I noticed this morning that thorium blogger Kirk Sorenson has a new son, Elijah Frederick Sorenson. Belated congratulations are in order.

Mr. Sorenson's blog is a wonderful resource if you want to learn about liquid-fluoride reactors. Or even if you don't. And I totally agree with his choice of nomenclature. Such devices are often referred to as molten salt reactors, which strikes me as a PR disaster waiting to happen. Disregarding the old testament overtones, "molten" and "reactor" are two words that don't travel well together in public. Liquid fluoride is so much friendlier sounding, don't you think?

It's comforting to know that if fusion reactors don't pan out we can fall back on something we already know how to do.

However it plays out, I sincerely hope that Mr. Sorenson's boy enjoys a long and healthy life, in a world worth living in.

Every once in a while I need a reminder of why I am not a liberal "progressive," and this kind of thinking went a long way:

...members of the movement Right demand that their candidates buy into the Entire Package of Wingnuttia. This isn't simply political purism, it's about validating a worldview. There are all these articles of faith in wingnuttia which have been given to them by the wingnut noise machine, and failure to embrace them all is a signal that you aren't really part of the club.

....members of the movement Left demand that their candidates buy into the Entire Package of Moonbattia. This isn't simply political purism, it's about validating a worldview. There are all these articles of faith in moonbattia which have been given to them by the moonbat noise machine, and failure to embrace them all is a signal that you aren't really part of the club.

I'll end with one stat that ought to worry any Republicans who think sticking with the Rove strategy is a good idea. According to the Pew study, members of Gen Y (18-30) are about as likely to be atheists/agnostics (19 per cent) as Republicans (no age group breakdown, but it must be less than the 25 per cent for all voters given low party identification in this age group).

The overall phenomenon reminds me of Ann Althouse's now classic observation:

bloggers on the right link to you when they agree and ignore the disagreements, and the bloggers on the left link only for the things they disagree with, to denounce you with short posts saying you're evil/stupid/crazy, and don't even seem to notice all the times you've written posts that take their side.

...the Right is looking for converts and the Left is looking for heretics...

This recent post by Ann Althouse reminded me that the issue is far from settled. Some libertarians seem a little too impatient with unconverted heretics -- as if they're a little too convinced they're right.

On the other hand, if you're not 100% convinced you're right, most of the "isms" are best avoided.

Neal Boortz (via Glenn Reynolds) recently examined the question of "why people think conservatives are idiots":

Tell me .. how do you counter the "conservatives are ignorant" argument, and how do you manage to recruit more people to the cause of lower taxes, less government and more individual responsibility when you have people running around loose calling themselves conservatives, getting elected to office as conservatives, and running websites as conservatives all the while telling us that the earth does not spin on its axis and does not revolve around the Sun .. and that everything in the known universe revolves around the Earth?

If true conservatives really want to expand their philosophy and mount a sustained movement that just might save individualism, freedom and economic liberty --- they had better jettison these zealot nut-cases .... and FAST.

This all sure makes me glad to be a Libertarian.

But zealot nut-case?

If the following transcript of Savage's recent remarks is correct, that would be almost a kind thing to say about him:

SAVAGE: It's becoming increasingly clear to me that God wants radical Islam on this planet at this time -- that it's not actually the scourge you think it is. What it is -- it's a counterpoint to the Romanization of the United States of America and the West. The collapse -- the spiritual collapse of the West, the death of the West in that regard, is being countered by the birth of fanatic religion, which is fundamentally a fanatic love of God, when you think about it.

[...]

SAVAGE: And God, who is the center of this monotheistic religion, has said, "Oh, you don't worship me anymore? Oh, you don't like me anymore? Oh, I don't exist anymore? Really? All right, I'm going to show you boys in Hollywood and you girls in New York City that I do exist. But since you're very hard-headed, stiff-necked people, and you don't really believe that I exist because you've gotten away with everything you've done all your life without any repercussions, I'm going to show you I exist in a way that you can't believe." Down came the World Trade Center towers. That was God speaking.

Again, it does not prove the man is an agent provocateur, but his words are no more those of a patriotic American than these words of Noam Chomsky:

I read in the Times this morning an interview with Jeanette Rankin, who was the one member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on December 8, 1941, to the accompaniment of a chorus of boos and hisses. Looking back, though, we can see that the Japanese had very real grievances, and that the United States had quite a significant share of responsibility in those grievances back in 1941.

It is of course unfair to tar all liberals with the same brush as people like Ward Churchill. Similarly, it is unfair to link all conservatives to Michael Savage. Speaking for myself, I can state with confidence that if what Savage says defines conservatism, then I most definitely am not one. But I'm a little more label-resistant than most people, and my worry is not so much that he's doing his own cause a disservice, but whether he's even part of that cause. I'm more libertarian than conservative, but I think I can fairly state that conservatism does not mean sympathizing with radical Islam, or attributing to God the worst attack on the United States since World War II.

By claiming to be a conservative when he is not, Savage is behaving as a classic agent provocateur.

That he has many fans who call themselves conservatives is more worrisome to me than whether he calls himself a conservative.

I'm not sure whether I should consider Savage's fans to be conservatives or not. (Certainly if he pronounced himself a "libertarian," that would not mean he or his fans were libertarians.) But again, I think the extent to which people who call themselves conservatives agree with Savage begs the question of why some (not all) people think conservatives are idiots.

For the record, I don't think conservatives are idiots (far from it), and I'm going to try not to think of Michael Savage or his fans as conservatives.

(I'm hoping this is an exercise in fairness and not denial.)

UPDATE: Pat at Screw Loose Change (a member of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists who generally attacks "mostly far-left kooks like Rosie O'Donnell and others") is thinking along similar lines, with a good post.

AND MORE: Wow. Saying conservatives crave "hate and rage,"Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is endorsing Savage's GOP presidential candidacy bid. I don't know how I manage to miss such gems.

MORE: It's probably also worth pointing out that Savage previously called for killing 100 million Muslims, and opposed aid to the Tsunami victims because he thought some of them lived in "hotbeds of radical Islam."

He probably thinks his fans are sufficiently idiotic that they've forgotten all about his previous statements.

MORE: John W. Lillpop (who calls Bush "America's worst enemy") explains why he endorses Savage for president:

Savage is the conservative's conservative--a man who would make Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater beam with pride.

Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area have had the extraordinary good fortune of listening to Savage preach the truth for about fourteen years. His radio career started as a weekend host on a San Francisco radio station better known for it's loony liberalism than common sense conservatism.

Savage's show turned out to be a beacon of hope in the hopeless fog of liberal extremism in the Bay Area.

Again, I can't prove it, but I suspect that's one of the reasons he was put -- and is kept -- on the air.

