Why did Madison police arrest a man for yelling about the badness of the Art Fair on the Square art?

After all the yelling that has gone on around the Wisconsin Capitol this year, I can't believe a man got arrested for loudly criticizing art! And our rag of a local paper, the Capitol Times, presents the story as if it's funny, as if the man — a homeless man — is some sort of clown and as if he had no right to express his opinions in public:

William Zamie, 62, no permanent address, was arrested on two counts of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest at about 3:12 p.m. Sunday on North Carroll Street on Capitol Square, Madison police said.

According to a police news release, a jewelry maker from Florida flagged down a police officer Sunday afternoon because Zamie was yelling derogatory remarks to potential customers after he had slept most of the day on the bench behind the jewelry maker's display.

"He said the artist 'was not selling real art' and the handmade jewelry was really 'mass-produced junk,'" said police spokesman Joel DeSpain.

The critic then entered the artist's tent to continue his harangue.

"He told a customer 'all these artists steal from each other and what you are buying isn't real art,'" DeSpain said.

Zamie's free speech rights do not depend on whether he was speaking the truth, but from what I saw at the art fair, he was.

"Want to see a corpse on a can of Pringles?"

(Via Overlawyered.) A. Barton Hinkle rankles at "those graphic new cigarette warnings Washington regulators unveiled last week."

"We'll begin ... studies to make sure that we are keeping people sensitized," says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius. "What may seem quite shocking at the beginning, people get used to quite quickly." So if people build up a tolerance for the repulsive, the FDA will amp the dial up to grotesque....

The old warnings — informing buyers that cigarettes cause cancer, and so forth — conveyed information. The new labels are designed to provoke a reaction in that lizard part of your brain that thoughts never reach. A warning on a ladder that reads, "Caution: Improper use could lead to serious injury from falling" conveys information. A graphic photo of a compound tibia fracture conveys only sentiment.

Only sentiment... I disagree. Vividly pictured information is still information, even if it offends your taste. Years ago, if I remember correctly, the radical feminist Catharine MacKinnon argued that free speech rights shouldn't cover pornography, because it didn't convey any ideas. It was a sensation... designed to provoke a reaction in that lizard part of your brain that thoughts never reach. Those are Hinkle's words, not MacKinnon's. I don't think she said "lizard part of your brain"... though she might well have said "lizard part."

[INSERTION: "40 years ago: The Lizard King breaks on through to the other side." Did you forget to remember Jim Morrison 3 days ago?]

But, of course, the government doesn't need free speech protection to say what it wants to say to us. It's the government. The question is only whether it can require a private business to carry its message (or its delivery of sensation straight to that lizard part of your brain that thoughts never reach). The messages that already appear on cigarette packs give you the short answer: It can. The better question is: Do we want our government reaching past our intellect, into our deepest instincts, injecting its vision of how we ought to behave?

Well, of course, government actors are always trying to manipulate us on an emotional level in the hope that we'll vote for them or tolerate a war or a tax and so forth. I think the key is to become conscious and critical of those manipulations (and every day, I work at that, in public writing, to model and encourage awareness and resistance). Perhaps an even better question than whether we want the government to manipulate us emotionally is: Do we want the government to manipulate us emotionally with respect to the decisions we make about what to do with our bodies?

Phrased at that level of generality, the photos of cancerous lungs on cigarette packs (trying to get us not to smoke) are like the photos of aborted fetuses (trying to get us not to have abortions). Except we haven't seen the government go graphic with an anti-abortion message, and it's not as easy to think of a commercial product to stick the message on. Something for women. Tampons?

Hinkle's mind drifts to food:

[I]t's reasonable to ask when the federal government will start showing us disgusting pictures on packages of food, in which Washington also takes a keen interest. Indeed, someone asked Sibelius that very question during a press conference about the cigarette labels. Her response was evasive. Food labels are voluntary, she said. And tobacco is unique because smoking is "the No. 1 cause of preventable death."

It won't be No. 1 forever. Obesity is gaining ground fast. Sibelius says smoking imposes "$200 billion a year in health costs." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity costs the U.S. about $150 billion....

Two days after Washington unveiled its new warning labels for cigarette packages, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study reporting that our food choices influence our weight more than exercise does. And potato chips pack on the pounds faster than any other food, including candy and desserts.

Hence the question about a corpse on a can of Pringles.

ADDED: Want to see a corpse in a can of Pringles?

The U.S. Supreme Court violent video games case + the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokegate" story...

... melded into a brilliant segment on "The Daily Show":

The Daily Show - Moral Kombat
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The last thing Jon Stewart says here is incredibly cynical about courts. It's also very well set up by what has gone before and deserves both laughs and serious conversation.

In the violent video games case, Scalia notes the irony of Alito's strenuous effort to describe the "astounding" violence.

From the majority opinion in the just-decided case of Brown, Governor of California v. Entertainment Merchants Association:

JUSTICE ALITO has done considerable independent research to identify, see post, at 14–15, nn. 13–18, video games in which “the violence is astounding,” post, at 14. “Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. . . . Blood gushes, splatters, and pools.” Ibid. JUSTICE ALITO recounts all these disgusting video games in order to disgust us—but disgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression. And the same is true of JUSTICE ALITO’s description, post, at 14–15, of those video games he has discovered that have a racial or ethnic motive for their violence—“‘ethnic cleansing’ [of] . . . African Americans, Latinos, or Jews.” To what end does he relate this? Does it somehow increase the “aggressiveness” that California wishes to suppress? Who knows? But it does arouse the reader’s ire, and the reader’s desire to put an end to this horrible message. Thus, ironically, JUSTICE ALITO’s argument highlights the precise danger posed by the California Act: that the ideas expressed by speech—whether it be violence, or gore, or racism—and not its objective effects, may be the real reason for governmental proscription.

The Court strikes down a California law that prohibits the sale or rental of "violent video games" to minors. The statute defined violent games in a way that "mimics the New York statute regulating obscenity-for-minors that we upheld in Ginsberg v. New York." But sex and violence are different: "obscenity is not protected expression" under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. California was trying "to create a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at children." "That is unprecedented and mistaken," the Court says today.

California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.” The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales 198 (2006 ed.). Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. Id., at 95. And Hansel and Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven. Id., at 54.

I was reading that out loud here at Meadhouse, and somebody said: "The Supreme Court needs spoiler alerts!" 

High-school reading lists are full of similar fare. Homer’s Odysseus blinds Polyphemus the Cyclops by grinding out his eye with a heated stake. The Odyssey of Homer, Book IX, p. 125 (S. Butcher & A. Lang transls. 1909) (“Even so did we seize the fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame”). In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil watch corrupt politicians struggle to stay submerged beneath a lake of boiling pitch, lest they be skewered by devils above the surface. Canto XXI, pp. 187–189 (A. Mandelbaum transl. Bantam Classic ed. 1982). And Golding’s Lord of the Flies recounts how a schoolboy called Piggy is savagely murdered by other children while marooned on an island. W. Golding, Lord of the Flies 208–209 (1997 ed.).

That Homer passage still grosses people out. Even after all the horrible movies and video games they've witnessed.

Alito, by the way, does not dissent. (Remember he was the lone dissenter in the Phelps case, showing the most empathy for sensitive people brutalized by ugly expression.) He thinks that "the experience of playing a video game may be quite different from the experience of reading a book, listening to a radio broadcast, or viewing a movie," and he'd prefer to put off the more difficult free speech questions and  "hold only that the particular law at issue here fails to provide the clear notice that the Constitution requires." That would leave room for legislatures to craft better laws designed to protect minors.

