…pimp-smacking Larry Jacobs – U of M professor and apparently the only “political expert” on any Twin Cities reporter’s rolodex – like fisking Lori Sturdevant, is sort of like doing finger exercises on the guitar, mandolin and cello; they’re things you do over and over again because it keeps you limber for the real fun stuff.

Eric Black – one of this city’s best reporters, and I mean that sincerely and with no hidden joke in the background – went to Jacobs to wonder why Rudy Giuliani is doing so well among conservatives.  Jacobs’ answer – the same one he gives for every surprising result from the GOP – “conservatism is dead!”

Gary Miller at TvM punts the old guy about 90 yards:

Republicans have known for years that the liberal bugaboo Ms. Rodham would be the Democratic nominee in 2008 so that does not suffice as the reason Republicans are turning to the “electable” Giuliani.  Few could mistake the fact that the Mayor is personally in favor of abortion rights and other socially liberal positions.  But what Jacobs apparently does mistake is the fact that by pledging to appoint judges in the mold of “Roberts, Alito and Thomas”, Giuliani has merited the mantle “functionally pro-life”.  In other words, a president can have his own policy preferences, but if his fidelity to the text of the constitution is paramount, he will pledge to allow such decisions to be decided by people in those laboratories of democracy we call “states”. 

Does the Mayor still have obstacles in his quest for the nomination in this regard?  Absolutely.  But for an observer of Jacobs’ supposed pedigree to miss this obvious explanation for Mayor Giuliani’s meteoric rise is an important case study on how conventional wisdom is regurgitated among the chattering class. 

To be fair, I don’t think Jacobs has done anything but regurgitate conventional wisdom in 20 years.  Why he’s still the official go-to-guy for the entire Twin Cities media is way beyond me.

As I explained last week (and was seconded by James Taranto), far from seeing a diminution of their influence, social conservatives are displaying their sophistication. 

The notion that social conservatives are mindless crowd-followers seems to enthrall the left. 

…that I dragged an old guitar out of a closet in my dad’s house, and walked down to Midwest Music to buy strings, a couple of tuning machines, and a book on how to make chords.

A girl in my church youth group whom I hated with whom I fought constantly – Cindy Soper – had brought a guitar to the last meeting.  And I figured if she could play it, I could, too.

So I put the guitar – which had probably come from a department store, and had been left in my dad’s classroom years before (he’d brought it home the day Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, and had been sitting in one closet or another ever since)  – back together, strung, and started paging through the Gene Leis “Nexus” chord book and a book of seventies song sheets, trying to piece one and two together. 

It was terrible.  The damn thing wouldn’t stay in tune for love or money.  With its crack down the bottom of the front panel, it sounded like a truckload of steel wire on a gravel road. 

Fortunately, I was able to borrow a decent guitar from one of my dad’s college students, someone who didn’t play much – a Yamaha classical.  And it eventually worked.  And the following winter, I put my paper-route money into my first real guitar of my own, a little Ventura acoustic that I still play.

It was probably two years before I told anyone that I played; I wanted to be real, real good – or at least not embarassing – before anyone found out.

Years later, I told Cindy that I’d started playing guitar largely because of her.  She rolled her eyes and laughed.  “I quit playing probably a few months after you started!”

Life lesson; anger is the best motivator!

It was thirty years ago today that my oldest, best friend – the guitar – dropped into my life.

The small north ‘burb of Spring Lake Park stands up and is counted against a statewide smoking ban:

To the delight of some and the embarrassment of others, the City Council last week voted 4-1 in favor of a resolution that said the city “is opposed to a statewide smoking ban without exceptions recognizing the personal and property rights of all individuals.”

Mayor Bob Nelson and City Council members Jeanne Mason, Bill Loesch and Dale Dahl voted for the resolution.

“This is a small city, with about 7,000 people. If we lose a couple bars, we have to transfer that to the taxpayers,” Nelson said. “We don’t have any way to recoup money like that. If we lose a business, we have to raise property taxes.”I’m an auxiliary member at the VFW — they go all over the world to fight for freedom and they come back and can’t even have a cigarette in their own club,” he said.

There might be hope out there.

Granted, not much of it is at the state capitol.

The Elder beats down Brian Lambert:

For all the talk of “crushing of dissent,” “questioning of patriotism,” “building a theocracy,” “trashing the Constitution,” and “creating a climate of fear” in George Bush’s Amerika, it’s notable that at the end of the day, the only actual efforts to limit debate and free expression are coming from the Left. Imagine that.

Read the whole thing.  And respond by burning everything Brian Lambert has ever written, just to show him the real effect of what he’s proposing.

Just kidding about that last bit.

I could hardly care less that Keith Ellison is Moslem.   Oh, I think he’s going to be a terrible representative – as, indeed, pretty much any dogmoleftist will be – but his faith really has nothing to do with it.
This, however, could be useful:

Now, two months in office, the Minnesota Democrat plans to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top State Department officials to talk about showcasing his story as part of their public diplomacy efforts in the Muslim world.

“Hey, my country first. We can work out our political differences later,” said Ellison, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. “I’ve said I’m willing to do whatever I can to make some friends for America.”

Adding to the cachet he’s built since taking his oath of office on Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an, Ellison has been profiled three times by the State Department’s overseas press bureau.

I’m not so sure that he’s “adding to his cachet” as he is “finding something he’s useful at”.  A little bird in Washington tells me Ellison and his staff are developing a reputation for being “less gifted” than most other staffs. 

