Sitting in the garden at one of my favorite places in the world—the Simpson House Inn in Santa Barbara—a bit sluggish from sleeping in, or perhaps from that excellent bottle of wine last night. Finish another book on the iPad? Nap? Watch something on streaming Netflix on iPad? It's a dilemma. Then a leisurely walk down State Street, perhaps as far as the beach, dinner at our favorite sushi place, and a walk (or perhaps the trolley) back.

Mini-vacations without the kids—even for two days—are very rare, so one must make the most of them.

He died in bed of old age, something Richard Nixon, who put Schorr on the famous "enemies list," wouldn't have wanted.

I didn't agree with Schorr on much of anything.  He was a fossilized New Deal liberal who was probably amazed that the computer keyboard his interns used to type his NPR commentary didn't require ribbon replacement.  But he never trusted the government, whether the White House occupant had an R or a D by his name.  And his voice was an audio definition of the word "avuncular."

There probably isn't much muck in heaven, but if there is, Schorr will no doubt enjoy raking it up.

Thanks to Dave Weigel, who is presently homeless, for the tip.

We've been spammed by lawyers. We've been spammed by retired baseball players who are now "internet marketing professionals" (that was a fun one). We've been spammed by abortionists. We've been spammed by malware games.

But previously, as far as I know, we had never been spammed on behalf of Jesus.

Now, we're getting flooded with comment spam on behalf of the Fellowship.Community, a Christian online forum.

The Fellowship.co Christian Community would like to invite the blog owner and everyone reading this blog to join our Christian community. Our website is open to anyone who is interested in discussing anything related to Christianity. You can join our new forum here: [link deleted]

We received eight of these inside several hours, using multiple (probably fake) names and (probably fake) email addresses. They are comment spamming posts like this one, which makes me think they are just using a bot to spam blog posts containing Jesus' name, whether or not those posts are consistent with their outlook.

I'm thinking Matthew 6 needs an update:

"And when you pray, you shall not be as the spammers are: for they love to comment-spam unto the blogs, and in the corners of the forums, that they may be seen of men. Truly I say to you, They will not improve their Google search ranking."

Michael Bellesiles, step aside.  Sure, you're America's most prominent academic fraud, but do you have a name as childishly humorous as "Anil Potti"?

Researchers have stopped three clinical trials that rely on the work of a Duke University scientist who may have falsely claimed to be a Rhodes scholar on applications he submitted for federal grant funding.

Overlawyered moment:  He either claimed to be a Rhodes scholar, or he didn't.  He either is a Rhodes scholar, or he isn't.  There are only four possibilities here.  Given that you're confident enough to print the story, you can avoid the "allegedly" and "may have" weasel words.

The problem with this country is that people don't say what they mean, and don't mean what they say.  Am I the only person who thought the funniest moment in the entire Journo-List scandal was pencil-necked dweeb Spencer Ackerman's suggestion:

What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

Really? You thought an audience of NPR producers and Washington Post bloggers would literally throw a right-winger through a window, take a snapshot of the corpse, and terrorize his family with photos of the gory mess?  At Christmas?

What in the Hell is wrong with this country, where everyone feels the need to put a "smiley" on sarcastic suggestions that one's political foes be killed by defenestration?  Edward R. Murrow wouldn't have been afraid to say that Joe McCarthy should be thrown out of a window, even though weasel words and emoticons hadn't yet been invented.

Anyway.

the three trials are testing the genetic findings reported by cancer researcher Dr. Anil Potti and his colleagues. Last week, Duke placed Potti on administrative leave after allegations arose that on grant applications he embellished his résumé with the prestigious Rhodes scholarship.

Enrollment in the trials was halted Sunday at Duke and elsewhere. The next day, a letter signed by 31 researchers at universities across the nation sharply criticized the work conducted by Potti and Dr. Joseph Nevins, another Duke cancer researcher, noting "serious errors" in their science.

Fortunately no one has died in clinical trials of Dr. Anil Potti's non-Rhodesian work.  I said before, many of them don't really care about you.  You're just a meal ticket, someone whose money is to be digested then flushed down the Anil Potti.

