WARNING: Blunt post follows. Sorry, but the Craig situation is getting a bit ridiculous.

Larry Craig, it seems, is a sitting duck. Word from the Washington rumor mill is that he's an inch or so away from resigning. Not that it matters whether he actually broke any laws. What matters is not what he did but the fact that he pleaded guilty, and for that he is being publicly shamed as an admitted pervert even though he won't admit what nearly the whole world believes he already admitted.

He has, of course, fueled this process by denying that he is gay. The apparent preposterousness of these denials makes everyone close ranks, and conclude that he must in fact be not merely a gay man (hardly a new concept) but a cowering pervert, who is so utterly ashamed to be alive that he is incapable of honesty. (Either than or a man so deeply in denial that his judgment or mental health might be open to question.)

In view of modern reality, isn't this all a bit anachronistic?

Regular readers know that I'd defend to the death the right of anyone to be in the closet, for I believe in the right to privacy as akin to human right. But that's a moral argument, and right now I want to pose a pragmatic question. (Not that I advocate coming out for people who don't want to do that. But the guilty plea changed the ordinary dynamics. And not that there's anything wrong with* being in the closet, of course...)

Has it ever occurred to any of the political junkies that if Larry Craig were to simply "come out" and say he was gay, that he might be able to keep his job and even help the GOP?

Certainly, it would salvage the growing doubts over the man's sanity. Because, if we look at this in terms of the most basic logic, Craig either wanted to have sex with that vice officer or he did not. If he did, well, saying he's gay would clear it up, and he might get a pass because the idea that he was gay and in the closet goes a long way towards explaining everything.

On the other hand, if Larry Craig did not want to have sex with the vice officer, what in God's name was he doing tapping his foot, and then pleading guilty? If he is completely heterosexual, well, that presents obvious problems.... I mean, what do you call a heterosexual man who goes into bathrooms and taps other men who are total strangers on their feet?

Um, insane maybe?

Seriously, are there any other explanations? (The only other one I can think of is that he was playing a practical joke on the officer, but that possibility has never been raised.)

So, if we give him the benefit of the doubt on the gay issue, how can we give him the benefit of the doubt on the sanity issue? We can't. But by "coming out" (loathsome though the thought might be to some), Craig can clear up the issue of his sanity. No one will think he is crazy, even if he is. True, it would be at the expense of his "straighthood" but as stigmas go, what is worse? To be gay, or to be insane?

We come to the question of which possibility is more acceptable to the GOP. Right now, they're faced with the intolerable situation of a fully heterosexual man who is unable to resist tapping men's feet in bathrooms. Once again, this might not be a crime, but we're talking about the image of the Republican Party. Would having a gay Republican come out destroy the party? How? It's happened before (I think it was Steve Gunderson -- forgive my earlier mistake), and did anyone really care? Besides, the people who care about such things are in a minority, and they're already hot and bothered. Doubtless they're calling Craig a wicked evil sodomite and all the rest of it. If he comes out, he'll still be an evil and wicked sodomite, only he'll be a more honest evil and wicked sodomite. As it is, they're looking at either a dishonest sodomite in denial, or a heterosexual loony tune.

I realize that there are things missing in this analysis, and of course the biggest problem is that does not involve actual sex, but the perception of sex. In that respect, Craig's "sex" is like the nonexistent sex of Mark Foley, whose crime was not sex, but sending suggestive emails. (Or Vitter, whose name was found in an address book.)

I'll take Glenn Reynolds' "what is it with these guys?" a step further.

What is it with these guys that they can't even run a proper sex scandal?

Who ever heard of sex scandals without sex?

At least when the Democrats have a sex scandal, it involves real, honest to goodness sex. Yeah, I know, Bill Clinton said the sex wasn't sex. But let's face it, it was. Had Bill tapped Monica's foot, the most he'd have been accused of was playing footsie, and there'd have been little to no outcry, much less an impeachment. And as Matthew Sheffield makes clear, the double standard is appalling; Democrats keep their jobs after drowning women in cars or keeping male brothels, while Republicans are hounded out of office for sex scandals without even the component of sex.

If I were the American people, I'd be totally sick of sexless Republican sex scandals by now.

The GOP needs to shape up.

Starting with Larry Craig. Even the moral conservatives ought to be able to recognize that a gay sex scandal without gay sex is even more abnormal than gay sex. I mean really. It's just plain weird. Couldn't the guy have at least managed to get caught in a gay bathhhouse or something, like a normal homosexual?

So, even though it's counterintuitive and against my usual instincts, my advice right now to Larry Craig boils down to two words: COME OUT.

Plus, there's an additional advantage. If he "comes out," the moralists can always offer to "treat" him.

That might even be a win-win. (At least to some people.)

*HT Glenn Reynolds on the wrongness video.

MORE: Commenter gattsuru says that Craig could be bisexual. Fine. He can then "come out" as bisexual. Perhaps I was inartful when I said he denied being gay, because he said more than that. He also said categorically that he never did anything like what he was accused of. The point is, at this point it does not matter whether he is gay, bi, or straight, because he either wanted to have sex with the officer or he didn't. And if he didn't, the only possibilities are that he's crazy, or joking. OR that this was a misunderstanding. But even there, he still looks crazy, for why would anyone plead guilty in the case of a misunderstanding? (Think about it, if you accidentally took an item from a store without paying and they arrested you for shiplifting, would you plead guilty if there was a genuine misunderstanding? Would any sane person?) Besides, the judge asked him to confirm his guilt and he did.

No, I think Craig should come out -- whether he's gay or bi, or even straight. For the good of the party, and for the good of the country.

Even if it's a bit dishonest for a heterosexual to "come out," they ought to think about how dishonest (and how crazy) he's looking now.

As to showing his Senate card to get out of trouble, yes, it's sleazier than soliciting a vice officer. But unfortunately, the public doesn't seem especially interested in that issue, and it isn't hurting the party as much.

(Hell, politicians pull rank to cut in security lines, and few cared.)

Again, this is not a moral argument I'm making here; it's pure political pragmatism. Craig's resignation in a cloud of shame would be worse than a refreshing and candid announcement.

I think it's becoming more and more clear that shame is a losing proposition. (At least it is for the GOP. For the Dems, Republican shame is blood in the water. A very bad political equation, IMO.)

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link (I'm awestruck to see the quotation) and welcome all. This is not an easy issue to grapple with, and I do appreciate the comments.

Glenn also links this report that Larry Craig will announce his resignation tomorrow.

It's a crying shame to see a party so dominated by the politics of shame. I can remember when Republicans once derided Jimmy Carter as a silly and naive Baptist Sunday School teacher. The way they act with these sexless sex scandals, you'd think they were running for pastor!

My feeling is that unless the GOP gets over having to be the party of sexual morality, this stuff will just keep happening.

Most people who suffer from schizophrenia smoke. A lot.

This is one of those stereotypes that not only happens to be true, but there's a special reason why schizophrenics smoke:

Cigarette smoking may improve attention and short-term memory in persons with schizophrenia by stimulating nicotine receptors in the brain, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the June issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry.

Persons with schizophrenia smoke two to three times more than smokers without mental illness, said the researchers. They found that when study subjects with schizophrenia stopped smoking, attention and short-term memory were more impaired, but, when they started smoking again, their cognitive function improved. No effects from stopping or resuming smoking were observed in smokers without mental illness.

Participants with and without schizophrenia were then asked to smoke while taking a drug called mecamylamine, which blocks nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain, preventing the nicotine from acting on those receptors. Mecamylamine blocked the ability of smoking to improve cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, but not in persons without mental illness. The findings suggest that when people with schizophrenia smoke, they may in part be self-medicating with nicotine to remedy cognitive deficits.

