I THINK DAVE BARRY REPORTED SOMETHING LIKE THIS ONCE, but this development involving Aziz Poonawalla is still astounding.

I’M NOT SURE THIS’LL WORK, but Aimee Deep has an idea about how record giant Bertelsmann can give back some of its Nazi blood money.

JOHN BONO HAS FOUND an editorial from the Independent denouncing Bush’s speech — except that it was posted hours before Bush’s speech aired. That’s in addition to the news story reporting the speech as a near-failure (Americans care more about the economy, you know), which was also posted before it was even delivered.

Yeah, I realize they write this stuff from the advance text but still — it does give the impression that they just can’t wait to attack, doesn’t it? Or that they’re just inept. Not that those are mutually exclusive, by any means.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus writes, about the news story: “(In truth, only about half the Independent piece pretends the speech has been given. It’s a hopeless muddle of tenses ).” Yeah, but that part’s normal for The Independent.

MORE ON THE “why Nazis get worse press than the Soviets” question.

SAN FRANCISCO D.A. TERRENCE HALLINAN has an apparent non-enforcement policy for hate crimes — where they’re against Jews, and by well-connected lawyers, at least. Given San Francisco’s usual policy against hate crimes, and the lax responses to antisemitic violence at SFSU and Berkeley, this troubles me. It’s starting to look like a pattern.

UPDATE: This doesn’t make them look much better. Neither does this. Solidarity with America’s enemies, in the cause of peace. Typical.

Read this, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Greg Beato has sent me a querulous email (he does that regularly) on this entry. He thinks that I shouldn’t assume, based on a single uncontradicted statement by a San Francisco law school dean in a San Francisco paper, that San Francisco really has a tough policy regarding hate crimes. I think that Beato, as usual, is trying to make a mountain out of a nonexistent molehill. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel pretty sure that if a guy with right-wing political connections shouted abuse at a Muslim and then hit him, this case would be treated differently. I note that Joanne Jacobs, who lives in that area, sees the case similarly.

A MARINE GUNNERY SERGEANT writes on how Washington is mishandling the run-up to war.

A NORWEGIAN BLOGGER CHANNELS an American cable TV show (MST3K!) to “Fisk” (a term named after a British journalist writer) an article in an Australian paper. You can’t get much more multilateral than that. I love the Blogosphere!

MAN WITHOUT A CLUE:

A few days ago, CIA chief George Tenet threw a hissy fit and fired off a letter to the four leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees. What had angered him was that the staff of the committees’ joint investigation of Sept. 11 had noted in a briefing book that Cofer Black, the past chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, would “probably dissemble” — that is, not tell the full truth — during his public testimony before the panels. “This suggestion is an affront not only to him,” Tenet huffed, “but to every man and woman in the CIA.” Tenet decried congressional investigators for harboring “bias” and “apparent animus” against the spies.

The nation’s top spy-bureaucrat was playing by an old rule: The best defense is a strong offense — and his letter, for at least a day, displaced the negative press the CIA had been receiving.

Which just proves how dumb people in Congress and the media must be. Spymasters are supposed to dissemble; the problem is, these guys do it so badly that even Congressmen can see through it.

I’m not unhappy with the CIA because it’s a big bad bunch of spies who topple foreign governments againstthewilloftheirpeople. I’m unhappy with the CIA because it seems to be displaying the kind of flexibility and innovation usually associated with the United States Postal Service.

In Afghanistan, the Agency’s paramilitary arm did excellent work by all accounts. But there’s no sign that the rest of the Agency has gotten its act together, and no sign that the dropped balls of Summer, 2001 are being addressed.

JOHN WEIDNER WONDERS about the source of anti-war sentiment:

I’ve encountered various anti-invasion of Iraq arguments lately, and taken swipes at some of them, such as the previous post. But what’s starting to keep me awake at night is the question of why. Why exactly are so many so opposed? Why does this one square on the chessboard seem to have an invisible field that repels so many people?.

Because it really feels like there is some unseen something going on. Why do seemingly decent, thoughtful kind-hearted people, as they approach that square, suddenly find the need to pen 99 coldly logical reasons why going there would surely turn out badly? Why are they so cold?

It would be one thing if they first felt tender-hearted towards the horrible suffering of Iraq, and then later began to have qualms about the wisdom of an invasion. But that doesn’t appear to be what’s happening. It looks to me like a lot of people, mostly on the left, made an instant and visceral decision to oppose an invasion, and only afterwards began to scrape up actual arguments to support this.

And these are the very people who like to label themselves as the good-guys; progressives, anti-fascists, liberals. It’s weird.

I’ve been tending to blame reflexive anti-Americanism, or a political desire not to yield advantages to Republicans; but now I think there’s more going on than that. I’m thinking that when people approach that square and suddenly have a vision “of the whole Middle-East being de-stabilized,” it is really their own world-view that they sense is in danger of dissolving. . . .

