A comment leads me to repost Dane-Geld, a Kipling poem that I put up a few years ago. Today the Danes are the good guys rather than, as in the poem, the bad guys, and of course the fear isn't of nations but of extremist religious groups. But the principle is the same: When you give in to threats of violence, this just emboldens the threateners to demand more. What happens when someone wants to do a movie of Mohammed's life? Or says harsh things about Islam that some extremist Muslims find offensive or even blasphemous? Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated.

In any case, here's the poem; it actually isn't one of Kipling's best from the standpoint of craft — his historical poems generally aren't, I think — but it's still pretty good:

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night — we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"

More from FIRE on the NYU event:

1. "[T]he students were allowed to admit only 75 of the approximately 150 off-campus guests who had registered. Stephan Walker, the vice president of the Objectivist Club, confirmed to FIRE that even several members of the media had to be turned away."

2. "Later, Lukianoff and a blogger both observed a student being forced to remove a shirt depicting one of the cartoons."

3. "Finally, following through on plans divulged in an e-mail in FIRE’s possession, members of the Bengali Student Association apparently obtained and then ripped up many of the student tickets for the event. Walker has a bag of these torn-up tickets."

4. "As an NYU spokesman told Inside Higher Ed, the university’s objection to the cartoons is based on the fact that 'an important group in our Muslim community made it clear that they found the display of the cartoons deeply offensive.'"

5. "The spokesman also told the New York Sun that 'it wasn't necessary to show the cartoons to discuss them.' ... [T]he spokesman said the following to NYU’s student paper: 'Realistically, one can have a discussion on smallpox without actually handing out the the live virus to the audience.' [But] making decisions about what is too offensive to be shown to people is none of NYU’s business -- and infecting people with smallpox is not the same as showing them a cartoon[.]"

As readers may recall, a student group at NYU wanted to put on an event that displayed and discussed the Mohammed cartoons. NYU insisted that the group either close the event to all non-NYU visitors, or not display the cartoons (the course that the group ultimately chose).

I called NYU to ask them for their take on the cartoon controversy, in particular with regard to their Guidelines Regarding Protest and Dissent, which say (emphasis added): "A. Commitment and Responsibilities of the University. New York University is committed to maintaining an environment where open, vigorous debate and speech can occur. This commitment entails encouraging and assisting University organizations that want to sponsor speakers as well as informing members of the University community who seek guidance concerning forms of protest against speakers. It may also involve paying for extraordinary security measures in connection with a controversial speaker. Consistent with these obligations, the University promulgates these Guidelines, which are intended to be applied without regard to the content of any proposed speaker’s speech."

The policy also goes on to recognize that NYU groups are entitled to invite people from outside NYU, so long as "the sponsoring organization ... provide[s] that at least a majority of the seats be available to the University community or portion thereof, as the case may be."

NYU transferred me to James Devitt at the press office, who kindly discussed the matter with me. Here were his responses, with quotes noting his literal words (emphasis mine).

(1) "NYU has to be concerned with its students' safety and well-being, which are among the factors that drove our decision in this matter."

(2) The decision was also based partly on NYU's "larger obligation as a university to the sensibilities of its students," many of whom are offended by the cartoons.

(3) As to the policy, "No-one's speech was curtailed." "If you read the policy, it talks about speakers' speech being curtailed, and to the best of my knowledge none of the speakers were the cartoons' authors."

This strikes me as a troubling position. First, despite its ostensible commitment to public debate, even when this requires extra security protection, the NYU opted to curtail debate. Second, NYU acknowledges that it was partly motivated by concern about other students' "sensibilities" -- a very troubling reason for a university to restrict student expression, especially expression as important and newsworthy as this (these are, as FIRE has pointed out, likely the most newsworthy cartoons in history).

Third, NYU's assertion that the protections offered student speech are limited to speech that the students literally "author[ed]" is especially troubling. Under this logic, NYU's blocking distribution of the Quran or the Bible wouldn't "curtail" anyone's "speech," since of course the distributors are quite unlikely to be the Quran's or Bible's authors (or even authors of the particular translation). Likewise if NYU wanted to stop students from waving flags that they didn't personally design, from reading excerpts of important political works, or for that matter from distributing copies of the First Amendment. Such a reading would dramatically cut back on the speech protections that NYU has promised to its students. I hope that NYU faculty and others with influence at NYU are paying close attention to this controversy, and pressing the administration to mend its ways.

