.

Yeah, yeah, we're still doomed. I hope you're all getting comfortable with that...

We have invented a lot of nifty things in the past hundred years, but it has all been made possible by cheap fossil fuels and cheap electricity, which depends on the cheap fossil fuels. Even nuclear power, which was once (but no longer) heralded as "too cheap to meter," owes its existence to the fossil fuels that make all the mining, construction, and maintenance possible. The truth is, we have nothing better to plug into...

Same old same old. Here he is back in April 2005...

No combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run American life the way we have been used to running it, or even a substantial fraction of it. The wonders of steady technological progress achieved through the reign of cheap oil have lulled us into a kind of Jiminy Cricket syndrome…

And here's January, 2006...

Take a good look at America around you now, because when we emerge from the winter of 2005 - 6, we're going to be another country. The reality-oblivious nation of mall hounds, bargain shoppers, happy motorists, Nascar fans, Red State war hawks, and born-again Krispy Kremers is headed into a werewolf-like transformation that will reveal to all the tragic monster we have become...

The US is going to run short of its customary supplies for a long time. The idea that these things will not affect an economy of ceaseless mobility is not realistic...

By October, the hurricane season will be ending and the stock market crash season will be underway. It is hard to imagine that companies like WalMart really believe they will keep their profits up when their customers are paying twice as much as they did a year ago to heat their houses and fill their gas tanks.

Glad I'm too stupid to understand economics. Otherwise I might tremble myself to sleep every night. Is there no help on the way? No hope at all?

Perhaps. You may recall that Mr. Kunstler predicted our Pacific coast will be ravaged by Asian pirates. If so, we won't be entirely helpless. DOD's experiments with alternate sources of jet fuel have continued to bear fruit.

Syntroleum, a leader in Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology, announced today that its ultra-clean jet fuel has been successfully tested in a United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortress Bomber aircraft. The plane lifted off from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., with a 50/50 blend of FT and traditional JP-8 jet fuel which was burned in two of the eight engines on the plane. This marks the first time that FT jet fuel has been tested in a military flight demo, and is the first of several planned test flights...

The jet fuel that was used today was produced from natural gas using Syntroleum's proprietary FT process, but the company believes the fuel can also be produced from the vast domestic coal resources.

So those Asian pirates better just mind their p's and q's. They're going to find it rather difficult to plunder Seattle without their pirate ships. Even better, we'll be able to blow them to bits in a cleaner, more environmentally sensitive way.

Syntroleum's jet fuel has shown superior performance characteristics compared to traditional aviation fuels. Prior testing by the military on the company's FT fuels have shown a reduction in particulate matter and soot emissions of greater than 90 percent depending upon the turbine engine type compared to aviation fuels produced by refining crude oil. The reduced particulate matter and soot emissions significantly improve engine efficiency, performance and overall air quality.

Green death from above. How droll. Is there any other good news? Why yes, more than I actually have time to tell you about. I'm afraid that just a couple of examples will have to suffice. If you'd like more, just search the Classical Values archives for "Kunstler".

HelioVolt has developed the fastest and most effective way to manufacture CIS (Copper Indium Selenide), the most reliable and best-performing thin film material for generating electricity from sunlight. HelioVolt's FASSTâ„¢ technology can apply efficient CIS coatings in custom shapes, sizes, and tints to create power generating glass, steel, metal and polymers, making possible a new generation of solar power modules and photovoltaic construction materials.

How fun. And it's even greener than the jet fuel. Unlike the following...

Uranium fuel typically is formed into cylindrical ceramic pellets about a half-inch in diameter. The pellets look like a smooth, black version of food pellets for small animals.

In a three-year project completed recently for the U.S. Department of Energy, Hejzlar and Kazimi teamed up with Westinghouse and other companies to look at how to make a fuel for one kind of reactor, the pressurized water reactor (PWR), 30 percent more efficient while maintaining or improving safety margins.

They changed the shape of the fuel from solid cylinders to hollow tubes. This added surface area that allows water to flow inside and outside the pellets, increasing heat transfer.

The new fuel turned out even better than Hejzlar dared hope. It proved to be easy to manufacture and capable of boosting the power output of PWR plants by 50 percent.

Fifty percent? Impressive. So then, assuming it all pans out, with an aggressive retro-fitting program we could acquire the equivalent of one extra pressurized water reactor for each two that we already have. How very sweet.

Thanks, science guys! Thanks for actually knowing what you're talking about.

In today's Inquirer, I read that a rapist was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison. No ordinary rapist, he's been called "the worst serial rapist in the city's history." Something else is a little unusual -- his age:

A 15-year-old boy who has been called "the worst serial rapist in the city's history" was sentenced yesterday to 30 to 60 years in prison.

Michael Massey, most recently of the city's Logan section and previously of West Philadelphia, pleaded guilty in April in Common Pleas Court to charges of raping or attempting to rape eight girls and women.

The attacks occurred between July and September 2005.

His victims - all strangers to him - were 16 to 32 years old. At the time, he was 14.

For that matter, so is driving.

So why is it that if this same rapist had gone online and discussed whatever fantasies he might have with an adult, the law could in theory call him a victim -- of the adult?

At the risk of sounding like a mean, awful, and cynical person, I'd like to posit a hypothetical. Suppose a teen rapes an adult, and it turns out the adult enjoyed it, and comes back for more. Would the rapist become a victim?

Anyone understand why?

Is it because "innocence" is involved?

MORE: I don't mean to be offensive, but considering that Wikipedia has an entry on the subject, what are the legal ramifications of minors sticking their you-know-whats into one of these? Do they become victims, said to be incapable of consenting to the actions of whatever anonymous person might come along? Is age relevant in an anonymous sexual situation where neither party can be seen? Or is there a legal duty to know?

There has been entirely too much disrespectful photoshopping going on in the blogosphere, and I must confess, I have in the past been a part of this out-of-control phenomenon. I even went so far as to photoshop Glenn Reynolds into a picture of Benito Mussolini -- a distasteful outburst aggravated further by my tasteless repetition of it.

In linking this post from The Hatemonger's Quarterly, kind-hearted Glenn was magnanimous enough to allow that photoshopping him into a bikini was "traditional." Now that worries me, as the word "traditional" always does. (Honestly, I'd hate to think that I might have had a hand in carrying tradition too far.)

There must be some way to atone for such excesses of tradition, so now I'm wondering... Can photoshopping be used for good? For the virtuous and the positive, instead of for the sleazy and the negative?

I don't know, but photoshopping often involves changing what people wear into something else, I was reminded of an earlier conversation with Justin, about the unfortunate fact that Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad never wears a necktie, and instead prefers the tacky 1970s leisure suit look.

The blogosphere's fashion mogul Manolo has commented on the atrocious nature of Ahmadinejad's attire:

...the same khaki windbreaker, wrinkled trousers, cheap oxford shirts, scruffy beard and wild eyes favored by the aging high school chemistry teachers everywhere.

Q1370: What is the view on wearing a necktie?

A: Generally speaking, it is not permissible to wear a tie, or other kinds of clothes that are considered as the attire of non-Muslims, in such a way that their wearing will promote vile Western culture. The ruling is not confined to people of the Islamic Republic.

