 things but avoided being charged with crimes.
Dean says he'll support that provision if there's a way to appeal denials.
Who defines 'weird?' Is blogging weird? What if you just look weird? What if the denial appeal process doesn't make it into the law? The People's Republic of Colorado is flirting with the concept of denying someone their constitutional rights although they've been charged with no crime, much less convicted. And potentially denying them the right of appeal. That is a frightening power to hand to a bunch of bureaucrats.
Some might argue, as does the DP, that the proposed CCW legislation is an improvement on the current situation. They may be right:
We have long supported a uniform concealed-carry law because some sheriffs pass permits out like candy, while in other jurisdictions like Denver, no ordinary citizen - even one in grave peril - can get one.
Some folks feel that licensing one's rights from the State is preferable to having no rights at all. This is understandable. But where does this lead?
I hesitate to blog on this for reasons that will become clear, but he who hesitates is a weenie. Via the InstaPundit, Andrea Harris hammers Harry Butt Weasel Browne for his recent WorldNetDaily article: This just in: Bin Laden wins Afghan war.
My problem with Butt Weasel Browne has been that he's discovered he can make a good living being a perpetual political candidate. Raise money. Pocket money. No problem. It's bad enough that some of that money must be spent to raise more. It would be a horrible waste to spend more than a token amount actually running a legitimate campaign. He's going to lose anyway, right?
Of course, when the Butt Weasel does make an appearance it's calculated to create the maximum controversy, as his WorldNetDaily article surely has. I suppose that's the 'no such thing as bad publicity' concept in action. And free publicity is the best kind. In writing this, I'm aware that I'm doing my little bit to keep the Weasel in business. But good god folks, can anybody take him seriously after he's written this?
The root fallacy in the War on Terrorism is the idea that we have no choice but to fight people who won't rest until they destroy us.
I think it was Kathy Kinsley whom I first noticed distinguishing between those 'on their own' and 'still on BlogSpot.' Bill Quick explained his reasoning for the distinction. It makes a lot of sense.
But I still feel so ghettoized.
Wednesday, March 20, 2002- - -
"Archaeology is the imaginative recapture of the past within the hard boundaries of the evidence, the steering between the Scylla of fantasy and the Charybdis of unrelieved fact .." Gordon Willey An Introduction to American Archaeology
Of course, some days you don't so much steer as ping around like a pinball. In the literature, it's truly amazing how a fact most unrelieved can morph into fantasy in the retelling.
I don't think I was nearly as aware of this phenomenon before I became a blogger. Now I've become acutely aware of how difficult it is to give an accurate brief synopsis of someone else's ideas. Many times I've done the 'link, summary, comment' routine only to go back and reread the original article and realize that I hadn't captured its essence and thus, that my comment had in some fashion missed the mark. Usually a little tweaking will fix the problem [I hope. Only you can judge.], but I've occasionally dumped the whole thing rather than post on something I simply didn't have a handle on.
Thanks to this newfound awareness I've become considerably more skeptical of what other writers say that someone else has said. Of course, this makes me even more glad for the blog format that allows one to effortlessly read the original author. While blogging may yet be proven a passing fad, at the least the on-going adoption of links in online publications should bring a more measured and consciously honest discourse to the mainstream media. In some cases, that in itself is revolutionary.
How about that. Cathy Young's Reason Online take down of Nicholas Kristof's guns and terrorism article, which I l