But let’s leave that aside for now.  Good for Representative Ellison.  This is the sort of thing I and many other conservatives – people who believe that there is a moderate wing to Islam – have been wanting Moslems, especially leading American Moslems, to do.

On Monday he did a Voice of America interview from his office, where an American flag was placed conspicuously behind his desk for the cameras.

He’s scheduled to follow up on Thursday in a teleconference with Karen Hughes, the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy. The White House has asked that the teleconference promote American values and confront ideological support for terrorism around the world.

I haven’t seen any other comment on this – and while I’m sure there’s an ulterior motive behind it, whatever.  So let me be the first to say it; kudos to you, Rep. Ellison.

Steve thought he’d surprise his wife with an anniversary gift.  He went to the travel agency, and bought tickets for a sea cruise from his agent, Rajiv.

Sarah was ecstatic.  She’d always wanted to take a sea cruise.

On the day they were supposed to sail, they went to the docks.  A man in a turban took their ticket – and then ran up the gangplank, and, as Steve and Sarah looked on dumbfounded, hoisted it.  Other swarthy turban-clad men cast off the lines and fired up the engines.  The ship set sail without Steve or Sarah (or any of the other passengers).

“Damn”, said Steve.  “It was a Sikh ruse”.

Robin “Rew” Marty answers my questions about Andy Birkey’s piece on last week’s vandalism of a “Soulforce Q” bus in Iowa…

…well, no. That’s not true. Robin – a high double-dog poobah at “Minnesota Monitor”, the local rentablog that swears it’s never gotten a nickel from George Soros, but has released no financials that I’m aware of – doesn’t “answer” the questions in the sense of “resolving ambiguities” or “filling in logical gaps”.

No, perhaps Robin – who is no dummy – giggles and smirks and avoids actually bothering with any of that “clarifying opacity” stuff that journalists are supposed to fuss over. Perhaps it’s in solidarity with most other leftybloggers; “nobody gives an intelligent answer until everyone can give an intelligent answer”.

In any case – we got nothin’ here:

So it’s Springtime, and young men’s fancy turns to thoughts of love, yadda yadda yadda…

I can only assume that’s what’s going on here, since Mitch has obviously developed a crush on me. He can barely make it a week without pulling my braids or stealing my lunch box or some sign that proves his underlying devotion to me.

Tee hee, but the only thing my heart turns to is Flash’s kegerator.

She claims that I do…

… a cute little insinuation that Andy Birkey has a disclosure he’s not disclosing:

What is Birkey’s relationship with “Soulforce Q”? While his sympathies are apparent in context (“Expect more events like these as Soulforce and the Equality Ride directly confront the institutions that produce this type of hatred”), his relationship is not.

Obviously not taking the time to see that Andy’s been covering Soulforce since October of 2006, he just assumes Andy’s making some sort of push in his own interest. I guess Mitch’s crush on me is more recent than I knew.

And that’d make two of us, but again, irrelevant.

No, I didn’t know that Andy Birkey’s been covering “Soulforce” for six months. In fact, I doubt most readers who happened onto the site would know it, or have the faintest idea about it. Nor, if you believe that journalism should be clear, should they have to. You don’t want your readers to have to dig great swathes of context out of your stories.
No, I was insinuating nothing. Read my original piece; I wondered why key elements of the story were left out, and from where Birkey drew his bout of clairvoyance?

The worst part is, he is still claiming that we must be part of Media Matters since we share offices with them, even though the Center moved offices a few months ago. I hope he hasn’t been sending me poetry to the DC office, since I’m not sure how long they forward the mail.

Aw, shucks. But again, the Minnesota Monitor’s parent organization – the one that paid rentabloggers like Marty and Jeff Fecke throughout the campaign and (presumably, though I could be wrong) still does, did share offices with Media Matters for quite some time. And try as I may (and I have), I can find no financial disclosures of any kind from that organization.

So Robin can giggle and smirk all she wants – and, indeed, she does…:

But his little spitballs and stickers on the back of my shirt are noticed and appreciated, and seen for what they truly are – an obviously smitten admirer.

Don’t worry Mitch, I’ll see you at the garage soon, and you can bring me the flowers.

…but the questions remain:

• Why didn’t Andy Birkey tell the entire story?  The fact that Dordt college cleaned the vans up with their own maintenance staff?  Would that have upset the “baaaad Christians vandalized us” narrative too badly?
• How does Minnesota Monitor’s “Pledge” square with that shortcoming?
• And, as re Minnesota Monitor, where does that money come from, anyway?  You guys yap endlessly about Michael Brodkorb being a “paid GOP operative”, even though he discloses his income fully and promptly.  Why won’t MNMon and the Center for Independent Media do this?

And love is best saved for those that are worthy. Like a fresh new M1911A1 or a Gibson Les Paul.

Sorry. But we can be friends!

The mysterious anonymous blogger I want to find out would be Feisty Republican Whore, who claims to be a right-leaning sex-trade worker in the Twin Cities.

Some of the writing just screams “guy”, but it’s hard to place.

But it is a good, clever, and frequent/long-term blog.

She (?) never responded to the invite to the last MOB party. Maybe next time…

In Minnesota, if you’re a law-abiding citizen, you have a right to use lethal force in self-defense, provided  you meet four criteria:

1. You can’t be a willing participant in the fight.  If you’re in a fistfight and it escalates to knives, you’re not eligible to claim self-defense.
2. There must be a reasonable threat of death or great bodily harm – and by “reasonable”, they mean (as Joel Rosenberg drilled into our heads in concealed carry training) “reasonable enough to convince a jury”. 
3. The force used must be reasonable; you can’t keep shooting when they’re on the ground.
4. You must make every “reasonable” effort to avoid using lethal force.

