Archive » 2006 » November

I suppose, as a blogger, I should join in and cheer the much-buzzed-about decision in Barrett v. Rosenthal this week, which ruled in California that Internet users who post (to Web sites or discussion groups) defamatory statements originally made by others are immune from liability. Eugene Volokh summarizes:
The California Supreme Court just held, in Barrett [...]

Uh oh. I hope they don’t start tossing cellphones onto their perpetually burning bonfire:
LUCKNOW, India - Muslim clerics at a leading seminary in India have asked people to refrain from using verses from the Quran as ringtones for their mobile phones, saying the practice was un-Islamic.
Quran verses “are not meant for entertainment,” said Mohammed Asumin [...]

Boston talk show host Michael Graham e-mailed earlier this evening with good news about Nonie Darwish:
“She just told me that Brown U. has backed down and re-issued an invitation for her to speak.”

Margaret Spellings: “I’ll take Educrats’ Most Embarrassing Moments for $800, Alex.”
Oh, dear. The US Secretary of Education appeared on Jeopardy! earlier this evening…and was more than twenty thousand dollars behind at the start of Final Jeopardy…
…But she pulled through in the end for a second-place finish, losing to Michael McKean of Lenny-from-Laverne&Shirley and Spinal Tap [...]

Some public educators aren’t satisfied with teaching elementary school students about gratitude and sharing on Thanksgiving. No, they’ve used the holiday as an excuse to teach oppression studies 101 to third-graders:
Teacher Bill Morgan walks into his third-grade class wearing a black Pilgrim hat made of construction paper and begins snatching up pencils, backpacks and glue [...]

Yes, I’ve followed the case of the six praying imams removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and questioned by police for several hours before being released.
As sure as the rooster crows, CAIR is screaming and the Muslim leaders of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage are calling for a boycott.
Robert Spencer [...]

Ugh:
The O.J. Simpson project is dead, but the book and the TV interview could turn up in bootleg form in this age of YouTube and EBay, when scandalous information seldom stays secret for long.
News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, called off Simpson’s “confession” Monday after advertisers, booksellers and even Fox personality Bill [...]

***scroll for updates***
Tony Blair dials Nanny 911:
A network of around 80 “super nannies” is being set up by the government to show parents how to control their unruly children.
It’s the latest initiative in the government’s battle against crime and anti-social behaviour.
It’s being announced by the Prime Minister today as part of a government initiative throw [...]

Remember this Arabic-speaking State Department clown, Albert Fernandez, who went on al Jazeera TV and trashed the U.S. as arrogant and stupid?
Well, speaking of arrogant and stupid, guess what? Charles Johnson notes that the State Department has decided to give Fernandez an award. Via Brit Hume’s Grapevine last week on Fox News:
Fernandez was selected [...]

***scroll for updates…US denounces assassination….Saad Hariri, Rafik’s son and leader of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority: “We believe the hand of Syria is all over the place”…***
This is the big news of the day. Or rather, in a non-O.J., non-Hollyweird-drenched, non-trivialized world, it would be the big news of the day.
The Lebanese Daily Star reports another [...]

Sgt. Hasan Akbar, Muslim American soldier, killed two colleagues and wounded 14 other troops after tossing grenades into tents while soldiers slept at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait on March 23, 2003. He wrote in his diary: “I am going to try and kill as many of them as possible.”
Remember him?
The case is still dragging [...]

So, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback wants to be the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee.
Great, just what post-9/11 America needs: Another open-borders Republican in the White House.
Ed Morrissey weighs in:
Brownback may have some name recognition among the politicos and the blogs, but he barely registers among rank-and-file voters. He and Duncan Hunter have the same problem — [...]

Finally, someone tells the blabbermouths, “No:”
The National Security Agency is not required to release details about its secret wiretapping program, a federal judge said Monday.
The People for the American Way Foundation, a liberal advocacy group, sued to obtain records under the Freedom of Information Act. The group sought to find out how many wiretaps were [...]

***update: Darwish spoke to Glenn Beck last night about Brown’s disinvitation (hat tip: WTR)***
Who’s afraid of Nonie Darwish? And why are Ivy League schools filled with such intellectual cowards? Adam Brodsky at the NYPost reports that Brown University has killed off a scheduled appearance by the brave, anti-jihad critic: (Hat tip: reader Marcie)
Muslims are often [...]

