This is worth reading, just for its leftist stupidity. But there's no reason to put coins in Salon's pockets by clicking on the link; I've excerpted most of the good stuff here.

Innocent.

That's the word written on sweatbands the Duke University women's lacrosse team will wear when they take the field Friday at the start of their sport's premier event.... With the bands, the women are apparently suggesting that the Duke men's lacrosse team, and the three members charged with sexual assault, are innocent.

In court, the specific term lawyers seek from the jury is "not guilty." I don't know enough of the facts to opine on whether that phrase will be read aloud by jury foremen. I do know enough to say it is a stretch to use the term "innocent" to describe the men of Duke lacrosse. Hiring strippers, excessive alcohol use, disorderly public conduct -- those aren't activities one generally describes as innocent.

Ummm, none of those things are illegal, with the possible exception of disorderly public conduct, but I don't think they've been charged with that.

Notice how prudish a leftist gets when he smells the blood of a white Christian oppressor. Suddenly bad behavior is, well, bad. Typically Salon would be the first to defend this kind of behavior, but not it's grounds to say the men aren't innocent at all.

Since the writer fancies himself a student of the law-- pointing out, for the three people in the world who don't know -- that a jury pronounces a man "not guilty," not "innocent," when it absolves him of criminal wrongdoing, I'll note that what this idiot is doing is attempting to prove guilt in a crime by introducing unrelated (and legal) "bad acts," which is forbidden by courts. You're not allowed to "prove" a man guilty by simply noting he's done other not-good things in his life, but that seems to be the writer's belief. Hey-- these guys drank a lot, hired strippers, and got rowdy. Isn't that enough to convict them?

With a daughter at Duke, I've followed this case closely, and have read the allotment of notes and press releases sent out by the university. I know enough to conclude that the university's administration is failing utterly at one of its stated goals: extracting lessons from this incident.

Duke officials repeatedly told observers to withhold judgment of the players and the university. When a third player was indicted on May 15, senior vice president John Burness said, "It is worth repeating again today that these latest charges do not mean the accused are guilty. That is for a jury to decide." That lesson didn't quite take: The women's lacrosse team decided they are the ones who should determine guilt or innocence.

So much for a teachable moment.

A "teachable moment." The left really has to stop using this word.

He makes a point that I am pained to admit makes some sense here:

President Richard Brodhead called for reasonable dialogue. I find it hard to believe these wristbands support that call. Consider what it might look like if another team decided to make its own statement by writing the word "guilty" on their wristbands. It would be every bit as presumptuous -- and every bit as inflammatory -- as those that say "innocent." It is not a step toward reasonable dialogue. It continues the blunt use of divisive rhetoric.

I would note, however, that the men have been charged with perhaps the third worst crime possible -- rape follows only child-rape and murder in loathsomeness -- and the DA has exploited this case to get re-elected in a largely black district, so there's plenty of "divisive rhetoric" out there already. I'm not sure the women's lacrosse display of the word "innocent" adds terribly much fuel to the racial fires.

Furthermore, the women's lacrosse team is almost certainly well-acquainted with the men's team. We generally don't pitch a bitch when the friends and family of an accused defend them publicly. It's hardly compelling evidence of innocence, but it's also hardly something untoward or unexpected.

Shall we also harrangue the accuser's family for claiming publicly that she wouldn't lie-- thereby claiming the lacrosse players are guilty?

Certainly this writer doesn't offer any criticism of them. Only those who dare to suggest the guys are innocent.

He then goes on to pretty much do what he criticizes the women's lacrosse players for doing -- "rendering a verdict" on the case outside of the jury box. He never calls them guilty -- he can't, of course, as he's making such a major issue of the women's lacrosse team calling them innocent -- but he does note that they're behaving just like a mafia crew (he calls it the "Duke Blue Wall of Silence") and is very suspicious of the fact that the various players' lawyers, get this, cooperate with eachother, just like mob lawyers during a mob trial!

Well, given that they're all making the same claim -- that none of this ever happened, it is entirely fabricated, and they are all witnesses for the others' innocence -- I think it is somewhat reasonable to imagine their lawyers would work together, as they're all working with the same facts and the precise same legal theory.

That theory is that they're, get this, wholly "innocent."

But the writer calls this evidence of a "pack mentality," and implies it's underhanded. His assumption seems to be: We know they're guilty. By cooperating with each other, it precludes one of them from stepping forward and ratting out the others. So there joint defense is an attempt to block "the truth" from emerging.

The writer scolds the women's lacrosse team from examining the evidence as private citizens and offering an opinion -- not a legally-binding verdict -- on the charges, and yet he himself has little qualms about offering his own opinions.

As I've said before: without double standards, the left would have no standards at all.