Keith Burgess-Jackson runs a site that's strongly critical of Texas law professor Brian Leiter. That site used to be http://brianleiter.powerblogs.com, but powerblogs has moved it to http://academicthug.powerblogs.com following this letter from Brian Leiter:

Dear Mr. Landsown [sic]:

I am writing to put you and your company, American Powerblogs Inc., on notice that a user of your service, Powerblogs, has engaged in tortious misappropriation of my name in order to advertise and draw attention to his web site. Keith Burgess-Jackson, who runs the site in question (www.brianleiter.powerblogs.com), has not received my permission to register my name, or any variation of my name, or to otherwise utilize my name, or any variation of my name, in order to promote or otherwise identify his site. Please close down that particular URL immediately. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Very truly yours, Brian Leiter Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Law & Philosophy Program The University of Texas at Austin ...

Here's my question for those who know tort law, and especially Texas tort law: Is Prof. Leiter's legal claim at all sound? My sense is that it is not:

(1) There's no right of publicity claim, I think, both because the site doesn't make any money and is thus not commercial, and because it's opinion writing rather than advertising or merchandising.

(2) There's no right of privacy claim (at least in the disclosure of private facts sense), because no embarrassing private information is being disclosed.

(3) One could argue a "false light" invasion of privacy theory, claiming that the use of Leiter's name would suggest to some readers that he is the one posting to the site, but I strongly doubt readers would draw such an inference, given the site's obvious content.

Am I mistaken? Are there some special Texas doctrines that cut in Prof. Leiter's favor? Please post only if you are knowledgeable about tort law; I'm curious what the legal rules are, not what they in theory ought to be. (The ethics of the situation, as opposed to the law of it, are also a separate matter that I leave aside for this post.)

From the NYU Students' Guide, Guidelines Regarding Protest and Dissent (p. 208, PDF page 116) (emphasis added):

A. Commitment and Responsibilities of the University. New York University is committed to maintaining an environment where open, vigorous debate and speech can occur. This commitment entails encouraging and assisting University organizations that want to sponsor speakers as well as informing members of the University community who seek guidance concerning forms of protest against speakers. It may also involve paying for extraordinary security measures in connection with a controversial speaker. Consistent with these obligations, the University promulgates these Guidelines, which are intended to be applied without regard to the content of any proposed speaker’s speech.

The policy also goes on to recognize that NYU groups are entitled to invite people from outside NYU, so long as "the sponsoring organization ... provide[s] that at least a majority of the seats be available to the University community or portion thereof, as the case may be."

This incident is a pretty sad commentary on the values of the NYU administration, it seems to me.

For a report on the event, see Right Wing Reason.

Here's a tort law / constitutional law question, by the way, though please answer it only if you are a lawyer or legal researcher who is knowledgeable enough in the doctrine -- I'm not looking for abstract generalities, but concrete arguments based on current American legal rules:

Say that Borders or NYU decides to distribute the cartoons, or allow a meeting that displays the cartoons; and say that thugs respond with violence, which injures a patron or a student. (I set aside for the sake of simplicity injuries to employees, since, to my knowledge, damages claims against employers over such incidents would generally be governed by worker's compensation plans rather than tort law.)

Should Borders and NYU be held liable based on the theory that they negligently failed to employ extra security to protect against? Or should they have a First Amendment defense, because the tort theory underlying that lawsuit essentially imposes a tax on those who distribute highly controversial speech? Cf., for whatever it's worth, Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992) (emphasis added), which struck down a policy under which parade organizers had to pay a permit fee (of up to $1000) based in part on the expected policing costs that stemmed from how controversial the parade would be:

The county envisions that the administrator, in appropriate instances, will assess a fee to cover "the cost of necessary and reasonable protection of persons participating in or observing said . . . activit[y]." In order to assess accurately the cost of security for parade participants, the administrator "'must necessarily examine the content of the message that is conveyed,'" estimate the response of others to that content, and judge the number of police necessary to meet that response. The fee assessed will depend on the administrator's measure of the amount of hostility likely to be created by the speech based on its content. Those wishing to express views unpopular with bottle throwers, for example, may have to pay more for their permit.

