October 05, 2002

THOSE VIOLENT EUROPEANS: "Attacker Stabs, Injures Paris Mayor." No information on the attacker.

UPDATE: Claire Berlinski reports from the scene:

Hi Glenn,

I was, evidently, within 50 feet of the attack -- I was at the Hotel de Ville at exactly that time -- and had no idea, none at all, that it had happened until this morning. Neither did anyone else there. The mayor didn't want to ruin the good time everyone was having and insisted upon being escorted away discreetly. Today the French papers are reporting that the assailant appears to have been a random lunatic "known to the police" -- there's no evidence as yet that it was political.

Re. your headline "Those Violent Europeans:" This was such depressing news, because this event was otherwise inconceivably good-natured and civilized, by US standards -- imagine opening the White House doors to every US citizen for the night, having an open bar, live music, no security -- none -- at the gates, letting in anyone who wants to come in, and having an perfectly lovely evening where everyone listens politely to the music, admires the paintings in the Oval Office and is very careful not to damage the carpets. The whole city was having a good time and no one was behaving badly -- except for one lunatic. Really sad, especially since the mayor is such a *nice* guy -- he organized all of this just so that Parisians could have fun and feel that the public monuments really belong to them. That's why there was no security.

Sad, but the way of the world today, I'm afraid.

HERE'S A REPORT FROM READER GREGORY HILL -- unconfirmed as of yet:

Hasn't made any of the local newsites yet, but the 11pm teevee news is reporting that a body was found in Howard County (Northeast of Montgomery County) around 9pm tonite. Single shot. No witnesses.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Hill emails that it was on the 11 o'clock news on WBAL and WJZ, but there's nothing on their websites that I can find.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Turns out it was a false alarm -- a real death but not connected, apparently. Meanwhile, Orrin Judd asks: "Is this guy a suspect or not?"

DISCRIMINATIONS has moved, and has a fancy new site designed by you-know-who.

I guess there's somebody else out there doing classy site design for weblogs, but. . . .

UPDATE: Rand Simberg emails that he likes this guy.

JOHN TABIN SAYS THAT MARK SHIELDS shamelessly misrepresented an item from Best of the Web on Capital Gang tonight.

Knowing Shields' tendency to repeat himself, he'll probably do it again on another show.

UPDATE: Just caught the Capital Gang rerun and it's as Tabin describes. Shields gets steadily more embarrassing. But the big news on Capital Gang was what lousy reviews Al Gore's speech on the economy got from pretty much everyone but Shields. Even Margaret Carlson and Al Hunt were brutal.

ON THE OTHER HAND, THE BRITISH PRESS REMAINS LAME, especially on American reporting: Jim Henley is correcting an item suggesting that people were cowering in their homes, noting that:

This is all so last Thursday. Schools locked down, meaning cancelled recess and field trips, locked doors and, I think, drew blinds, Thursday only. "Shut down" makes it sound like schools closed. Nearly as I could tell, the killers were the only people who didn't get out today - every place we went was mobbed. I don't doubt you could find some people willing to tell a reporter they were scared, but watch what we do here in MoCo, not what we say. And "the last victim" at the time this story must have been filed was either the Petworth man or the Kensington Shell killing. Any place in Rockville is "close" to either place only on the transatlantic scale.

You tell 'em, Jim. He's got more updates, too, if you scroll down.

RULE BRITANNIA! Seems like there's some support for the war there. . . .

The prospect of war with Iraq is encouraging a record number of young Britons to join up.

Over the past six months 7,350 recruits have joined the Army, compared with 6,592 for the same period last year. Two years ago the comparative figure was 5,935.

The figures represent a rise of 11.5 per cent on last year and 23 per cent on 2000 and suggest that the Army is likely to recruit a record 15,000 new soldiers. The bulk of the increase is in the infantry, which has suffered most from recruiting problems.

The recruitment boost follows years of failing to attract enough new soldiers to keep the Army at full strength. Despite repeated advertising campaigns all three armed services - particularly the Army - had been unable to meet their targets until recently. The Army has also not been helped by potentially damaging setbacks such as the failure of the Army's new rifle - the SA80-A2 - in Afghanistan.

One senior military officer told The Telegraph: "There is a direct correlation between the increased recruiting figures and the prospect of a war with Iraq. History has shown time after time that as far as the British public is concerned, recruiting is never a problem when there is a war in the offing."

Why, that's an almost Tennessee-like spirit.

WELL, I CERTAINLY HAVEN'T PRAISED OLIVER NORTH, and I can't think of any leading "warblogger" who has. This hardly counts as praise.

UPDATE: Sawicky has responded to Dr. Weevil, and Dr. Weevil appears to have fact-checked Sawicky rather thoroughly.

THE GUARDIAN on the Maryland shootings;

The fear of sudden death hangs like a shroud over the entire State under which its hapless and anxious citizens scurry from cover to cover lest they be the sniper's next victim. This is the real America; rheumy-eyed, mistrustful and dangerous. A place where any passing stranger could be a stone-cold killer and where a violent and bloody death waits just around the next turning for its vulnerable and haunted citizens.

While the police search frantically to find the elusive marksman before he claims his next victim, maybe they should pause to consider whether they will ever really bring the guilty party to justice. For, regardless of who's finger is actually pulling the trigger, the real culprit here is America itself.

This hasn't been published in the Guardian yet, but it's only a matter of time, reports David Carr.

DAWSON RESPONDS IN KIND to the Social Security wheelchair ad.

I'M KINDA BUSY, but go read Fred Pruitt for all kinds of interesting news. I'll be back. Mickey Kaus has some cool new stuff, too.

HORSEFEATHERS has a new, Sekimori-designed site and a new URL. Adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

CENTRAL PARK JOGGER UPDATE: TalkLeft has the scoop.

AZIZ POONAWALLA distinguishes neoconservatives and neoWilsonians and others who support war.

MILITARY EXPERT UNDERMINES CASE FOR WAR! Here's the inside story.

"BROKER -- GET ME A THOUSAND SHARES OF SALON!"

"Okay -- got something smaller than a twenty?"

BAGHDAD DEMOCRATS: More on Bonior and McDermott:

IT'S A RARE POLITICAL MOMENT when Terry McAuliffe says no comment. Yet McAuliffe, the garrulous chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said just that last Wednesday at the Brookings Institution after a speech by Al Gore. Asked about the trip to Baghdad taken by three of his fellow partisans--Representatives David Bonior, Jim McDermott, and Mike Thompson--McAuliffe was nonplussed.

"Have we issued anything on that?" he asked DNC spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri, who shook her head.

"I don't think we have," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"We handle the politics, and leave those comments to elected officials," Palmieri explained. "But nice try."

Problem is, the elected officials aren't saying much either. Bonior was until recently the second-ranking Democrat in the House, and yet it's nearly impossible to get Democrats to say anything about his and the others' trip to Baghdad.

Yeah, and as I've said that silence will make it easy -- and not entirely unfair -- for Republicans to tar the entire Democratic Party apparatus as disloyal. Especially when you read the accounts of how their trip has been used in Iraqi propaganda.

DEAN has lots of information on the DC/Maryland shootings. He thinks it's domestic terrorism, or simple fruitcakeness, and has a police radio intercept looking for a white male named Robert Baker, said to be a cocaine user armed with a scoped hunting rifle, as evidence.

