DAHLIA LITHWICK says that there has been free speech everywhere since 9/11 — except on campuses. This conclusion is great:

Free speech does not encompass the right to fire, suspend, or riot your way into a universe in which everyone agrees with your views, even if you have legitimate grievances. The courts are well aware of this, but it seems that universities, both here and in Canada, are not. On campus, you may “speak” freely—with fists, chairs, and broken glass—so long as you are a member of an aggrieved minority with delicate sensibilities and a narrative of oppression.

This leaves the state to take on a new role in protecting free speech. The state must be responsible for busting up the monopoly that has taken over the marketplace of ideas: a monopoly of suffering, political correctness, and sympathy without limits. In the firing cases, the state will be represented by the courts, which will reinstate faculty fired for no reason other than unpopular views. And in the campus protest cases, the state must acknowledge that people who use force to suppress the opinions of others are not performing some sacred protected speech act. They are committing assault, not merely on other humans and on the basic promise of free speech, but on democracy itself.

Bravo.

JEFF COOPER has a good post on judicial appointments, arguing that character and intellect are more important than ideology. I think he’s right.

I haven’t posted much on the confirmation battles because, well, I guess I’ve just given up on the process. About ten years ago I had a piece in the Southern California Law Review suggesting that the Senate put together a list of presumed-acceptable candidates from whom the President could select a nominee who would then go straight to the floor for a fast-track style up/down vote. I thought that this would give the “advice” part of “advice and consent” some content, and it would be self-policing, since if the Senate picked lousy nominees the President could still proceed in the traditional way, but with the credentials of the Senate’s list providing a standard for comparison. Meanwhile, if the President ignored the list for partisan purposes, the Senate would have a basis for calling his nominees bad.

I thought it was clever, and workable. And maybe it was, then. But now I think the process has become so political that no “structural reform” is likely to work. Even an approach like the one sketched above needs some goodwill to function, and I don’t think there’s any to be had. Yeah, that’s depressing, but that’s how I see it right now.

FRED PRUITT’S RANTBURG continues to serve up all sorts of news about the war that’s hard to find anywhere else. It should be a daily stop.

ALTERNATE HISTORY: The IndePundit looks at a past that might have been.

BRUCE HILL’S “WARNOW” is gone, but Silent Running has taken its place.

KATE MALCOLM AT KITCHEN CABINET has me confused. Perhaps that’s not too difficult, but her post starts out by saying that the treatment of Muslims after 9/11 reminds her of the Korematsu case, only to list examples of racist propaganda about Japanese-Americans (from such places as Time and Life) that have no parallel today. Reading her post should, in fact, serve as a valuable corrective to hysteria on the subject.

SHELF LIFE: I just went to the Yahoo! account that gets the reader-response mail from my FoxNews columns, and to my surprise there was a bunch of mail responding to this column on the dumb Biden/Hatch “RAVE Act” from back in July. In fact there was more mail on that one than on the column for today. It seems to be circulating on the dance/rave/techno mailing lists.

I hope people are writing their Senators, and not just me.

UPDATE: Reader Evan Benoit writes:

Saw your post about your column on the RAVE act getting a lot of mail. It’s probably because Buzz, Washington DC’s best rave night, was forced to close today. It was one of the best nights on the east coast, had been going on for years. Closed after a police/military investigation, etc.

Here’s the link to the press release, which he was kind enough to send.

LYNNE KIESLING has a long post on the just-released California blackout study. She’s rather critical.

ONE OF THE COOL THINGS ABOUT BLOGGER is that you can be a homeless guy and still have a blog.

UPDATE: Bo Cowgill was skeptical, and checked it out. Here’s what he found.

STEPHEN GORDON writes that it’s time to start thinking about a successor organization to the UN, as he thinks the UN is going the way of the League of Nations.

PAUL WRIGHT ASKS what happens if the weapons inspectors, by some miracle, actually find something?

His rather chilling answer suggests that either (1) the powers-that-be have no real expectation that this will come to pass; or (2) they haven’t thought about this hard enough. I’m guessing it’s (1).

JOANNE JACOBS looks at what some people in the military think of the war.

I’M GLAD TO SEE THAT ARI FLEISCHER is standing up to German bullying and racism. If I were a European, I’d worry about a German government that is so hostile to Jews, and seems so anxious to make Hitler look better.

