HERE ARE SOME LICENSING AND REGISTRATION PROPOSALS relating to catching the D.C. sniper.

A READER SENDS THIS PHOTO of what he describes as either the bravest, or the dumbest, man in the D.C. area.

I’m going with “bravest.”

JESSE WALKER IS ENCOURAGING people to write letters to The Nation in response to the awful Jon Wiener piece on Michael Bellesiles:

The many bloggers who are damning Wiener’s piece on their sites should also write letters to The Nation, keeping their tone moderate (no “fiskings,” please) but their critique sharp. Wiener’s article could not possibly be meant to persuade people who are actually familiar with Bellesiles’s errors and frauds; it was more likely intended as reassurance for Nation readers who were vaguely aware that the Second Amendment crowd was winning an argument but hadn’t been following the debate closely. They deserve to hear the other side make its case.

He’s got links to the article, some replies, and to the Nation’s email address.

THE FBI may not have found the DC sniper, but it’s hell on whistleblowers according to this article in the Washington Times:

The FBI has targeted for disciplinary action and possible service termination an agent who accused other agents at the World Trade Center of stealing a Tiffany globe paperweight from ground zero as a “memento,” a Senate Judiciary Committee member said yesterday.

“This looks like retaliation against a whistleblower who followed her conscience and exposed wrongdoing, even though it embarrassed the FBI,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican. “If there are plans to fire her, the FBI is making a big mistake. I want the people behind this retaliation held accountable.”

It is, of course, possible that she’s both a whistleblower and a nitwit who deserves to be fired. After all, with the FBI currently in the midst of an extensive post-9/11 housecleaning that has resulted in the firing of so many people for incompetence, sheer chance would . . . Oh, well. Looks like retaliation to me, too.

UPDATE: Reader Dave Roberts writes:

Whistleblowers, stonewalling, lying to Congress, incompetence, deeply embedded culture of refusing to share with local law enforcement. What’s the national security downside to closing the FBI and starting over?

That’s what I keep wondering, too.

THIS EMAIL FROM A READER suggests that French media coverage of the sniper is, well, somewhat deeper than what we’re getting here:

In regards to missing French Marksman and DIANE E. contributions on him, I saw the piece on French news here as well with the composite which struck me as strange given, as far as I know, France is the only country which has released one in the media. The missing marksman was not mentioned in the piece but the composite was shown as part of coverage on DC shootings, presumably triggering response from St Cyr students. Been tracking the marksman story via French press. Learned today that the last known trace of the missing marksman was some cash withdrawals from an ATM in US in August.

Supposedly he is an avid trekker and mountaineer per news reports here.

Interesting. My Brother-out-law (he’s not a brother-in– law because he never actually married my wife’s sister (would he actually be a brother-in-law even then? by Southern standards, anyway)) also reports from Paris that the media coverage is fast and furious and that the French media are “loving” the story.

UPDATE: This report says that St. Cyr denies the story that students recognized the composite.

CATHY SEIPP IS PANNING David Kelley’s new female-lawyer show “Girls Club.” I haven’t seen it, and with any luck never will. (I never liked “Ally McBeal” much, except that her roommate was cute). But if you’re in doubt, read this review.

MSNBC’s Will Femia has dropped the claim that Charles Johnson’s site is a “hate” site, but Meryl Yourish says MSNBC is still hypocritical, — and she’s got evidence.

UPDATE: John Bono says we’ve all been cleverly trolled.

THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT TODAY. I found this via Tacitus, a blog that has a lot of stuff worth reading — including some hope for a patriotic anti-war movement.

LESSONS FROM CIVILIZATION: Porphyrogenitus suggests that the game may shed some insights on real life.

INTERNATIONAL LAW: Article 19 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

Yet France (which ratified the Covenant in 1980) just prosecuted someone for calling Islam “dumb,” and similar anti-“hate” initiatives abound in other European countries. Meanwhile, such are never aimed at mullahs whose attack-America rhetoric goes unpunished, making it doubtful that the justification for prosecuting such speech is the protection of public order. (Who’s more likely to inspire violence — a fundamentalist mullah calling for jihad, or a Western journalist calling Islam dumb?)

America, on the other hand, is expected to follow international law slavishly or it is a “bully.”

DAVE KOPEL AND PAUL BLACKMAN WRITE that “ballistic fingerprinting” won’t stop criminals, and is just a stalking-horse for gun prohibition. Excerpt:

From the viewpoint of the prohibition lobbies, however, the misnamed “ballistic-fingerprinting” scheme does have advantages. The scheme amounts to partial gun registration today (in any form that could be politically viable in the legislature), setting the stage for more comprehensive gun registration in the future (without which the scheme would be useless). Since “gun registration” is a political loser almost everywhere, the gun-prohibition lobbies have the opportunity to push for registration under a new, high-tech name. And what is the purpose of gun registration? The former president of the group currently known as the Brady Campaign, the late Nelson Shields, explained registration’s purpose in a 1976 New Yorker interview:

The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal.