ADDED: The 2 dissenting opinions come from Justices Thomas and Breyer. Thomas relies on originalism: "the founding generation" didn't think First Amendment free speech included a right "to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents or guardians." I haven't had the chance to read the entire opinion, but I can see that it contains some detailed discussion about the history of ideas about children. I'll leave that for another post.

Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion reject the facial challenge to the law. He says the "case is ultimately less about censorship than it is about education."

Our Constitution cannot succeed in securing the liberties it seeks to protect unless we can raise future generations committed cooperatively to mak­ing our system of government work.... Sometimes, children need to learn by making choices for themselves. Other times, choices are made for children—by their parents, by their teachers, and by the people acting democratically through their governments.

"Dutch populist Geert Wilders acquitted of hate speech."

"The case was seen by some as a test of free speech in a country which has a long tradition of tolerance and blunt talk, but where opposition to immigration, particularly from Muslim or predominantly Muslim countries, is on the rise."

How foolish do these Miss USA contestants sound responding to the question whether evolution should be taught in schools?

This video clip is making the rounds on some lefty blogs:



These women don't seem to realize how well-established the theory of evolution is and how central it is to the study of science. Of course, it should be taught in school. The more lively present-day issue is whether intelligent design may also be taught alongside evolution, but that isn't what the women were asked. The question prompts them to think of evolution as something that perhaps ought not to be taught in schools. From the bizarre similarity of the answers, I would extrapolate standard beauty-contest advice: Look for the prompt in the question and echo it back with some embellishment that makes you sound thoughtful, caring, and respectful of diversity.

But maybe, as Nicolle Belle at Crooks and Liars says:

The way that the majority of these women express their view that there are multiple and equally scientifically valid arguments truly shows the success of the religious right to muddy the waters and dumb down the populace by introducing skepticism over scientific theory.

By the same token, these answers may show how fundamental it is in America to believe in gathering information, listening to the argument about what might be true, and developing your powers of judgment. So, to some extent, what these women are saying aligns with the scientific method.

More than anything else, however, what I hear in these answers is a deep instinct toward freedom of choice. I felt moved to transcribe Miss New Jersey's remark because it was so perfectly typical of what they all seemed to be saying:

"I think everything should be taught in schools, every single aspect of evolution and anything you can think of. I think they should have the option of learning everything that there is to learn and then kind of choose what they like to believe."

Now, there is something absurd about that.  You don't want to teach kids everything you can think of, and they shouldn't be choosing what to believe based on what they like, but there's something beautiful and quintessentially American about that commitment to the free flow of information and the freedom of belief. It's not that far from the statement on the "sifting and winnowing" plaque here at the University of Wisconsin... about which I once said:

I would like to see some "continual and fearless" judgment about who should be given the opportunity to amass the pile of material that students are assigned to sift and winnow.

That is, you don't just throw anything you can think of at the students and leave it to them to find the truth. And some things are so well-established that it's a good idea to teach them quickly and simply as facts and save the "sifting and winnowing" activity for some other set of material. That brings us back to evolution: Should schools teach it as a fact — this is the theory — or use this subject as an occasion for teaching students how to look at evidence and judge it critically? I think that is the interesting question, and it is not at all obvious which approach is more supportive of science/religion.

What will the unions do now?

Probing into the unions' strategy here in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel only comes up with 2 things:

1. The recall elections. The article mentions the "so-called in-kind work" which "gives union members the ability to go door-to-door lobbying to defeat Republican senators facing recall." Gives union members the ability...? You mean allows unions to pay people to do door-to-door work. [ADDED: That sentence should end in a question mark. I really don't understand whether the members are paid to perform this "in-kind work" for candidates. Are they volunteers?] If you're in a recall district, steel yourself for paid [?] union activists coming to your door. Or maybe you already have the homeowner policy that I have: I don't answer the door unless I know who's there and want to see them. By the way, how many of the protesters in February and March were paid by the unions?

2. The federal court lawsuit challenging the collective bargaining legislation on equal protection grounds, the absurdly weak theory being that the state can't treat different categories of its own employees differently.

Walker's bill exempted firefighters and police officers, as well as some transit workers, from the legislation. The unions say, at least in the cases of the police and firefighters, that was political payback for their support of Walker in the gubernatorial election.

Imagine courts striking down legislation on the ground that the political majority drew lines that seemed to favor its supporters! The unions also contend that free speech rights require the state to submit to collective bargaining with its employees. Here's a clue: The First Amendment protects us from compelled speech. It doesn't require it!

So that's it for the unions' strategy. How many people reading the linked article are fooled by all the bluster? The strategy is pitifully weak!

The unions suffered a crushing defeat, and the only way back — not mentioned in the article — is to regain the legislature and the governorship in future regular elections. That's a long time line, and it will give the people of the state a chance to see if the Republicans' budget fix worked.

At this point in the protracted budget battle of 2011, the people of Wisconsin deserve that information before we plunge into another big change. If the unions look too desperate grasping at strategic moves like #1 and #2, above, then Wisconsinites ought to suspect that they are afraid to let us see how good the new policy really is.

"It is not that we are not allowing music or loud sound. It is that we are also allowing quiet..."

"... which isn’t automatic in this city."

Why should Madison allow a tent city — "Walkerville" near the Capitol Square? Because it's unique and because it's going to happen anyway.

That's the gist of the argument presented to the Street Use Staff Commission hearing this morning by the "We Are Wisconsin" group. They got their permit, and Walkerville will begin tomorrow, June 4th, and continue until June 20th. Meade was there, and I edited his video. The first speaker in this clip, representing We Are Wisconsin, is David Boetcher. After him comes Jeremy B. McMullen, who represents the Madison Fire Department on the Commission, and then Peter Rickman, who, according to this recent student newspaper editorial byline, is a University of Wisconsin "Law & Graduate Student," chair of the TAA Political Education Committee, and chair of the Democratic Party of the 2nd Congressional District.



0:00 — Boetcher likens the historical concept of Hooverville to the current protests over the Wisconsin budget, which is supposed to explain why camping on the street says something that people carrying signs does not say. (Click on that Hooverville link to see that the real "Hoovervilles" were makeshift places of residence for people who were actually homeless during the Great Depression. The thousands of people who want to come to Madison to protest are not homeless. They are protesting on behalf of employed people who are losing some of their benefits and collective bargaining rights.)

0:21 — McMullen clearly states the crucial legal principle: The nature of the message to be conveyed is irrelevant to the commission, which is mainly worried about setting a precedent that might require granting other permits in the future for other protesters.

0:30 — Rickman says this event is "unprecedented," and if anyone in the future tries to rely on it as a precedent "distinctions — differentiations — will be able to be drawn." He says he's sure there are "plenty of capable city, uh, city, uh, staff who are law trained, who can go ahead and help you all make that distinction and difference." Yeah, don't worry about the precedent. Let it go and when the time comes you all can go ahead and distinguish the precedent. Rickman adds that he's "not a real lawyer yet" and has only had "a few years of law school." (Law school is only 3 years. If you've done "a few years," aren't you done? Maybe there's some distinction that I should have my staff go ahead and figure out for me. I don't have time for that now.)

1:36 — Boetcher takes over with less legalistic idealism and more hardcore reality. These thousands of people are going to come to town anyway, permit or no. But if We Are Wisconsin doesn't have a permit, they can't provide port-o-potties. Even though he's leading the group that is promoting the rally, he's acting as if he's just passively expecting the crowds and trying to help out the city out with crowd control. If you don't give them the permit, you'll still have people camping out... but — what? — pissing in the street?