UPDATE: A reader points out this directory of embassies, from which it’s easy to find the contact information for, say, Germany.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus points out an editorial in the Telegraph that accuses Schroder, et al. of giving in to isolationism and unilateralism while displaying “open contempt” for the UN.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: German reader Torsten Sewing writes that Safire’s report of anti-semitic comments is wrong:

The meeting in Hamburg, 27 August, was the 24. Young Leaders Conference, organised by Atlantic Bridge. There is *no* record of this anti-semitic remark by former defence secretary Scharping.

Additionally, you might want to consider that Germany is in the height of an election campaign, and with press being present at the mentioned meeting, this would have been reported in detail.

He doesn’t send any links, and I haven’t independently verified this. Does anyone have more information?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Another reader, who doesn’t want his name used, says he was one of the Americans at the meeting and that Safire’s report is accurate. I can’t confirm that, either. Presumably if it’s false we’ll hear a denial from Scharping. I looked for one earlier today and couldn’t find anything.

SUSANNA CORNETT has the solution to Florida’s election problems. Sadly, I think this might actually be the way to go. . . .

THE HUMAN FLAG: Here are some cool pictures from Australia.

CONCORDIA UPDATE: Canadian reader Nathan McLeod sends this:

The Concordia University embarrassment continues.

The Board of Governors today announced a cooling off period until December. Until then they are banning any kind of information being displayed in the main hall of the university. I assume this might be the student union building. They are also putting off making a decision on their policy regarding free speech.

Does the BOG’s not understand what happened on September 9th? Thugs upset about the idea of Netanyahu speaking threatened and intimidated those seeking to hear him speak. They broke windows and damaged property to disrupt free speech.

People supporting the Palestinians do not believe in a free exchange of ideas. They believe in intimidation and violence.

What grade school children inherently understand, the concept of free speech, will supposedly take the Board of Governors a few months to think about. Their abdication of responsibility is an embarrassment.

Although if Canadian society is willing to tolerate thugs intimidating free speech it is understandable how they tolerate being ruled by Prime Minister Chretien with his blame the victim philosophy when referring to the murder of 3,000 innocent men, woman and children.

George Bush said it is up to all nations to decide if they are with or against terrorism. In small and large ways my country is failing the test.

Also, Martin Devon has a post with links to streaming video of the anti-Jewish riot at Concordia that shut down Netanyahu’s speech.

HERE’S THE LATEST NEWS from the Security Council:

(2002-09-19) — The United Nations Security Council today approved a resolution calling for Iraq to play ‘hide and seek’ with U.N. weapons inspectors.

“First, our weapons inspectors will cover their eyes,” said Secretary General Koffi Anan. “Then they will begin counting…one Mississippi, two Mississippi, and so on. When they get to six billion Mississippi, they will formally declare ‘Ready or not, here we come!’…and in they go to see how many weapons of mass destruction they can find.”

A motion to make the inspectors “count to infinity plus infinity” was narrowly defeated by the council.

Well, thank goodness for that.

A READER SENDS THIS STORY about another artist who thinks the 9/11 attacks were “wonderful.” Ugh.

I’m saying, step away from blame. How are we to act if we act only according to blame? So many of us just think and squeal, think and squeal. This act is done and you can’t fault the execution of the act. It was perfect, extraordinarily clever.

There’s “think and squeal.” And then there’s just “squeal.”

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll has some thoughts.

JUSTIN WEITZ has been blogging about the German Elections. Here’s part one. Scroll up for the next installment. He promises a prediction on Friday.

UPDATE: Stefan Sharkansky is covering these too.

THE AMOUNT OF PR SPAM I’M GETTING continues to climb. I just got an item touting Tom Friedman’s website. But there’s no blog!

THE CASE FOR SPACE COWBOYS: My FoxNews column suggests that fears of a “Wild West” approach to developing outer space are misconceived.

SPINSANITY is still on the NEA story. (This update was a “Salon Premium” item, but is now free at SpinSanity).

STEVEN DEN BESTE has an essay on what to do about fanatical Islam. Hesiod Theogeny emails that he thinks Den Beste has “lost it,” sending me to this thread at Eschaton, and the accompanying comments. I’m not sure that the comments (which contain quite a few saying that Hesiod is misunderstanding Den Beste, or the underlying problem) make Hesiod’s case as plainly as he believes, but you can decide for yourself. And Eric S. Raymond weighs in with his own thoughts.

GEITNER SIMMONS SUGGESTS that rap stars are the modern embodiment of the old Southern aristocracy.

DAVID JANES HAS A GREAT IDEA FOR CANADIANS. It involves James Lileks.