I have a silly moralistic question, based on what many people would call "fairness." Considering the evidence that as many as 88% of these unfortunate people are resorting to self-medication with a legal drug, and considering the medical evidence that it helps them, is it really fair to punish them with punitive taxes aimed at making cigarettes unaffordable?

There are economics involved. Schizophrenics do not have as much money as other people. Most of them are poor, disabled, and living on social security. (I don't think I need to spend a half an hour finding links to prove something that I know is true, and only a fool would dispute.)

I think that inflicting punitive taxation against these people constitutes simple, gratuitous cruelty. But as I pointed out in my last post, fairness is childish, and in the context of the Machiavellian reality of the bureaucratic legal system, it becomes little more than another tactical argument. As a moral issue, fairness might mean something, but legally it counts for very little.

Here's a true story involving a psychiatric nurse I know quite well. She's an immigrant from a country where fairness has always been the cruel joke it's becoming here, but she's a kind person, and she runs a rest home for chronic schizophrenics -- people who don't have families that will care for them, and who are are unable to care for themselves on their own. (Yes, she makes money doing this. Enough to send her hard working daughter from scrubbing the floors to attending a good college.) The residents are the type of people who but for the rest home would be society's refuse -- hallucinating derelicts walking around aimlessly. Many of them were just that before they managed to find a spot in the rest home. (Society, of course refers to street-walking schizophrenics by the euphemism of "homeless," which is true only in a literal limited sense.)

Anyway, this rather good woman makes sure that the most important needs are met. Her family keeps the place clean, her mother cooks the meals, and she performs the most important function of all -- making sure that each patient takes his or her medication. (If you know anything about schizophrenia, you'll know that this is the most serious problem in working with them.) Naturally, nearly all the residents smoke, but they are no good at managing their money, and buying cigarettes at the local store (where they go for the grotesque price of $6.50 a pack) is directly against their financial interest. That's because schizophrenics tend to self medicate heavily -- often two packs a day.

It might not be as expensive as some of the drugs they have to take, but social security does not cover cigarettes, nor does Medicare, Medicaid, or any health insurance policy of which I'm aware.

Do the math; at current store prices, the cigarettes alone would eat up much of the very limited money. Local liquor stores often allow these people to run up a tab, which means they become indebted -- using their monthly check just to pay for what's a form of medication.

Now, I realize that this very fair country is not about to supply schizophrenics with free cigarettes, and you can be sure that if any tobacco company even thought about such a fair idea, media moralists would be all over them in one of the biggest moral feeding frenzies you've ever seen.

But out of the goodness of her heart, but not knowing enough about the legal system to understand the consequences (her English is poor, by the way), this immigrant psychiatric nurse made the mistake of going on line, where she discovered that cigarettes could be purchased for far, far less than the local store, at websites like this one.

Yes, she should have read the fine print. But on the other hand, the bureaucracy might move with a bit of deliberate speed in cases like where a rest home operator purchases cigarettes in quantity for its patients. Eventually, she received a tax bill for over $9,000.

Most Americans would whine. (In fact, that's probably what I'm doing right now.) Others would scream bloody murder about the cosmic injustice of it all. But this woman knows all about government, and all about bureaucrats. After all, she comes from a country where tyranny is a way of life. She's smart enough to know that Americans might feel sorry for her patients, and take pity on someone in her position.

I encouraged her to exploit the emotional factor to the hilt, and I hope it works. I'm thinking that some taxing authority might either take pity on her, or else be afraid of how it might look. (How things might look is often more important than how things really are.)

But if she succeeds in thwarting the tax collector, it will not be because of cosmic justice, or fairness, because there is none, and she's smart enough to know it.

Why is it that so many Americans see fairness first? As if it's a thing to be expected!

Is this a flaw in the national character? An asset? Or just part of our naive charm?

I can't figure it out, but I'm smart enough to pretend to have it when I need to pretend.

And I'm dumb enough to actually believe (in my naive bleeding heart) that laying extortionate taxes on schizophrenics' cigarettes is profoundly, horribly unfair.

So what, you say?

So I'm writing a blog post, that's what!

Well, at issue before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is the right to buy a six-pack.

More properly, the right to sell six-packs to the public. Pennsylvania has a medieval liquor control system under which beer is supposed to be bought by the case at so-called "beer distributors." (Or at bars and places which offer sit-down consumption, where beer can be sold by the six-pack at much higher bar prices.) The beer distributors are specially licensed creations of the state, so naturally they have a powerful lobby, now battling a large retailer which wants to sell beer to go:

The case grew out of a central Pennsylvania chain's long-running attempt to capitalize on the state's arcane liquor laws and sell six-packs at one of its convenience stores. A victory for Sheetz Inc. could produce new profits for such chains and supermarkets.

It could also mean major competition for the hundreds of traditional beer distributors. They worry that customers will stop buying the cases they sell and start buying six-packs elsewhere.

"It's the nail in the coffin," said Chris Fetfatzes, part of the family that owns Bella Vista Beer Distributors at 11th and Fitzwater Streets. "This is our passion. This is our blood, our source of income."

A decision favorable to Sheetz could also affect the thousands of bars and taverns where Pennsylvanians now go to buy six-packs.

On the other hand, a loss for Sheetz could force the Liquor Control Board to review its interpretation of existing law - and that could affect who gets the coveted beer licenses.

"It has the potential to change the way the laws are interpreted," LCB spokesman Nick Hays said. "It could have a tremendous impact."

That [a decision in favor of Sheetz] could mean a floodgate of new competitors for beer distributors and tavern owners.

According to the Pennsylvania Beer Wholesalers Association, the economic impact of beer-related businesses to the Pennsylvania economy totals nearly $7 billion. Directly and indirectly, it says, beer employs 80,873 Pennsylvania workers.

Tom Berry, president of the Pennsylvania Tavern Association and owner of Tommy's Tavern in Collingdale, said small businesses like his would take a hit: "It will take away 50 percent of the take-out six-pack sales we make, at a minimum. You can't compete pricewise with, say, a Wal-Mart."

Shawn March, 41, owner of Beermill of Chester County in West Chester, said that allowing beer sales at places like Sheetz would lead to beer sales at big-box national chains, undercutting small businesses such as his.

"I was a high school kid. I worked for a beer distributor, learned to manage a beer distributorship. I worked for 10 years and bought the beer distributorship. I then spent 10 years investing my time and money" in the business, March said.

This touches on human nature, and the idea of fairness. Is it "fair" that beer distributors be screwed? While most adults realize that life is unfair (notwithstanding attempts by clueless adults to teach kids otherwise), there is nonetheless a self righteous sense of moral indignation which can be triggered when the state messes around with things like the free market and the work ethic by creating and enforcing "rules."

We are taught as children that rules must be obeyed. That life may not be fair, but that the same rules are supposed to be there for everyone, and that obedience to the rules is the closest thing to fairness. A corollary of this is that if you obey the rules, play by the rules, and are rewarded accordingly you have legitimately "earned" something which someone who didn't play by the rules has not. That is why hard working people tend to resent those who are seen as getting "something for nothing" as it distorts the adult view of fairness. The beer distributors who have built up family businesses under the prevailing system can therefore naturally be expected to be just as resentful of the guy running a grocery store a block away suddenly being allowed to sell beer as a cab driver might be to see cab medallions suddenly available to anyone who wanted one. (Or, worse, if a lawsuit by "pirate" cab drivers forced the government to give them something they are seen as stealing.) Taxpayers have a similar view of tax cheats, and resident aliens who followed the rules and spent years waiting to enter the country have a similar view of illegal aliens. This is human nature. Cynical assholes like me (along with immigrants from countries where corruption is not kept in the closet) realize that the government is inherently corrupting, and tend to see regulatory agencies not as forces based on fairness, but as petty tyrannies. Seen this way, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the FCC, the Berkeley Rent Board, and the IRS are vested with no inherent moral authority. This does not mean that they can be disobeyed, because they have the power to enforce their will -- at gunpoint if necessary. Only a fool would challenge them on the moral ground that they have no moral authority, because they have legal authority. This means, though, that they're sometimes subject to attack on legal grounds, and only then does "fairness" enter the picture (usually as window dressing on a legal argument).