2:05 — Boetcher says that if you put restrictions in the permit, then you're forced to decide what to do if it's violated, "and what is that going to do to the whole rest of the trust" with respect to everything else that you might want to try to get people to do. Once people are in violation of one thing, they'll lose interest in avoiding violating other matters. (I would  note that as a general principle, this is a good reason to regulate sparingly: It preserves respect for the law and increases compliance. If the rules are too picky and constraining, people scoff at rules and become rule-breakers, and maybe they lose track of the value of a system of rules. But does that general principle really apply to this tent city?)

2:42 — "It would be a bit of a sham to create a permit that basically automatically goes against what's going to happen and then expect people to follow any of the rules that are in the permit." Think about what that means. There's a huge crowd about to descend on the city, to do something they will do whether or not there is a permit — Boetcher keeps referring to the "mindset" of this descending crowd — so the city ought to grant a permit that accepts those things that are going to happen, in order to preserve respect for the rule of law. As a law professor, I find this notion fascinating. Make the law embrace the things people are going to do regardless of the law, or people won't follow even the rules that they would follow if you didn't undermine their desire to comply with the law.

At the Street Use Staff Committee meeting about setting up "Walkerville" campsite near the Wisconsin Capitol.

(Background on the Walkerville proposal here.) WKOW reporter Colby Robertson tweets:

Resident just spoke. Says, "We've patiently endured horn blowing, drumming. It seems incomprehensable to allow ppl to camp outside my home"

Speaker in favor of permit. Says its a great opportunity for Madison to help us express voices since they can't be in Capitol.

Another in support says the protests are going to happen with or without permit, but tents give more structure.

Alderwoman Lisa Subick speaking in support of permit. Asks committee to show Walker Administration you stand behind ppl of Madison.

So Alderwoman Lisa Subick wants the government to exercise its discretion for the purpose of agreeing with this particular group of protesters?! If Robertson's tweet is accurate, Subick is advocating the violation of core free speech principles. Government discretion over permits should be viewpoint neutral, not a way for the government to express itself.

Member from board asks why is a tent with a sign more powerful than people holding signs? Organizers want constant present of ppl at Capitol

UPDATE: Robertson tweets:

Commission approves motion. Tents will be allowed between 9 pm-7 am Sat-Thurs. 9 pm-4:30 am Friday overnights...

Mayor Soglin isn't here but spokesperson just came in and said he was under the impression SOME tents would be allowed to stay up during day....

So three designated areas (not determined yet) will allow tents up 24 hours. Areas will not interfere with businesses or buses

Oh, okay. Wouldn't want to interfere with businesses or buses!

Stay tuned! I have exclusive video from the meeting. 

UPDATE 2: Here's the edited video with commentary.

Police enforce a rule against dancing in the Jefferson Monument.

This is the long version.



Short version and background here.

Wisconsin protesters want to set up a "Walkerville" campsite around one corner of the Capitol Square.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

The city’s Street Use Staff Commission will have a special meeting Friday to consider the permit application for a state budget rally that would begin Saturday and continue through June 20....

[Gov. Scott] Walker’s proposed budget is being debated by the Legislature’s powerful budget committee this week and is expected to be sent to the full Legislature by the weekend....

The city, which granted a permit for a smaller camp on the terrace of Pinckney Street across from the Capitol in March, is working to balance the rights of free speech with the needs of local businesses, said Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, who represents most of the Downtown area.

Kelly Lamberty, community events coordinator for the city’s Parks Division, said concerns also include the impact on other permitted events, including the Dane County Farmers’ Market, and licensed vendors assigned to the area.

Go ahead, Madison politicians. Grant that permit. Let the whole state know how hostile Democrats are to business interests. That campsite is right next to a hotel.

And if you actually care about free speech, you'd better be ready to hand out camping permits in a viewpoint neutral way in the future. It can't be that the budget protesters get special privileges.

ADDED: Here's the agenda for the special meeting (PDF). 8:30 a.m. on Friday, June 3. Parks Conference Room 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Room 108 (City-County Building). "Tent city rally with art, music, teach-ins and food. Discuss set-up, schedule and activities."

UPDATE: Tweets from the meeting.

"Spectator removed from Wisconsin Senate gallery, purportedly for wiggling fingers and bouncing shoulders, during Voter ID debate."

Interesting video at the link. Watch it and tell me what you think.

If you think the finger-wiggling guy looks familiar, he appears in a New Media Meade video that I blogged here on March 23rd. He comes up to Meade at 1:49 in the first video. The second video is a 14-minute discussion with him in the rotunda. The discussion covers some of the free-speech issues that are shouted about in the finger-wiggling video.

ADDED: I just rewatched the old 14-minute video and thought this part was interesting:



He talks about refusing to do things the police asked him to do: "I was never arrested... I wasn't breaking the law enough for them to be able to...." Indeed, for whatever reason, the police were extremely tolerant of the protesters. Now, this young man who enjoyed that tolerance is surprised to find himself escorted out of the Senate gallery, and we see the belligerence the police encounter after all their tolerance. Or maybe that is the reason they were so tolerant. It creates a big scene when they are not. But how are they supposed to maintain order if people come to think they don't need to show respect for them?

"Saudi Facebook Campaign Calls on Men to Beat Women Drivers."

Says Gateway Pundit.

A facebook campaign launched in Saudi Arabia is urging men to beat women who are caught driving. The page already has 6,000 “likes.”...

"The call comes as activists are demanding the release of Manal al-Sharif, a Saudi woman who was jailed for defying the ban."

I'm a bit freaked out by this. When did that Facebook page start? Because I'd never heard of it before this morning. I'd heard of Manal al-Sharif's campaign, which involved a Facebook page, and my reaction, written Tuesday morning, included a hypothetical in which a Saudi man starts a Facebook campaign calling on men to beat women drivers. I wrote:

Isn't the real question is whether women should be allowed to drive, not whether organizing on Facebook incurs harsher punishment when you commit a crime? Think about some other crime — some crime that obviously should be a crime. I hesitate to describe a crime, but let's say some Saudi man thinks women who drive should be dragged out of their cars and beaten. He sets up a Facebook page to promote that opinion and gets 12,000 supporters. Then — twice — he drags a woman out of a car and beats her. Now, he is arrested. Let's say that in Saudi Arabia men who beat women for driving are normally just asked to promise not to do it again. Would you object to making an example out of the man who used Facebook?

Note that I hesitated to describe this crime, because I did not want to give anyone any ideas. I'm not saying I think the new Facebook is a result of my suggestion. I'm just saying I'm freaked out by the coincidence.

Manal al-Sharif, the woman leading the right-to-drive campaign, is arrested by the Saudis.

Was she arrested for driving or for speaking out about the driving ban?

Ms. Sharif was arrested after two much-publicized drives last week to highlight the Facebook and Twitter campaigns she helped organize to encourage women across Saudi Arabia to participate in a collective protest scheduled for June 17.

The campaigns, which had attracted thousands of supporters — more than 12,000 on the Facebook page — have been blocked in the kingdom. Ms. Sharif’s arrest was very likely intended to give others pause before participating in the protests in a country where a woman’s public reputation, including her ability to marry, can be badly damaged by an arrest.

