I knew this was coming, but I hated to see it just the same. Kim du Toit and his wife Connie (aka The Mrs.) have stopped blogging. Both are friends, and Connie has been a regular commenter here for years.

Glenn Reynolds says, simply (about Kim),

He'll be missed.

They say all good things must come to an end, and I know that is true...

But hell, that doesn't make it fair!

I'm neglecting everything right now, simply because of the things I'm neglecting!

Tough to explain, but I haven't had much time. However, I wanted to thank the commenters to this post for offering advice on how to salvage old VHS tapes -- expecially "guy on internet" who advised me not to screw around with dedicated conversion units, but to capture the analog video to a computer, and save it in digital form on my hard drive. After many hours researching this, I discovered that by downloading the appropriate drivers and software, I could get the built in ATI card to work as a video capture card with a VCR (which it never had before; I tried in the past, but it adamantly refused to capture anything from DirecTV).

The next problem was my VCR. It had been sitting unused for over three years in a damp location, and it would only play audio with an unrecognizable zig-zaggy pattern in lieu of a picture. I didn't know whether it was broken or the head needed cleaning, but I put in a tape I was pretty sure was good, and let it play. At first I could only hear the sound, but eventually, the picture came through, and it kept getting better.

Finally, I grabbed a piece of the video at random, and I converted the huge file to the smaller mpeg-4.

This morning I uploaded it to YouTube. It's Idi Amin delivering a stern lecture about Truth and Love to his cowering ministers. Always tell the truth (because he'll find out anyway), and be sure to educate the people that they should love their leader, and everyone in the government!

"Everybody must be loved!"

In addition to the lecture from Idi Amin, I also captured and saved a vintage interview with Eric. Yes, embarrassing as it looks today, it's me in 1991, in which (following Idi's advice) I tell the truth about an accident in which a driver backed into a pole in a city-owned parking lot and then tried to involve me, because he wanted to blame someone, and I happened to drive along and park in the lot after his accident.

I didn't tell the driver I was an attorney, but he didn't ask, and I don't think he suspected anything.

The Drug War in Mexico as chronicled by Newsweek is starting to cross the US border.

Late one night in January, an ambulance escorted by five unmarked squad cars pulled up to Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Texas. Out leaped more than a dozen armed federal agents to protect the patient--Fernando Lozano Sandoval, a commander with the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency. He'd been pumped full of bullets just across the Mexican border in Ciudad Juarez by gunmen believed to have been hired by a drug cartel. Lozano Sandoval's sole hope of survival was the medical team at Thomason, the only level-one trauma center for nearly 300 miles. U.S. authorities took no chances; in Mexico, assassins regularly raid hospitals to finish off their prey. Throughout Lozano Sandoval's three-week treatment at Thomason (which proved successful), the Americans funneled visitors through metal detectors, posted guards outside the commander's room and deployed SWAT teams armed with assault rifles around the hospital's perimeter. Officers "were ready for war if it should go that route," says El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen.

Beyond those cases, 43 additional patients wounded in Juarez have been treated at Thomason this year, including a 1-year-old girl who was pinned against a wall by a truck involved in a drug-related shooting. All the patients have been dual citizens of Mexico and the United States or have had the proper documentation to enter the country, says a Thomason spokeswoman. Yet legal issues are beside the point for many El Pasoans. A recent posting in an online forum on border violence summed up the fear of many: "It is only a matter of time before the Mexican drug dealers send assassination squads over to Thomason hospital." The traffickers already occasionally kidnap Mexicans who have fled north to escape threats of violence in Juarez.

Mr. Obama has promised to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan. I don't think he was expecting to handle a similar situation just a few feet across our southern border. Is he in for a shock.

"It's almost beyond belief." Juarez looks a lot like a failed state, with no government entity capable of imposing order and a profusion of powerful organizations that kill and plunder at will. It's as if the United States faced another lawless Waziristan--except this one happens to be right at the nation's doorstep.

The cartels operate largely with impunity. Police who defy them are eliminated, as in the case of Oscar Campoya, a municipal cop who was shot dead by assassins in March as he left a local precinct. Despite the presence of several witnesses, including fellow officers, there have been no arrests (only 2 percent of violent murders in Mexico are solved, according to government figures). Mario Campoya, the victim's brother, says Oscar had been pressured relentlessly by other members of the force to cooperate with the drug gangs, but had refused.

Going back to Prohibition, Juarez has helped sate the ravenous American appetite for contraband. These days, the West Texas corridor is a key shipping and distribution center for drugs destined for various markets across the United States. According to a recent report by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), 6 cartels, 129 midlevel organizations and 606 local groups engage in drug-trafficking activities in the binational region. As part of an elaborate, highly compartmentalized operation, some outfits specialize in transportation, others in enforcement and still others in retail sales. Guided by spotters on the Mexican side equipped with binoculars and cell phones, many shipments cross the bridges into El Paso alongside legitimate commerce. Once in the city, the goods are deposited in stash houses before being sent elsewhere.

Given the permeability of the border, it's not hard to imagine violence seeping over as well. American officials insist that's highly unlikely. The cartels "cannot operate here with impunity," says ICE's Kozak. "One reason we don't see that type of violence here is that it would never be tolerated." El Paso is crawling with federal law-enforcement agents--including representatives of ICE, the FBI, Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration--and all are monitoring events to the south like hawks.

Except it looks like it has already happened here in Las Vegas.

In an early morning news conference Police captain Vince Cannito said, "Cole (Puffinburger) has been found, he is safe and in our custody," he continued "It's just a blessing that this child has been found and he's in extremely good condition."

The six year old boy was abducted by alleged drug dealers posing as police officers on October 15, 2008. Three armed men tied up Cole's mother and her fiancee, ransacked their home and then took Cole after they didn't find money in the home.

Now it is the so called social conservatives in cahoots with "progressives" who have pushed this drug war on us. But really they are not conservatives at all. They are radicals. Before 1914 and the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act there were no national laws against drugs in America. And of course in 1937 we got the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

Well back to the Newsweek article.