I hate television. Which is why I don't tend to watch as much video as I probably should. Still, I hate being ignorant -- especially when other people are blogging and talking about stuff in a manner which suggests that you really ought to know what they're talking about.

Ignorant was precisely how when I tried watching this bloggingheads episode. It seemed that all Henry Farrell and Daniel Drezner would talk about was an earlier video I hadn't seen, and they were carrying on about it at such length that I just plain had to see what they were talking about.

A "spectacle"? From which "political junkies" and the like "just can't turn away"?

I couldn't ignore that.

Still somewhat clueless, I found what I thought was the bloggingheads episode they were talking about, but I didn't see the now legendary explosion or meltdown or whatever it is everyone's so upset about, so I scrolled through the little excerpts with comments, and found this segment, where sure enough, sparks fly. It kind of made me sad. Ann Althouse got angry (because she felt she had been casually mischaracterized on a complicated issue), and the other blogger Garance Franke-Ruta was obviously uncomfortable with the display of anger.

Frankly, I don't think this is worth posting about, as I'd rather deal with text. It's less emotional. Seeing people get upset makes me want to drink.

But ironically that comes back to how this started -- which was Ann Althouse's post about drinking (which Glenn had linked), and the "new meme about [her] in the left-o-sphere":

Based on my "American Idol" vlog, where I hold up a glass of wine -- look, it's Jordin Sparks, reflected right here! -- and eventually take two sips of it, they are all: Althouse is a drunk, Althouse's drunken videoblogging, etc. This is the way these people see having a glass of wine? How very prissy and puritanical!

So, I guess the new rule is that if you're a nonconforming blogger and lose your temper over something (justified or not), from that moment forward being seen with a glass of wine makes you a wino?

Of the many comments on the wine post, this one was my favorite:

This is getting so tiresome. Today the big complaint is that Ann drinks wine...? Not at all drunk, a little drunk, a lot drunk - who cares!?!? What the hell is this? Nannies Against Drunk Blogging?

No, what it is really is finding something anything to grab onto to criticize someone you don't like. I swear it's like a bunch of fifth grade girls. Did you see what Ann did today? Oh. My. God. She's SO not sitting with us at lunch.

I think I'll need a drink to finish this.

I guess I did.

UPDATE: I should add that there is a distinction between watching these videos and watching television. Unlike television (which is scripted, and on which people tend to be much more controlled), these informal videos make me feel closer to actually knowing the bloggers involved. I have no idea whether that is a good thing; in four years I've barely adjusted to the medium of moving words around. Video is probably a healthy thing -- maybe only possibly, because it adds a stress factor that wasn't there before.

But it doesn't seem to matter whether it's good, as it's inevitable. Few things are sillier (or more backward) than complaining about inevitable technology. Fortunately, there's no law forcing anyone to use it.

UPDATE (04/02/07): My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post -- especially in the context of the "what's your permanent age" question.

It's a real puzzle. Right now I'm 52, but when I was 50 I was still 30. (Yes, the test still works.) I often suspect life consists of going from the birth crisis to a childhood crisis to a teenage/adolescent crisis to a young adult crisis to a midlife crisis to an old age crisis, then finally into a permanant crisis we call death. These crises prevent us from enjoying the little time we're here, but that hardly comes as news. Crisis management specialists have been trying to figure it out for millenia.

Like it or not, video is part of life, and I struggle with both constantly. More thoughts here.

UPDATE (04/03/07): The debate about Ann Althouse continues, with Bob Wright and Michael Kinsley apparently weighing in on another video. Whether she intended to or not, I guess Ann Althouse has not only brought a lot of traffic to that site, but given people something to discuss. Honesty can be painful. (And no, I have not watched the Kinsley-and-Wright-on-Althouse video.)

For those interested in the details of her side of the argument, Ann Althouse explains here.

UPDATE (04/05/07): Thank you, Ann Althouse for the link!

I'd never heard of this issue before, but at Free Republic, at least one commenter says that "Free Granny Madelyn Dunham" should be a T-shirt slogan.

This controversy seems to be mostly generated by this Newsmax.com report written by Andy Martin, who claims that Barack Obama is keeping his grandmother imprisoned because she is white:

....the "segregation" of Madelyn Dunham, Obama's white grandmother, and only real grandmother, has to be one of the cruelest and most mendacious political kidnappings this nation has ever seen.

Mrs. Dunham lives alone in the same apartment where she has lived for many years. Thus, it is reasonable to assume she is not incapacitated or an invalid.

Granny Dunham told the New York Times she was not well enough to speak, but in reality the Obama campaign maintains Stalinist "control" over potential interviewees. Obama's minions tried to control access to Obama's friend who was recently released from prison. Since he became a candidate for U.S. Senator, Obama has locked his white relative away in his racist closet.

Madelyn Dunham raised Barry Obama. It was probably her money that got him admitted to the prestigious Punahou School in Hawaii and paid his fees. Her efforts were formative, perhaps even more so than those of Obama's mother Ann, Madelyn's daughter. And yet Madelyn is being hidden away.

All because she is white and Barry Obama is a "black" candidate for president.

What a lie. What hypocrisy. What cowardice. And this man wants to sit in the Oval Office?

Is he really hiding that? Or is it the overactive imagination of the writer?

It's probably fair to point out that according to CBS News, the grandmother simply refuses to talk to reporters, citing poor health:

Obama's family is already insulating itself. "I am not giving any interviews," Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, curtly interjected when a reporter phoned. "I am in poor health."

The number at Dunham's apartment in a nondescript Honolulu high rise has not changed in more than a quarter-century. It is the same one that a young Obama wrote in the yearbook of a petite black-haired beauty named Kelli Furushima -- the object of his high school crush.

She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979.

What should reporters do? Knock on her door all the time and camp out in front of her place?

The quest to discover Obama's background is not new to the Andy Martin, who's spent years pushing for an investigation. Not only are Obama's white ancestors being kept in the closet (claims Martin), but so are his black ancestors:

I believe Obama's secret shame at his family history of rape, murder and arson is what actualizes him. Our research is not yet complete. We are seeking to examine British colonial records. Our investigation to date has drawn on information on three continents.

"And what about Obama's beloved Kenyan brothers and sisters? None of his family was invited to Boston to share his prominence. Are his relatives being kept in the closet? Where are they? More secrecy, more prevarication.

But contrast that (2004) claim about the closeted Kenyan relatives with yesterday's Newsmax report:

She [grandmother Dunham] is offended that Obambi shamelessly highlights his black relatives in Kenya and, equally shamelessly, pretends his white relatives in Hawaii who actually raised him do not exist. It would hurt me.

Something doesn't sound quite right.

