HENRY MILLER writes that bias is becoming a problem in studies conducted by the National Academy of Sciences.

DAVID COLE IS VERY UNHAPPY with the way that the 1996 antiterrorism law is being used. He’s right to hate the law — in fact, though we never actually met except electronically, he and I worked as part of a group opposing the law in ’96 — but the problem is in a way worse than he makes it. Because it’s being used against people who could probably be prosecuted under narrower laws (Lynne Stewart, after all, is accused of conspiring with terrorists she represented to frustrate government surveillance so that they could pass on instructions to other terrorists) uses of this law are going to look solider later on. I don’t know what to do about that, though, besides criticize in the way that Cole is doing.

UPDATE: TalkLeft agrees.

JAMES LILEKS on educational nonsense:

Today at Toddler class the big book of activities had not only information on upcoming Peace Marches, it had literature from the Million Mom March. And there were MMM stickers on the handout table. I’m not saying that material like this should be brutally repressed. No. But either include handouts from other points of view, or – and I’m speaking as a wild idealist here – confine the class handouts to pertinent matters. We’re here to learn about new ways to get the kids to eat asparagus. It’s like getting a flier for an anti-globo rally with your receipt from Jiffy Lube: huh?

But I suspect that the educational establishment regards the insertion of these issues at every available opportunity to be part of their mission; far from wondering what the Million Mom March has to do with a class on establishing sleep schedules, they see these issues as indistinguishable from basic parenting skills. A good parent teaches ABCs; a good parent marches for peace; a good parent realizes the importance of five-point restraint carseats; a good parent subscribes to the MMM position on guns. The personal is the political, after all. And oh-so vice versa.

And you know he’s right. Read the whole thing.

I THINK THAT SKIPPY’S RIGHT that one reason that the D.C. sniper attacks have gotten so much attention is that so many media people live in those neighborhoods. When I lived in D.C. in the late ’80s, far more people were being killed in my neighborhood and areas immediately adjacent, to far less national attention.

HERE’S ANOTHER STORY suggesting an Iraqi connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. These just keep cropping up.

APPARENTLY, Gary Trudeau has been reading Hesiod. Maybe this gentle hint will encourage more proofreading in the blogworld.

UPDATE: Hesiod and Treacher are into it. And here’s a piece by Jesse Walker on why Doonesbury is boring now. “Trudeau’s career arc mirrors the evolution of baby-boom liberalism, from the anti-authoritarian skepticism of the 1970s to the smug paternalism of the Clinton years. In 1972 the strip was engaged with the world; in 2002 it is engaged with itself.” In truth, Trudeau’s taking notice of blogdom is probably a good sign. Apparently, he does get out (at least electronically) now and then.

EUGENE VOLOKH HAS AN EXCELLENT POST on the political failure of the gun-control movement. And scroll down for the one on “pacifist-aggressive” thinking, too.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the piece Volokh is commenting on, by Jim Oliphant of the Legal Times. It’s pretty one-sided. I’ve gotten a lot of email on it. Maybe the Legal Times will, too.

CANADIAN READER JAMES MCKENZIE-SMITH proudly forwards this poll, which he says demonstrates that 66% of his fellow Canadians have their heads screwed on straight:

VANCOUVER – Canadians want even closer economic ties to the United States to increase their standard of living, and are increasingly confident they can compete on an equal footing with American industry, a new poll by the Liberal party’s pollster suggests.

Michael Marzolini, the chairman of Pollara, told the National Post yesterday a solid majority of Canadians — 66% — want the Chrétien government to foster greater U.S. economic integration. Only 5% are adamantly opposed.

“We are not fearful of American influence on our culture or our sovereignty as we were a number of years ago,” he said. “There are obviously still some concerns, but I was amazed to find that it is less than three in 10.”

The poll found that while 66% want stronger economic integration with the United States, 29% are somewhat opposed and 5% are absolutely against it.

The poll of 1,200 Canadians was conducted between Sept. 27 and Oct. 1 and is considered accurate plus or minus 2.9 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Hmm. I hope someone tells Chretien.

I’M BACK ONLINE, BRIEFLY. I’m going to talk to some students here and then hop on a plane. I’ve had a delightful visit: Arizona State’s law school has been a major center for law, science and technology scholarship for twenty years, and it’s a place that I’ve felt a connection to since my first visit out here to speak in 1987. And, since I’ve always liked the desert, I like the Phoenix / Tempe area very much.