Although petitioner agrees that the cost of policing relates to content, contends that the ordinance is content neutral because it is aimed only at a secondary effect -- the cost of maintaining public order. It is clear, however, that, in this case, it cannot be said that the fee's justification "'ha[s] nothing to do with content.'"

The costs to which petitioner refers are those associated with the public's reaction to the speech. Listeners' reaction to speech is not a content-neutral basis for regulation. Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob.

The AP reports:

Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

The magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism in suburban Amherst, includes four of the drawings that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse....

I have some sympathy for Borders here. It seems to me that leading bookstores, like leading universities, need to take some risks -- and, yes, even risks that involve potential risks to customers and employees -- in order to protect the marketplace of ideas that sustains them. Nonetheless, I can certainly see why Borders might worry about this risk.

The real point here, though, is that speech suppression caused by the threat of extremist Muslim violence has come to the U.S. We are all Danes now. What is the West, and what are we, going to do about it?

The Boston Herald reports:

“It’s inaccurate and deceptive of [Justice Scalia] to say there was no vulgarity in the moment,” said Peter Smith, the Boston University assistant photojournalism professor who [photographed Justice Scalia's gesture]....

Smith said the jurist “immediately knew he’d made a mistake, and said, ‘You’re not going to print that, are you?’” ...

Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.

“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.

The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.”

Yesterday, Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet agreed with Smith’s account, but said she did not hear Scalia utter the obscenity.

In his letter, Scalia denied his gesture was obscene and claimed he explained its meaning to Sweet, a point both she and Smith dispute.

Scalia went on to cite Luigi Barzini’s book, “The Italians,” which describes a seemingly different gesture -- “the extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chin” -- and its meaning -- “‘I couldn’t care less. It’s no business of mine. Count me out.’” ...

The gesture typically means “I don’t know” in Portugal, “No!” in Naples, “You are lying” in Greece and “I don’t give a damn” in northern Italy, France and Tunisia, said David B. Givens of the Center for Nonverbal Studies ....

A few loose thoughts, in response to the recent posts about this:

1. Most students, especially undergraduates -- even most smart and politically engaged ones -- generally know a little of the thinking in their own political camp, and less in the opposite camp. A few know a decent amount of the thinking in their own political camp, and a small amount in the opposite camp. All of them would therefore most benefit intellectually (all else being equal) from going to a place where they can hear important views from both sides, both formally in class and informally in interactions with classmates.

2. Entering undergraduates and law students should thus seek a place that is not only respectful of conservatives and libertarians, but (a) has a real mix of opinion among professors and students, and (b) has an intellectual and social climate that makes students and professors willing to speak out whether they are liberal, conservative, or libertarian. I suppose this puts me closest to Ilya, though I doubt that David or Orin would disagree with Ilya and me much on this.

3. I'm not sure about this, but I suspect that when people are entering a Ph.D. program, the matter is quite different. Here their work is likely to be much more closely and aggressively evaluated; and while in undergrad and law school you can just, if necessary, give the professor what he wants on the exam, doing that with your Ph.D. work is much more burdensome. I suspect that you would therefore want to go to a program where many on the faculty really respect the school of thought to which you belong (in the sense of thinking that it has a great deal of merit, even if they don't agree with many of its bottom-line conclusions), where some actually adhere to this school of thought, and where some strongly disagree with it and can thus help you improve your arguments.

Max Sawicky e-mailed me asking me to post about alleged FBI malfeasance. Here's the post he pointed me to:

FBI AS GESTAPO: OPPRESSING THE KURDS OF HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA

The following is something that has not hit the media at all, other than a story in the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record that simply repeated FBI propaganda about this awful case. Harrisonburg, Virginia happens to have one of the largest enclaves of Iraqi Kurdish population in the US. They all came in the late 1990s to flee from Saddam Hussein's regime after working for pro-US NGOs and having their lives threatened. They applauded at the fall of Saddam.

