SFSU UPDATE: Reader Patricia Jennings writes:

As you may recall, I am the mother of a SFSU student. I attended the rally on May 7 and was surrounded by the hate mob.

We are getting no where with the university. I am extremely frustrated. Ihave made every attempt possible to get the university to act to protect my son’s safety and the safety of the other Jewish students on campus but to no avail. President Corrigan insisted that the General Union of Palestinian Students participate in mediation sessions or they would lose their opportunity to operate on campus. He gave them until June 15 to comply. They have not done so.

This week, not only did he NOT follow though with his ultimatum, but the GUPS website was discovered linked to a barrage of hate and terrorist sites including Hamas. GUPS still has not been sanctioned.

Professor Laurie Zoloth, director of Jewish studies and I are the only people willing to stick our necks out, support the students, and insist that the university take action. As a result, the administration is listening to neither of us. The president has blamed Laurie for ruining his reputation!

I truly believe that the Jewish students at SFSU may be in danger.

Yes, it’s like a University president to blame a faculty member for “ruining his reputation” by telling the truth about his bias and incompetence. But ruined it is.

If I were Bill Simon, I’d be making an issue of the way California’s state universities are — despite a lot of PC talk — actively supporting hate groups.

And it’s not just SFSU. SDSU has similar problems, and so does U.C. Berkeley. Joe Katzman has more on this problem.

UPDATE: Reader (and law professor) David Bernstein writes: “Someone should tell Ms. Jennings that she has a very credible Title II lawsuit.”

OKAY, THAT’S NOT A LOT OF POSTS, but I’m beat. And it’s more than Virginia Postrel has done in a couple of weeks even though she kinda promised to start up again by today. Hint, hint. We miss you, Virginia!

CHARLES JOHNSON has something you should see. Read the comments, too.

EUGENE VOLOKH has a good response to the “not in our name” petitioners, as well as a critique of some arguments used to support the Administration’s position on detention of Americans as enemy combatants. Here’s an excellent point about the Administration’s position as a sort of Executive judicial activism:

But let there be no mistake about this: Here it’s the government, not the criminal defendant, that is seeking a nontextual, and fairly nontraditional, reading of the Constitution. Maybe the government is right, but the arguments of its critics cannot be rebutted simply by denouncing some “Warren Court set of rights” — it’s the Framers’ set of rights that’s clearly at issue here.

Yes, the Administration is trying to make new — and in my opinion, very bad — constitutional law here.

SO I DROVE to Memphis, where I’m now ensconced in a luxury suite at the Peabody. I stopped for gas in Bucksnort, Tennessee (yes, that’s a real town, just west of Dickson and just east of Loretta Lynn’s Dude Ranch) where the gas station was advertising calling cards that offered 6.5 cent per minute calls to Mexico. Immigration: it’s everywhere, even in Bucksnort.

TRIFECTA UPDATE: While I’ve been busy, the Trifecta debate has continued. The latest, with links to everything, seems to be here on Bill Quick’s page.

SEPTEMBER 11 has pretty much ended the militia movement, according to this report from USA Today. Of course, the true militia-movement folks were always pretty harmless (McVeigh, you will remember, was kicked out of a militia group for being too radical and advocating violence). The real dangerous folks were farther out on the fringe: the Posse Commitatus, the Aryan Nations, the Phineas Priests, the Army of God, etc. And, worrisomely, a lot of them like Al Qaeda just fine.

A BIG ASTEROID NEARLY HIT THE EARTH the other day, and nobody but Ken Layne noticed. Well, him and some astronomers.

Just a little over a week ago I noted that an unexpected asteroid strike might set off an accidental nuclear exchange. Little did I know that this thing was bearing down on us as I wrote. And it came close:

What is most shocking is just how close it came to Earth. This is only the sixth known asteroid to penetrate the Moon’s orbit, and by far the biggest. According to Brian G. Marsden (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), the object came within 120,000 kilometers (0.0008 astronomical unit) of impacting Earth.

