MIT IS ON THE CASE:
Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention. Time travelers from all eras could meet at a specific place at a specific time, and they could make as many repeat visits as they wanted. We are hosting the first and only Time Traveler Convention at MIT in one week, and WE NEED YOUR HELP!
I wonder who’ll show up? . . .
SHOULD HOAXES BE TREATED AS CRIMINAL OFFENSES? CrimProf is asking.
DEEP THOUGHTS on rock, paper, scissors.
IF THERE’S A MASSACRE OF SUNNIS IN IRAQ, it will be because of the lack of a KPS Gill.
CATALLARCHY IS REMEMBERING MAY DAY by remembering the victims of Communism in all their millions.
FILIBUSTERING FRIST AT PRINCETON: TigerHawk has an interesting report, and what I think is a spot-on observation:
I think that these Princeton students have the right idea: If you are going to filibuster, then you should have to filibuster. Filibusters should come at some personal and political cost. We should abolish the candy-ass filibusters of modern times, and require that if debate is not closed it must therefore happen.
The prospect of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy bloviating for hours on C-SPAN would deter filibusters except when the stakes are dire, if for no other reason than the risk that long debate would create a huge amount of fodder for negative advertising. If Frist were to enact the “reform” of the filibuster instead of its repeal, he would sieze the high ground.
Filibusters, traditionally, were an expensive proposition for the filibusterers, and the recent rule changes that removed those costs fly in the face of the very Senate traditions that pro-filibuster folks are invoking. This reform makes sense to me, as it would ensure that the filibuster-nuke is dropped only when the stakes are high enough that the minority is willing to pay a price.
TIM WORSTALL HAS POSTED HIS BRITBLOG ROUNDUP: Check it out.
I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY about the “runaway bride” story, except that if I were the groom I’d be running away myself, now. But Single Southern Guy has much more to say.
UPDATE: And Manolo has more still. I hear that there will be no criminal charges, but I think she should be forced to read his entire essay aloud to everyone in the wedding party. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to reprint it in all the bridal magazines, as a useful cautionary note.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS REGARDING ROTC at Columbia University:
Emboldened by a high-turnout student referendum two years ago that put support for ending the R.O.T.C. ban at 65 percent, a politically eclectic group of undergraduates has raised the program’s profile.
The debate has done more than expose predictable fault lines over the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” regulations and the war in Iraq. It has also signaled a shift in student attitudes toward the military and encouraged vigorous conversation on campus.
“From the point of view of a veteran of ’68 here, which I am, it’s a different world,” said Allan A. Silver, a professor of sociology, referring to the year that student protests convulsed the campus. Mr. Silver, who has taught at Columbia for more than four decades, favors the R.O.T.C.’s return.
Read the whole thing, which certainly seems newsworthy. And note the byline.
“ISLAM HAS NOT CONQUERED ARAB CULTURE — ARAB CULTURE HAS CONQUERED ISLAM:” I’m watching Irshad Manji on Tucker Carlson’s PBS show, plugging her book on the trouble with Islam. She’s quite impressive, and it will be interesting — and, I have to say, an exacting test of the “moderate muslims” we’ve heard more about than from, since 9/11 — to see how she’s received.
UPDATE: Here’s a link to her website.
LATIN AMERICA: The Community of Democracies vs. the “Axis of Subversion.”
PATTERICO: “Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.”
BLOGS AND IMPACT: An interesting report in The New York Times:
A blog rebellion among scientists and engineers at Los Alamos, the federal government’s premier nuclear weapons laboratory, is threatening to end the tenure of its director, G. Peter Nanos.
Four months of jeers, denunciations and defenses of Dr. Nanos’s management recently culminated in dozens of signed and anonymous messages concluding that his days were numbered. The postings to a public Web log conveyed a mood of self-congratulation tempered with sober discussion of what comes next.
Interesting. And, no doubt, worrisome to all sorts of people.
GIULIANA SGRENA UPDATE: Ed Morrissey reports:
CBS News reports that the American and Italian investigators looking into the death of Italian commando Nicola Calipari and wounding of hostage/journalist Giuliana Sgrena have evidence that Sgrena lied about the incident from the beginning. Sgrena has long insisted that the Italian driver slowed down to under 30 MPH before approaching the checkpoint, whereupon American soldiers opened fire without warning. However, CBS now claims that data from military satellites clearly showed the car traveling towards the checkpoint at over 60 MPH without slowing down at all, triggering the defensive response from the American soldiers.
Can’t say I’m surprised.
IMMIGRATION IS A BIG ISSUE, AND IT’S GETTING BIGGER: Arnold Schwarzenegger has weighed in on illegal immigration, and he doesn’t seem to be backing down:
On Thursday, Schwarzenegger said on a Los Angeles radio show that the Minuteman Project, which has been patrolling the Mexican border in Arizona in an attempt to prevent illegal crossings, has been doing “a terrific job,” and he credited the volunteers for reducing the flow of entries, though he provided no data.
Schwarzenegger, who immigrated to the United States from Austria more than 25 years ago, softened his comments only slightly Friday. He said he is a strong proponent of immigration, “but you’ve got to do it in a legal way.” He said he favors proposals for a guest worker program that would allow some Mexicans to work in the United States and an opportunity, over time, to apply for citizenship.
Neighborhood watch
But the governor again expressed support for the Minutemen, who have been denounced by some, including President Bush, as vigilantes trying to take the law into their own hands. Schwarzenegger compared them to neighborhood patrol groups, in which citizens work with police to prevent crimes.
As I mentioned before, I have several legal immigrants in my family, and they’re pretty resentful of illegals who ignore all the rules. I suspect that Arnold feels a bit that way himself, and I think he’s in a position to draw the distinction between legal and illegal immigration more clearly than many other politicians.
ELECTRIC HORSEMEN: Tom Maguire has further thoughts on Henninger’s comments about blogs and Mongols.
ROGER SIMON REPORTS on the progress of Pajamas Media.
REMEMBERING THE FALL OF SAIGON: And remember, too, that there are some people here who would like to see the same thing happen in Iraq.
STRATEGYPAGE NOTES THE MARCH OF DIPLOMACY:
Iraq’s neighbors are increasingly supporting the interim government and opposing the Sunni Arab and al