I really hadn't known about the necktie rules, but the mullahs' desire to control Iranians is by no means limited to what goes around a man's neck. Amer Taheri takes a hard look at what none dare call "Iranian fashionism":

Religious minorities would have their own colour schemes. They will also have to wear special insignia, known as zonnar, to indicate their non-Islamic faiths. Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned the colour red. Zoroastrians end up with Persian blue as the colour of their zonnar. It is not clear what will happen to followers of other religions, including Hindus, Bahais and Buddhists, not to mention plain agnostics and atheists, whose very existence is denied by the Islamic Republic.

The new law imposes a total ban on wearing neckties and bow-ties which are regarded as "symbols of the Cross." Will Iranian Christians be allowed to wear them, nevertheless? No one knows.

The law also mandates the government to wage a campaign against "expensive attire" without defining it. Some mullahs, for example, wear robes made of pure hand-woven silk that costs several thousands dollars. Nor is it clear whether or not the kind of blouson (long shirt) that Ahmadinejad often wears would be deemed Islamic. (Shops in Tehran are selling the so-called "presidential" blouson for US$3 apiece.)

One aim of the new law is to impose a total ban on imports of clothes and dress designs from the West. The Majlis hopes that all jeans will disappear from the Iranian scene within five years. The boutiques selling haute couture Western gear for men and women will also be closed over the next few years. A total ban on designer items, marked by logos, will come into force by the end of the year.

While I'm sure logic has nothing to do with this, how is it that the necktie could possibly be considered either "un-Islamic," or "Christian," or part of any religion? There was no such article of clothing in Biblical times or when the Koran was written; according to Wikipedia the necktie dates back to the mid 1600s.

An inside source reports that for Ahmadinejad, wearing a necktie would be "unthinkable":

I asked a very savvy Iranian source about it, and here is his fascinating analysis:

This issue goes back to the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. Before the revolution, all public figures in Iran and all officials wore ties, both domestically and when on visits abroad. Shortly after the revolution however, the tie itself began being associated with "Western imperialism", especially after Ayatollah Khomeini branded a large group of intellectuals (who were less religiously zealous than he would have liked) as "tie-wearing cronies of the West" and essentially branded anyone wearing a tie as being Western influenced. As such, no Iranian official since that time wears a tie, whether in Iran or when on official trips abroad. In fact, for many years after the revolution, the site of a regular person wearing a tie in Iran was so rare that heads would turn on the street and funny comments would be made if someone wore a tie outside. Many people still wore them to parties and weddings and things, but it was very "taboo" during the 1980s.

Gradually, as Khomeini's legacy became a bit less overbearing, regular people stopped caring and the rhetorical plays on people who wear ties as "imperialist cronies" were no longer made, meaning that at least ordinary people now wore ties on a regular basis. I myself for example, always wore tie at work in Tehran, as did many of my colleagues. I would actually make a point of wearing a tie outside as much as possible, to do my bit in making sure that people got used to seeing other people in ties.

On the official side however, wearing a tie is still a no-no and it would be unthinkable for Ahmadinejad, who claims to be one of the "true disciples of Khomeini" to sport a neck-tie under any circumstances.

Mahmoun Ahmadinejad has a pretty sweet hipster style. It all starts with a beard not unlike the one I and many of my twentysomething male friends sport. But it goes deeper. The man went without a tie to address the UN General Assembly.

Doesn't this deliberate flouting of necktie protocols beg the question who's really being Western?

I'm reminded of the recent blogger luncheon with Clinton. While the latter wore a necktie, many of his invitees did not. What might ordinary Iranians -- the man in the Tehran street -- think? That young hip Americans take their fashion cues from Iranian leaders and not American leaders? Is this a good thing?

Considering the genuine danger posed by Iran and Ahmadinejad, I realize that some people might think it's frivolous to focus on what the man wears. But there have been innumerable reactions to the many facets of Ahmadinejad, and considering this blog's penchant for exploring cultural factors, I feel a certain responsibility. Besides, Glenn Reynolds' Ahmadinejad roundup last week included not only the above post from Daniel Drezner, but a fascinating idea from Matoko Kusanagi -- that Ahmadinejad may be suffering from "Short Man Syndrome." (A term said here to define "a short man who is very angry and hostile because he is short and vents his hostility on others.")

By any standard, Ahmadinejad is short (MSNBC says he's 5'4" and the Guardian supposedly measured him at 5'2"). He certainly exhibits many of the Short Man Syndrome features, and he may well be the shortest tyrant in the world today...

But wait! Depending on which news sources are the most credible, Ahmadinejad might be a full two inches taller than Kim Jong Il -- who according to CNN is "only 5 feet 2 inches tall but wears 4-inch lifts in his shoes." If anyone suffers from SMS, it would be Kim Jong Il.

So maybe there's something to this. But Kim and Mahmoud are only two examples, and while we all know about Napoleon, I think the latter might be too distant in time to be be a reliable barometer of short modern tyrants.

What about Stalin? To this day, historians disagree about his height, but that's largely because his coverup machine touched up most of the pictures:

Though Stalin was indeed touchy about his appearance, especially his pockmarked face and shriveled left arm, he was most vain about his height. Perhaps the subtlest touch in nearly all these falsified images is the rendering of Stalin, who was a tad under 5 feet 4 inches, as the tallest man in any group shot.

But isn't something being overlooked? Take another look at the three tiny villains -- Stalin, Kim, Ahmadinejad.

Not one of them wears a necktie! Ever!

Coincidence? I think not. While I think the short stature might have played an important part in the rise to power of these men, history is loaded with tall tyrants (from Goliath on down to the 6'4" Osama bin Laden), and short heroes (from David, I suppose, down to the 5'5" Audie Murphy) and I don't think examples are needed. For every short villain, there's probably a tall hero, and vice versa.

But let's stick with the necktie, and my original goal of positive photoshopping. Lest anyone doubt my contention, consider what would happen if tomorrow, President Ahmadinejad decided to put on a necktie.

I don't think it is understatement to say that this would trigger immediate worldwide attention, and unprecedented speculation. Considering the cultural factors, the world eruption might possibly trigger an Iranian uprising. Maybe a coup. Is it too much to suggest it might even lead to world peace?

I don't know, but it is in the interest of peace that I photoshopped the following:

[Seriously, if that isn't respectful photoshopping, then what is?]

As to the man on the left, I can't be sure why he isn't wearing a tie. Maybe he took his off, and gave it to President Ahmadinejad in the interest of improved cultural ties.

Whatever the case, it seems like a laudable, maybe even non-partisan effort.

Maybe we should all send a tie to Ahmadinejad.

UPDATE (10/01/06): Thank you Glenn Reynolds, for linking this post, and welcome all!

I'm not sure whether this is evidence that the necktie is more powerful (or, for that matter, more traditional) than a bikini, and while I'm always hesitant to make sweeping judgments about these things, I think that in historical terms, "bikini blast" is at least as memorable as "necktie party."

Today is looking like a real scoldfest, with Bush getting it from all sides. The reports are just pouring in (a little something for everyone), but the bottom line is that for the terrible things Bush has done, we should all be ashamed.

Here's former president Jimmy Carter:

"What has happened the last five years has brought discouragement and sometimes international disgrace to our great country," he said.

Presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton isn't quite as harsh in her judgment, but she reaches back further in time -- to six years:

"The damage that has already been done to our country in the last six years is incalculable," she said.

"It's going to take an enormous amount of effort to begin to repair and restore American values and to reinstate the kind of shared commitment to common values and common ground that we desperately need," Clinton added.