“Usually they just make you sign a paper that you will not do it again and let you go,” said Wajiha Howeidar, who recorded Ms. Sharif while driving on Thursday. “They don’t want anybody to think that they can get away with something like that. It is a clear message that you cannot organize anything on Facebook. That is why she is in prison.”

If she drove to promote the right to drive, that is the form of speech that is civil disobedience. It draws attention to the commission of the crime, and it's not surprising that it attracts arrest. Isn't that the purpose of conspicuous violation — to get arrested and make everyone notice and want to help you? This is working for Manal al-Sharif. But Howeidar's point is that she's really arrested for speaking out on Facebook, not for the driving per se. She wasn't treated like other female drivers, who are let off easily. And there's something wrong with targeting the person who used Facebook to organize.

Isn't the real question is whether women should be allowed to drive, not whether organizing on Facebook incurs harsher punishment when you commit a crime? Think about some other crime — some crime that obviously should be a crime. I hesitate to describe a crime, but let's say some Saudi man thinks women who drive should be dragged out of their cars and beaten. He sets up a Facebook page to promote that opinion and gets 12,000 supporters. Then — twice — he drags a woman out of a car and beats her. Now, he is arrested. Let's say that in Saudi Arabia men who beat women for driving are normally just asked to promise not to do it again. Would you object to making an example out of the man who used Facebook?

Should psychiatrists offer opinions about the mental conditions of various characters in the news?

The official rule of the American Psychiatric Association is that they can speak generally but it's unethical to give a professional opinion about an individual. The rule grew out of a case involving Barry Goldwater:

Just before the 1964 election, a muckraking magazine called Fact decided to survey members of the American Psychiatric Association for their professional assessment of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the Republican nominee against President Lyndon B. Johnson....

The survey, highly unscientific even by the standards of the time, was sent to 12,356 psychiatrists, of whom 2,417 responded. ... Half of the respondents judged Mr. Goldwater psychologically unfit to be president. They used terms like “megalomaniac,” “paranoid” and “grossly psychotic,” and some even offered specific diagnoses, including schizophrenia and narcissistic personality disorder....

There were several attempts at a psychodynamic formulation of Mr. Goldwater’s character. One unsigned comment called the candidate “inwardly a frightened person who sees himself as weak and threatened by strong virile power around him,” and added that “his call for aggressiveness and the need for individual strength and prerogatives is an attempt to defend himself against and to deny his feelings of weakness.”...

Goldwater sued for libel and won, which led to the APA rule barring opinions. Obviously, it brings psychiatry into disrepute when ordinary people can see it used dishonestly to promote a political goal. But I don't see why it's so bad for psychiatric experts to speculate and opine about public figures. We the people need to think about the events in the news, and some expert opinion is helpful. Let us decide which experts are worth hearing from. The political hacks will be enjoyed or condemned as we see fit. But some analysis is going to be good. Frame it as speculation and hedge appropriately: I would need to meet with the individual to make a professional diagnosis, but here's what I can say....

If the experts don't do it, the pseudoexperts will. As for the fear of lawsuits, libel law is constrained by free speech values. Mere opinion in not libel. And public figures have to meet a high standard to prove libel.

Why then did Goldwater win his lawsuit? The linked article, by psychiatry professor Richard A. Friedman and published in the Science section of today's New York Times, says:

The Supreme Court awarded the senator $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages — and, more important, set a legal precedent that helped change medical ethics for good.

Of course, any lawyer knows that the Supreme Court doesn't award damages. It only affirms the lower court's decision. But what is this Supreme Court case and how did it deal with the free speech issue? Hello? New York Times? Don't you wonder how this case would square with New York Times v. Sullivan (second link, above)? So did Justices Black and Douglas, dissenting from the denial of certiorari in Ginzburg v. Goldwater! Justice Black wrote:

This case perhaps more than any I have seen in this area convinces me that the New York Times constitutional rule is wholly inadequate to assure the 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open' public debate which the majority in that case thought it was guaranteeing....

This suit was brought by a man who was then the nominee of his party for the Presidency of the United States. In our times, the person who holds that high office has an almost unbounded power for good or evil. The public has an unqualified right to have the character and fitness of anyone who aspires to the Presidency held up for the closest scrutiny. Extravagant, reckless statements and even claims which may not be true seem to me an inevitable and perhaps essential part of the process by which the voting public informs itself of the qualities of a man who would be President. The decisions of the District Court and the Court of Appeals in this case can only have the effect of dampening political debate by making fearful and timid those who should under our Constitution feel totally free openly to criticize Presidential candidates. Doubtless, the jury was justified in this case in finding that the Fact articles on Senator Goldwater were prepared with a reckless disregard of the truth, as many campaign articles unquestionably are. But, even if I believed in a balancing process to determine scope of the First Amendment, which I do not, the grave dangers of prohibiting or penalizing the publication of even the most inaccurate and misleading information seem to me to more than outweigh any gain, personal or social, that might result from permitting libel awards such as the one before the Court today. I firmly believe it is precisely because of these considerations that the First Amendment bars in absolute, unequivocal terms any abridgment by the Government of freedom of speech and press.

So the jury found that the New York Times standard was met, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court declined the case, with Justices Black and Douglas arguing for greater free-speech protection.

And when I say "the New York Times standard was met," I mean the legal standard from the case New York Times v. Sullivan. I do not think the New York Times standard of journalism was met for this article!

Google and free speech.

The NYT features a Bloggingheads clip with Matt Welch and me.

I talk to Matt Welch about freedom...

... and sex scandals, politicized media, and the meaning of various buildings:



IN THE COMMENTS: Shouting Thomas said: "One hour and two minutes. No can do. Is there a highlight reel?"

And Deborah made this clip:

RELOCATED FROM ALTHOUSE2: "So, your blog goes down right after being reported as a cesspool of [misogyny] and homophobia? Hmmmmm . . ."

Says LawGirl, over in the "weasel" post.

The anonymous professor who emailed lawprof Brian Leiter to attack my commentariat said "She has the free speech right to run whatever cesspool she wants, but is she prioritizing her desire for a widely read blog over her obligation to be a responsible member of academia?" — which is quoted by Freeman Hunt, who laughs, calls it the "quote of the day," and paraphrases it: "Free speech is incompatible with academia!" Freeman adds: "Free speech areas are cesspools. Restricted speech areas are responsible academia." Yeah, but can you really expect law professors to drape their brains around that?

Maguro said: "The email is so prissy and self-important that Leiter almost certainly wrote it himself. Anonymous colleague, my ass." Well, let's be fair. Professor Anonymous does call the blog comments here a "festival of misogyny and homophobia." Palladian said: "I hope there's an open bar at your festival of misogyny and homophobia."

Roger J. said:

Professor A: unless I have completely misread you over the last five years, I am thinking you arent going down without a fight--(just dont ask me for money however, my principles arent THAT strong :) )

Hey, good idea. Please! Encourage me:

I need some love!

dbp said:

An interesting logical loop here: Brian Leiter's blog posts an anonymous comment, which presumably is in agreement with the blog's editor. The comment is actively put forward by that blog, unlike at Althouse where comments are all posted and hardly ever deleted.

Both blogs contain what could fairly be described as scurrilous comments. The difference is that Alhouse neither approves or disapproves of the comments while Leiter clearly takes an editorial ownership.

"She has the free speech right to run whatever cesspool she wants, but is she prioritizing her desire for a widely read blog over her obligation to be a responsible member of academia?"

This had got to be the most lame use of a question mark in history. Oh, I make a big long ugly accusation then make it all right with a meaningless squiggle on top of the dot.

