Many lawyers know of the seven line, seven sentence, seven paragraph apology letter:

Dear Mr. Slimeball, Esq.:

For some time you and I have had strenuous disagreements concerning this case.

Understanding that reasonable people may disagree, I wish to bury the hatchet.

Considering these difficulties, I am glad that we remain friends.

Knowing that you accept this apology will mean much to me.

Your acknowledgment of this letter would be greatly appreciated.

Opening a new chapter in our relationship is my fondest wish.

Until we next meet, I remain,

Yours very truly,

Patrick ________

I thought that was the best apology a man could make, until today.

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If you'd like to move to Old Blighty, Prime Minister Gordon Brown would like a word with you.

He added: “To those migrants who think they can get away without making a contribution, without respecting our way of life, without honouring the values that make Britain what it is, I have only one message — you’re not welcome.”

Now, I have my suspicions about what that means, and you might as well:

But prudence, my friends, dictates that we be sure before we show up on Great Britain's doorstep with our suitcases. So I did a little research, and I think I have a list of essential items that form part of the U.K.'s way of life and form the values that immigrants must honor. Here are some precepts:

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As part of my job I monitor several 2nd Amendment websites and forums that range between bat shit insane and downright scholarly (sometimes in the same post!). The random anger and fear expressed by these groups is fascinating to me. Their posts are full of rage against a faceless government and bizarre conspiracy theories. But most of all, their messages are full of threat (explicit and implicit.) You can't turn around without hitting a "Tree of Liberty" reference.

One of those forums had a link to this article about Secession. Let's start with the easy stuff. Secession is never going to happen. Sorry to disappoint Rick Perry. It's just infeasible in today's world.

The article simplistically suggests that Red & Blue America can no longer survive together. The author suggests that conservative Democrats have "become nearly non-existent" Hmm, so why isn't abortion covered in the Healthcare bill again? He also gives us a subtle hint of his bias by describing how Bush II "won the presidency in 2000 on a record of bipartisanship.." but Obama "disingenuously campaigned as a moderate promising a 'post-partisan' administration."

The weirdest part of the article are his attempts to suggest that the left is just as active in the secessionist idea as the right. He equates liberals joking suggestion of forming a new Canada after Bush's election with the current conservative froth. Not at all the same. In fact, I would argue that even when the left was at it's lowest (Bush v. Gore for instance) there was nowhere near the open suggestion of violence and rage towards the government.

Is it just because liberals are peace loving gay granola eaters, while conservatives are he-man red blooded gun toting psychopaths (with all due apologies to Ms. Smith)? Well, if I look at things as simply as the author of that article, I guess so.

The fact is that republicans and democrats live and work together each day. To suggest that our society is so stratified that it cannot move forward together is insane.

In 2000 a tradition was born among my friends. Each Memorial Day as many of us as could make it would gather for the long weekend (up til this year it had always been in the Bay Area, but this year we are going to Portland) and watch the worst movie we could find in theatres. This tradition is thanks to one movie, and one movie only – Battlefield Earth. It's not the worst movie I have ever seen (that honor still goes to Eye of the Beholder), but it's darn close. It was also just voted as the worst film of the decade by the Razzies.

We sat in that theatre openly mocking the film. Towards the end we were joined by several other members of the audience. I mean the movie was a perfect confluence of things to mock – John Travolta, Forest Whittaker, horrible dialogue, Scientology – it's all there.

Thanks to that movie, one of the best traditions in my life was created. And now, thanks to that movie one of the funnier pieces of Hollywood writing has been created. J.D. Shapiro, the original screenwriter of the movie has written an apology to anyone who saw the film.  It's a recommended read, even if you haven't seen the film.

Really? I mean, really?

I am not saying here that liberals are psychopaths, for this would be incorrect for the most part. What I am saying is that their inability to understand the morality of conservatives makes them unable to understand their point of view, just as a psychopath does not understand the morality of normal people.

So just remember that next time a liberal treats you poorly, it may not be his or her fault. Like the psychopath who has no empathy for his fellow human being, liberals may have a blind spot when it comes to having any empathy or understanding for their conservative brethren. It often makes a psychopath worse to show empathy for him, as he will take advantage of it.