Well, at least Oliver Stone sharpens the focus, and is more dutifully ashamed:

"The far greater conspiracy occurred after 9/11 when basically a neo-cabal inside our government hijacked policy and went to war. That was as broad a conspiracy as we can get and it was about 20, 30 people. That's all, they took over and all these books are coming out and they are pointing it out," said Stone.

"This war on Iraq is a disaster. I'm disgraced. I'm ashamed for my country," he said. "I'm also ashamed that America has attacked itself with its constitutional breakdowns. I'm deeply ashamed."

Not even the huffings and puffings of Ayman al Zawahiri seem to have any effect:

CAIRO, Egypt - The deputy leader of al-Qaida called President Bush a failure and a liar in the war on terror in a video statement released Friday, and he compared Pope Benedict XVI to the 11th century pontiff who launched the First Crusade.

"Can't you be honest at least once in your life, and admit that you are a deceitful liar who intentionally deceived your nation when you drove them to war in Iraq," Ayman al-Zawahri said in a portion of the video released by the Washington-based SITE Institute.

There's a lot to absorb all in one day, but none of the remarks have instilled in me even the slightest feelings of shame. I already knew Bush wasn't perfect, but we were attacked, the war is ongoing, and I see no shame in trying to win it.

I am concerned about one thing, though, and I'm wondering...

Where's Michael Moore?

He hasn't been quoted on Bush since September 12, when he complained about roads in Iraq:

"Here we are three-and-a-half years [into the war] and we are not able to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad. It's absolutely f***ing ridiculous,"

[...]

Moore added, "We don't want to secure that road, because we don't want that war to end yet because we want to bring a sense of fear to Americans."

I may never know.

But at least I'm not the only one missing Michael Moore! Matthew Sheffield links to a report that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a huge Michael Moore fan, and has been drooling to meet the big boy:

Mr. Ahmadinejad held a 7:30 a.m. breakfast meeting, again at his hotel, with American academics and journalists. Earlier, he had expressed some interest in having Michael Moore attend, and although attempts were made to reach him (even by myself, since I was asked), they were unsuccessful. I was seated between Gary Sick (of Columbia University) and Jon Lee Anderson (of The New Yorker), and three hot issues were covered: nuclear power, Israel and the Holocaust.

When rich Americans snub people from Third World countries, shouldn't that be a source of shame?

Now I am finally ashamed! What Michael Moore has done might very well have set back international relations for decades.

Should I maybe write to President Ahmadinejad and apologize on Michael Moore's behalf?

(You know. "Dear President Ahmadinejad: Michael Moore made me feel ashamed to be an American...." Something like that.)

I've mentioned the Pajamas Media interview of Senator Joseph Lieberman by Roger L. Simon, and it can now be streamed live here.

I'm listening to it as I write this post, and it's a real scoop.

Great work!

MORE: You must watch this interview! Of particular interest is the discussion of independent-mindedness in voters. Roger Simon specifically addressed the topic of Tuesday night's Pajamas Media panel discussion ("How partisan is too partisan?"), as well as the crucial distinction between "moderates" and independents. Asked about the existence of large numbers of voters who just don't fit into the conventional spectrum at all (such as for the war and for gay marriage), Senator Lieberman was very sympathetic.

The message is finally getting through. (It certainly has to Lieberman.)

I'm amazed.

Friday is traditionally considered to be cat blogging day, but with the exception of an occasional visit with cats, I've almost never engaged in cat-blogging. That's because I own no cats, and I'm allergic to them. I'd buy one of those new hypoallergenic cats, but they cost nearly $4000.00, so it'll have to wait for a major market correction. At the rate cats breed, though, you'd think that wouldn't take too long:

One cat and her litter can produce 420,000 cats in seven years - 10 million in 10 years!

Is there such a thing as having too many cats? We've all heard about so-called "animal hoarders" who are found living in squalid conditions with hundreds of cats, but woman in this area was recently cited for having fifteen cats in her home:

The Health Department and Borough Council say Smith and her 15 cats are in violation of an ordinance prohibiting residents from keeping more than four cats - and the fourth has to be approved.

Smith, who is a volunteer for Furrever Friends Rescue and Volunteers, a cat-rescue organization, describes herself as a foster "mom" to her cats. She has been rescuing cats and kittens since 2005 and says the rescue group is doing the town a service by taking them in.

So far, she has provided foster care to 19 felines as a Furrever Friends volunteer. In April, she was part of a team that took in five kittens found in a beer box sealed with duct tape and thrown into a garbage dump. Those kittens have been placed in homes, she said.

In July, after receiving a letter from the borough saying she had to remove the excess cats, she took her cause to the Borough Council, to no avail.

"He has no comment," Borough Clerk Barbara Lewis said yesterday, speaking for Mayor John Soubasis. "The ordinance is staying like it [is], and that's how it was decided."

Putting aside the question of the fine line between "animal rescue" and "animal hoarding," how might most libertarians analyze this? Clearly, the woman should have a right to conduct her life any way she sees fit, and, psychological judgments aside, if she isn't creating a health hazard or annoying the neighbors, I don't know whose business it is how many cats she has.

Besides, if they can limit the number of animals, why not other things? Like guns, perhaps? Why not people? In the area surrounding the university I live near, local zoning laws prohibit more than three unrelated students from living together.

Did the cats who wrote the "man's home is his castle" doctrine take into account zoning?

MORE: In Saudi Arabia, the sale of cats has been banned as a "Western influence," even though the prophet Muhammad loved them -- "in one instance letting a cat drink from his ablutions water before washing himself for prayers."

Now why would they pass a clearly un-Islamic law?

"For everything in this world, for civilization, for life, for success, the truest guide is knowledge and science. To seek a guide other than knowledge and science is a mark of heedlessness, ignorance, and aberration."

-- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

I have a question. Would Mustafa Kemal Ataturk be considered a moderate Muslim?

Or not a Muslim at all? He's been called an atheist, and in this biography he's called a "nominal Muslim" who accomplished great reforms, abolished the Caliphate, and brought Turkey into the 20th Century:

On October 29, 1923, mostly by Kemal’s engineering, the provisional government in Ankara created the official Republic of Turkey. Kemal immediately began his long-dreamed-of program of modernization. Against the resistance of conservative elements of the government, he implemented many reforms from his place of power as President. First of all, he abolished the Caliphate – the office of the head of the Muslim religion – as unfitting for a modern republic. He introduced a new alphabet, switching from an Arabic system to a Roman system. The legal system was completely reworked, giving full rights to all citizens and eliminating Islamic law. To modernize the culture, he forbade the wearing of the traditional Turkish hat, the fez, and did not allow women to cover their heads in Islamic fashion while in the Parliament building.

Was he right? Might Ataturk's secularization of the state account for Turkey's success? If it does, what are the implications? Is "moderate Islam" an individual thing or a government thing?

Or am I engaged in "Western arrogance" by daring to cite Ataturk's successful model?

(The answers aren't exactly staring at me.)

Get a load of this:

...nobody covers events from more perspectives and with greater nuance than Pajamas Media.

I liked PJM from the inception of the idea, and I couldn't be more delighted by the fact that they just keep getting better.

This is a painful post but I'll try to crank it out rather than sit on it and let it get more painful. The "blogostorm" between Dean Esmay and Michelle Malkin has little to do with me personally*, but everything to do with the national debate this country has been having since 9/11 when we were attacked by suicidal Saudi Salafists.

