California Law School Withdraws Offer to Liberal Law Professor

This law.com story about how a California law school withdrew its job offer to a liberal law professor raised my eyebrows.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the prominent legal scholar slated to be founding dean at University of California, Irvine's new law school, had his offer withdrawn because of controversy created by his well-known liberal views, Chemerinsky said Wednesday.

A professor at Duke University School of Law, Chemerinsky accepted the post last week after months of talks, but on Tuesday UC-Irvine's chancellor Michael Drake asked him to give it up.

"He said I proved to be too politically controversial," Chemerinsky said in a phone interview from his Durham, N.C., home.

Drake told The Recorder he didn't back away from Chemerinsky because of the professor's views on any specific subject. But the fact Chemerinsky was a "lightning rod" did enter into the decision.

"I needed someone I could work with to build the school, and he wasn't the person," Drake said. "I wish only I had made the decision earlier."

That explanation didn't pass the smell test for me. When did academia start caring whether a professor espoused liberal views? Ward Churchill is only the most recent example of a whacked-out professor. I took an astronomy class in college where the professor decided to tell the students one day that "anyone who thinks an embryo is a human being is stupid." I haven't a clue what that had to do with stars and planets.

I'll say up front that rescinding a job offer based on a person's political views is rank. And after Googling Mr. Chemerinsky, I would add that Cal-Irvine had to know about Chemerinsky's far left views (and, in fact, said they did). My suspicion is that there were some protesting Chemerinsky's appointment and the committee caved. Frankly, I think that's a shame.

Oddly enough, Law.com tiptoes around what Chemerinsky has said that was so controversial. Why not explain what views he holds that might be so objectionable? My assumption is that this is another example of bias (liberal or otherwise)--they didn't want to tell readers what Chemerinsky has said because it might make the nullification of the job offer more reasonable. It's a pretty big, gaping hole not to tell readers what Chemerinsky has said.

So, what did Chemerinsky say that was so incendiary?

Well, Drake said it was because of an opinion piece Chemerinsky wrote for the L.A. Times. In it, Chemerinsky "asserted that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was "about to adopt an unnecessary and mean-spirited regulation that will make it harder for those on death row to have their cases reviewed in federal court."

Seems tame to me.

But he also has said the religious right was the greatest threat to American liberty. Not terrorists or runaway litigation. Not repression, poverty, or racism (the usual liberal canards). No, he specified that fundamentalist Christians, defending their beliefs against the likes of the ACLU (because the groups Chemerinsky complains about aren't the ones who filed suit) are the greatest threat to American liberty.

OK, that's a little harder to swallow, but I still don't see how that puts this guy anywhere close to the "little Eichmanns" comment.

Chemerinsky endorsed an interview scheme for judicial nominees designed largely to keep conservatives off the bench. This is hardly surprising for a devoted liberal, either. His idea (or rather, the idea he adopted from others) proposed that Supreme Court justice nominees explain to questioners how they would have ruled in a variety of hot-button cases from abortion to affirmative action to religious freedom to campaign finance. I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that proposal--liberals will quite willingly tell you that twisting the Constitution to find new rights so we don't have to go through the arduous Constitutional amendment process is perfectly permissible. But after Robert Bork's Borking, no conservative will put him/herself through that wringer. Again, I see nothing outlandish in Chemerinsky backing this theory of questioning.

Chemerinsky also spoke out against a new law which prevented attorneys from recovering fees when they win Establishment Clause cases. The legislation is obviously designed to stop organizations like the ACLU from filing ridiculous lawsuits to have crosses removed from city seals and things like that. But there's nothing in Chemerinsky's piece that is incendiary.

From what I could find of Chemerinsky's writings, he's a brilliant legal professor who is highly respected for or in spite of his political views. Nothing I found leads me to believe that his philosophies are so far out of mainstream legal thought as to bar him from being dean of a law school. And, according to this L.A. Times opinion piece, I'm not the only person on the right defending Chemerinsky.

I liked this post by Hugh Hewitt:

Erwin is a man of the left, of course, but a remarkably distinguished and accomplished scholar who enjoys the esteem of professors, jurists and practioners across the ideological spectrum...

This is an astonishing and disgraceful episode, which, if perpetrated against a conservative, would rightly lead to a massive outpouring of outrage directed at the university that had allowed such a purge to occur. I will be astonished if any reputable scholar agrees to take the job over Erwin's broken contract, and many professors who would otherwise have welcomed the chance to join the UC system will be wondering about the Administration of such a place, even if they find someone to agree to be dean.

The L.A. Times piece has more reactions from us wingnuts. I do wonder if those on the left would be defending a conservative in a similar situation.

More Anti-Child Rants at Pandagon

I wasn't going to bother with another Pandagon post. There's just way too much nuttiness at that site to comment on every, single nutty or stupid post. But this post on the benefits of being childless or restricting oneself to one child is patently ridiculous.

Amanda (who else would write such junk?) starts out with the somewhat valid point about overpopulation and conserving resources. She even pretends that she's not advocating coercive government policies, although she doesn't seem to understand what, exactly, is wrong with such policies.

For a woman who spends a lot of time blogging about the fun of sex and that anyone who acts like an adult must not enjoy it, she has a real hang-up about having children. I'm all for people who don't want to have kids not having kids. There are ways to avoid having kids when you decide having a child is the absolute worst thing that could happen to you:

1. Don't have sex

2. Get sterilized

That statement will get the nutroots howling, but there's nothing else that prevents pregnancy like not having sex or only having sex after sterilization. Every other contraceptive measure fails, even abortion.

But the point wasn't about sex or abortion. The point is that Amanda thinks having children is a really big problem. She points out the very rare cases of extremely large families as though these are the norm, or that not condemning such families is advocating that every person in America go out and have 17 kids. Neither of these insinuations is true, of course. Given that the U.S. birth rate is at an all-time low, you'd think Amanda would just 86 a post like this but nope, she really thinks we need to know why having more than one kid is more traumatic than cancer.

There could be more public service information out there pointing out the disadvantages of having two or more children and therefore having to split up family resources. Do you really want to pay two college tuitions? Do you want your eldest to have to turn down Harvard and go to State U. to save money so child number two can also go to college? The answer may end up being yes at the end of the day for some people, but a lot of people will decide against having a second child once they realize that you can stick to one while being a thoughtful person, instead of the horrible sibling-depriving abusive wretch that others might make you out to be.

It's a novel argument, I must admit. Why have two children? You'll have to provide twice as many toys that end up broken the day after Christmas! And you'll have to buy two Volvos, cuz the little darlings can't be deprived of the most expensive of everything or else they will be disadvantaged.

It's tempting to psychoanalyze Amanda after you read posts like this. I know she has a sister. Perhaps she always resented having a sister. Maybe sister got more toys or attention or better grades. Who knows? But every anti-child post she writes comes down to some ridiculous statement like "only have one child so you can send him to a private college. You wouldn't want him scarred for life by going to a state university."

Amanda should know by now that people with children are happier than people without children (just as married people are happier than single people). And people with multiple children have made the same choices Amanda approves of (only in reverse). And above and beyond whether having children makes you happy (the study says one child provides as much happiness as multiple children), as a civilization, we consider having children to be an intrinsic good not associated with personal, selfish motivations. In this post, I discussed a woman who has six children and confronts directly the "Why have more children?" obnoxiousness. She says:

What happens in larger families? Children are more tolerant. They learn that they are one part of a whole much larger than themselves and that the common good usually takes precedence over their particular desires. They also discover the principle of scarcity; they learn to conserve. Their clothes are on loan and passed on to others when they are done. They have to share their toys. They cannot take more food than they can eat, or someone else will not have enough. They can't take long, hot showers, or someone else gets a cold shower. They learn that their singular behavior affects multiple people. They are not the center of the universe.

Children with multiple siblings are also more accepting. They practice living with a variety of temperaments, quirks, and ages. Older children cannot stay safely within their own peer group. They learn to hold babies, sing lullabies, and change diapers. A teenager cannot retreat, morose, into his bedroom every afternoon to listen to his music—his 3-year-old brother will jump on his back and demand a gallop around the room. A 16-year-old girl will trudge through the door from school, worry on her face, to be greeted by a flying 18-month-old jumping into her arms.

Children from larger families have to work together. Every morning, the grump, the overachiever, the early riser, the dreamer, the snuggler, and the toddler must negotiate their separate concerns toward a single goal: to get out the door and to their respective schools on time. In summer, for a family with a commercial fishing operation like ours, the goal is to pick all of the fish from all of the fishing nets before the next meal. The children have to help each other. They have to work together in storms on the ocean.