If the Leiter post led to the removal of the Althouse blog, then is there a case of slander here?

Good point. But it's not slander. If it's in writing, we lawyers say libel, not slander. But it's not libel. It's just opinion. Lame ass opinion from a lawprof who — in my opinion — envies my readership, which is bigger than his.

***

Now, maybe you're wondering just what the hell was in those terrible comments — that supposed "festival of misogyny and homophobia." You try the link at Leiter's, but it gets you nowhere, because Blogger removed my blog. But here's the cached version of the page the Leiter blog links to. Check out the comments and see if you can tell what's really upset the people who are on my case. There are only 32 comments. They are easy enough to read. I pick out a few.

Maguro said:

[The 3 candidates] seem notably lacking in victim-group credentials. Are any of them gay, trans or gender non-conforming?

This is a criticism based on one commenter's sense of what law schools do.

gutless said:

Is Margaret a lesbian? One imagines so in that her background doesn't seem competitive and yet, here she is. If so, she has the job. If not ,she is merely window dressing and the less offensive of the other two gets the nod.

That's obviously another criticism of law schools, reflecting an assumption that law schools make choices based on diversity factors. I'm sure the criticism hurts some people, but it doesn't say there's something wrong with being a lesbian or that the candidate is a lesbian. Maybe a nervous reader could take that the wrong way, in which case, I'd say: that festival of misogyny and homophobia is in your head. Good thing you hid your name!

Thorley Winston said:

I think it’s generally a bad idea to announce the “finalists” when conducting a job interview, particularly for the top position. IMO there shouldn’t be a public announcement until they’ve made their selection.

I agree, but the Law School chose to put the names and their credentials on its official website, obviously inviting public comment. I linked, opening it up to the comments. You know we are a public law school, and it's appropriate that people around the state receive information and have an opportunity to speak. And yet, feelings can be hurt. People in legal academia like to think that their feelings are righteous indignation having to do with women and minorities... but are they really? Think carefully!

Titus said:

If the woman candidate has big tits I say hire her. Otherwise, go with one of the men.

You can't go wrong with big tits.

tits...yum

All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, by our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man. He's been talking like that on this blog for years. The regulars know him. And they know I love him. If that's what Leiter and the Anonymous Professor feel such angst about... it's because they don't understand the community here. They're like Sean Hannity fretting about Common in White House.

COMMENTS (Relocated from Althouse2):


Which brings me back to the conclusion that I think is painfully obvious about him: he deserves every ounce of criticism that he is bringing upon himself.

Freaking idiot.

MAY 13, 2011 6:43:00 PM CDT 
 Danny Vice said...
There are a couple of avenues available to you Ann if you want to preserve your posts. Granted, it will be pretty time consuming, considering the thousands of posts you've published, but the option is there to grab these posts while they are still accessible.

I trust someone on your end has shared some of these options with you. If not, please email me.

Dannyvice (at) hotmail.com

MAY 13, 2011 6:47:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 6:49:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
Hmmm, the blog has always struck me more as a tidal pool of mythology and arachnophobia, but I'm a lousy reader.

MAY 13, 2011 6:51:00 PM CDT 
 nevadabob said...
They're 86-ing comments here too.

MAY 13, 2011 6:52:00 PM CDT 
 edutcher said...
To be sure Titus is an acquired taste (there's a metaphor), but, let me think, let's work on that phrase, "obligation to be a responsible member of academia"...

Does that include Ward "Little Eichmanns" Churchill?

William "Guilty As Sin" Ayers?

Cornel "Sun People" West?

We may have our disagreements with her, but the lady gives us a forum unrestricted in most ways. As I said, when the roll is called up yonder, the looker with the platinum bob will be conlawproffing with George and Ben and Jimmy while these "academics" will be sharing a barbecue pit with their heroes from Al Qaeda.

MAY 13, 2011 6:52:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
You know, there have been many, many more offensive threads in Althouse blog history. Any of the threads to which I've contributed, for example.

I can recall one that featured Freeman Hunt, of all people, dropping f-bombs like Rahm Emmanuel on an acid bender. Good times, good times.

But I will agree with this much of this turd's thesis: If the mysterious outage is politically motivated, then I suspect that it's the politics of your commenters, more than your own politics, that led to it.

MAY 13, 2011 6:55:00 PM CDT 
 TWM said...
"All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, but our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man. He's been talking like that on this blog for years. The regulars know him. And they know I love him."

Oh crap, does Meade know he signed-on for a threesome?

MAY 13, 2011 7:00:00 PM CDT 
 nevadabob said...
"We may have our disagreements with her, but the lady gives us a forum unrestricted in most ways."

In their eyes, that is her sin. She allows people to express themselves however they see fit.

That's racist and homophobic and misogynistic.

People (in their view) need to be controlled so we can end the hate speech once and for all and get on with the war in EastAsia.

Or is it Eurasia today?

I forget.

MAY 13, 2011 7:01:00 PM CDT 
 Michael K said...
If Blogspot did this for political reasons, you need to be out of there as fast as possible. I use Word Press which has a pretty good rep as blogging software and can be customized as Patterico has done. I also use a separate web host, called Blue Host, and have had no problems and doubt very much if Blue Host cares what is on blogs it hosts.

Academics are such humorless people, present company excepted. I have a friend, a science associate professor, who is sweating out tenure after having to leave another institution when it was denied for political reasons. And that is science, not sociology.

MAY 13, 2011 7:08:00 PM CDT 
 TWM said...
Time for Althouse.com . . . you're that big . . . and that threatening evidently . . .

MAY 13, 2011 7:09:00 PM CDT 
 EnigmatiCore said...
Well. On the off chance that guy is not a Google employee and that their abuse system is not manned by him, I flagged one of his remaining comments as abuse and detailed his abuse of power (including, apparently, the ability to mess with Google accounts-- I had to have them send a verification code to my cell phone and enter it in order to access my account because of 'suspicious activity').

That jerkwad belongs nowhere near any position with any kind of authority.

MAY 13, 2011 7:11:00 PM CDT 
 Michael Haz said...
You broke from the borg. The borg will kill you.

MAY 13, 2011 7:11:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
It's obvious to me what the problem is here. I have told you time and again. Stop with the politics. More posts about American Idol and dogs urinating. These commie pinko bastards are very vindictive pricks. You need to lay low.

You said you wanted your blog to be a mixture of Fellini and the Monkee's.

Neither one of them gave a shit about labor douchenozzles.

I hate to say I told you so...but I told you so.

MAY 13, 2011 7:18:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
And they dumped Tourettes Rocker Boy last night and you didn't even have one post on it.

Shame on you.

You. An American Idol blogger.

MAY 13, 2011 7:18:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
This really shines a new light on the cowardly banning and deletion at Lawyers Guns and Money. Maybe they're just afraid of being shut down by their liberal over-lords.

I'm not sure if they're on Blogger -- the meager traffic of their little-known boutique blog is so small that they're able to handle it with their dedicated server, a repurposed Commodore 386. The average comment thread there is about 20 comments; there are several that have one or two. The longest I've seen is a little over 100 -- driven mostly by my participation. So they might have their own domain.

MAY 13, 2011 7:19:00 PM CDT 
 JoeDetweiler said...
My understanding is that nitecruzr is just a volunteer, and that seems to me to be the problem. You should be talking to an employee and Google should be seeing to it that you are talking to an employee.

http://www.google.com.tw/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=051824dc719f3fae&hl=en

MAY 13, 2011 7:19:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Hey I was banned from Television Without Pity after four comments.