Were the 9/11 attackers Muslims? Even that isn't necessarily clear, and it depends on how Islam is to be defined. The problem is, they claimed to be acting on behalf of Islam, and enough Muslims support their cause to make many Americans wonder. For some people, it's a lot easier to conclude that "we were attacked by Islam" than to face the reality that some Muslims -- even millions of Muslims -- are not all Muslims.

I think this is terribly mistaken thinking, but I do not think it is treason. The problem is, once you conclude that the United States is at war with Islam a lot flows from that. (Including the belief that Muslims are suspect Americans, and are akin to Communists during the cold war. Or analogous to the way many 19th Century Americans regarded Indians.) Such a view of Islam as the enemy is wrong. Ali Eteraz (via Mutnodjmet) put it quite well:

wrong pragmatically; wrong in relation to the Enlightenment; wrong morally.

I see the enemy as jihadists. (And I don't mean jihadists in the sense of playing the piano well or getting straight As or doing a fine job as a teacher; I mean it in the sense of waging holy war in the name of Islam.) That sounds easy enough, but try putting it into practice in the United States today. One of the great ironies of the post-9/11 period is that while violent Islamic jihadists attacked this country, there is a constantly growing network -- both organized and unorganized -- of in-place apologists at virtually every level of society all ready to defend them. Criticize jihadists, and people on the left will call you a racist. An Islamophobe. A bigot. I have seen this too many times to count, and the reason I call it ironic is that before 9/11, feminists routinely criticized the veil. Gay activists did not hesitate to condemn Islamic homophobia. Atheists condemned Islam the same way they condemned Christianity. After 9/11, the PC crowd suddenly included a group which they'd previously neglected, and it seemed to me that the 9/11 attacks helped the image of radical Muslims with the left in this country. And in most newspapers, and on many campuses.

This network of PC critics is not only defensive in nature, but offensive. Hence, few American newspapers would dare print cartoons that would probably have been printed before 9/11 without so much as a passing thought. Before 9/11, few cared about the Supreme Court's image of Muhammad, or the many images of Muhammad (such as Salvador Dali's 1960s version). Now, even operas have to be careful. Lest they "offend." I'm tired of that crap, and a lot of people are. I don't agree that 9/11 supplied anyone with an excuse to be insensitive or act like a jerk. But then again, why in the world should a horrible attack like that make us more concerned with (what's the phrase?) "Islamic sensibilities"?

There's a large group of Americans (perhaps the majority) who never really thought about Muslims before 9/11. And now that their country is under attack by a group of Islamist maniacs, is this the right time to suddenly start lecturing them about sensitivity? Like it or not, that's what's happening. I think it is entirely unreasonable, and violates the most basic American common sense. Scolding Americans about how ignorant they are about Islam and how they "need to learn more about it" implies that they now have some duty -- now that they're under attack -- to understand their attackers. That's not the way wars are normally fought, and it doesn't surprise me that some people find it unacceptable. Hence the backlash, and hence the "screw them all!" position of the more fervent and loud members of the Michelle Malkin crowd.

I'm not saying that "screw them all!" any more characterizes Michelle Malkin than "Let's have peace and understanding with Islamists now!" characterizes Dean Esmay. Rather, these are tendencies, and they touch on colliding schools of thought that are aggravated by years of war and rapidly coming to a head.

Yet in fairness, it should be recognized that both "screw them" and "understand them" are very American positions, just as American as Dean Esmay and Michelle Malkin.

I think the two ways of looking at the same facts symbolize a growing, possibly intractable debate, and I'm worried that it may be as hopeless as the debate over guns (in which vicious drive-by shootings are seen by one side as an argument against guns, and by the other as an argument to own guns).

Unfortunately for me, I live close to a Saudi madrassa that I've complained about in a number of posts. They're not only too close to terrorism, they're too close to me. Yet the damned local government pays for school buses to take kids in and out of there for their indoctrination with what the half-Jewish neighborhood has every reason to suspect is anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, anti-West hatred. (The "damned local government," of course, is funded with my tax dollars.) In violation of zoning regulations, they operated a school illegally, ran an unlicensed "halal" meat market, unlicensed restaurant, and summer jihad camps -- contemptuously violating their pre-9/11 covenant with the neighbors. Neighbors complained, and were treated by the bureaucrats with barely concealed contempt, as if we were an annoying group of bigoted crackpots. (Complaints of terrorist connections were dismissed as "irrelevant," for example.) The Zoning Board, however, couldn't ignore the blatant code violations, and hearings were held, but guess what? Over the objections of the neighbors, the madrassa got the "special exceptions" it had requested:

In a 25-page order released last week, the board granted most requests by Villanova's Center for Islamic Education to expand operations, over neighbors' strong objections.

Although the order includes numerous restrictions and conditions, neighbors who waited until the end of a lengthy board meeting Thursday night to hear the twice-delayed decision were dismayed. They say the center, which holds religious services and monthly lectures on topics related to Islam, not only has consistently violated township restrictions and an agreement with neighbors since it opened in 1994, but broke the rules this summer, even while the application was pending.

While the zoning board said it "understands those frustrations," it found that it could not, as a matter of law, deny the requests, which include permitting operation of a school for students in kindergarten through eighth grades, a summer camp for children and increased attendance at some religious services.

The Lower Merion Zoning Hearing Board voted Aug. 18 to deny the American Academy's requests for zoning relief to continue meeting at Gladwyne Methodist Church.

In a case members deliberated throughout the summer, the board found that the organization is operating as a school and does not qualify for an extension of the church's special exception as a religious use in a residential zone. The group had argued that its Christian-based instruction is a form of religious expression.

For the umpteenth time, I do not condemn Islam. Our war is not with Islam. Islam did not declare war on us. I am all for moderate Muslims. The problem is that the head of the local madrassa calls his brand of Islam "moderate" and describes his congregants as "mainstream moderate Muslims." Radicals have a history of becoming the mainstream. (And the more the left pushes, the more mainstream the Jihadists become.)

Thus, the whole thing is ugly, mean and bitter. Writing this blog post makes has been little more than an experience in bitterness, and I'd just as soon have had a few beers, and forgotten about it.

The worst part of it is that Dean and Michelle are both right -- each in their own way. Michelle may have failed to properly recognize the distinctions between Islam and Islamism, while Dean may be failing to understand the social dynamics of how the left is undermining this distinction, or Michelle's reactions to that.... FWIW, I think they're both on solid ground as Americans, not that it really matters right now in the debate.

It has all the makings of tragedy.

* I said this has "little" to do with me personally, but I should point out that Dean Esmay has been a huge inspiration from day one, and I think he's a prince of a guy. Michelle Malkin is someone I've long admired for standing up to the left, and she has been very generous in linking to me. So while the argument between them is not personal, my feelings towards them are.

UPDATE (09/29/06): My deepest thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post with such kind words. (Much too kind, really. Trust me, I don't belong in the dictionary next to the word "decent"!)

Not to return the compliment, because I'd say this any day of the week, but I think now is a good time to point out that bloggers (myself included) are just too full of themselves. In general, I think we take ourselves way too seriously. Glenn is major exception, and I think it accounts for his huge success. There's a huge difference between making it clear what you think and absolutely knowing you're right and waving the flag of ideological purity at all who disagree. I have never known Glenn to do the latter, and there's a lesson for all of us in that. If I am as decent as Glenn says, it's only because I try to remember the possibility that I might be wrong, and that I'm not worth taking as seriously as I might like to think.