I'm not advocating that people have children without putting a lot of thought into it. But I find it disturbing that people like Amanda argue constantly about women's choice, then bash the choice some women make to have children. "Teh Patriarchy Made Me Do It" isn't really much of an argument in this day and age, and trying to say that women only want large families because of societal pressure is myopic. We've never lived in a time with more choices for women. That not all women choose the way many liberals want seems to be a problem for the Left.

UPDATE: Amanda was getting a lot of flak about this post in the comments. While many of the people weren't as blunt as I am, a fair number were arguing that it's hard to support choice then slam a choice you disagree with (although someone said this is perfectly acceptable; I'll remember this the next time abortion comes up). Amanda answered this way:

To make it clear: I doubt that people are going to wise up and save the planet, so this is sort of an idealization post. And ideally these messages of “limit your births already” would be aimed at white women. I see no downside to telling white people to cut out with the thoughtless reproduction. In my ideal world, the programs would aim straight at the very middle class white people who reinforce the notion to each other that having children in mandatory and being childless is bad. Which is why I mentioned tax credits for the childless, not welfare cuts, as a population control mechanism.

In other words, the people most likely to be able to support their own families should be discouraged. Huh?

UPDATE x2: She just keeps sticking her foot in her mouth. Here's another attempt to excuse herself:

I’m glad there are people with children who reduce their (environmental) impact. It would be even more reduced if they didn’t have children.

There's just not much you can say to someone who has her foot rammed in her mouth up to her knee.

That $27 Can Add Up Fast

PunditMom at MomsRising.org has a post discussing how small donations to political causes can add up to a lot of money.

In the September issue of More Magazine , Melinda Henneberger, the author of If They Only Listened to Us, reports that if every woman who voted in the 2006 national elections contributed just $27 to any presidential candidate, we would pour $1.3 billion dollars into politics.

I don't support the sorts of candidates that she does--I had no idea anyone gave money to Al Franken!--but I'm sure I can find some place to make a political donation when the time comes. And while I don't drink lattes, I'm sure there's something I could cut back on to make my contribution. Maybe I'll just take a few bucks out of my enormous trust fund (since I must be rich cuz I "hate" the poor!) or maybe not make so many trips to Saks in my Hummer 3.

UPDATE: Now Gordo claims I said there was something "wrong" with poor people. Here's what I said:

I realize that wages are going to be different depending on the area of the country because costs are different in different areas of the country. But, again, if you raise the minimum wage sharply, Whataburger is going to increase its prices to cover the cost. When gas prices jumped earlier this year, I paid attention to prices and how much they jumped. In other words, the businesses raise their prices to cover increases in costs regardless of the source of those increases. So, while the gal making $5.75 an hr will be happy to get a nice big raise to $7.25 or $7.50, she’ll soon discover that other prices will rise to cover the wages.

And Dana is right about people making their own opportunities. Not everyone has the abilities to do what he says happened in his family, but far more people can than some people would like to believe. I have to wonder why someone would stay at a job that wasn’t paying them enough to live. If nothing else, there are job placement centers run by state employment offices that are designed to help people get skills to get better jobs. And there are charities that help with these things, as well.

As I said in comments, only an idiot would think that meant that I thought there was something "wrong" with poor people.

Why Get Bent Out of Shape By 9/11 Propaganda?

In the comments at this post on 9/11, a guest suggested that the 3,000 Americans killed in a terrorist attack are no more significant (perhaps less significant?) than civilian deaths in the Iraq War. If you go to Pandagon, you'll find more along the "America deserved it" and "It's our fault" line of argumentation.

But I have to admit that this explanation of 9/11 on the BBC children's website might be the worst of all.

The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al-Qaeda - who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks.

In the past, al-Qaeda leaders have declared a holy war - called a jihad - against the US. As part of this jihad, al-Qaeda members believe attacking US targets is something they should do.

When the attacks happened in 2001, there were a number of US troops in a country called Saudi Arabia, and the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, said he wanted them to leave.

What a nice way of saying that terrorists attacked a free country and killed thousands of uninvolved citizens for no reason recognized by intelligent humans!

The All-Spin Olbermann Zone

I will admit I was a bit perplexed when I first read that loudmouth Keith Olbermann won the 25-54 demographic last week.

Phil Griffin knew it would happen, he just didn't think it would happen this quickly. On Friday night, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann was the top-rated cable news show in the 25-54 demo. That means Olbermann beat his cable rival, FNC's The O'Reilly Factor and its host Bill O'Reilly. That's a first...

O'Reilly and all the FNC primetime programs still dominate the total viewer numbers.

This seemed like a strange thing to say? Are there really that many geezers and toddlers watching FNC? How can Olbermann win the biggest demographic but not win total viewers?

Then I went to Olbermann Watch where it all became clear.

That certainly sounds impressive, only it's not true. You see, TVNewser and MSNBC are using "Live Plus" ratings meaning the count includes both those who watched the program live as it aired and those who recorded it on a DVR or TIVO device. Of course there is no proof whatsoever that anyone actually bothers to go back and watch what they recorded on a DVR or TIVO. I know I've got movies sitting on my TIVO that I recorded over a year ago. But here's the difference those Live Plus Numbers can make and the misleading impressions they can lead to, impressions that the MSNBC PR machine which includes their willing flack, TVNewser don't bother to explain:

On Friday, September 7th, using the Live Nielsen data (available at Inside Cable News), Bill O'Reilly scored 1,861,000 total viewers; Olbermann? 702,000. That means that in all age groups, O'Reilly had a total of 1,159,000 more viewers than Olbermann did. Using "Live Plus", O'Reilly scored 1,885,000 total viewers; Olbermann? 856,000. A difference of 1,029,000. So in what bizarro world do you have a million more viewers, on average, than your nearest competitor and still be considered a loser? Oh yeah, right. The MSNBC PR department and TV Newser.

So let's go look at those coveted demos too shall we? On Friday night, September 7th, using the Live data, The Factor had 311,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo. Olbermann? 269,000. Victory? It belonged to Bill O'Reilly. But using those "Live Plus"? Bill had 324,000; Olbermann had 365,000. Keep in mind there is absolutely no proof whatsoever anyone who recorded Olbermann's opinion-fest actually bothered to watch the show later, they just recorded it.

Before viewing Olbermann Watch, I didn't realize that TVNewsers' Chris used to work for MSNBC. Seems to me if a guy's gonna flack for someone, he should disclose his connections to that entity.

I can't even remember the number of shows we've TiVO'd and never, ever watched. Counting TiVO numbers in with live viewers is a bit disingenuous if you ask me.

Inside Cable News points out that this was one night's numbers. How's Keith doing since then?

The O’Reilly Factor — 2,308,000 viewers/510,000 in 25-54 demo
Countdown with Keith Olbermann — 876, 000 viewers/388,000 in 25-54 demo

That means Bill had nearly three times Keith's numbers. But don't expect a PR release from TVNewsers on that.

And speaking of hacks--er, flacks.

It's 75 Degrees Outside

Must be fall in Texas...

Does Affirmative Action Hurt Minorities in Professions?

I was listening to Michael Medved's show yesterday while I was out running errands. The hour was devoted to a study which showed that affirmative action in law school admissions actually hurts minorities.

The study was done by Richard H. Sander, a tenured law professor at UCLA and lifelong supporter of racial preferences.

Sander's study shows that racial preferences in law school admissions result in a counterproductive mismatch between the academic abilities of black beneficiaries of racial preferences and the law schools to which these students are admitted under "affirmative action". According to Sander's research, this mismatch demonstrably results in a much higher failure rate than would otherwise be the case if the black students were admitted to law schools which more closely matched the their academic preparation and abilities.

In other words, black law school students are actually hurt by affirmative action (racial preference) policies. According to Sander, black law school students would do much better academically and professionally if racial preferences either did not play a role in their admission to law schools, or played a significantly reduced role.

The results don't particularly surprise me. Top tier schools are the most demanding academically. It's far more competitive and more difficult to succeed. Sure, the rewards from graduating from such schools are greater, but, simply put, not everyone has what it takes to graduate from these schools. I know I certainly couldn't have, and I don't think I'm a slouch.

The issue is sensitive for a number of reasons both of historical discrimination and current day competitiveness. In a misguided attempt to compensate for past discrimination, top tier schools are admitting minority candidates who aren't up to the rigors of their programs. These same candidates would most likely succeed at second tier schools, graduating and, most importantly, passing the bar.

Regardless of which law school one attends, all potential attorneys must pass the state bar to become licensed practitioners. Whether you go to Harvard or South Texas, you have to pass the same Texas State Bar Exam to practice law in Texas. This was a key argument I didn't hear made in all the argumentation about the study. It doesn't really do any good to send underqualified students to top tier schools if they can't get the education they need to perform on the only test that really matters: the bar exam. Without the bar card, it doesn't matter which school gave you that doctorate of jurisprudence.

