“THE BEST OF THE BEST FROM THE INDIAN BLOGOSPHERE:” This week’s Blog Mela is up. And happy Diwali!

MY GOD, KRUGMAN, ALTERMAN AND DOWD WERE RIGHT! And Carole Simpson, too! Bush is re-elected and almost overnight Confederate soldiers are camped out under the Stars and Bars, occupying my town! It’s Karl Rove’s evil plan coming to fruition at last!

Okay, it’s actually re-enactors at the Toms Mansion on Kingston Pike. Or so they would have us believe. . . .

KEITH OLBERMANN WARNS AGAINST INTERNET CONSPIRACY THEORIES: And aptly.

WORDS TO CHILL THE BRAVEST HEART: “Your Lifelong Enemy, James F. Treacher.”

MICHAEL TOTTEN on studying war some more.

Meanwhile, Asparagirl says that’s not all some people should be studying.

FOR REASONS THAT ESCAPE ME, the folks at The Corner don’t like Home Depot. But Phil Carter notes that it’s been named the most military-friendly employer in America. He’s got the full top 25 list. As Phil says: “Keep up the good work: — America’s reservists and veterans deserve this kind of support.” Indeed.

MORE THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT: Ninjas. Fortunately, Frank J. has the scoop with his “Ninja FAQ” page.

ONE OF THE NICEST THINGS about being a professor is seeing your former students praised for their accomplishments.

FAMILY DYNAMICS IN THE INCREDIBLES: Plus a roundup of reviews, over at BlogCritics.

WOOHOO: Stopped at the car wash and opened the laptop to work on a column while I waited. To my surprise, they’ve got free wireless internet now. I love that.

UPDATE: Where is it? It’s the Simoniz car wash (formerly The Clean Machine) at the corner of Northshore and Kingston Pike. For non-Knoxvillians who may find this while searching the Web for free wi-fi in Knoxville, that’s close to the Papermill Drive exit from I-40.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tim Cavanaugh is skeptical of municipally operated wifi networks. I’m all for open wifi in libraries, etc., but I agree that trying for ubiquitous wifi as a city project is probably silly, especially when you can already get free wifi at car washes and fast food places. Not to mention breweries and pizza joints.

TIM BLAIR: “Surreal? It’s perfect!”

PERRY DEHAVILLAND EXPLAINS why he is not a conservative. My related thoughts can be found here.

ANDREA SEE is offering bargain ad rates at her Xiamen-based webzine.

JONAH GOLDBERG has a post on TV and abortion that raises some interesting issues. I agree with the part about how hypocritical the TV shows are — the characters always agonize about abortion, but always decide not to have one — but that’s not the part that really caught my interest:

I don’t mean to say that such pretend anguish doesn’t capture a certain reality, and a very sad one. But at the end of the day — or often at the end of sweeps week — the woman always says “it’s my choice, I’m keeping the baby.” Or, they’ll have a scene where the woman gets a sonogram and she realizes she loves the baby and again she’ll say “it’s my choice. I’m having this baby.”

And, the moment the women decide to have the baby, the fetus is automatically discussed as if it were a complete person worth talking to, reading to, singing to etc. The implication here, of course, is that if Rachel or whoever had simply chosen not to have the baby, that choice and that choice alone would have been enough of an abracadabra to metaphysically transform the fetus into nothing more than a lump of cells or the inconvenient consequence of a one-night-stand not worth reading to at all.

I realize I’m not quite addressing Jonah’s argument here, but it’s not so shocking that a single decision like that might change, if not a person’s moral status, at least the constellation of duties that someone has in regard to them. A classic example (and one that I’ve always meant to write a law review article about, but never gotten around to) has to do with abortion and the duty to rescue.

At common law — and still, pretty much, the law generally — there’s no duty to rescue. The classic example, in fact, involves a man walking down the sidewalk and observing a baby drowning in a half-inch of water. Even if the man could rescue the baby with no risk and minimal inconvenience to himself, he’s under no duty to take any action at all, and can simply keep walking without facing any penalty beyond moral condemnation.

But if he decides to help, and takes action, then he becomes obligated to follow through and must exert all reasonable effort (short of risking death or serious bodily harm; inconvenience doesn’t generally count) to save the baby’s life and leave it in a position of reasonable safety. The analogy should be obvious here.

Now I’ve thought of this argument in a different context, as an explanation for why you could both support abortion rights (as, of course, I do) and also support holding pregnant women liable for engaging in behavior — like drug use, excessive alcohol consumption, etc. — that might endanger the fetus. But I think it provides at least a partial answer to Jonah’s question.