They are like Nazi's over there.

Don't think I forgot about you Kay Howard. You are in the book. Just sayn'

MAY 13, 2011 7:22:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
Trooper, I was a little disappointed to see that you hadn't contributed to the cesspool of homophobia and misogyny. When I heard that one of the comments speculated on the candidate's tits, you were the first person I thought of.

MAY 13, 2011 7:27:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Hey I am a well know lover of tits. I coddle them. Put them in the best of lacy bras. Tits are my friend. They should be yours.

MAY 13, 2011 7:29:00 PM CDT 
 Ann Althouse said...
"And they dumped Tourettes Rocker Boy last night and you didn't even have one post on it."

I tweeted it.

MAY 13, 2011 7:30:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I was busy at a benefit while all this was going on. I asked some of my detective friends to look into it. But so far nobody has a reasonable explanation.

Except that stuff like this is gonna to happen more and more in Barack Obama's America.

MAY 13, 2011 7:30:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
If your blog returns, you should immediately download it.

Given your traffic, you should consider getting a blogging application that allows you to compose locally and post to multiple blogging sites.

Really, at your level, you should probably get your own domain and hosting service.

MAY 13, 2011 7:32:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I do notice that none of the "liberals" or "progressives" who post daily on your site has anything to say in support of you. Where is AlpaLiberal, Jeremy,Robert Cook, Jay Retread and all the rest. They are oddly silent about the destruction of a blog that they write multiple posts on to support their point of view which is displayed without censorship or fear or favor.

I hope you see who you can depend on. Just sayn'

MAY 13, 2011 7:33:00 PM CDT 
 NotYourTypicalNewYorker said...
The culture war imperceptibly widens.

Here, there...

The losers start stepping out of the tree line for better shots.

MAY 13, 2011 7:36:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
Oh my God, Titus is gay?!

MAY 13, 2011 7:38:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 7:39:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
I do notice that none of the "liberals" or "progressives" who post daily on your site has anything to say in support of you.

I'm here. I think the theory that Google shut down this blog pretty goofy though. Fittingly it was hatched by Moe Lane @ Redstate.com

I do feel bad if all the old content is gone though. If nothing else all my old comments gone would be a sad day indeed.

Seriously I hope you get your blog back, fully preserved.

MAY 13, 2011 7:40:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
I also 'encouraged' the blog by buying through the Amazon portal instead of going to Best Buy, even though it means waiting several days to get my merch and have a more fulfilling life.

I encourage everyone else to encourage her in this way. Words of encouragement are less motivating that transactions of encouragement.

MAY 13, 2011 7:40:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
blake -- wouldn't that cost a butt-load of money, given what has to be pretty substantial traffic, and a content-rich site, what with all of the photos and the enormous archive?

MAY 13, 2011 7:41:00 PM CDT 
 The Drill SGT said...
All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, but our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man

"treasured"?

amusing and entertaining? perhaps

treasured? no :)

MAY 13, 2011 7:41:00 PM CDT 
 nevadabob said...
I find it striking that Althouse is censoring and memory-holing comments that are critical of Google's leftist and socialist politics.

Looks like Google's action is having the correct effect.

They've convinced Althouse to strangle her commenters.

MAY 13, 2011 7:42:00 PM CDT 
 Barry Dauphin said...
You're too big for Blogger.

MAY 13, 2011 7:43:00 PM CDT 
 Shannon Bell said...
Hey Ann,

Just my opinion, but screw Google and blogger. Buy an awesome URL, go with Wordpress and be done with it.

Who knows what kind of games these jokers are playing.

MAY 13, 2011 7:44:00 PM CDT 
 Shannon Bell said...
Oh, by the way. Thanks for that awesome link at Insty's place yesterday!

MAY 13, 2011 7:45:00 PM CDT 
 Michael Haz said...
Wouldn't have happened if McCain had been elected. Google are Obama's people. They're like Organizing for America, except they hold a horrible lot of power.

MAY 13, 2011 7:46:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
I doubt the old blog is lost. And I highly doubt this is a sinister plot by Google to silence people of Althouse's political persuasion--whatever the hell that persuasion is.

And if it is lost, don't worry: Trooper has the last 4 1/2 years printed out and spiral-bound in a handsome collection titled, "The Collected Wisdom of..." And since they're criminalizing prostitution in Nevada he'll have plenty of time to re-post everything. Idle hands, etc.

MAY 13, 2011 7:51:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I didn't include you Garage. I don't consider you a real liberal.

You are just stupid.

(You are a Packers fan)

But you know I love you guy!

MAY 13, 2011 7:52:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Seriously, the same thing happened when the blogger lady got engaged. Garage was one of the few to quickly and unambigously wish them well. The rest were silent for a suspicious long time until they felt they had to begrudingly acknowledge it. Look it up....oh wait a minute.....

MAY 13, 2011 7:53:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
The Google/Blogger conspiracy might be a longshot, but the nitecruzr pissant is all too real. Dickless little shit.

MAY 13, 2011 7:54:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
I'd be just shocked and amazed if Blogger really took down Althouse for political reasons. That is just not done in the United States. I just figured it was ridiculous technical problems and you, Althouse, took down your own blog in disgust until you found a new home.

Anyway, color me skeptical of the conspiracy for now. If it's true, it's sickening and disheartening and really suggests something seriously morbid about the American left. We all know they are closet fascists, but to be so obvious about it isn't usually the way it goes.

MAY 13, 2011 7:57:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
May 13, 2011
Blogger is back

What a frustrating day. We’re very sorry that you’ve been unable to publish to Blogger for the past 20.5 hours. We’re nearly back to normal — you can publish again, and in the coming hours posts and comments that were temporarily removed should be restored. Thank you for your patience while we fix this situation. We use Blogger for our own blogs, so we’ve also felt your pain.

Here’s what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts. Yesterday we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that’s why you haven’t been able to publish. We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring.

Again, we are very sorry for the impact to our authors and readers. We try hard to ensure Blogger is always available for you to share your thoughts and opinions with the world, and we’ll do our best to prevent this from happening again.

Posted by Eddie Kessler, Tech Lead/Manager, Blogger

http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/05/blogger-is-back.html

MAY 13, 2011 8:00:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Hey I just heard they buried the Althouse blog at sea....you know they didn't want to offend the Muslims or something....I don't know ....does that sound reasonable to you....yeah it must just be a crazy conspiracy theory...yeah...yeah...that's the ticket.

MAY 13, 2011 8:00:00 PM CDT 
 The Grand Inquisitor said...
"OpenID nevadabob said...

I find it striking that Althouse is censoring and memory-holing comments that are critical of Google's leftist and socialist politics.

Looks like Google's action is having the correct effect.

They've convinced Althouse to strangle her commenters."

Is she really doing so? That would be quite a surprise, and frankly, I don't believe it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same people who deleted her blog are now deleting comments critical of their behavior, though.

Althouse linked the redstate theory about Google, so why would she be protecting Google from similar theories?

MAY 13, 2011 8:00:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
I'm quite sure Althouse isn't doing whatever the fuck the tool Nevada Bob said.

MAY 13, 2011 8:02:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
Pasta--

I hosted a bunch of sites on an old machine for years at a nominal cost. Not as heavily trafficked as Althouse, I'm sure.

Aha. So, GoDaddy gives you 10GB of space and unlimited bandwidth for $3 a month if you buy three years at once. $5 for 150GB, which is a LOT of space for text and pix, and the pix are probably gonna stay on flicker, mostly.