Scandals like this, Climategate, Journo-List, and too many others to name wouldn't be nearly as frequent if the professions would only police themselves.  But that's beside my main point.

The main point is that, somewhere out there, there's a fake Rhodes Scholar named Dr. Anil Potti.

Look, I don't want to open a can of worms. But here's my question today: should UCLA fire Jonathan Zasloff for advocating government suppression of speech he doesn't like?

I mean, UCLA is a state school. Does that mean they should fire professors who advocate government suppression of speech, in violation of the First Amendment? Or maybe have them prosecuted? Or flogged? I don't know these things. I'm just asking questions.

Professor Zasloff's question was this:

“I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”

Now, maybe that question and its answer are a little more complicated, and legal, than the other questions people Zasloff was hanging out with were asking — like whether Fox is a bumbling propaganda outlet. That one is easier to answer for me.

But shouldn't it be clear that the government shouldn't shut down media outlets that criticize it, even if they do so moronically and unfairly? Some would disagree. But not me.

Look, I'm just asking the question of whether a university should fire a professor for stupid, stupid speech. I mean, I'm just a criminal and civil litigator with college and law degrees and a capability of reading. I'm not an attorney specializing in when colleges can fire professors for asking questions. So it's entirely reasonable of me to ask you, the reading public, these questions to start a dialogue. So if you think there's something wrong, or even offensive, about that question, it's totally unreasonable of you to criticize me for it.

Just ask Jonathan Zasloff. He agrees with me completely. I think he learned it from Glenn Beck.

But even if you do strongly disagree, that's OK. I shouldn't worry that anyone will spread my question further and use it to suggest that I want to use the mechanism of government to suppress speech I don't like and political groups I oppose. After all, just as listserv members can reasonably expect that their incendiary comments to a diverse group of politically opinionated journalists and bloggers and activists will remain confidential and kept in context, I never have to worry about you all repeating this or taking it the wrong way. We're just having a private conversation here, right?

I mean, I'm just asking questions.

It's been awhile since we've had a caption thread, but I think this picture begs for it.

It was slightly weird when Emmitt Smith and other sports figures decided to start going on reality shows. But at least they were in the prism of "celebrities." Several years ago, a former NFL quarterback (by no means a star) was on Survivor, and he was so concerned about people recognizing him that he lied about his job and most everything else. He apparently felt his celebrity would be a drawback.

What then are we to make of the chances of ex-NFL Coach Jimmy Johnson on Survivor? It's not like he can pretend to be someone else. Heck, I would vote him off everytime because a) he's insufferable b) I'm a Niners fan c) his hair. But, I have to admit, I am sort of fascinated to see what would happen if he were on the show. I think they might have got me to watch the show again, after not having watched for some time. Heck, his hair after a week without product should be fascinating television by itself.

How else to explain the movement to keep people like me from buying Snus?

It's because large-L Libertarian officialdom promotes people who commit deviant acts against logic, like Wayne Allyn Root, who boasts a series of Official Libertarian creds and opens his rant with this:

I was Barack Obama’s college classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. We were both Pre Law and Political Science majors (although strangely, I never met him, saw him, or even heard of him). That gives me a unique understanding of his mindset. You see virtually every classmate I ever got to know at Columbia was either obviously or openly a radical socialist or marxist.

[Emphasis added, hilarity in original.]

Laugh at Root so you won't cry that official Libertarianism is choked with bombastic twits like him. Laugh at his utter lack of self-awareness:

But there’s something else you need to know about my classmates at Columbia- the dysfunctional rage and hatred they harbor towards anyone that disagrees with them.

Try not to cry that the national discourse is poisoned by people like Root. Try not to cry that the prominence of Fox-guest Root and his ilk marginalize libertarian ideas. Try not to cry that our choices in public discourse too often seem to be bomb-throwing frothers on the Right or bomb-throwing frothers on the Left, with no outlet for criticizing specific policies of public figures without making them out to be cartoonish demons.

Via Doug Mataconis.

It's easy and enjoyable to make fun of totalitarian idiots, like those in China, when they prove incapable of distinguishing parodies by The Onion from reality.