I haven't mentioned this case before because I am only vague aware of the facts -- or "facts;" what we mostly have is assertions from the defense and the prosecution which have not truly been tested by any rigorous process -- but I'll cop to my own not-very-well informed opinion:

Innocent.

That said, I could easily be wrong. I've been wrong before. Like, for example, when I figured that Michael Irvin was guilty of an alleged rape. Hey, he was a drug user, he was generally guilty of bad behavior, and he wore golden suits. Seemed like he was guilty.

Of course, it later turned out the woman completely fabricated the story, and was charged with filing a false police report.

I learned a little something from that particular "teachable moment." It's a shame Salon didn't.

The left seems to cling to the idea that women simply don't lie about rape. As this writer says, it's extremely brave for a woman to come forward with a rape allegation.

Well, it is indeed. If she was, in fact, raped. If she is lying about rape -- to extort from a wealthy pro football player, or from the wealthy parents of college lacrosse players -- it's not particularly courageous, is it? In fact, it's rather... reprehensible.

They assume the fact of rape and then impugn anyone for daring to not follow them in those assumptions.

I generally assume women tell the truth about rape. I'd say that 95% of rape charges are true (or pretty much true). But that leaves 5% of charges which are fraudulent, and that is not an insignificant percentage.

But the left would invert its usual claim -- "it's better than 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted" -- in rape cases, especially, of course, when it's a minority woman accusing wealthy white male oppresors. Then, it becomes "It's better that every one accused of rape be convicted, guilty or innocent, so as not to dissuade other women from coming forward to accuse other men of rape."

The writer concludes his idiotic essay by suggesting that the womens' lacrosse team display the word "Respect" on their wristbands, rather than "Innocent." It could, you see, mean many different things to many different people.

Well, that sort of defeats the purpose of trying to send a message, doesn't it?

Why not just have them wear writstbands that say "Bush lied, people died"?

I grow so tired of the left lecturing us that we must never render an opinion as a citizen on a case of political import, unless that opinion agrees with their own, in which case, have a lynching party. We heard this claim constantly when Bill Clinton was accused of his various crimes -- we must not assume his guilt, we were told -- as they nearly simultaneously proclaimed his complete innocence.

It's one or the other, guys. One or the other.

I would like the sentence "We should not try this case in the media" barred from ever being spoken again. It's an empty platitude; of course we all have opinions on cases as we hear them, and there's nothing in the Constitution that demands we stay silent about those opinions.

Further, as a technical matter, you simply can't be "convicted in the media." You're either convicted in a courtroom or not at all.

Although, as regards Bush, the media sure seems eager to test the limits of this notion.

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Comments (110)
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...going office to office.

The shots were first heard in the parking complex.

Two women ran out of the building and say they saw a man with a gun, who hid in the building's gym.

Their description is of a white man, 5'10".

From FNC.

Posted by: Ace at 07:15 AM | Comments (27)
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Not sure what to make of this.

Posted by: Ace at 06:56 AM | Comments (11)
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Hmm...

The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.

In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"

Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."

...

He said: "These comments take my breath away. Every time you think he can't sink any lower he goes and stuns you again. It's reprehensible to say it would be justified for a suicide bomber to assassinate anyone."

So, if I have this right, if someone doesn't like a politician, and considers him a force for evil in the world, he's wholly justified in killing that politician?

I hope Galloway understands the implications of the rules of engagement he's suggesting.

Meanwhile, he continues speaking jihadi:

Mr Galloway yesterday made a surprise appearance on Cuban television with the Caribbean island's Communist dictator, Fidel Castro - whom he defended as a "lion" in a political world populated by "monkeys".

Mr Galloway shocked panellists on a live television discussion show in Havana by emerging on set mid-transmission to offer passionate support for Castro. Looking approvingly into each others' eyes, the pair embraced.

"Monkey." "Lion." He's only playing to the Al Jazeera crowd at this point, eh?

Posted by: Ace at 06:50 AM | Comments (17)
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It's as terrible as the day KISS stop wearing makeup.

Posted by: Ace at 06:36 AM | Comments (3)
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That headline overstates it a bit, but I couldn't think of how else to say it briefly. It's not a death threat, per se, or at least not one that could get you charged. It's cuter than that:

I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut....

Not an actual threat so much as the masturbatory fantasy of a warped, impotent she-boy.

And-- from a Reuters account.

LGF has an idea that it might just be this "moderate muslim," a man who praised both Sheik Omarr and Osama bin Ladin, and who was actually chosen by Britain's Home Office as one of seven Muslims tasked with rooting out extremism among Muslims.

A guy who praised OBL as a hero is the most moderate Britain can find in its Muslim "leadership."

He was tipped to the LGF website after having written this article for the Guardian, which argues that the DaVinci Code is the key to reducing Christian-Muslim tensions. How so? Well, if Christians would only accept Dan Brown's thesis that Christianity is founded upon a lie, and therefore Islam is the One True Faith, all of our problems would go away, no?