UPDATE: Jim Henley has more too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: William Burton agrees with Armed Liberal's take on what a proliferation of incidents like this might mean:

We have two ‘success’ stories in dealing with terrorism this go-round. Flight 93 and LAX. I’m not suggesting that we arm passengers with handguns (although I do think we’re crazy not to have immediately allowed pilots to have them). I am suggesting that the only form of defense that is likely to work while there the bodies are still breathing is to involve every one of us as an thoughtful, active observer of our environment, and someone who is willing to act appropriately when it is called for.

In some cases, that will involve larger numbers of people with guns.

They can be officers, standing on streetcorners, costing us tax dollars, and nosing deeper and deeper into our lives, or they can be citizens. Our pilot. The ticket agent. Our neighbors.

Some of then will screw up. Some of them will do bad things.

But the reality is that they screw up and do bad things right now. And as far as I can tell from other folks’ experience, it doesn’t get better as you try and take the guns away.

And it doesn’t get worse as you let people have them, either.

I think he's right, though fortunately we're not yet at the point of having to defend against that many dispersed attacks. Are we?

UPDATE: Gary Hudson replies to my comments just above:

"I think he's right, though fortunately we're not yet at the point of having to defend against that many dispersed attacks. Are we?"

Sure we are Glenn, it's called crime. Happens everyday.

Terrorism doesn't leave ordinary folk any less dead than a street mugging or a "stop and rob" store holdup. Everyone has the right to self defense, with or without the State validating that right. Encouraging and promoting the widespread use of arms will have benefits beyond any minor impact on the War of Terrorism. It would mean a safer and freer society.

Fair enough.

UPDATE: Justin Katz isn't persuaded by the "homegrown terrorist" arguments. And reader David Darlington writes:

Anyway, something I've been wondering: did the DC police ever catch the blowdart sniper from earlier this year? It seems this guy or guys have the same M.O. as the blowdart sniper, but a much more powerful weapon. He's shooting at random people from consealed locations. Maybe the blowdart sniper and Maryland rifle shooter are related.

Beats me. Anyone else know?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Vegard Valberg says this looks like a scenario he pointed out last summer.

STILL MORE: Now they're reportedly on the lookout for two "hispanic" looking men" -- is it just me, or are they trying awfully hard to avoid any reference to anyone looking middle-eastern here?

JAY FITZGERALD reports many interesting Harvard-related developments, including resistance to Larry Summers' initiative against anti-Semitism and a report on a speech by Cornel West continuing to whine about Summers' insistence that he do actual work.

He also links to this oped by Charles Jacobs of the American Anti-Slavery Group on why Israel gets criticized in ways other countries do not:

It is hard to explain why victims of slavery and slaughter are virtually ignored by American progressives. How can it be that there is no storm of indignation at Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, which, though they rushed to Jenin to investigate false reports of Jews massacring Arabs, care so much less about Arab-occupied Juba, South Sudan's black capital? How can it be that they have not raised the roof about Khartoum's black slaves? Neither has there been a concerted effort by the press to pressure American administrations to intervene. Nor has the socialist left spoken of liberating the slaves or protecting black villages from pogroms, even though Wall Street helps bankroll Khartoum's oil business, which finances the slaughter.

What is this silence about? Surely it is not because we don't care about blacks. Progressives champion oppressed black peoples daily. My hypothesis is this: to predict what the human rights community (and the media) focus on, look not at the oppressed; look instead at the party seen as the oppressor. Imagine the media coverage and the rights groups' reaction if it were ''whites'' enslaving blacks in Sudan. Having the ''right'' oppressor would change everything.

Alternatively, imagine the ''wrong'' oppressor: Suppose that Arabs, not Jews, shot Palestinians in revolt. In 1970 (''Black September''), Jordan murdered tens of thousands of Palestinians in two days, yet we saw no divestment campaigns, and we wouldn't today. This selectivity (at least in the United States, does not come from the hatred of Jews. It is '' a human rights complex '' - and is not hard to understand. The human rights community, composed mostly of compassionate white people, feels a special duty to protest evil done by those who are like ''us.''

I don't know. Still sounds racist to me, both in its definition of who qualifies as a moral actor, and its disproportionate effect on non-whites. He's right about this part, though:

The biggest victims of this complex are not the Jews who are obsessively criticized but the victims of genocide, enslavement, religious persecution, and ethnic cleansing who are murderously ignored: the Christian slaves of Sudan, the Muslim slaves of Mauritania, the Tibetans, the Kurds, the Christians in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt.

Seeking expiation instead of universal justice means ignoring the sufferings of these victims of non-Western aggression and making relatively more of the suffering of those caught in confrontation with people like ''us.'' If the Israelis are being ''profiled'' because they are like ''us,'' the slaves of Sudan are ignored because their masters' behavior has nothing to do with us.

Yes.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg offers another reason why the left's divestment efforts are so one-sided.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Jacobs piece has led Telford Work to post some thoughts on the Marxist roots of "progressive" thought about oppression, and the inadequacies thereof.

"IN IRAN, SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE." Interesting story on what's going on there. Excerpt:

Down in the basement, a man with an uncanny resemblance to the Sgt Pepper period John Lennon is recording a CD. With him, in the hot, stuffy studio, is a bassist dressed in black, a drummer and a 10-year-old Afghan boy playing small tambour drums. Behind the glass, a sound engineer is flicking switches and twiddling knobs. A girl in jeans, T-shirt and trainers is slouched on a sofa with a young man. Two other girls are watching the session. Not having visited the underground before, I am taken aback. The girls are not wearing the full, officially decreed women's dress code. This includes covering one's hair for fear of "stimulating" any man who might see it.

This discreet studio is one where Tehran's underground bands come to record. It is as if I have stepped through the looking glass into another country. Above us, in the streets, is the Iran of women in all-enveloping black chadors, vast murals of revolutionary martyrs and officially sanctioned demonstrations where thousands chant the old slogans of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". Here, I am in another, freer Iran that exists in parallel with the Islamic republic. In Iran, there is the public face of conformity with Islamic rules and regulations and the private face, which, as often as not, shuns, ignores or even despises its strictures. . . .

Once a forgotten figure, the US-based pretender to the Peacock throne is now frequently seen repeating a mantra of democracy and secularism. This is not to say that the monarchy has a real chance of restoration, but Pahlavi on TV has had an effect - many young people, who have no memory of his father's repressive regime, have been favourably impressed. Muhammed, 19, who works in his father's restaurant, says, "Me and my friends like [Pahlavi] because we heard from our fathers that the time of the Shah was a time of comfort, not like now, so, if he came back, that would come back, too."

Two years ago, 500,000 Iranians had access to the internet. Today, that number is believed to be 1.75 million, and is expected to grow to five million in the next five years.

As the article reports, a lot of them are blogging, too.

JOSH CHAFETZ'S "IMMUTABLE LAWS OF DOWD" have made the jump from OxBlog to The Weekly Standard.

October 04, 2002

READER ABHIJIT JAIN notes Saudi Arabia's alcohol problem. I guess some people there have developed an Obsession.

LYNN SISLO REINVENTS ANTI-IDIOTARIANISM:

I don't think I've actually shifted to the Right. It's just that since September 11 the Right has done a much better job of shutting up their lunatic fringe, while the common sense Left has gone into hiding and let their lunatics take over. So the Left is worried about the Right dominating the blogosphere. . . .