However, four of them have been arrested for transferring funds to their families and charitable organizations in Iraqi Kurdistan without a license, a felony offense under the Patriot Act and the act to keep Cubans from sending money to their relatives in Cuba. One has been convicted in a trial in which most of the evidence was not allowed and in which the FBI suggested that the defendant was a terrorist. These people were cowed into not talking to the media, and now they are all in deep trouble. Their homes have been raided, their money seized, even things like medical insurance cards (with one wife pregnant), applications for citizenship are off, they are facing deportation, and so on. They were assigned a Croatian translator for the court. There is a serious string of outrages associated with this with no coverage by any serious media. The FBI agent in charge even told them, "I know you are not the bad guys, but too much paperwork has gone forward on this."

If you are interested in helping these people out, the following are contacts....

InstaPundit likewise links to this, noting "MAX SAWICKY says that the FBI is oppressing the Kurds in Virginia. Sounds like this could use some more scrutiny." [UPDATE: I should note that the post is from the MaxSpeak site, but was written by Max Sawicky's coblogger Barkley Rosser.]

It's certainly quite possible that the FBI is misbehaving. But the question is whether this is in fact so; and the post gives me very little to go on here. It gives a few facts, and no links to original sources or press accounts. It does give lots of opinion — but the opinion is expressed in such an overwrought way, starting with the "Gestapo," that it makes me wonder how much other embellishment there may be in the factual discussion (or how many important facts are omitted).

Sometimes you decide that your enemies are Nazi-like because you know they've done some very bad things. But sometimes your judgment that your enemies have done some very bad things is colored by your assumption that your enemies are Nazi-like. And often there's a complicated positive feedback loop: You see them doing something that looks bad, you get outraged, and your initial outrage clouds your further judgment about the other facts you learn.

Now if I knew the poster well personally, and knew him to be trustworthy — or had lots of experience of his trustworthiness from his past posts — I might trust his judgment even without much factual details. If I knew that he was almost always calm and understated, then his calling someone the "Gestapo" would actually be an important signal that there really was something very bad likely happening.

But if someone doesn't have such preexisting credibility with me, then his using rhetoric about the "Gestapo" only makes his factual characterizations less credible in my eyes rather than more. And I would expect the same would be true of many other readers, including many who read this site and who might follow its links to other sites.

So the best way to make a case — a case which may well be very justified and important, if it is indeed factually sound — that someone is misbehaving is to give (1) lots of factual details (what exactly is the law involved? does it really ban the mailing of any money to anyone in Iraq? what evidence wasn't allowed and why? what was the FBI's basis for suggesting that the defendant was a terrorist?), (2) as many supporting documents as possible, (3) as many links to presumptively neutral sources as possible, while (4) avoiding even slight rhetorical exaggerations that might cast doubt on the precision of the other material. Maybe I'm mistaken on this; but it seems to me to be much more effective for the author's cause, and much more valuable for readers' enlightenment.

FYI
PRESS ADVISORY
AYN RAND INSTITUTE
2121 Alton Parkway, Suite 250, Irvine, CA 92606

TONIGHT’S NYU FREE SPEECH EVENT IS OPEN TO THE PRESS
In order to allow entry to non-NYU guests, the student organization sponsoring this event has been forced by NYU administrators to NOT display the Danish cartoons. The panel discussion on free speech will nevertheless proceed as planned.

Pretty sad.

Canonist reports, apropos NYU's closing of the Mohammed cartoons event to off-campus visitors:

UPDATE: A notice just went out over the AP that the event tonight is closed to the press. I called FIRE to ask what happened, and they said that NYU was closing the event to anyone who didn’t register before noon yesterday. That is essentially shutting out the press, as in all likelihood few even heard of the event until yesterday afternoon. As anyone covering the City knows, even an appearance by Bill Clinton requires a pre-registration of at most a few hours.

UPDATE: Just to be clear, the only error that I suggested the AP made is the one noted below: The AP story said that, despite Scalia's allegation that the Herald had called him an "Italian jurist," "The Herald had referred to him as an 'Italian-American jurist.'" In fact, an online version of the article did refer to him as an "Italian jurist."

The AP writes about Justice Scalia's response to the Boston Herald story:

Scalia said in the letter, written to Executive Editor Kenneth Chandler, that the reporter leapt to conclusions that it was offensive because he initially explained his gesture by saying, 'That's Sicilian.'"