If we consider the ironic situation that the more a blogger's traffic increases, the more seriously he takes himself, then Glenn Reynolds should be taking himself about 200 million times more seriously than most "successful" bloggers. In fact, he takes himself less seriously. He's one of the most self-effacing guys in the blogosphere.

The more you do this stuff, the more it can go to your head. Developing a big head will not only cause you to butt heads with other big heads, but if your head is big enough, you'll just be in your own way. The reason (I think) for Glenn's success is that he isn't standing in anyone's way, and thus isn't in his own way. (A good thing to emulate.)

Hope that wasn't too moralistic, but it's what I think.

Even though the activists are telling people to buy the book, Sean Kinsell is not terribly impressed by New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey.

One wonders whether this joker has any deep convictions at all.

According to Monica Yant Kinney (whose previous column on McGreevey I praised), the McGreevey book is doing more poorly than expected, and I don't think it's because of "mean-spirited homophobia," but because at least as many people find McGreevey's opportunism distasteful as find the details of his sex life boring.

McGreevey conned everyone, and now he's trying to con them again. Why a corrupt ex-governor should morph directly into a "gay leader" in spite of his corruption escapes me completely.

People aren't buying. No surprise.

Then there's Senator Lieberman's ten point lead. I wonder.... Might this be the Schwarzenegger factor again? Might that be a phenomenon that isn't limited to either party? Might it arise spontaneously as a result of seething discontent over conventional politics? Whatever is happening, the voters aren't buying what the activists want them to buy:

Lieberman, a three-term Democrat running as an independent after losing the party nomination in a primary, is favored by 49 percent to 39 percent over Lamont in the three-way race. Republican Alan Schlesinger trails with 5 percent.

The race has tightened slightly since an Aug. 17 poll that showed Lieberman leading 53 percent to 41 percent.

"Ned Lamont has lost momentum," said poll director Douglas Schwartz said. "He's gained only two points in six weeks. He's going to have to do something different in the next six weeks or ... Lieberman stays in for another six years."

The race is seen as many as a referendum on President Bush's handling of the Iraq war.

A recurrent theme in American politics is that people don't like being had. But they're also wary of being told that they've "been had," because that's just one more way of being had. More than one huckster has been elected by exploiting anti-incumbent sentiments, and I think Connecticut voters see through the latest variation on this theme.

MORE: Roger L. Simon has an interview with Senator Lieberman. (It's been linked by Drudge, so keep trying.)

With all the hullaballoo over guns in the Philadelphia Inquirer, you'd think a success story in the war against illegal gun trafficking would merit more attention than an inch and a half of text buried in a longer column on page B-7.

I mean, what better way to demonstrate the effectiveness of law enforcement in preventing illegal gun sales than placing this story on the front page? Even the headline -- "West Phila. imam convicted of selling guns illegally" -- seems compelling:

A federal jury convicted an imam from 52d Street Mosque yesterday with selling handguns and assault weapons from a clothing stand he operated in West Philadelphia.

Wayne Hogue, 47, of West Philadelphia, also known as Imam Wadir and Shahdeed Bay, sold 11 firearms between May 2003 until March 2004, according to prosectors. Evidence presented at the trial included numerous audiotapes of Hogue selling firearms to a confidential informant. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December.

Considering that the Imam was already a convicted felon, the "one gun a month" law would not have stopped him from buying or selling guns, because it only covers purchases by legally qualified buyers.

Maybe Philadelphia needs more enforcement of existing laws than lobbying for new ones which simply place more restrictions on the law abiding.

The paradox here is that laws do not decrease crime, for the simple reason that the more laws are passed, the more crime there is. Is it necessary to be an economist to understand why?

I wasn't going to write a post about Tuesday night's Pajamas Media-Politics Central panel conference, but attendee August J. Pollak made me feel a certain sense of obligation.

To their credit, PJM is smart enough to keep their big-name hyper-partisans out of the public eye. Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, notorious for his self-proclaimed "moderate" position by way of merely linking to right-wing blogs on a daily basis instead of offering the viewpoints himself, served as moderator (Reynolds' money quote of the evening was his description of his nonpartisanship: "My dream is a world where happily married gay couples have closets full of assault weapons," which... yes, I believe is still frightening.) The extremists who might have, you know, made the hypocrisy of the event’s premise embarrassingly blatant were kept in the shadows...

How to spot the extremists? I have no idea. Considering that Mr. Pollak seems to feel that Glenn Reynolds is a clever extremist who passes himself off as a moderate, I must have been in pretty extreme company.

Hell, I'd be willing to bet that I'm an extremist myself!

And a scary one at that. No really. If gay couples with closets full of assault weapons are "frightening," then this was definitely an extremist extravaganza -- and not because the attendees were gay or had closets full of assault weapons. (There's really no way to know these things, and if I didn't even ask people what their blogs were you can be damned sure I wasn't getting around to sexuality or weaponry. Nor did I volunteer that my pit bull understands how to safely handle a Kalashnikov.) No; the reason I'd have to concur that this was an extremist extravaganza was that the room exploded in laughter when Glenn made the remark about gay couples with closets full of assault weapons.

Yes, they laughed. And at a "frightening" statement.

As if it wasn't enough to be laughing at frightening things, the extremists came up with an extremely frightening topic -- "How partisan is too partisan?"

The question itself is so frightening that I can't answer it. I don't honestly know what is too partisan, although I enjoyed the discussion. There was discussion of the difference between a partisan and an ideologue, and during the question and answer period I was tempted to interject the word "activist," but nearly a third of the room had their hands up, and I didn't want to be seen as an activist basher, because there are good people who believe in activism on behalf of good causes, and the type of activists I deplore (and, hence, use as a definition of the word) might not be at all like the people who'd consider themselves "good" activists. No, I will not say "the only good activist is a dead activist." Not only would that be real extremism, I don't think it. But the inability to define commonly used words is one of the things that makes discussion of these topics problematic.

Partisanship in journalism exists, though. There are even activists involved in journalism, and probably ideologues. What was on my mind as I listened to the panel was the the Philadelphia Inquirer's coverage of the gun control issue. There's partisanship, and then there's partisanship, but when sensationalized, emotional lobbying is passed off as reporting, to my mind it's beyond the point of merely being partisan. It's out-and-out ideologically-driven activism, and it is dishonest to call it news reporting.

For those who like journalistic activism, though, my position would make me an extremist. Funny thing, though; I'm too liberal to call them extremists. I don't object to being called "extremist" or "right wing," as these terms are just labels, and they have no meaning when they are used without explanation in the pejorative sense. I could call someone "left wing" or "right wing," but because the overused words have no meaning anymore, I generally prefer to discuss specific issues. In general, though, I have noticed that "right wing" is hurled not so much as a descriptor, but as an insult. Often in the context of words like "frightening" or "extremist." [The idea may be to evoke images of death squads in El Salvador or something, but I can't be sure.]

I only took a couple of pictures, as my camera doesn't work that well indoors at night, but Pam at Atlas Shrugs has plenty. And from what Bill at INDC says, I think August J. Pollak might have gotten it wrong. Far from impersonating a "moderate," if Bill is correct ("no visible antennae, wires or other electronic components.. warm and remarkably flesh-like [grip] .... optics tracked movement with reptilian smoothness") then Glenn Reynolds is actually impersonating a human being. Aren't there activist groups trying to make such extreme things illegal?