...the United States is less insulated than some might think. According to the NDIC report, the increased bloodshed in Juarez "could spill into the [West Texas] region," since it raises the threat that drug-trafficking organizations will "confront law-enforcement officers in the United States who seek to disrupt these DTOs' smuggling operations." (The report cites several armed encounters that took place on the American side in 2006.) The cartels' tentacles already reach deep into El Paso. Local banks are full of drug money, says Claudio Morales, who heads special operations at the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. "We're one of the poorest regions along the border, yet El Paso has some of the largest cash transactions" in the country. Many cartel henchmen are known to have moved their families to the Texas city to insulate them from the carnage back home--though that still leaves the families vulnerable to kidnappers. Kids whose relatives have been killed in the violence are showing up at the Children's Grief Center of El Paso. "We have a lot of kids that are really traumatized," says executive director Laura Olague. "There's a lot of secrecy, or fear, that whoever killed their parents or loved ones would come look for them."

For now, drug organizations prefer to abduct their quarry in the United States and spirit them across the border before harming or killing them. Kozak says that in the past year, a half-dozen kidnappings tied to narcotraffickers have taken place in El Paso. One of them involved Miguel Rueda, a convicted smuggler who failed to pay a drug debt. According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. district court, Rueda was told to meet a former accomplice, Ricardo Calleros-Godinez, at a gas station in El Paso in February. After picking up Rueda, Calleros-Godinez allegedly pulled a gun on him, duct-taped his eyes, mouth, hands and legs, and drove him to a house in Juarez. Four or five days later, Rueda reportedly settled the debt through a transfer of family land and was freed. (He's now in Texas state prison serving a sentence on cocaine charges.)

The criminal group that perhaps best illustrates the porousness of the border is the Barrio Azteca gang. Founded in the 1980s in state prison in El Paso, the organization now counts thousands of members in Mexico and the United States and is believed to be affiliated with the Juarez cartel. Authorities say the gang has a penchant for brutality and engages in everything from extortion to trafficking to assassination. The Barrio Aztecas are "the wild card in all this," says Samuel Camargo, a supervisory special agent with the FBI in El Paso. "That probably has the most potential for violence here"--and it's an American creation. In January, the U.S. Attorney's Office brought racketeering charges against more than a dozen of the gang's members, and a trial began in early November.

"The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government." - William Colby, former CIA Director, 1995

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I have pretty much shown in a number of posts that government involvement in marriage, in making drugs illegal, and in running schools were the innovations of radicals. Those solutions to the problems they addressed don't seem to be working well.

So why don't we do the conservative thing and go back to the old ways? And if those don't work we can always try something radical again.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

The Swiss are giving in to the junkies.

GENEVA (AP) - Dr. Daniele Zullino keeps glass bottles full of white powder in a safe in a locked room of his office.

Patients show up each day to receive their treatment in small doses handed through a small window.

Then they gather around a table to shoot up, part of a pioneering Swiss program to curb drug abuse by providing addicts a clean, safe place to take heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.

The program has been criticized by the United States and the U.N. narcotics board, which said it would fuel drug abuse. But governments as far away as Australia are beginning or considering their own programs modeled on the system, which is credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts.

Swiss voters are expected to make the system permanent Sunday in a referendum prompted by a challenge from conservatives.

The heroin program has won wide support within Switzerland since it was begun 14 years ago to eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s.

Zullino's office, part of the Geneva University Hospitals, is one of 23 such centers in Switzerland.

Patients among the nearly 1,300 addicts whom other therapies have failed to help take doses carefully measured to satisfy their cravings but not enough to cause a big high. Four at a time inject themselves as a nurse watches.

In a few minutes most get up and leave. Those who have jobs go back to work.

There is one small problem with the program. Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 percent since the program began in 1994. Now think of all the police, prosecutors, lawyers, prison guards, etc. out of jobs because of that. Every junkie in America has a huge burden to bear keeping all those people working. If it were not for junkies taxpayers might not willingly pony up the dough to support all those folks. Another economic disaster in the making during hard times if this clinic idea ever caught on. As long as Americans keep hating junkies the jobs that depend on them are safe. So do your part. Hate a junkie today. A big part of the economy depends on it.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Mexico is having some success in fighting the drug traffickers that are causing so much trouble for Mexicans and their government.

President Felipe Calderon and his government defended their fight against public corruption and drug trafficking Friday, asking for greater powers to go after organized crime. They conceded that most Mexicans feel unsafe and that many police are unqualified to do their jobs.

One hundred days after calling for a sweeping overhaul of security forces, including a reorganization of the federal police into a single agency, Calderon and his cabinet cited some successes, such as the recent arrest of several drug captains and corrupt officials. But they acknowledged that the extreme violence unleashed in Mexico was daunting.

"We know the challenges are many and that the road that we have to travel is long and difficult. But we cannot and will not back down," said Calderon, who appeared with his government ministers at a day-long National Security Council meeting in which they reported on their fight against organized crime and the drug cartels.

More than 4,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since Calderon declared war against the cartels in early 2007. The campaign has transformed border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez into war zones, complete with 20,000 occupying troops.

Calderon touted the recent arrest of Noe Ramírez Mandujano, a former chief of the anti-organized-crime unit at Mexico's attorney general's office, who is accused of taking at least $450,000 from drug traffickers in exchange for information about police investigations.

One point of success is that kidnappings are down 18% after the government broke up 53 kidnapping gangs. A rough extrapolation tells us that there were something like 250 gangs of kidnappers before the crackdown. Now down to around 200.

And here is another huge success. They are testing the qualifications of police officers already on the force.

In written answers to questions put to him by the National Congress, Calderon reported Thursday that half of the 56,000 police officers evaluated in a federal review failed to reach minimum standards. The examinations included drug and lie detector tests, psychological profiling and reviews of personal wealth.

Almost 50 percent of the officers tested, who work at the municipal, state and federal levels, received a "not recommended" rating. In states where violence and drug trafficking are greatest, the police fared the worst.

In the state of Baja California, where Tijuana is located, almost 90 percent of the officers received failing grades. It is not known how many will be fired or retrained. There are more than 375,000 police officers in Mexico.