But while I’ve been talking about evolutionary analysis of law, and eating fine Thai and Mexican food, you’ve been sending me email at a furious pace. I’ll do the best I can, but no promises that I’ll get through it all any time soon. Sorry, but I’m only human.

STEVEN DEN BESTE is in TechCentralStation today. Another blogger enters the mainstream!

MIKE AND THE BOTS deconstruct a piece of antiwar spam in yet another Misting from Vegard Valberg.

CHARLES JOHNSON SEEMS TO BE THE VICTIM OF A SMEAR CAMPAIGN; you can read more about it here. And here. And Tony Pierce says:

msnbc’s “blogspotting”, edited by Will Femia asks its readers if Little Green Footballs is hateful. pardon me, will, but you’re msnbc’s expert on blogs, why dont you tell us? btw, LGF is far from hateful, they just know who their enemy is and they dont let up. relentless is the word, will, fearless is another word, bro. ruthless, sharp, pointed, popular, and seething are some other words that you could use. but hateful is bogus and reactionary and you should take it off your page.

I don’t think Charles’s site could be called a “hate site” by any stretch of the imagination — er, except by using “hate” as a synonym for what certain people just disagree with. And I don’t think that falling for this campaign does much for MSNBC’s credibility. What’s ironic is to read Charles’s posts on the Middle East from before 9/11, and compare them with what he’s written now. Johnson is a lefty who’s faced reality, which apparently makes him offensive to those who prefer not to.

UPDATE: Meryl Yourish is weighing in on Charles’ behalf. She references IndyMedia as a far more plausible example of a hatesite.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Nick Denton says the problem isn’t Charles, but his commenters — but that Charles needs to rein them in. This is tougher than MSNBC’s casual slur. One reason why I don’t generally have active comments is that I don’t have time and energy to police them, and if I had them I’d feel obliged to do so. On the other hand, I’m sure that — say — MSNBC had lots of racist comments in its discussion boards (before it took them down) and that hardly made MSNBC a “hate site.” While I love comments on other blogs, it seems to me that comments just don’t work well past a certain traffic level.

WILLIAM SJOSTROM wants the Navy to name a ship the U.S.S. Flight 93.

CELEBRATED WEBLOG CARTOONIST JIM TREACHER responds to today’s Doonesbury with a hilarious parody.

UPDATE: Tom Tomorrow is twice the lefty cartoonist that Gary Trudeau is these days, and proves it with this cartoon.

MERYL YOURISH BLOGS FROM THE SCENE of the Virginia arrest.

OKAY, GOTTA EARN THE MONEY THEY’RE, er, not paying me. Back later, with luck.

THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IS SHIFTING RESOURCES from supporting the War on Drugs to supporting, you know, the real war. Good.

DOONESBURY VS. THE BLOGS? Based on today’s cartoon, it seems likely. Well, no surprise: blogs are good at puncturing pretension. Kind of like Doonesbury used to be.

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner weighs in on Trudeau, with a very amusing quote.

My own feeling is that Doonesbury just isn’t funny that often any more. I think it was never as good after he took the year off, and nowadays it’s all too often formulaic. It makes me respect Berke Breathed, Gary Larson, et al., for quitting while they were ahead, much as I miss their strips.

A GROUP OF U.C. BERKELEY PROFESSORS CLAIMS THAT THE BALI BOMBING WAS THE WORK OF THE UNITED STATES:

The United States may have had an active role in carrying out last week’s bombing of an international nightclub, members of a panel said at a campus round-table discussion Friday.

“The information received is that several groups are being looked at more closely,” said Jeffrey Hadler, a UC Berkeley professor of South and Southeast Asian studies. “The most important thing is to wait for the investigation.”

But the United States may have been directly involved in the bombing in order to further its war on terrorism, he added.

President Bush alleged Oct. 14 that Al Qaeda terrorists were behind the bombing because Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country, Hadler said.

The allegation also furthers Bush’s call for war in Iraq, he said.

“Al Qaeda has turned into this incredibly convenient phantom,” he said.