I think it is safe to say that if minority students received better educations in public school, they would perform better by the time they were choosing law schools. For those favoring affirmative action and other remedies for discrimination, I think that is the place to focus. Whether the answer to that problem is more money (I don't think so) or more testing (many others don't think so) or something else, pushing unqualified students into schools which ill-suit their abilities isn't the answer. Creating situations in which more minorities students succeed is.

Remembering 9/11

Remember 9/11?

Do you remember where you were when you heard about the terrorist attacks?

I was dropping my younger kids off at daycare, chatting to my sitter who is also my friend. Another woman came in to drop off her children and heard us laughing and talking about something trivial. The look on her face contained both shock and horror.

"Y'all really don't know, do you?" she said. And then she told us.

For reasons I now forget, I went to my in-laws and that's where I saw Tower Two topple. My mother-in-law and I watched in stunned silence for at least another hour.

I picked up my kids, then my older daughter (who was in school). I didn't pick her up early, mainly because I thought it was better to keep things as normal as possible. She said about half her classmates were picked up early from school that day, but nobody told them what was going on.

At home, I talked to my Internet friends, many for the first time on the telephone. We watched the news for hours, mumbling, speculating, and trying to make sense of it all. We wrote e-mails back and forth to each other. We gathered with loved ones (my husband came home from work early and we just sat there, the five of us, watching the wreckage that was the life we'd known). We talked to people we hadn't talked to in years. We tried to connect with every human being we knew, just to make sure they were safe.

The closest I came to a connection with 9/11 was that a friend of mine and his wife were trapped in New York after an ill-planned business trip left them stranded for several days without a way to get home. They knew people who died in the tragedy, which made their anxiety worse.

And everywhere--everywhere--for a year or more after that, there were the flags. Everywhere, there were flags. We flew Old Glory at the Ballpark, at football games, and even in Hollywood. For a fraction of time, we were America United.

But, as Norman Podhoretz notes, it didn't last long.

It started with the fringies, and spread to the Democrat Party. We have the same old assholes making stupid arguments about the war in Iraq in an attempt to score brownie points with the knuckle-draggers...but don't question their patriotism! Or their sanity, for that matter.

We now have the Al Gore would have prevented 9/11 argument (no, really!). We have the revisionists who decry blaming the victim unless the victim is America. Then it's all our fault. Why? Because we didn't spend more time talking. As we all know, more talking is what the terrorists want. Islam is just misunderstood. The guys flying airplanes into buildings are only a small subset of Islam. Don't blame them!

Podhoretz compares present day cybernuts to 1960s era protesters and, though the means have changed, the end is still the same.

By 1975, when the North Vietnamese communists conquered the South, not a single American soldier was left in the country. But never in American history had our honor been so besmirched as it was by the manner of our withdrawal. Having left with the promise that we would continue to help save the South Vietnamese from communism by supplying them with arms, Congress nevertheless refused to send them so much as a bullet when the communists of the North were already storming the gates. As President Bush recently reminded us, to the sputtering rage of those who did not wish to be reminded, the price "was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps,' and 'killing fields.' "

It's odd watching the American Left twist 9/11 and the War in Iraq into just another political slogan. Fifteen years ago, liberals were clutching their pearls over Saddam Hussein's human rights violations. But now, they seemingly feel nostalgic for the rape rooms and woodchippers. They actually see no difference in people who die in a war and people who die in a terrorist attack (after all, both people are dead, so it doesn't matter the cause, right?).

My father, a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, was angered and disgusted by the selfish and childish protest movement of the 1960s. I completely understand his feelings after watching the Left in modern times.

UPDATE: Ahh, the predictable responses from the Pandagonistas. It's so sad their mamas wouldn't take 'em to Sylvan to improve their reading comprehension.

UPDATE x2: I agree with Lisa DePasquale:

The September 11 anniversary shouldn’t be about politics. What makes the Freedom Concert and the 9/11: Never Forget Project extraordinary is that those who participate do so to show their patriotism and remember the fallen. They aren’t doing so to make a political statement. Coming from DC, a city saturated in politics, their sincerity is encouraging. It would do many professors and administrators some good to leave their isolated worlds and join their fellow Americans in remembering a day that is bigger than our differences.

Yep. It's more than "we all had flags," Cris. Too bad your ilk misses that point.

UPDATE x3: Captain Ed discusses his memory of that day and points out,

Three years later, the terrorists still have not claimed another day. There may come a day that belongs to them, but every morning since 9/11 we have been able to say, Today is not that day. Thanks to the men and women in our armed forces, intelligence, and law-enforcement agencies, we have continued to say that.

Don't tell the Pandagonistas that.

Greening Your House

Lifescript.com has a good article on greening up your home with organic and chemical-free choices.

I'm always looking for ways to stop using chemicals and using more "eco-friendly" products. When I got my carpets cleaned over the summer, the cleaner told me about using vinegar to clean just about everything from floors to counters to mirrors. Needless to say, we are buying the economy size container of vinegar these days, and I like the results. My floors aren't sticky from the chemical products, and the house doesn't have that "chemical smell" you get from other kinds of cleaners. Check out the Lifescript article for more ways to save the planet and improve your health.

Pandagon's Bizarre Sense of Injustice

This post at Pandagon left me scratching my head.

Evidently, nude photos of High School Musical star Vanessa Anne Hudgens have surfaced, and the actress has apologized for the "lapse in judgment."

So, what's the Pandagon take on events? Why, it's Teh Patriarchy keeping women down again!

People who are worried sick over what the children will think if they find out that adults have sex need to grow up and be more worried about the horrible lessons this apology teaches. Like:

--Women should apologize for being human beings with sexual desires.

--If something bad happens to a woman who has a sexuality (basically all women), we should blame her for being sexual instead of blame the person who violated her trust or body or autonomy.

--Women’s bodies are public property and if a woman uses hers in a way that the public disapproves of (even if it hurts no one), she owes everyone an explanation.

I thought about making another "I can't stick my head this far up my ass" reference after reading this stupidity, but it just seems repetitive. Is Amanda Marcotte really dumb enough not to see the problem with taking nude pictures of oneself? Is there a woman in America who hasn't heard of some woman somewhere who took nude photos of herself for her boyfriend and then faced the humiliation of said boyfriend giving the pictures to a third party or (in this day and age) posting the photos on the Internet?

It's utterly bizarre to me that Amanda just doesn't get it. This isn't a woman "expressing her sexuality." This is a woman engaged in what is reckless behavior that came back to bite her on her nude ass.

Back when Vanessa Williams was decrowned Miss America because of the surfacing of nude photos, Bob Greene wrote a column pondering the question of why women felt compelled to take off their clothes in front of cameras. I can't find a link to the column, but the main point was that you never see nude photos of powerful men surfacing to embarrass them in their prime, nor do men ever make the ridiculous argument that they "were young and didn't know what they were doing." Yet this is pretty much the argument made for women doing this silly thing all the time.

Why do women take off their clothes for cameras? Is it simply compulsive? Is it really "celebrating their sexuality?" And if so, why don't men "celebrate their sexuality" the same way?

Every time some silly woman's nude photos make news, I roll my eyes and wonder when womankind will grow up enough to recognize that taking your clothes off for a man is a private matter not intended for the camera. Here's the lesson girls (not the one Amanda wants you to get): don't take your clothes off in front of the camera. Ever. Even if you've been married 50 years. Even if your man begs you to. Why? Because someday, somewhere the photos will come to light to embarrass you. Engaging in sexual horseplay between consenting adults is one thing. But the next time a man wants you to take off your clothes for the camera, tell him you want a photo of the two of you naked. That will stop the publishing of such pictures.

P.S.--Amanda, the objection parents have isn't that they think kids won't know where babies come from. High School Musical is a movie watched by 7-year-olds as well as 18-year-olds. There is such a thing as appropriate behavior (not that I expect you to understand that), and parents usually think people from children's movies will behave a bit better than, say, a rapper.

Prisons Purging Books on Faith from Libraries

I'm sure the intent was good, but getting rid of books is never a good thing.

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.

Some Excluded Works The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.

The story goes on to explain that hundreds of books are being swept off prison bookshelves because they do not appear on a pre-approved list of 150 books per religion. 150 books? That doesn't sound like enough for the major religions, which could probably have 150 books on each individual sect. Does that mean 150 books on Catholicism? 150 on Protestantism? Or 150 on all of Christianity?

The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller.

I've always had a problem with book banning, although I can see limiting, say, school libraries to more appropriate material or using filters on library Internet services. The problem with banning religious books in a prison is that prisoners don't have the freedom to pop down to the local Barnes & Noble to get whatever book they seek. It's better to give them more options than fewer.

