NOTE: The link to the Flashbunny video on the gun show loophole has been unreliable, apparently. Try this one instead. It may just be that it was slashdotted — Kopel linked it from The Corner, too.

Or maybe it’s Sarah Brady’s minions at work. Flashbunny emails that she’s got her tinfoil hat on, just in case.

A BUNCH OF PEOPLE have said that I’m wrong about the DDT ban saving birds, and have sent this link to JunkScience.Com. Er, okay.

ENJOY THESE LETTERS from the National Post in response to Matt Welch’s piece. Note the linguist who says a number of unflattering things about Chomsky’s professional persona and then adds:

Welch’s most important point, however, is that because of Chomsky and others like him, dissent has itself become discredited. Its state is parlous if not terminal. Without credible and dispassionate dissent, government tends inexorably to excess. So do academic theories. Chomsky’s legacy may yet prove to be an ironic one: that U.S. government and that of the West generally may slip into true tyranny for lack of balance.

Yes, yes, yes. Dishonest and sloppy dissent isn’t just cheesy. It’s destructive. That’s why there’s no value to “dissent” generally, independent of its substance.

DAVE WINER has advice for newspapers on what to do about weblogs. It’s good advice, too. Oh, and I just ran across this Doc Searls post (via Winer, natch) on the New York Times story from Monday.

ERIC ALTERMAN IS DEFENDING Bush’s intelligence and teen sex, in that order.

SKBUBBA has his own war-on-terror alert system.

RACHEL CARSON DISS-A-THON: Ron Bailey joins the growing group of Carson skeptics.

Carson was also an effective popularizer of the idea that children were especially vulnerable to the carcinogenic effects of synthetic chemicals. “The situation with respect to children is even more deeply disturbing,” she wrote. “A quarter century ago, cancer in children was considered a medical rarity. Today, more American school children die of cancer than from any other disease [her emphasis].” In support of this claim, Carson reported that “twelve per cent of all deaths in children between the ages of one and fourteen are caused by cancer.”

Although it sounds alarming, Carson’s statistic is essentially meaningless unless it’s given some context, which she failed to supply. It turns out that the percentage of children dying of cancer was rising because other causes of death, such as infectious diseases, were drastically declining.

In fact, cancer rates in children have not increased, as they would have if Carson had been right that children were especially susceptible to the alleged health effects of modern chemicals. Just one rough comparison illustrates this point: In 1938 cancer killed 939 children under 14 years old out of a U.S. population of 130 million. In 1998, according to the National Cancer Institute, about 1,700 children died of cancer, out of a population of more than 280 million. In 1999 the NCI noted that “over the past 20 years, there has been relatively little change in the incidence of children diagnosed with all forms of cancer; from 13 cases per 100,000 children in 1974 to 13.2 per 100,000 children in 1995.”

As I mentioned in the September 3 post I reference below, I enjoy seeing the blue herons, bald eagles, and other birds that have come back as a result of the DDT ban — but I feel kind of guilty that my enjoyment is purchased at the cost of millions of third-world deaths from DDT-preventable disease.

It’s a surprise that more people don’t feel bad about that.

TRUMMEL CASE UPDATE: William Hobbs reports that his Blogtivism regarding Paul Trummel, who has been imprisoned by Washington State judge Jim Doerty in violation of the First Amendment (because he’s not a “paid journalist”) is having an effect. Just check out Doerty’s reelection website, especially its Guestbook where a number of vocal First Amendment fans are taking Doerty to task.

Better check soon, though — I rather doubt this will stay up.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has more on web censorship. Censors are scum. Pure and simple. And if you don’t understand the Constitution, you’re not fit to work for the government.

DAVID TELL has some devastating stuff about Arab antisemitism.

These guys aren’t our friends. And given their colonialist approach to the rest of the Muslim world, they aren’t really anybody’s friends.