I come across lefty blogs all the time. I've even linked a few of them. The "problem" is not that the blogoshpere is dominated by the "Right", it's that the blogosphere is dominated by common sense. Let a blogger from the far right start preaching their own brand of lunacy - (Sept. 11 happened because God is angry...Creationism is just as valid as evolution etc.) - and that person is just as likely to get a severe fisking as any of the loonies on the far left.

She then offers some advice for lefties who fear that the blogosphere is hostile to them and their views.

UPDATE: Lynn wonders what I mean by reinventing anti-idiotarianism. I just thought her post resembled this one, from which the term originated:

What bloggers are more than anything, I think, is anti-idiot. That makes life tough for Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and the Revs. Falwell, Robertson, Jackson, & Sharpton, for reasons that transcend traditional partisanship and ideology.

That's all.

JIM HENLEY REPORTS that another shooting is now said to be connected to the earlier shootings. Sorry -- this looks like terrorism to me. And Jim's last observation is troubling.

This would seem to add a bit more support to reader Ken Price's theory.

UPDATE: Justin Katz suggests an Oregon connection, though the evidence isn't especially strong in my opinion.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tucker Goodrich invokes Pipebomb Boy from last spring and notes:

Just 'cause it looks like terrorism doesn't mean it can't be one of our many home-grown, garden-variety nut jobs.

Besides, the guy's a good shot: to my mind, that argues for home-grown. The al-Qaeda don't seem to be very competent, with a few exceptions.

Yes, though many excellent shots are found among the Afghans. And, of course, home-grown terrorists might well be working hand-in-glove with Saddam Hussein and/or Al Qaeda; they tend to agree on a lot of things, like hating the Jews. Heck, you might even be able to find some Lefty terror types who hate the Jews nowadays -- and the Black Panthers, with whom just-arrested Al Qaeda suspect Patrice Lumumba Ford has a connection, have a tradition of excellence where firearms are concerned.

JUST NOTICED THIS POST by Daniel Drezner on why Communism gets better press than Nazism. It's worth a read.

MARK STEYN ON EUROPE:

Just as a matter of interest, how many countries does George W. Bush have to have on board before America ceases to be acting ‘unilaterally’? So far, there’s Australia, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Qatar, Turkey.... Romania has offered the use of its airspace to attack Iraq. The Americo-Romanian Coalition Against Iraq has more members than most multilateral organisations. But no matter how multilateral it gets, it doesn’t count unless it’s sanctioned by the UN. If France feels the need to invade the Ivory Coast, that can be done unilaterally. But, when it’s America, you gotta get a warrant from the global magistrate. . . .

Imagine any previous power of the last thousand years with America’s unrivalled hegemony and unparalleled military superiority in a unipolar world with nothing to stand in its way but UN resolutions. Pick whoever you like: the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, the Third Reich, the Habsburgs, Tsarist Russia, Napoleon, Spain, the Vikings. That’s really ‘frightening’. I’ve now read a gazillion columns beginning, ‘He’s a dangerous madman with weapons of mass destruction. No, not Saddam. George W. Bush.’ It barely works as a joke never mind a real threat. The fact that, in all the torrent of anti-Americanism, there’s no serious thought given to how to reverse it nor any urgency about doing so tells you precisely how frightening and dangerous these folks really think the Great Satan is.

But the problem is this. Before 11 September, most Americans tolerated the anti-Yank diatribes from Europe as a quaint example of the local culture. Filtered through the smoke of the World Trade Center, it’s no longer quite so cute. The real phenomenon of the last year is not Europe’s anti-Americanism, which has always existed, but a deep, pervasive and wholly new American weariness with Europe.

Indeed.

BILL QUICK on the DC/Maryland shootings:

I think this is a terror attack. And I think it is being downplayed to the point of coverup.

I could be wrong, but that's how it looks to me, too.

UPDATE: Reader Ken Price writes:

I've had the disturbing thought that the single-shot assassinations in Mongomery County are, in effect, a response to Ari Fleisher's observation that a single shot could resolve the situation in Iraq. Could this be intended as a warning that capable agents are already in place and ready to cause chaos if war breaks out?

Hmm. This seems (1) too fast; and (2) too "poetic" (well, at least in an Amiri Baraka sense) to be a response to that statement. But it's an interesting suggestion.

SOME INTERESTING BACKGROUND on one of the acccused American terrorists arrested today.

WHAT WARGAMES ARE TEACHING AMERICANS ABOUT WAR: Some valuable stuff, according to an article in Salon by Wagner James Au:

And what's impressed him, playing America's Army, is how many competitors he's fought who come to the game without his experience base, but learn usable tactics on the fly: "You could tell in some cases you have significantly younger people, probably junior high or so ... they'd be saying things back and forth that indicated to me that this was sort of an extension of guys who grew up on Rainbow Six and other first-person shooters ... the techniques they would use just by figuring it out would end up being very similar to what we would do in real life." He found himself up against kids staggering their formations, using smoke to cover their approach, closing on the enemy with fire and maneuver, individual movement techniques (IMT) -- in short, acquiring through gameplay knowledge that was once available only through military training.

If this interests you, you might also like this piece that Dave Kopel and I wrote just over a year ago on the impact of wargaming on the citizenry.

TODAY IS THE 45TH ANNIVERSARY OF SPUTNIK. Rand Simberg has some observations.

JACOB SULLUM POINTS OUT how U.S. and European trade barriers are hurting poor nations, and how not enough people seem to care.

STILL ON BLOGSPOT? Consider moving here instead. I can't vouch for this particular service because I don't use it. But it's provided by the folks at HostingMatters, and I've been very happy with them.

And since, just now, when I tried to visit Geitner Simmons' blog all I saw was the "Blogspot Plus" ad -- but no blog, which kind of undercuts its selling power -- I decided to encourage people once again to leave Blogspot behind.

ANDREA SEE has something to, er, celebrate.

THE UNITED NATIONS IS ON THE JOB AGAIN, taking care of what's really important in the world:

Britain should repeal a 142-year-old law giving parents the right to spank their children because it violates an international treaty, a United Nations committee said Friday.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, which oversees a 1989 accord protecting youngsters, said it welcomed British legislation abolishing corporal punishment in schools.

But it also called for the repeal of an 1860 law that allows parents to use "reasonable chastisement" to punish their children.

Take it away, Stacy Tabb. . . .

UPDATE: Oops. Stacy's busy tracking down a renegade Marine who's threatened her on her comments board. I have great respect for the Marines but (1) I'll bet Stacy is more than a match for this guy; and (2) this is the second Marine / blogger incident and while the first one didn't bother me since it was aimed at me, I don't think that Marines are supposed to threaten ladies.

CHEESY PUBLICITY CASH-IN ALERT -- from the Family Research Council:

The killers left no trace--and even fewer clues--about their motives or whereabouts. Police say that they aren't ruling out terrorism or an ethnic clash. One thing is certain. These acts of violence are a reflection of a lack of respect for human life. The victims were loved ones caught in the cross fire of a frontal assault on human dignity. In a fit of rage or malice, they were murdered, not for something they did--but simply because they existed. One could argue that our society is guilty of similar disregard for the sanctity of human life when it condones the killing of unborn babies and assists in the suicide of elderly patients. FRC mourns with the families of the victims who are desperately trying to make sense of their untimely loss. We will continue to work toward and pray for a culture that not only sees, but also respects and protects, the value of every person--big and small, young and old.