But there's no getting around the expectation of fairness. It causes a lot of heartache. Especially when the government is seen as the parent.

Perhaps one of the reasons so many new immigrants are successful in businesses that no American family would start is that they don't expect fairness. They see the various regulatory and taxing authorities the way their ancestors saw them. As equivalents of warlords, mandarins, pashas, and caudillos. Not as dispensers of fairness, but powerful human beings who simply have to be paid.

Nothing fair about power.

(Except in artificial settings called "meritocracies," but that's another subject.)

You think this is bad? Just wait till they start taking anthropogenic global warming seriously.

UPDATE: Wow, I just saw that Glenn Reynolds linked this post, and all the great comments are flowing! Thank you all for coming, and if you're interested in the fairness issue, don't miss the post I wrote after this one about the fairness of taxing cigarettes used as self medication for schizophrenia.

Who does House #2 belong to?

House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F. ) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

As if we needed any further proof that left-wing gay activists hate gay privacy, a friend just sent me a link to a story about the gay whorled, and the gay indexed. Activists are desperate to discover some sort of identifying feature which they can use to confirm their rather ridiculous notion that all gays are born gay, and that therefore sexual preference is akin to race and not a matter of personal freedom. Accordingly, they assert that there are certain gay physical characteristics, and provide the following list (presumably for use as a home "gay test"kit):

1. Gay men are more likely than straight men to have a counterclockwise hair whorl on the back of their heads.

2. Gay men and straight women have an increased density of fingerprint ridges on the thumb and pinkie of the left hand.

3. The index fingers of most straight men are shorter than their ring fingers, and for most women they are the same length or longer. Gay men and lesbians tend to have reversed ratios.

4. Gay men and lesbians have a 50 percent greater chance of being left-handed or ambidextrous than their straight counterparts.

(Larry Craig, I guess, should consider himself lucky he's bald.)

I'm not sure whether to dignify this with serious comment, or leave it as a joke for peope to play with, but when I read the underlying "scientific data" in New York Magazine, I saw much speculation, and not a lot of proof:

Richard Lippa, a psychologist from California State University at Fullerton, is one of the leading cataloguers of the many ways in which gay people are different. I caught up with him a few weeks ago at a booth at the Long Beach Pride Festival in Southern California, where he was researching another hypothesis--that the hair-whorl patterns on gay heads are more likely to go counterclockwise. If true, it will be one more clue to our biological uniqueness.

[...]

By the end of the two-day festival, Lippa had gathered survey data from more than 50 short-haired men and photographed their pates (women were excluded because their hairstyles, even at the pride festival, were too long for simple determination; crewcuts are the ideal Rorschach, he explains). About 23 percent had counterclockwise hair whorls. In the general population, that figure is 8 percent.

"We're reaching a consensus on a broad question," says J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University. Is sexual orientation "something we're born with or something we largely acquire through social experience? The answer is clear. It's something we're born with."

Regarding the fingers, the evidence is inconclusive. A study cited by CNN found that while there appeared to be a correlation with lesbian fingers, "the pattern for men was more complicated. There did not appear to be a direct relationship between finger length and sexual orientation." A UC Davis pscyhologist calls even the lesbian finger ratios an oversimplifcation:

....University of California Davis psychologist Gregory Herick says using finger ratios as a biological explanation for lesbianism is an over simplification.

"We're going to find there are many different ways people become heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual as an adult," Herick said. "I think one of the problems with interpreting findings of this sort, people have a tendency to say, 'Here's the answer. Now we know.' And they're eventually proven wrong."

I have never doubted for a moment that there is a "born that way" group. But if we assume that there is, does that invest them with any particular moral authority over the rest of the so-called "gay community"? I put it in quotes because isn't a community at all, but a diverse collection of people with nothing in common except a sexual interest in members of the same sex. For that crime, they were once persecuted and had their privacy invaded; now they're having their privacy invaded for the crassest political reasons by people who are contaminating science with identity politics.

DISCLOSURE: In the interest of science, I guess I should point out that my whorl runs to the right, and my ring finger is longer than my index finger.

This puts me in with the straight majority, the gay majority, and probably the bi majority -- although psychologist Michael Bailey says there is no such thing as male bisexuality. (It would not surprise me if he thinks bisexuals are gays who live "in the closet." Most of them are, because they can't "come out." At least, not as bisexuals, for if they did that, they'd still be "in the closet" according to him, wouldn't they? Anything that negates his theories indicates the presence of a "closet" -- which is an emergent form of immorality. Who knows? Maybe there's a "closet gene" which hides itself from researchers.)

It seems that at least two Marines are planning on suing John "I Was A Marine" Murtha over his public comments on the Haditha Incident once they are fully exonerated. From the first link:

Well, the Marine Corps investigator has now dropped all charges against 3 of the 8 accused Marines in the case, and only one Marine still stands accused of crimes at the scene. The others are charged with various after-the-fact issues that arose from investigations of Haditha, not the events themselves. Murtha's aim, of course, in accusing the Marines of murder "in cold blood" was to pin the blame on Bush. But in the process of blaming Bush, he slandered those Marines.

One of those Marines, Col. Jeffrey Chessani, plans to sue Murtha once he's exonerated.

The evidence is that the Marines were doing their job as trained and within the limits of the rules of engagement.

Based on that reasoning, the case against Wuterich is likely to fall apart too. He is the last Marine against whom charges from that night remain. If the charges against him fall, game over. Jack Murtha will have slandered Marines who acted according to their training during the course of ongoing combat.

The Marines may just have a case.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Is there some kind of statute of limitations on news stories? Any rule about how old they have to be?

Recently, a story has been circulating about a man named "Mark Voegel" in Dortmund, Germany, who was supposedly bitten by a pet Black Widow spider named "Bettina," following which his body was reported to have been substantially devoured by spiders and lizards. Here's the text of the story, which is dated August 31, 2007:

From ALLAN HALL
in Berlin

A MAN who lived in his own "zoo" of lizards and insects was fatally bitten by a pet black widow spider -- then eaten by the other creepy-crawlies.

Police broke in to Mark Voegel's apartment to find spider Bettina along with 200 others, several snakes, a gecko lizard called Helmut and several thousand termites had gorged on his body.

Neighbours alerted police after becoming alarmed by the stink.

And horrified officers were met by a nightmare scene.

A police spokesman said: "It was like a horror movie. His corpse was over the sofa.

"Giant webs draped him, spiders were all over him. They were coming out of his nose and his mouth.

"There was everything there one could imagine in the world of reptiles.

"Larger pieces of flesh torn off by the lizards were scooped up and taken back to the webs of tarantulas and other bird-eating spiders."

Loner Voegel, 30, never invited people back to his "jungle" home, a small apartment in the German city of Dortmund.

Police described it as a cross between a botanical garden and the butterfly breeding ground in the serial killer movie The Silence Of The Lambs.

One tarantula had built a nest the size of a swallow's in a corner of the ceiling.

Voegel also had a boa constrictor and several poisonous frogs from South America.

Spider expert and animal cruelty officer Gabi Bayer said he kept creatures "that should never be allowed in a private home".

She said: "He had spiders so aggressive they are the equivalent of a pit-bull in the animal world."

The reptiles were allowed to roam free in the flat.