"From watching too many episodes of the Sopranos, your staff seems to have acquired the belief that any Sicilian gesture is obscene -- especially when made by an 'Italian jurist.' (I am, by the way, an American jurist.)," he wrote.

The Herald had referred to him as an "Italian-American jurist."

Funny that Justice Scalia would have misquoted the Herald story that he was criticizing that way, no? Except that here's a quote of the Herald story from the Boston Herald Web site:

“That’s Sicilian,” the Italian jurist said, interpreting for the “Sopranos” challenged.

The NEXIS version of the story says "Italian-American," and perhaps the print version said the same. But it seems wrong to implicitly fault Justice Scalia for misquoting the story when he quoted one version (quite likely the most easily accessible one) correctly. ("The Herald had referred to him as an 'Italian-American jurist,'" in context, seems like an assertion that it had referred to him as that rather than as what Scalia quoted -- an assertion that proves to be incorrect.)

UPI originally reported that "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics." It then revised the story to say that "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by making a hand gesture some consider obscene." Other media outlets may have done the same; UPI is just the first that I had found. I had originally heard the "flipping a middle finger" story myself.

Here's Justice Scalia's reply, which I think is a fun read as well as an important correction (thanks to How Appealing for the pointer):

To the Editor:

It has come to my attention that your newspaper published a story on Monday stating that I made an obscene gesture — inside Holy Cross Cathedral, no less. The story is false, and I ask that you publish this letter in full to set the record straight.

Your reporter, an up-and-coming “gotcha” star named Laurel J. Sweet, asked me (o-so-sweetly) what I said to those people who objected to my taking part in such public religious ceremonies as the Red Mass I had just attended. I responded, jocularly, with a gesture that consisted of fanning the fingers of my right hand under my chin. Seeing that she did not understand, I said “That’s Sicilian,” and explained its meaning — which was that I could not care less.

That this is in fact the import of the gesture was nicely explained and exemplified in a book that was very popular some years ago, Luigi Barzini’s The Italians:

“The extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chin means: ‘I couldn’t care less. It’s no business of mine. Count me out.’ This is the gesture made in 1860 by the grandfather of Signor O.O. of Messina as an answer to Garibaldi. The general, who had conquered Sicily with his volunteers and was moving on to the mainland, had seen him, a robust youth at the time, dozing on a little stone wall, in the shadow of a carob tree, along a country lane. He reined in his horse and asked him: ‘Young man, will you not join us in our fight to free our brothers in Southern Italy from the bloody tyranny of the Bourbon kings? How can you sleep when your country needs you? Awake and to arms!’ The young man silently made the gesture. Garibaldi spurred his horse on.” (Page 63.)

How could your reporter leap to the conclusion (contrary to my explanation) that the gesture was obscene? Alas, the explanation is evident in the following line from her article: “‘That’s Sicilian,’ the Italian jurist said, interpreting for the ‘Sopranos’ challenged.” From watching too many episodes of the Sopranos, your staff seems to have acquired the belief that any Sicilian gesture is obscene — especially when made by an “Italian jurist.” (I am, by the way, an American jurist.)

Sincerely,

Antonin Scalia

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group whose accounts I have generally found quite accurate, reports (see here for the version with links):

In violation of its own policies, New York University (NYU) is refusing to allow a student group to show the Danish cartoons of Mohammed at a public event tonight. Even though the purpose of the event is to show and discuss the cartoons, an administrator has suddenly ordered the students either not to display them or to exclude 150 off-campus guests from attending....

Earlier this month, the NYU Objectivist Club decided to hold a panel discussion entitled “Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons,” at which the cartoons will be displayed.... Like previous NYU Objectivist Club events, the discussion was to be open to the public.

However, on Monday afternoon, NYU Director of Student Activities Robert Butler sent an e-mail requesting a meeting with the leaders of the Objectivist Club the next day. He also informed them that NYU would now “require that this event be open only to members of the NYU community.” Butler cited “the campus climate and controversy surrounding the cartoons,” ordering the students to inform the “non-NYU people” who had already registered that they “should not plan on attending.” He concluded, “This is not negotiable.”