But I’m thinking of a new sort of Rorschach Test, with pictures of happy Afghans alongside US soldiers. The test is, do you smile, or look queasy?

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Junkyard Blog has a related observation.

WILL WARREN IS CHANNELING KIPLING on The Torch:

O it’s Torchy this, and Torchy that, and “Torchy, pack it in.”

It was “Robert, you’re a wizard” when the money helped

‘em win—

The money helped ‘em win, my boys, the money helped

‘em win,

It was “Robert, you’re a wizard” when the money helped

‘em win.

The whole thing is pretty damned funny.

STEVEN CHAPMAN IS Fisking Chris Patten.

JEFF JARVIS says homeland security is still a joke.

A MARYLAND READER WRITES THAT IT’S TERRORISM:

I’m a high school student at a private school in Baltimore and am following the Montgomery County shootings closely…What I’ve seen all over the news is newscasters and commentators hypothesize a possible “terrorist connection” with the shooter. They are missing a basic point.

The shooting spree is terrorism, with or without an associated political manifesto or “swarthy-looking” male. In Baltimore, entire conferences have cancelled their games, all off-campus privilieges have been repealed, and schools are on a state of “lockdown.” Remember, this is in Baltimore, 50 miles away. The only time they locked down the schools like that was last September 11, and sometime during the anthrax attacks (when they hysterically closed all the windows, thinking it would do any good), both which were most definitely terrorist attacks.

So, even if we don’t have an Al Qaeda or Separatist Militia, we should still call the calculated, paramilitary, random shootings outside D.C. as we feel them: actions that terrorize the community, make people feel uncomfortable about going outside, and senseless, scary violence. Which, as it happens, is also known as terrorism.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Avedon Carol is an example of this phenomenon at work.

Diane E. feels the same way.

I’M WATCHING BUSH. No surprises so far. I read all about how it went already in tomorrow’s Independent.

UPDATE: But here’s an interesting question.

NICE PIECE BY STEVEN LEVY on the forthcoming Eldred v. Reno case, and on Big Entertainment and the law generally.

DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THEY EVER FOUND THIS MISSING GUARD FROM GUANTANAMO? I missed this story when it first came out, but this AP story says he’s still missing:

Officials have no explanation for the disappearance of one of the more than 1,000 guards who watch the detainees in nine-hour shifts.

Ryan Foraker of Logan, Ohio, disappeared last month on his day off. His shorts, T-shirt and wallet were found near the ocean, but officials say the weather was calm the day he vanished.

That’s as of yesterday. Very weird.

IT’S OFFICIAL: Today’s shooting is linked to the others. No surprise there.

THIS IS FUN: Tim Russert trips Tom Daschle up with Daschle’s own bellicose rhetoric about the need for military action in Iraq, circa 1998. (Streaming video — go to about 2:40). Worth seeing just for Daschle’s taut “you got me” grin.

The language is on screen. Why would Daschle have been more bellicose in support of Clinton in 1998 than of Bush now, post 9/11?

UPDATE: Here’s a transcript.

TIME TRAVEL AT THE INDEPENDENT! Reader Balaji Srinivasan notes that although Bush hasn’t delivered his speech yet, the Independent already has a story up that makes it seem as if he has:

Bush addresses nation to explain why he won’t back down over Iraq

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington and John Lichfield in Paris

08 October 2002

President Bush took his case against Saddam Hussein directly to the American people last night, explaining why he believes the Iraqi leader to be such an immediate threat to US security and to world peace that he must be dealt with now.

In his speech in Cincinnati, the President’s first primetime address devoted exclusively to Iraq, Mr Bush sought to meet the complaints of critics that he is rushing his country into conflict, making war the firstresort, and riding roughshod over every misgiving.

Mr Bush’s 20-minute address kicked off what was likely to be a decisive few days for his policy on Iraq. In New York the UN Security Council is struggling to agree on a resolution enabling the return of weapons inspectors to Baghdad, while on Capitol Hill the Senate and House of Representatives are preparing to vote wide powers for the President to go to war with Iraq.

Hours before Mr Bush spoke, Senator John Edwards – the North Carolina Democrat who may run against him in 2004 – delivered a speech accusing the White House of “gratuitous unilateralism” and of “frequently sending the message that others don’t matter”. The House is likely to vote through a resolution before the end of the week.

In the Senate, where resistance is greater, a vote may not come until next week, but a handsome victory for the President is all but certain there too.

But his key target last night was the wider American public. He spoke in a heartland city, at a museum complex featuring an exhibit on the Second World War entitled Rallying the Home Front – exactly what the President sought to do last night.