I suppose in the name of tamping out terrorism, somebody thought this edict made sense. But as one person in the article pointed out, it would make more sense to create a list of unacceptable books, rather than acceptable ones. The First Amendment problems with this decision are clear.

Liberals Just Think Differently From Conservatives

And now we have the evidence to prove it.

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

The results show "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.

The scientists were quick to point out that this doesn't mean one way of thinking is "better" than the other...although the moonbats are already trying to say it does.

I'm not surprised at the results. Liberals think being "open-minded" is a good thing (and it can be in certain circumstances) and shun the idea that tradition and history should control various institutional responses to events (for example, the atrocious arguments made by Jeromy Brown concerning gay marriage). What I would be most interested in is what a study shows about your brain as you move from being liberal to conservative, as many of us do with age. Does that mean our brains change over time? Or does it merely point out that experience alters one's opinions about various issues?

Can Christian School Expel Gay Students?

A team of Christian lawyers is arguing on behalf of Christian Schools in California that the schools can expel students who engage in homosexual activities.

The lawyers from the Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defense Fund are asking permission for the Association of Faith-Based Organizations to be added to a lawsuit over that issue. They say the result of the case against California Lutheran High School could affect the rights of members of the organization.

Parents of the two expelled students are suing the Christian school, alleging a violation of California's "sexual orientation" anti-discrimination laws.

"Christian schools have the right to make admissions and disciplinary decisions consistent with their Christian beliefs," said Timothy J. Tracey, a litigation counsel for the CLS. "To subject Christian schools to liability under the California anti-discrimination laws for expelling students who engage in homosexual conduct flatly violates this right."

The article doesn't go into questions of funding, as in, do the Christian schools receive state or federal funds? If so, they are probably subject to state and federal anti-discrimination laws. If not, I don't see how they can be held to be violating any state law, since the rights of the Constitution trump state law.

This is the sort of argument some people make with regards to a voucher system for private schools. If state money is accepted, then the state can control what is taught. And if private schools must teach exactly what the public schools teach, why spend the extra money?

The Conspiracy Theorists of the Left Are Still Crying Over the 2000 Election

Maybe it's a slow news day for Pandagon. That's the conclusion I come to when I read drivel like this whining that the press just wasn't fair to Al Gore in 2000.

If you haven’t read this article in Vanity Fair about the way the mainstream media, out of the usual combination of laziness and mendacity with an extra dose of the hate that sleazy people have for their moral superiors, went after Al Gore in the 2000 election, do. I’m sure that you know the story, but having it all in one place is sort of a stunning demonstration of how the collective political media completely abandoned even pretending that their job is to serve the public interest in favor of rigging the election for Bush. And, sadly, it was due in no small part to the fact that media seems to be clogged up with self-absorbed bullies who just have an urge to stick it to a nerd like Al Gore. It’s an impressive display of how so-called journalists not only don’t have penalties for dealing in unadulterated bullshit, but they get rewarded.

Here is the link to the Vanity Fair article.

The amusing part is that these same people thought Dan Rather faking documents from George Bush's Air National Guard record and releasing 25-year-old DUI records was "responsible journalism." The same people complaining about Al Gore being skewered over "inventing the Internet" have no problem discussing George Bush's supposed cocaine problem or Laura Bush murdering someone. They consider that to be legitimate news.

I agree that I wish more attention had been paid to Gore's sleazy behavior in office. You know, like his illegal fundraising activities, or the fact that he must have been asleep at the switch when Osama bin Laden was blowing up American targets around the globe and at home. Yeah, I wish there had been more attention paid to his blind eye--the one he turned to all sorts of Clinton malfeasance. But I didn't mind journalists making Gore look just plain stupid, I'll admit it.

As I pointed out over at Pandagon, George Bush received three times the negative publicity of John Kerry before the elections of 2004. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say it was just the liberal media at work. And while I do believe there is some of that (witness Dan Rather's debacle or the October surprise that went wrong), I'm sane enough to recognize that the person in office gets more scrutiny than the person who hasn't got a record. Amazing how that works, eh?

Kansas To Review Late-Term Abortion Law

Kansas legislators are reviewing their late-term abortion law which was designed to curb the number of abortions done after 21 weeks. (Via ifeminists).

It wasn't the criminal trial abortion opponents had hoped for, but a legislative committee on Thursday allowed them to air a case against Wichita abortion provider George Tiller that was tossed out of court last year.

Anti-abortion groups also staged a small rally during a lunch break. About 40 people marched to the building that houses Attorney General Paul Morrison's office, chanting for him to enforce a 1998 state law restricting late-term abortions and to resign for not being vigorous enough in prosecuting Tiller.

Morrison has filed 19 misdemeanors against Tiller in Sedgwick County, alleging the Wichita doctor didn't obtain a second opinion on late-term abortions from an independent physician, as required by the law.

Many abortion foes say Tiller, one of a few U.S. doctors performing late-term abortions, should be prosecuted instead for performing such procedures for "trivial" reasons, not medical emergencies. Morrison's predecessor, Phill Kline, brought such a case in December, only to see it dismissed for jurisdictional reasons.

The legislative committee reviewed a DVD recording of an interview with abortion opponents' star witness, who said the mental health problems Tiller saw in patients couldn't justify aborting viable fetuses...

"This is just another attempt to dredge up the dismissed case peddled by Phill Kline," said attorney Dan Monnat. "Dr. Tiller has fought for years to protect the privacy of the women's medical files. It's sad that once again, these women have to continue to wonder whether the content of their files is going to be exploited for political gain."

I find it difficult to understand why any woman would be "wondering" about their medical files if, as the Pandagonistas say, it's just a 20-minute procedure. I mean, if legislators are investigating, say the efficacy of mammograms and legislating such, I don't mind them seeing my medical records. In fact, there's nothing in my medical records that would cause me shame. I wonder why, if there's no moral component, women wouldn't be more forthcoming about their abortions. After all, that's the point of the Ms. Magazine campaign to have women celebrate their abortions.

The fact is, abortion is virtually always something women feel ashamed about. Not because Teh Patriarchy is keeping them down, but because women know it is ending a human life, however tenuous. I've had several friends who have had abortions--some for better, more acceptable reasons than others--but none of them considered it "a 20-minute procedure." Maybe when the pro-abortion side is more honest about what happens to most women--that it is an emotionally painful and scarring experience--then they might have more people agree with them.

On the other hand, maybe the Pandagonistas are being honest when they callously describe abortion as "no big deal." But as I said in the original post, that's why they are the face of abortion rights that NARAL and NOW don't want you to see.

One for the Dog Lovers

I'm not a dog person, although I do like dogs. I'm one of those people who loves having a menagerie to look after, and our household reflects that. Currently, we have a dog (the big, dopey variety), 2 cats (calico and tortoiseshell), 3 fish, and 2 parakeets who squawk too much.

I ran across this article which is sure to lift doggy spirits in the which-pet-is-smarter-dogs-or-cats war.

For serious scientists, Lassie and her friends were deemed little more than dumbed-down ancestors of the wolf, degenerated into panting morons by millennia of breeding. But a younger generation of researchers has set out to restore the reputations of our beloved pets. "Dogs can do things that we long believed only humans had mastered," says Juliane Kaminski of the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Evolutionary Anthropology in the eastern German city of Leipzig.

It is precisely their proximity to people -- which disqualified our four-legged friends as a model for so long -- that now makes them interesting to animal researchers. "When it comes to understanding human behavior, no mammal comes even close to the dog," says Kaminski. Her Leipzig research team has demonstrated that dogs are far better than the supposedly clever apes at interpreting human gestures.

The researchers held two containers, one empty and the other containing food, in front of chimpanzees and dogs. Then they pointed to the correct container. The canines understood the gesture immediately, while the apes, genetically much more closely related to humans, were often perplexed by the pointing finger.

That's not all. Many dogs were even capable of interpreting the researcher's gaze. When the scientists looked at a container, the dogs would search inside for food, but when they looked in the direction of the container but focused on a point above it on the wall, the dogs were able to understand that this was not meant as a sign.

It's interesting that we have trained dogs to understand us in ways other animals do not. Even though apes are supposedly more closely related to humans, it is dogs who understand our gestures, facial expressions, and speech.

Interestingly, border collies and herding dogs seem to be smarter than other dogs. And, unfortunately for us cat lovers, cats seem to do far worse. Argh!

The Age-Old Argument about Parenting

Tony Woodlief has this column in today's OpinionJournal on the age-old parenting argument between utopians and realists.