The klinker – that last one applies even when you’re in your home; you must make a “reasonable” attempt to disengage from the fight.  There are some extenuating circumstances that affect how “reasonable” will be defined by prosecutors, judges and juries – if you’re old, injured, ill, it’s -30 outside, you have children sleeping upstairs, you’re a woman being attacked by an ex-husband with a long history of violence and stalking – but the upshot is that, all other things being equal, your house is not your castle.

Changing this farcical situation was one of the big hopes of Minnesota’s Second Amendment movement for this session – until last November.  The sweeping in of DFL control beat the crap out of most rational hopes for a change in the law.

Not that we can’t try.  Joel Rosenberg notes an opportunity for the Second Amendment crowd in Minnesota to show that it’s still out there, and still taking names.

He quotes an NRA release:

House File 498, championed by State Representative Tony Cornish (R-24B), has been pocketed by State Representative Joe Mullery (D-58A), Chairman of the House Public Safety Committee, and could be defeated without being debated.“Castle Doctrine” self-defense legislation would allow a person to use deadly force in and outside of their home and vehicle and removes duty to retreat when outside of the home. The bill also provides that a person who uses reasonable force against an intruder shall be immune from civil and criminal liability for injuries or death of the intruder.Please contact Representative Mullery by phone at (651) 296-4262 or email rep.joe.mullery@house.mn and Speaker Margaret Kelliher (D-60A) at (651) 296-0171 or rep.margaret.kelliher@house.mn and respectfully urge them to support your right to self-defense by allowing HF498 to be heard.Please do.  Be polite, please; but please be insistent that they do the right thing.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Very tired voice: “Representative Mullery’s office.”

“I’m calling to ask that Representative Mullery do the right thing and schedule a hearing on HF 498, a bill I suspect he’s more than vaguely familiar with.”

Laughter. “Yes, he is. I’ll pass that along.””Thanks. Have a nice day.”Took me a while to get through the Keliher’s voice mail; her line was rather busy today, for some reason.

This notion – that your home should be one place that you don’t have to yield unconditionally to some armed scumbag off the street (provided one meets the other three criteria for justified self-defense) should be bipartisan; criminal scum don’t generally care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat.

That it’s not is something that we need to talk with our DFL friends and neighbors about..

My NARN Radio colleague Ed Morrissey asks:

 If anyone has contact information for Senator Thompson, I’d love to get it.

I’m always happy to help:

City Hall

(212) 788-3000
260 Broadway,
New York, NY 10007

Minnesota Monitor – the group blog funded by a group that shares offices with George Soros’ attack-PR firm “Media Matters”, but whose operatives claim there’s no connection, nosirreebob, although no financials seem to be available – wrote about last week’s incident at Dordt College in Sioux Center Iowa (which I wrote about below):

Expect more events like these as Soulforce and the Equality Ride directly confront the institutions that produce this type of hatred. These people are doing the really hard work for the LGBTcommunity. If you have the means, please visit Soulforce and give a donation.

They left some parts out.  According to the Sioux City Journal, Dordt – which is a Christian school that explicitly prohibits gay relationships on campus (as is their First Amendment right; nobody forces anyone to attend Dordt), not only invited “Soulforce Q” – the gay activists from the Twin Cities who were the victims of last week’s vandalism – but would seem to have gone the extra mile in dealing with the vandalism:

The group contacted Dordt officials a few months ago to set up a panel discussion between its members and Dordt officials about the college’s GLBT policies, also having students accompany members around campus and facilitate conversations, said Norlan De Groot, Dordt director of public relations.

“We allowed their visit for two reasons: We considered this to be a learning opportunity for our students and an opportunity for Christian witness,” De Groot said…College officials were “saddened” to learn about the vandalism and apologized to the riders for its occurrence in Sioux Center, he said. Dordt maintenance workers cleaned the graffiti off of the vehicle.

“We don’t want to see that happen here,” De Groot said…The harassment and vandalism was reported to Sioux Center police, [college media relations guy Kyle] DeVries said. There was no indication anyone associated with Dordt was involved in the incidents.

(De Groot?  De Vries?  Dordt?  Ik sprek niet so veel Nederlands!  But I digress).

Go back and read the MNMon piece on the subject.  You could search for any of these facts – that Dordt did their best to both welcome the group and atone for the bad behavior of whomever committed the vandalism – but you’d search in vain.

Why?

When Minnesota Monitor came onto the scene, they said with a straight face (or as straight a face as Robin “Rew” Marty ever affects, at any rate) that because they took their organization’s “pledge”, they were a step or two above, better, and  more reliable than run-of-the-mill bloggers.

So let’s check out their “Code of Ethics” on behalf of reporter Andy Birkey’s story:

New Journalist Fellows should be honest, tireless, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information for the public… 

 I think it’s safe to say that Andy Birkey has tirelessly interpreted the events.

Never misrepresent events in an attempt to oversimplify or take events out of context…

Do you think the entire context of the story was correctly represented? 

Never limit their reporting to information that people want to hear…

If you assume that MNMon’s audience wants to hear “Small-town Christians (or maybe just Christians in general) are bigots!”, then I think that’s what MNMon has done. 

Seek to improve the public discourse by never stereotyping based on race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

Given what was omitted from Birkey’s story, I think religious stereotyping is pretty much inevitable. 

