It's been a quiet day here at Salonblogs, and a Tour of Quality would be tough to put together when only a half-dozen people, give or take, have updated their pages. Of those, there are some good ones, so click around. I notice more people are considering commenting with Haloscan but those of you who haven't yet done so are in the lurch, as the site now informs the visitor that new memberships are closed until further notice. Like that TV commercial where the people set up a Webpage and suddenly get deluged with hits, Haloscan wasn't prepared for the intense demand for the product and is re-gearing to accomodate the "hundreds" of signups pouring in daily.

M.A.D.B.

Every day, across this great country, thousands of Webloggers sit down at their keyboards and blog drunk. The carnage is appalling, with typos, mispunctuated sentences, errors of fact, maudlin ramblings, and ill-advised attacks on other Webloggers rampant.

Mothers Against Drunk Blogging urge you to do whatever it takes to stop a friend or loved one from posting while inebriated—take the keyboard, steal the powerstrip, because friends don't let friends blog drunk. Know the warning signs:

• Typing in all-caps.
  
• Linking to articles on WIRED or Slashdot.
  
• Beer cans and bottles strewn around the monitor.
  
• Excessive notes to self.
  
• Blogger found passed out in chair in front of computer.
  

Deserted by the Herd

Although we generally avoid heavy politics here, knowing that you get enough of that elsewhere, we want to note that Trent Lott has been under continuous fire today, with Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma leading the charge to have him ousted as Republican majority leader. Just as a herd of cattle isolate and desert a dying or diseased member of the group, so too, influential senators and even the White House have been ominously silent while Lott desperately clutches at whatever chance he thinks might still offer him a lease on political life. You almost feel sorry for him.

Not unlike the way a fattened razorback pig making a mad dash for freedom turns the corner and sees a butcher in a bloody smock standing with a dripping cleaver at the end of the killing chute, Lott must have felt his heart stop beating when Bush refused to offer even a token gesture of support when asked if he would support Lott's attempt to remain party leader.

As Lott moves through the corridors of Washingtonian power, you can almost hear the whispers behind his back, "Dead man walking!" And he shambles along, reminding you of an antediluvian reptile with a nervous system so primative that even slain, doesn't know it is dead yet.

9:59:51 PM       

Today's morning lineup is all about second looks at justice, including social, legal, and international law. It's nice when everything fits like that. Too bad the issues themselves remain devilishly complex. Here's what we looked at:

Diverse, but Separate

You'd think by now that colleges and universities would have managed to figure out where they're going with race, admissions, the whole multicultural mishmash. They not only haven't, they're just making things worse—seriously worse according to a refreshingly readable report by the New York Civil Rights Coalition, an organization with a solid reputation for supporting social justice.

 Ethnicity-themed dorms, multicultural offices and centers, minority-specific orientation programs, and courses and departments with a politically correct slant are "apartheid policies" that do nothing more than encourage separatist thinking among minority students, the survey of 50 public and private colleges and universities shows.

Clearly, psychologist Kenneth Clarks's early studies of racial segregation are confirmed by the climate fostered in academia today—that is, racial segregation harms both the majority and minority student, especially and particularly when it is supported and reinforced by college officials.

Their own literature reveals that these colleges accentuate racial differences among students. An Amherst pamphlet quotes a Latino male explaining how he has found his blood-roots at Amherst: "For me, there is more consciousness of my background as a Latino male. Before I came to Amherst, I wasn't thinking about race or class or gender or sexual orientation, I was just thinking about people wanting to learn." The student then explains how he's come to realize such distinctions, labeling them "a real awakening."

We're Watching This Like a Haw... Er, Raven

A Washington Times editorial weighs in on the Australian libel suit against Dow Jones filed by Joseph Gutnick.

The legal remedy is immunity. A priority for the upcoming congressional session is legislation immunizing American publishers and journalists from this spurious litigation. Now is the time to assert the primacy of our First Amendment and its protections, before the leveling hammers of globalism crush it.

The Evil Kindergartners

During my morning scans, I've been seeing this story about the 33 Philadelphia kindergartners who've been suspended this year for various reasons. I'd been skipping it because I figured it was the usual stuff, like "Johnny drew a picture of a healthy family" or some similar crime. Then I'd get all outraged and mope around. Turns out these little bastards truly deserved some lengthy Time Out:

The district's reports indicate that the suspended kindergartners included a student who stabbed a classmate with a pencil, another who punched a teacher who was seven and a half months pregnant in the stomach and a boy who exposed his genitals to classmates. One girl bit her teacher's hand and kicked her; the girl's parents had been called in for a conference after the girl had previously assaulted the same teacher.

Crypto Query

The London Times has this fairly simplistic Five-Minute Briefing this morning on encrypting your e-mail. (I noticed that they have some links to encryption software and found a program called Cone of Silence for the Mac that defeats key-stroke logging programs.)

What's interesting about this is that the British government is taking the lead and urging their citizenry and businesses to start looking into bolstering their e-mail security. How about the U.S. government? You kinda get the idea they'd rather we didn't.

Some Good Moves

The City of Oakland, Calif., is expected to become the 19th (as well as largest) city in America tomorrow to formally "condemn the USA Patriot Act." Oakland would thus join Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Denver, Santa Fe, and other cities in rejecting Ashcroft's vision of a safe, secure Police State:

The resolution says that, "to the extent legally possible," no city employee or department will assist or cooperate "with investigations, interrogations or arrest procedures...that are in violation of individuals' civil rights or civil liberties."

Seize the Day

And oil company assets, too. So seems to be the thinking of Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe who behaves like a dumb thug. This is the same clown who authorized the seizure of all white-owned farms for use by his cronies as country villas, leading to mass starvation and misery for everyone else. This worked so well, he's decided he can grab any foreign national assets he wants.

"Mugabe's thinking is that taps make water," a Western diplomat said. "If he goes ahead (with the takeover of multinational service stations), the country will dry up far quicker than it is doing already."

11:55:15 AM