The heating elements on two tanks containing spiders and their termite snacks had exploded and dislodged the metal tops allowing them to escape.

Voegel is thought to have been dead for between seven and 14 days.

A post-mortem will be carried out in the next few days. But authorities believe Bettina alone was responsible for Voegel's death.

I realize that nothing ever happens in August, but was yesterday an especially slow news day or something? (I wouldn't have known, as I was busy tap-dancing along with Larry Craig's T-room footsie saga.)

The problem is that the same story (involving the same cast of characters, and with much of the same wording as "today's" Sun "report") occurs in old discussions as a 2004 Darwin Award story:

Darwin Awards:
Eaten By His Pet Spiders

SPIDERMAN Mark Voegel became a gruesome feast for the creepy-crawlies he loved. They devoured his body after he got a lethal bite from his favorite pet Bettina - a deadly Black Widow.

More than 200 spiders, several snakes, a gecko called Helmut and several thousand termites gorged on their former master for days. Police who were called in after neighbors complained about the smell said it was "like a scene from a horror movie".

They found the remains of 30-year-old loner Voegel draped across a sofa, covered in giant cobwebs.

"Spiders were running all over him," said a spokesman. "They were coming out of his nose and mouth. Larger pieces of flesh had been torn off by the lizards and were taken back to the webs of tarantulas and other bird-eating spiders.

"There were open cages and terrariums everywhere - all bathed in a weird green light. It was horrible."

Police described Voegel's tiny apartment in the German city of Dortmund as a cross between a botanical garden and the butterfly breeding room in the serial killer movie The Silence of the Lambs.

Local expert Gabi Bayer said Voegel should never have been allowed to keep many of his pets.

She added: "Some of his spiders are so aggressive they're the equivalent of the pit-bull in the animal world."

Submitted on 2004Feb28, Submitted by: Dug Fresh, Reference: Mirror.co.uk, Copyright © 2004 DarwinAwards.com

Whether the story was ever true, I have no way of knowing, because it's so old that the Dortmund news reports have probably vanished. But some spider geeks seemed to have debunked much of it in 2004, with activist "Gabi Bayer" claiming she'd been misquoted, that there was no verification of any spiders causing the death, and -- get this -- that the Washington Times was irresponsible in reporting the story! Here's "gothmog" commenting on O3-01-2004:

Hi All, first post here

Been following this silly story and just spotted it on the Washington Times website.

The Sun is one thing but isn't the Washington Times supposed to be a proper newspaper?

I think that by any reasonable standard, recycling old news that was made up in the first place is even worse than recycling old news and claiming it just happened. (At least the Washington Times doesn't seem to have fallen for it the second time around. Not yet, anyway.)

According to the Wiki entry, the Sun is the largest English newspaper in the world, and while it has a reputation for sensationalism, I don't think making up stories and then repeating them as new three years later constitutes sensationalism. It's more on the level of Weekly World News.

Blogger Steven Lloyd actually remembered the story, so he dug into its history and credibility. Apparently it is old, but the Sun keeps running it as new and it keeps getting recirculated, no matter how many times it's disproved:

Members of the forum searched all over the internet and could not find any instances or records of a German man, "Mark Voegel" or "Mark Vogel" or "Mark Vögel" ever having been killed. Nor anybody having been killed by a spider or spiders and/or eaten by reptiles.

The only record of this having ever happend is in the British Sun.co.uk and the Mirror. If this had happened, surely there would be a German story about it?

The Sun internet address/URL has the code 20040920 which is safe to assume is 2004-09-20, The Mirror's article is dated 8-28-4, or 28th August 2004

This is yet more evidence of media corporations trying to latch onto internet memes without filtering them or checking them for facts first, even if the story was factual (which there is no evidence for!) it is still 3 years old and News is presenting it as current.

Longtime readers may remember that I devoted a great deal of time to debunking that rather ridiculous "news site" run by Doug Thompson -- which featured fictitious characters like the disappearing "George Harleigh." I remember being foolish enough to think that because Capitol Hill Blue had been "discredited" that it would just go away. Not so. Capitol Hill Blue and Doug Thompson have a seemingly endless capactity for self reinvention -- which in turn is now forcing bloggers to reinvent the wheel doing what was supposedly done long ago. In "UPDATE 2: He's Baaack - More Lies, Hilarity & Hypocrisy from Doug Thompson & Capitol Hill Blue" and "One Man, Two Phantom Sources, a Few Fictional Friends, and Zero Credibility a very thorough blogger has painstakingly built yet another case against CHB and Thompson. I'm delighted to be cited as a source, but I wish it wasn't necessary for anyone to be doing this all over again -- especially in such painstaking detail.

Much as my hat's off to journlisnt.com. and to all the debunkers like him, I'm wondering....

Is there any way to debunk anything so that it stays debunked?

By now almost everyone has seen the little Paw house on the left. It's the little house on the flight path.

DALY CITY, Calif. -- One of the biggest sources of political donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton is a tiny, lime-green bungalow that lies under the flight path from San Francisco International Airport.

Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show.

Kent Cooper, a former disclosure official with the Federal Election Commission, said the two-year pattern of donations justifies a probe of possible violations of campaign-finance law, which forbid one person from reimbursing another to make contributions.

"There are red lights all over this one," Mr. Cooper said.

There is no public record or indication Mr. Hsu reimbursed the Paw family for their political contributions.

An article yesterday elaborates:

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that a modest home in a middle-class San Francisco suburb, where the family of mail carrier William Paw resides, is listed as the address for many contributions to the Clinton campaign. Mr. Hsu once listed the home as his address, according to public records, and the Paws' donations closely tracked his.

Mr. Hsu's lawyer, Lawrence Barcella, took issue with a connection between his client and the Paws.

"Like every fund-raiser, he asks friends, colleagues and others to support the causes and candidates he supports. That is what every fund-raiser in America for any cause -- political or nonprofit -- does," Mr. Barcella said in a written statement. "And, in none of these instances, to address the WSJ innuendo, has Mr. Hsu reimbursed them for their contributions."

However, the claim is being made that Hsu "hired" the mailman's son.

Campaign-finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission list Mr. Hsu as a consultant with a company called Components Ltd.; a director of another called Next Components; a designer for Because Men's Clothes; and an independent apparel consultant.

Mr. Hsu has been connected with the Paws for at least a decade, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Hsu recently hired William Paw's 35-year-old son, Winkle Paw, to work for several of his New York apparel companies.

In an email last night, one of the Paws' sons, Winkle, said he had sometimes been asked by Mr. Hsu to make contributions, and sometimes he himself had asked family members to donate. But he added: "I have been fortunate in my investments and all of my contributions have been my money."

In today's San Francisco Chronicle, there's a long story headlined "Democrats abandon fundraiser who turns out to be fugitive felon." The details of the story make it quite clear that Hsu is a crook who has fled back to his native Hong Kong. As to his his dealings with Winkle Paw, there are more red flags:

Hillary Clinton and other Democrats scrambled to distance themselves from a big-name party fundraiser who was exposed Wednesday as a fugitive who disappeared 15 years ago after pleading no contest to felony grand theft in the Bay Area.

Norman Hsu, a 56-year-old New York resident, also has been linked to a Daly City family that has become a major Democratic donor. The family has given money to many of the same candidates and party causes as Hsu, their longtime friend and business partner.

Some Democrats also were scrutinizing contributions from members of the Daly City family, the Paws, who could not be reached for comment at their home or over the telephone.

Hsu, whom Democrats acknowledged as an important backer earlier this week, had moved to the persona non grata list by Wednesday.

On Tuesday, for example, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson called Hsu "a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party." By Wednesday afternoon, Luis Vizcaino, a California spokesman for the New York senator's presidential campaign, said it would give all $23,000 of Hsu's contributions to charity.

Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, went further. Not only will she return $8,000 Hsu contributed to her campaigns, she also will give back $2,500 from siblings Winkle and Marina Paw, who both live on Shelbourne Avenue with their parents, William and Alice Paw.

But we are told that Winkle has "recently" been hired by the fleeing fugitive to "work" "for several of his New York apparel companies."

Come on!

No wonder candidates are returning the money.

"When any contribution is called into question in any way by a credible source, it is the congresswoman's position to return the funds," said Lauren Smith, a spokeswoman for Matsui.

San Jose Rep. Mike Honda, Al Franken, who is a Senate candidate in Minnesota, and Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania also said they were purging Hsu's money from their campaigns.

The presidential campaign intrigue descended upon the Paws' neatly kept, lime-green home in Daly City this week when it was revealed that the family had given more than $200,000 to Clinton and other Democratic candidates for national office in recent years, more money than high-profile donors like the Maloof family, owners of the Sacramento Kings basketball team, have given.

If this story only involved the disappearing Hsu -- the crook Hillary never knew was a crook -- and a few people used as passthroughs to launder the campaign money, that would be one thing. In Hsu's case, of course the evidence is overwhelming that not only is he a crook, but he's a smoke-and-mirrors, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't specialist for whom money laundering would appear to be child's play:

"Bundling is legal as long as everyone is contributing his own money," said Bob Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies. "But when one person supplies the money, that's money laundering, not bundling."

The difference, however, can be hard to prove.

"If everyone maintains the same story - 'It's my money' - there's really no way of challenging that unless law enforcement gets involved," said Susan Lerner of Clean Money California, a group backing public financing of campaigns.

"For candidates, it's a 'Don't ask, don't tell' situation. They keep having shady characters who are wondrous bundlers because they have no incentive to ask, 'Who are you and where does this money come from?' "

In the grand theft case, Hsu was charged with bilking about 20 investors, including his ex-girlfriend, in connection with a business that was supposed to deliver, among other things, latex gloves to a firm that provides supplies to maids and exterminators. Smetana said investors lost about $1 million.

The problem, authorities said at the time, was that Hsu never bought any gloves, and the company he was supposed to sell them to had never heard of him.

Some investors initially received payouts, but those stopped in the spring of 1990. Hsu, prosecutors alleged, even went so far as to file a fake lawsuit against himself to try to explain why he was short of funds.

"What Mr. Hsu was in the business of was running a Ponzi scheme," Smetana said at a preliminary hearing, according to a transcript. "He was taking money and spending part of it on himself and returning it as it was available. As with any Ponzi scheme, the first ones in and the first ones out always do quite well."

I'd like to offer a slight correction for the headline.

"Democrats abandon another fundraiser who turns out to be fugitive felon."

That's because (notwithstanding the complaint that the WSJ piece is a smear on Asians) this whole thing is so eerily reminiscent of the still unresolved Peter Paul affair that I initially was confused by the headline and thought that might be what it was about. The pattern is similar. Paul held a huge fundraiser, and was so chummy with Hillary that she regaled him with a tale of a blind date:

Nothing wrong with being chummy with the guy. After all, the event raised a small fortune. But when the scandal broke, Paul became Mr. "Who"? because that was Hillary's response when asked about him.

Lest anyone think this is a right wing conspiracy theory just because it involves Hillary, ABC News did a major expose of Paul and the Google video of it follows. (According to the caption, "Disney brass were coerced by Hillary to re-edit the piece the night before broadcast to take out all references to Hillary's finance director, David Rosen.")

If you watch the above videos, you'll notice an older man sitting to HIllary's left. He's Stan Lee, creator of the famed Spider Man. Here's a video of him stating that the money reported as being donated by him was not his:

Showed the check he wrote, Mr. Lee, says it was reimbursed by Peter Paul, exclaiming "I never had a hundred thousand dollars to donate to anybody!"

I think it's kind of sad to drag a distinguished comics artist into a money laundering scheme when he ought to be enjoying his old age. But I guess that's politics as usual.

The Peter Paul and Hillary stuff doesn't really stand out in the Wiki entry for Mr. Lee, but it does link a WaPo piece with a title that's a mouthful -- House Of Cards -- What do Cher, a Hollywood con man, a political rising star and an audacious felon have in common? Together they gave Bill and Hillary Clinton a night they'll never forget -- no matter how hard they may try. To read the details of how Stan Lee was inveigled into the mess, you have to skip to the last page of the article. It's long and complicated, but Paul (a convicted felon) wanted one of those pardons, he didn't get it, and he ended up skipping to Brazil, without much regard for Mr. Lee:

In January 2001, the New York Senate 2000 Committee filed a report with the FEC stating that the Hollywood gala had been produced with in-kind contributions -- meaning goods and services, not cash -- of $401,419. The donor for $366,564 of that was listed as Stan Lee Media.

Sitting in Brazil fuming and scheming, Paul tried to trade what he knew about the financing of the Hollywood gala in exchange for federal prosecutors giving him immunity for securities fraud, court records and correspondence show.

The story of Paul with Bill and Hill is also quite amusing, but again, it's all on the last page of the WaPo story. Is that the upside down pyramid style of journalism? The boring stuff on top, and the good stuff lies at the bottom? Even truly great stuff -- like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and Bill Clinton crying over inaugural comings out:

[Bill Clinton] sang along as Diana Ross belted out "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." He wiped away tears when Melissa Etheridge said that Clinton had brought such a spirit of openness to the land that she was inspired to announce during his inauguration festivities that she was gay.

Through it all, Paul sat beaming in the front row right next to the first family, photos of that night show. In one, Paul is at the president's right, with Clinton's hand resting familiarly on his shoulder. To Clinton's left, is Paul's wife, Andrea, a tall, striking blonde, a presidential arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

The Peter Paul scandal doesn't seem to want to go away, and in June Michelle Malkin wrote a post called "Hillary courts the X-men vote" which has another video.

Right now, of course, the focus is on Hillary's latest abandoned fugitive felon fundraiser. Michelle Malkin had a post on that, and today she has a nostalgic post about Hillary's relationship with former fugitive donor Rehman Jinnah.

Who?

I hope this abandonment of fugitive felon fundraisers isn't a pattern.

I mean, if I were a fugitive felon fundraiser, my feelings would be hurt!

(All talk of "Castro's Dream Team" notwithstanding. Of course, if the Freepers are right, Castro isn't very fond of Peter Paul.)

QUESTION: If the Hsu story is a smear against Asians, does that mean the Peter Paul story is a smear against elderly cartoonists?

How far does identity politics go?

UPDATE: Norman Hsu has also given (or directed) a lot of money to Pennsylvania Democrats. Governor Ed Rendell is keeping his $37K:

one of Norman Hsu's biggest beneficiaries in the state, Gov. Rendell, said yesterday that he would keep the money - and stand by his friend - unless he learned more damaging information about the case.

"I want to hear him out; I don't want to be one of the guys to pile on," Rendell said. "Norman Hsu's one of the best 10 people I've met. He raised money for me because he believes in all the things we're doing and he never asked for a bloody thing - not a job, not a contract, not [even] to attend a wedding."

Rendell received $37,866 from Hsu during 2005 and 2006, according to state campaign-finance records. Pennsylvania does not limit the size of contributions.

The governor said he would return the money if California had a "sustainable conviction" in the fraud case. "I'm amazed how he could be a 'fugitive' . . . and one of the most visible people in American politics," Rendell said.

Recently elected U.S. Reps Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy said they would return the Hsu contributions, but not those from Winkle Paw (described in the Inquirer as "an investor from Daly City, Calif., who has done business with Hsu.")

Paw seems to know how to spread his money around. Business must be great!