 Use both official and unofficial sources to acknowledge and give voice to those without traditional power.

Birkey and MNMon seem to have ignored a couple of official sources.

  * Acknowledge the difference between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be understood as such.

Re-read Birkey’s last paragraph: “Expect more events like these as Soulforce and the Equality Ride directly confront the institutions that produce this type of hatred. ”  Did Birkey fulfill his duties under “the pledge?”

  New Journalist Fellows must maintain a sense of decency and integrity by treating sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.

By ignoring Dordt’s efforts to invite and welcome “Soulforce Q”, and their efforts to atone for whomever committed the vandalism, Birkey and MNMon violated this term.

  * [Pledgors should] Recognize the possible negative effects of their news stories, and remain humble in the pursuit of gathering and reporting information.

“Expect more events like these as Soulforce and the Equality Ride directly confront the institutions that produce this type of hatred. ” 

  Act Independently
New Journalist Fellows should inform the public of news stories and issues without letting improper relationships compromise their integrity.

One might be bidden to wonder if Andy Birkey’s obvious sympathies for Soulforce Q might not call his commitment to this part of “the pledge” into question?

Since one or the other of the usual suspects in my comment section will no doubt yap about this, I’ll head y’all off at the pass:   Yes.  To some extent, the fact that I am a Christian colors my approach to these kinds of stories.  Given the anti-Christian bigotry that suffuses so much of the lefty media, I tend to give Christians the benefit of the doubt.  And I think that, given the facts that Andy Birkey left out of his victim-mongering polemic, those doubts are amply justified.

  * [Pledgors should] Always be fair, but always favor truth over balance.

It’d seem Birkey achieved neither…

  * Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, and disclose unavoidable conflicts. 

What is Birkey’s relationship with “Soulforce Q”?  While his sympathies are apparent in context (“Expect more events like these as Soulforce and the Equality Ride directly confront the institutions that produce this type of hatred”), his relationship is not.  If there is a relationship, that’s fine – I’m up-front about my own sympathies, so as to help the reader gauge my own detachment, or lack of it, from a story.  The tone of the story begs the question.

  * Maintain integrity by resisting pressure from advertisers and special interests to influence news coverage.

So why did Birkey’s piece not report the whole story?

 New Journalist Fellows are accountable to their readers, critics, advocates and each other as well as to the public at large.

OK.  From where does your organization’s money come?

We can start there!

  * Keep an open dialogue with the public in an effort to maintain and improve standards.

  * Encourage the public to use the information they have to question and analyze news stories on their own, and voice grievances when they feel stories are wrong.

  * Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
  * Expose unethical practices among each other and wherever they are found to maintain professional standards.

  * Keep the same high standards to which they hold others.

Hm. 

We’ll see, won’t we?

CORRECTION:  Of course, it’s Andy Birkey, not Matt.

One of the interesting things, to me, about the whole Marcotte kerfuffle was that you actually saw a bit if integrity on the part of many leftybloggers. While many among the thin film of left-leaning Christian bloggers were quite rightly offended by Marcotte’s raw bigotry (and John Edwards’ slimy cynicism), the interesting thing to me was that you didn’t see all that many bloggers on the infidel left complaining that Marcotte was much of an aberration. Oh, you saw the usual complaints of “she’s being taken out of context” (which pretty well deflated when one saw the context) – but I don’t think anyone ever tried the “most leftbloggers tolerate religion just fine” response.,

Which is good, because the tradition of bashing faith (or at least Christianity; Islam and non-observant, Israel-phobic Judaism are not quite so feared) is wide and deep on the left. Especially locally.

Not that finding it is especially interesting. PZ Meiers’ rote phumphering is sort of like Joan Jett playing “I Love Rock And Roll”; you know it’s coming, it’s always the same, whooeee.
And you read stuff from Mark Gisleson…:

I am certain that each and every day for centuries now somewhere in the world a Catholic nun or priest has done something extraordinarily good. I’m also sure most martyrs died nobly and were pure in their beliefs. And I’m even more sure that not once in the history of the Roman Catholic church has the hierarchy ever done the right thing, instead siding, consistently, with the monied and privileged.

…and wonder if he just didn’t get enough attention out of farting in church as a kid.

At any rate, the big, sweeping hatreds like Marcotte’s and Meiers’ don’t bother me as much as the casual bigotry that seeps into the daily exhortations of the “regular” leftybloggers (and the petty left in general). It’s there that the heart of the left lies.

Jeff Fecke – local rent-a-blogger who writes for Minnesota Monitor, an organization paid for by an organization that shares space with George Soros’ “Media Matters for America” (but which to the best of my knowledge has never revealed the source of its funding) but who sniffs and calls Michael Brodkob a paid republican operative, has apparently discovered a “talent” for Photoshop, linking to a piece in MinnMon about an incident in Sioux Center, Iowa, involving a group of gay activists’ vans being apparently vandalized with anti-gay graffiti.

Fecke’s headline:

Your Moment of Zen (or, that Vaunted Christian Tolerance)

Ah. So without knowing who were the suspects, Fecke blames the incident (assuming it was legitimate vandalism – and some interesting questions were raised in the MNMon comment section, which you should read) on Christians? And, more directly (given the wording and tone of his headline) a trait of people who call themselves Christian?