Meanwhile, not to be bested in this race to cash in before the bodies are cold, the Violence Policy Center is touting a 1999 study on the growth of the "sniper subculture."

Have these people no shame? Why am I bothering to ask? We know the answer.

BELLICOSE WOMEN UPDATE: I think that Rachel Z. Jurado counts as such, as this article in The American Enterprise should demonstrate.

EUGENE VOLOKH WRITES ON CANADIAN CENSORSHIP and includes this chilling warning:

Note to Canadian readers: Be careful about clicking on that link; while I'm not acquainted with the details of the Canadian law, and whether it applies to downloading, I would assume that if the government concludes that the newsletter is illegal to import, it may prosecute you for downloading it, too.

That he needs to give this warning makes his final comment even more significant:

Remember this when people condemn American "absolutism" about free speech, and urge the supposedly more "nuanced" and "balanced" European and Canadian approach.

Canada should be ashamed of this.

UNVERIFIED: Here's a report of another shooting, this time in Fredericksburg. No confirmation yet.

UPDATE: It's confirmed now:

Authorities have confirmed a shooting at Michael's Craft Store in Spotsylvania County. They have no additional information at this time, as they have recently arrived on the scene. . . .

Police have NOT yet connected this shooting with the shootings in Maryland. We will keep you posted as the investigation unfolds.

More as it's available.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's the latest.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's the Post's sum-up as of 5:00 ET.

ZELL MILLER SAYS it's 1972 all over again for the Democrats.

This is unfair. In 1972, there was a Democratic position on the Vietnam war. Right now, there's no Democratic position on Iraq. But Miller's conclusion makes it sound like he's giving the Democratic Party one last chance:

I believe this tale demonstrates that no matter how it is articulated, no matter how laudable or well intended, the antiwar, peace-at-almost-any price position is a loser for Democrats.

Oh, it will stimulate the extreme left, no doubt about that. And they are the key to the primaries. They will put their money, their emotions, their make-believe president Martin Sheen and even Ms. Streisand's vocal cords behind it.

But before we suffer, as Yogi Berra said, déjà vu all over again, let's rewrite the ending of this movie. Let's send the message that our party realizes the country faces a threat far different and far more deadly than it did in 1972. Today's war is on our own soil with terrorist cells lurking perhaps even in our own states and neighborhoods. Let's respond with strength and boldness, not with the same old failed script that doomed us 30 years ago.

I've pooh-poohed talk of him switching over to the Republican side -- but if the Democratic Party lurches in a McGovernite direction, it might happen.

Matthew Yglesias points out this article on Saudi Arabia that makes clear that, well, Saudi Arabia still stinks, despite getting less attention in recent weeks. Excerpt:

But there will be no committee of inquiry into the rips in the social fabric that shaped 15 of Saudi Arabia's young men as terrorists and which make Abdullah Al Gathani and many of his campus colleagues respond to the attacks as they do. And there will be no royal commission into the making of Osama bin Laden and the thousands who fell in behind him for jihad in Afghanistan.

Instead, Saudis seek refuge in a parallel universe, a place where answers to questions about what is rotten in Saudi Arabia dwell on the faults of the US and Israel; a place where inquiries about the shortcomings of its schools and universities provoke mockery of the American education system; a place where criticism of the security authorities meets mirth over US intelligence failures; a place where the democratic void is championed as protection for the rights of individuals.

As the House of Saud is pulled this way and that between its military alliance with the US and its religious partnership with the keepers of Saudi Arabia's strict Wahabi Islamic creed, economists are rating it as a brittle Third World economy - despite its massive oil wealth.

Arguably, problems with Iraq are more pressing -- but Saudi Arabia is at the root of Islamofascism everywhere, and the Saudi regime in Arabia, along with its collection of hate-spewing preachers, will have to be removed root and branch before it's all over.

AMIRI BARAKA UPDATE: A.C. Douglas has some comments on New Jersey Governor James McGreevey's apparent inability to fire Baraka.

READER ROBERT MOUNCE forwards a political ad that gun-controllers won't like.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS: A group of law professors who took out an ad denouncing the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore are now circulating a letter in opposition to war in Iraq.

MICKEY KAUS IS ENDORSING SCRAPPLEFACE -- Oh, and he has some stuff to say about Paul Krugman, too.

JUSTIN KATZ has links and a response to the Democratic web ad showing Bush pushing an old lady in a wheechair off a cliff.

THE INDEPUNDIT HAS CONTINUING UPDATES on developments in the DC/Maryland shootings. There's been another one, though it's not clear whether it's connected. From the description, there's reason to think it might be.

SCIENCE BY ANECDOTE: Eric Lindholm, better known as the guy behind SmarterHarpersIndex, has a piece in TCS Europe.

TERROR ARRESTS INVOLVING U.S. CITIZENS: We'll have to see the evidence, of course, but if these guys are guilty they should get the book thrown at them.

UPDATE: Here's more.

SORRY, BUT THIS LAME PROFILING EFFORT ON CNN isn't as good as the one from Susanna Cornett that I posted last night.

My wife's a forensic psychologist, and has limited respect for this profiling stuff. As she says, you just guess that it's a white male, 20-45, with an interest in violence, then dress it up however you like. Yeah, sometimes people do better than that -- but not often, and the ones who do usually aren't doing it for quickie TV coverage.

UPDATE: SKBubba is doing better than CNN, too, especially when you take the budget differential into account. And Donald Sensing has useful observations here and here.

MAX BOOT WRITES (in the New York Times!) that preemption is neither unusual nor in violation of international law.

SO DOES THIS mean the whole Michigan divestment conference was phony? Apparently not. Just the nasty promotional email. Here's a story from the Michigan Daily, and here's an earlier story on the same affair.

JAMES LILEKS MAY NOT LIKE JESSE VENTURA, but he's not that hot on Paul Wellstone, either. The conclusion is devastating.

NOAM CHOMSKY SPOKE AT PENN YESTERDAY and not everyone was impressed. (Via Maurice Black).

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ observes: "Can't help but notice that this sniper(s) is loose in a county that is synonymous with gun control." Apparently, though, the local authorities are beginning to mention the possibility that terrorism may be involved. Imagine.

I'VE GOT A REVIEW OF THE NEW GRAN TORINO CD up over at BlogCritics.

AN ARMY RECRUITING WEBLOG? Yep.

AFGHANISTAN DEJA VU:

Aid workers are increasingly concerned about a humanitarian catastrophe if a new war is launched against Iraq.

A recent statement by a number of charities warns of mass civilian deaths and an exacerbation of an existing humanitarian crisis.

Hey, haven't I heard this before? Somebody cue up the Chomskybot --it's almost time for the "silent genocide" routine -- right after Jesse Jackson offers to mediate. . . .

I HAVEN'T FOLLOWED THIS, but if you're interested Robert Prather has an update on the Ann Coulter wars.

JUST HEARD NPR on the Washington shootings. They didn't breathe a word about the possibility that terrorism might be involved.

Weirdly, this was followed by a reviewer praising the Veggie Tales.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

It was indeed terrorism. We in Montgomery County were absolutely terrorized: kids locked into schools, people afraid to leave home, police everywhere. But terrorism doesn't equal Al Qaeda, you know......we breed plenty of our own terrorists right here in the US (Oklahoma City, high school massacres, racist murders, and so on). In fact, this country has a long and proud history of domestic terrorism.

