Ok, Ok, This Is The Last Post

Somehow, I didn't correctly read the provisos and quid pro quos associated with the Dreamhost easy install option for WordPress. If I use that option, I'm restricted to a certain set of themes, which defeats my purpose of moving to WordPress in the first place. So I wiped out the blog at http://blog.crosswordbebop.com, and started again with the only slightly more involved advanced install option.

How can you not love a blogging platform where the button to start the migration process from Blogger to WordPress has the title "The Magic Button" on top of it?

I'm also writing this post because http://blog.crosswordbebop.com is no longer the new location of Crossword Bebop. The new location is

http://www.crosswordbebop.com

http://crosswordbebop.com will also work.

Goodbye Blogger, Hello WordPress

It's Chris Pirillo's fault! If he hadn't created the unspeakably cool WicketPixie WordPress theme, I might have muddled through on Blogger for a while longer. But WordPress and WicketPixie, and the future iterations of WicketPixie are worth making a move.

This is hardly a novel observation, but it seems that WordPress is a more powerful platform than Blogger, in that it allows people to create themes that do things with blog elements that they can't do with Blogger.

This is the last post at http://crosswordbebop.blogspot.com. All future posts will be at

http://blog.crosswordbebop.com

There will be quite a few iterations of themes and styles, but the Almost Spring theme seemed nice for a first cut.

Word of the Day - Disquisition

A "disquisition" (dis-kwuh-ZISH-un) - from the Latin for "investigate" - is a formal discourse in which a subject is examined and discussed.

Example (as used by David Gibson in a New York Times review of What the Gospels Meant by Garry Wills): "Garry Wills is not only one of the country's most distinguished intellectuals, but also one of its most provocative... . Add to this his regular disquisitions on the church... and you have a combustible mix that can delight, infuriate, or illuminate, usually all three."

As far as I know, disquisition is a completely neutral word. Unfortunately, it sounds a lot like requisition and inquisition. Requisition is a potentially neutral word, but it could also have connotations of the effort one is going to have to make to get what is being requisitioned. And of course, inquisition which, without context, has a related meaning to disquisition, is an utterly unneutral word.

Steyn/Maclean's Vancouver Show Trial, Day 2

Andrew Coyne is continuing to liveblog the proceedings of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal...

9:40 AM Kurrum Awan back on the stand. [Complainant attorney Faisal] Joseph entering a Sept 2006 Ottawa Citizen poll in evidence, showing that two in five Canadians back racial profiling. Aha, clearly the evil hand of Steyn at work: he’s already influencing public opinion even before the Maclean’s piece appeared!

Whoops - not a poll, just a clipping of a Doug Fisher column. (Doug Fisher!? I thought he’d retired by then?) The panel is solemnly studying it… And studying it…. And studying… Now they’re going to “retire” to consider it. In this case that means actually leaving the room — as often as not they just kind of swivel round in their chairs and put their heads together, like kids sketching out a football play, though I’m willing to guess the other two go along with whatever the chair, alpha-commissioner Heather MacNaughton, says.


After having a conversation with Faisal Joseph at the end of April, Kathy Shaidle pointed out that Joseph was neither the sharpest nor the noblest person around. In a real court, a lawyer claiming that something that happened before the crime was supposedly committed was a consequence of the crime would be bludgeoned repeatedly and with prejudice. But it should be mentioned time and time again that this isn't a real court.

I wrote yesterday that if posts at other blogs, or comments at posts at other blogs are admissible as evidence, then they should just declare Steyn and Maclean's guilty now and not bother with all that legal manoevering. Faisal Joseph is now presenting that case...

11:45 AM The hearing now turns to readings from various blogs I’ve never heard of: The Brussels Journal, some Catholic blog and… oh, the late Western Standard! Not obscure, just obsolete! (The mag, I mean — the website is still in business.) The Western Standard reference: a blog post by Ezra Levant, the defunct magazine’s former publisher, dated Dec. 2 2007. This is slightly surreal: he’s sitting in front of me as I write this, laptop in hand, writing about being spoken about with reference to something he’d written about … this case. This is getting so meta I’m losing track…

McConchie on his feet. Leafing through some of the other bloggers in the complainant’s file; ConradUSA, Holographic, Templar… I think they left out the Raelians and the guy outside the liquor store who swears he invented Silly Putty, by I’m not sure.