Mr. Sowell contrasted the "unconstrained vision" of utopians, who want to radically improve humankind, with the "constrained vision" of realists, who begin with the proposition that man is inherently self-interested, and not moldable into whatever form the high-minded types have in store for us once they get their itchy fingers on the levers of power. Mr. Sowell's book has been influential among conservatives for its compelling explanation of the divide between people who want to reshape us--often via large intrusions on liberty--and those who believe that the purpose of government is to protect institutions (like markets and families) that channel our inherent selfishness into productive behavior. It is also a handy guide for parenting.

While some mothers and fathers stubbornly cling to the utopian beliefs of their childless years, the vision of humans as inherently sinful and selfish resonates with many of us who are parents. Nobody who's stood between a toddler and the last cookie should still harbor a belief in the inherent virtue of mankind. An afternoon at the playground is apt to make one toss out the idealist Rousseau ("man is a compassionate and sensible being") in favor of the more realistic Hobbes ("all mankind [is in] a perpetual and restless desire for power"). As a father of four sons, I've signed on to Mr. Sowell's summation of a parent's duty: "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late."

I'm a realist. With three children in various stages of development--and two of them only 18 months apart--I have to be.

My oldest daughter, who was disciplined the most, has always been a model of decorum...at least before she entered high school, that is (there were other changes that I won't point to but with which I disapproved *ahem*). This was the child who won every award possible because she loved getting certificates of achievement and the "A" honor roll. In the fourth grade, this same child would go to school even when she was sick so she could get the "perfect attendance" award.

Her siblings are not so disciplined, although they both do fairly well academically. They are not as motivated by ribbons or certificates. They are motivated by computer time and cold, hard cash. I don't consider it bribery to give them money for straight "A" report cards, and I don't consider it cruelty to take away the computer when they bring home "N's" and "U's" in citizenship. This system seems to work for us.

My ex-husband would be more of a utopian, although I think he's becoming more of a realist the longer he has primary custody of our daughter. There was a time when he informed me that our daughter "would never do" various things. Unfortunately for him, he has discovered that she will, in fact, do the various things he thought she would "never" do. Why? Because, as a realist, I know humans are inherently selfish and self-motivated. We have to teach them to be good, kind, and giving. It doesn't come naturally.

This is what Woodlief also believes, and perhaps it is a conclusion most people with children come to through experience, not education. Yes, I started out thinking I simply needed to nurture the inner good of my children. But after watching them sneak brownies and complain about someone else getting the last cookie, I realized that their "inner good" only came out when I taught them to behave certain ways.

There are certain outcome differences between the parenting styles, I've noticed. Those who are utopian tend to have their 30-year-old children still living at home in bedrooms decorated for teenagers. Those of us who are realists produce children who can support themselves, spouses, and children at 30. Maybe the utopian parents just never figured out how to release their children's "inner adult."

A Woman's Looks Shouldn't Matter...Unless She's a Conservative

I guess this is my lucky day where Echidne of the Snakes is concerned. Gosh, I hate taking the same blogger to task twice in the same day (and two posts in a row!) but she has a post that illuminates the liberal hypocrisy about feminism and appearance.

Everybody knows how much liberals hate the emphasis on appearance. I mean, Echidne had an absolute cow when Ann Althouse pointed out the hypocrisy of women bloggers supporting Bill "I Did Not Have Sex with That Woman" Clinton solely because he supports the right of a woman to kill her baby anytime before birth, and doing so in a blouse that emphasized her breasts. Ann was rather sarcastic in her "Let's Look at Those Breasts" post on the subject of female bloggers and Bill Clinton. And Echidne tried to stay out of it...sort of.

I am very tempted to join in the fray and to start sending arrows here and there, but I will restrain myself, don a neutral pin-striped business suit and write about something very erudite and academic.

Which is tits and their role in feminism. And don't worry, I first bound my own breasts very tightly. If I stood slightly angled towards you I might come across as almost breastless. Or breast-free or something. Except that now I can't breathe at all. Argh. Proper erudite feminism is damn inconvenient.

Anyway, about breasts. My feminist view on them is a very simple one: they are the property of the person who has them on her chest, having breasts does not preclude having brains and having breasts is perfectly acceptable in the public sphere. And women are not responsible for controlling the reactions of some men to the presence of breasts, women don't have to don burqas for the sake of these men or to bind their breasts, either.

Add to this simple and sane idea the idea of situation-appropriate clothing, and I see nothing wrong in Jessica's outfit in the picture. Most of the other bloggers in the picture are dressed in business-casual, and so is Jessica.

Of course, the fracas wasn't simply about the appropriateness of Jessica's shirt (which had a pattern that caused an unfortunate emphasis). It was about the appropriateness of appearing in public with a president who had multiple accusations of sexual inappropriateness (to put it mildly) with a variety of women. The accusations included adultery, sexual harassment, and rape. I'm just not nimble enough to stick my head up my ass and ignore a man's conduct (even if he's POTUS) just because he supports the right to kill infants till birth.

But I digress. That wasn't the point of this post. Really. The point here is how feminists argue longly and loudly about how women shouldn't be judged by appearance. So imagine my amusement when I ran across Echidne's post on the Ann Coulter talking action figure. The appropriately feminist comments are illustrative.

Marcus: WTF? No adam's apple?!!!

Animus: And how do its measurements compare to Barbie's?

TheaLogie: It's not necessarily saying that Coulter has to be a man to hold the views she does. It's saying that in spite of her attempts at glamor, generally speaking she's as unattractive as the views she rants about.

Tikistitch: Creeeeeeepy! Though I must say, Coulter finally makes sense as a Barbie doll.

It's good to know that when liberals make fun of a conservative woman's looks, it's because her views are unattractive. It's not that they are being childish and shallow.

But how do they justify calling Fred Thompson's wife Jeri a trophy wife and endlessly discussing whether she's an asset or liability? I find the "I didn't know trophy wife was derogatory" argument to be a bit disingenuous. But be that as it may, it seems somewhat hypocritical for liberals to constantly tell us it's unseemly to discuss Hillary Clinton's possible magic plastic surgery and cleavage while constantly commenting on the looks of conservative women from Jeri Thompson and Ann Coulter to President Bush's daughters.

Answering Stupid Liberal Logic

I was reading this post at Echidne of the Snakes (the site which bans people for disagreeing with her). She says the article had been rejected, and I can see why (although I'm sure my reasoning is different from hers). For fun, let's dissect it.

The conservatives are right to worry about liberal media bias. I worry about it every day, because there just isn't enough of it. Political talk radio airs mostly right-wing anger and hatred, political debates on television match several fire-breathing Republican dragons against one centrist Democrat who had milquetoast for breakfast, and Fox News has taught us all that "Fair and Balanced" is just a trademark. A recent study by Media Matters for America confirmed my suspicion that "liberal" or "lefty" has a new meaning: centrist or neutral journalists are selected on panels to keep company with right-wingers just a tad to the left of Attila the Hun and this is viewed as balance. If you doubt this, tell me when someone from, say, the American Prospect last took part in these debates.

The complaints about liberal bias in the media are long-standing and well-documented. We can look at the coverage of Vietnam, for instance, when Walter Cronkite declared we had lost the war after the Tet Offensive. There are plenty of other examples: the far-more-critical reporting of Republican presidents than Democrat ones, the pro-liberal language used to frame debates such as abortion, the dismissal of conservative concerns by journalists as "fringe groups," the depicting of religious people as racists, bigots, and homophobes. The list could go on.

What Echidne dislikes is that, with the rise of cable television, more conservative voices have been heard. More conservatives get time to air their views in debates with liberals (whom she dislikes, I suppose, for not being rude enough). As ratings for shows with conservative viewpoints go up, the businesses which own these entities present more shows with conservative viewpoints. In other words, in the marketplace of ideas, where conservative ideas sell, businesses sell more conservative views. Perish the thought!

How did we get into this mess in the first place? It may have started when Ronald Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine in electronic media. This paved the way for the Limbaugh revolution in talk radio and for the Fox News in television as fairness and balance were no longer important.. At the same time, the conservatives launched their successful campaign of painting the media liberal.

Banishing the Fairness Doctrine was the right course of action in the 1980s. Why? Because forcing broadcasters to "balance" viewpoints created an unwieldy situation most radio and television stations were unwilling to tackle. It was much easier to put on gardening shows or car shows. With the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine, free speech on the airwaves flourished. People of all political stripes suddenly took to radio to produce talk shows of every persuasion. How do I know this? Because I have listened to talk radio since about 1985, and listened to shows of all stripes from Rush Limbaugh to Diane Rehm. I've listened to locally produced talk shows from the left and the right, including Bob Ray Sanders, Kevin McCarthy, and more recently Mike Gallagher and Mark Davis. The phenomenon that Echidne despises is the ability--and popularity--of discussing conservative viewpoints.

