A couple of thoughts on the latest attempt to defund the ODE:

Curses. By picking up a cup of coffee and a challah roll on the way to the office, I have already made a hash of my opportunity to participate in Not One Damn Dime Day, another one of these things that will

complement the symbolism of those who turn their backs on Bush’s parade just as we will be turning our backs on Bush’s economy.

This sounds like it’s going to be tricky. How can I make sure that I don’t spend any money today, and thereby do my bit to bring the economy to its knees? This point is addressed in the FAQ:

The best way is to plan ahead. Buy groceries and other necessities the day before…

Ah. I see.

I don’t think it’s online, but the vox-pop accompanying the ODE’s handgun story features this spectacular quote from grad student Corey Johnson:

University policy should trump state law… its mission is to protect the safety and well-being of students.

I couldn’t agree more. Myself, I have long envisioned the campuses of the Oregon University System as quasi-autonomous regions not subject to regulation by the rest of the state, as I think this is our best shot at reviving polygamy. Hopefully this guy is going to be running for public office sometime soon.

One to add to the lexicon: “green ink letter”.

Nine words! A full day’s work, I think. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to resume skulking in this basement.

Caught this story on NRO. Strangely, Drudge isnt covering this. Not strangely, the MSMs coverage is scant. Should be all over talk radio tomorrow.

An entire family of Egyptian Christians, who had fled Egypt because of religious oppression, were horribly murdered in their Jersey City home. Mother, father, and two young daughters were all hacked to death. The father was a poster at a religious discussion message board, where he frequently got in heated exchanges with Muslims. One poster allegedly told him that youd better stop this bullshit or we are going to track you down like a chicken and kill you.

Nothing was stolen from the house, and one daughters wrists were slashed open where she had a tattoo of the Coptic cross.

According to this blog, the murders happened in a neighborhood that was once the Irish slum called “Five Corners, the immigrant melting pot featured in Gangs of New York.

Nowhere, apparently. Those of you who’re new to the Eugene area won’t remember the damnable LTD girl commercials, but as horrible as they were, they at least advertised a service that existed. Further, a service that students pay for and could actually use.

If LTD is shut down by a strike, Lane County should refund somewhere in the neighborhood of 2/3 of the ~$500,000 incidental fee subsidy that is paid for the student bus passes. You see, my pretties, taking the bus isn’t free, you’ve just already paid for it. However, unlike most of the other crap that the incidental fee gets wasted on, at ~$25 per student per year the LTD pass is a steal compared to their retail rates. Granted, there’s some rule in place such that incidental fee money cannot be returned directly to students (Dan, Adrian?), but the $330,000 and change could be put in a holding account to be applied to next year’s LTD subsidy.

Of course, what’s likely to happen in the (highly improbable) event that LTD does the right thing, is that money being put into the over-realized fund and used for some more solar panels on the EMU.

Why can’t you be as fit and attractive as these Olympic athletes?

The Obesity Olympics, very poorly named, brings to mind the dangerously overweight competing in strenuous physical trials to prove, once and for all, who really has the champion inside.

Paul Hamm will teach a 319-pound man how to tumble for ya. Then refuse to give up his medal.
Tanya Harding will teach beautiful inner-swans to glide on the ice, and whack their competitors in the knee.
Marion Jones will inject everyone with steroids.
Eric Rudolph will make bombs.

We’ll all come out feeling like winners, naturally.

Former OC contributor Brian Boone is alive and well. And he’s rocking the hell out of PITTSBURGH. Make sure you cacth him next Sunday at the HARD ROCK CAF� Station Square (412) 481-7625 Doors open @ 8:30pm With David Gamble and opening act marklane. Advanced Tickets $5.00 from performers @ shows.

But enough of this nonsense. It’s New Years Eve! I’m clearly already drunk! Or maybe you’re the drunk one. Who do you think you are anyway? Nobody, that’s who.

Did you know that Ann Coulter loves the Ramones? And the Grateful Dead! Did you care? Well… sorry… I thought it was strange… but youre right…

Attention objectivists: The Ayn Rand Institute is looking for college students to submit essays about the Atlas Shrugged for a contest. First prize is $5,000, though one can assume that once the federal government extorts its unfair share spending it on something ridiculous like tsunami relief (seriously, what were those people doing there in the first place? Its not our fault theyre stupid) — the amount will be far less.

The contest requires college students to respond to one of a number of quotes from the book. For example:

Galt: Which is the monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?*

A surefire way to win this contest is to stick to a script, a template:

1) Use the term moral certainty at least three dozen times on the first page alone. In fact, this could be your entire essay. Refer to yourself as “Moral Certainty” for good measure
2) Insinuate, but do not state explicitly, that feelings are, you know, totally for the weak and shit.
3) Affluence is the sole defining feature of a man. Without affluence, a man might as well be holed-up in some hovel eating germs on the shoreline of the Ganges (even in this case the germ-man relationship has been reversed).
4) Big buildings are beautiful.

* Does anybody else want to read the submissions for this particular quote as badly as I do?