The revelation that so many rank-and-file police officers fail to pass scrutiny is likely to come as no surprise to most Mexicans, who harbor deep distrust of law enforcement officers. A poll released Friday by a Mexican research group found that 60 percent of Mexicans do not feel safe and that the great majority do not report crimes because they distrust the police.

It could be worse. And I'm betting that before long it will be.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

And that is just one thing you can learn from watching this video.

Part 2
Part 3

MarijuanaConversation.org

Cross Posted at Power and Control

In light of yesterday's post about drunken sex being treated as rape, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see that the woman charged with having sex in a Minnesota men's room is now turning up the volume on the victim claim:

MINNEAPOLIS - While police say a high-profile indecent conduct case in the Minneapolis Metrodome Saturday is closed, a Carroll woman involved in it told the Daily Times Herald she believes she was a victim of foul play rather than a willing collaborator.

Lois K. Feldman, 38, of Carroll, and Ross M. Walsh, 26, of Linden, were ticketed for indecent conduct after they were reportedly caught engaging in sexual activity in a Metrodome men's restroom handicapped stall during the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers game with the Iowa Hawkeyes. More than a dozen people in the restroom were cheering Feldman and Walsh by the time authorities arrived, a University of Minnesota Police report says.

Feldman acknowledged drinking heavily before the game and says she doesn't remember being in the bathroom.

"I would never ever do that," Feldman said. "My kids are my life. I go to church every Sunday."

Information obtained in police reports and during an interview with University of Minnesota Police Chief Greg Hestness revealed no suggestion or evidence that the incident was anything but consensual on the part of both Walsh and Feldman.

But Feldman tells the Daily Times Herald she may have been drugged or otherwise victimized.

"Everybody thinks something got put in my drink," Feldman said.

She offers no further details as to how that might have happened or who may have been involved.

"Right, and that's what my attorney and I are working on," Feldman said.

Contacted this morning and asked if Feldman was planning to file a complaint or seek a reopening of the investigation in Minneapolis, Jeff Minnich of Carroll, Feldman's attorney, said he had no comment.

The Daily Times Herald sought to contact Walsh, but there is no phone listing with the address he gave police. An Avalon Security officer, Craig Andrashko, who was listed in the police report as the first witness to the incident, did not return a phone call.

But in the police report, Andrashko described what he observed as "sexual intercourse."

Hestness said the case is closed by citation.

When asked to respond to Feldman's suggestion that she is a victim of a crime, Hestness said: "All I can say is the actions went on for some period of time with many witnesses on hand and no one reported either party was objecting."

Hestness said Feldman made no allegations to the officers at the scene about the incident being non-consensual.

"If the implication is lack of consent due to intoxication, I guess that could be true for either party, however, they declined the officer's request to submit to an (alcohol test) so the extent of intoxication cannot be demonstrated," Hestness said.

Once again, I think the idea that women are less capable of consent than men is irredeemably sexist -- and degrading to women.

Philosophically, there are serious problems with the idea that one sex is more capable of saying no than the other. And saying no to what? One's own impulses? One's natural inhibitions? The other person's entreaties and advances? The effects of alcohol?

I'm just thinking out loud here, and since this might as well be satire, let me ask... Why is no one speaking up on behalf of this man as a victim of intoxication or as a possible rape victim? I notice that the woman at 38 is twelve years older than the man, who was only 26. Doesn't this indicate what is often called a "power imbalance"? (Anyone remember Mrs. Robinson? How about Dean Wormer's wife?)

But suppose the man had been 38 and the woman 26. Would the situation be viewed differently? I think it would. Why?

In terms of power imbalances, is there a difference between an older man with a younger woman, and an older woman with a younger man?

If there is, can someone please offer a non-sexist explanation?

I'm concerned that there might be an imbalance of power imbalances, and that would be unfair.

MORE: If alcohol lowers inhibitions, and if inhibitions are what normally prevent us from giving way to our sexual urges, then it would seem to follow that the presence of alcohol intoxication would make consent to sex (and therefore sexual intercourse) more likely. Yet these laws are saying that alcohol intoxication renders consent to sex legally impossible, and thus intoxicated sex equals rape. But if consent derives from lowered inhibitions, and inhibitions are lowered in both sexes, I am unable to understand -- either from a legal or scientific perspective -- how alcohol would eliminate the ability to consent in women but not men.

The rule has to stem from some strange (and IMO sexist) presupposition that men are deemed incapable of consenting to sex in the first place. Whether a man consents to sex is seen as superfluous, because he is seen as always "in charge" of the act. By committing the physical act of penetration, he is seen as inherently having consented to doing it. And alcohol, far from diminishing his ability to consent, is seen as increasing it. Under this sexist view, the drunken penetrator is analogous to a drunk driver, who cannot be heard to complain that alcohol made him unable to "consent" to drive. The woman is not seen as a participant in the driving, but as a passive victim along for the "ride."

Therefore, drunk or not, sex is always the man's "fault."

Sgt. Mom writes about some history she learned in her travels in the English countryside and its implications for the current troubles in Mumbai.

Not for the faint of heart or those with delicate sensibilities. But not much that has gone on in India the last few days is.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Well this is a very different kind of pot for archaeologists. What they found was a marijuana stash.

OTTAWA - Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.

"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.

Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

There has been a lot of back and forth at the places I post (Classical Values and Power and Control) about America becoming an immoral nation. So I have to asks a question of my readers and especially those commenting on my various posts. What can make America the moral nation that so many seem to crave?

Can government make people moral?

If so why did we give up on all the goodness that alcohol prohibition was responsible for?

OK. Scratch that. It seems that when government gets involved in the morality business it only makes things worse.

America is a mainly Christian church going nation - so can churches make people moral?

If so why are so many people who have had church weddings divorced? Why are there so many children of divorce from parents married in church?

===

OK. Government can't make people moral and churches are failing at the job as well.

Any one care to suggest fall back position?