For starters, if we assume the incident was legitimate (and when it comes to local leftists’ stories of faith-based hate crimes, “trust but verify” is my philosophy – face it, local lefties, too many of your fellows have abused the media in the past), it most likely has much more to do with anti-gay sentiment that is still a deeply-ingrained part of much of rural America. Imagine if you will a bus full of Israelis at Berkeley or a van full of Young Republicans at Macalester, if you need help picturing the sort of provincial hatred that sort of exercise would conjure forth.

The whole exercise of the “Soul Force Equality Ride” – vans full of gay guys from Minneapolis driving through small towns – seems entirely designed to publicize the heretofore-unknown concept that there are anti-gay bigots in small towns. “Expect more events like these as Soulforce and the Equality Ride directly confront the institutions that produce this type of hatred”, MinnMon writer Andy Birkey breathlessly intones in the piece Fecke links; one wonders (“trust but verify”) if Birkey has seen an itinerary.

If the incident was legit, then it’d seem they got exactly what the wanted; bigotry’s been exposed! Mission accomplished! (Unless they left a group of missionaries in Sioux Center to try to perform outreach and change the local hearts and minds. I mean – what other purpose was there besides driving in, confronting, taking pictures and leaving? I’d invite any “SoulForce Rider” to comment and discuss this).

But what has this incident to do with Christianity?

Other than as a breathless frame-up (presuming legitimacy) of small-town redneck bigots? Not a whole lot.

Fecke’s broad brush is a sweeping indictment of Christian bigotry in the civil arena. And aside from providing the intellectual and moral framework for the renaissance and liberal democracy itself, inciting and focusing anti-slavery sentiment in the United States and Europe, driving the entire notion of social welfare for most of American history, and providing the moral background for the entire civil rights movement (led by white as much as black churches), I guess you could say Christians sure are bigots.

But only if your brush is broad enough to avoid things like “facts” and “details”.

CORRECTION:  Andy Birkey, not Matt.  Not sure where that came from.

Nutroots tell Nevada Democrats “jump”. Nevada Democrats respond “off what?”

The Nevada State Democratic Party is pulling out of a controversial presidential debate scheduled for Aug. 14 in Reno and co-hosted by Fox News, according to a letter released late Friday from state party chairman Tom Collins and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev).

The letter said Nevada Democrats had entered into the agreement with Fox, despite strong opposition from Democratic activist groups such as MoveOn.org, as a way of finding “new ways to talk to new people.”

But it’s all over now; MoveOn can’t abide presenting the Dem message through any but democrat-beholden friendly media.

Good!

Keep preaching to the choir!

Can you imagine if the Republicans limited themselves to friendly media? If we eschewed ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, the AP…?

Keep it this up, Dems!

Girl on the Right notes an anniversary I’d sadly forgotten:

On this day three years ago, 191 innocent people were murdered in the name of Allah while they were on their way to work in Madrid. That is Islam. That is the religion of Allah and the Prophet Mohammed.

Well, it’s wahabbi extremism, a sect that all too few Moslems have overtly rejected…

…but yes.  It was three years ago today that the terrorists brought Europe into their war.

We talked with Janet from SCSU Scholars about the drive get conservatives, veterans and other pro-Americans to go out to Washington next week to counterprotest the big lefty demonstrations scheduled for that weekend – to shield the Vietnam Memorial from their depredations.

Call 651.983.1431, or go to this site for more information.

If you’re interested, they’re organizing a bus ride to get interested Minnesotans out there.

Wish I could make it…

Gary Miller on the idea of Fred Thompson – former senator and, then, supporting actor on Law and Order – possibly running for President:

Thompson looks like a president straight out of — forgive me — central casting. His magnificent booming voice is rivaled only by his magnificent conservative voting record.

Hmmmm.

Somewhere or another, I have to find [regular commenter] Angryclown’s synopsis of every single Law and Order episode in history.

I don’t often take the City Pages’ arts reviews very seriously; most of the criticism is dragged through enough of each revewier’s personal agenda to the point where you can identify the writer just by the little tics in each piece.

I have no idea whether 300  – the screen version of Frank Miller’s comic book adaptation of Herodotus’ account of Spartan king Leonidas and his 300 warriors self-sacrificing stand against the Persians in 480BC –  is any good.  I may have to go see for myself, because Nathan Lee’s review tells us more about Lee than about the movie:

Long ago there reigned a clan of Speedo-wearing militaristic psychopaths called the Spartans. They lived beneath a copper-colored sky, on a copper-colored land, amidst copper-colored fields, in copper-colored homes made from copper-colored stone. Legend has it they would outline their copper-colored pecs and abs with ash to enhance their manly buffness, and yet these were men of action and honor, not “philosophers and boy lovers” like their namby-pamby rivals the Athenians….Yet aside from the fact that Spartans come across as pinched, pinheaded gym bunnies, it’s their flesh the movie worships. At once homophobic and homoerotic, 300 is finally, and hilariously, just hysterical.

Victor Davis Hanson might disagree:

Again, purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not Herodotus, to the screen. Yet, despite the need to adhere to the conventions of Frank Miller’s graphics and plot — every bit as formalized as the protocols of classical Athenian drama or Japanese Kabuki theater — the main story from our ancient Greek historians is still there: Leonidas, against domestic opposition, insists on sending an immediate advance party northward on a suicide mission to rouse the Greeks and allow them time to unite a defense…They are finally betrayed by Ephialtes, forcing Leonidas to dismiss his allies — and leaving his own 300 to the fate of dying under a sea of arrows.

But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.

Arts criticism in the Twin Cities would seem to be a similar battle…

Tune in today for the Northern Alliance Radio Network.

