BRIAN MICKLETHWAIT: Exflux from Islam? I remain unconvinced.

I should note that I think Brian’s view of Islam is overly negative. But in a world where even “human rights commisions” view the anti-Western, anti-Semitic variety of fundamentalist Islam as the authentic variety, I suppose such misunderstandings are inevitable.

PARDON ME, BUT YOUR DOOR IS TERRIBLY OFFENSIVE: “At a public university, such common displays of individual preference would presumably fall under the protections of the First Amendment. But not when such displays are offensive to others, according to officials at Lake Superior State University, which threatened to reprimand a tenured professor whose door boasted cartoons and other images of a conservative political bent.” F.I.R.E. is involved. “FIRE and Crandall, who could not be reached for comment, point out that other professors at the university are able to post politically charged pictures and phrases on their doors without consequence, presumably because their perspective is liberal or leftist rather than conservative or right-wing.” Again, if right-leaning students choose to take offense in the fashion that has become traditional for leftists, there will probably be many more such door-carton cases.

My door features a large “Is your coworker a Cylon?” poster. So far no one has been offended.

UPDATE: Of course, some McCain supporters might be upset.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More Cylons in surprising places.

MORE: Reader Ted Pannkokke says door-cartoons play an important informational role:

The professor’s-door-as-billboard is one of the most important course-scheduling tools a student has. When I was a history major and law student walking down Office Hall for whatever reason, a door plastered with Tom Tomorrow cartoons was a good marker for what professors – and hence courses – to avoid like the plague.

Well, Dan’s gotten a bit shrill lately, but he’s done some funny work. In fact, as I’ve noted before, that cartoon was the inspiration for the “A.G. Android” character.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT The Huffington Post and antivaccinationists.

LIEBERMAN CAMPAIGN CRASHED OWN WEBSITE: “The server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured.” That’s like when people send me a link to their underpowered WordPress blog, then it produces a “Database Error” message when too many people try to actually read it. I hate that. (Yeah, this happens elsewhere sometimes, but low-power WordPress blogs seem particularly susceptible.)

UPDATE: More on the WordPress problem.

BARACK OBAMA’S “typical awful white grandmother.” Typical?

Plus, psychoanalyzing Barack.

UPDATE: Reader Jim Shirey thinks the top link is mean. Yes, like much of what’s going on in the Democratic primary.

LAWMAKERS FOR SALE: When you give them power, especially over things where money is involved, they inevitably resell it to the highest bidder.

BLOGGINGHEADS: The loneliness of the pro-Hillary blogger.

UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!

AN 11-YEAR-OLD HERO: “The 11-year-old boy who steered a runaway school bus to safety said Wednesday he did it because he saw a truck coming at them and because his brother also was on the bus. David Murphy said he worried afterward that he might get in trouble for jumping into the driver’s seat, but he said police and fire officials reassured him that he did the right thing, and so did his classmates.”

I seem to vaguely remember a similar case where the girl who seized the steering wheel did get in trouble, but I can’t find it. Glad he’s receiving proper acclaim.

UPDATE: Ah, here’s the story I remembered. She got detention because she was skipping school. Thanks to reader Jim Chandler.

AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, the Ontario Human Rights Commission backed down over the Mark Steyn case, but not without issuing some anti-Steyn dictum in spite of its self-confessed lack of any jurisdiction. Here’s a news story on the event, and note this passage:

This qualified exculpation — Ms. Hall compared it to a judge making comments in a written judgment — was the latest chapter in the growing controversy over free speech in Canada’s human rights bureaucracy.

Her statement drew harsh criticism from a progressive Muslim leader who said the commission had sided with Islamist fundamentalists in the debate among Canadian Muslims over the acceptance of traditional Canadian values.

You’d think that promoting “traditional Canadian values” is what a Canadian “human rights” commission would be about. But you’d be tragically wrong. Plus, “Scrutinizing the Human Rights Machine.” And this:

This is why Ontario’s human-rights commission hasn’t yet suffered the sort of signature embarrassment suffered by its federal counterpart at last week’s Marc Lemire hearing.

But instead of counting their blessings, the folks at the OHRC are complaining that they’ve been left out of the censorship party. And they want in.

Wednesday’s Orwellian communiqué reads like something the Chinese communist party might put out on Xinhua — except that the role of anti-Chinese “traitors” and “saboteurs” has been replaced by evil-doers (such as Maclean’s magazine’s Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant of the Western Standard) who peddle “destructive, xenophobic opinions.”

There would seem to be many opportunities for investigative journalism here, for anyone interested in examining things closely. Perhaps Macleans should undertake the effort . . . .

And here’s still more on the disaster that the Canadian “human rights” bureaucracy kakistocracy has become. At least this is getting attention in the Canadian press.

UPDATE: Okay, I have to quote this, too:

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote “human rights,” the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the Lemire case, Steacy was asked “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?” — to which he replied “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

Jeez.

MR. SMOOT, MEET MR. HAWLEY: “The Democratic Party’s protectionist make-over was completed yesterday, when Nancy Pelosi decided to kill the Colombia free trade agreement.”

