ARRH! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, mateys!

NEW TREATMENTS FOR osteoarthritis. Good news, just in case blogging is involved. . . .

SURVEILLANCE PRIVACY SAFEGUARDS: Real or imaginary?

LARRY SUMMERS / ERWIN CHEMERINSKY UPDATE: The Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters writes:

A victory for academic freedom? Seemingly so, but it would appear that among UC faculty members the principle should be applied only to those on the political left, judging by what was happening simultaneously a few hundred miles to the north at another University of California campus.

Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard University, had been invited by UC Regent Richard Blum (husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein) to address a private Board of Regents dinner at UC Davis. When faculty members objected, Summers was disinvited.

Summers, former secretary of the treasury, resigned from Harvard last year after a lengthy clash with its faculty over his remarks about the suitability of women for careers in engineering and other technical fields. Summers said his remarks were misinterpreted and apologized, but was forced out of the presidency anyway.

“I was appalled and stunned that someone like Summers would even be invited to speak to the regents,” Professor Maureen Stanton, an organizer of the protest, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The hypocrisy is self-evident. Liberal UC faculty members believe in academic freedom for liberals, but someone deemed to be politically incorrect should be barred from even speaking to a private dinner.

And in both cases, those running the university ran for cover.

Those sentiments echoed at the San Diego Union Tribune.

UPDATE: Reader William Sjostrom emails:

You might remember, in the California messes over Chemerinsky and Summers, that Summers is a liberal, and a defense of Summers hardly means a defense of academic freedom. Look at Brad DeLong, defending fellow liberals Chemerinsky and Summers, invoking John Stuart Mill.

Now look at DeLong on John Yoo. After quoting at length Michiko Kakutani’s hostile review of Yoo’s War By Other Means, DeLong’s attachment to academic freedom for folks not so liberal declines, and he writes: “f I were Chancellor Birgeneau, I would be scrutinizing Berkeley Law School’s tenure-vetting process very, very carefully right now. We have evidence that it doesn’t work too well.”

You see why some of us think the left’s attachment to academic freedom is maybe a bit opportunistic.

Indeed.

THOUGHTS ON Iraq and Blackwater.

JOHN EDWARDS GOES AFTER HILLARY:

In its most direct attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton, the campaign of Democratic presidential contender John Edwards on Tuesday denounced a fundraising luncheon that included sessions for Clinton donors with members of Congress who have expertise in homeland security.

“Today’s Clinton fundraising event is a ‘poster child’ for what is wrong with Washington and what should never happen again with a candidate running for the highest office in the land,” Edwards’ senior adviser Joe Trippi said in a letter to supporters.

Edwards and Barack Obama have declined money from individuals who lobby the federal government and have tried to portray Clinton, who does accept lobbyists’ money, as beholden to special interests. Obama and Edwards do accept money from corporate executives whose industries have interests in government policies.

He’ll be hearing from Jane Hamsher about this, I imagine.

JOHN TIERNEY: Economists vs. Ecologists — who makes better prophets? “One of the most valuable lessons from the past half century: when it comes to getting the big picture right, when it comes to preparing for environmental catastrophes, economists have a better track record than the scientists who specialize in analyzing environmental trends.”

HMM: “Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane’s Defence Weekly report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.” More such accidents would be welcome.

MARYLAND’S SUPREME COURT REJECTS GAY MARRIAGE ATTEMPT, and Dale Carpenter looks at the big picture:

SSM has lost in every state high court to consider the issue since the stunning success in Goodridge in Massachusetts in 2003. SSM legal advocates lost outright in Washington state and New York in 2006. New Jersey’s high court also rejected an SSM claim in 2006, though it did order the recognition of civil unions and left open the possibility of a future pro-SSM ruling. A case is still pending in California’s supreme court.

When you consider that SSM legal advocates have carefully chosen the most sympathetic venues since Goodridge, this record of losses is especially significant. It means that strong anti-SSM precedents are being created in the friendliest states, making pro-SSM rulings in other states even more unlikely in the near future. Once California is decided, the initial phase of post-Goodridge litigation will have pretty much run its course. That was the phase that was supposed to start an avalanche of pro-SSM judicial rulings that would quickly lead to gay marriage around the country. It didn’t happen. Other cases are pending in states like Iowa, and there’s nothing to stop gay couples from filing anywhere else, but the odds are now longer. If SSM is to advance much in the near future, it will probably have to come legislatively.