Like most liberals, Echidne beings attacking Fox News as not being "fair and balanced" because it says it is. Let's me point out the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Far more people still watch network television news than Fox.

"World News Tonight" averaged 7.3 million viewers and "Nightly News" had 7.2 million (both 5.1 rating, 11 share). The "CBS Evening News" averaged 6.5 million viewers (4.6, 10).

In prime time, CBS averaged 6.5 million viewers (4.4 rating, 8 share), NBC had 6 million (4.1, 8), Fox had 5.1 million (3.3, 6), ABC had 4.8 million (3.3, 6), UPN had 2 million (1.3, 3), the WB had 1.7 million (1.2, 2) and the i network had 590,000 (0.4, 1).

This is an inconvenient fact for the "Fox News is brainwashing America" bunch, but the truth is that Fox News averages at least a million less viewers than do the three major nightly newscasts. It's really difficult to paint Fox News as taking over America when it has fewer viewers than even the worst nightly newscast. But that doesn't stop moonbats like Echidne from trying.

So, back to her "abandoned article."

And what a curious campaign it has been. Illogical, even. For consider one of the lodestars of conservative thought: that unencumbered markets bring good things to life and that there should be minimal interference with market forces. After all, this is how Ronald Reagan justified the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine: its controversy-chilling effect would be gone and all voices would harmonize in the new vibrant market-based debates. But somehow this didn't rid us of the liberal bias in the media. Conservative ownership of most media couldn't do that, either.

Like most liberals, Echidne confuses corporate ownership with journalists. Having been one in a former life, I can tell you that journalists don't really care who owns their organization. They continue to report things from the viewpoint they hold or the editorial viewpoint of the organization. So, if a newspaper leans to the left or right, you will see reporting that reflects that. That doesn't really have much to do with corporate ownership. It does have to do with the audience first and with the particular human beings functioning as journalists second.

Some newspapers, radio shows, magazines, and so forth appeal to liberals. That's why you have alternative newspapers which are overwhelmingly leftist in nature. It's why you have magazines like Utne Reader and Ms. Magazine. They produce more articles from a liberal perspective because the audience is interested in those opinions. Similar things are true of the Weekly Standard.

What Echidne is being deliberately obtuse about is the liberal bias of most reporters and editors as demonstrated by their political donations, as well as their voting habits.

Now, everybody is free to vote for whoever they want. What I'm mainly concerned with is the way they report the news. This is where the language used--something Echidne doesn't discuss--is important. I've posted many examples of journalists' bias in reporting certain topics. It's no coincidence that reporters use biased language in discussing abortion and that most reporters agree with the pro-choice position. Nor is it a coincidence that certain stories always elicit quotes from liberal organizations.

This is what makes Echidne's logic--and that of most liberals where media are concerned--so flawed. They think conservatives just "discovered" liberal media bias with the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. Nothing could be further from the truth. Conservatives have known for generations that journalists are biased against them. But it's only been in the last 20 years that conservatives had much of an impact on the debate about objectivity and advocacy in journalism, which is why Echidne and her ilk noticed. It's hard to realize there's a debate about a subject when one side is always muzzled.

More Echidne:

The explanation for this is even curiouser: Conservatives blame the foot soldiers of the media for the bias they so deplore. More journalists define themselves as liberals than as conservatives, and this supposedly explains why markets have been unable to balance themselves. Never mind that most media outlets are owned by conservatives, never mind that journalists are trained professionals who might even be able to distance their own political views from the topic they are working on, and never mind that in no other firm do conservatives regard the floor-level labor force as responsible for the design and marketing of the firm's products. None of this matters as much as the party attachment of journalists.

The problem isn't that journalists can't prevent themselves from displaying bias, although we used to debate how objective any particular person can be. It's that most journalists don't see their job as simply being objective. They want to be advocates, and that advocacy affects what they write and how they write.

This diagnosis is sometimes followed by an even less conservative recommendation for treatment: affirmative action based on the journalist's political views. The New York Times should make an effort to recruit religious conservatives from the red states, for example.

The horror of it all! Liberal media bias is such a problem for conservatives that they are willing to give up all their conservative free market and anti-affirmative-action principles if that is what is needed to get fair treatment of right-wing policies and views. Or what they regard as fair treatment.

Interestingly, when conservatives point out how their viewpoints are shut out of MSM, they are being hypocritical for suggesting editors make a bigger effort to be more inclusive. Strange. Thanks for supporting the "liberals only want superficial diversity, not diversity of thought" argument, Echidne!

And what is it that they demand, exactly? Well, according to the websites which criticize the left-wing slant of the media what is needed are more positive appraisals of George Bush's job-performance, more coverage of success in Iraq and more positive coverage on religious fundamentalists (though only of the Christian sort). On one randomly picked February day these sites also criticized newsreaders for not using the term "partial birth abortion" without the qualification that it is a conservative term, berated certain television presenters for not exhibiting the "correct" emotions when reporting on a story and even speculated on the possible hidden motives these presenters might harbor.

It isn't hard to argue that the Washington journalistic tendency to ask slanted, harsh, and frequently unnecessarily rude questions of the president (when they ask questions rather than simply make statements) is an example of bias. There are plenty of ways to ask questions without resorting to calling the POTUS a liar, for example. And pointing out that journalists refuse to call a legislative act by its name, but, instead, continuously refer to "so-called partial birth abortion" is, indeed, an example of bias in reporting. These same journalists had no problem referring to the Strategic Defense Initiative as Star Wars repeatedly and continuously. In other words, Echidne, your selective search for examples exposes your own cherry-picking.

It's tough to weed out liberal media bias of such depth! The very facts themselves might be liberal and the innermost thoughts of journalists are fair game for spotting bias. The media can bend over backwards to appease these right-wing critics. It can even adopt the ultimate "neutral" stance of impartial commenting on the most inane assertions ("Some argue the moon is made of green cheese. Others disagree."). But this will not satisfy those who can see the wild liberal glint in the eye of the newsreader or those who can discern the real leftist thoughts of an apparently objective journalist or those who equate criticism of the government with treason.

I suppose when your argument fails, you have to resort to straw men. It's not unusual to see this on liberal sites such as Echidne's. What's difficult to believe is that she's genuinely this stupid. To dismiss all examples of liberal bias in reporting--from the language used (abortion) to the subjects covered (the U.S. Attorneygate "scandal") to the subjects not covered (Hillary Clinton's various scandals)--as demanding meaningless balance is insulting to every thinking person.

No, the only solution to our current problems with media bias is to reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine. This will protect the conservatives against the dreaded liberal bias in the media and it will protect the liberals from the right-wing hate radio. Fair and balanced?

Showing why she doesn't get it, Echidne comes up with the liberals' favorite solution to a problem: regulation and stifling of speech. Conservatives don't need the Fairness Doctrine. They don't even need network news to be less biased. Through Fox News, talk radio, conservative publications, and the Internet, we've discovered ways to counteract the liberal bias presented from Echidne's ilk.

Liberals, on the other hand, need the Fairness Doctrine. Why? Because their ideology fails when held up to the harsh light of day. They can't get a radio audience as demonstrated by the bankruptcy of Air America and the closure of the liberal women's radio network. Liberals are terrified that Fox News will (and has) changed the way Americans get their news. That's why they have to target Fox News advertisers. That's why they've spent years trying to bring down outspoken critics of the American Left like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

It's sad when your ideology is so bankrupt it cannot stand on its own. It's sadder when you must advocate restrictions on speech because you hate freedom of expression so much. But, given Echidne's penchant for banning critics, it's not surprising at all.

Those Texas Gun Nuts, Or How To Twist The News To Prop Up Your Agenda

If the only information you had about the death of musician Jeffrey Carter Albrecht was this New York Times article, you'd see it as just another example of those gun-totin', reckless Texans.

A Texas rock musician was shot to death here early Monday by a neighbor who fired through a closed door, thinking he was scaring off a burglar.

The incident occurred just three days after a new law took effect strengthening the right of Texans to use deadly force to protect themselves and their property.

The musician, Jeffrey Carter Albrecht, 34, a keyboardist with Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians and the Dallas rock band Sorta, was shot in the head after he startled a man and his wife about 4 a.m. by pounding and kicking at their back door, the police said. Mr. Albrecht had just assaulted his girlfriend, who lives next door and had locked him out of her house, the police said.

Those redneck Texans!

Well, Thank God we have Newsbusters to let us know--as Paul Harvey would say--the rest of the story.

The Associated Press reported the shooting with additional details of Albrecht striking his girlfriend in the face and "trying to kick in the door" of his neighbor's house (instead of merely "kicking at" the door, as the Times had it).