UPDATE: Reader Luke White emails:

A great post on abortion and duty to rescue, thanks! One question to throw on to the pile, though: If you follow this line of reasoning through, wouldn’t it result in a legal situation in which a woman would be obligated to abort if she’d engaged in behavior that had put her child at significant risk for birth defects?

An example: Alcohol does most of its structural damage during the first trimester of pregancy, during which time, of course, it’s still legal to abort for most any reason. If you apply the duty-to-rescue doctrine, don’t you run into a situation in which the mother could be held liable for carrying the baby, defects and all, to term, while suffering no liability if she simply chooses a first-trimester abortion?

From a med student/pro-life position, this seems problematic to me, in that you’d be punishing the woman who brings viable life to term while the woman who engages in the same behavior and doesn’t bring the child to term suffers no consequences. This would seem to be a major incentive to abort.

Of course, if one doesn’t accept that a first-trimester fetus is a fully rights-endowed human, you could maybe make the case that the dereliction is in allowing the fetus to get to that status at birth with the avoidable problems drinking and the like present. But then it seems as if you could extend that censure to any woman who knowingly carries a baby with defects (eg Down’s Syndrome) to term, leading to forced abortions couched in a duty-to-rescue defense: They knew, so why did they allow the child to be born with such a disadvantage? many pro-abortion/population control advocates might ask.

Anyway, thanks again for the post! It’s a unique angle, and I hope you write that article!

Hmm. Interesting questions, which I hadn’t thought of in quite that fashion — my thinking was “decide not to have the abortion, and assume the duty to avoid dangerous behavior.” But I suppose this is the flipside of that. (This is the difference between a blog post and a law review article). I don’t know if I’ll ever get to writing this piece, despite the kind encouragement, though, as my scholarly rangetop extends about ten miles back, it has so many back burners. (I think I’ll get to “Law as an Agoric Open System” — which I actually did some research and outlining on, first, and I don’t know that I’ll ever get to that one behind all the pieces I’m committed to write as it is).

Meanwhile several readers sent variations on this theme, from Wayne Wren: “If you put ‘someone ( a fetus)’ in peril, i.e., have unprotected sex, do you have an obligation to rescue?” I don’t think this works, as there’s no one in existence when you have sex, unless you believe that life begins before conception, which I think is a nonstarter even for pro-lifers. A more sophisticated version of this argument would say that (1) A standard exception to “no duty to rescue” is when there’s a special relationship creating such a duty, and (2) a pregnant woman has such a duty to a fetus, which she assumes by having sex. That seems a bit of a question-begging move, though. It is perhaps less so if you distinguish (as Wren does) between sex and “unprotected sex.”

It is the case, of course, that men are often held to assume a duty of support (for a longer period, if not in such an intimate fashion) simply by having sex, even when such sex is not “unprotected.” (And sometimes men are held to assume such a duty even when the child in question isn’t theirs at all.) This is a stress-line in abortion doctrine and family law that has gotten more attention in recent years, but not enough. (I had an idea for another article on this topic, entitled “Ejaculation as an Ultra-Hazardous Activity” — but that one, too, is probably best left unwritten.)

A CAMPAIGN TO IMPEACH LEWIS LAPHAM? The good news is, Lapham can tell us how it turns out before it even gets started. . . .

A VERY NICE GALLERY OF PHOTOS FROM INDIA: Taken by Maciej Dakowicz with a Canon Digital Rebel.

Meanwhile, in response to my earlier post, reader Lawrence Kaplan emails: “I’m putting together a wish list that starts with the Nikon D70 a 28 to 200 zoom and a good flash unit. What do you use and/or what would you recommend as the best choice for a flash?”

Unfortunately, I can’t help from firsthand experience (I buy the stuff I write about — manufacturers unaccountably don’t send me freebies). I’m still using my ancient Vivitar 283 when I use a flash at all, which is seldom as I prefer natural light. But reader P.J. Swenson, who sent the link to the India photos above, also sent a link to this review of the Nikon SB-600 flash, which is cheaper than the SB-800 and, according to the review, probably better in many ways. I can’t comment from firsthand experience, though.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I have been using a Cannon S110 (2.1MP) for the last three, almost four years. It takes great photos and the small size makes it so easy to carry, that I’ve almost completely given up using my 35mm SLR(Minolta XG-1) that has been my trusty companion since 1982.

Just last month, I upgraded to a Cannon S500 (5MP). I have been too busy to get out and use it lately, but will as soon as time permits.