Im at home, kicking back with my favorite Christmas gift, a 24 pack of Corona (I love my family). Theres a James Bond movie on Spike TV and Im feeling that warm inner glow that comes only when youre able to stop the shakes long enough to forget the worries in your life and enjoy the greater, simpler things, like over-priced Mexican beer and violence-tinged British misogyny.
Of course this means the new issue is online. Otherwise I would be crying softly to myself or drinking rubbing alcohol or possibly Big Bear. Were trying to streamline the website, so if you click the image to your right you will automatically download a PDF of the newest issue. Its filled with thrills, spills, copious nudity, and gratuitous puppy bludgeoning (this will be edited out for the print edition).
Enjoy the new issue and have a happy New Year. Im Chinese, so my New Year is on February 9th this year. Its the year of the rooster, so you know what that means go cocks!

Via the most wonderful Jane Galt, I think we’ve all learned the real reason Ruff came to the states. That criminal!

Thought y’all might enjoy this. Needless to say, I have taken myself off the subscription list. Bully for Planned Parenthood and everything, but how far is too far?

Title of email from Planned Parenthood: “You’d Better Watch Out…”

I get the Christmas song reference, but it is not, emphatically not, very very
not, the best title for an email.

The first paragraph reads:
“Dear Melissa,

Wait, wait – before you turn a deaf ear to hard news and
politics and dive head first into gift giving, family dinners,
and a needed vacation from work, be sure to keep an eye on our
new Supreme Court Watch site.”

Dear Planned Parenthood;
Thank you for taking the time out of this magical holiday season to beat me over the head with my own reproductive responsibilities. In fact, I will put Christmas morning present-opening on hiatus until I have called every member of the Supreme Court and prostrated myself before the shrine of Obnoxious Extremist Behaviors. I throw in my two cents on abstinance-only sex education and Catholic health insurance plans, and this is what I get in my inbox!? Bah, Humbug!

Also, this is entertaining. What’s next… Castle of Swords for Cutters/Self Mutilators?

If you think we’re going over the top here, I assure you: we only do so when our survival is at stake. The situation is not exactly unprecedented, of course: the question of what can be printed on campus is perennial. I even dimly recall one of these controversies myself. I think it provides a teachable moment, although it’ll take a while to lay out in detail.

Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I’ll begin.

Dateline January 2001, when Southworth was still fresh in our minds. The good ol’ Student Insurgent, just being adorable, decided to tackle the issue of animal research. Being insurgents, their approach involved reproducing a primer from the Animal Liberation Front on effective ways to commit sabotage and property damage – and being students, they juxtaposed it with a list of various professors’ names and home addresses. Emerald coverage here.

Not surprisingly, many people felt this was going a bit far. While the professors were public figures – the same way that members of the ASUO Senate are public figures, for example – the Insurgents weren’t just calling the professors “silly [and] self-aggrandizing” – they seemed to be tacitly recommending the perpetration of violent acts against them. Emerald outrage here.

The PFC, in its frequently assumed capacity as a moral compass, swung ponderously into action. While they approved the group’s budget and mission statement, they placed the money in a holding fund and denied the group access to it pending resolution of the legal issues. Again, let me stress: the paper printed the home addresses of these professors alongside an Animal Liberation Front handout on how to best commit acts of property damage, and their budget passed PFC. Emerald argle-bargling here. Unfortunately, the Insurgent‘s web presence doesn’t contain this issue (nor has it been updated for the last three years) but their somewhat unconvincing claim to be merely fostering a dialogue seems to have been listened to. (I’m sure that the presence of collective member Willie Thompson on PFC at the time had nothing to do with this.)

And what happened? Well, of course, the PFC was flagrantly exceeding their authority, and got their asses handed back to them. The Insurgent is still with us, and the campus is the richer for it, lunatics though they may be. Emerald flapdoodling here. Our own response is locked up in a PDF file halfway down this page (Issue VII) but is worth quoting:

On an aesthetic level, [the Insurgent] reads more like a parody of itself, a grab-bag of mindless rants, dialectical arguments, and unmitigated hypocrisy. It’s ugly, poorly edited and barely laid out. The spelling is wrong, the graphics are pointless, the headlines are non sequiturs, the content is reprinted filler and the logic is circular… That said, the Insurgent does not, by any means, deserve to lose its funding, not this year at least. If the PFC really is afraid of a lawsuit against the Insurgent “jeopardizing the fee”, as so many student government wonks often dread, they’re just not familiar with the First Amendment case law… While extreme, [the Insurgent‘s] beliefs are relevant to much of the curriculum, from sociology to biology and women’s studies. In the short run, Frohnmayer could rule otherwise and the tradition of allowing unpopular political speech in the court system would reverse the outcome.

Nice work there, Bill (I think). Once more for the record: home addresses, primer on sabotage, budget and mission statement passed PFC.

To paraphrase Patrick Henry: if this be hate speech, make the most of it! You sack of bastards.

If you have a moment to skim a few of our back pages, indulge me:
one, two, three, and four. The alert reader will notice a certain unity of tone in these posts.

Ask yourself: is this hate speech? Does this create an unsafe environment on the campus?

If so, what can one say about public figures (such as members of the ASUO Senate) on campus, and about their political stances? Do we acknowledge a distinction between argument, satire, lampooning, and harassment? At what point does the threat of reprisal create a chilling effect on speech – especially when selectively enforced?

The answers to these questions may become very relevant in the not so distant future.