The NYT wasn't done stereotyping Texans. They had to put in this obligatory anti-gun quote:

Marsha McCartney, president of the North Texas chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, called Mr. Albrecht’s death “one more gun tragedy.”

“I’m sure the man who did the shooting feels terrible about it,” Ms. McCartney said, “but legally in Texas he can do exactly what he did because he feels frightened.”

Why did the NYT feel it was necessary to find anti-gun activists? Why, to try to discredit anyone explaining the new Texas law!

Texas has protected the right to “stand your ground” and use deadly force to protect oneself at home without first trying to retreat since 1995. And a law that took effect on Saturday expanded that so-called “castle doctrine” to apply to public spaces.

The law also expanded civil immunity and could make it more difficult for the Albrecht family or relatives of those killed in similar incidents in Texas to win a wrongful-death suit, said James Dark, executive director of the Texas State Rifle Association, which lobbied for the new law.

“These duty-to-retreat laws provide legal protection for those who are out committing criminal acts,” Mr. Dark said. Under the new Texas law, “the protection of the law falls on those who obey the law not those who violate the law.”

This is different from being scared of the bogeyman like McCartney implied. When a drunk and violent person starts beating on your door trying to get in, you shouldn't have to wait until he/she starts beating on you before you can protect yourself. At least, that's what us crazy Texans think. The NYT obviously thinks differently.

The Evangelical The Left Forgot to Hate

Dr. D. James Kennedy died today and most people probably don't know who he was or how important and influential he was.

The Rev. D. James Kennedy, a pioneering Christian broadcaster and megachurch pastor whose fiercely conservative worldview helped fuel the rise of the religious right in American politics, died Wednesday. He was 76.

Kennedy died at his home in Fort Lauderdale, said Kristin Cole, a spokeswoman for Kennedy's Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. The cause of death has not been determined, but Kennedy had not been seen publicly he suffered cardiac arrest Dec. 28. His retirement was announced last month.

Kennedy's voice and face were known to millions through radio and television broadcasts, urging Christians to evangelize in their daily lives, while condemning homosexuality and abortion as assaults on the traditional family. His also preached on the major policy issues of the day, rejecting evolution and global warming.

Kennedy was influential in the founding of the religious right, but did so more often from behind the scenes, as attention focused on his allies, the Revs. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

I would say Kennedy was even more influential than Falwell or Robertson because of the effectiveness of his programs. Among Kennedy's other innovative ways of presenting the Gospel to ordinary people was the creation of Evangelism Explosion, a program for teaching laypersons how to better share their faith. Through that program, Christians became emboldened to share their faith--to the horror of atheists and liberals everywhere.

The fear and loathing of the Christian Right has reached a fever pitch this year, with the printing of numerous anti-Christian, anti-Christian activist books. But it was Kennedy who helped Christians recognize that their faith should influence all their behavior--not just that on Sunday morning. Voting for candidates who supported their causes was another way of expressing their opinions, and it was a way completely despised by the Left...who don't mind doing the same thing.

Pam Spaulding said she wouldn't go KOS on Kennedy, then allowed "John" to imply that Kennedy was speaking for Satan. *sigh* When will their childishness end? Of course, we expect no better from them.

More pearl-clutching from liberals who "aren't going to say anything bad about the dead." But they will pull quotes out of context and let their sycophants fill in the blanks.

More from the "we won't say anything negative" crowd. Are you detecting a pattern here?

The Health Police Are Coming!

It's really creepy when you write about something and then read where it may be implemented somewhere else.

Just yesterday, I posted on John Edwards' proposed mandatory preventive care component to universal health care. I asked how one would enforce mandatory preventive care? Would there be health care police to enforce the law? Dana had a similar post (great minds think alike!).

Now comes this story about proposals in Great Britain to not care for persons with unhealthy lifestyles.

Patients who refuse to change their unhealthy lifestyles should not be treated by the NHS, the Conservatives said today.

In a bid to ease spiralling levels of obesity and other health concerns, a Tory panel said certain treatments should be denied to patients who refuse to co-operate with health professionals and live healthier lifestyles.

And those who do manage to improve their general health by losing weight and quitting smoking, for example, would receive "Health Miles" cards.

Points earned could then be used to pay for health-related products such as gym membership and fresh vegetables.

The aim is a shift in the NHS towards preventing disease and ill-health rather than having to treat it.

The proposal was one of a raft of measures suggested in a review of public services, ordered by David Cameron.

The 200-page study, entitled Restoring Pride in Our Public Services, was carried out by the Conservative public services improvement policy group's review co-chaired by former health secretary Stephen Dorrell and leading educationalist Baroness Perry.

"It is inconsistent with the concept of the responsible citizen to imagine that it is realistic for citizens, having paid their taxes, to expect that the state will underwrite the health implications of any lifestyle decision they choose to make," the report states.

Why is it inconsistent? Don't fat people pay taxes, too? Or is this just another way of society supporting certain behaviors and punishing others? I'm all for people getting fit and not eating so much junk, but what does it say about your health care system when you stop treating patients?

The truth is that this is exactly what will happen under nationalized health care in this country, as well. I've written before about the rationing of health care (including dental care) in Great Britain, Canada, and other countries with socialized medicine. There's simply no way to control costs without determining that some are more worthy of living than others. That's not something we want to think about very much, but when the government starts paying for your health care, they get to decide which doctor you see, which hospital you go to, what prescription medications you can have, and which procedures you get. Going after the fat people or the smokers today may not bother you, but at some point, everybody will discover the limits of socialized medicine.

Book Says Souter Almost Resigned After Bush v. Gore

Supreme Court Justice David Souter was so distraught by the Bush v. Gore decision that finally ended the Florida vote-recounting debacle that he nearly resigned.

Oh, if only he had! That would have given President Bush another justice to place on the court. Placing conservatives on the SCOTUS is the one really good thing President Bush has done.

Mike Rogers, Extortionist

Patterico has a compelling and blunt post about the extortionist Mike Rogers, who "outs" gay Congressmen who don't vote the gay agenda. The post comes on the heels of this WaPo piece lauding Rogers for blackmailing Congressmen.

Is blackmail too strong a word? Not really. As Patterico points out, he uses the same techniques as any thug.

It should be utterly uncontroversial that Rogers is nothing more than a political shakedown artist. He makes this quite clear in the Post article, eschewing the usual indirectness of the professional blackmailer for the shockingly direct threat:

“I write about closeted people whose records are anti-gay,” he says. “If you’re a closeted Democrat or Republican and you don’t bash gays or vote against gay rights to gain political points, I won’t out you.”

Of course, to Rogers, any vote against gay rights is cast “to gain political points” — because he can’t conceive of such a vote being cast on principle.

And so, Rogers’s message to politicians is simple and straightforward: if he doesn’t like the way you vote, he will expose embarrassing information about you. If you toe the line, however, he will protect you.

That is the classic position of the extortionist.

I've discussed this bizarre view of "gay bashing" with others before. The logic seems to go this way: If you think gay marriage should be legal and a gay man votes against it, then he's gay bashing.

I don't really accept that view, although I can understand the reasoning behind it. It's the same sort of thing that allows the trashing of black conservatives or sneering at anti-feminists.

The fact is, we all get to hold our own opinions, regardless of our sex, race, or sexual orientation. If I happen to think various feminist-backed legislation is wrong for the country (including women), I'm not a "hypocrite" for doing so. And neither is a gay man who votes the way his constituents (you know, the little people that elected him) desire. Here's government lesson number 1,238,459 for the moonbats: It's a representative government. It's not about a Congressman's personal opinion. So trying to humiliate gay Congressmen for not towing the line is despicable on multiple fronts.

But let's face it. This wasn't about "hypocrisy," an over-used word that has become virtually meaningless. This is about forcing Congressmen to vote the way one wants regardless of what their constituents want. I'm all for voting for people who support your views. But I don't have the right to tell people in San Francisco who to vote for, nor do I have the right to try to extort their politicians (if that's possible) to vote the way I want. But this won't stop the dirty Left from continuing these tactics. At least, until it starts biting them instead.

UPDATE: Aphrael makes a very valid point in the comments about the benefits closeted gay Republicans have over other homosexuals.

closeted gay Republicans benefit from a special circumstance in which everyone turns a blind eye to their homosexuality as long as they vote the way the party wants them to ... but a lot of people don't have that privilige, and are discriminated against on the job, or in housing, and what not, because of their homosexuality, and how is it fair for these people to benefit from a tolerance which is basically only extended to them as long as they vote for policies which make it easier for other gay people to suffer?

I think this may be a difficult viewpoint for some of us to accept, but it makes more sense to me than simply "outing" someone for spite.

U.S. Workers Most Productive

Not surprising to most Americans, but certainly a shock for those oh-so-much-smarter Europeans, U.S. workers are the most productive on Earth.