Yes. Though increasing links between Islamic fundamentalism and home-grown American terrorists (part of David Carr's global convergence of idiocy) make the distinction less meaningful all the time.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Like I said.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Charles Austin emails:

As I was driving into work and listening to Morning Edition, they noted that, "authorities now believe the shootings may be related." Isn't it funny how selective that old aphorism of "Question Authority" can be at times? What better reason to question authority than when authority refuses to display a firm grasp of the bleeding obvious?

Yeah. That reminds me of the LAX shooting and the response to questions about terrorism. It's one thing to say we don't know. It's another to make a big deal out of ignoring the obvious.

CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER: Andrew Sullivan says he agrees with almost all of Paul Krugman's column.

And scroll down for this shameful example of antisemitism among the Euro-elite.

UNFAIR: Berkeley alumnus Isaac Clemens writes that " After the Daily Cal did 'Sex on Tuesday' for years, suddenly Yale does it and it's hip enough for the New York Times."

"Hip enough for the New York Times" isn't all that hip, but what's worse is that this is a shamelessly Yale-centric reprise of a story from The Chronicle of Higher Education last spring. And the Times story doesn't even try to answer my question on the phenomenon.

UPDATE: The Times may have dropped the ball, but Erin O'Connor is on top of things with an answer to my questions.

AMERICA'S MOST ELITE ANTI-TWIT COMMANDO is taking the war to the enemy as Christopher Hitchens tells British Labour they're idiots for making a fuss over Bill Clinton -- and telling them in the Mirror, no less:

Hardened as I am to Clintonian hypocrisy, I sucked in my breath when he went moist about Rwanda. On the eve of the genocide there, all the plans for the impending slaughter were conveyed to the UN by its commander on the ground.

He pleaded for a small increase in the protection force, and for a warning to the bloodthirsty authorities that they had been detected in their plan. This was vetoed by Clinton's then-ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright. Thus, he comes before us as the man who acted rashly when in the wrong, and acted like a coward when he would have been in the right. And Labour ate it up and begged for more...

You want more? As Clinton modestly said, he knows what it's like to order the bombing of Iraq. He ordered a pointless four-day bombing in December 1998, which started as his Senate trial for impeachment began and finished when it was over.

This action put an end to the inspection process. It takes nerve to bite the lip again and talk of the importance of inspections now. But then, it takes nerve to claim credit for bombing Kosovo without a UN mandate, while insisting his successor acquire a mandate for action in Iraq.

At least we can be sure of one thing - after yesterday's abject performance, Labour forces who jeer at Bush and take a holy attitude to the UN must admit they do not do so consistently, or out of principle.

But at the last, Hitchens is unfair. They're being consistent, all right: American Republicans are always rash treated as cowboys. American Democrats, being closer to Labour, are not. Actions? Consequences? Who cares about those? This is politics.

HEH. My suggestion about Gary Hart, below, seems to have generated some interest. . . . Well, sort of.

MAYBE SOME GOOD NEWS: I've installed a bunch of new music-related software on my computer -- Acid Pro. 4.0, Sound Forge, Vegas, Cool Edit Pro 2.0, and a bunch of VST softsynths -- and everything seems to be coexisting happily. It wasn't nearly so easy on the old machine. I'm not sure how much credit goes to Windows XP and how much to the individual programs (since they're mostly new versions). But since I'm quick to complain when things don't work, it's worth mentioning that some folks seem to have done their jobs.

October 03, 2002

YESTERDAY, I asked who had registered Lautenberg2002.com. Now someone has the answer.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

HMMMM ...

Its the name Schaefer Construction that gets my attention. As in '
Schaefer ' ... the former Governer and current comptroller for the State of
Maryland ...

Hmm.

YOU KNOW, the Democrats should run Gary Hart for President in 2004. No, I'm serious.

Sure, there was once a "zipper problem." But it's ancient history -- and, post-Clinton, Hart's issues look minor, for those few who can even remember them. He's a smart guy, and he's intellectually honest, especially for a politician. And he's good on defense, he's an excellent public speaker, and he's been out long enough that he's not in hock to special interest groups.

Heck, I might even vote for him.

HERE'S THE LATEST on the D.C. shootings. Not much real news, except that people heard the shots quite loudly, meaning that the shooter was nearby. That supports the theory that he was shooting from the truck, I suppose.

THE THAW: A German reader writes:

I've not seen it reported in the English-speaking media, but Bush sent a letter of congratulation to the president of Germany on the anniversary of reunification.

At the celebration in Berlin, which included the unveiling of the newly renovated Brandenburg Gate, German president Johannes Rau gave profuse thanks to America for it contributions to German reunification.

Spiegel is talking about a thaw...

Here's a story that echoes the comments above. Yes, Bush seems to have calculated that Schroder has sweated enough, and that with his fragile coalition facing serious budget problems he'll be ready to display a little cooperation. Schroder has seen that there's a price to pay when you cross the United States, and Bush thinks he's learned his lesson, and is extending the olive branch in a way that subtly reminds the Germans of the American role over the past many decades.

Pretty subtle stuff, for a dumb cowboy who doesn't know anything about diplomacy.

HERE, VIA HOWARD BASHMAN, is a link to the Republicans' petition for Supreme Court review of the New Jersey decision.

TALKLEFT AND LAWMEME seem to like my FoxNews column on robotic law enforcement. I'm glad; I think it's going to be a big issue down the line.

THIS STORY has a picture of the "white van," which is more like a moving truck.

THE OTHER SHOE: I suppose this explains why Torricelli finally decided to resign.

THE UNITED NATIONS HAS DEALT WITH THE SHOOTING THERE in its own, inimitable fashion:

Steve Kim, the man who allegedly fired five gunshots at the United Nations building in New York this morning, was released by U.N. security guards this afternoon. After a hasty vote by the Security Council, the U.N. also imposed sanctions upon Mr. Kim.

The sanctions include a 'no-walk zone' around the U.N. building, and Mr. Kim must allow weapons inspectors access to his home with appropriate advance notice.

"We feel certain that these sanctions will keep Mr. Kim from ever again threatening the U.N. building," said General Secretary Kofi Annan. "He has also given us his word that he won't attack us again."

That'll show him.

SCOTT KOENIG has some observations on the DC/Maryland shootings. And World Wide Rant says the reporting on the subject is unimpressive.

UPDATE: Susanna Cornett has a lengthy post that's worth reading.

EUGENE VOLOKH RESPONDS TO JERRY FALWELL, whom longterm readers will recall was a prototype for the term "idiotarian."

OLIVER WILLIS IS COVERING THE REAL SENATE RACE.

MORE ON YALE AND THE MILITARY: The Yale Law School blog Kitchen Cabinet has updates. Start here and scroll up.

DANIEL DREZNER points to some evidence that the war against Al Qaeda is going pretty well.

ZACHARY BARBERA HAS NOTICED SOMETHING INTERESTING about Turkey and the Kurds.

ANOTHER EMAIL FROM A READER IN THE DC/MARYLAND AREA: John Scanlon writes:

Like Mr. Henley, I live and work within a few miles of these attacks. Three points:

First, if the reportage is accurate, the shooters are extremely well trained. Five shootings, five kills, all apparently at some distance; no reports (at this point) of unsuccessful attempts or woundings. The last victim was killed with a single shot, again by someone far enough away to have disappeared by the time the nearby witness arrived at the scene. In the typical random shooting spree, there are two or three wounded for every person killed, and bullets or shot tend to be sprayed around indiscriminately. These facts point to hunters, soldiers or other experienced killers.