The Catholic blog is run off a server based somewhere in California. McConchie suggesting, not unreasonably, “who knows whether anybody in Canada read any of this?” What relevance is there to present proceedings in what somebody in America says — “under American laws with regard to freedom of speech,” he adds pointedly — even if it’s about a Maclean’s article — which would of course be the internet version, which the tribunal had ruled it had no jurisdiction over.

Now to the Brussels Journal, based in, why yes, Brussels. Not Brussels, New Brunswick, but Brussels, Belgium. Does the tribunal’s jurisdiction extend to Belgium, he asks? In my humble submission, it does not.


After lunch, the tribunal ruled on whether to admit the blogs as evidence...

1:42 PM … And we’re back. The tribunal has decided to admit the blogs. The whole wide internet is their domain! They can’t hear complaints about blog posts, but they can take them into consideration in assessing questions of “impact.” Ezra [Levant] is ecstatic.


As I said earlier, it is now a mathematical certainty that Steyn and Maclean's will be found guilty.

I won't copy the entire conversation, but Maclean's lawyer Julian Porter sliced, diced, and made Julienne fries out of sock puppet Kurrum (Khurrum?) Awan's credibility in the afternoon session. But it is all irrelevant.

The complainants had great hope that the testimony of Andrew Rippin (his name was misspelled in Coyne's post from Monday), a Canadian scholar who studies Islam, would show Steyn's article to be full of errors and inaccuracies regarding Islam. If that was the point, it didn't happen by the end of the day on Tuesday. Other bloggers have mocked Andrew Rippin for his voluminous facial hair, but I grasp that he answered the questions honestly to the best of his (extensive) knowledge of Islam, and was thus not useful to the complainants.

I'm amazed that Andrew Coyne is maintaining his composure. If this was a trial in a real court, it would be a total wipeout, with the lawyers from Maclean's vacuuming the floor of what was left of Faisal Joseph and Kurrum Aram. But it must be said over and over, this is not a real court.

Playlist of the Day - James Bond 007 Songs

It was very nice that someone on imeem had gone to the trouble of constructing a James Bond music playlist

Word of the Day - Maelstrom

A "maelstrom" (MAYL-strum) - from the Dutch for "to whirl round" - is a powerful or destructive whirlpool.

Example (as used by Farley Mowat in The Farfarers): "The murk became thicker as Zachareesi fishtailed his canoe through a swirling maelstrom of currents pouring past, and over, unseen rocks."

I'm using maelstrom as a word because there aren't very many words that have "ael" in them, and I find that fun to look at. I'm also using maelstrom as a word because somehow I had maelstrom in my mental filing system as just a powerful or destructive storm, without the whirlpool aspect. Finally, I'm using maelstrom because it got my attention when the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 used that word instead of the word whirlpool.

Steyn/Maclean's Vancouver Show Trial, Day 1

Andrew Coyne is live-blogging the proceedings of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in Vancouver, British Columbia. I read Andrew's two posts, and did a good bit of rapid-fire Tweeting yesterday.

Here are some of the more pertinant entries from Andrew's Blackberry-tortured thumbs...

10:16 AM
They’re [the complainants] going to call, among others, Dr. Andrew Rippin [my link], professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Victoria, to show that Steyn has misunderstood the relationship between the Koran and Islamic society. Well, that’s as may be. Would be a good subject for debate. But why exactly does that require the state to adjudicate it?

Okay, I could probably make that point after every line. Not saying I won’t…


He made that point after some other lines as well...