Bill concluded that the people at the event were "nice folks" and "surprisingly not abnormal for a group of bloggers." I'd gotten a surprisingly similar impression. Among the people I met and spoke with were Matthew Sheffield, Fausta (great pics there too), Tiger Hawk, Ace of Spades, Judith Weiss, Michael Totten, Baron Bodissey, Pam from Atlas Shrugs, Neo-neocon, Cliff May, Nick Gillespie, and of course, PJM's organizers and hosts, Roger Simon, Gerard Vanderleun, and Nidra Poller. Definitely all nice folks (well, in Glenn Reynolds' case, appearance-of-niceness machines who might as well be real folks.) Without exception, everyone I spoke to was delightful and charming.

Isn't it frightening that extremists and mindless robots can manage to pass themselves off as nice people? It would be easy to attribute this to pajamas, but I only saw one actual pair being worn, so I don't think that's it.

Besides, I neither own nor wear pajamas. One of the alleged humans took a picture of me standing in the shadows while actually not wearing the pajamas I do not own, and I offer it as proof.

NOTE: The above list of people that I met is from memory, which is not perfect. Hope I didn't leave anyone out!

UPDATE: Oxblog's David Adesnik (someone I've love to have met, and may have met without knowing) was there too, recognizes the inevitable reality of partisanship, but tries to offer smart partisanship:

Smart partisanship is partisanship that keeps the interest of the other side. Smart partisanship is something you disagree with, but feel that you have to read because you want to know what the best argument is for the other side.

That's the ideal I keep in my head when I blog. When I write, I keep an imaginary not-me on my shoulder that has the opposite opinion about everything. My goal isn't to get him to agree with me, but to prevent him for saying "This is a waste of time."

A lofty, desirable, goal, to be sure, and one which would, if implemented, tend to foster the development of ideas over than the mindless parroting of them.

When blogging, I also try to keep the "imaginary not-me" with the opposite opinion on my shoulder, and sometimes I have to literally imagine the hell out of my "imaginary not-me."

"This is a waste of time" is a mindset and a feeling I know all too well. (If anything is really frightening, that's it.) It's been a starting point for more blog posts than I care to admit. Sometimes, battling with that "waste of time" feeling can be good.

But should I ever let the "imaginary not-me" win?

MORE: By the way, I absolutely hate it when stuff like this happens, and I don't know what to say when it does. (Dammit!) Perhaps Dean and Michelle could make love not war? Nah, that's too mushily surreal to imagine. But I'm reminded, "when reality sucks, time out for the surreal!"

Sigh.

Perhaps everyone can sit down and draw happy pictures.

(Of what? Muhammad?)

UPDATE: Admitted extremist Baron Bodissey (who seemed for all the world like a nice guy) links this post, and argues that August J. Pollak is right:

...it’s better for all concerned if the Bushitler Halliburton Neocon Theocrats are kept muzzled and leashed at such events.

UPDATE: I don't think N.Z. Bear made it from my memory into this post, but I met him too. (Doesn't look at all like the picture at the top of his blog, either!)

The Brussels Journal's Paul Belien reports serial rioting in Brussels, in a post titled "Third Night of Ramadan Rioting in Capital of Europe":

....Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe. The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels....

[...]

The immigrant youths claim that they are upset by the death of Fayçal Chaaban, a 25-year old criminal, in a Brussels prison last Sunday. Yesterday morning the authorities announced they would hold a meeting with the youths to hear their grievances about security in prison, but the meeting, which was due last night, could not take place because of the riots.

The authorities are especially nervous since the Belgian municipal elections are being held on Sunday October 8th. It is likely that the elections will be won by anti-immigrant, “islamophobic” parties. Since ramadan will not be over on October 8th and many immigrants might perceive a victory of the indigenous right (as opposed to their own far-right) as an insult, Muslim indignation over the election results in major cities may spark serious disturbances. According to a poll published today the Vlaams Belang party is set to win 38.6% of the vote in Antwerp (compared to 33,0% in the previous municipal elections six years ago).

"involves Muslims in Brussels, at Ramadan";

occurs on the eve of an election; and

is "in its third day and has spread to torching shops and other buildings, including firebombing the local hospital."

I mean, there's no way to keep things out of the paper in this country with all its fearless journalists, right? That's why I was so surprised that Malkin's Yahoo earlier search had turned up nothing.

Anyway, as of today there is a Reuters report which has now made it into the Washington Post as well as Yahoo. However, the apparent news blackout earlier reminded me that I had read nothing about the riot in the Philadelphia Inquirer over the past few days. Hmmm...

I thought maybe I had missed it (I did spend a day traveling to DC to attend the Pajamas Media panel on partisanship), so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. But when I searched "Belgium" at their web site, nothing came up.

Huh?

So now I have to ask a basic question.

What is it that would make a riot -- in the EU capital, shortly before an election -- unworthy of being considered news in this country?

I'm trying to be fair here, but I'm realizing that the question I just asked looks like a rhetorical question. Should it be? Or should we have a right to assume that relevant news will be reported?

Who in hell gets to decide if and when things get reported?

I know I've asked this before, and I know I'll ask it again, but whose news is it?

I'm still trying to figure out why there's zero reported information on the identity of a bearded man with acne who took female hostages in a Colorado school and killed one plus himself. Considering that the shooting took place yesterday and the gunman is dead, seems highly probable that there are reporters who know the details but aren't providing them. I don't see how this could involve privacy, as they've identified the victim of the shooting, but not the shooter. More here.

Not knowing is frustrating. Maybe I should just assume everything will eventually be reported, and chalk it all up to the slowness of the news cycle.

UPDATE: The shooter has been identified as Duane Morrison, a 54 year old man who lived in his car. It would not surprise me if the man has had a long history of mental illness. (He obviously has some sort of record, as the picture is a mug shot showing the man in the usual orange jumpsuit.) Plenty of people like that who used to be in hospitals now fester on the streets until they explode.

And transcribed!

And.... interpreted?

(Well, I can't promise anything that fantastic, but I'll try.)

In an earlier post about statements attributed to Mel Gibson in news reports, I said that had "looked in vain for a detailed explanation of what Gibson means." Thanks to this link from Justin (to an mp3 recording of the actual question-and-answer session between Gibson and the audience at the "Apocalypto" screening), I was able to transcribe the relevant portions of Gibson's remarks. Because I think it's a serious thing to make movies with a stated goal of prophesying the end of our civilization, I'm presenting them for their cultural value (such as it may be).

As it turns out, the two remarks were made approximately fifteen minutes apart, in response to two separate incidents of audience interaction.

The first remark was reported this way:

In describing its portrait of a civilization in decline, Gibson said, "The precursors to a civilization that's going under are the same, time and time again," drawing parallels between the Mayan civilization on the brink of collapse and America's present situation.

QUESTION (reread for audience benefit, as it was apparently inaudible): Was it his [Gibson's] intent to show such a difference between sort of the tribal out in the forest people and the civilized Mayan?

GIBSON: Well yeah.

(Laughter)

And I think you know, even when you look into Cortez, um, coming into Mexico, the Aztecs? Um, he didn't have very many people. So I think that there were lots of people in the society who were discontent with what was going on, and like all societies, you know, when you get corruption in pow- in governments and manipulation and use of fear as a kind of a means to manipulate the, the masses. You know, I think um, uh-

QUESTION: Well, thank God that doesn't happen now!