Second, the Post does its local readers a grave disservice by failing to disclose not only descriptions of the killers but also the race, sex and other characteristics of the victims. If the victims were all Asians, doesn't the Post owe its Asian readers that information so they can take special precautions? On the other hand, if the killings are random (we know only that the killers targeted three men, then three women), that would fit with the terrorist MO.

It's interesting that the shooters' vehicle is a white van. I don't know about your city, but DC and its suburbs are chockablock with them. As we all know from watching too many spy movies, they are favored by law enforcement surveillance teams. Just the kind of car for stirring up suspicions in neighborhoods already leery of cops.

Indeed. Another emailer who knows something about such matters calls these "mobile sniper" attacks. That does seem like a good term for the approach that seems to be involved. As for the descriptions, it's interesting that the Post has none. It's possible that no one was able to give a good description, but it's surprising that the Post isn't reporting that fact, if so.

UPDATE: The Baltimore Sun identifies victims by race. No obvious pattern. No description of the killers, though. The Sun report says there's no description available. It also says that police don't think there's a terrorism connection.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Louis Zurr writes:

I suppose it's too much to hope from the almost uniformly boneheaded law-enforcement personnel of our nation, that they should keep in mind that these random shootings might possibly be intended as a diversion while something even worse goes down....

Well, I hope that people are smarter than that.

TED BARLOW IS FINALLY BACK after a long absence, and from his blog I learn that LL Cool J has endorsed George Pataki.

Ted learned that, I should say, from Cal Ulmann, one of the many bloggers whose sites I should visit more often. And would, if there were three of me.

DAWN OLSEN HAS LEFT THE BLOGSPOT and moved to a slick new Sekimori-designed site that's now here. A problem with Blogger was the immediate cause of the move: "I am shocked at how dependent I have become on the technical tools that I take for granted. Without them I feel helpless. I feel the walls closing in on me."

Look, I am incredibly grateful for what Pyra, Blogger, and Blogspot have done for the blogosphere. But now I cringe whenever I see a blogspot link -- or even the telltale URL that tells me the site is blogger powered. Because I know that the link may not work, or that if it works now it probably will stop working later.

Really: if you can afford to move, do. You'll be doing yourself, and the rest of us, a favor.

These folks have done it, too.

UPDATE: Misha has made the move too!

BUNCH OF UPDATES ON THE DC SHOOTINGS by Dean at Blogs4God. And here's a link (via Dean) to a map and chronology from the Post.

THE WEB SEEMS VERY SLOW TODAY, and I notice that other people are making the same complaint. What gives?

UPDATE: Ah, apparently UUNet is having some serious problems. That seems to be happening a lot lately.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's a story on what's wrong.

Oh, and this link shows graphically that people aren't imagining the problem.

EUGENE VOLOKH has a long post on potential federal constitutional arguments against the New Jersey decision, as well as a shorter one indicating that the Republicans are making those very arguments in the Supreme Court.

UPDATE: Here's the New York Times story.

SHOOTINGS UPDATE: A Maryland/DC reader sends:

Two contradicting thoughts on the possible terrorism angle:

1. The Montgomery County police spokeswoman said they have no indications that there was any political message attached to the shootings. No words were exchanged between shooter(s) and victims, according to witnesses. Just gun shots from close range.

2. HOWEVER, it seems that all the victims died from a single gun shot. Also, in at least one case (according to local TV), witnesses didn't see any bleeding -- the gun shot was discovered by paramedics doing CPR. Which makes me fearful that these guys are armed with guns/ammo that is a little more lethal than those carried by your average street punk.

Yes -- though usually "more lethal" ammo produces more visible damage. Could just be a lucky shot (er, well, several lucky shots), but it's something to watch.

Meanwhile, read this article by Bryan Preston on Al Qaeda tactics:

The tapes also suggest that the group is shifting its tactics to take into account post 9/11 realities. During the past decade, al Qaeda established a pattern of always trying to top its last feat: A mostly failed attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 led to larger and deadlier attacks on a U.S. installation in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. embassies in Africa, the near-sinking of the USS Cole, and culminated on 9/11. But the U.S. bombing and ground campaign in Afghanistan has, by all accounts, decimated al Qaeda and scattered it across dozens of countries. Following that pattern of bigger and deadlier, we should expect al Qaeda to try a mass-destruction attack on an even higher-profile target than the WTC and the Pentagon, though few landmarks fit that description. But if the training tapes are our guide, a weakened al Qaeda would be planning a series of smaller attacks spread around the West, targeting soft targets which would offer little or no resistance. The purpose of such a spread attack would be to demonstrate that al Qaeda is still capable of carrying out attacks on our soil, and to instill fear and panic around the world. It would be successful on both counts, if we aren't prepared for it.

Hmm. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Reader Jim Hogue emails that he's seen this effect with prefragmented rounds like the "Glazer Safety Slug":

In 1988-89, I conducted a murder investigation in which the victim, a U.S.A.F. NCO, was shot in the right chest at a relatively close range, 8 feet, with one of these rounds. The projectile completely fragmented and dispersed inside the body with little outward sign of trauma, except the entry wound. The victim bled less than a cup of blood and death was almost instantaneous, rare for a thoracic wound. Without several detailed X-rays taken during the autopsy, it was impossible to determine what had killed him since there was no big radiological "shadow" of a normal round. On the X-ray it looked like his chest was full of small metal shavings, something not normally considered fatal.

The current round of information available on your site i.e. "Also, in at least one case (according to local TV), witnesses didn't see any bleeding -- the gun shot was discovered by paramedics doing CPR" sounds to me to be very much like a GSS type of ammo. Especially in light of no reported massive body trauma and copious amounts of blood associated with other type of man stoppers like Federal's "Hydra-shok" etc., which leave horrific wounds on both sides of the equation; entry and exit wounds.

Anyway, as is almost always the case, most of what's being speculated - including this - are probably wrong!!! :)

Interesting -- and the final point is very much worth keeping in mind. Though I'd say that this is almost certainly an act of terrorism, one way or another. The real question is what kind of terrorism?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hogue adds:

P.S. Glaser also makes rifle rounds, .223 (M-16 type) 7.62, (WARSAW PACT ammo for AK-47's, etc.) .308 (sniper rifles) 30-06 (for good ol' American deer hunters!!) I've seen what the handgun versions of the GSS do; I can't even imagine the rifle ammo version!!!

I don't really want to.

READER ROBERT MOUNCE wonders why no one has mentioned terrorism with regard to this incident of sabotage at Camp LeJeune, in which parachute lines were stealthily cut:

The inspections determined the suspension lines had been severed on the 13 affected main parachutes in such a manner that pre-jump inspections would not detect any signs of tampering," according to a statement from Camp Lejeune.

All parachutes were being re-inspected at the base before further jumps.

Yeah. On the other hand, if this is the worst they can do. . . .

UPDATE: Donald Sensing doubts that terrorism is involved here.

NOBODY'S MENTIONING TERRORISM in connection with these apparently motiveless shootings in the DC area. Why not?