10:57 AM
Just coming back from a break. Lots of media interest, it seems: CBC, CTV (I’m told), the National Post, local media, and a guy from the New York Times, who’s doing a piece comparing how the two countries’ legal systems deal with speech cases. Needless to say, he can’t believe what he’s witnessing…


I'm not exactly sure how I should feel about that. Should I be mad at the NYT reporter for being unaware of Canada's Human Rights apparatus, or should I be pleased that the NYT reporter has realized that a Canadian journalist is on trial for something that the NYT reporter does on a regular basis, that is, write articles? Should I be pleased that the NYT reporter has realized that a Canadian news publication is on trial for doing something the New York Times does every day, that is, publish articles?

11:04 AM
Under Section 7.1, he [Roger McConchie, lawyer for Maclean's] continues, innocent intent is not a defence, nor is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith or responsible journalism.

Or in other words, there is no defence.


So Section 7.1 of the British Columbia Human Rights Code is like unto Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Code - a Catch-22, a law where being accused of violating it is proof positive of the violation.

1:36 PM
The chair is reading their “ruling” on the admissibility of Prof. John Miller’s testimony—though on what basis they propose to decide is a mystery, since THERE ARE NO RULES OF EVIDENCE. They more or less have to make it up as they go along.

Anyway, they are ruling it inadmissible, because it’s irrelevant. Or is it irrelevant because it’s inadmissible?


That's another reason why the entire human rights apparatus needs to be dismantled. Judges don't get to make up rules of evidence as they go along, but human rights tribunal members do. Nice work if you can get it.

2:23 PM
Awan [one of the three sock puppets] debated going to press councils, or pressing charges under the criminal code, but decided against. He looked at human rights legislation across the country. Differences: Ontario says you can’t post a “notice, sign or symbol” that would be discriminatory—newspapers and magazines, it would seem, are not covered (as indeed the Ontario Human Rights Commission recently ruled). But hey, worth a shot. Plus BC had more open-ended legislation. So throw it in the mix as well. So: They weren’t trying to “damage” Maclean’s by filing in multiple jurisdictions. No no no. They were just jurisdiction-shopping.


So they admitted they went venue-shopping. This is part of a larger issue of libel tourism.

3:50 PM
Back from a break, as the tribunal members wrestle with yet another ruling on admissibility in the absence of rules of evidence. They’ve decided again to sort-of admit questioning about the “impact,” not of Steyn’s article, but of various, mostly obscure blogs who were allegedly “inspired” by Steyn’s piece. Understand: we’re now to be subjected to the state’s inquisition, not for anything that appeared in the magazine, but for whatever lunatic ramblings might appear anywhere in the blogosphere!


The fix is in. This part of the game is over. If someone else's comment on a blog post, let alone someone else's blog post, can be admitted as evidence that Steyn and Maclean's exposed Muslims to hatred, then they might as well save a bunch of time and energy and declare Steyn and Maclean's guilty now. Which actually might not be such a bad thing, as Coyne points out at the beginning of the proceedings...

Maclean’s legal team is out in force, a phalanx of half a dozen suits. The opposing counsel, by contrast, is one suit and two or three badly-dressed juniors. If I didn’t know the stakes, I’d be rooting for them. Actually I am rooting for them, in a strange sort of way. Don’t tell my employers, but I’m sort of hoping we lose this case. If we win—that is, if the tribunal finds we did not, by publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, expose Muslims to hatred and contempt, or whatever the legalese is—then the whole clanking business rolls on, the stronger for having shown how “reasonable” it can be. Whereas if we lose, and fight on appeal, and challenge the whole legal basis for these inquisitions, then something important will be achieved.

Sunday New York Times Crossword - Spy Glass

This puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski, contains a martini, shaken, not stirred, as well as a number of actors who consumed that drink as James Bond.

Sean Connery played Bond in Dr. No (1962), Goldfinger (1964), From Russia, With Love (1964), Thunderball (1965), and You Only Live Twice (1967), and Diamonds are Forever (1971).

George Lazenby only played Bond one time, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969.

Roger Moore holds the record for the longest time playing Bond, from 1973 to 1985, in Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), and A View to a Kill (1985).

Timothy Dalton played Bond in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).

Pierce Brosnan played Bond in GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002).