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.

Welcome all!

I made a few corrections in the above, and I guess here is as good a place as any to note commenter Bill Roper's complaint that I should have called Mr. Lee a writer and not an artist. (My ignorance about the comics field is obviously showing.)

UPDATE (08/31/07): At 8:45 a.m. PDT, Norman Hsu surrendered to authorities in San Mateo, California.

I was visiting The Reference Frame where Lubos was talking about the changes required to become 100% carbon free by 2030 and came across this gem:

All industry and traffic will have to be converted to a new kind of energy that either doesn't exist today or looks economically or socially unacceptable. Agriculture, transportation, and industry represent significant fractions of the greenhouse emissions and the basic nature of all of them will have to be radically changed. That won't be enough because even breathing and grilling parties produce carbon dioxide. These processes will have to be banned, too, much like alcohol fermentation, cement production, and dozens of other processes.

How is this complete destruction of our civilization justified? Well, those people think that this radical step will lead to a Flat Earth's Climate (thanks, moptop).

That just about sums it up. Flat Earth Climate.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers

Oooops. That one is for the peak oil folks. It looks like all that has peaked is the easy to get oil. Evidently there is an abundance with current technology and prices.

We're flying over the Gulf of Mexico, above some 3,500 oil production platforms, and Siegele is pointing them out with the verve of a birder -- here a miniature oil rig known as a monopod; over there a drill ship almost as big as the Titanic; still farther out, platforms looking like huge steel chandeliers that dropped out of the storm-shaken clouds.

Siegele has reason to be giddy. He works for Chevron, and his team is sitting on several new record-breaking discoveries in the Gulf, a region that many geologists believe may have more untapped oil reserves than any other part of the world. On this trip, the 48-year-old vice president for deepwater exploration has come to a rig called the Cajun Express to oversee final preparations before drilling begins on the company's 30-square-mile Tahiti field.

Looming like an Erector set version of Hellboy -- with cranes for arms, a hydraulic drill for its head, and a 200-foot derrick for a body -- the rig appears at once menacing and toylike. But the real spectacle is below the surface: A drill is plunging down through 4,000 feet of ocean and more than 22,000 feet of shale and sediment -- a syringe prodding Earth's innermost veins. That 5-mile shaft will soon give Chevron the deepest active offshore well in the Gulf. Some land drills have gone deeper, but extracting oil from below miles of freezing salt water and unyielding sediment creates a set of technical problems that far exceed those faced on terra firma.

Even better, a recent discovery by Chevron has signaled that soon there may be vastly more oil gushing out of the ultradeep seabeds -- more than even the optimists were predicting four years ago. In 2004, the company penetrated a 60 million-year-old geological stratum known as the "lower tertiary trend" containing a monster oil patch that holds between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels of crude. Dubbed Jack, the field lies beneath waters nearly twice as deep as those covering Tahiti, and many in the industry dismissed the discovery as too remote to exploit. But last September, Chevron used the Cajun Express to probe the Jack field, proving that petroleum could flow from the lower tertiary at hearty commercial rates -- fast enough to bring billions of dollars of crude to market. It was hailed as the largest publicly reported discovery in the past decade, opening up a region that is perhaps big enough to boost national oil reserves by 50 percent. A mad rush followed, and oil companies plowed more than $5 billion into this part of the Gulf.

Between new oil finds like that and recent funding for Dr. Bussard's Fusion experiments, I'm very optimistic about our energy future. Our transition away from oil will be difficult, but not excessively painful.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Rand Simberg has a post Glenn Reynolds linked earlier, which is so good that I don't think it belongs in an update to either of the posts I've written about Senator Larry Craig; hence this post.

Commenting on the now-routine charge that Larry Craig is guilty of "hypocrisy" for being against gay marriage, Simberg asks a couple of excellent questions:

what difference does it make what his position is on gay marriage? It would have made as much, or as little, sense to me to have written, "Craig, who has voted to cut taxes," or "Craig, who has voted against more stringent gun controls." The guy's supposedly a conservative. How did they expect him to vote?

Where is it written that gay people are intrinsically supposed to support gay marriage?

You'd almost think that there was no moral right to privacy, nor a right for anyone to be in the closet. Indeed, "closet" is a word implying evil. Secrecy. Something to hide. Those who are not open about their homosexuality are considered pathetic misfits, and morally opprobrious by those who demand they "come out." And those who are conservative on top of that are guilty of "self loathing."

Who the hell has any right to demand that anyone else "come out," anyway? I think it's despicable.

Where does it end? And from where does this system of morality derive? I thought the idea was to get past the imposition of sexual morality by society, not reimpose it. With the old system of stigmatized homosexuality, it was believed that normal people had a right to look down on homosexuals, who were disgraced. A man's sexuality was a relevant consideration in determining where he could work, where he could live, and even whether he had the right to freedom itself. Under the new, "improved" system, homosexuals only have limited rights; provided they surrender their privacy by publicly announcing they are gay and declare themselves part of an "identity," they are permitted to claim certain rights and privileges. But if they feel uncomfortable with building a whole identity around their genitalia, they're seen as less than full citizens. Why is that? Whatever happened to the right to make up your mind about how you want to live?

Seriously, this not-letting-people-be-in-the-closet business is the same mechanism that used to tyrannize closeted gay people in the old days. They once feared being outed, and they still fear being outed. Only the identities and political perspectives of the Ask and Tell people have changed. (Of course, they used to pry in order to hurt; now they pry in order to "help." Help the identity politics cause, that is.)

Anyway, I don't know whether Larry Craig is gay, or straight, or bi, or confused, or in the closet. So I can't say that he is "in the closet" -- even though he is considered to be "out" by now. But why doesn't he (or didn't he -- at least before the guilty plea) have the same right to be in the closet as any other asshole walking around on the streets? It seems to me that if Larry Craig had no moral right to be in the closet, then neither do they.

Is that desirable? Should all people have to confess their innermost sexual desires, so that they can be officially tolerated -- but only by the Democratic Party?

It sure seems that way.

What a racket. I'm amazed people can't see past it.

Finally, speaking of rackets, Simberg also discusses the "sex offsets" racket:

So votes for gay marriage and keeping abortion legal are "sex offsets" for Republicans. In fact, come to think about it, it's what kept Republican Bob Packwood in office for so long, despite his long history of sexually harassing women. Apparently, though, he apparently didn't buy enough of them to cancel out his most egregious behavior.

In other words, as long as you vote like a Democrat, you get a free pass, just like them.

Beware! This can all lead us straight down the path towards double reverse outing! (It's not as if we weren't warned.)

Whatever happened to the right to be left alone?

Don't ask. It's evil to want to be left alone. Such an obsession with individualism might lead to the closet!

(Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect such a powerful source of shame to be lightly discarded. That's why we have new closet masters.)

UPDATE (08/31/07): My thanks to Matthew Sheffield of Newsbusters for the link -- in a very thoughtful post.

Another typical example of how I thought I'd come up with an original meme, only to Google-discover how utterly unoriginal I am.

However, if the Moon God theory is correct, the god of the Old Testament is not the same god as the god of the Koran.

Maybe I should have said "ALLAH HATES GOD"? Of the two memes, it's in the Google minority.

Is this a thoughtful thing to think about?

(I'd hate to be guilty of thinking thoughtless thoughts about thoughtful things....)

MORE: If there is a serious side to this, it's the possibility that different religions might be worshipping different gods.

Is that supposed to come as a shock?

Michael Vick can heave a big sigh of relief! This morning he's been bumped off the front page by Larry Craig, apparently because the country is more worried about restroom foot-tapping than professional athletes who torture unwilling dogfight combatants to death.