Though the exact details of an impact scenario depend on the rock’s composition, had it hit Earth the event would have been been “Tunguska-like,” with a force rivaling the largest H-bombs.

Yeah, if it’s Tunguska-like it would be bigger than any H-bomb ever exploded. Not a civilization-ender, but bad, bad, bad. (And it was close — follow the first link on this post and look at the to-scale diagram of just how close.) Upshot:

A disturbing detail is that 2002 MN was discovered three days after its closest approach. Though we are almost certainly out of harm’s way from this near Earth object (no potential impacts are forecast until at least 2050), its late detection may be telling. Currently there is no dedicated Southern Hemisphere NEO search program, and NASA is currently focused on finding bodies greater than 1 kilometer across.

We need to extend our “preemption” strategy to these threats.

UPDATE: Just noticed this thread about the subject on Slashdot.

BTW, why can’t we have a nice fat comet hit Mars and leave behind a lot of convenient water and organics. I think a comet around 100km in diameter (okay, that’s a really, really big comet) would be enough to halfway terraform Mars all by itself.

HOW IS THE ANTI-WAR LEFT BEING SUPPRESSED? Debra Saunders interviews a “not in our name” signer and reports on talk of antiwar folks being “necklaced.” Well, it’s necklacing except for, you know, the part about being burned to death by flaming tires. Her conclusion:

The Not in Our Name Web site carries another statement that protests America’s “destruction of civil, legal and political rights, including the very right to dissent.”

Destruction of dissent? In Afghanistan, that meant the Taliban shot critics in the back of the head. In America, that means appearing on cable TV news in a panel stacked against you, 3 to 1. . . .

By the Not-names’ definition, it’s suppression if someone (a liberal) feels uncomfortable or fears criticism about expressing an opinion.

This seems on-target to me.

MORE BAD NEWS FROM ALGERIA: A bus attack by Islamoterrorists killed 11. It’s funny that this sort of thing gets so much less attention.

HAVE A NICE DAY. No new posts until tonight, probably.

ZACHARY BARBERA notes a surprisingly positive development on the suicide-bombing front.

Wouldn’t you hate to be the last suicide bomber before it went out of style? Kind of like being the last guy to wear a John-Travolta white suit, only permanent.

SLASHDOT HAS DISCOVERED NPR’s anti-deep-linking position. But Rebecca Blood emailed me earlier today to say that this has actually been NPR’s position since 1999, and that she doubts they even remember it. It is, as she observes, very 1999. Message to NPR: get over this stuff and enter the 21st century. Links are good. Anybody who doesn’t understand that should be sent off to audition for the role of the pointy-haired boss in Drew Carey’s forthcoming Dilbert movie.

IF I DIDN’T KNOW that Neal Boortz flies a Mooney, I’d wonder about this.

A READER WHO PREFERS TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS forwards this chunk from a memo to the FBI regarding last fall’s anthrax mailings:

Analysis of Anthrax Letters and Envelopes

Executive Summary

The letters were written and sealed prior to September 11 by Mohammed Atta. The letters to the Post and Brokaw were given to one individual or organization to mail. The letters to Senators Leahy and Daschle were given to another individual or organization to mail. These individuals did not know the contents of the letters nor whom the letters originally came from. The anthrax was smuggled into the U.S. by one of the September 11th hijackers and represents all the anthrax smuggled in at that time.

Support for Analysis

Sometimes things are just what they seem to be. The letters are all dated 09-11-01. It is not unlikely that they could have been written on September 10th by someone who knew the plans for September 11th and dated the letters accordingly. It is likely that the letter on display on the FBI website that begins “You can not stop us.” was the first one to be written. The size of the printing is smaller and thus indicates a more tentative approach to the message writing and the message.

What is particularly noticeable by its absence is any significant celebratory nature in these letters. Had they been written after the events of September 11, it seems highly likely that they would have made much more of the outcome of the events. “Allah is great” is just a standard expression to close with. “You die now” can be read several ways, but it is hardly the equivalent of, e.g., “Now thousands more die.” “This is next” is really a very weak threat when juxtaposed to the events of September 11, especially considering the quantity of anthrax sent out.