UPDATE: A reader emails that based on this review of Al Qaeda training tapes, such attacks might well be terrorism. There are a number of scenarios that seem reasonably close to what's supposed to have happened, along with this observation:

There is information to the effect that the "perfect day" as seen by Al Qaeda would combine attacks designed to produce the maximum number of casualties with attacks that would give them the opportunity to get "face time" on the news channels to deliver their rhetoric. For maximum effect these attacks would take place nearly simultaneously at multiple geographically separate locations.

This does seem to have gotten maximal news attention for minimum risk and effort -- the sort of thing that a cut-off terror cell, or a group of freelancers with minimal resources, might do. We'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile reader Mitch Berg writes: "And yet again - a mass shooting in a state without a shall-issue concealed-carry law."

Well, there are two lessons from the LAX shooting: that people on the scene with guns can bring such things to a prompt end, and that authorities will be very slow to blame such attacks on terrorism. But at the moment this is all speculation -- we'll have to wait on evidence, if any materializes. I'll leave you with these comments emailed by Jim Henley:

Glenn, no one's talking about terrorism yet because it's a developing story - no one fucking knows right now. I can tell you that these shootings are way way too close to home in a literal sense, all occurring in places where the Henley family actually shops or drives. Latest word from the schools (currently locked down, which means my son hasn't had recess, sure to be a root cause of terrorism on HIS part I don't know what will) is that they're going have police supervise the loading of the buses, but not apparently taking the crushingly obvious step of putting police ON the buses. The other concern is all the parents who will be congregating on corners WAITING for buses.

I suppose in Knoxville people would just bring their guns to the bus stop. Alas, here in Montgomery county only outlaws will have guns (more because of cultural cringe and relative safety than local laws). Since it's been quiet for a few hours, police think the killers are in hiding, according to my wife. (I work over in Virginia, so I'm getting all my updates from her.)

It sounds like a Starkweather-style spree. It may yet prove to be terrorism. The only things I see that incline me in that direction right now are that it's two guys, not one, and the report that they've gone into hiding. (Default assumption in a spree case is that one guy really wants to be shot dead himself and keeps going until he is.)

I guess there's one more thing that makes it worth speculating about a terrorist angle - the Post report you cite omits any, even fragmentary description of the killers. The Post has a tendency to do that when they're afraid such descriptions will inspire what they think of as retrograde reactions.

Yes, I noticed that omission from the Post account myself.

ANOTHER UPDATE: And now there's a similar shooting incident at the U.N. though no one appears to have been hurt, and the M.O. is different. Asparagirl has blogged it.

VIA VIRGINIA POSTREL, I also found this article by Walter Russell Mead on Bush foreign policy:

Despite the public disagreements between the Pentagon and the State Department, the most striking thing about this administration's foreign policy is its intellectual consistency. The ideas that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, outlined in a Foreign Affairs article in 2000 shape the administration's foreign policy today. In particular, Ms Rice laid down an approach to multilateralism versus unilateralism to which the administration has returned at every important moment since - and that forms the basis of the new US national security strategy.

This is absolutely right. I was reading that article just the other night, and planning to do a post on it. Now I don't have to.

VIRGINIA POSTREL likens the New Jersey decision to "Calvinball" and asks:

If they're so worried about giving the voters "the choice they deserve," where were the New Jersey Supreme Court and the NYT in 1984, when my ballot offered the choice (I am not making this up) between Tip O'Neill and a Communist?

Howard Kurtz, meanwhile, observes that:

Bob Torricelli is no longer a New Jersey issue.

He's an albatross that conservatives want to hang around the neck of every breathing Democrat.

He's their new symbol of self-indulgent sleaze, rule-bending and evading responsibility.

Judging by what I heard of Neal Boortz's show on my drive into the office, I'd say he's right.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: The federal government subsidizes a lot of work in Middle Eastern Studies, in the hopes that it will produce knowledge useful in war and diplomacy. Martin Kramer says we're not getting our money's worth. Excerpt:

Now no one can object to lectures on clothes and sex. And reading through the program, I confess that many of the more obscure subjects appeal to my antiquarian tastes. But there is very little in this program to justify the notion that Middle Eastern studies serve the national interest, or that they deserve the massive increase in federal funding authorized by Congress last January. Given the fact that the conference is meeting in Washington, the omissions are even more striking.

Actually, it looks as if much of the work is worse than merely useless:

The words "al-Qaeda" and "Osama bin Laden" are nowhere to be found. The word "terrorism" is either between quotation marks or in the context of "Arab Responses to America's War on Terrorism."

I hope some journalists will attend, and ask about this stuff. (Link via The Corner).

SHILOH BUCHER'S SECRET IDENTITY has been revealed.

HARKIN SCANDAL UPDATE: Iowa blogger David Hogberg has the latest.

COMPUTERS ENFORCING THE LAW? Yep. And doing it badly, in association with clueless and irresponsible humans. It's in my FoxNews Column today.

STACY TABB offers a full-frontal Fisking to a study on child discipline. Nutshell version: " More free advice from the U.N. If they knew their asses from their elbows, they might actually use their power to put an end to the murder, prostitution and enslavement of children around the world instead of denouncing spankings." (Heck, I'd be happy if the U.N. would just stop participating in the prostitution and enslavement of children).

Speaking of the U.N., I heard an NPR story earlier on a global violence survey from the WHO. The main cause of death by violence around the world is . . . suicide!

Now, as soon as I heard this, I lost all respect for the study. Suicide is, usually, a Bad Thing. But it's a sufficiently different thing from, well, murder, that when you lump the two together it's because you want to make the numbers bigger. And when you want to make the numbers bigger, it's out of self-promotion and bureaucratic aggrandizement -- or worse, as when gun-control advocates lump suicide into their figures on "gun deaths," which they do because, well, there are a lot of suicides, which actually make up the majority of "gun deaths." (In 1999, according to James Jacobs' new book Can Gun Control Work? from Oxford University Press, there were 17,400 firearms suicides and only 9,000 firearms homicides. So naturally gun-controllers want to combine these, since it almost triples the size of the number of "gun deaths.")

This kind of obvious bogosity is why "public health" studies have lost so much credibility over the past couple of decades: they're full of distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies. They've branched out into this stuff because they decided some time ago that infectious disease was no longer a problem, and they had to do something to keep the grant money flowing.

Do something about AIDS and biowar, guys, or start selling insurance. This stuff is a waste of time and money.

I JUST VISITED TED BARLOW'S PAGE (don't bother, he still hasn't posted anything new -- come back, Ted! What does work have to offer compared to blogging?) and I noticed his link to The New Republic's house blog &c bears the notation "prounounced 'Prince.'" Heh.

BONIOR / MCDERMOTT UPDATE: Chris Suellentrop writes in Slate that Bonior and McDermott have their pluses and minuses. Minuses:

When it comes to foreign policy, Democrats have a reputation as credulous stooges whose reflexive anti-war leanings make them willing dupes for murderous dictators. That didn't happen in this case (at least not yet),[It didn't? -- Ed.] but the charge is so effective that it doesn't matter whether it's true. Bonior and McDermott may not have played into Saddam's hands, but they did play into the GOP's.