While it's not directly relevant to his claims about Obama, Martin recently took issue with the Wall Street Journal for siding with Israel:

Palestinians have been all too patient and all too peaceful in dealing with forty years of Israeli occupation. Fighting Israeli occupation is, to repeat, a human right, and an obligation of every human being.

Yes. And apparently because the Wall Street Journal is an Israeli agent, we are all under Israeli occupation!

....peace will never come as long as American media such as the WSJ abandon all reason and objectivity and act as agents for the Israeli regime. We are as much under occupation as the Palestinians and Iraqis.

Ironically, your support for Israel is self-destructive and counterproductive. By encouraging war and occupation and a miasma of lies from the Israeli imperialists you undermine America's economy and our role in the world. Your support for war in Iraq has produced bitter fruit for our nation and our future role in the world.

The American people are fed up with Israel and Israeli demands for unconditional American support. George Bush put Palestinian freedom fighters on trial in Chicago and Tampa, and both times federal court juries rejected the Justice Department's Israeli-inspired lies. What does that tell you?

To be fair, Martin seems to have mellowed with age. Back in the days when he was running for office, he took a somewhat harder line:

Martin also has expressed anti-Semitic attitudes in the past. When he ran for Congress in Connecticut in 1986, the name of his congressional campaign committee included the phrase "to exterminate Jew power in America," Federal Election Commission records show.

In a 1983 personal bankruptcy case, he referred to a federal bankruptcy judge as a "crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race."

In a related court filing in the case, he also expressed sympathy to the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

"I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did, when Jew survivors are operating as a wolf pack to steal my property," Martin wrote in an April 21, 1983, personal bankruptcy proceeding.

In 1973, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to allow Martin admission to the bar. The court's decision noted that Martin, a University of Illinois law school graduate who was previously known by the name Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, had a Selective Service record that showed he had a "moderately-severe character defect manifested by well documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character."

Still, the court noted that "issues raised as to [Martin's] mental stability" did not need to be considered in light of other matters it cited in deciding that Martin lacked the qualities of "responsibility, candor, fairness, self-restraint, objectivity and respect for the judicial system" required for the administration of justice.

Among issues the high court cited in denying his law license were Martin's criticism of members of a bar review panel as "emotionally ill" and "scum," his filing of a petition asking that a parking violation be lifted because it was "entered by an insane judge" and his description of an attorney as "shaking and tottering and drooling like an idiot," according to court records.

In logic, of course, none of this makes the story about Obama's imprisoned grandmother wrong.

Just color me skeptical.

MORE: Andy Martin also thinks Obama should apologize for the fact that his ancestors once owned slaves:

Mr. Obama, my family did not own slaves. Yours did. Most Americans' have no family links to slavery. Yours does. Yours, not ours.

Bill Clinton wanted to "share our pain." You want us to "share your shame." No thanks. Speak for yourself, Barry. That's part of your incredibly tortured family history, and your own tortured psyche, not "ours."

Amazingly, it took the exposure of his slave-owning family history for Obama to even acknowledge that half of his family history came from white racists who waged war against the United States.

And Obama wants "African-Americans" to support his candidacy? His ancestors sought to continue enslaving legitimate African-Americans. Massa Obama. You are the living embodiment of chutzpah. Just ask your friends at AIPAC what that means.

I'm afraid it may be time for the tinfoil hat...

MORE: Andy Martin on Rachel Corrie:

Rachel Corrie's memory, our memory of her, stands as a testimony that we have not forgotten who are the occupiers and who are the occupied. We have not forgotten who gloats and preens about "nuclear weapons" and "superpower" status. As a devoted Christian, I hear the Torah, the "Old Testament," read in church every Sunday. I am left to wonder how the world's first monotheistic religion, one of the world's great religions, has been reduced to the rubble of Israeli triumphalism.

Then I remember that someone had to consciously murder, consciously kill, Rachel Corrie. And then I understand.

MORE: A picture of the "imprisoned" grandmother has been found. (Not that I'd been looking for it, but some people obviously care.)

Was there a coverup of granny's race? If so, I'd say it failed.

(Picture link found here.)

AND MORE: The Democratic Party website calls Andy Martin a "typical Republican" who "hates the Latinos, believes the Jews are running the nation and wants us all to speak English" as well as a "racist, egotistical, arrogant Media whore who is addicted to bring lawsuits."

I'm sorry, but calling this man a "typical Republican" doesn't set well with me.

However, right at the bottom of the website state it states, "Paid for by the Democratic National Committee -- 430 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington DC 20003."

I guess this gives the Republican Party the right to call Fred Phelps a "typical Democrat."

MORE: In case everything else he throws at Barack Obama fails, Andy Martin has filed a complaint with the Illinois State Bar asking that Obama be investigated for non-disclosure of (I am not kidding) unpaid parking tickets in 1991.

Obviously, from that point on, one thing led to another in his career in crime -- until finally he imprisoned his own grandma!

It just demonstrates the truth of the "slippery slope" theory.

I'm sorry, but I've spent enough time defending Barack Obama for one day. I'll never vote for the man, but after all, anyone who loves crocodiles can't be all bad.

UPDATE (03/31/07): Newsmax is now linking the above picture from the Sun Sentinel, and pointing out that the Sun Times has misidentified Obama's black grandmother as "Madelyn Dunham" (which they clearly have). The incorrect (quite possibly lying) caption reads thusly:

Barack Obama with his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, in Africa in 2004. Courtesy of the Obama family

Newsmax also claims they've been deluged with complaints about Andy Martin's story, but that the fault is with the Sun Times:

Since publishing Martin's story, NewsMax has been deluged by pro-Obama bloggers who claim Martin's report is "racist," "inaccurate" or just "totally wrong."

Many direct our attention to a photo that appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times (See Photo Here), purportedly showing Obama with a black woman who is identified by the Times as Madelyn Dunham, Obama's grandmother.

In fact, the Sun-Times, not NewsMax or Martin, is in error. The woman pictured on the Sun-Times Web site is not Madelyn Dunham, but Obama's Kenyan grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama.

Readers who are troubled by the coverage of Obama's grandmothers would do better to send their complaints to the Sun-Times rather than NewsMax.

Isn't it possible that when she said didn't want to talk to the press, she might have meant it? Or is she not allowed to refuse to talk? Seeing that there's no question about her race, I'm wondering precisely what needs to be confirmed.

MORE: Considering the subject, I think it's fair to display the pictures in question.