MY BROTHER EMAILS FROM PROGRESSIVE AFRICA:

Howdy from Senegal! Made it over with no real problems — aside from having to spend eight sucky hours in the crappy Paris Airport. Food sucked (but cost a fortune), seats were uncomfortable, people were rude. France in a nutshell. Oh, and the plane had to sit on the runway for an extra hour before taking off. I was pleased to get to Dakar where the airport staff were so friendly and efficient!

Slept like a stone last night, got up and went exploring with one of the panelists from Nigeria (though he teaches in Britain). We’ve had a grand time, and are now both e-mailing via a high-speed internet connection for 75 cents an hour. Woohoo!

And… the beer is cheap and the Senegalese women are BABES.

People laughed a few weeks ago when I said that Europe would be in danger of being eclipsed by Africa in a few decades. But I really believe that if Africa were liberated from the crappy kleptocratic governments it’s suffered under, the energy and ambition of Africans might produce just that.

And when I was last in Paris, I definitely thought that the Senegalese women there were the most attractive women I saw. Perhaps they should invite a bunch over to staff the airports.

JUST HEARD ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES talk over lunch (we do this weekly during the summer) about how the Supreme Court has eviscerated the Constitutional provision allowing defendants to confront witnesses against them. It’s a classic slippery slope, in which initially narrow exceptions have consumed the rule. Being a curmudgeonly textualist, I think “confront” means confront, and isn’t satisfied by things like “other indicia of reliability” or video monitors.

Interestingly, Justices Scalia and Thomas take more or less the same position, which had some of my traditional-lefty colleagues scratching their heads a bit. But in criminal matters, it’s not at all clear that strict construction is worse for defendants than creative judging.

JUAN NON-VOLOKH says that DDT has gotten a bum rap. He’s not the only one to take that position, as this rather elderly InstaPundit post entitled “Rachel Carson, mass murderer?” illustrates.

WELL, I’M BACK — but later than I expected, and now I have a faculty meeting to go to in a few minutes. Here’s the direct link to my TechCentralStation column, which combines constitutional law with Mars colonization.

I HAVE TO GIVE A TALK TOMORROW MORNING, so posting will get off to a late start. But my column should be up on TechCentralStation around 9 A.M. Eastern.

NOW IT’S TED BARLOW ENDORSING NUCLEAR POWER! Well, it really is a lot cleaner than coal, you know.

And compared to dirty bombs — and real nuclear wars looming possible in South Asia — nuclear plants just don’t look as scary any more.

ERIC OLSEN joins in the chorus saying that Eritrea is the key to beating the Ladenites.

HERE’S A VERY INFORMATIVE COMMERCIAL ON THE GUN-SHOW LOOPHOLE by Flashbunny.org

DAVID HOGBERG looks into charges of racism at Iowa State.

UPI REPORTS FROM PAKISTAN that more men of American origin have been arrested as part of a roundup of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. Details are scarce, but we’re told that they were under surveillance for an extended period. Also, there have been more arrests in Morocco.

IT’S NOT JUST NOAM CHOMSKY’S POLITICS THAT ARE DISCREDITED: His linguistic opinions aren’t faring so well either.

POSTING WILL BE LIGHT TONIGHT, as I’m kind of busy at the moment. But my FoxNews column got moved up to today, so you can read that if you’re desperate for more of my blather. It’s about homeland security.

Read this post too, which offers the frightening possibility that Bush is to the left of Garrison Keillor on profiling and homeland security.

HERE’S some background on “dirtybomber” Abdullah Al-Muhajir. Nice guy.

DESPITE ALL THE TALK ABOUT “HATE SPEECH,” Jay Caruso has discovered that California campuses are tolerating a lot of antisemitic nastiness from Muslim students.

I’m against hate speech rules, of course. But I’m against one-sided application of them even more. And you know these schools wouldn’t be tolerating this kind of thing from, say, the Klan.

IS YOUR TEEN A TERRORIST-IN-THE-MAKING? Ken Layne offers helpful tips for parents.

EUGENE VOLOKH has more links and information on citizenship-stripping, military commissions, and other relevant topics.