If there had been more anthrax available, its most effective use would have been a massive simultaneous mailing. A staggered mailing puts people on alert and diminishes the effect of the effort. If they had more, it should have been sent out all at once. If they had surviving operatives that they could trust, all four letters would have been sent out together. A check of the weather in the Trenton/Philadelphia area on September 10 shows a trace of rain, just the amount reflected by the running of the ink on the Daschle envelope and the likely clumping of the powder inside. The letters, sealed in their envelopes, were likely transported that day as part of a bundle of other mail to be sent out and given to someone or some company to mail, with the bottom of the Daschle envelope sticking out slightly. Since no one has come forward about this, it is likely that they were delivered to this person or place in a manner that would not have caused anyone to remember the source of these bundles. It is likely that the letters were divided between two bundles that were sent to two different places just to help guarantee that a least one set was sent out. It is also probable that someone at a distance (overseas) knew of these mailings and two kinds of anthrax were being evaluated for effectiveness. The reason more anthrax was not available was that this attack was secondary to the airplane hijackings, that their most trusted people were involved in this primary effort, and that they felt secure in bringing in such a small amount of anthrax without risking these operatives, but more might have jeopardized the primary operation. It thus follows that the likely smuggler of the anthrax was on one of the planes on September 11.

Why was Atta the likely writer?

Obviously, from the media reports he was the leader of the 19 hijackers and thus in the best position to know what was going on and the one most likely to be entrusted with the anthrax. But further, especially if one gives merit to the suggested sequence of the writing of the letters, the Brokaw and Post letter singular because they are the same letter) were written last. The writer at that point would be more certain of his message and what he was doing. The writing is more open and widely spaced, indicating that he is more at ease with what he is doing.

At that point it is not unlikely that knowing the next day was his last and that this was his last “public” statement that he might contemplate his place in history and have a desire to claim credit for his role. Thus a search of this letter for signs of that are not as much of a stretch as one might think. So what do we see in it? The initial block letter in the message is a “T” that has extra strokes in it. The same with the start of the second line. The same with the start of the last line. In fact, based on the limited quality of the copy available on the FBI website, there are several other letters that have extra strokes (an extra boldness). All of them appear to be A’s and T’s. They of course are all the letters needed to spell ATTA. It could have been subconscious. The capital D’s that start the other lines of the letter show no extra strokes. Also this letter seems not to be written with a felt-tip pen, and thus might yield more information based on the pressure of the various strokes of the pen — but this cannot be determined from the website example. . . .

It would be hard at this point, but if people in the greater New York/Philadelphia area are asked to remember any bundles of mail to be mailed that they received by an out-of-the-ordinary source on or around September 10, it might be useful. . . .

There are other areas of interest in these letters that might give up a clue or two — such as the downhill slant of the writing, how the “1” was made, how the “4” was made, the spelling of “penacilin” and the warning including it, the absence of periods on one of the letters, the presence or absence of fingerprints on the letters and particularly on the envelopes, how the letters were folded, etc., etc., etc. — but most of these would be aided by a direct conversation and better copies of the letters and envelopes than are available on the website. Also, there is the matter of the letter not posted on the website. Perhaps it is simply a photocopy of the other letter, but if it is different, there could be something to be learned by it.

I’m not sure about this — but I remember a flurry of information about the likelihood that Atta and some of the other 9/11 hijackers actually had anthrax symptoms at the time of the hijacking. We certainly haven’t heard much on this subject lately.

MORE EVIDENCE of an India / Israel rapport.

OKAY, THAT’S IT FOR ME for the time being. But go visit The Volokh Conspiracy for a lot of cool stuff in my absence. And check out this post by Ben Domenech, who says he’s found the smoking “trifecta” gun that SpinSanity missed — well, the “war” part, at least, and maybe the “national emergency” part too.