Daniel Craig played Bond in Casino Royale (2006).

I'm delighted that Elizabeth C. Gorski put Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, in the puzzle. There was a crossword puzzle a while back with a clue "literary preceder of 'Goldfinger,'" for Dr. No, which inspired me to write a post with a list of Ian Fleming's James Bond books.

Sean Connery will always be James Bond for me, as my father took me to a drive-in movie in Otterbein, Indiana in his sporty Triumph TR3 to see Goldfinger in 1964. While Daniel Craig seems to be a decent James Bond, and the reboot of the franchise seems to be a pretty good idea, it still wasn't enough to get me to a movie.

I have a beef with Hollywood for its moral idiocy of not recognizing the difference between free, civilized Israel and its violent, uncivilized enemies. I have a beef with Hollywood for its belief that America is the problem in the world. I have a beef with Hollywood for its belief that Christianity is the problem with America.

When Hollywood cares more about the 100,000,000 people killed by Communism in the 20th Century, than it does about the Hollywood 10 who were blacklisted in the 1950's, I'll think about going to movies again.

If Engage Minnesota Has A Managing Editor, Then I Want A Managing Editor

I have a Google Alert for the phrase "Flying Imams," and two days ago, this post at a group blog called Engage Minnesota appeared on my screen.

I did what I usually do, which is to leave a comment saying how I found the post, and invite people to look at what I've recently written about the Flying Imams. I just discovered that my comment has been taken down. In itself, that's not a big deal. It's not newsworthy that Engage Minnesota has a number of contributors.

I found it interesting that Engage Minnesota has a Managing Editor, a gentleman by the name of Dan Barnard. I was immediately seized with envy, because if Engage Minnesota had a Managing Editor, then I wanted one too! Power Line doesn't have a Managing Editor, The Kool Aid Report doesn't have a Managing Editor. How have they gotten along all this time without one?!?

Apparently being the Managing Editor of Engage Minnesota is a non-paying position, as Dan Barnard lists his day job at LinkedIn as the Coordinator of Yar's Campaign to End Child Abduction.

Here's the charter for Engage Minnesota...

On a daily basis, Muslims are in the media. This news—in part because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the aftermath of 9/11—has been overwhelmingly negative. Opinion columns have been worse still, sometimes veering into hate speech.

Minnesota Muslims are finding themselves voiceless, discussed, defined, categorized, psychoanalyzed, talked at and talked about without a serious attempt at inclusion.

Muslims, and friends of Muslims, would like to change this climate. We do not seek censorship of any voice. We recognize and embrace the freedom of speech. Yet we also recognize that free speech exists to allow the voiceless and weak to speak to those in power. In the current situation, speech is one-sided. Regular verbal attacks are launched without the possibility of a regular, pro-active response.

We have begun a project called Engage Minnesota. Our goal is, broadly, to give voice to a community that is being attacked and defined from a position of ignorance. Engage Minnesota will work, specifically, to create new opportunities to provide regular opinions in local media outlets. This will benefit all Minnesotans as it will expand our understanding of a large portion of our world, and will create a real dialogue instead of a one-way stream.


I grasp that this is just a kinder, gentler, cuddlier version of the CAIR "Muslims are a vigorously persecuted minority" narrative. The very first paragraph plays the hate speech card. The second paragraph plays the victim card. I wrote earlier that, in itself, my comment being taken down isn't a big deal. But in the context of Engage Minnesota advertising itself as a blog promoting dialogue and engagement, it is a big deal, because it shows that all the lofty talk about dialogue and engagement is just empty words.

Engage Minnesota has been in business since September of 2007. It seems to have some kind of partnership with Twin Cities Daily Planet, as my Google alert brought up the same text at both Engage Minnesota and Daily Planet. Technorati showed 10 blog reactions to Engage Minnesota, with Engage Minnesota being on the blogrolls of two blogs, one of which was a blog of one of the contributors. Engage Minnesota isn't showing how many people have visited, so I can't really say one way or another.

Will Engage Minnesota succeed in its mission? I suppose we'll find out soon enough.