For the most part I've been optimistic about the possibilities of blogging. But there are days when I read the insipid frothing crap that's promoted on prominent, successful, high-traffic blogs and just wonder if we weren't all better off when this pack of smug louts was churning out angry pamphlets on the grungy mimeograph machine in the basement. The fact that I probably agree with "Dr. Helen" on more issues than I agree with the liberals she scorns makes it more depressing, not less.

And please don't doubt for a second that I could find something just as contemptible, just as dehumanizing, from a prominent high-traffic lefty blog. I started to look and got too nauseated and angry to keep going.

What if all of these recent sexual shenanigans aren't the fault of their seeming perpetrators, but are the result of the cruel internet gods mercilessly applying Rule 34?

What if Jesse James acted not out of free will, but involuntarily, in a trance, because someone Googled "+"Sandra Bullock" +skank +tattooed +nazi +trouble"? What if Elin Woods' heartbreak is not the fault of Tiger, but if the stutter-typing guy who Googled "+tiger +slut +slut +slut +slut +slut +slut +"pancake house waitress""? What if the whole problem with the RNC was that someone Googled "+"Young Republican" +lesbian +stripper?"

That would make much more sense, frankly.

The town council of Dudley, in the British midlands, has banned further showing of Philip Ridley's play Moonfleece.  It seems the play, which concerns a young man's decision to join the anti-immigrant, anti-gay, ultranationalist British National Party, is just too harsh on fascism.

According to the show’s website it has already been shown in some of the country’s most racially sensitive areas including London, Leicester, Birmingham, Doncaster and Bradford.

Producers say they deliberately chose those areas, which are considered strong BNP areas, to "start a conversation about the far right”.

The play, which has won rave reviews from critics, is set in an abandoned council flat, in East London with the main character, Curtis, haunted by the disappearance of his brother, Jason.

Boasting a multi-cultural cast it centres on a young, right-wing activist forced to reassess his personal and political beliefs as the brutality of the new-look BNP is exposed. It explores the rise of right-wing nationalism and homophobia.

Although the town now claims that the play, which was to be shown in a community theater, was not suitable for all ages, its producers claim they were told the production, which is highly critical, would hurt local feelings in an area that's known as a BNP stronghold.

Britain sure has changed a lot since Churchill's day.  In the modern British nanny state there's a place for everyone, and everyone has the right not to be offended.  Even fascists.

Of course apologists might say that Dudley has banned this play due to fears that any depiction of the BNP might offend non-BNP members, or that the play is so controversial its showing might incite violence in a BNP stronghold.  But Moonfleece has already been shown in other areas of the country where BNP membership is heavy, without violence.  Whatever the apology, barring producers from showing the play is an intolerable restriction on speech in a country that once was famous for the liberty its citizens enjoyed.

Thank God I live in the United States, where our hearty homegrown fascists are so much tougher than the limpwristed English variety.  When's the last time you heard of an American Nazi who ran whinging to the government because his feelings had been hurt?

Imagine that you lived in a world where a crazy neighbor could steal thousands of dollars from you. Imagine that you might, if you were lucky, limit the amount of money your crazy neighbor could steal — maybe limit it to thousands or tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands — but ultimately you couldn't stop it all, because the law viewed it as your crazy neighbor's right to steal from you, and your duty as a citizen to live with it.

Guess what, my friend — you do live in that world right now.

We've joked before about the lunatics who think that wi-fi signals impair their health and interfere with their Druidic rituals, despite an utter lack of scientific evidence to support their claims. When people are just pestering their local city council or school board, who probably deserve it, their lunacy is funny.

But when their lunacy takes the form of lawsuits, which costs their victims money and peace of mind in their home, it's not so funny.

We've already blogged about Arthur Fristenberg, who has previously found wi-fi junk science to be an excellent route to lots of attention. Now he's sued a young neighbor, and sought a preliminary injunction against her, for the tort of scrambling his brain with her awful wi-fi signals.

But last October, when a friend of his rented a house on the next block that backed up to Firstenberg's property, the familiar waves of nausea, vertigo, body aches, dizziness, heart arrhythmia and insomnia returned — all, he says, because she was using an iPhone, a laptop computer, a wireless router and dimmer switches.

Firstenberg, 59, wanted Raphaela Monribot to limit her use of the devices. "I asked her to work with me," he said. "Basically, she refused."

So he sued Monribot in state district court, seeking $530,000 in damages and an injunction to force her to turn off the electronics.