But we're living in a glass house over here, people. Consider this quite funny satirical video by the Onion about a fictitious bill HR 8791. Now consider what people are saying about it now, and what people said about it the other times it got posted to YouTube and circulated. Enjoy as conspiracy theorists, Obama-haters, survivalists, UFO enthusiasts, and others fail to distinguish satire from reality.

Via Roger Ebert.

I'm much too lazy to write a thousand words on how I feel about people who are relentlessly threatened by the existence of people speaking other languages and belonging to other cultures, right here in God's own America.

So I will let a picture from the reliably awesome Criggo say it for me.

I've offered strong criticism of Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon before. But her post on why she rejects censorship as an approach to expression she opposes (in this case, pornography) is a well-written and principled exposition of how self-described feminists can oppose censorship, and I applaud it even if I don't agree with all of her descriptive assumptions.

I like sporting events. I really enjoy watching them in the afternoon. One of the things I love about this country. I loved baseball ever since Arnold Rothstein fixed the World Series in 1919…

Hyman Roth

If you read this site, chances are you're familiar with the work of Radley Balko, Reason Magazine's senior editor and crime columnist, and libertarian writer at large. You may have found us through Mr. Balko's personal website, the Agitator.

You've probably never heard of Les Bernal, the executive director of "Stop Predatory Gambling" – some guy who probably takes grants from the government to argue that we need more government, and to argue that all legal prohibitions on gambling, like internet poker, are good and worthy, and that when a SWAT team shoots a casual sports better in the chest, killing him, it's a necessary sacrifice in the war against your personal liberties, … I mean, predatory gambling.

I've never heard of the man anyway.  He sounds like some jackbooted thug and he looks like Stalin's secret police chief, Lavrenti Beria, who incidentally was a notorious rapist and child molester, to me, but that's just my personal opinion.

Anyway, Balko and this Beria, I'm sorry, I mean Bernal, character are having a debate on the wisdom of gambling prohibition at the Economist.  The victor in the debate will be decided by the votes of the reading public.

I make no recommendation as to how you should vote, of course.

I have not been interested in the LeBronapalooza this Summer. It was clear he was ditching Cleveland, the only question was how crassly he would do so (answer: almost unbelievably.) What I did find telling was Michael Jordan's comment yesterday about the whole circus: "There's no way, with hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry, called up Magic and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team…' "

Sure, things were different in the 90s, and Jordan is almost pathologically competitive, but it also showed something about LeBron's personality. Jordan, Magic, Bird didn't want to create a super team, they wanted to beat the other guy. The win was measured by who you played against. LeBron is clearly not wired that way. He wants to go play with his friends. Sort of if you can't beat them, join them sort of thing.

I partly blame the new world of hoops. All the players know each other and most have played together since they were 12 on club and shoe company teams and camps. There is no longer the sense of identity with your team, and the sense of any other team as the enemy.

I guess I would have rather seen the most superlative basketball talent playing today have the drive to dominate, instead of taking the path of least resistance. LeBron has Batman skill with a Robin mentality.

There are few things that can make me sympathetic to PETA.

On such thing is Canada. More specifically, Canada's stubbornly unserious and unprincipled approach to freedom of expression.

PETA encountered it when they tried to put up one of its belabored cheesecake-picture campaigns in Montreal, only to be thwarted by the Montreal branch of Canada's speech bureaucracy.

In an email to PETA, Montreal City Commissioner Josee Rocheford said the ad "goes against all principles pubic organizations are fighting for in the everlasting battle of equality between men and women."

Moreover,

Montreal authorities responded by insisting their decision was based on men and women’s equality.

Yet men and women are not, in the Canadian sense, equal. For instance, I see no evidence that Montreal, or any other part of Canada, insults the intelligence and character of men by censoring political advertisements that might possibly offend the masculine heart. As far as I can tell, only the fairer sex is treated to such disdainful and neo-Victorian protection — part of Canada's heritage since it accepted MacKinnonite-Dworkinite twaddle as a justification for censorship.

I, for one, think that women's actual, non-Canadian equality — equality of intellect, character, potential, and intestinal fortitude — is not and cannot be threatened by further sophomoric attention-seeking from PETA. The women I know are tougher than that.

Of course, I haven't been to Montreal recently.

Via.