I think that’s right, and I think it’s probably both inevitable, and better that way. An earlier post on the subject can be found here.

RUPERT MURDOCH VS. THE NEW YORK TIMES: “If you were a member of the Times-owning Sulzberger family, or a top NYT reporter, or Steve Rattner, and you saw the famously rapacious Australian press lord headed your way with murderous intent, and then you saw that your champion was … Pinch … well, how terrified would you be?”

TOOBIN’S NEW BOOK: More sizzle than steak?

SAFETY QUESTIONS about Boeing’s new 787. Don’t know how much to make of them — “fired engineer” types can have their own issues. But he’s reliable enough for Dan Rather!

MORE ON ISRAEL’S air strikes in Syria.

HOLY ANDROMEDA STRAIN, BATMAN:

A fireball fell from the sky and slammed into southern Peru over the weekend, creating a huge crater that emitted a sickeningly smelly gas, local authorities said. More than 600 villagers fell ill, the Peruvian radio network RPP reported Tuesday.

Video reports from the scene, near the remote Andean village of Carancas along Peru’s border with Bolivia, showed what appeared to be a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide), 20-foot-deep (6-meter-deep) impact crater with a bubbling pool of water at the bottom. . . .

Limache told RPP that the gases emanating from the crater caused nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches and stomach pain — so much so that authorities were considering calling a state of emergency. The newspaper La Republica reported that seven policemen became ill and were taken to a hospital.

Villagers decided not to drink the water in the area because they regarded it as contaminated in the wake of the impact, RPP reported. Experts from Peru’s Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute, or Ingemmet, were reportedly on their way to the village in the country’s Desaguadero region to evaluate the health risk.

All kinds of organic compounds in some meteorites, but this is a new one to me.

UPDATE: Don McGregor emails:

You’re missing the most obvious consequence of this:

Zombies.

Lock and load!

Always with the zombies. I’m planning to be prepared for all contingencies. “Remember, don’t trust anything without a pulse.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mass hysteria? Plausible, sure, but isn’t that what they always say just before the zombies appear? He’s hedging his bets, though: “That said, the first Peruvian cannibal story I hear, I’m loading up on canned goods and firearms.”

TOM MAGUIRE: It’s still too early for Hillary’s Sister Souljah moment — that’s scheduled for the spring, when it will do more good, and when the MoveOn crowd doesn’t matter anymore.

PROBLEMS AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT, and perhaps fatal ones for some.

THOUGHTS ON POLITICIANS and unfortunate photos.

AL QAEDA LOSING THE WAR OF IDEAS: “A prominent Saudi cleric once praised by Osama bin Laden has published an open letter condemning Al Qaeda’s violence. In the long letter published on an Arabic Web site, Cleric Salman al-Awdah calls on Mr. bin Laden to end the killing of innocent Muslims and others in terrorist acts in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.”

When terrorist violence was a problem for America nobody minded. Now that it’s a problem for Arabs . . . .

KATE NOTICES a slippery slope.

I’m dealing with the problem a different way, by teaching my daughter to shoot.

CONFRONTED ON HADITHA, Murtha squirms.

Jeff Goldstein observes: “Digital video camera: $400. Bus fare to visit Congressional offices: $2.00. Watching John Murtha stammer and hedge when confronted directly about having preemptively (and, it so happens, erroneously) convicted the Haditha Marines of murdering Iraqi civilians ‘in cold blood’: absolutely friggin’ priceless.”

A ROUNDUP OF BLOGGER REACTIONS to the Kerry/Florida taser incident.

HEH: “Hey, maybe they can’t crunch the numbers because they’re too busy doing old-fashioned Hsu-leather reporting…”

Bill Allison succumbs to Hsu-pun syndrome. Once you hstart, you cant hstop . . . .

COLD WAR NUCLEAR HISTORY, at Dark Roasted Blend.

FANTASY AUTHOR ROBERT JORDAN HAS DIED. Somehow I’ve never read any of his stuff, but I know that a lot of people like it. Follow the link for a memorial and a roundup of reactions.

FREQUENT HEADACHES? They’re probably rebound headaches caused by . . . headache medication.