There's no science to support it. But you can hire a "doctor" to say anything:

Dr. Erica Elliott, who treated Firstenberg and testified at a hearing on a preliminary injunction, said she signed the wireless petition because she's convinced electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a real disorder that may affect the nervous system.

Mainstream scientists object to the notion that microwaves and radio waves emitted by consumer electronics could cause the reported health problems.

Oh, you "mainstream scientists" and your peer review and facts and scientific method. What do you know about how people feel about science? Thank goodness for people like Dr. Erica Elliott:

Dr. Elliott has been referred to affectionately as the "Health Detective," drawing from a wide range of disciplines, both mainstream and alternative, in order to diagnose and treat chronic illness.

No word on whether Dr. Elliot will offer expert testimony on your behalf if the CIA is beaming bad thoughts into your head, but I'm sure it won't hurt to ask.

Hopefully the judge here will do the right thing and, under New Mexico's equivalent of Daubert, throw the case out.

But even if the judge does so promptly, Raphaela Monribot will be out the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars it took to defend herself. She'll have suffered the stress of having a crazy neighbor use the court system to inflict his delusions upon her. She'll suffer that because she has the misfortune of living near a nutcase, and living in the same community as snake-oil salesman Dr. Elliott, who is willing to testify under oath conflating belief with science. She'll suffer it because our system offers very little disincentive to people like Fristenberg and Elliott to do it. Yes, Monribot could sue for malicious prosecution. That would be uncertain, expensive, and time-consuming.

In a more just system, when the judge dismisses this junk-science case, he or she would have the power to order Fristenberg, his lawyer, and his "expert" Dr. Elliott to pay Monribot's full attorney fees. And if they don't pay immediately? Well, Fristenberg has a house — and that's what court-ordered public auctions are for.

The Republican National Committee is seeking to recoup some questionable expenses that were charged to them. Among them, almost $2,000 spent at a topless club. Now that's a fundraising event!

"The problem was my place was right in the middle of town, so any private investigator could see everything I was doing."

I wish I had heard more of that conversation.

I'm playing Just Cause 2 right now. It's one of those open world go where ever you want sort of games, which I often struggle with. The funny thing is, I have done almost no actual missions, because wreaking havoc all over the island is just too much fun.

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Evan, singing in the car: "Twinkle twinkle little star, Teletubbies rated R."

Me: "Why are the Teletubbies rated R now?"

Evan: "Because they have the VIOLENCE of LEARNING."

Me: "Good thing you're a pacifist then, huh?"

Evan: "I have no idea what that means, so EXACTLY."

The mission statement published by the Duke University Board of Trustees proclaims the school's object as follows:

the mission of Duke University is to provide a superior liberal education to undergraduate students, attending not only to their intellectual growth but also to their development as adults committed to high ethical standards and full participation as leaders in their communities; to prepare future members of the learned professions for lives of skilled and ethical service by providing excellent graduate and professional education; to advance the frontiers of knowledge and contribute boldly to the international community of scholarship; to promote an intellectual environment built on a commitment to free and open inquiry; to help those who suffer, cure disease, and promote health, through sophisticated medical research and thoughtful patient care; to provide wide ranging educational opportunities, on and beyond our campuses, for traditional students, active professionals and life-long learners using the power of information technologies; and to promote a deep appreciation for the range of human difference and potential, a sense of the obligations and rewards of citizenship, and a commitment to learning, freedom and truth.

Unfortunately, the university's conduct often undercuts that noble statement, even toward students who don't play lacrosse.

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I've written before about one of the most annoying aspects of blogging: I routinely put substantial thought and effort into elaborate posts on serious subjects, only to find that the resulting post gets no comments or links; by contrast, casual throw-away posts on frivolous subjects that took three minutes to write get many comments and big hits. Nearly every blogger I've talked to has experienced the same phenomenon.

So, inspired by the consistently excellent Blawg Review, I've decided to do something about it. Most blog reviews are dedicated to posts that other people thought were great. The Dance of the Wallflowers will be a blog carnival devoted to the blog posts that the bloggers themselves viewed as their beloved but ignored children.

Here's how it's going to work:

1. Popehat will host the first one. I'm scheduling it tentatively for May 1. The review will appear here, and I'll write the frame for the posts.

2. This first time, I'll manage it as well. Interested bloggers should send me a link to no more than three of their posts in the last year that (1) they thought were noteworthy and particularly well-written or researched, but (2) didn't get much attention.