Anyway, please keep the links to digital photography and photos going on the weekends. It’s a refreshing break, kind of like Friday cat blogging.

That’s kind of my feeling. It can’t all be war and politics. And the small-camera point is a good one. The camera that you carry with you is always better than the one that’s in a drawer at home! Meanwhile, reader Rick Lee disagrees with one aspect of the review I link above:

I use the SB-80DX which predates the 800/600 flashes.

The reviewer dismisses the built-in white card and the inclusion of the dome diffuser… it’s true you can get replacements, but I fear that many buyers won’t get around to it. As a professional, I take MOST of my (on-camera) flash pictures using either the dome (mostly) or the white card with bounce. The difference in the lighting quality from using the dome vs straight flash is HUGE and one shouldn’t ignore that. Bouncing from a ceiling while using a white index card rubber banded to the flash gives a very similar look but is, of course, a little messy.

I don’t do a lot of “on-camera-flash” type shooting. Mostly I’m setting up elaborate lighting setups… but I do a little bit of “event-coverage” stuff which requires on-camera flash and I prefer that it doesn’t LOOK like on-camera flash.

I don’t like flash either. And I don’t like flash that’s right above the lens, because the flat, shadowless lighting it produces looks lifeless and dead to me.

AS USUAL WITH HIS BLOGOSPHERIC EFFORTS, JAMES WOLCOTT IS A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT, having been reduced to recycling ancient bogus claims of t-shirt racism. It’s a sad but accurate reflection of the state of the East Coast literary establishment, when its members are reduced to making troll-posts on the Internet in a desperate bid for attention.

I wonder what Wolcott would say about this t-shirt? But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the blogosphere, it’s that you can’t please everybody. And some people you don’t want to please at all.

UPDATE: From the trackbacks on Wolcott’s post, I see that some people are giving him a hard time. Far be it from me to say he doesn’t deserve it, but I think his extra-pungent bitterness these days comes from self-reproach over having single-handedly delivered Florida to the Bush campaign. . . .

“IMAGINE JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER FRONTING A PUNK BAND:” Hmm. Malcolm Forbes, easily. John D.? Well, maybe, though I see him as more of a rapper. . . .

CREEPING PROHIBITIONISM: This cartoon is sadly apt.

I’M A BIG FAN OF DAVID HACKETT FISCHER’S ALBION’S SEED: Now he’s got a new book out, Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America’s Founding Ideas. I haven’t read it yet, but there’s a post about it over at ChicagoBoyz. Meanwhile, here’s a post I wrote on his last book, Washington’s Crossing.

IT’S NOT QUITE A FISKING, but Ann Althouse offers an extensive critique of Jeff Rosen’s article on the Supreme Court that I linked yesterday.

IT’S A LITTLE LATE for Friday catblogging, but there’s no rule against Saturday catblogging. Taken by the InstaDaughter, with this. She’s actually getting to be a pretty good photographer.

NEAL POLLACK’S ADVICE TO DEMOCRATS: “The last three Democratic Presidents came from Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas, respectively. I say this to all of you who think it’s funny and wise to say ‘fuck the South.’ If you fuck the South, you’re fucking yourselves.”

Assuming that you care about winning elections, anyway.

UPDATE: Steve Sturm responds. And a reader emails:

By keeping their disdain for red staters in the news, blue staters are hurting themselves. Don’t get me wrong. I love that we’re having an honest debate with liberals not trying to hide who they are. However, folks that voted for Bush already understand what the elites think of them. This venom spewed by the left is just a validation not a surprise. On the other hand, if you were on the fence, but voted for Kerry, I fail to understand how this vile mockery of 60,000,000 is attractive. The folks posting this stuff must fancy themselves the high school clique who gets to decide what’s cool for the rest of us. I’ve got news. After you grow up, the only place this works is in Hollywood and Manhattan.

Yeah. And the hysterical overreaction to losing the election demonstrates just how much of their self-image is tied up in that role. And on that point, it’s worth reading this Reason article from 1999 on the Matthew Shepard case and the media’s treatment of so-called “hate states.” Conclusion: “In Wyoming, there are a few bigots who don’t like gays. In the media, there are a lot more bigots who don’t like Wyoming.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Speaking of hysterical overreaction. It just gets worse. And, as I’ve noticed before, it’s odd that the political professionals are taking it better than the academics and pundits.

SOMETIMES TECHNOLOGISTS SHOULD JUST SAY NO: What if terrorists get hold of one of these?

NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER are lost.