Here's a screenshot of the Sun Times's mis-captioned photo:

And here's the 2004 photo of Obama with his actual grandparents:

CAPTION:

Barack Obama poses at Columbia University in New York City during a visit by his grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham.
(Photo courtesy of Maya Soetoro-Ng)
Mar 23, 2007

And finally, here's Obama shown with his grandparents at his high school graduation:

CAPTION:

At his high school graduation, Barack Obama gets a hug from his grandmother Madelyn as his grandfather Stanley beams. His maternal grandparents raised Obama in Hawaii while his mother was living in Indonesia.
(Photo courtesy of Maya Soetoro-Ng)
Mar 23, 2007

I don't think being half white is anything to be ashamed of, and I normally wouldn't be interested in any candidate's graduation photos. But to some people, race matters!

UPDATE (04/01/07): Thank you, Glenn Reynolds, for the link, and welcome all!

I'm glad Glenn thinks Granny should be left alone.

You'd think that outing her as white would be enough. (Except I'm not sure that was what was going on, because I don't think it really came as news to anyone. It certainly wasn't news to me.)

Via Pajamas Media, I see that Roger L. Simon is having anger management problems over the way hostage Faye Turney was forced to cover her head when she appeared on television:

I feel like smashing the television. One thing about those mullahs - no matter what their apologists in the West are like - they are not cultural relativists. They know how a woman should dress and the devil (literally) take those who disagree.

Of course this kind of battering ram approach to religion and women betrays an obvious psycho-sexual sickness in Islam that goes back to Mohammed that polite society dares not speak aloud. Polite society better wake up. Nothing could be more explicit. Not far away from dressing women like that is the freedom to rape and beat them. Also to remember is that this is just what Khomeini intended for all of us. This is the point of the Islamic revolution.

What particularly angers me is the insidious way the covering of women is promoted in the West. Knowing damned well that Westerners will never go along with mandatory covering, they hide behind multiculturalism, and market the covering of women as a "right." A "freedom," even. Clueless feminists go along with it, often conceding that as a form of identity politics, veiling is "empowering."

In secular Turkey, there's a showdown right now over whether veiling should be allowed. An article in today's Wall Street Journal explores the issue in detail:

Since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkey has enforced one of the strictest forms of state secularism in the Muslim world. To this day, for instance, Turkish laws ban students, teachers, judges and other state employees from wearing headscarves at work or in class. A decade ago, the military, which views itself as the ultimate guardian of the secular order, forced a staunchly Islamist prime minister out of office.

In the past seven years, the share of Turks who describe themselves as "fairly religious" has doubled to nearly half of the population, according to a recent survey by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation. And most people favor the lifting of the headscarf ban. At the same time, the study found that 77% of respondents believe democracy is the best form of government for Turkey.

But what Americans forget (and what I suspect a lot of Turks have forgotten), is that this talk of the "freedom" to wear a headscarf is a clever deception practiced by those who would deny women the freedom not to wear a headscarf. Ataturk and the founders of modern Turkey had reasons for the headscarf ban. What clueless Americans see as a "freedom" (which it is, technically), is really not a freedom at all, but a foot in the door for the precise opposite.

Might as well talk about the right to wear chains.

A daily WorldNetDaily reader I am most definitely not. But when the coffee still hasn't yet corrected my sleep-deficit disorder and I see a headline that begins with "Nuke bomb hidden inside Hillary," I just have to read on.

As it turns out, it's a South Park episode. The bomb is called a "snuke."

Here's the video:

In its review, The Hillary Project asks,

We can't help but wonder how the woman with an absolute void for humor is soaking in the attention.

And, lo and behold, there's already a Wikipedia entry on "The Snuke."

I'd love to hear Dinesh D'Souza weigh in on "The Snuke," because it represents a synthesis of two of his primary memes:

What angers religious Muslims is not the American Constitution but the scandalous sexual mores they see on American movies and television," [D'souza] writes. "What disgusts them are not free elections but the sights of hundreds of homosexuals kissing each other and taking marriage vows. The person that horrifies them the most is not [free market philosopher] John Locke but Hillary Clinton.

Here's a lovely example of our petrodollars at work:

RIYADH (AFP) - Saudi King Abdullah, whose country is a close US ally, on Wednesday slammed the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq in an opening speech to the annual Arab summit in Riyadh.

"In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war," Abdullah said.

And how about the fact that 70% of Iraqi suicide bombers are Saudis? What's that? Friendly fire?

Forgive my sarcasm, but such friendship can be a bit overwhelming at times.

I often think that Iraq is not the only country which needed our help.

I guess the bright side is that we're still over there until the left finally has its way.

Um, need I mention Iran? I'm not even sure such hostage taking bastards deserve a place among nations. The overall situation reminds me of Patton's famous line:

"We are going to have to fight them sooner or later, within the next generation. Why not do it now while our Army is intact!"

The idea of adding a "homeless" category to hate crime legislation is not a new topic for me, but it seems that every time a homeless person gets attacked, there's another push for it. (The way activists talk, you'd almost think it was legal to attack homeless people.)

Anyway, I was appalled to read about the latest incident, in which a pack of very young brats savagely attacked a 58-year-old homeless man:

DAYTONA BEACH -- John D'Amico dabbed a tissue to sop up blood seeping from his left eye -- the spot where he said a 10-year-old dropped a cinder block on his face.

The 58-year-old homeless man with deep blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair said he didn't fight back as three boys -- two 10-year-olds and a 17-year-old -- attacked him near one of Daytona Beach's grittiest streets Tuesday night, not far from where another homeless man was beaten to death by bored teenagers two years ago in Holly Hill.

They wanted to kill him, the day laborer said of his attackers Wednesday from his hospital bed.

"I'm not going to start fighting a 10-year-old," he said. "Then I'd be in jail."

The kids are said to be the youngest attackers of homeless people yet known to homeless activists:

Michael Stoops, acting executive director for the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., said his group has been tracking violence against the homeless for years, but none of those cases has ever involved someone so young.

"These are the youngest perpetrators ever, which is disturbing," Stoops said.

His group released a study last month that found Florida had more reported attacks on the homeless in 2006 than any other state.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, called Florida "ground zero for attacks on the homeless."

He said the violence is similar to hate crimes against minorities and gay people years ago.

"It's becoming less socially acceptable to attack other groups, so the homeless now are taking the mantle of [becoming] the universally acceptable target for aggression."Daytona Beach police Chief Mike Chitwood said the boys' actions may have been the result of bad parenting and a violent society influenced by video games.

It also sounds as if Chief Chitwood is echoing Brian Levin, who is on record as blaming video games for attacks on homeless people, as well as calling for homeless hate crime legislation:

Homelessness must be added to vulnerable-victim laws and hate-crime.