3. I'll create a post on our forum listing the candidates. Interested participants can then vote in the forum or in an email to me which of the posts they like the best.

4. Based on those votes, I'll create a post showcasing the best previously ignored posts by the participants. [Future hosts might want to set a theme for a particular Dance. I figure we might do this once a quarter or so.]

What kind of blogs would I like to see participate? Well, I suspect that our core constituency will be the blogs you see in the Blawg Review and that we frequently link to — blogs that feature legal and political issues, if not blogs solely devoted to them. But I see this as an opportunity to learn about blogs I haven't followed before, too. So if you're a blogger, and you're interested, drop a comment here, or send me an email at ken at popehat dot com.

Suggestions about how to run the Dance of the Wallflowers are welcome.

Over at the Cato@Liberty blog, Chris Moody announces the premiere of the movie 10 Rules for Dealing With Police, a new short film by Flex Your Rights. 10 Rules presents, in a surprisingly compelling and non-cheesy dramatic frame, excellent advice for navigating encounters with law enforcement. I think it's a great resource for clients, kids, and friends who are not familiar with their rights.

Here are the 10 rules, stripped of the detail and commentary that makes the movie very worthwhile:

1. Always be calm and cool.

2. You have the right to remain silent.

3. You have the right to refuse searches.

4. Don't get tricked into waiving your rights.

5. Determine if you're free to go.

6. Don't do anything illegal.

7. Don't run.

8. Never touch a cop.

9. Report misconduct: Be a good witness.

10. You don't have to let them in.

Many of these rules — the ones about shutting up, not consenting to searches, not waiving rights, and demanding that police clarify whether you are free to go — are excellent points about asserting constitutional rights. Asserting your rights may, in the real world of cops, get you detained, abused, assaulted, tased, arrested, accused of false charges premised on "testilying", and occasionally murdered for contempt of cop, but it's crucial that you know what those rights are and how to assert them.

But then there's that first rule — "always be calm and cool." In the movie, it's dramatized by a young black man being pulled over and, when he gets mouthy, subjected to retaliatory detention and searches.

Women's rights advocates often complain that advice to women about how to avoid rape often degenerates into ancient victim-blaming rapist-excusing stereotypes, no matter how well-intentioned or sensible (for instance, "don't go to a frat party alone and get drunk") the advice is. I've always had a conceptual problem with this complaint; I think one can advise a friend not to walk down a dark alley at midnight without suggesting that people who do so "deserve" to get mugged, or that muggers are justified or excused. There's a difference between recognizing a need for prudence, on the one hand, and accepting the circumstances that call for it, on the other.

But when I watch 10 Rules, I can understand better what the women's rights advocates are talking about.

See, if your goal is not to be abused, wrongfully arrested, falsely accused, searched without probable cause, or proned out on the pavement because you irritated someone with a gun and a badge, then "don't be mouthy to a cop" is excellent practical advice. But dammit, we shouldn't have to give that advice. The concept that you should expect to be abused if you aren't meek (or, to be more realistic, subservient) in dealing with public servants ought to be abhorrent to a society of free people. Courtesy is admirable, and unnecessary rudeness is not, but rudeness ought not be seen as inviting government employees to break the law. But the reality is that our society largely issues apologias for, not denunciations of, police abuse. The prevailing belief is that claims of abuse are about lawyers or crooks trying to game the system, that people accused of crimes generally committed them, and that cops are heroes of the sort who deserve the benefit of the doubt when their account of a roadside encounter differs from that of a citizen. Our society, for the most part, indulges cops in their expectation that citizens will be subservient. As a result, "don't talk back to a cop" remains tragically apt practical advice.

Moreover, the truth of it is that many cops will interpret an assertion of your constitutional rights, however politely delivered, as a rude challenge. They are supported in that view by four decades of "law and order" talk that classifies constitutional rights as mere instrumentalities of crime, not as the rules by which we have chosen to live.

Shame on us if we put up with that.

Edited to add: The police reaction is classic:

A spokesman for the D.C. police, who had not seen the film, said the rules are good rules to follow. "However," he said, "if you have nothing to hide and police are doing some kind of investigation, you should tell them whatever they need to know. Police are there to protect the society and the community in which we work."

In other words, if you stand on your rights, you must have something to hide, and you must be a foe of society. Because remember — cops are friends.