Cross Posted at Power and Control

A few days ago I wrote a post about sex in men's rooms, and among the issues I discussed were whether or not some of the men who have sex in restrooms are "straight." (I don't think they are entirely straight, although I do think many of them are bisexuals who lead heterosexual lives but who nonetheless want to enjoy homosexual sex without having to acknowledge it, which the anonymity of the restrooms facilitates.)

However, when I wrote the post I was I was presupposing that when sex occurs in mens' rooms, it occurs between men. Perhaps I shouldn't have made that assumption, for I now see that a heterosexual couple (consisting of one man and one woman) were arrested for having sex in a men's room. The woman says that the incident has ruined her life:

A Carroll woman who was caught having sex in the men's room at an Iowa Hawkeye football game in Minneapolis last weekend says she'd had so much wine before kickoff that she doesn't remember walking into the restroom, the man she had sex with in a stall, or when the police opened the door.

What Lois Feldman, 38, will remember is the humiliation afterward.

"It's ruined my life," she said through tears today. "Not just the incident but the press."

Feldman, a married mother of three, has been the target of Internet jokes and prank telephone calls today. She was fired this morning from an assisted living center, where she had been an administrator.

Feldman said her husband, Kelly, has been supportive. She said he faults himself for not going with her when she left her seat to use the restroom before halftime.

"I don't know what happened," Lois Feldman said. "But I don't deny that it did happen because obviously there are police reports."

Police ticketed Feldman, 38, and Ross Walsh, 26, of Linden for indecent conduct Saturday night.

A security guard who said he saw the two having sex through a gap in a men's restroom stall flagged down campus police, according to the police report.

By the time an officer arrived, about a dozen people were cheering and laughing in the bathroom while Feldman and Walsh were inside the stall, the report said.

The officer pushed his way through the crowd, opened the door and separated Feldman and Walsh, the report said.

Police described both Feldman and Walsh as upset, drunk and uncooperative.

Chuck Miner, deputy chief of the University of Minnesota police department, said officers tracked down Feldman's husband.

"I'm not sure how they made contact with her husband, but they needed her husband to help identify her" because she'd given the wrong middle name.

Miner said police didn't measure the blood-alcohol level of Feldman or Walsh. Asked to respond to Feldman's claim that she was too drunk to recall the incident, Miner said: "That's probably an accurate statement."

Feldman said she'd never met Walsh.

"I don't know who this man is," she said today. "I just found out his name in the paper last night."

Walsh wasn't immediately available for comment.

Bottom line, if a girl is intoxicated she cannot consent to sex and you could be charged with rape. It does not matter whether you knew she was intoxicated, it doesn't matter if you were intoxicated too, all that matters is that she was not in a state of mind to consent and therefore it is rape. If you get a girl drunk or high and then "get together" with her you have committed a sexual assault. Again, it doesn't matter if you are drunk or high as well. Your diminished abilities do not negate your responsibilities. A good rule to follow; if you are under the influence do not have sex.

Here's what the San Diego District Attorney's Office says:

* Face the facts: If she's wasted, intoxicated, asleep, or unconscious, she cannot give legal consent, even if she said "yes"
* Face the law: Rape by intoxication is a serious felony that can carry 8 years in state prison

Obviously, if a drunken man forces himself on a woman, that's rape, right? But if a drunken woman forces herself on a man, and can later demonstrate she was drunk, he'd be chargeable with rape, under the theory that because she was drunk, she could not "consent." Well, why is it that a drunken man can consent, but a drunken woman can't?

Can a man consent to sex if he is drunk, but not a woman?

Is this fair?

Isn't it sexism?

(An attorney writing in Mens News Daily about these disturbing new rape laws thinks it is, and he looks at several outrageous scenarios.)

This Los Angeles Sex Crime Defense Lawyer take a broader look at the law, and says:

"Having sexual intercourse with a person who is intoxicated, unconscious or asleep, and therefore unable to resist, is also rape."

Should I be reassured?

Let's try these, um accusations out and see how they look, his-and-hers style.

ACCUSATION 1:

"Your honor, I was so drunk I was unable to resist her. Therefore, I was raped!"

"Your honor, I was so drunk I was unable to resist him. Therefore, I was raped!"

Certainly not in light of this FAQ propounded by a public interest organization consisting of "the San Diego County District Attorney, San Diego Police Department, Sheriff, colleges, universities, the military, the Center for Community Solutions / Rape Crisis Center, and the Sexual Assault Response Team":

5. What do I risk if I have sex with a woman who is intoxicated or "wasted"?

The penalties are severe. Rape by intoxication is a serious felony that can carry up to 8 years in state prison. In California, convicted felons are not able to vote, own firearms, or even sit on a jury. Plus, your job prospects quickly evaporate once your potential employer finds out that you're a felon. Don't forget that perpetrators of rape by intoxication, like other sex crimes, are required to register as sex offenders.

6. What does the law say about legal consent to sex?

There's a big difference between consensual sex and rape by intoxication. The California penal code clearly indicates that if a woman is wasted, intoxicated, asleep, or unconscious, she cannot give legal consent to sex. This is true even if she said "yes" to sex earlier.

To return to the men's room, while both parties committed a crime by having sex in public, given the California law, I don't think the fact that the woman committed that crime would have much bearing on whether she was raped (at least in California). There's just a kneejerk tendency (reflected in the summaries of the law) to see women who have sex with men as victims of the men who have sex with them -- especially if the woman is drunk or intoxicated. Yet men -- no matter how intoxicated -- are never seen as victims of women who have sex with them, nor would an intoxicated gay man be seen as a victim of another intoxicated gay man.

I don't know what the law is in Minnesota, but in California, it's pretty clear that the man could be charged with rape. (With the woman seen as the victim.)

Beyond the sexism, what do you do if you're one of those nervous, timid and neurotic types (man or woman) who can only have sex when you're drunk? Is it fair for the law to declare you legally incapable of consent?

What worries me is that if they wrote and enforced the law in a fair and non-sexist manner, all drunken sex would become a criminal offense. So, if you're a timid person who needs to get drunk in order to have sex, and you found another similarly oriented person, you wouldn't even be able to protect yourselves by having drunken sex together. It wouldn't be drunken sex. It would be mutual rape.

