NO, I AM NOT the Antichrist. I feel sure that that position pays better than what I get. Nor am I one of James Carville’s blogger shock troops. Nor am I paid by Grover Norquist (er, though, Grover, if you’re reading this, the PayPal button is over there on the left. . . . Oh, and you, too, James!). And I’m not a computer program, which should be obvious from my lack of repetitious machine-made tics. Heh. Indeed.

Gee, it must be hard to be an anonyblogger, if you can generate this much speculation while using your real name!

UPDATE: Reader Alex Bensky writes:

I have written the Mean Dean to set his mind–and I hope yours–at ease. You cannot possibly be the Antichrist. Jerry Falwell said not too long ago that the Antichrist is a male Jew living now.

Now, Professor Reynolds, I’m not saying anything one way or the other, but one day you may be glad that I like your blog so much.

What bothers me is that the email turned black and blew away after I read it. . . .

PROFESSORS VIE WITH WEB for class’s attention. We have what’s claimed to be the biggest wireless network anywhere — it covers our whole campus, indoors and out, and all of the classrooms. I’m sure that we get this, too. I don’t worry about it much. Students who don’t pay attention in class are likely to do badly on the exam. That’s their problem, not mine.

I also tend to wander around the room a lot (I’m one of those don’t-stay-behind-the-lectern professors), which may discourage some of that behavior. And I tend to call on the students who don’t seem engaged. But I don’t make any particular effort to ensure that students aren’t surfing or IM-ing or whatever. They’re grownups. If they’re willing to risk their grades, and to look dumb when they’re called on, well, I’m willing for them to do that too.

I don’t log their IP addresses when they visit my blog like Jeff Cooper, either. He has this observation, though, with which I heartily agree:

Finally, students—especially first-year students—should not underestimate the impact that failure to pay attention in class may ultimately have. I’m now in my seventh year of teaching, and I’ve noticed that over time student comprehension of material covered in class has declined as laptop use has increased. In particular, the results of last year’s exams showed that large numbers of students failed to grasp and retain points that I emphasized in class. Time after time, students memorized the so-called black letter law but failed to understand any of the subtleties of application. It’s those subtleties that make up much of the practice of law, and it’s those subtleties that provide fodder for classroom discussion. It’s possible, to be sure, that I’ve become a worse teacher, although I like to think that’s unlikely, given that both my command of the material and my comfort in front of the class have improved dramatically over time. More likely, I think, is that students simply aren’t paying attention as they used to—and they’re paying a price.

I’m not sure I’ve noticed such a steady decline — and at any rate, it may be related to many years of good job prospects even for students not at the top of their classes — but he’s right about overreliance on black-letter law. One side-effect of computers, in and out of class, is that they tend to discourage focus and encourage flitting around. I think that law students need focus when they study.

DONALD SENSING HAS MOVED to a new URL (off of Blogspot!). Drop by his new digs, and adjust your bookmarks.

ERIC LINDHOLM, known to the blogosphere for his Smarter Harper’s Index, now has a weblog, too! And it’s chock-full of bloggy goodness.

SORRY, BUT THIS GUY’S GOING TO BE HARDER TO DEMONIZE than, say, Newt Gingrich:

An Isuzu Rodeo with six people aboard was heading west on Alligator Alley when it rolled over 3 to 4 miles west of the toll plaza in Broward County at 3:51 p.m., Broward Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief Todd Leduc said.

All six, including three children, were thrown out as the vehicle rolled. A 10-year-old boy died on the scene; another passenger died later at a hospital.

Frist, 50, was driving east on the highway, the Everglades portion of Interstate 75, heading to a family vacation home in Fort Lauderdale with his two sons when he came across the accident minutes after it happened.

He stopped and went to work checking the victims. When paramedics arrived, he pointed them to the ones in the most severe condition. Frist helped paramedics and several off-duty firefighters stabilize the victims until they were transported to area hospital after about 30 minutes.

This stuff just keeps happening.

UPDATE: Gweilo Diaries points out that Alexander Cockburn is trying. Well, yeah.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Laurence Simon explores alternative scenarios.

MIKE ALISSI DEBUNKS a Nexis-based story on “conservative media bias” from The American Prospect.

PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT “CATBLOGGING,” but here’s an example of dog-blogging.

UPDATE: I’ve added a cat image of my own. Hey, cat-blogging is fun. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oliver Willis takes dog-blogging to a whole new level.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Now Colby Cosh is doing it. Jeez, is this some kind of awful trend for 2003?

WELL, HERE’S A GOOD WAY TO RE-ENERGIZE THE DEMOCRATS: Drudge is reporting on “Anti-abortion advocates preparing major push for new abortion restrictions in new Congress.”

Abortion and cloning. Two reasons why I’m not a Republican.

DAVID LETTERMAN IS MEDIA MENSCH OF THE YEAR, according to the New York Observer.

Good call.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston agrees.

WELL, MY COVER is blown, apparently. All I can say is 101011010010001110.