Well, no. It's not the religion, at least not on this end. It's the culture. I'm an agnostic leaning towards atheist and trust me, Christianity is the least of what separates us. Decency, humanity, enlightment, and a post Dark Ages civilization are sticking points, before we even get to that Jesus guy.

At any rate, someone with access to a Reuters IP is sending emails from fake addresses like "zionistpig" and drooling over the day his infidel oppressors have their throats cut. LGF has written to Reuters to ask about this.

I expect a prompt and vigorous investigation by Reuters, post-haste.

Posted by: Ace at 09:33 PM | Comments (78)
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This is an article about a different style of cloaking device than the "superlens" technique I linked a few weeks back. This one is more like a chameleon cloak.

Both groups propose methods using the unusual properties of so-called "metamaterials" to build a cloak.

These metamaterials can be designed to induce a desired change in the direction of electromagnetic waves, such as light. This is done by tinkering with the nano-scale structure of the metamaterial, not by altering its chemistry.

Pssst, Instapundit-- Nano-scale!

John Pendry's team suggest that by enveloping an object in a metamaterial cloak, light waves can be made to flow around the object in the same way that water would do so.

...

Special materials could make light "flow" around an object like water.

The work provides a mathematical "recipe" for bending light waves in such a way as to achieve a desired cloaking effect.

...

"What you're trying to do is guide light around an object, but the art is to bend it such that it leaves the object in precisely the same way that it initially hits it. You have the illusion that there is nothing there," he told the BBC's Science in Action programme.

Another Article: Similar fare, though it makes the distinction between a radar-invisible cloak (18 months with proper funding) and full-spectrum-invisibility (5 years).

Wow. Won't happen, of course, but at least we're at the age when we're making predictions like this.

Posted by: Ace at 05:44 PM | Comments (36)
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I imagine that there are a lot of upsides to being the unquestioned dictator of your own country. No waiting in line, all your jokes are funny, and you get to hang out with all sorts of terrorists and Hollywood actors.

Unfortunately, one of the downsides is having videogames made where the player is invited to kick the crap out of a lightly fictionalized version of your country.

Sorry! Didn't you get the memo?

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 01:23 PM | Comments (28)
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Dave in Texas purchased this tome of important quotations recently.

It arrived bound in sumptuous ostrich leather, with gilt-edged pages and a silvery ribbon page-marker woven from the softest hairs on Don King's head.

A notable excerpt:

That is not money. That is frozen halibut. They look like that when you freeze em, they fish dammit. Big damn fish.

Indeed!
The words ring as true today as the day he so famously uttered them.

Thanks to skinbad, whose son's nickname translates to "Evil, With Meat" in English.*

*I swear this is true.

Posted by: LauraW. at 11:53 AM | Comments (13)
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...and they say they can prove or disprove their model in the next several years.

They've got their guns set on Einstein.

Scientists at Duke and Rutgers universities have developed a mathematical framework they say will enable astronomers to test a new five-dimensional theory of gravity that competes with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

Charles R. Keeton of Rutgers and Arlie O. Petters of Duke base their work on a recent theory called the type II Randall-Sundrum braneworld gravity model. The theory holds that the visible universe is a membrane (hence "braneworld") embedded within a larger universe, much like a strand of filmy seaweed floating in the ocean. The "braneworld universe" has five dimensions -- four spatial dimensions plus time -- compared with the four dimensions -- three spatial, plus time -- laid out in the General Theory of Relativity.

...

Keeton and Petters focused on one particular gravitational consequence of the braneworld theory that distinguishes it from Einstein's theory.

The braneworld theory predicts that relatively small "black holes" created in the early universe have survived to the present. The black holes, with mass similar to a tiny asteroid, would be part of the "dark matter" in the universe. As the name suggests, dark matter does not emit or reflect light, but does exert a gravitational force.

The General Theory of Relativity, on the other hand, predicts that such primordial black holes no longer exist, as they would have evaporated by now.

"When we estimated how far braneworld black holes might be from Earth, we were surprised to find that the nearest ones would lie well inside Pluto's orbit," Keeton said.

Petters added, "If braneworld black holes form even 1 percent of the dark matter in our part of the galaxy -- a cautious assumption -- there should be several thousand braneworld black holes in our solar system."

...

"If the braneworld theory is correct," they said, "there should be many, many more braneworld black holes throughout the universe, each carrying the signature of a fourth dimension of space."

Nice, I guess, but I'm always looking for someone to propose something that simplifies the conceptual framework of higher physics. This doesn't seem to do so.

What's that fourth dimension physical dimension all about? What's it for? I was hoping the article would say something about it.

Posted by: Ace at 11:50 AM | Comments (119)
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