Following the meeting, Butler sent another e-mail clarifying that the students have two choices: they must either not display the cartoons, or not allow anyone from off campus to attend the event. Approximately 150 off-campus guests are currently registered to attend....

NYU is a private institution, and is thus legally free to limits access to its property however it pleases. But most private universities have generally understood their mission as including enriching the intellectual lives of their students and fostering debate among students, including by helping the students spread the message to the broader community. FIRE reports that NYU has indeed accepted this view: "NYU’s own policies recognize student groups’ right to open events to the public." Events focusing on the Mohammed cartoons should be no less protected by NYU's policies than events focusing on other controversial ideological questions, whether involving race, sex, class, politics, or religion.

Now I understand that NYU might be concerned about the risk of vandalism or violence that might flow from events that display and discuss the cartoons. But it seems to me that leading universities should be at the forefront of defending speech against those who would suppress it, rather than giving in to the vandals' and thugs' heckler's veto.

we Jews can be pretty dumb where politics is concerned. (See also The Tale of the Two Brothers.)

UPDATE: Just to make clear, I'm referring — as the links suggest — to what strikes me as the disproportionate Jewish propensity for Socialism (see the Related Posts below), which I'm quite willing to call a dumb idea, and to what is generally seen as the fairly dysfunctional Israeli style of government (see the Tale of the Two Brothers).

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a motorist was ticketed for having a bumper sticker that said "I'm Tired Of All The BUSHit"; according to the police officer, the county "had an ordinance about lewd decals." (Thanks to Orin for the pointer.)

The police officer unfortunately didn't know that the state had a Supreme Court decision about lewd decals, too (though "profane decals" is probably the more sensible term here): Cunningham v. State, 400 S.E.2d 916 (1991), which struck down on First Amendment grounds an ordinance that banned affixing to a car "any sticker, decal, emblem, or other device containing profane or lewd words describing sexual acts, excretory functions, or parts of the human body." The Georgia Supreme Court in Cunningham quite sensibly held that Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), which upheld Cohen's right to wear a jacket that said "Fuck the Draft," applied equally to bumper stickers; because of this, the court set aside a conviction for displaying a sticker that said "Shit Happens."

Seems to me that the DeKalb County Police Department owes someone an apology, at least.

People like to say that they want a paycheck with "lots of zeroes in it." Seems to me that they really should prefer a paycheck with "lots of nines in it." Replacing any zero with a nine would be an often substantial improvement, unless it's one of those unfortunate negative paychecks. What's more, asking for nines avoids the embarrassment of leading zeroes ("we'll pay you $000,005").

There's still the problem of digits after the decimal point; an employer can easily and cheaply pay you a paycheck with an infinite number of nines (or, to save toner, pay you a paycheck that is worth the same as a number with an infinite number of nines). So next time you're looking for a job, tell the employer "I'd like a paycheck with lots of nines in it -- before the decimal point."

Story here:

After days of international outcry, an Afghan court has dismissed the case against a man threatened with being put to death for having converted from Islam to Christianity, a court official said Sunday.

The charges of apostasy against Abdur Rahman, a 41-year-old medical aid worker, were being dropped for lack of evidence, said Abdul Wakil Omari, a spokesman for the Afghan Supreme Court.... Omari, the court spokesman, cited two factors for the case's dismissal: signs that Rahman might be mentally disturbed and the possibility that he had become a German citizen.

Naturally, a "dropped for lack of evidence" result is far from perfect. But here the perfect may be the enemy of the good. Sometimes liberty progresses through small steps and legal fictions. That's better than liberty not progressing at all, which is what might have happened had Rahman's defenders insisted on all (a rousing decision affirming religious freedom) or nothing.

What's worth remembering about the case, though, is that "even moderate Muslim clerics, as well as members of Rahman's own family, have said that death is the only fair and logical punishment for him." If that's "moderat[ion]" as Muslims go, that's mighty troubling.

I'm delighted to welcome Ilya Somin as a Volokh Conspiracy guest-blogger for this week and next. Ilya teaches at George Mason law school, and writes about property rights, federalism, judicial review, and more. He's also a fellow Russkie, which just shows how many conspiracies The Volokh Conspiracy overlaps with.