And it would not matter whether you were doing it in a public men's room, or at home in your bedroom, or whether you're man and woman, or husband and wife. In theory, even the husband and wife who have drunken sex with each other could be sent to prison for eight years.

I guess the Minnesota men's room couple should consider themselves lucky.

As the Mumbai attacks have made crystal clear, the situation in Pakistan sucks. Big Time.

If you have the slightest doubt about this, Bridget Johnson details why in a must-read piece that Glenn Reynolds linked earlier:

As the smoke clears and the body count grows in Mumbai, in one of the most brazen and chilling terrorist attacks we've seen in a long time, the truth about the region becomes crystal clear: Pakistan is a cancer on its neighbors. And the narrow focus of the attacks has also made it clear that Pakistan, allowing its extremists to operate unchecked, is also emerging as a greater threat to us.

It pains me to say that. I've been fortunate to know good men in the Pakistani government who seemed to seriously give a damn about their country, forced to constantly fight the negative headlines in an attempt to lure industry to the country and show the side of the nation that embraces Western ideals. But those guys were in Pervez Musharraf's crew, and now there's a new sheriff in town.

Not implying, of course, in the traditional Western sense that this new sheriff has brought law and order. The ouster of Musharraf, which became a hot topic in our presidential campaign season, was supposed to enthrall lovers of democracy everywhere. But what has Asif Ali Zardari done since coming to power? Those are questions best answered by India and Afghanistan.

Even Pakistani media were acknowledging that the highly orchestrated, well-armed and well-trained attacks, with fighters coming across the sea from Karachi, indicated the involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose mouthpiece denied involvement in the attacks and amusingly went so far as to "demand an international inquiry" to clear their, ahem, good name. The group is branded as a terrorist organization by Pakistan, yet operates out of Lahore and trains fighters in Pakistan's share of Kashmir. And anyone who thinks that this week's carnage is another plug for Kashmiri independence needs to remember that the targets were Americans, Britons, and Jews. That's good ol' fashioned Islamic terrorism. That's an act of war.

Hmmm...

Actually, I should have called it a triple-pronged strategy, because the enemy is taking advantage of the fact that we have a new president, whom they regard with undisguised contempt (they were quick to insult him with the racial epithet), and they're probably hoping he's so green and weak that he won't stand up to them.

The strategy is despicably brilliant, which is why (despite much speculation) I'm sure Al Qaeda is behind it.

And what the hell, there might even be four prongs in their damned fork. With any luck, Pakistan will degenerate into complete chaos, and Al Qaeda's operatives will make off with one of their nukes.

Again, despicably brilliant.

And again, we're all in this together.

Researchers at a Hewlet Packard Laboratory have combined computer logic with at type of controllable variable resistor into a neural network that may in time be dense enough to mimic a human brain.

Also at the symposium, Snider unveiled a design that used memristors in their analog mode as synapses in a neural computing architecture. Memristor crossbars are the only technology that is dense enough to simulate the human brain, Snider claimed, adding that the HP Labs crossbars are ten times denser than synapses in the human cortex. By stacking crossbars on a CMOS logic chip, variable resistance could mimic the learning functions of synapses in neural networks.

HP Labs and Boston University were recently awarded a contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build the first artificial neural network based on memristors.

Also at the conference, Massimiliano Di Ventra of the University of California at San Diego described how memristors can explain biological learning in amoebas.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Time Magazine chronicles the anti-gay movement in Florida led by Anita Briant. The year is 1977.

In the heat of the campaign, emotions have got out of hand. A gay worker was hospitalized after a beating; others have received crank calls. Urges a bumper sticker: KILL A QUEER FOR CHRIST. After receiving many telephone threats, Jack Campbell, a gay-rights leader, has installed guards around his house. Bryant has also hired security men because of phone warnings.

Meantime, Bryant has stepped up her rhetoric, telling one interviewer that God does not like homosexuality because "the male homosexual eats another man's sperm. Sperm is the most concentrated form of blood. The homosexual is eating life." During a debate with Gay Rights Activist Bob Kunst, she startled the audience by breaking into a stirring rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Many Miami homosexuals think that they will be the ultimate winners this week, even if they lose what is expected to be a close vote. Their reasoning: Bryant's spirited attack has encouraged homosexuals all over the country to come out of their closets. Already, gay groups from Boston to San Francisco are organizing as never before. Says Kunst: "We have created a national issue, and we intend to stay with it."

You spew hatred - you get hatred back. Proof that God is just. You have to wonder though. Bryant was the leader of an ostensibly Christian movement. Why did/do so many Christians have hate in their hearts? Such attitudes are hobbling the Republican Party considerably because some how the party got identified with the haters.

Of course the foundation for the hate is fear. But isn't living in fear the antithesis of having God in your heart?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Inspired? by this William Burroughs Thanksgiving Prayer.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I'll be gone most of the day, so I thought I'd leave a little more "natural" art.

First, another photograph of the purely natural art that's been staring at me:

And here's some rodent art, which was carefully preserved inside a pet hobbyist book.

Finally, some VHS tapes from the late 80s and early 90s.

Most of them are unlabeled, and some have never been watched -- which makes them like newly discovered time capsules. Some of them I'm really glad to have found -- especially a bizarre 1991 interview of me during the construction of the nightclub I ran in those days, along with incredible footage of the artists at work painting the Neo-Impressionist paintings and building the gargoyles that adorned the interior. I'd share it, but it's in analog format, and I don't have the technology to convert it to DVD.

These tapes will not last forever, and they include lots of footage of people who are now dead which I recorded, so I'd like to save them. The problem is, there's a ton of stuff for sale out there, and I don't like reinventing the wheel. I was thinking of buying something which would convert VHS to DVD, and I've been looking at reasonably priced machines like this "Panasonic DMR-EZ47V Up-Converting 1080p DVD-Recorder/VCR Combo." Unfortunately, I'm not up on the technology (I don't know upconverting from downconverting, for example), and there are so many of these things with so many conflicting reviews that I don't know what to buy.