Judith Weiss reports on an episode of CSI that seems to have been inspired by the Lebanon Fauxtography scandal.
Looks like someone in Hollywood’s been paying attention.

The New York Post reminds us today that Columbia University has done nothing–zip, nada, zilch–to punish the hoodlums who sabotaged a speech by Minutemen Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist:
Forty-seven days: That’s how long it’s been since Columbia University hosted a breathtakingly brazen attack on free speech and academic freedom.
Since then, not a word of apology has [...]

Can you figure out what the heck he’s saying here?

Power Line is conducting a poll and has a list of nominees. They’ve excluded the New York Times to give other dead-tree outlets a chance. I’d go with the L.A. Times and San Francisco Chronicle for their consistent awfulness, blandness, and blindness, with the exception of dissident columnist Debra Saunders. I don’t know how she [...]

***update: 806pm Eastern…Laura Ingraham and O’Reilly talking about decision…O’Reilly proclaiming victory for traditionalists…Laura is criticizing crappy programming on F/X and Fox broadcasting…O’Reilly demurs, saying he doesn’t want to be the “morality police…(but) if you are steamed, mobilize and bring horror to (network’s) lives…Laura: There’s a lot beyond OJ…O’Reilly…”pick and choose your battles…the bad guys are [...]

Via the Boston Globe, one homeowner who loves to celebrate Christmas early and big–250,000 lights ablazin’–wants to remind his neighbors not to take life for granted:
Some people have big houses. And some people like celebrating Christmas. And then there is Dominic Luberto.
A year ago, Luberto bought one of the largest single-family homes in Boston. It [...]

It’s really not a good idea to blow off bloggers who are trying to expose MSM errors that undermine the military.

Associated Press reports:
Iran has invited the Iraqi and Syrian presidents to Tehran for a weekend summit with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to hash out ways to cooperate in curbing the runaway violence that has taken Iraq to the verge of civil war and threatens to spread through the region, four key lawmakers told The Associated Press [...]

Photoshop via Stubborn Facts
They just can’t help themselves.
In case you needed to be reminded which party puts playing politics with the war above serious solutions, here’s the video of Rep. Charlie Rangel on Sunday resurrecting the draft–as a way to deter the White House and Congress from launching wars. And for those who think [...]

Pajamas Media has exclusive video of an Iranian dissident and her children who have been living in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for more than 73 days. There’s a petition here. Latest word from Pajamas:
“Pajamas Media has been informed that two US attorneys (one Iranian- American) are now en route to Moscow [...]

The jihadis are rolling out the welcome mat in Indonesia. (Hat tip: Shawn Wasson, who has more Bush-deranged photos)

Reuters

AP reports:
Thousands wound through the streets of Indonesia’s capital and gathered at a grand mosque Sunday to protest President Bush’s upcoming visit to the world’s most populous Muslim nation, some chanting “War criminal” and “You are a [...]

Mike Fumento has photos from his latest trip to Ramadi. Here’s one he snapped at Camp Ramadi. Mike writes: “Something tells me Cindy Sheehan wouldn’t feel comfortable here.”

Speaking of Ramadi, Patterico is looking to talk to soldiers fighting there. Give him a shout at patterico-at-gmail.com.

Saturday morning satire brought to you by the People’s Cube.

Parents, you better check your children’s homework and make sure they aren’t doing assignments like this (via WRAL with a hat tip to reader Paul):

WRAL reports:
A Spanish teacher at Smithfield-Selma Senior High School resigned this week after handing out an assignment that some students and parents said teaches hate.
Khalid Chahhou, who was in his first [...]

I don’t like to mud wrestle, but sometimes the slime-flingers need to be held accountable. All week, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and his left-wing vassals have tried to blame female conservative commentators for one nutball’s fake anthrax letter attacks. Reportedly, the suspect was a Free Republic.com member whose pseudonymous profile noted that he “worshipped” Ann [...]

Rusty Shackleford has all the latest developments on the latest kidnappings in Iraq:
Four American and one Austrian civilian have been kidnapped in Iraq. The five men were part of a convoy heading through the Shia dominated south of Iraq, but are thought to be held in a Sunni area. That part of Iraq is generally [...]