GIBSON: No!

(Audience laughter)

I'm so happy that doesn't happen now.

So that that, that's what I'm trying to show I mean it uh I think and the other thing, I just want to draw the parallels between I mean the earmarks that, the precursors to a, a civilization that's going under are always the same, time and time again. And I think that we displayed, I just looked up and I thought, you know? Uh, we display those things now. Um, here. And, I don't mean to be a doomsday guy but uh, the Mayan calendar does end in 2012 boys and girls!

(Laughter)

Have fun!

The other remark occurs during a discussion in which Gibson mentions the film's environmental aspects and asks the audience whether they noticed the connection between the Mayans burning lime and the problems with their crops, and ultimately, with their civilization:

GIBSON: Other aspects concerning civilization and where its taking us.

Did anyone get what was happening with the lime, the trees and stuff?

[...]

(To audience): What do you think it was?

MAN IN AUDIENCE: To destroy their own civilization, tearing up the forest.

SECOND MAN IN AUDIENCE: They're using more than they need!

GIBSON: Conspicuous consumption yeah.

Yeah.

And then, it, it had a real serious effect. This happened in the Middle East too cause the guy who's doing the sound "Komni," he's from the Middle East and he was telling me that the history there was the same that they were, they had to, in order to get the lime they had to pulverize the rocks into this powder so they could use it, and they used to have to use enormous amount of wood to heat it hot enough and then they'd make temples and things out of it. ' course the rain would come, wash the clay into the arability of their crops and next thing you know they'd be starving to death, there'd be disease, there'd be, and. Oddly enough in 1502 there was a locust plague as well. And um, uh, 1502 was the year Columbus rocked up off the shore of Honduras with four ships and, uh, the first people he bumped into was Mayan trading canoes. So, I figured hey, close enough! So um uh, and, and, in order to appease the gods for all the bad luck the were having, then they'd build their temples even bigger and start their sacrifice out of them. And the like, you know, human sacrifice.

And what's human sacrifice if, if it's not sending guys off to Iraq for no damn reason? You know? I don't, I can't figure that one out.

(Applause)

Have fun!

The 2012 hysteria is neither new or original, and it seems to satisfy some deep human psychological human need for catastrophe.

Gibson's historical analysis fails to persuade me. What I can't figure out is whether Gibson susbcribes to the end of the world hysteria or he's just pandering to it to make money.

I'm skeptical. But might the 2012 remark be evidence of a certain consistency in Gibson's thinking? In Signs Gibson played a former priest restored to his former calling as a result of crop circles.

Might there be an, um, connection?

The crop circle connection to the Mayan end of the world is fully explained here:

The grid seems related to a "map" called "Psi Bank Warp and Holonomic Woof" mentioned in a book called "Earth Ascending," by Jose Arguelles (page 121). The "map" consists of eight Tzolkins joined together showing relationships between the Mayan calendar, the "I Ching" and the 64 DNA codons. Arguelles researched the Mayan calendar, physics, philosophy, geomancy and the "I Ching," and concluded that mankind is creating a "noosphere," or mind layer, around the Earth, which is evolving towards the "Omega Point of Planetary Awakening" in 2012, according to Teillard de Chardin.

Anyone know Tom Cruise's 2012 plans?

I'm back from a trip to DC, but the Philadelphia gun issue did not go away in my absence.

Here's today's Inquirer:

Obviously, there's a lot in there. Too much to cover in a single blog post. (Someone could build an entire blog around the Inquirer's coverage of the gun issue, though.) On the bright side, veteran reporter Larry Eichel has researched the effectiveness of "one gun a month" laws. Not surprisingly, they don't seem to be effective in stopping "gun violence":

One-gun-a-month laws sound attractive to gun-control activists and draw broad public support in polls. But it's not clear that such statutes have had much impact on gun violence.

A study published last year in the journal Injury Prevention found that the laws restricting purchases had had no measurable impact. The study was done by a team of doctors from the University of Washington, using data from 1979 to 1998.

Another study, done in 2001 by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, found evidence of a slight decrease in gun violence associated with Maryland's one-gun law.

With only California, Virginia and Maryland having such laws, there isn't much evidence to be had. What is available raises questions about the effect of limiting individuals to one handgun purchase every 30 days.

Last year, all three one-gun states had homicide rates above the national average - slightly above in California and Virginia, well above in Maryland.

And Richmond, Va., and Baltimore had homicide rates among the highest in the country. Both cities reported well over 40 homicides per 100,000 residents, compared with about 25 for Philadelphia.

It should not surprise anyone that limiting law abiding citizens to one gun a month has no effect on the criminal misuse of guns. It would make about as much sense to limit computer sales in order to deter criminal computer hackers.

Guns are one of the many tools used by criminals, but the focus on this tool -- which can also be used for good -- never ceases to amaze me.

As an example of gun violence, the Inquirer's special section on the subject links Monica Yant Kinney's account of a mysterious, professional hit-style slaying which has been unsolved for five years.

Well, the police might never solve it. They never solved the even higher-profile murder of Philadelphia mob boss Angelo Bruno. But I don't recall anyone ever citing the Bruno killing as an argument for limiting the number of guns law-abiding citizens can buy.

Yet consider for a moment that Bruno's murder is still unsolved. It's not too late to bring it up at the State Capitol. Had it not been for the easy availability of guns, Angelo Bruno (who was born in 1910) might just still be alive today!

Hey, don't laugh! This is supposed to be a serious argument.

While I'm baffled over how professional hit men would be deterred by any gun law at all (much less the one gun a month proposal), such examples are as good as any, because they highlight the nature of the problem. When criminals use guns to commit serious crimes, gun laws aren't even a nuisance factor in their thinking. Can anyone sit there with a straight face and maintain that a hit man (precisely what most drug-related killers are) is going to be deterred by even the most stringent gun control measures? The idea is absurd on its face, but the argument's persistence suggests to me two possibilities:

the goal really is disarming law abiding citizens; or

the criminals (even hit men) really aren't all that bad, but the guns make them bad.

I don't know anyone who seriously suggests that the "gun a month" proposals actually disarm criminals (who are already barred from possessing or purchasing guns), and I am not even sure it does that much to disarm the law abiding majority. That's because right now, law abiding citizens are divided into two groups: existing gun owners, and citizens who own no guns. The former group will continue to own whatever guns they have, while the latter group would still be allowed to acquire them, at a slower rate. How criminals would even be slowed down by this escapes me. There's a large market in stolen guns, and it is already illegal to transfer guns to felons. The people referred to as "straw purchasers" are simply illegal gun traffickers who haven't yet been caught. The idea of "one gun a month" is to slow down their ability to buy guns from a particular source -- licensed gun dealers. Street dealing and gun theft would not only be unaffected, but according to normal market rules, could only be expected to increase to fill the needs of the criminal demand. I think the reason the "gun a month" laws don't work is that there's an erroneous assumption that there aren't more than enough illegal guns in circulation to supply demand.

The bottom line is that criminals are already prohibited from having guns and that any purchase or transfer by them is illegal, so it would be unreasonable to expect limiting the law abiding to one a month to have any effect at all.

It would be about as effective as a law making it an additional crime for criminals to commit more than one crime a month.

So what's with this law, and why is it considered so vital? I think it's because the gun control people are fighting an ideological battle, and they just don't like the idea of anyone buying more than one gun a month. In their mind, if guns are a moral evil, the more guns there are, the worse the moral evil.