Whether or not someone has a home is not an identity -- any more than whether or not someone has health care is an identity. From personal experience, I know that many of those we might think of as "homeless" -- and whom we would routinely describe with the word -- are not homeless at all. Rather, they are mentally ill people with serious personal hygiene and substance abuse problems, but who actually have housing. Some of the people we call homeless also have the irritating habit of sitting around and emitting unpleasant odors, sleeping in public, or hassling people for money. One time I nearly had to get violent with someone who actually got into my face while I was trying to use an ATM, and another time a homeless man took a swing at me while shrieking incomprehensibly. Whether they have housing or not, these so-called "homeless" people regularly assault the non-homeless. Why should it be more of a crime for me to haul off and hit a homeless person than for that same person to hit me? Once a category like that is created, there's a presumption.

Now, I realize that the homeless category would, if analogous to race, probably require that an attack on a homeless person be done simply because he was homeless, with intent to terrorize him for his status. The problem I see with this is that even if we accept the validity of hate crimes legislation, it is a relatively easy thing to determine the race of an attacker and a victim, and if there's a hateful intent, there's usually evidence supporting that. But suppose the attacker just hates filthy looking people who smell, without regard to their housing status. How could a statute be written that creates a "homeless" category? Or what if some blowhard asshole simply decides that he is fed up with aggressive panhandlers, and decides that the next time he's asked for money in an aggressive manner, he is going to deck the guy. Under current law, that would be assault and battery, and he should be prosecuted for it. But would it be a hate crime? Why would that be any more of a hate crime than another asshole deciding that he'd had enough of skateboard punks nearly running over him on the sidewalk, and that he would punch the next one to cut him off?

Once again, these hate crime laws create legal mischief, and I think they're a terrible idea.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I think what may be fueling some of the push for special hate crime legislation is the fear that nothing will happen to criminals under existing laws. But this is not because the existing laws are "inadequate"; it's because of the callused way the criminal justice system is administered. For various reasons, charges are often dropped, violent criminals are routinely granted probation, and even imprisoned criminals are released early because of jail overcrowding. Thus, the victims rights groups become more and more "competitive" in the hope of getting a better shot for their special interest group. In addition, activists just always want more, and the addition of one special category leads to demands for another. Besides, prisons are filled with drug offenders and the courts are filled with drug cases. Who has time to deal with real, violent, criminals?

Just as I am no Christian theologian, nor am I an electrical engineer. So this contentious Wiki argument over potential hidden costs of CFLs is largely lost on me.

All I know is that my crackpot artistic side was fascinated by Right on the Right's post which blamed Glenn Reynolds for the actions of a shaky fan:

....instead of blaming myself for running the fan when it's only 75 degrees in the house (the fan shook the light cover loose), I'm going to blame Glenn Reynolds for suggesting the bulbs and Al Gore (though I ignored Al and listened to Glenn). It's all Glenn's fault.

On my hall ceiling, there is an art deco fixture that I like. It's way up there beyond my reach, which means that every time I have to change a light bulb, I have to use the ladder, which has to be hauled up a flight of stairs and then positioned under the fixture. Then I have to climb up and hold the new bulb with one hand, unscrew the old bulb with the other, then put the old bulb down on the top of the ladder so I can screw in the new bulb with my right hand lest I lose my balance and break the old light bulb or (worse) fall off the ladder. This chore was happening far too often, and I began to suspect that simply opening and closing doors was shaking loose the flimsy filaments of the cheap light bulbs I was using.

Anyway, I was delighted to replace the bulbs with the new CFLs -- which look like this:

No muss, no mess. No more precarious ladder climbing, and no light bulb burnout syndrome. My only complaint about the new bulbs is that they're so much brighter, which is fine on the ceiling, but less than esthetically pleasing at eye level. However, they do sell the low wattage variety, which are perfect for front porch lights, and have already lasted forever on mine (at least so far).

All in all I'm very happy with the CFLs, but until now I never bothered to count them, and now I realize I have ten. Esthetically, however, unless they're going to be on the ceiling, I recommend using them on fixtures with shades, as the brighter ones can be glaring. The one in my piston lamp is simply too bright, and it looks like this:

If I had a colored shade it would be better, but as it is I don't like looking at it. This one (in a swinging wall fixture with a colored shade) is much easier on the eyes.

The brighter one in my kitchen actually improved the overall appearance of the fixture. As you can see, it brought out its natural Sci Fi tendencies rather well:

Trust me, it's more eye catching than it was. And I have an old 1970s shadeless Warhol "pop art" style fixture that's been gathering dust in the basement, because it looks so tacky. As you can see, even Coco is not particularly impressed:

But with CFLs, I think it will look incredibly cool!

Enough about my light bulb issues, or I'll have to I rename this post "Everything You Need To Know About My Light Bulbs."

Now for the important part. I cannot blame or credit either Glenn Reynolds or Al Gore for my CFL experiences. The main reason is that I bought these bulbs before Glenn was promoting the idea, and even though I knew Al Gore was for them, this would have tended to disincline me towards buying them, as the natural contrarian in me doesn't like being scolded into doing anything -- not even things that might be good ideas. The non-scolding approach of people like Glenn Reynolds is (for me at least) far more effective than heavy-handed moralistic hyperbole.

And as to laws, if they passed a law mandating these things, I'd be inclined to unscrew the CFLs and change them back to incandescents, then write an angry post about the loss of freedom, complete with a snide suggestion about what the bureaucrats might do with their lightbulbs.

How many government bureaucrats does it take to make a libertarian change a lightbulb, anyway?

UPDATE (03/30/07): I don't know why, but I thought this (from Ann Althouse's post about making your home "relationship ready") belonged here:

Get someone to make a video recording of you as you go through your house or apartment looking at all your things. You take the role someone who's just met you and is trying to decide whether to reject you. Be honest. Be merciless!

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't even qualify for "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy," so an inside peek at my lightbulbs is the best I can offer.

As to the piston lamp, they can have it when they pry it from my cold, dead, crankshaft!

UPDATE: Commenter "Tum" has just pointed to an excellent post at The Futurist which discusses HSL revolution and links an incredible new technology called Hybrid Solar Lighting (HSL). It involves parabolic suncollector discs which track the sun, and send natural sunlight all through the house through fiberoptic cables, as well as store it.

Incredibly cool.

BTW, my CFLs cost 99 cents each.

UPDATE: My thanks Glenn Reynolds for the link! I'm especially honored that the blogosphere's leading luminary has honored me by characterizing this post with what appears to be a new phrase -- "LIGHTBULB-BLOGGING."

A warm welcome to new readers, and I do appreciate the comments.

This Is Zimbabwe has the latest news coming out of Zimbabwe. Like this story

Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 34 years for women and 37 years for men.

I would really like you to think about that for a moment. How old are you? How much longer would that leave you to live or have you already exceeded our life expectancy?

Attending funerals is a regular occurrence in Zimbabwe.

I know many people who have died over the last few years.