But as I mulled over what might have motivated Craig to plead guilty, it occurred to me that there might be video footage of the incident, because after all, this was an airport bathroom, where video cameras might be expected.

According to a post in Minnesota Monitor, there are no cameras:

The restroom where Craig was arrested is well known among men who seek sex in public places.

Squirt.org is a site that runs a bulletin board for such men. "If you enter from the terminal, turn left and go past wash basins, urinals to the back where the stalls are. This place is THE most cruisy public place I have been," wrote one poster. "Just passed thru here the other day. This place is so hot. This place has a constant flow and variety of hot guys," wrote another. Even another poster wrote, "This is the best spot for anonymous action I've ever seen." Of all the postings in Minnesota, the airport restroom was ranked the top by that website.

The site, Squirt.org, lists how to get there: "Across from Food Court. Go through security to main Mezzanine where main shopping is located. Look for Starbucks Coffee stand and Men's Room is across from there," what to expect: "Very cruisy, no security cameras or guards. Most of the time, men will show themselves to you at the urinals and invite into stalls or nearby hotels. Plenty of dark stall action, too!Update: No one is permitted beyond the security checkpoints without an airline ticket now," and some of the biggest pet peeves: "Stall hoggers! Get off and get out! Cleaning crews may be overly curious, but won't interfere."

A commenter elsewhere argues they'd be a deterrent not only against criminals, but against dishonest police

Security cameras in restrooms would be a real..deterrent in other ways too..including in cases where the sex police lie..

The details of Craig's arrest are not unique. According to a post in June at cruisingforsex.com, another public sex site, "Twenty people were arrested within the past week. Plainclothes officers wait in the stalls and tap their feet and even put their foot on yours and then arrest you when you look under the stall wall."

Hmmm...

Or are they? They seem to be quasi public, but then, if you go inside a stall and lock yourself in, do you have a reasonable anticipation that what you do in there is your business?

Or don't you? Is the business limited to taking a leak, taking a dump, throwing up? What if you're just feeling awful, and overcome by anger, or nervous anxiety, or agoraphobia? Can you just go in there and chill out? I would think so, but would you cross a line if you did anything of a personal sexual nature? In "private"? What is private? I'm not trying to defend Craig here (who I think is an idiot regardless), but I'm now genuinely curious. What can be prohibited in this quasi-private, quasi-public zone?

Well, for starters, you can't smoke in most bathrooms. No privacy there. But Craig wasn't accused of smoking; he was tapping his foot. Regardless of sexual intent, I don't think that he had a right to tap his foot in such a manner that it came in contact with the foot of someone else. But what if he just tapped? That's a "signal," right? Are "signals" illegal? Isn't winking at someone a signal too? How about smiling and introducing yourself to someone? Is that any more illegal in a bathroom than anywhere else?

I'm just curious, what would happen if the next time I'm in Minneapolis, I were to go into that restroom with my little video camera, sit down in a stall, and wait for some asshole to come in and go "tap tap"?

OK, it's time to play "the blogging of the tapping."

The following is hypothetical, OK? I am sitting here in my living room, and no one else is present. (Well, Coco is snoring behind me on the floor.)

So I go in, pull down my pants in order to blend in and look "normal," I sit down, and wait.

Man enters bathroom. I notice him looking under the stalls, and it appears that he sees my feet with my pants falling over my shoes. He then enters the stall next to mine. I don't move my feet, but I turn on the camera, select the video setting, and turn it on, pointing it straight down so that it does not invade the privacy of the stall next door, but only shoots the floor area of "my" stall. After a short while, the man's damn foot reaches over inside my floor area and gives a "TAP!"

At this point I'm confused. What should the proper response be?

"Excuse me, but I need to know whether you are an undercover officer or a normal pervert."

No, that doesn't sound right. Perhaps I should write a question along those lines on a piece of paper, and put it on the floor where he can see it?

"Hi! I'm a blogger, working on a story! Could I ask you a few questions about the Minneapolis foot-tapping culture?"

"I noticed you just tapped at me. Should I tap back at you, or might it be taken the wrong way?"

This is maddening to analyze, and it all made me want to research Minnesota law on the subject. I figured, why reinvent the wheel? With the foot-tapping scandal being front page news everywhere, surely someone at Volokh.com has already done the work for me.

And Dale Carpenter has, with a long and thoughtful analysis, in which he concludes that Craig did nothing illegal:

...assuming for the sake of argument that Craig did everything the officer alleged, how was it the basis for a criminal charge that could get him a $1,000 fine and/or ten days in jail?

Disorderly conduct is a notoriously nebulous crime, allowing police wide discretion in making arrests and charges for conduct or speech that is little more than bothersome to police or to others. The "disorderly conduct" statute to which Craig pleaded guilty provides that one who knowingly "[e]ngages in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others" is guilty of the misdemeanor of disorderly conduct. Minn. Stat. § 609.72, subd. 1(3) (2004).

More specific criminal charges were not advanced. A charge of interference with privacy was dismissed. Craig was not charged with any other crime, like public lewdness, indecent exposure, public sexual conduct, solicitation of prostitution, harassment, resisting arrest, or assault.

People should not have to tolerate actual sexual conduct in public places, but that's not what happened here. Craig's conduct was not obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy. The officer might have considered Craig's actions "offensive . . . conduct . . . tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others." But if that's so, it seems a pretty thin basis for charging him. A reasonable person faced with Craig's alleged behavior would have moved his foot away and/or muttered a simple "no thanks" or "stop that," which likely would have brought an end to it. A continuation of the unwelcome behavior might then have been enough to charge him with something, but again, that didn't happen. In fact, the officer tapped his own foot in response, indicating the interest was mutual.

At most, Craig was implicitly inviting another adult to engage in some kind of sexual behavior in a public place. I'm not a Minnesota criminal lawyer, but I don't think asking a stranger for sex in a public place, while vulgar and rude under many circumstances, would by itself be a crime under state law. At any rate, Craig wasn't charged with that.

What really seems to have happened is that the airport police had received complaints about sexual activity and were acting over-zealously to deter it, regardless of the niceties of state criminal law. Many gay men throughout our history have felt the sting of these public decency campaigns, have been arrested for alleged sex crimes, and have pleaded guilty at unusually high rates in order to avoid the embarrassment and other consequences of being outed. When newspapers print their names, as they often do, the consequences can be devastating. Like them, Craig probably wanted to avoid publicity and pleaded guilty to "disorderly conduct" in a futile effort to save his reputation and his job. Whatever we think of Craig's views on gay rights, or of the cosmic justice in this particular Senator being ensnared in these particular circumstances, it's difficult to see how he's a criminal.

Minn. Stat. 617.23, the indecent exposure statute, covers lewd or lascivious conduct in a public place. Sex and masturbation count as lewd and lascivious acts. There is, however, some Minnesota case law suggesting that public restrooms aren't "public places" once you close the door to your stall. State v. Bryant, 177 N.W.2d 800, 803-04 (Minn. 1970).

Even if the completed act would be a crime, it's doubtful that merely asking for sex in the restroom would be a crime.

Moreover, it is not possible to charge someone for attempting something which is not illegal. Minnesota apparently does not criminalize sexual solicitation:

Minnesota, unlike some jurisdictions, does not have a general solicitation statute. Mere solicitation of a crime is not a crime. State v. Lowrie, 54 N.W.2d 265, 266 (Minn. 1952); State v. Johnson, 2005 Minn. App. Unpub. LEXIS 352 at *9. Minnesota does of course have an attempt statute, 609.17, but that requires a substantial step toward completion of the crime, plus the specific intent to commit the crime. I think it's possible but doubtful that Craig's acts would count as a substantial step, and it's also possible but doubtful that you could infer such a specific intent. Or rather -- there's some inference there, but it's not strong enough to support guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Sorry, but I'm not seeing a crime.