Gun registration has been a very useful tool for gun confiscation in England, Australia, New York City, California, and many other places. Criminals don’t register their guns, but many law-abiding citizens do, and when the government makes ownership of the registered gun illegal, the gun-owner, knowing that his gun is already on a government list, has little choice but to surrender his gun to the government furnace. This is a pleasing result for the gun prohibition groups, but if this is the public policy direction for America, we at least ought to acknowledge what is being done, rather than pretending that gun registration — cloaked in a high-tech euphemism — is going to solve crimes.

This is true of course.

DC MEMORIAL FOR BALI VICTIMS: Reader David Price emails:

Hi, Glenn. For what it’s worth, here’s something that might be of interest to your D.C.-area readers. A small notice appeared in this morning’s Washington Post — sponsored, as near as I can tell, by the Australian Embassy — announcing a memorial service for the Australians who died in the Bali bombing.

This is the text:

“A Memorial Service for the Australian community and friends to honour the large number of Australians who lost their lives in the October 12 bombing attacks will be held at 11.00am on Thursday 24 October 2002 at the Washington National Cathedral, Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW, Washington, DC.”

FYI, for those of you in the area.

JANIS IAN IN USA TODAY:

The recording industry says downloading music from the Internet is ruining our business, destroying sales and costing artists such as me money.

Costing me money?

I don’t pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing: If a record executive says he will make me more money, I’d immediately protect my wallet. . . .

The RIAA’s claim that the industry and artists are hurt by free downloading is nonsense. Consider my experience: I’m a recording artist who has sold multiple platinum records since the 1960s. My site, janisian.com, began offering free downloads in July. About a thousand people per day have downloaded my music, most of them people who had never heard of me and never bought my CDs.

On the first day I posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales tripled, and they have stayed that way ever since. I’m not about to become a zillionaire as a result, but I am making more money. At a time when radio playlists are tighter and any kind of exposure is hard to come by, 365,000 copies of my work now will be heard. Even if only 3% of those people come to concerts or buy my CDs, I’ve gained about 10,000 new fans this year. . .

Who’s really hurt by free downloads? The executives at major labels who twiddled their thumbs for years while company after company begged them to set up ”micropayment” protocols and to license material for Internet-download sales.

Yeah, it’s all about people protecting their phoney-baloney jobs.

ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION WARFARE: My TechCentralStation column is up.

UPDATE: Aimee Deep says I’m hopelessly optimistic. (Shouldn’t you be in school, young lady? Hell, she’s probably blogging from a wireless laptop in French class. . . .)

ERIC OLSEN OBSERVES the Charles Johnson / Christopher Hitchens connection.

HENRY COPELAND REPORTS THAT THE NEW YORK TIMES HAS BULLIED the Washington Post into selling its share of the International Herald Tribune as part of a more-aggressive international stance on the part of the Times.

THE VERDICT IS RIGHT, BUT THE TRIAL NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED:

French writer Michel Houellebecq has been cleared of inciting racial hatred by saying Islam was “the stupidest religion”.

A panel of three judges in Paris declared that the author was not guilty after he was sued by four Muslim groups.

He made the comments in an interview with the literary magazine Lire in 2001.

I wonder if he can counterclaim now, saying that being called a bigot is hate speech?

ALPHECCA is a blog by a self-described “gay gun-nut from Vermont,” with a focus on Vermont politics and guns. Check it out.

DIANE E. has some information on the missing French marksman. He’s apparently of “Yugoslavian” origin. Bosnian Muslim, she wonders?

I think it’s rather a long shot that this guy is involved in the D.C. sniper attacks. And you’d think that a Bosnian Muslim — saved from genocide by United States intervention, after all — would be indisposed toward terror attacks on the United States. On the other hand, the Muslim world has shown scant appreciation for the many U.S. humanitarian interventions benefiting Muslims — after all, we even have anti-American terrorists in Kuwait.

On the other hand, note this passage: “Reports in the French media said that students at Saint-Cry alleged they recognised their comrade in an unofficial police composite drawing of the sniper reportedly shown on TV.” Hmm. Shown on TV in France, but not here?

A MAJOR CYBERATTACK ON INTERNET ROOT SERVERS, but apparently to little effect. No information as to who’s suspected to be behind it.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING LETTER TO FCC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL POWELL about the future of the telecom industry. Doc Searls is among the signatories.

FISKING GOES MAINSTREAM: Here’s a newspaper article that describes its approach as “Fisking Style.” Sociologists of the blogosphere, take note.

I’M OFF to speak, then I’m hopping on a plane, so blogging will be nonexistent for the remainder of the day.

I took a turn around the ASU campus just now to clear my head for the talk. It’s a beautiful day here, as usual this time of year, and it’s a beautiful campus. Enjoy your day, wherever you are.

AN EMORY PROFESSOR (no, not Michael Bellesiles) has been suspended for six months for, basically, yelling and pushing someone. (This story isn’t that informative, but I’ve been following earlier accounts of this incident, and that’s what it amounts to.)

In light of this harsh punishment for a comparatively minor offense, it seems fair to expect that if Bellesiles is found guilty of academic fraud he should expect much, much harsher treatment.

UPDATE: Clayton Cramer emails: “Garrow was also very publicly critical of Bellesiles after the W&MQ issue came out. I wonder if this claim (that Garrow denies) is retaliation?” Several people have wondered that. I don’t know.

ARTHUR SILBER has a long and very personal post on homophobia, left and right.