What kind of person would want more than one gun a month, anyway?

(Only a psychopath, obviously.)

Thus, built into the very discussion of the "gun a month" proposal is moralistic scolding. How could you be for such a thing? What's wrong with you? Do you really need that many guns? And who even "needs" a gun a month? Shouldn't it really be a gun a year?

Yet no one would ask these "need" based questions about cars, telephones, computers (or numbers of blog posts). And I doubt they'd ask them about other things -- even hot button moral issues like abortion or sex acts.

What normal man needs more than 100 condoms a month?

Seriously, shouldn't there be a limit?

I don't mean to be facetious here. Maybe it's better to find another logical analogy.

Gun-a-month proponent Tom Ferrick brings up spinach:

[New York Mayor] Bloomberg reminded everyone (including, later, in a private meeting, State Sen. Vincent Fumo) that his city has effective gun-control measures but is being bedeviled by imports. Eighty percent of the guns used in crimes in his city come from out of state, Bloomberg said.

Making a point

Lining up the mayors was showmanship, but it was effective showmanship. So was the line by the Rev. William J. Shaw of Philly's White Rock Baptist Church, who pointed out that when a handful of people died because of tainted spinach, all of America's spinach was pulled off the shelves. So, he asked, why doesn't anyone do anything about guns when 3,000-plus people in America are victims of homicide?

On the other hand, as the pro-gun folks would put it: Spinach doesn't kill people, people kill people.

Both are sold in stores;

Both can be good for you;

The FDA regulates condoms as well as spinach;

Sailors like Popeye need both, so they can be "strong to the finish."

Hmmm....

I think the gun a month law is silly, but I do think that considering the danger involved, maybe some serious thought should be given to transferring regulation of condoms and spinach to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

After all, spinach grows in the ground, just like tobacco! And condoms are often used for smuggling by drug kingpins, who also buy illegal guns, so there's considerable bureaucratic overlap. Furthermore, if eating spinach does make people "strong to the finish," do we really want criminals emboldened by eating it? Wouldn't it be a good idea to make it harder for criminals to get?

"Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, Spinach, and Condoms" has a more effusive-sounding ring to it, and I think many criminals would be deterred just by the name.

Can anyone say they wouldn't? How do we know if we haven't tried?

MORE: I have to say that I was surprised to see it, but much to its credit, the Inquirer did quote some gun owners quoted yesterday:

These folks, mostly from rural areas in central and western Pennsylvania, see gun rights as a bedrock constitutional issue.

And they came armed with reasons not to change things.

"The highest rate of crime occurs in cities with the toughest gun laws," said John Brinson, chairman of the Lehigh Valley Firearms Coalition. When you allow people to carry concealed weapons, crime goes down, because criminals don't know who's carrying a gun," said Mike Cancel of Washington, Pa.

He and others blamed Philadelphia for its problems and resented efforts to abate them by forcing stricter laws on the state. "It's their children that they didn't raise right, who don't know who their father is," said Cancel. "The children are out of control. We have tons of laws already. The laws are not being enforced."

The gun owners also said they don't accept the argument that gun restrictions would make the streets safer. Criminals, they said, would still have guns, and citizens wouldn't.

Cancel, 53, an engineer, contended that the Second Amendment is essential, that America is spiraling out of control, and that it is vital that citizens possess firearms to fight tyranny, foreign and domestic:

"The population has to have parity against the standing military, man for man."

Another gun owner wore a T-shirt: "The Second Amendment: the original homeland security."

Gun supporters, visiting legislative offices, found support for their arguments.

But I guess I can't ask for everything.

That's what a lot of people are saying.

And as I've learned, other forms of public transportation aren't much better.

That's why I'll be on a long drive today, and I'm getting ready to leave now.

It would be nice to have one of these:

Whatever happened to the future?

MORE (09/28/06): A friend emailed me this futuristic nostalgia (should that be nostalgically futuristic?) picture:

Incredibly cool. But why isn't the man wearing pajamas? Didn't he know that the futurists of the future would be known for them?

I'm sorry to hear about the death of Jeff Cooper, a legendary gun firearms instructor who was more than a spokesman for Second Amendment. He lived it.

The Prescott (Arizona) Daily Courier remembers him:

America lost a national treasure Monday, but most Americans will never know it.

Yet many of those Americans may be alive today because of John Dean "Jeff" Cooper, who died Monday afternoon at the Sconce, his beloved home near Gunsite, the shooting training center he founded about 10 miles north of Chino Valley.

Most people who know anything about guns and shooting know who Jeff Cooper was. They rightly called him "The Gunner's Guru." He was the world's foremost expert on small arms (rifles, shotguns and handguns).

He was born John Dean Cooper on May 10, 1920. He earned a master's degree in history and taught history. He also served in the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II, Southeast Asia and Korea. He separated from the service as a lieutenant colonel and most who knew him called him "The Colonel."

In the course of his military combat experience and shooting contests he organized in Big Bear, Calif., in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he developed the "modern technique" of using a handgun for personal protection.

In 1976, he founded the American Pistol Institute or Gunsite, near Paulden in 1976. Since then, nearly 18,000 people have received training there in how to use handguns, rifles and shotguns to protect their lives and the lives of others.

There's too much hoplophobia in the world today, and one less voice against it.

Rest in peace, Colonel Cooper.

UPDATE (09/27/06): Glenn Reynolds remembers Jeff Cooper, as does Samizdata's Jonathan Pearce. And Marc Danziger has a personal tribute as moving as it is interesting.

I complain far too much about the relentless anti-gun bias in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Not only does this risk boring readers, but it's a major pain in the ass for me. I don't think of myself as a gun blogger, nor do I start out pissed off at the Inquirer every day. Often I wake up cheerful and happy, because it's a nice day. And then I pick up the Inquirer...

Seriously, folks, the paper might as well be edited by Sarah Brady.

Take a look for yourself. Yesterday, they surrounded their editorial with pictures of handguns:

Today, lobbying for gun issue is headlined as "a plea for peace" (right underneath a reminder of an anti-gun lobbying rally in Harrisburg):

If you read the story (ys, it's supposed to be news), it becomes clear that the Inquirer sees guns as an inherent evil and inherently violent objects which prevent peace, and that therefore community activism against violence becomes inseparable from anti-gun activism. Therefore, it seems that common decency, civic-mindedness, and even morality dictate that citizens who want peace -- all who wish to "do something" about "violence" -- should contact anti-gun groups and get involved. These groups are dutifully listed, in what the Inquirer probably considers a public service.

The unmistakable message is that getting rid of guns is a pressing matter involving civic virtue. I think it's highly significant that this is not in an editorial where it belongs, because that means the Inquirer believes it's not a matter of opinion, but of right and wrong. Analogous to a public health, life and death issue. Guns=death. Gun control=life. Guns=war. Gun control=peace.

Isn't self defense a life and death issue too?

But none of this is new. I've discussed this in too many posts to count, I've complained about the Inquirer's John Lennon-"Imagine" mindset, and I've offered just about every logical argument I can think of to rebut the folly of this kind of thinking.

So why do this? Why write another blog post on this redundant, endless topic?

There is a reason.

It's not because I have any illusions of winning a debate on the merits. The gun debate is intractable and hopeless, and as unwinnable as a debate on abortion or gay rights.

What bothers me is to see blatantly shrill partisanship routinely passed off as "journalism"