American workers stay longer in the office, at the factory or on the farm than their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they produce more per person over the year.

They also get more done per hour than everyone but the Norwegians, according to a U.N. report released Monday, which said the United States "leads the world in labor productivity."

The average U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in second at $55,986, followed by Luxembourg at $55,641, Belgium at $55,235 and France at $54,609.

The productivity figure is found by dividing the country's gross domestic product by the number of people employed. The U.N. report is based on 2006 figures for many countries, or the most recent available.

Only part of the U.S. productivity growth, which has outpaced that of many other developed economies, can be explained by the longer hours Americans are putting in, the ILO said.

The U.S., according to the report, also beats all 27 nations in the European Union, Japan and Switzerland in the amount of wealth created per hour of work — a second key measure of productivity.

Watch the moonbat sites spin this into a bad thing. You know, those poor workers not having as many vacation days or something like that.

Mexican President Lectures U.S. on Immigration Policy

To a standing ovation, Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized the U.S. for actually wanting to control its borders.

Mexico's president drew a standing ovation from legislators as he chided Americans for new border fences and their "humiliating treatment" of illegal immigrants during his State of the Union speech on Sunday...

"I again express an energetic protest for the unilateral measures, taken by the Congress and the government of the United States, that exacerbate the persecution and the humiliating treatment of undocumented Mexican workers," Calderón said.

He criticized the "insensitivity" of the U.S. government toward foreign workers who have strengthened the U.S. economy, and expressed "categorical rejection to the construction of a wall on our common border."

He was referring to a law, signed by President Bush in October, that authorizes 700 miles of new barriers and alarm systems along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Calderón also pledged a bigger budget for Mexico's consulates to help them defend migrants' rights.

"Mexico does not end at the border," he said. "Wherever there is a Mexican, Mexico will be there."

Yes, I guess wanting to decide who comes into one's country and who doesn't is an insensitive thing to do. It's funny how Calderon doesn't mind controlling Mexico's southern border. I guess that's not insensitive at all.

Blue Crab Boulevard points out how imperialistic this would sound had President Bush said it.

Allahpundit observes that immigration into the U.S. is America's decision. That whole sovereign nation thing, ya know.

Edwards Supports Mandatory Preventive Care

As part of his bid to control a huge part of the economy, John Edwards is proposing that everyone be required to get check-ups whether they want to or not.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat "the first trace of problem."

I understand Edwards' personal interest in women getting early mammograms. But several problems spring to mind for me.

First, shouldn't adults be allowed to make decisions, even bad ones or ones you and I would disagree with? My mother died of lung cancer and that was probably the most devastating event of my life and the lives of my father and siblings. But as much as I hate to admit it, it was her choice both to smoke (which caused the cancer) and to refuse to seek help once symptoms began cropping up. In short, forcing mandatory preventive care takes away our basic right as adults to make our own choices.

Secondly, as I noted in this post, preventive care doesn't bring down the costs of health care. Why? Because preventive care requires not just treating the person who has a disease or condition--say, diabetes or obesity--but also all the people around that person who will affect that person's choices. That's very expensive, and doctors aren't even sure if such measures work in curbing bad behavior. It's a nice theory that if we emphasize preventive care that the costs of treating diseases will go down, but even if we do reduce the number of people who are obese or have diabetes, these same people will eventually get something else and need treatment for that. In other words, preventive care just adds another layer of cost to the health care system.

Finally, how would we enforce a mandatory preventive health care system anyway? Will there be health care police coming to beat on your door if you haven't gotten your annual mammogram? Will the system disallow treatment for certain diseases if a person didn't get the preventive care when they were supposed to? I can't see that being a winning proposition for any political candidate.

Emphasizing preventive care through education efforts is a good thing, but Edwards and all proponents of universal care must realize that preventive care is not the cure-all they want. There's simply no easy solution to human nature and the choices we make.

It's Time to Get Over Katrina Already

John Hawkins has a column that is sure to send the moonbats scurrying for their smelling salts. He says that, two years after the hurricane, it's time to get over Katrina. And he's right.

This has nothing to do with "compassion" for suffering or the poor. But, as Hawkins points out, we've already spent more money on New Orleans than we spent on the Marshall Plan, but with less success.

But, we're all supposed to eternally sit around and weep tiny little tears of sadness for the people who really took it on the chin in a hurricane because they chose to live in a city shaped like a soup bowl on the coast. Let me tell all the citizens of New Orleans something that should have been told to them 18 months ago: it's time to stop playing the sympathy card and get over it.

Nobody is owed a living for the rest of his life because he had a bad break two years ago. Yet, we still have people affected by Katrina who have FEMA paying their rent. How sad and pathetic is it that these shiftless people are still leaching off their fellow citizens? Since when is being in the path of a hurricane supposed to give you a permanent "Get Out of Work Free" card?

Is that just too honest for some people? Is it just “too mean?" Well, if your house burns down tomorrow and you're still living on the dole two years from now, are your real friends going to pat you on the back and tell you that you should keep suckling at the government teat for as long as you can or are they going to give you a kick in the behind and tell you to get a job? A real friend would be honest enough to tell you the truth and more people should do the same for Katrina victims.

Natural disasters happen all the time, from floods to hurricanes to tornadoes to fires. And I have genuine sympathy for people who have lived in the same place for 100 years and lose everything. But that can happen to any of us at any time, and I don't expect that someone in Maine should be paying for me to sit around doing nothing years after a disaster.

Liberals blamed President Bush for "slow" response to Hurricane Katrina. Yet it's two years later and the same liberals are still blaming President Bush for decades of mismanagement by the Army Corps of Engineers and incompetence by Louisiana state and local officials.

Of course, for liberals, it all comes down to "compassion." We're not "compassionate enough"if we point out the obvious: people who live in flood-prone areas or Tornado Alley or where hurricanes strike are taking personal risks in doing so. And there's only so much federal largess that should go around for that.

I know people who came here from New Orleans. Within a month of moving here, they had jobs and were rebuilding their lives. They accepted the fact that, as fun a place as New Orleans had been for them to live, they wouldn't be going back. And guess what? Two years later, they have settled in and created new lives, friends, careers. And needless to say, they aren't sitting around complaining that the government hasn't paid them enough yet.

Frankly, the people of New Orleans are lucky that they have gotten as much federal money to rebuild as they have. Galveston never got this sort of attention when it was wiped off the map in 1900. For the record, Galveston was the largest city in Texas at the time of its flood and has never been recovered that status. The damage to people and property was enormous.

At the time of the 1900 storm, the highest point in the city of Galveston was only 8.7 feet (2.7 m) above sea level. The hurricane had brought with it a storm surge of over 15 feet (4.6 m), which washed over the entire island. The surge knocked buildings off their foundations, and the surf pounded them to pieces. Over 3,600 homes were destroyed, and a wall of debris faced the ocean. The few buildings which survived, mostly solidly-built mansions and houses along the Strand District, are today maintained as tourist attractions...

As terrible as the damage to the city’s buildings was, the human cost was even greater...Eight thousand people—20% of the island’s population—had lost their lives. Most had drowned or been crushed as the waves pounded the debris that had been their homes hours earlier. Many survived the storm itself, but died after several days trapped under the wreckage of the city, with rescuers unable to reach them. The rescuers could hear the screams of the survivors as they walked on the debris trying to rescue those they could. They realized that there was no hope.

So many died that corpses were piled onto carts for burial at sea.The bodies were so numerous that burial was not a viable option. Initially, the dead were taken out to sea and dumped; however, the currents of the gulf washed the bodies back onto the beach, so a new solution was needed. Funeral pyres were set up wherever the dead were found. In the aftermath of the storm, pyres burned for weeks. Authorities had to pass out free whiskey to the work crews that were having to throw the bodies of their wives and children on the burn piles.

More people were killed in this single storm than have been killed in the over three hundred hurricanes that have struck the United States since, combined, as of 2006. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

None of this is to say people in New Orleans have not suffered. They have. But the constant drumbeat that questioning spending on New Orleans is racist and that everyone has the right to return to a disaster-prone area and have the government pay for it is both hysterical and impractical. Encouraging people to live in a place where the same disaster can hit them again is, in my opinion, cruel and stupid (I feel the same way, btw, about people getting paid to rebuild their houses on the sides of hills or where fires are prevalent).

New Orleans can rebuild and be a great city, but we don't owe anyone the right to the exact same life they had in the exact same spot as before the hurricane. Such blubbering is unrealistic and impractical. You want to help Katrina victims? Give to charities helping there, go build houses, or help relocated people blend in with new communities. But don't keep wringing your hands and screeching that we need to throw more taxpayer money at the area just to ease your conscience.