Any readers who have advice based on experience, I'm all ears. Bear in mind that some of these tapes are in bad, bad shape, and I simply want something that will save them -- in the best and hopefully simplest way possible.

If I wait too long, not only might the tapes bite the dust, but so will the VHS itself. (Once it goes the way of the Beta, it may be too late.)

For now, the best I can offer by way of "digital conversion" is the digital photograph of the analog tapes!

In light of my earlier post about terrorist attacks on Westerners in Mumbai, the idea of wishing people a Happy Thanksgiving feels a bit surreal.

However (via Glenn Reynolds), as Roger L. Simon explains, even in light of these horrific events, there is a way to say "Happy Thanksgiving" in an appropriate context:

The brutal events in Mumbai remind us all that the War on Terror is the real deal - not a police action, as the aforementioned Mr. Kerry once said - that will doubtless be with us for the rest of our lives. And that may include the young children at the table.

[...]

...It has long been my contention that the War on Terror (War on Islamofascism) will only be won if the Democratic Party owns it as well as the Republicans. Now that can happen, for better or worse. So, dear readers of this blog, when you gather around your tables today, love that family member who voted for the other side. You're going to need him or her and he or she is going to need you. We're all in this together.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I keep reading and hearing that Barack Obama is thinking of reneging on his campaign pledge to close Gitmo, and the issue came up in this often wry PJTV discussion between Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin.

In light of the horrific events still unfolding in Mumbai, coupled with recently discovered plans to launch a terrorist attack against New York's Penn Station, I think shutting down Gitmo would be a distinct no-no, and is not likely to be in the offing.

For readers who want to catch up on the Mumbai attacks, José Guardia has a veritable ton of links, and I highly recommend going to his post (which Glenn Reynolds linked earlier), and checking them out.

It's a real horror show, and I hate to sound like a scold and say that America needed another wakeup call, but human nature is to forget what is unpleasant, and many Americans seem to have an emotional need to deny the war on terror out of existence the way they might use a remote to change an unappreciated TV channel. Big mistake.

Anyway, this report makes it 100% clear who it is the terrorists want dead. You and me, that's who!

The Associated Press reports one of the rescued hostages told reporters he had seen many bodies inside the hotel. He did not give his name.

Indian TV, meanwhile, reports government officials fear the death toll at the Taj Mahal hotel could be high, with as many as 80-90 bodies inside. Some of the dead appear to have been killed by the gunmen, while others may have died in subsequent explosions and fires.

Among the bodies removed are those of Australian, Japanese and British nationals.

A senior U.S. State Department official told FOX News that it could not yet confirm whether any Americans are among the casualties.

Meanwhile, Indian police reportedly are negotiating with gunmen holding hostages at the ultra-orthodox Jewish Chabad Lubavitch Center.

There were unconfirmed reports that some of the hostages at the Oberoi hotel are Israeli nationals.

The attackers specifically targeted Britons, Americans and Israelis at the hotels and restaurant, witnesses said.

On Thanksgiving?

According to this gruesome report, a lot of chef trainees were massacred:

Earlier, explosions rattled the nearby Taj Hotel, a 105-year-old city landmark on the waterfront, as the troops flushed out the last of the militants there. Fire and smoke plumed from an open window.

"The commandos are in control," Dipak Dutta told NDTV news after being rescued. As the troops escorted him through the corridors, they told him not to look down at any of the bodies.

"A lot of chef trainees were massacred in the kitchen."

At least six foreigners, including one Australian, a Briton, an Italian and a Japanese national were killed.

Those who survived told harrowing stories of close encounters.

Anyway, despite his campaign pledge (made when it was forgotten by the voters that we are at war), I don't think shutting it down will be at the top of Barack Obama's priority list.

Of course, there's always the question of what to tell the delusional anti-war activists who constitute Obama's base. As José notes, 32% of the American voters favor closing Gitmo, and while that was before the Thanksgiving reminder, there always remains that stubbornly delusional hard core of true believers in what they want to believe without regard to truth. (What are they? The True WannaBelievers?)

They're so delusional that maybe they have an emotional need to have the issues reframed for them. In that respect, I rather enjoyed the link José provided to a CNN story describing the Iraq War as a "humanitarian mission!" Said José,

YOU were right, Glenn; as soon as Obama got elected, the media would change its tune on Iraq.

My suggestion is that they do a similar reframing job with Gitmo. However, I don't think they should use the phrase "reeducation camp." That sounds too orthodox Maoist, and old-fashioned. Perhaps in line with the peace-and-love Kumbaya theme, it could be called the "Guantanamo Interfaith Outreach Center and Work Study Hostel."

Or if that's too much of a wishy-washy mouthful, maybe the "Guantanamo Sensitivity Training Center." By any standard, Islamist terrorists certainly have a lot to learn sensitivity-wise, and I think they need huge doses of um, therapy (possibly including "tough love" in recalcitrant cases). Not only are they are dreadfully sexist and ferociously anti-gay, but the number two man in Al Qaeda recently revealed deeply rooted racism when he hurled a racial insult at Barack Obama.

Furthermore, there's obviously a glut of sensitivity trainers, who are wasting valuable time forcing people into training who don't need it, like the college professor discussed here. How silly can we be, wasting such talent when the country needs them at Gitmo?

So let's get on with the reframing.

MORE: Phyllis Chesler has a comprehensive analysis of the Mumbai news so far, and asks a good question:

The West and non-Muslims around the world, have chosen to treat each attack separately, and not as part of a global war. What else will Islamic fundamentalists have to do to be dealt with as the enemy army they truly are?

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all!

Your comments are appreciated.

For ongoing developments, don't miss José's latest roundup of innumerable news reports (which Glenn linked) -- including one about two Americans from Virginia being killed, as well as five hostages at the Jewish center.

Speaking of WorldNetDaily, the place has become almost a full time Birth Certificate Truther site. This morning I counted no less than eleven articles devoted to the subject at their front page.

The crux of the matter is the claim that the Hawaiian birth certificate -- which the state asserts is a legitimate record, and which states that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu -- is in fact fraudulent, and that Hawaii is lying.