Last year two of my work colleagues died within the space of a couple of months of each other. I go to funerals, I experience the awfulness of funerals, and then I come home.

But even though this is 'normal', I am sometimes woken up and stunned by something, and I am left horrified and shocked and very sensitive to how extreme life is in Zimbabwe.

For example, a couple of days ago I attended a child's funeral. This is hard enough as it is, but through my tears I noticed how many freshly dug graves there were in the children's section of the cemetery, clear evidence that lots of children are dying.

Even worse, this is a new cemetery and it's already almost full.

I saw two women digging a child-sized grave on their own, and I was told that this was because they could not afford to pay a gravedigger to do it for them.

I was told they were alone because their men were probably out of the country working in South Africa.

The painful reality of what I saw in that place was emphasised by our Zimbabwean tradition of leaving some of the possessions belonging to the person who has died on the grave.

For children this means I was looking at a scene of small graves with bottles, toys, baby baths and other plastic pieces of childhood treasures piled on them. It is wrong, very very wrong, to see these sort of things.

H/T Publius Pundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

It is not safe to be a lesbian in Palestine.

Many of the attendees said they were sad that the only place safe enough to hold a conference for gay Arab women was in a Jewish area of Haifa, which has a mixed Arab-Jewish population.

I got the link from Carl in Jerusalem who asks this question:

Can someone please explain why the queers are for 'Palestine'?

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

Phone hackers morph into computer hackers. Steve Wozniack is featured. I never got into phone hacking (I did work on Motorola's first Electronic Moblie Exchange [EMX] where I learned a lot about tone switching. I was writing a section of the manuals.). However, when the Altair hit the cover of Popular Electronics in January of 1975 I could see my future. I got my hands on an Altair by April and within two years, I was designing computer boards. An I/O board I designed went into the world's first BBS. I knew Randy Suess and Ward Christianson from the Chicago CACHE Club. No one had a decent I/O board at the time with all the functions needed to really control things. Timers, Signaling chips (UARTS), and Control lines. I had it all plus RAM and EPROM sockets. The UART I used was peculiar because you couldn't be sure a software reset always reset the chip. The guys were having that problem and I showed them how to fix it (use one of the control lines to control the hardware reset).

Well I knew hardware and software. Their idea for a BBS? Couldn't see a future in it. Shows you how much I knew. I did log on to their BBS within a year of when it went up and many many times after that until they finally went off line.

We exchanged programs with the BBS using the Xmodem program that Ward designed. It was one of the things that made it possible for people to share compiled programs. Text files were easy to begin with. Then came FIDO net. A network of BBSs that exchanged text files from about 1 AM to 3 AM in the morning so you could have discussion groups. You uploaded your replies and any one on the BBS could immediately comment and you could have nationwide conversations if you could stand a couple of days delay. I used to be up at 3 AM (hackers hours) to be the first to log on and get the lastest messages. What fun!. Then the internet got going and usenet was popular because it was BBS style but comments got posted instantly. And now blogs. Man I love this stuff!

BTW I first got on the internet around Christmas of '95. Back then there were a number of programs you had to integrate to get it to work. Something called Winsock was a notorious pain. My #1 son and I worked around the clock for 3 days getting it all sorted out. He worked while I slept and vice versa. With some overlap time. More fun.

How the Israeli-Palestinian conflict started in 2 1/4 minutes.

Regardless of whether there's anything to the idea that a man should be judged by his enemies, I can't think of anything more likely to get me to vote for Fred Thompson than this news:

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has dealt a potentially devastating blow to Fred Thompson's presidential aspirations, saying the former senator is not a Christian.

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson - considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the U.S. - said in a phone call to Dan Gilgoff, senior editor at U.S. News & World Report.

"[But] I don't think he's a Christian. At least that's my impression."

One I don't think Thompson even needs to dignify with a reply, although his spokesman apparently has:

Thompson's spokesman Mark Corallo took issue with the statement.

"Thompson is indeed a Christian," he said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."

Not so Dobson. What I find particularly remarkable about his outburst is that he measures Christianity according to the loudness of the mouth:

Focus on Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger sought to clarify Dobson's statement, telling Gilgoff that while Dobson didn't believe Thompson belonged to a non-Christian faith, he "has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian - someone who openly talks about his faith.

Since when?

I sincerely hope Dobson's definition of Christianity does not become widely accepted.

For Christianity's sake.

I'm no Christian theologian, but Dobson's denunciation of Christians as "non-Christian" reminds me of the Sayeed Qutb approach of denouncing fellow Muslims as "un-Islamic."

No, I don't mean to say that Dobson is the moral equivalent of Qutb. But bad logic is bad logic, and by questioning Dobson's Christianity, Dobson only invites others to question his.

Who knows? When all this religious test fervor is over, Thompson might end up looking like a better Christian than Dobson!

(Not that it's up to me to decide such things....)

MORE: In Fred Thompson's biography at the Washington Post, there's the following simple entry:

Religion: Protestant

What if it turns out that Fred Thompson indeed "openly talked" about his religion?

Wouldn't that mean Dobson bore false witness?

MORE: Daily Kos analyst "liberalpragmatist" warns fellow leftists not to laugh at Fred Thompson, who "might well be the strongest candidate the Republicans could field":

He comes off to most as more likable than Hillary Clinton. Unlike McCain, Giuliani or Romney, he'll certainly out-Southern John Edwards. And he'll score well on the gravitas score against either Edwards or Obama (less so for the latter).

A Thompson-led ticket could very easily solidify the warring GOP base and wrap up the entire South save a competitive-but-Republican-leaning Florida. Pair him with Tim Pawlenty, the Republican governor of Minnesota as his running mate, and he would be in a very strong general election position.

My guess is that Obama would be the strongest opponent for Thompson. But Thompson could conceivably beat Obama at the debates and could also appear more authoritative than Obama, something that will earn him points among many suburban swing voters and many seniors. Though Obama would likely win big among younger voters, the "age gap" could tip the scales towards Thompson.

I'm not writing off our chances against Thompson; I still think that, given the political climate, we'd be slight favorites. But we'd certainly have to fight hard for it. And though I like our chances against any of the current Republican top three, I'm nowhere near as certain about those chances against Thompson.

Let's hope he doesn't run, or that if he does, all the top money and operatives have already been snatched up and he gains no more traction than, say, Mike Huckabee.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds characterizes the Dobson pronouncement as "ANOTHER REASON TO LIKE FRED THOMPSON."

What Dobson said is looking more and more like an endorsement.

(But I should be more careful with my sarcasm, as one commenter has already noticed that it's an illness I need to heal. Sorry, but it's the illness that drives this blog!)