SELFLESS IN YEMEN: Here’s a reminiscence of work at the Baptist hospital where an Islamic fundamentalist gunned down doctors recently. BTW, a reader emailed to say that when Yemeni TV has shown pictures of the hospital, they’ve blocked out the signs that indicate it’s a Baptist institution.

THIS could turn out to be fairly big:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is accusing two leading aerospace companies of illegally providing rocket technology to China that could be used for intercontinental missiles.

Hughes Electronics Corp. and Boeing Satellite Systems Inc. are accused of illegally giving technical data to China following failed launches by China of rockets carrying American satellites in 1995 and 1996.

I’ve seen reports on this before, but I think the climate is such that it may be a bigger deal in the coming year.

IF BAPTISTS OR CATHOLICS were throwing this kind of a — violent –hissy fit I’d be giving them a lot of grief. And so would a lot of other people.

But in this case it’s Israeli Arab muslims. I’m still giving them grief: “Hey, guys, you’re theocratic assholes!” Let’s see if the people who would be savaging the critics of Robert Mapplethorpe or Larry Flynt join in. Excerpt:

Amal Kashua, a 38-year-old mother of eight, was set upon by a mob last week in Tira, a prosperous Arab community in central Israel. “Yussuf,” a Palestinian known only as Amir, was beaten too. They went to hospital under police guard, then into hiding.

Shamed by association, Kashua’s relatives disowned her. . . .

“The whole town is satisfied and dissatisfied at once,” said local man Fathi Sultan. “Satisfied at what happened, because we tried to protect our honor, but on the other hand dissatisfied because she (Kashua) didn’t die, nor her husband.”

The real problem, though, isn’t theocratic violence, but cultural insensitivity:

“This is a blow to the sensitivity of Muslims everywhere,” said Tira attorney Ihab Galgoly, who was representing two men arrested on suspicion of leading the assault on the couple.

“We are considering suing the producers for breach of the law guaranteeing human dignity and freedom.”

Why do Arabs have so little credibility? Maybe it’s trying to kill people for making porn, and then threatening to sue them for “insensitivity”? Jeez, this is beyond pathetic. It’s evidence of a deep-rooted cultural sickness in Arab society today — one that is ignored by many westerners who would have no trouble recognizing it for what it is if it appeared in, say, Mississippi.

JEFF JARVIS HAS SOME GOOD ADVICE for the Democrats on how to win the punditry wars. I agree with him that Josh Marshall ought to be on TV more. He’s got a lot of other good advice, which I started to excerpt, but never mind — just go read it all. He’s on a roll.

ERIC PETERS says that MADD needs to admit victory:

However, there is no evidence that minimal BAC levels of .06 or less — which are reached after a normal-sized person has had a single drink, no more — correlate with a greater likelihood of having an accident as a result of diminished capacity.

It’s one thing to lock up the person who is weaving all over the road — quite another to arrest a person at a sobriety checkpoint simply because he has trace amounts of alcohol in his blood.

The anti-drunk-driving groups have done a great service in helping to enlighten the general public — and make it socially unacceptable to drive while drunk. But knowing when to say “when” applies just as equally to social and legal policy. Just because we went on a bender in the past doesn’t mean neo-Prohibitionism is the answer today. Reasonable people favor reasonable laws.

And that should satisfy all but the crazies — who should be kept away from the levers of power regardless.

Yes. As I’ve written before, I think that MADD has succumbed to the institutional corruption that afflicts all public-interest groups in time. Promoting the organization — which requires a constant flow of new policy items, regardless of how half-baked — eventually takes over from the goal of actually accomplishing something worthwhile.

Heck, to the extent that they discourage moderate drinking MADD may actually be killing people, rather than saving lives. Is that silly? Sure, but no sillier than some of the things that they say.

ATRIOS has come out of the closet and has “unmasked” himself (er, well, sort of)as Gene Lyons. Which would explain a lot. . . .

UPDATE: Plowing through last night’s email I found a message from Razib asking if I am actually Atrios, running a clever disinformation operation. Heh. That would explain a lot, too, wouldn’t it?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Note the presence of ellipses above.

WATCHING a few of the shows around midnight last night, I was struck by the spirit of defiance: Times Square revelers with American flags, dismissing terrorists; Robin Williams on Letterman making fun of mullahs in Afghanistan; some comic I didn’t know on Leno doing the same while urging that everyone should be his own Air Marshal.

And people were right to be defiant. They’re still out there, and they still want to kill us. But when New Year’s passes without incident (reportedly with a bigger crowd at Times Square than at the millennium celebrations), and when Islamists are the butt of late-night jokes, the terrorists have lost another round.

UPDATE: Reader Matt Howell emails:

That comic on Leno last night who talked about the air marshals was Jay Mohr. He’s been around for a few years, having a brief stint on SNL before the Will Ferrell-Darrell Hammond-Chris Kattan cast came in, and then having a pretty decent career as an actor and stand-up comic since. He actually starred in his own show called Action! on FX, where he played a crazy Hollywood producer. It was one of those really funny shows that for some reason didn’t find an audience.

It sure didn’t find me. But then, any show that depended on me for its audience would be in deep trouble.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here’s a blogger prediction roundup from John Hawkins.