The claim reveals such desperation that I'm beginning to feel sorry for the people who advance it, but once again (and I hope this is the last time), I feel obliged. After all, I'd hate to be lumped in with the cowardly sellouts condemned in this piece that WND prominently links:

Fox News: Total Silence. Did the healthy shares that Saudi Arabia bought of Fox influence the network's non-coverage of this story? After all, it's no secret which candidate the Saudis endorsed! We know that TV shows, including Fox, are on a seven-second delay, the better to bleep out offensive or inappropriate material. Doesn't it strike Fox viewers as strange that not one of their outspoken guests, even once, mentioned this story? Who warned them not to?

Rush Limbaugh: Total Silence. Why has the Excellence-in-Broadcasting's "Dr. of Democracy" - the man who eats sacred cows for breakfast - not touched this story?

Mark Levin: Total Silence. Why has this popular radio host, commonly known as "the Great One," abandoned his well-deserved reputation as a Constitutional scholar to studiously not address this Constitutional issue?

Laura Ingraham: Total Silence. Here is another radio powerhouse and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas taking pains not to mention this case...not a word!

Bill O'Reilly: Total Silence. Yes, the guy who claims he's "just looking out for the folks"...voiceless!

Sean Hannity: Total Silence. The iconic radio and TV host who tackles every controversial subject under the sun...missing in action!

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. The very people - the so-called loyal opposition - who should have been shouting this story from the rooftops for months on end went mute.

My repeated conclusion was that all they have is rumor based on alleged hearsay. Not enough even to come close to rebutting the legal presumption of legitimacy of a sovereign state's records.

Hawaii has officially certified that Barack Obama was born there, in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, at 7:24 p.m.

That's not good enough for WND founder, editor and CEO Joseph Farah, who sees (presumably in the emanations from the Constitution's penumbra) some sort of constitutional right to know the exact name of the hospital where a candidate was born:

...the location of the hospital in which Barack Obama was born is something of a state secret.

It is information the American people should know, because it would be revealed on his birth certificate - if only we could see it.

The story, as told in Obama's ghostwritten autobiography, "Dreams of My Father," is that he was born in Hawaii Aug. 4, 1961. Yet, the only alleged birth certificate released by the Obama campaign lacks the significant details normally associated with such a document - like specifically where he was born.

A novel interpretation, but once again, it will never survive legal scrutiny. These people are whistling in the wind.

This is important constitutionally beyond proving mere citizenship. The Constitution requires presidents to be "natural born" Americans - meaning born within the United States. In Hawaii circa 1961, it was possible - even routine - to register foreign births.

Not good enough for Farah, who says that Jerome Corsi says that Obama's relatives gave him "testimony":

If, as some evidence strongly suggests, including the testimony of two Obama relatives to WND senior staff writer Jerome Corsi who say they were present when he was born in Mombasa, Kenya, in 1961, he was born abroad and merely registered in Hawaii, that would slam-dunk disqualify him from serving - unless, like John McCain, both his parents were U.S. citizens. Since Obama's autobiography also states that his mother was a minor and his father a citizen of Kenya, only the production of actual hospital records on a long-form birth certificate can provide the necessary information.

It all comes down to this: Hawaii says he was born there, and Corsi says that some relatives in Africa say he wasn't.

Where Corsi says that, I'm not sure; Farah does not provide a link.

Why?

The last time I looked at Corsi's claim, he cited an uncle who said he "was not sure... whether Barack Obama junior was born in Kenya or in Hawaii" along with a video of the step-grandmother which argues that when she said he was "a son of this village" she meant "a native of this village."

Anticipating the argument that he's wearing a tin-foil hat, Farah says he's only trying to dot every "i" and "t."

Does dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" when it comes to constitutional eligibility questions for the highest office in the land warrant being characterized as a "tin-foil hat conspiracist" as some of the self-proclaimed truth-detector sites on the Internet suggest?

I don't think so.

And I'm not afraid of being called derogatory names for defending the Constitution's literal meaning and clear standards for eligibility for office.

I know where George W. Bush was born - Grace-New Haven Community Hospital in Connecticut.

I know where Bill Clinton was born - the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Ark.

I even know Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin.

I predict that this will never go away, even if Obama happened to have in his possession and did manage to produce his "original" "hospital" "records."

After all, if the state Hawaii is lying, well, wouldn't a Hawaiian hospital lie too?

So I'm probably wasting my time. But at least no one can accuse me of being a Fox News, Limbaugh, Levin, Ingraham, O'Reilly, and Hannity sellout!

Once again, Little Green Footballs got it right:

Will this put a stop to the idiotic rumors? Of course not!

MORE: In answer to those who think I am wasting my time, I thought I should demonstrate how deadly seriously this argument is being taken at respected web sites. Just today, blogger "Joe the Farmer" at American Thinker devoted a great deal of time to the proposition "Why the Barack Obama Birth Certificate Issue Is Legitimate." Why this blogger is hesitant to put his own name on what he writes, I do not know. But he or she makes several points:

1. Under Hawaiian law, it is possible (both legally and illegally) for a person to have been born out of state, yet have a birth certificate on file in the Department of Health.

2. Contrary to what you may have read, no document made available to the public, nor any statement by Hawaiian officials, evidences conclusively that Obama was born in Hawaii.

The text that follows provides a link to an AP story headlined "State declares Obama birth certificate genuine" which says this:

HONOLULU (AP) -- State officials say there's no doubt Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

That statement does not, however, verify that Obama was born in Hawaii, and as explained above, under Hawaiian policies and procedures it is quite possible that Hawaii may have a birth record of a person not born in Hawaii. Unlikely, but possible.

C. The document that the Obama campaign released to the public is a certified copy of Obama's birth record, which is not the best evidence since, even under Hawaiian law, the original vault copy is the better evidence. Presumably, the vault record would show whether his birth was registered by a hospital in Hawaii.

Moreover, according to Hawaiian officials, it cannot be released by the state -- even with Obama's permission:

In Hawai'i, birth, death, marriage and certain divorce documents can only be released to people with a "tangible interest," such as the people themselves, their parents, spouses, grandparents or other relatives.