UPDATE: Via Clayton Cramer, my attention was directed to this apparent qualification of James Dobson's remarks:

"In his conversation with Mr. Gilgoff, Dr. Dobson was attempting to highlight that to the best of his knowledge, Sen. Thompson hadn't clearly communicated his religious faith, and many evangelical Christians might find this a barrier to supporting him. Dr. Dobson told Mr. Gilgoff he had never met Sen. Thompson and wasn't certain that his understanding of the
former senator's religious convictions was accurate. Unfortunately, these qualifiers weren't reported by Mr. Gilgoff. We were, however, pleased to learn from his spokesperson that Sen. Thompson professes to be a believer.

The call to "secular media" Gilgoff in the first place followed by the lawyerlike "qualification" seems fishy to me. I think he wanted to either damage Thompson, or force him to grovel.

Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that the Equal Rights Amendment has been reintroduced. While this is largely symbolic and unnecessary (for the reasons Eugene Volokh points out), it's nonetheless a very shrewd move.

An election move?

To whose benefit?

Well, we're always in the middle of an election, so any move can be seen as an election move, but Bob Krumm links a report showing the people behind it:

Democrats in the Senate and House plan to resume "the fight for women's equality" on Tuesday, when they reintroduce the Women's Equality Amendment.

Sens. Ted Kennedy (Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, both of New York, plan to join Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, in making the Tuesday afternoon announcement.

Clearly, the Dems are thinking ahead. This puts the Republicans in the very difficult position of having to "oppose" equal rights for women, or else have to explain why the ERA is "not needed anymore." Obviously, it is hoped the latter will look lame to the voters, and especially to the gender gap voters.

Who knows? If the Democrats selected a woman as their candidate for president, this might even transform sex from a non-starter into a legitimate campaign issue.

I'd say the Democrats have done their homework well.

This can't do anything but make the Republicans look bad, because there's no way for them to triangulate their way out of it.

(What won't make much difference is whether the ERA is a good or a bad thing.)

UPDATE: NOW is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

UPDATE: Thank you, Glenn Reynolds for the link! Welcome all. (Now, there's a coincidence!)

Yesterday I marveled over the inability of the Philadelphia Inquirer to make any mention of suspects in huge front page story, headlined "Woman dies while trying to help children -- Another family is left to mourn."

There's even a picture of mourners:

Which has this accompanying caption:

Rashiek High (left), whose wife was killed Sunday, gets a hug from a friend outside his house on Pentridge Street in Southwest Phila. Jovonne Stelly was shot in broad daylight when she was caught in a gun battle that erupted on her Kingsessing street.

There's no question that this death was tragic, but what I want to know is why there has been no discussion of the shooters. Were any arrests made? Why not? Considering all the discussion, speculation, and outright mischaracterization of firearms, and the use of the word "slaughter," why is it that nowhere (in any of the articles I've seen) do the words "suspect" or "arrest" occur? And why is it that no reward has been offered?

You'd almost think the guns were the only suspects. Or is there some rule of which I'm unaware that murders committed in the course of family feuds are the fault of the guns?

Were the Hatfields and the McCoys an argument for gun control?

Who knew?

But today, the headline is "Brother; husband arrested in death," and the article begins with talk of "the code of the street":

It's the code of the street: Don't snitch. Dummy up.

"It's not good for me to talk," said a man who declined to give his name as he cleaned up a car damaged by gunfire on the Kingsessing street where Jovonne Stelly, 28, was killed Sunday.

Police yesterday charged two men with her murder - her husband, Rashiek High, 26, and her brother Michael Stelly, 27, both of whom lived with her on the 5800 block of Pentridge Street.

My, the news changes fast around here.

But there still seems to be a movement to make the guns somehow the culprit. Local activists are not happy about the arrests, because the real enemy is, is, well, "the bullets they were dodging." Therefore, a protest march is planned:

The slaying, resulting from a gunfight in which dozens of bullets were fired, was likely the result of a long-simmering dispute.

Detectives also issued an arrest warrant for a third suspect, Keith Devine, 26.

Stelly, a mother of four, died of a shot to the head.

Three alleged killers. One killing shot.

Sgt. Ronald McClane, a detective on the case, said that the ballistic analysis of the slug that killed Stelly was incomplete, and that investigators had not identified the triggerman.

But the principle behind multiple arrests for a single murder is simple, he said: Fire a weapon while committing a felony and face maximum charges if that action contributes to a death.

"The city, the department, the public in general is fed up" with homicides, McClane said. "If you're out there shooting, the D.A.'s Office will come down on you. I think that's in everybody's interest."

While some anti-violence activists applaud such action, Stephanie Dixon, an organizer of a march today to commemorate Stelly, said that some members of her family were upset about the arrest.

"It's not right. They had nothing to do with it. They were dodging bullets just like everybody else. . . . Michael [Stelly] was there just trying to save his sister," Dixon said last night.

The victim's four children, Rashiek, 9, Curtise, 7, Jaylah, 3, and Naj, just a few months old, are being cared for by an aunt, Shelley Myric, Dixon said.

The march, scheduled to step off at 5 p.m. today from 58th Street and Willows Avenue, is "for Jovonne Stelly, but it's also for all the other people dying in this city all over. There's too much bloodshed," Dixon said.

Elected officials and mayoral candidates have been invited, said organizer Stephanie Dixon, who called for citizen action "to stop the madness."

A witness told a reporter Monday that the gun battle, in which up to 40 shots were fired, began when an unspecified number of gunmen emerged from a house and started shooting.

Capt. Michael Costello, commander of the Homicide Unit, said tensions between the two groups involved in the bloody melee, in which four people were wounded, had been building for two weeks and apparently stemmed from a robbery and a subsequent shooting in which no one was hit.

He said that despite Stelly's relationship to the men in custody in her slaying, there was no indication that she was involved in the dispute. She was killed, he said, "trying to remove her children from the line of fire."

Devine's relationship to High and Stelly was not spelled out by police. All three were known to police from previous encounters, officials said.

Costello said at least four guns were fired during the gun battle and police were hunting for others who fired shots.

The feuding factions had engaged in a number of physical confrontations in the last week, including Sunday morning, and from 15 to 20 people gathered on Pentridge Street Sunday afternoon in apparent anticipation of a fistfight, Costello said.

Besides the two groups, children and adults enjoying the good weather also were on the street, he said.

"But at least four to five people brought guns to this fistfight and they didn't think twice about discharging them," Costello said. "It's just insane."

The thing is, I don't doubt the "insane" shooters themselves would be welcomed by the marchers, as long as they agreed that the guns caused their "madness."

I think such thinking is at least as insane as the shootings.

Michael Ledeen has a few complaints about American Diplomats. What I would like to do is suggest a remedy.

They really need to read some Retief novels.