11-1, it’s Volume 1 – John, Paul and Ringo Brian and Chad.

1-3, it’s Ed and I, on Volume II. You might assume we may mention “Cut And Run 3.0” and the tossing of the DC gun ban.

3-5, it’s the Final Word, with King and Michael. I’m thinking there juuuuuuuust might be some legal talk.

Did the seventies have a voice?

You could nominate quite a few voices for the title, of course; Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Paul McCartney, Barry Gibb, Eddie Kendricks, Linda Ronstadt…

…but if you were a teenager in the rural midwest, huddled in your friends’ basements, listening to their older brothers’ records on their dads’ stereos, Brad Delp of Boston was probably on the short list.

Delp – with a bit of help from Tom Scholz’ extreme production style – was the high, clear, blazingly distinctive voice of a corporate rock band that still – at least on their incandescent first album – had a heart underneath all the pure technique.

Delp was found dead yesterday, at age 55.

As we’ve seen today, not all judges are dolts!

 Washington DC – along with Chicago, the nation’s greatest bastion of gun-control lunacy – has had its long-standing complete ban on law-abiding citizens’ ownership of handguns tossed out.

A federal appeals court on Friday overturned the District of Columbia’s longstanding handgun ban, issuing a decision that will allow the city’s citizens to have working firearms in their homes.

In the ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected city officials’ arguments that the Second Amendment right to bear arms only applied to state militias.

On behalf of Right To Keep and Bear Arms activists everywhere;  Thank You, DC Circuit, for finally pounding a stake through the heart of perhaps America’s greatest legal urban legend, the moronic notion that the Second Amendment – “The right of the people to keep and bear arms” – was somehow a group right, while the First Amendment’s rights “of the people” were, on the other hand, utterly and irrevocably individual.

The court struck down three different gun-control laws by a 2-1 margin, including one that required law-abiding citizens to have a permit (unobtainable, naturally) to carry a firearm in their own home.

“This is a huge case,” Alan Gura, the plaintiff’s lead lawyer, told FOXNews.com Friday afternoon. “It’s simply about whether law-abiding citizens can maintain a functioning firearm, including a handgun, inside their house.”…“I don’t see this going into effect immediately, but certainly, you know, when it does go into effect, our clients, as well as everyone in Washington, will be able to have a handgun and maintain their home without having a permit to move it around in their home,” Gura said.

I’m going to revel just once more in what may be the biggest fallout of this verdict:

The case began five years ago. In 2004, a lower court judge lower-court judge said the plaintiffs did not have a constitutional right to own handguns. The plaintiffs include residents of high-crime neighborhoods who wanted the guns for protection.

“The district’s definition of the militia is just too narrow,” Judge Laurence Silberman wrote for the majority on Friday. “There are too many instances of ‘bear arms’ indicating private use to conclude that the drafters intended only a military sense.”

Fifteen years of legal guerrilla warfare is starting to take hold.

If the dispute makes it to the high court, it would be the first case in nearly 70 years to address the Second Amendment’s scope.

That’d be the 1939 “US V. Miller”, on which more later. 

Gura predicted that the case, because of clear arguments, can now be used in other federal cases to support Second Amendment arguments that citizens have the “right to keep and bear arms.”

“This case will have significant impact beyond the District of Columbia,” Gura said.

It’s a great day to be an American – and a greater day for Constitutional Constructionists.

 Earlier this week, some of my commenters were piqued that I didn’t demand Ann Coulter have her head sawed off in the public square for using the anti-gay slur “F” word in referring to John Edwards.  I called it “bad form”, using my gift for understatement, and bemoaned the fact that Coulter’s constant “malaprops” (I wish I had the faith to believe that they actually are such) make life a lot harder for us conservatives in the trenches. 

Why didn’t I express sufficient outrage?  Partly because everyone else already was; the starchamber of mega conservative blogs have already put Coulter on their eternal spit list; what difference does it make if Mitch Berg piles on?

And partly because to do so would be to play Coulter’s game.  Inflammation is Coulter’s stock in trade, and she plies that trade better than most.  To hop up and down and wax purple over it would be like yelling at Madonna for trying to provoke, or at Michael Moore for tossing around baseless accusations, or at Lindsay Lohan for being a vacuous celebrity; it plays into the schtick.

And partly because I cling to a shred of fandom.  Coulter’s sharp, she’s incisive, and – when she’s not aiming to outrage, or doing it just for the flop of it – she’s better than most of her detractors. 

And finally, partly because I wanted to wait for someone to say what I wanted to say, only better. 

Which brings us to Mitch “The Other Mitch” Pearlstein’s letter on Coulter from the Center of the American Experiment.

Folks on the right often criticize folks on the left for not criticizing one of their own when they say something thoroughly offensive and stupid. To avoid countercharges, let it be known that I wasn’t a fan of Coulter and her style before last weekend and I’m even less so now, as her reference to presidential candidate John Edwards by the full two-syllable, homosexual-slur “F” word was galaxies beyond the pale. It was ugly and she ought to be ashamed, and frankly, I’m not too thrilled that her audience of conservative activists in Washington didn’t make their displeasure immediately clear.

And I agree.

Why was her jab at a joke so unacceptable? Because decent people just don’t talk like that, or at least they shouldn’t. And no, this is not because of overly sensitive, politically correct touchiness.