I see only foolish behavior by a Senator, and a huge public outcry. The latter is driven mainly by the fact that he's a Republican (and therefore a "hypocrite"), and can expect bitter condemnation by both parties, with very few defenders.

The whole thing makes me not want to go to the bathroom at the Minneapolis airport unless I'm carrying a camera!

MORE: Does the GOP want homos expelled? Left wing blogs like this seem to think so, and as evidence they cite Freeper commenters.

I'm not sure that the Republicans are competent enough to conduct an anti-gay witch hunt even if they wanted to. Besides, if theories like those expressed here and here are correct, then all of the anti-gay Republicans are gay hypocrites anyway, so they should have to out themselves and go join the sodomitic Democratic Party where they belong.

Besides, why should anti-gay Republicans conduct witch hunts when the Democrats are doing their work for them?

I'm struggling with the logic of "all Republican homo haters are hypocritical self hating homos" on the left, coupled with "therefore, they should be forced to become Democrats" on the right.

I think it's a shame to see a relatively minor issue having such a pathological hold on so many people's, um, minds.

(Right. As if the Freeper WorldNetDaily Republicans and their "outing" allies on the left could care less what I think!)

A WorldNetDaily columnist named Janet Folger has a rather peculiar view of history, and cites a rather peculiar source to back it up. Asserting that America is dedicated to God, she contrasts this country with Haiti, which, claims Folger, is "dedicated to Satan":

Why has God blessed us so richly? Get a glimpse into Western Hemisphere history from a 1789 snapshot:

* In 1789, our first president, George Washington, was sworn in. He immediately kissed his Bible and went to the Capitol for a two-hour worship service. While the ACLU has sandblasted for decades, they still can't erase the fact that our nation was dedicated to God, in whom our national motto declares, "we trust."

* In 1789, the single richest colony in the world was ... Haiti. The sugar-producing French colony was called "the jewel of the Caribbean." Import and export profits of Haiti exceeded those of the entire United States. Then, following a bloody riot, Haiti was dedicated to voodoo.

So America was dedicated to God, and Haiti was dedicated to Satan. Then, rag-tag America conquered the most powerful nation in the world and went on to become the richest nation in the world. Haiti went from the very richest to the very poorest nation in the world.

In the 18th century Haiti, then called Saint-Domingue and ruled by the French, was the most prosperous colony in the New World. Its enormously fertile soil produced a great abundance of crops and drew thousands of White French settlers. Unfortunately, Black slaves from Africa were imported to help with the work.

In the late 1700's the madness of the French Revolution, with its truly nutty doctrine of racial equality, infected many Frenchmen, and the Black plantation workers were encouraged to revolt. When they did they brutally murdered every White man, woman, and child in the colony and declared Haiti a republic. What had been the richest and most productive part of the New World promptly sank back to an African level of squalor, misery, and poverty. The roads and cities built by the French fell into ruin. A peculiarly African mixture of anarchy and despotism took the place of French law and order.

Saint-Domingue became known as the "Pearl of the Antilles" -- one of the richest colonies in the 18th century French empire. By the 1780s, Saint-Domingue produced about 40 percent of all the sugar and 60 percent of all the coffee consumed in Europe. This single colony, roughly the size of Maryland or Belgium, produced more sugar and coffee than all of Britain's West Indian colonies combined.

The labor for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves (accounting in 1783-1791 for a third of the entire Atlantic slave trade). Between 1764 and 1771, the average importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000, by 1786 about 28,000 and, from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year. However, the inability to maintain slave numbers without constant resupply from Africa meant the slave population, by 1789, totaled 500,000, ruled over by a white population that, by 1789, numbered only 32,000.

The site relied on by Ms. Folger discusses the anarchy and despotism, the years of United States intervention in Haiti culminating with Bill Clinton's 1994 assistance of Aristide:

Why can't we accept the plain and simple truth that it is as impossible to make democrats out of the Haitians as it is to teach them how to maintain their own roads? Why can't we understand that the Haitians are fundamentally different from us, that they are Africans, not Europeans like us: that they are Negroes, and that left to themselves they must do things in the way Negroes always have done them, with indolence, corruption, and Voodoo?

...one would be hard pressed to find a scholar from any university in America or Britain today who would have the courage to write honestly about Haiti, because he knows that if he did he would be condemned as a "racist" by a numerous and noisy faction of his colleagues and would be drummed out of the academy. And even if someone did write a book with observations and conclusions similar to Prichard's, no mainstream publisher would touch it. That's how far downhill our civilization has slid in a century.

The Haitians have their Voodoo, with all of its disgusting and bizarre beliefs and practices. And we have our cult of Political Correctness, our cult of egalitarianism. It is a cult based as much on superstition and as devoid of reason and logic as the Voodoo of the Haitians. And it exercises as strong a hold on its adherents. A Haitian would as soon offend a Voodoo witch doctor and risk having a curse put on himself as one of our modern scholars would risk being labeled a "racist!"

I think the above is an appallingly racist statement. If that makes me "politically correct," well, maybe I need to reexamine some of my assumptions about the phrase.

There's no denying that Haiti has had many problems in its long and turbulent history. And certainly, Haiti is known for the fact that voodoo is practiced by many of its citizens. But voodoo is also practiced in the Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Bermuda, and New Orleans, and doesn't seem to have caused the economic downfall of any of those places. Unless of course Hurricane Katrina is "God's punishment" for voodoo too!

(Maybe I shouldn't be posing such questions, but I'm trying to inject a little humor into a serious subject.)

Voodoo, by the way, is called Vodun, and its practitioners consider the word "voodoo" to be a misnomer, and a description of "an evil, imaginary religion" "created for Hollywood movies." I'm using it purely as a descriptor because the word is in common usage. What I cannot find anywhere is an explanation of how "Voodoo" or "Vodun" (or whatever people might call it) is "Satanic" or that it is any more responsible for economic failure in Haiti than the race of the people living there.

Might it be that this reflects the personal prejudice of the writer? Returning to Janet Folger, she is not only intolerant of Voodoo, but in the same piece she also seems quite convinced that the United States is threatened by Hinduism. Among the incidents Folger relies on to support her claim that Christians are being persecuted in the United States involves the fact that a Hindu from Reno Nevada offered a prayer in the Senate:

Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., preparing to pray when a clear, loud voice came from the Senate gallery.

"Lord Jesus, forgive us, Father, for allowing the prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," said a male protester.

The Senate's sergeant at arms was instructed to restore order, but Zed was interrupted again.

"You shall have no other gods before you. ... "

Can anyone explain to me how this constitutes religious persecution? I can't. But this writer for WorldNetDaily relied on by Janet Folger says they were "arrested and jailed for praying Christian prayers aloud in the Senate gallery that same day."

What they were arrested for was disrupting the Senate, not praying. Apparently, the Senate has prayers led by Christians, as well as various Jews, and Muslims -- some of whom may love or hate various things. I do not doubt that if I went in there and yelled "Lord Jesus, forgive us, Father, for allowing the prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," I'd be arrested too.

So, I hope, would an Islamist who yelled "BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT THE PROPHET!"

Does disruptive speech become protected speech simply because it is religiously motivated, or takes the form of prayer?

Ms. Folger thinks so, and she invokes the Haitians again. It's the voodoo:

"God is not fond of idolatry. Ask the people of Haiti."

Would it be too blasphemous to offer the Haitians some lessons in Hindu economics?

MORE: Here's a YouTube video of the Senate's "persecution of Christians."

MORE: Did Zed actually commit "the sin of idolatry, right there in public, violating the first of God's Ten Commandments with full government permission?" The text of his prayer is here, and the idolatry part just isn't staring at me.