And thanks to everyone who didn’t email me!

THE FINANCIAL TIMES ARTICLE ON WEBLOGS is now up on their website. Thanks to reader Michael Cook for pointing it out.

READER BARRY MOLEFSKY sends this link to a page with information on the Moussaoui case. Click on “docket” to see a list of pleadings; you can follow the links to filings, including Moussaoui’s own motions.

WEBGODDESS STACY TABB has finally moved her blog to its own domain: www.blogatelle.com. Adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

WELL, I MADE IT IN ONE PIECE and I’m waiting for the law school friend I’m meeting for dinner to finish a conference call. So here’s a completely true statement by Edward Said, which I found via Eric Alterman (no, really):

Arafat is simply interested in saving himself. He has had almost ten years of freedom to run a petty kingdom and has succeeded essentially in bringing opprobrium and scorn on himself and most of his team; the Authority became a byword for brutality, autocracy and unimaginable corruption. Why anyone for a moment believes that at this stage he is capable of anything different, or that his new streamlined cabinet (dominated by the same old faces of defeat and incompetence) is going to produce actual reform, defies reason.

Said has always been more anti-Israel (and anti-West) than he has been pro-Palestinian or pro-Arafat, but the idiocy of Arafat’s strategy since Oslo has led things to such a pass that even Said is pointing out the problems. He’s also quite hard on suicide-bombing as a strategy, though an uncharitable reader might conclude that’s mostly because he sees that it’s failing miserably.

The other interesting thing about this passage is that it’s in Al Ahram, which means that the Egyptian government can’t hate it too much. And when you strip away the still-present obligatory Israel and America-bashing, it looks to me like another sign that everyone thinks Arafat now represents a problem, not an asset.

UPDATE: A troubling thought. We’re getting a lot of cooperation all of a sudden from Arab countries, including places like Syria that haven’t been all that cooperative before. It’s likely that this is the result of increasing pressure. But given the cooperation between Syria and Iraq on nuclear matters, is it possible they’re just trying to keep us out of the picture until the Islamic Bomb is ready in sufficient quantities? I don’t think that’s what’s going on, but such behavior would be very much in character.

AFTER AN INTERESTING FACULTY PRESENTATION on how Article III case-or-controversy doctrines limit the role of the federal judiciary in foreign affairs, complete with illustrations from the Neutrality Crisis of 1793, I’m now getting ready to head out. Before I go, a few items. First, there’s a good story on weblogs in the Financial Times today, but it’s not on their website that I could find.

Second, the print Wall Street Journal picked up InstaPundit reader Jorge Schmidt’s emailed comments on Latin reaction to the U.S. soccer team — it’s on their editorial page under “notable and quotable.” Way to go, Jorge!

Third, unless it’s urgent, it’s probably best not to email me. I’ll be trying to get online some, but it’ll be a dialup connection and a webmail interface, meaning it’ll be slow, slow, slow. So save it if you can.

Last, in my absence check out Best of the Web, which is up early today: especially the disgraceful story about the University of California San Diego’s siding with an antisemitic hate group and against free speech. I hope that Bill Simon makes this stuff a campaign issue. Take it away, Meryl Yourish and Joe Katzman!

INFORMATION WARFARE: This isn’t exactly a new idea, but the site is kind of interesting.

SEX AND VIOLENCE: Okay, here’s a bottom-line reason why you may soon see less of both on TV. (Thanks to reader Gary Pulsinelli for noticing this).

OKAY ONE MORE: SPINSANITY has another debunking piece on the Bush “trifecta” claim: the claim that during the campaign he cited war, recession, or national emergency as grounds for departing from a balanced budget. Spinsanity says it’s false, and they’ve got persuasive evidence. But — as I emailed them — I sure seem to remember Bush saying that, and they admit that lots of other people think they remember it, too: there’s just no evidence that it actually happened. Presumably this is a case in which memories of more recent statements are attributed back to the campaign? Beats me. I wonder, though, if the same phenomenon isn’t working with Bush himself.