Pearlstein is right.  It’s something that goes far deeper than callow political correctness; one should treat people the way they’d like to be treated themselves.  Not that Coulter doesn’t come in for a lot of abuse from her detractors – in fact, much of it vastly more scabrous than anything Coulter herself has ever said – but that’s really no excuse.  One should try to be better than one’s opponents. 

But Coulter also was wrong because she was counterproductive. Conservatives are more inclined than liberals to challenge emotionally saturated initiatives, such as the drive for same-sex marriage. There’s not the smallest doubt in my mind that the overwhelming majority of us who oppose same-sex marriage do so honorably, as we simply (or not so simply) fear that such a radical change in our most important institution would not be in the best interests of society generally and children especially. But making such a case is increasingly hard if high-profile conservatives talk dirty.

Exactly.  It’s hard enough to cut through the noise that the left tosses in our faces without giving them more ammo.

Pearlstein notes the blazing contradiction between Coulter’s words and the conservative movement’s actions as manifested at CPAC:

… I’ve been intrigued by how well Rudy Giuliani is doing with Republicans across the country, social and religious conservatives evidently among ’em. You know the latter guys I’m talking about. All those Christians thumping without time, mercy or American place for anyone outside their parochial fold…Sure, it’s 20 months to Election Day, and by no means are all religious conservatives enamored with America’s Mayor. Not by several stretches. But for now, isn’t it more than a little elucidating that so many of them appear open to supporting a presidential candidate who doesn’t line up with them precisely on abortion, gun control and gay rights; who has been married three times; and who, for picturesque measure, has been famously photographed (I’m on real fragile ground here) wearing a dress?

Save for Coulter, what in the world is close-mindedness on the right coming to these days?

I wonder – if you posited that contradiction to a dogmoleftist like a Cenk Uyghur or a MNob, would their brain herniate?

Pearlstein notes the irony of the left’s charges as seen in his own life:

Oh, by the way, a well-known political/religious activist in Minneapolis of the larboard persuasion (that means left) recently declared at a community meeting on the North Side that American Experiment is anti-black and ultra-right-wing, not to mention “Klan-like.” My biracial daughter already has written him a respectfully nasty letter. Maybe some of my liberal friends will follow up, too.

Um, yeah, Mitch.  Let us know how that goes.

Because way too much of the left treats “nastiness” and “incivility” the same way Spike Lee treated racism; as something the left can’t be accused of, because they’ve got bigger things on their minds.

I’d say “the right needs to be better than that” – but really, we all do.

Blois Olson’s suit against Michael Brodkorb has been tossed on a summary judgement. 

And the leftybloggers who last year hopped about and screeched like poo-flinging howler monkeys at the notion that their arch-nemesis was getting his comeuppance?

As this is written?

[crickets]

[more crickets]

[female crickets]

[snarky crickets who need new material]

[rich crickets with Hungarian accents]

Oh, it’s not complete silence.  Over at Norwegianity (the left’s one-stop shop for calm reasoning), MNob – a lawyer – has the goods.  Or some goods.  (And has them with immense speed.  An emailer offline asks us to “note the speed with which [MNob] obtained the order.  You can’t get court docs over the internet – you have to go down to the courthouse to obtain them.  Meaning either MNob is an obsessed stalker of Brodkorb’s, or she has someone in the Dakota County court clerks office.  I’m betting on both.”

MNob writes:

[Brodkorb’s motion to dismiss] was granted primarily because Blois Olson stipulated that he (Olson) was a limited-purpose public figure. (Par. 2) As a public figure, under the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, Olson would have had to prove on this summary judgment motion that there is some admissible evidence that Brodkorb acted with actual malice. (Id.) The court found that Olson hadn’t done so. That is, Olson can’t prove that Brodkorb knew the statements to false at the time Brodkorb made them.

Now, I’m no lawyer, but I’ve spent a bit of time in court.  I’ve also worked as a journalist, so I’ve had a bit of experience learning how defamation cases work. 

As I understand it – lawyers, please help me out here – but a summary judgement generally only happens if a judge finds that a case is so utterly devoid of merit that it’d be a waste of the court’s time to pursue it at all.  The rule of summary judgements, in fact, is “There is no genuine issue of material fact, and the movant is entitled judgment as a matter of law.”  In other words, Olson brought no game, and the judge put the entire case out of its misery.

So – again, in my own deeply imperfect understanding of civil procedure – it’s not that Olson didn’t quiiiiiiite git ‘er done; it’s that nothing in any of his original filings convinced the judge that the case had even a smidgen of merit.   

 Nor could Olson prove that Brodkorb made a false statement with “reckless disregard” or with “serious doubts” as to its truth or falsity. Olson simply couldn’t reach the standard of proof for public figure defamation, something that is very difficult under the Sullivan standard.

True – public figures have a harder time of things in defamation cases.  But again, MNob’s paragraph implies that there was a “day in court”, where Olson (or his attorneys) tried, and failed, to make the charge stick.  No.  It was a summary judgement; the judge ruled that there were no material facts at all, absolutely nothing that would justify having the case heard in court.

Nothing.

Nada.

The court determined that the efforts Brodkorb made were sufficient to shield him: “Defendant did enough” to investigate the statements. (Par. 7)

That’s all Brodkorb did: “Enough.”

MNob recites this as if it damns Brodkorb in any way. 

The Colts “did enough” to beat the Bears in the Super Bowl.  There’s no quibbling about how much is “enough” – it’s an emotionless, non-shaded, black and white threshold.

The judge ruled that, since Olson is public enough, the evidence supporting his defamation case was of  so little merit, under the laws governing these things (as opposed to the outrage of offended leftybloggers, or their impassioned yearning for justice) that it didn’t deserve to be heard in court.