Also customary is anti-war Democrats' tendency to cry "Vietnam" and "quagmire." . . . Of this, McDermott is particularly guilty. He criticized the early airstrikes in Afghanistan last October, raising the specter of the war in which he served as a Navy psychiatrist at Long Beach Naval Station: "There are some eerie parallels that trouble me." McDermott has repeated similar fears during the buildup to war with Iraq. At times, the opposition to war from the Party That Cries Vietnam appears to stem more from '60s and '70s nostalgia than from moral or political beliefs.

On the upside, Suellentrop says:

If Maureen Dowd is to be believed, Hillary Clinton is keeping her private doubts about an Iraq war to herself in order to preserve her "political viability" in the 2008 presidential race. She's not the only Democrat with similar motives. Say what you will about Bonior and McDermott—they're naive, they're too trusting of an evil tyrant, their decision to condemn Bush from a foreign land was ill-timed and foolish. All that is true. But at least they're sincere. And at least they're not silent.

So they're useful idiots, but in their defense, they're idiots -- unlike the other Democrats, who are political opportunists. With this being what defenders of Democratic positions on the war are saying, I think the Democratic Party is in real trouble here. Which explains why Bush is facing so little opposition on this question, I guess.

Meanwhile, back on Bonior and McDermott in specific, rather than the Democrats in general, Bill Herbert has looked at the transcript of yesterday's press conference and points out a howler that other commentators missed.

UPDATE: Here's a story on how Daschle got rolled on the war resolution. Does this have anything to do with Dick Gephardt's presidential aspirations? The story of the intra-Democratic infighting on this subject isn't getting the attention it deserves -- though it sounds as if Bonior and McDermott's action, and the bad publicity it created, played a role here too.

Hmm -- puts the old "if you want peace, prepare for war" saying in a new light, doesn't it?

PATRICK RUFFINI thinks that Forrester can still win in New Jersey. Reason: "On the whole, Lautenberg has been a pretty lousy politician."

Yes, Forrester's big advantage has been that he's Mr. Not Torricelli. But, of course, that's Lautenberg's main claim to fame, too. Yeah, he used to be a Senator, but, well, that can cut both ways.

Ruffini has a lot more analysis. Check it out.

ARE NGOS THE MODERN AXIS OF RACISM? This would support that theory.

October 02, 2002

VIA BILL QUICK, this fascinating story:

Media heads face prosecution in Iran over a ground-breaking opinion poll on mending relations with the United States.

It showed a large majority of the population in favour of dialogue with the "Great Satan" and nearly half showing sympathy with US policy on Iran. . . .

According to the poll of 1,500 Iranians, conducted by three separate institutes including the National Institute for Research Studies and Opinion Polls (NIRSOP) and published by Irna on 22 September:

74% of respondents over the age of 15 support dialogue with the US

45.8% believe Washington's policy on Iran is "to some extent correct".

But the judiciary has responded by charging NIRSOP director Behrouz Geranpayeh and Irna's Abdollah Nasseri of "publishing lies to excite public opinion", the Iran newspaper reports.

Advice to mullahs: Switzerland is nice this time of year.

AS A SUBSCRIBER TO "INSTAPUNDIT PREMIUM" (premium grade's all we got here) you get access to my FoxNews column for tomorrow, tonight! That's something you couldn't get otherwise unless you went to the FoxNews site, er, on your own.

THE DEVASTATING REPUBLICAN RESPONSE to the New Jersey decision is now public. I should have seen this one coming.

READER THOMAS MANNING WRITES: "Who is S. French of Baltimore, Maryland, and why did he register the domain name lautenberg2002.com on Monday?"

Good question.

AMPERSAND links to this article on antisemitism and seems to think (well, actually Meryl Yourish seems to think that Ampersand thinks) that I won't link to it because it mentions antisemitism by right-wing extremists.

Sigh. As a grizzled weblog ancient, I should point out that I've been doing it all along (see, for example, this link from 9/11/2001 about the Posse Comitatus, and the various anti-Nazi sneers in response to the mail they're always sending me, which I'll let interested readers find by themselves). But the hardcore antisemites of the right are isolated. They're members of tiny loser groups like the Posse Comitatus. The hardcore antisemites of the left are professors at Ivy League schools, or high-profile "black leaders."

REP. ZOE LOFGREN'S Digital Choice and Freedom Act is analyzed over at LawMeme. They like it!

ANIMAL RIGHTS TERRORISM is condemned in an NRO article that cites a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. One of the points made is the extent to which "mainstream" animal-rights groups serve as fronts, fundraisers, and facilitators for animal-rights terrorism.

RECORD COMPANIES FACED TOUGH QUESTIONS about the way they're ripping off artists for royalties. I'm glad to hear that people are looking at legislation, but criminal investigations seem called-for here. Perhaps the U.S. Department of Justice, or some state attorneys general, will look into this.

(Via Faisal.com).

I HAVE A WEIRD LIFE: I spent the day blogging and rewiring the studio (crawling in confined, dark spaces trying to read the tiny legends on the back of things that other things are supposed to plug into: is that the input or the output? Hmm. . .) and installing a bunch of new music software which, surprisingly, all seems to be working properly. Then I got ready to cook dinner, only my wife needed a box of books taken to the shipping center for the small publishing company we run on the side (don't ask) so I wound up picking up Chik-fil-A. Then a quick review of the New Jersey case before going on Hugh Hewitt's show. Now I'm running my daughter a bath, while back on the Web.

I remember reading that the division of workplace and home was a modern phenomenon. I guess it's gone away in the post-modern era. . . .

I'M JUST ABOUT TO BE ON Hugh Hewitt's show.

HERE'S THE TEXT of the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that allows Torricelli to be replaced on the ballot. Here's a link to the New York Times story, here's one to the Washington Post's report, and here's one to the Philadelphia Inquirer story. Based on a quick read, I don't have much to say about the opinion except that I don't see why the "two party system" deserves such legal stature.

Eugene Volokh also has little to say in response to such a sketchy opinion. Solly Ezekiel rules out partisan bias.

UPDATE: Volokh has more now. Read it!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Orrin Judd says the New Jersey Democrats should have suffered for not picking Cory Booker.

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Mickey Kaus sums up the opinion this way:

I would add that the court doesn't appear to have made any effort to discern a statutory scheme here. The operative rule seems to be: "We're going to do what we think is right unless there's an incredibly clear black-letter statute saying we can't. And then we can always declare it unconstitutional." Does the elected legislature have any role to play here at all? (It's ironic that the court pays such attention to finding what it thinks is the most democratic way to pick a lawmaker, even as it brushes aside the actual work-product of those democratically-elected lawmakers, namely statutes.)

Well said. Tony Adragna adds this observation:

I don't see how those interests couldn't have been served by simply leaving Torricelli on the ballot notwithstanding that he's a loser — that he's a loser threatens not the two party system. limits not participation, the party had a candidate on the ballot — chosen through the primary process — and "most importantly" voters still had a choice on Election Day... hmmm... I think this ruling is bad law....

There's more.

Tom Maguire is unhappy, and so is IMAO. On the other hand, Jonathan Adler, whose post on this yesterday at The Corner seems to have hit pretty close to the mark, emails that the decision isn't out of character for New Jersey courts in election disputes: "There's a bunch of New Jersey case law on stretching election law to ensure voter 'choice' on the ballot." Yeah, but if they really cared about voter choice, they'd have a line for "none of the above."

Here are the choices the voters would have had. And here's what one of the "choices" had to say.

BEN FISCHER HAS POSTED PART TWO of his response to Ted Rall's windy screed.