The speech did not contain any major new disclosures, but Mr Bush was expected to set out the latest public evidence – much of it cited by Tony Blair to Parliament a fortnight ago – about the state of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programmes.

There was no sign that he would provide evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa’ida that the administration has failed to come up with so far.

Signs are growing that, in the absence of proof that Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons represent an immediate threat, the public is tiring of the issue. A New York Times/CBS poll yesterday found that 70 per cent of the public felt there was too much talk about Iraq, and that almost 60 per cent considered the faltering economy a more important issue for the upcoming midterm elections.

Note that unlike the Samizdata parody of The Guardian, this is a real article from The Independent! I always figured that they wrote these things without bothering to hear Bush’s speeches, but it’s nice to see proof that they really do write him off in advance.

UPDATE: Ken Layne comments on journalistic sloppiness:

Journalism is a total scam. Even in an era of 24-hour news channels and raw wires on the Internet, there’s still no shame at daily newspapers. Whole sections are prepared days or even weeks before they arrive in your “news” paper, and you’d be surprised how much of the “A” section for today’s paper was done while you were having breakfast yesterday. Or earlier.

Uh oh. Nobody tell Daniel Schorr.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Erin Blockley emails: “Have you ever considered calling yourself a War Propheteer?”

A ROYAL FISKING: Tim Blair unpacks a sociologist’s book about September 11 that says it was all the West’s fault.

I read an article recently on the death of Sociology as a discipline. This book may be the reason for its demise.

UNSURPRISINGLY, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT WON’T HEAR the New Jersey case. That’s probably for the best.

BLOGCRITICS HAS A BEHIND-THE-SCENES REPORT on negotiations between the RIAA and small webcasters. Could the RIAA be guilty of dirty dealing?

MILITARY ATTITUDES ON WAR: BILL HERBERT has some interesting polling data.

I’M BACK. The panel went well, lots of good questions. My main point: civil liberties haven’t suffered as much since 9/11 as a lot of people (including me) thought they would — but that’s partly because they weren’t in such great shape before.

My National Security Law seminar meets in a little while, so I’m unlikely to post much more. But visit The Indepundit for a lot of information and links on today’s shooting in Maryland. Note the report that Secret Service agents will be helping to protect schools. Put that together with the recent revelation of Al Qaeda plans to attack schools, and it’s another suggestion that terrorism may be involved here.

IN A FEW MINUTES, I’ll be speaking at the law school’s “First Monday” program. This is done every year on the day the Supreme Court term starts, and it’s sponsored by the Alliance for Justice. Last year’s topic was gun control, and featured a ham-handed and intellectually dishonest film and handouts.

This year’s topic is the Patriot Act, and, well, the film and handouts don’t seem a whole lot better. I’m no fan of the Patriot Act, as InstaPundit readers know, and I was quick to warn against hysterical abandonment of civil liberties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

But reading the Alliance for Justice’s manual for organizers is almost enough to turn me into a fan of the Act, or at least to alleviate my fears. The litany of “abuses” under the Patriot Act is laughably thin, and full of weasel words. Examples:

[Describing airport security abuses] At least two young Muslim women who cover their heads have been singled out for improper treatment at airport security checkpoints. One Muslim high school student was forced at gunpoint to take off her headscarf in public, violating her religious beliefs. The other was subjected to an unlawful strip search when she insisted on being taken to a provate room before removing her head scarf.

Well, I’m no fan of airport security, but if these two incidents are the worst they can come up with — actually, they’re the only incidents they mention (and they’re no worse than many non-Muslims have endured in the travesty that is airport security) — we’re not exactly talking the Fourth Reich here, are we? We’re also informed that “In addition, universities have received increased requests for information about their Arab and Muslim students.” As SKBubba writes: “What’s the problem with that? If they are here on a visa that says they are attending classes and don’t show up, why should they be allowed to stay and why shouldn’t this raise suspicions?”

We’re also supposed to be alarmed that FBI agents might attend public rallies without evidence of criminal activity — but I think the key word here is “public.” And the discussion of military tribunals admits that there aren’t any, but notes that “some speculate that they will be used to try prisoners from Afghanistan currently held in Guantanamo Bay.” We’re not told why the speculations of those “some” should worry us.

There’s also the usual stuff about critics being silence by being criticized, and Ashcroft’s remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee are invoked. But, really, you’re supposed to have some backbone, and Ashcroft’s remarks were all bark and no bite. If a Committee member had stood up to him, he would have wilted. Again, not exactly the Fourth Reich here.

Honestly, either the Alliance for Justice has just totally dropped the ball, or the civil-liberties toll of the post-9/11 world just isn’t that bad. Given their ability to make a lot out of a little in other contexts, I’m going to guess that things aren’t so bad. And that’s good news.