MNob’s entire argument, essentially, is “the dog ate Blois’ homework!”.

We can expect Brodkorb to trumpet this very loudly, but given the fact that virtually ALL the evidence is not only subject to a protective order of the court, but an “Attorney’s Eyes Only” protective order, even he doesn’t know all of the evidence that was considered by the court. Nor does Blois Olson.

That is, indeed, possible.

And again, I’m no lawyer.  But as I understand things, if the judge issued a summary judgement dismissing the case, and yet there was plenty of material fact that might have justified a trial, that’d be a reversible error that’d justify an appeal – something lower-court judges really don’t like.  So I’m guessing – again, in my capacity as a goy whose legal experience is representing himself, once (and successfully) – that the judge has a pretty solid reason for doing the legal equivalent of tossing the case in the circular file.
MNob:

Nonetheless, it’s pretty obvious that Brodkorb’s sources are the focus of the protective order, and the fact that he had several sources for the information came into play in the court’s decision. What’s fascinating here is that Brodkorb seeks to claim the protections that any journalist in Minnesota gets in being able to protect sources (“Hey — two different dudes told me”), and be free of liability for defamation when he adheres to the bare minimum of journalistic standards. But in posting things to his “personal blog,” he prints things that no journalist with an ounce of ethics would go near (unless they were quoting Brodkorb himself as some sort of credible source on issues of, say, gastrointestinal diseases).

 Maybe, maybe not, but this is an utterly subjective judgement (“Is Brodkorb a good journalist?” – I’d say generally “yes”, leftybloggers will get kicked out of the club if they don’t chant “Tool Tool Tool Tool Tool” in rigid unison), that has nothing whatever to do with the demise of Blois Olson’s case.

MNob again:

It’s also important to point out that truth is always a defense in a defamation claim and that this court did not make a determination as to the truth or falsity of what Brodkorb said (Par. 8).

“Honest, everyone – the fish I caught was thiiiiiiiiis biiiiiiiiig!”

The reason the court did not make a determination was because there were no material facts justifying a trial!  At all! 

 Rather, the court’s focus was on whether he said what he said with “reckless disregard.” That’s hardly a high standard – that the statements might have been utterly false, but Brodkorb did not know that when he said so.

The standard is what it is – but the fact is that the judge ruled that Blois Olson didn’t come close to showing anything like reckless disregard for the truth.   

What does all this mean in the long run? Pick only on public figures? Pick on people who might not be public figures, but whose ego makes them stipulate to being limited purpose public figures? Only run with untruths that two different dudes said were true?

You mean like that whole “Minnesota Democrats Exposed is a paid GOP operation” bit?

No.  What it means is “grow up”, and stop assuming the law means what you want it to, just because you reeeeeeeeeeeeeeallly want it to. 

Learned Foot – an attorney himself – writes:

 1) Blois Olson’s defamation suit against MDE has been thrown out on summary judgment.

2) That’s why Flash, MNPooplius, MNMonitor et al haven’t posted anything yet today.

3) Never go to a blog run by a labor radical from Iowa for insightful legal analysis. Or any legal analysis for that matter.

I’m not a lawyer or anything, but…

(Disclosure:  I’ve known Blois Olson for years.  I disagree with him, natch – but I harbor absolutely no animus toward him at all.  Of course, Brodkorb is a fellow NARN co-host).

…and I’ve been enjoying my annual bout of “sleeping until seven AM”.

More later.

WordPress lost about 5/6 of my latest installment of “Losing My (State) Religion”. 

Grrr, I say.

Debra Saunders dings on Algore – and, more importantly, the “carbon neutrality” cult in Hollywood:

I used to figure that rich sinners, who bought “indulgences” from the Catholic Church before the Protestant Reformation, would be ashamed of the bargain that other churchgoers looked upon with scorn and derision.

But lo, on Academy Awards night, the stars were quite impressed with themselves for participating in a “carbon-neutral” event. Cozy up to the Natural Resources Defense Council, and all those private flights, limo rides and multiple homes disappear. Almost like special effects.

I know that the word on many readers’ lips is: hypocrisy.

For those in Hollywood who esteem themselves as “leaders” in society’s fight to save itself (see also George Clooney’s speech at last year’s Oscarpalooza), one of the first principles of leadership is “never ask someone else to do what you’re not willing to do yourself”.

But the real issue is that the most effective spokesman for global warming apparently doesn’t think he has to show personal leadership by curbing his energy consumption. The same goes for [California’s SUV-driving Senator and “environmentalist” Diane] Feinstein and [California’s SUV-driving Governor and “environmentalist” Arnold] Schwarzenegger, who are happy to push for laws that make other people cut their emissions, but are far too affluent to cut back themselves.

“With the future so open to doubt,” Gore wrote in his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,”we routinely choose to indulge our own generation at the expense of all who will follow.”

Now Gore has a spokesperson who explains his indulgence — er, offset — policy. And it apparently doesn’t matter that Gore’s behavior signals to global-warming agnostics (like me), and to global-warming believers, that the climate situation must not be that dire after all.

“Carbon neutrality” is to environmentalism was Scientology is to faith: a fabulist’s way of buying peace of mind.

When I see any of their motorcades switching to Priuses – er, Prii? – then maybe I’ll pay attention.

Being “carbon neutral” isn’t cutting carbon output; it’s playing a shell game that you hope everyone is too stupid to figure out.