Jeez, for $7 a month, it's all you can eat: However many websites, however much bandwidth, however much space, a thousand email accounts (Althouse could offer accounts to donors!), and some other perks.

Curiously, they don't offer as good a deal if you go for their "blog/podcast" offer.

Anyway, $252 over three years doesn't seem like a lot of money to me.

Plus, the data's all yours.

For this deal, Althouse would probably have to buy (or have donated) services to set up her blog. But, you know, blogspot.com kinda sucks, so she might find newer and better technology.

MAY 13, 2011 8:03:00 PM CDT 
 edutcher said...
TWM said...

"All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, but our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man. He's been talking like that on this blog for years. The regulars know him. And they know I love him."

Oh crap, does Meade know he signed-on for a threesome?

With Titus, are you sure it would only be three?

Trooper York said...

I do notice that none of the "liberals" or "progressives" who post daily on your site has anything to say in support of you. Where is AlpaLiberal, Jeremy,Robert Cook, Jay Retread and all the rest. They are oddly silent about the destruction of a blog that they write multiple posts on to support their point of view which is displayed without censorship or fear or favor.

I hope you see who you can depend on. Just sayn'

The One Whose Name We Cannot Mention found us, but only because he was trolling elsewhere.

PS Keep it down, we don't want the rest to find out we're having fun without them.

PPS Agree with Shannon.

PPPS BlogHer is taking up Ann's cause with a fetching photo of Herself.

MAY 13, 2011 8:04:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
It does seem kind of fishy that as big a blog as Althouse is taking so long to get back on line. I mean this is a big dealio. Shouldn't they be paying attention to this or what?

MAY 13, 2011 8:07:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
I agree it's all very fishy. I just can't believe it all. The blog gets destroyed with no warning whatsoever and it just happens to be during a time of tumult and outage at Blogger?

Doesn't add up.

MAY 13, 2011 8:09:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
With Titus, are you sure it would only be three?

With Titus, could you even be sure it was one?

By the way, I think the Google "conspiracy" thing is far-fetched. The most likely issue is just exactly what it seems: a technical glitch of the sort Google isn't supposed to have.

However, could someone(s) in Google use this as a cover to eff with someone (t)he(y) didn't like? Or minimally put that person at the end of the service line?

Sure. Probably not Sergey or Larry--that seems too far-fetched for words. But some middle manager type getting pissy? Petty bureaucrats are petty bureaucrats wherever.

(Typed on a Google CR-48. Heh.)

MAY 13, 2011 8:11:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I wonder if they will release some photo's from the situation room at Blogger? Just sayn'

MAY 13, 2011 8:11:00 PM CDT 
 Tibore said...
It's back! I just checked it. It's completely blank, but the original URL is responding.

Now, the question is, where's all the previous content?

MAY 13, 2011 8:11:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
Yup. The big blog is showing signs of life. Conspiracy theory over (?), Google volunteer hatefest continues.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 Michael said...
Nitecruzer looks like Jeremy's dog, the one on the right.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I also think that the other big time bloggers are taking this too casually. If they can do this to Althouse they can do it to anyone.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 FlaviusJulius said...
It is back up.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 FlaviusJulius said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Seconded Tibore.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 EnigmatiCore said...
Your blog is back up (sans any of your previous posts, which I assume will be forthcoming).

A Blogger employee seems to have put a stop to Nitecruzr's nonsense as well, as the Google 'help forum' thread is open for comments once again after the Blogger employee commented.

Hopefully they will take his keys away.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I told you man. They buried all the old content at sea.

It's the latest thing.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
You are just stupid.

Awwww! Thanks Troop.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Or minimally put that person at the end of the service line?

This I can certainly see.

Move, Althouse. Fuck this shit.

MAY 13, 2011 8:15:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
You know I love you man.

Anybody that loves road kill sandwiches is ok in my book.

MAY 13, 2011 8:15:00 PM CDT 
 EnigmatiCore said...
It will be interesting to see what happens to Mr. Croll now. I might even have to read his blogs to find out what he eventually says about the whole kerfuffle.

MAY 13, 2011 8:16:00 PM CDT 
 The Grand Inquisitor said...
I won't out nitecruzr, but apparently he wrote a wikipedia entry about himself, and how famous he is for defending freedom of speech while having such a useful blog.

What a dweeb. He wanted to be famous, and now he'll have his little 26 minutes of fame/lame.

MAY 13, 2011 8:17:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
Althouse

You can find a lot of your stuff in this "feedburner".

feed://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/eOqB


I'm not going to hot link it so you can *see* the complete address.

MAY 13, 2011 8:17:00 PM CDT 
 Tibore said...
Yeah, the old content is gone. But the Google cached versions are intact, at least. Not the best thing, granted, but that should mean that somehow the old posts can be resurrected.

MAY 13, 2011 8:19:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
"I might even have to read his blogs to find out what he eventually says about the whole kerfuffle."

Guerrilla marketing by being an insufferable prick? So dumb it actually worked. Anyway, you should have plenty of material to look at. According to his "bio" he's got at least half a dozen pseudo-eponymous blogs.

MAY 13, 2011 8:19:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
Odd seeing the comment on the masthead at the original blog. And the blog being gone. Maybe her husband didn't stop reading Althouse afterall

MAY 13, 2011 8:19:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Yeah we never figured out who that woman was....Michelle.....hello...
Michelle....Buellar...anyone...

MAY 13, 2011 8:21:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
It has the photos also.

It looks like because there is so much data associated with your blog that it took them longer.

I know in some management decisions sometimes you make the decision to "sacrifice" the bigger table...

Hard to explain-but that's probably all that happened.

I mean really how big a threat can the only blogger who voted for Obama because McCain scared her because he was too much of an ideologue but at the same time not Conservative enough-really be?

MAY 13, 2011 8:21:00 PM CDT 
 FlaviusJulius said...
Where is my Profile pic?

MAY 13, 2011 8:23:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 8:24:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
I think the only person that followed that *logic* married you and came to that conclusion after a 2 1/2 year delay...

And was probably threatened with...

sex.

Or no sex-or well-*scary sex *but with not too much idealism.

Jeebus.

MAY 13, 2011 8:26:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
It's not really back, just responding. At least, =I= wouldn't consider it back if someone said "Hey! You're back--you just lost everything you've done for the past 8 years!"

I presume this means Althouse is at the front of the queue now. That's what I'd do were I in charge of this mess. It's one thing to be politically strident and another to have it seem as though that were impacting your business decisions.

(It does, of course, but they pick on the small fries whom no one cares about.)

MAY 13, 2011 8:26:00 PM CDT 
 Browndog said...
Not seeing many conservative bloggers rushing to Ann's defense--as I've seen them do with other bloggers with similar issued in the past.

Maybe they're still stuck on the "glitch" meme...waiting to see how this shakes out.

I saw it was removed this morning and was surprised. Now, I'm just shocked. Still.

Kinda shocked at myself for feeling a little bummed not being able to read Althouse.

MAY 13, 2011 8:28:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
It's a really big deal if all the old content was lost.

I mean we lost about 1000 comments of Titus pinching a loaf and Loafing Oaf pinching Sarah Palin's vagina.

MAY 13, 2011 8:28:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
AoS put up a thread on the possible bannage,with links, etc.

MAY 13, 2011 8:29:00 PM CDT 
 Noah Bawdy™ said...
Your main blog is coming up now, no posts though.

