Outer Limits of Free Speech: I am a strong believer in free speech, even in controversial areas (such as obscenity, hate speech, and "dual use" speech that might be used to break the law) so the forthcoming article by Professor Eugene Volokh on speech that might be used to faciliate crime was of particular interest. I am a sucker for articles that examine the controversial edges of particular doctrines, and the article surely did that. The whole article, admittedly rather long, is well worth a perusal for those interested in the subject.

It contains mention of "mirror sites," which are websites that post controversial material that might even have been already been subject to lawsuits for the express purpose of making a point as to the errors of censorship and so forth. [One example provided by the article, and the link still works, involves a hitman manual ("for entertainment purposes only"), the original publisher was successfully sued in civil court, after it was used by an actual hitman, and promised to take it out of print. The Internet, however, makes this of somewhat limited value.] btw the url supplied by the Volokh article to an online copy of the book has "die" in it, which must be some sort of sick joke.

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Pre-supposing Bigotry?: Talking about Professor Volokh, he criticized a recent article against the proposed marriage amendment in that it presupposed that it was an act of bigotry. As he noted, he is still opposed to the current amendment, given its current reach (a narrow one preventing the federal courts from forcing states to accept gay marriage is more to his liking). The article, however, does discuss in some detail why the author believes it is so unnecessary broad that it clearly implies unreasonable bias. Also, yes, opposing an amendment to allegedly protect the "sanctity of marriage" in this fashion implies a certain view on homosexuality. I think that's fine. It's somewhat self-defeating to just emphasize the bigotry angle, since people are currently deeply divided, but the article turns out to be a bit more nuanced than the critic suggested.

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Other News: Fiscal conservatives start to wonder (and compare Dean to Perot) what the point is in voting for President Bush. A creative way to apply math to your audience. Just one example, snide comments over the last few years (and on last Wednesday's West Wing) aside, why the UN matters. If only we had a leader who cared about it, and forcibly was willing to help push it in a new direction for the 21st century.