Sylvia Tiwon, a professor of Indonesian at UC Berkeley, said Al Qaeda is too small to have perpetrated the bombing.

The Angry Clam remarks: “Just like only Mossad could have pulled off 9/11, right?”

UPDATE: Hadler, apparently, now says that he was misquoted by the Daily Cal.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Daily Cal has admitted the error.

WITH TWO GUYS IN CUSTODY, it’s still not clear that this was terrorism. Or that it wasn’t. Note the dueling quotes:

“It is frustrating that this murderer wants us to alter our lifestyle and live in fear,” Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore said.

Sounds like the very definition of terrorism to me. On the other hand, Condi Rice remarked:

“There’s no evidence to this point that this is the work of an international terrorist organization,” said National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “There have been no claims of responsibility or anything like that. We are, of course, keeping open that possibility and we’re going to turn over every rock to see if it might in fact be, but there is no evidence to this point that this is internationally driven.”

Not internationally driven. Domestic terrorism? In what cause? I guess, assuming these really are the guys, that we’ll find out soon enough. With two guys in custody, though, the lone-nut theory does look kind of weak at the moment.

UPDATE: Then again, here’s a report saying that these two aren’t the guys. Stay tuned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Do you find the idea of ‘a bunch of Sasha Volokh clones” frightening? Patrick Ruffini thinks that criminals would.

MUSLIM MODERATES DEMAND CRACKDOWN ON EXTREMISTS: We need more of this:

Indonesia’s moderate Muslim organisations demanded today that authorities crack down against religious extremists, who they said represent a fringe minority among the country’s 170 million Muslims.

Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said he believed that Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of a group suspected in last week’s Bali bombing, should have been arrested long ago.

“I believe that Bashir is a terrorist,” Wahid said in a radio interview.

Wahid, who was replaced as head of state by Megawati Sukarnoputri last year, has been sharply critical of her administration’s cautious approach toward radicals.

Wahid’s organization, Nahdlatul Ulama – whose 40 million members make it the world’s largest Muslim grouping – and the 30-million member Muhammadiyah both urged the government to act more decisively against small groups of militants such as Jemaah Islamiyah, which is suspected in the October 12 nightclub bombing in Bali that killed at least 180 people and injured around 300.

Their leaderships say that groups like Jemaah Islamiah or Laskar Jihad – a recently disbanded paramilitary gang blamed for waging a religious war against the Christian minority in the Maluku islands – are a tiny minority in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation.

I’m glad to see this.

WHAT’S THIS BLOGGER/TATTOO CONNECTION? First it was Andrea See, then Missy Schwartz, now it’s Mike of Cold Fury.

JOYCE MALCOLM WRITES ON BRITAIN’S EXPERIENCE WITH STRICTER GUN CONTROL, AND MORE CRIME.

In reality, the English approach has not reduced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them. Imitating this model would be a public safety disaster for the United States.

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England’s firearms restrictions “seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld.” Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them. . .

As Malcolm notes, the gun control movement in England — as in America — is accompanied by an almost pathological hostility to the very idea of self-defense, and an idealization of “professionals” as a source of protection. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Some interesting observations on British treatment of the American gun control debate, from Natalie Solent. Summary: it’s all treated as a question of American culture and psychology — there’s no acknowledgment that Americans might have actual reasons for opposing gun control.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tim Lambert sends this link to figures that seem to say that violent crime in Britain is actually falling. That’s inconsistent with other reports that I’ve read — and the summary indicates that police reports of violent crime are up sharply — but there you are. Anyone have more background on this?

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Lambert has more on this. In essence, this seems to be another “my stats are better than your stats” argument of the sort that plague criminological discussion. The topic is being discussed at length on an email list that Lambert and I are both on, and, well, people don’t seem to find it as open-and-shut as he makes it sound. Meanwhile there’s this article from The Independent calling Britain the “crime capital of the West” based on victimization studies. And Brit-blogger Steven Chapman offers observations here and here.

AUTHORITIES HAVE FOUND THE BODY OF AN FBI AGENT IN YEMEN. The Agent is said to have died under “mysterious circumstances.”

Not all that mysterious, I’d bet.

COULD THE FUTURE OF THE SUPREME COURT TURN ON THE LOUSINESS OF SLATE’S SEARCH ENGINE? Mickey Kaus makes a powerful argument.