MAY 13, 2011 8:30:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
I would consider it a great personal tragedy if the Downward Spiral post from last fall was lost.

MAY 13, 2011 8:30:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Somebody pointed out no word verification right now.

Fuckinay! Anybody want to buy some cheap herbal Viagra? I give very good price.

MAY 13, 2011 8:32:00 PM CDT 
 Michael said...
Well, I would say that this incident is not a positive advertisement for buying a cloudbook powered by google with all your work and software residing in the google administered "cloud." Good luck with that comrades.

MAY 13, 2011 8:33:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
Trooper York said:
Garage was one of the few to quickly and unambigously wish them well.

Why that's just fogblather, blogfather! Here, check it out yourself: link.

Garage didn't even post in that thread.

MAY 13, 2011 8:33:00 PM CDT 
 Henry said...
Shocking Meat Video is back!

MAY 13, 2011 8:35:00 PM CDT 
 Anga2010 said...
First they came for the CrackMC, but I didn't care because I'm not CrackMC...

MAY 13, 2011 8:35:00 PM CDT 
 Browndog said...
What the hell is this?

I just checked the old site--

It's there, empty.

But, this is the masthead:

Althouse

"I'm so glad you posted this. I've been trying to convince my husband
not to read your blog for weeks and this finally did the trick."

MAY 13, 2011 8:37:00 PM CDT 
 Palladian said...
Notice that the archives list the post counts for each year. The content isn't lost, it just hasn't found its way home yet.

MAY 13, 2011 8:38:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I don't know if it was that post but I seem to remember Garage wishing her well. I could stand corrected.

I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You have to be nice to stupid people. Just sayn!

MAY 13, 2011 8:40:00 PM CDT 
 Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 8:43:00 PM CDT 
 edutcher said...
Trooper York said...

It does seem kind of fishy that as big a blog as Althouse is taking so long to get back on line. I mean this is a big dealio. Shouldn't they be paying attention to this or what?

I think Insta and Jacobson are. And I mentioned BlogHer, but, yes, if the Google Thought Police are pulling something cute because Ann doesn't censor - and because she took a stand in the recent troubles in Madison - then the Conservative and Libertarian blogospheres ought to be a lot more wound up about this.

MAY 13, 2011 8:44:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
Trooper
I'm almost positive you are correct. One of those threads anyway.

MAY 13, 2011 8:45:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You have to be nice to stupid people. Just sayn!

I like garage too. He's one of the few people I've ever spoken to IRL from this blog.

MAY 13, 2011 8:46:00 PM CDT 
 Roger von Oech said...
Ann:

Good luck fighting your way through this current crap. I know you'll prevail!

For what's worth: I remember your saying a few years ago that you liked Blogger because it was free (as opposed to Typepad), and you didn't have to worry about having to pay to have access to your old posts. I assume you've changed your opinion.

MAY 13, 2011 8:47:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
That's how I remember it Garage. You were conspicious by being one of the few who did have something nice to say.

MAY 13, 2011 8:47:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Althouse ought to leave blogger. No matter what Google did to cause this, it's unacceptably bad.

Technical glitch. Bad.

Political censorship. Bad.

Chicanery because of glitch. Bad.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
garage mahal said: Trooper
I'm almost positive you are correct. One of those threads anyway.

Well maybe. It wasn't the engagement thread though. Check for yourself above.

Oh, and I think reader was the first to congratulate them after their wedding.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
My first thought in seeing that the blog was a desaparecido was the same as garage's, and that the woman in question had mad hacking skills.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 DADvocate said...
reflecting an assumption that law schools make choices based on diversity factors.

My assumption is that nearly all departments/schools/colleges in a university make choices based on diversity factors. My father was a psychology professor at a large state university. During the late 1970s/early 1980s, his department needed to hire a new department head. They tried for 2-3 years to hire a minority/female, preferably a female minority.

They failed because the supply was limited, the demand high and their salary too low. Instead they settled for the president of the APA who was merely a white male.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
@Palladian (if he's around):

Do you happen to know what happened to backtype.com? They no longer seem to host back comments from Althouse.

MAY 13, 2011 8:49:00 PM CDT 
 Matt said...
Your blog is back. Sadly, with no posts.

MAY 13, 2011 8:51:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
Notice that the archives list the post counts for each year. The content isn't lost, it just hasn't found its way home yet.

Well, not to get too geeky 'cause I'm sure you're right BUT I would imagine the post counts are updated when posts are made, and not recalculated on every page load.

In other words, the counts being there just mean the counts are there, not the posts.

MAY 13, 2011 8:53:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
Uh oh. I just realized that I've contributed to the cesspool of homophobia by presuming that someone with a husband was a woman.

MAY 13, 2011 8:53:00 PM CDT 
 Michael said...
Why has your blog been on useless, clueless Blogspot since 2005 anyway?

I don't mean to blame the victim, but really, you could at least pay for your own server and use Blogger to publish it, or better yet WordPress.

This is like asking Ford why your Pinto blew up. That's what Pintos DO.

MAY 13, 2011 8:56:00 PM CDT 
 Quayle said...
If you were teaching a class - say at Northwestern - and you lauded big tits on a woman, you'd be a smash hit with the professoriate.

But you're commentators on a blog? You're unworthy of your title and position.

MAY 13, 2011 8:57:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
But you're commentators on a blog? You're unworthy of your title and position.

Unworthy of the exalted title of blog commenter?

MAY 13, 2011 9:02:00 PM CDT 
 Quayle said...

Unworthy of the exalted title of blog commenter?

Unworthy of the title professor and as a member of the academy.

MAY 13, 2011 9:05:00 PM CDT 
 RuyDiaz said...
I'm sorry but, it was Titus who offered the only (remotely, if at all) mysogynistic comment? That's pretty much all Titus does!

Between the snarky law professor, and Blogger Trouble, it has been farce all around.

MAY 13, 2011 9:06:00 PM CDT 
 RuyDiaz said...
Uh oh. I just realized that I've contributed to the cesspool of homophobia by presuming that someone with a husband was a woman.

Oh, shoot.

When I was a 14-year-old boy, back in 1990, I remember wondering just how big Benazhir Bhutto's breast were. It was hard to estimate, with her dressing in that unflattering Islamic dress and all.

That's mysogynistic and Islamophobic: take that!

MAY 13, 2011 9:12:00 PM CDT 
 Ralph L said...
Is it misogyny to admire someone's tits, or just to talk about them? I doubt he's interested in her "gyn" parts.

Leiter's blog could be a hotbed of Cfud-caliber anti-semitism. He's got a post called "Hung from Temple to Colorado."

MAY 13, 2011 9:13:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
Unworthy of the title professor and as a member of the academy.

Probably the nicest thing anyone's said about Althouse all day!

MAY 13, 2011 9:14:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
@Quayle, Oh, OK. I reread your comment and now I get it. One of those times when "you're" vs. "your" wasn't clear from context.

Did you see that Northwestern recently dropped that sex class? Too high a ratio of hardware to soft porn.

MAY 13, 2011 9:19:00 PM CDT 
 starboardhelm said...
Ann, I would love to host your blog on my own server at writecraft.net (as althouse.writecraft.net or any domain name you want) for a very reasonable rate. I will even migrate your database if you can get a copy out Blogger. If you're interested, please contact me at support@writecraft.net.

MAY 13, 2011 9:19:00 PM CDT 

About that cheerleader who wouldn't cheer for the player she'd accused of rape...

Let's talk about the free speech and other legal issues, but you've got to get the timeline right.