Our military reads Starship Troopers and used to read the Dorsai Novels. The official reading list. Evidently it changes from time to time.

Maybe Foggy Bottom needs a Book of the Month Club.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I don't know exactly what to make of the Palestinian woman who strapped on three live crocodiles (via Pajamas Media) and tried to smuggle them into the Gaza from Egypt. (No, I don't mean she got the crocodiles from Pajamas Media! That's where I got the link.)

I'm troubled, though, because I think this woman is getting a bad press. Almost in kneejerk fashion, people are acting as if she's some kind of weirdo.

What -- do they want her to strap something more normal to her body, like explosives?

Me, I like crocodiles, and even though I don't support breaking the law by smuggling, I find it relieving to see such wholesome behavior for a change.

I just thought I should speak up for her and all other croc lovers.

Including, it should be noted, Barack Obama:

Obama took few kids to his home, just members of an inner circle who were trusted to see his secret pets: crocodiles that lived in a concrete tub, about a foot-and-a-half deep and a yard long, surrounded by chicken wire. The biggest croc was almost as long as its home, recalled Adi.

Obama's stepfather "was breeding crocodiles in his house," he added. "Not many people knew about it. He only had one big crocodile, but they had many smaller ones."

Sheesh. You'd think as a crocodile lover he'd learn to be more liberal.

No really. Since the New York Times and so many other members of the moronocy have demonstrated a huge need for moron offsets (as Glenn Reynolds says, "demand may outstrip supply"), I think they might want to do as this ebay listing suggests.

For less than a million bucks the Times can't go wrong.

I mean, think of what they could net in gross?

AFTERTHOUGHT: I am assuming the listing I linked above is either a hoax, a prank, or a nutty form of satire. (In case of the remote possibility that it is on the level, well, I can't can't wait to see the Times jump on it -- provided they give me credit for passing along a hot scoop!)

Yet another inaccurate and misleading front page Inquirer story attempting to vilify guns instead of the criminals who misuse them.

And yet another meaningless series of corrections by a mean-spirited gun nut whose corrections would only matter to other mean-spirited gun nuts (and possibly a few kooks who dare worry about inaccuracy or bias in the media while people are dying):

In a city plagued by epidemic violence, certain slayings always stand out: the grandmother killed in a parked car by Wild West-style gunfire; the parent senselessly gunned down while minding her kids on the street.

Amid the drumbeat of homicides this year - already at 95, a record for recent years - the slaughter of innocents resonates most deeply.

Kingsessing neighbors say Jovonne Stelly, 28, was just such an innocent mother. She was killed in broad daylight Sunday by an errant gunshot during a battle that police say involved at least four people using high-caliber automatic pistols on Pentridge Street in Southwest Philadelphia. The area, a homicide hot spot, was already the site of increased police patrols.

According to an earlier report, one of the shooters was her nephew, and the confrontation "had begun the night before and reignited about 4:30 p.m.":

A 17-year-old youth was shot in the arm, and a 19-year-old man was shot in the leg. They were taken to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Stelly's relatives said the 17-year-old was her nephew.

The shooting occurred in the 12th Police District, the same neighborhood where Mayor Street and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson less than two weeks ago announced plans to assign 80 additional officers in an effort to curb a surge in violence.

The effort, which started March 14, targets a district that "has been troubled by gun violence," Street said, and is viewed as one of the most dangerous areas in the city.

The gun battle between two feuding families took the life of 28-year-old Jovanne Stelly.

"The commissioner and all the deputies will be working the streets of Philadelphia in uniform," said Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson. "[What happened in Kingsessing this weekend] was a gun fight between two groups, like what used to be the wild west. But Philadelphia is not a wild west city."

But what about the phrase "high caliber"? As Dave Kopel points out elsewhere, the phrase is often misused. As this site explains, it's a non-descriptive term:

The high-caliber rifle is an invention by the news media. Bullets are propelled by a chemical explosion that can be of high-power or low-power.

Caliber is the bore diameter in decimal-inches. You could theoretically refer to a gun with a wide barrel as large-caliber. From my time at aberdeen proving grounds, large caliber is generally a tank round.

Snipers use a range of bullet diameters, some of them up to 0.50 caliber. While that is large-caliber for a rifle, it is peanuts compared to an artillery piece. The also tend to use high-power ammunition to travel long distances.

So you can have high or low power and large or small caliber. But high-caliber is nonsense unless, perhaps, you are referring to the fine workmanship that went into it.

If we assume (as I think we must) that the guns used in the latest shooting were semi-automatic handguns, then they would not be high-velocity, so, giving the writer the benefit of the doubt, it is fair to assume than when he says "high caliber," he means "large caliber."

The problem with that is there's no indication in today's story that large caliber bullets were used. Instead, there's this reference to a 9mm (which happens to be the most commonly available handgun):

Hearing shots fired around 4:30 p.m., Stelly rushed to the street to retrieve two of her children when a bullet crashed through her skull. Two teens, including Stelly's 17-year-old nephew Kendall Sterns, were wounded in the fusillade of as many as 40 rounds unleashed in minutes, police said yesterday.

Investigators did not elaborate on their initial statement that the violence sprang from a lingering dispute that apparently resurfaced.

"She truly didn't deserve to die like this. All she ever wanted was a chance to bring up her babies," said Gregory Burnside, 46, recalling Stelly's devotion to her four children: Rashiek, 9; Curtise, 7; Jaylah, 3, and Naj, just a few months old.

"We need help. When Rizzo was in, there was fear that kept us straight," Burnside said, referring to the hard-line police commissioner and mayor. "That's the help we need. It's way too easy to walk around here with a 9mm."

Not high power, and not large caliber.

I can only conclude that the writer used the term "high caliber" in the same way he used the word "slaughter" -- as rhetorical hyperbole.

I am, however, fascinated by the statement that "when Rizzo was in, there was fear that kept us straight," because I remember Frank Rizzo quite well. He epitomized law and order, was much feared by criminals, and the left absolutely hated him. I think he'd probably be elected overwhelmingly were he alive today, because he'd promise to clean up the crime, and based on his track record, people would believe him.

I doubt he'd focus on guns as the cause, as this administration is doing. And if he did, he'd know the difference between large and small caliber weapons, and probably between automatic and semi-automatic. The article continues:

Johnson said an officer was about a half-block away when Sunday's gunfire erupted and arrived at Pentridge Street about the time the first call to 911 came in. He said shootings and violent crime were down compared with last year, even though the number of homicides is up.

Among the factors that could account for that, he said, were the increased use of automatic weapons (which fire more bullets and faster), and the question of whether a victim can get to one of the city's hospitals that is best equipped to handle gunshot wounds.

There's no question that this death was tragic, but what I want to kn