MORE ON THOSE CHRISTIAN-NEWSOM KILLINGS, which got a lot of blogosphere attention a while back.

THE MEDIA’S SACRED TRUST IS NOT A TRUST FUND: Plus, a shocking Glenn Greenwald / Bob Dole parallel. Well, you never see them photographed together, you know.

A LOOMING THREAT: “It’ll be like the The Great You Don’t Express Your Feelings Or Make An Effort For Me Crisis of the 1990s.”

Plus, an excellent suggestion: Keep it equal: jail the demagogues, too.

“HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION” TO MARK STEYN: Case dismissed, but you’re guilty anyway! “I’d be interested to know whether the Justice Minister of Ontario thinks this is appropriate behaviour. At one level, Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall appears to have deprived Maclean’s and me of the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence and the right to face our accusers. But, at another, it seems clear the OHRC enforcers didn’t fancy their chances in open court.”

TORCH DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO: Reader Dyema Manusov sends this report and photo:

Turn out was (and still is) amazing. As of 2:25 Pacific time it appears that the route has been diverted, so things are winding down. Seems like most of downtown SF turned out, or stood in the windows and rooftops of their office buildings. I would be surprised if any work at all got done this afternoon in the law and banking firms of the SF financial district. It seems that pretty much everybody, regardless of their background or affiliation, can agree that Tibet should be free. I guess its just one of those issues. I only saw one guy trying to conflate Tibet with Iraq or Chinese policies with US polices, and he was wearing a suit but had a home-made sign that said “First Things First: US Out of Iraq” – but he looked pretty lonely and I think I may have even heard a boo or two as he walked by. Didn’t get a picture of him unfortunately.

One bizarre thing was the fake “party” in Justin Herman Plaza, where a band was trying to rock covers of “Get Down On It” and “Lets Go Crazy” for about a hundred-fifty pro-China folks (paid shills?), while surrounded by about three thousand pro-Tibet folks.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Your poster on torch day wondered if the pro-China folks are paid shills. I strongly doubt it, as there are plenty of PRC nationals in the bay area and they’re all anti-Tibet freedom. It’s worth mentioning that this is an issue that pretty much extends over all Chinese. “Tibet has always been a part of China” is their slogan — the historical record is pretty spotty, but that’s their really quite emotional assertion.

I’m a 2nd-gen Chinese-American; I don’t think much about these issues — it’s the privilege of being an American. But my interactions with my family and the PRC nationals that I work with tells me that the Chinese have a real fear about their territorial integrity. Between Taiwan and Tibet, they could easily lose a pretty big chunk (~10%?) of their national territory. That’s something that would give any nation pause.

I hate the PRC regime (they’ve killed my family members); I think they’re evil and I hope for their demise. But to assume that the Chinese people aren’t as nationalist as their government is wrong.

I’m sure that’s right.

JEREMIAH WRIGHT, REDUX? An anti-Semitic rant mars an award ceremony in Los Angeles. There’s video.

UPDATE: Some thoughts on those Hollywood Jews, from Roger Simon.

TAYLOR MARSH: “My position on the D.C. case has been made clear. Residents should be able to own handguns. Period.”

WARNING TO KARL: The lefties get very upset when you talk about this stuff. Some of them, if you can believe it, even mocked this photo as insufficiently manly. Hard to credit, I know, but there you are.

PAUL VOLCKER: A dollar crisis resulting from Fed efforts to contain damage from the housing/subprime crash. “The present climate, Mr. Volcker told his audience, reminded him of nothing so much as the early 1970s. Then as now, certain commodity prices were rising fast – he cited oil and soybeans as two examples. Then as now too, these were explained away as speculative price run-ups and not as a harbinger of a broader inflationary trend.”

GOOD QUESTION: Reader Eric McErlain emails: “Glenn — I’ve been doing just a little reading about these Texas polygamist group that was raided by Child Protective Services. I couldn’t help but notice that nobody needed to call in any armed troops to perform a search and remove those kids — a far cry from the Waco debacle. Why isn’t anybody mentioning the difference in execution between the two operations?”

Yeah, they do seem to have managed it without burning everyone to death. Maybe somebody learned some lessons, or maybe the Waco raid was just criminally inept. Story here.

UPDATE: Reader Kenneth Bennight emails: “As a life-long Texan, I caution you not to be misled by the Texas stereotype. An important difference between El Dorado and Waco is that El Dorado, insofar as I can tell, was a state operation, whereas Waco was a federal one controlled by Janet Reno. I have always believed that Reno wanted a dramatic news story. The Texas authorities here moved quietly, with the news story coming only after the deed was done.”

A dramatic news story? She got that.

A FUEL-EFFICIENT S.U.V. ALTERNATIVE? The Jetta TDI diesel wagon.

HIGHER ED.: To get a good raise, do you need to quit?

GAY RIGHTS VS. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN NEW MEXICO? Are you surprised to learn that a “Human Rights Commission” is involved? Once again, I think that people on the right should start taking advantage of this marvelous resource for justice.

A FREE-SPEECH FUNDRAISER for Canadian bloggers. I should note that I’ve donated to all of ’em.

“I WAS WRONG:” Better late than never.