As a result, Fukino said she does not believe Health Department officials could release Obama's birth certificate to the public even with his permission, although she would need to get a legal ruling to be certain.

Under this possibly erroneous assumption that all Obama needs to do is sign a release, "Joe" looks at Obama's possible reasons for refusing to provide the "long form" birth certificate:

4. Obama has refused to disclose the vault copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate. This raises the question whether he himself has established that he is eligible to be President. To date, no state or federal election official, nor any government authority, has verified that he ever established conclusively that he meets the eligibility standard under the Constitution. If the burden of proof were on him, perhaps as it should be for the highest office of any individual in America, the more-than-dozen lawsuits challenging his eligibility would be unnecessary.

...Strategically from a legal standpoint, therefore, his refusal to disclose doesn't make sense. Weighing factors such as costs, resources and complexity of disclosing versus not disclosing, he must have reason of considerable downside in disclosing, or upside in not disclosing. There may be other reasons, but one could speculate that he hasn't disclosed because:

1. He was not born in Hawaii, and may not be eligible to be President;

2. He was born in Hawaii, but facts that may be derived from his vault copy birth certificate are inconsistent with the life story he has told (and sold);

3. He was born in Hawaii, and his refusal to provide the best evidence that he is a natural born citizen is a means by which to draw criticism of him in order to make him appear to be a "victim." This would energize his supporters. This would also make other charges about him seem suspect, including his concealment about ties to Bill Ayers and others of some infamy. Such a clever yet distasteful tactic would seem to be a Machiavelli- and Saul-Alinsky-style way to manipulate public opinion. But while this tactic may energize his supporters, it would convince those who believe him to be a manipulator that he's not only just that, but a real pro at it. This would indeed be the basest reason of all, and would have repercussions about his trustworthiness (both here and abroad), which Americans know, is a characteristic sorely lacking in its leaders.

As to reason 3, I have long thought the reason was along such lines. Whether it's a "clever yet distasteful tactic" and "basest reason of all" with "repercussions about his trustworthiness," I don't know. Barack Obama might consider the behavior of the Truthers to be beneath contempt. Considering that most of them feel the same way about him and the complete absence of any substantiation of a birth in Kenya, it strikes me as more along the lines of typical political hardball on both sides than a distasteful Machiavellian ploy. As I said back in July,

If by doing nothing Obama can engender this sort of paranoia, that's probably an excellent reason for him to continue to do nothing.

Especially if he knows he's on safe ground.

Sooner or later, Obama may decide to get a court to order the State of Hawaii to release whatever they have in that vault. If he does, and if it simply proves what the short form certifies, the Truthers are going to look ridiculous.

Naturally, they'll blame Barack Obama for making them look ridiculous, and they'll say "Why did he make this hard? He could have made this easy!"

Again, the whole thing reminds me of Andrew Sullivan demanding Sarah Palin's records.

They have stated on the record that Sarah Palin is Trig's biological mother. But they refuse to provide one iota of confirming evidence.

I mean: what's the problem here? Why is this so hard?

Because Obama is making it hard!

UPDATE: Intellectual Conservative takes a common sense look at the possibility of Obama's birth in Kenya:

For Obama to have been born in Kenya, Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. would have had to fly from Honolulu to Mombasa, give birth in a substandard third world hospital, fly back and then somehow arrange for a fraudulent birth certificate to be entered by the State of Hawai`i on August 8, 1961 (at the time governed by Republican William Quinn). They would have also somehow planted the phony birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser (at the time edited by Republican Thurston Twigg-Smith) and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Hawai`i's current Republican Governor Linda Lingle would also have to be complicit in the cover-up as would all of the leftist 1960s University of Hawaii friends of Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr - among them US Rep. Neil Abercrombie.

In 1961, the roundtrip flight to Kenya would have been a very expensive, pointless, and time consuming epic journey for two starving students. Barack Obama Sr. had only been able to come study at UH Manoa with a free ticket on a donated charter flight with other Kenyan students.

I think the whole operation (international travel, plus pointlessly sophisticated fraud) would have been pretty tough for a pregnant teenage mom to pull off.

Reflecting on Glenn Reynolds' happy reaction to the news of the Robert Gates appointment, ("I'm beginning to feel like I won this election!"), John Hawkins takes issue with the emergent view of Barack Obama as a centrist:

Obama is not a centrist and he's not filling his cabinet up with them either. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and the overwhelming majority of staffers Obama is bringing on are hard core liberals. The Kos crowd may not always look at it like that, but the netroots think anyone who doesn't want to prosecute Bush for war crimes or deliberately lose the war in Iraq is practically a Republican.

Activists on the far left (who call themselves "progressives) are not "liberal" by any stretch of the imagination, although they get lumped together with liberals by simplistic phraseology. The Berkeley political "spectrum" is so skewed to the left that city elections pit McGovern Democrats ("the right") against Marxist activists ("the left"). McGovern Democrats in Berkeley are so used to being seen as "conservatives," or "the right" that they just take it in stride, and this leads the Marxists to imagine that they really are doing battle with right wing reactionaries.

A similar process occurs on the right -- and as I've often pointed out, to many rightists today, Barry Goldwater would a liberal. (Similarly, I've asked whether not agreeing with the Family Research Council is the new definition of RINO....)

The far reaches of the left and the right are so much louder than everyone else that the debate becomes distorted, leading many to believe that the "choice" is between the far left and the far right.

Activists on both sides like it that way, because they want the playing field to themselves.

MORE: I'm wondering what sort of outcry there might have been had McCain been elected and started behaving in a similar manner (by, say, appointing country club Republican centrists and Lieberman liberals).

Sure, he'd be getting a fierce scolding from the WorldNetDaily right.

But would he be getting any credit from the left?

Obviously, what he'd get from the "progressive" left would be the usual cries for impeachment and war crimes tribunals. As to the mainstream media left, I wonder. I think the only credit he'd be likely to get would be from an occasional liberal blogger with integrity.

(Fortunately, there's no way to keep bloggers off the playing field....)