Salam Al-Marayati and Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs of the Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Intiative say the presidential candidates are shunning Muslims to win votes:

It appears that the political logic of the candidates and their handlers calls for winning Jewish American support at the expense of Muslim American voters. This takes the shape of aggressive outreach to the Jewish community while Muslims go ignored. That strategy may be politically expedient, but it is inherently flawed. Muslims see their exclusion as a betrayal of American values, and many Jews are alarmed by the parallels to their own historical political exclusion.

Columnist Rosa Brooks says there's a new Condoleezza Rice in town, but nobody cares. Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash wonders what can be done about Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe's refusal to step down. And columnist Patt Morrison thinks it's been a good week for schadenfreude in L.A.

The editorial board praises the Supreme Court for deciding against the death penalty for child rapists, urges Congress to end the double standard in radio royalty payments, and considers a state plan to cope with global warming:

The plan is only an outline, but it has enough specifics to make one thing abundantly clear: By the time all its regulatory structures are in place in 2012, it will affect nearly everyone in California.

Over the next 10 years, it will probably change the kind of car you drive, the kind of fuel you put in it, the amount you pay for electricity, where that electricity comes from, the way you heat or cool your home and how you do business.

On the letters page, readers discuss John McCain's energy plans. Woodland Hills' James Dawson criticizes McCain's intention to give a $300 million cash prize for the inventor of a energy-saving car battery: "McCain just told every inventor in America to wait five months before doing something that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, cut pollution and keep our economy from imploding any further. Thanks for nothing."

*Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies

Columnist Tim Rutten blames our year-round Caprese cravings for the tomato menace:

A proper insalata Caprese is one of the jewels of Campania's incomparable cuisine.

All that's required are ripe tomatoes just off the vine, fresh mozzarella di bufala, basil coaxed to aromatic fullness by the sun's heat, a sprinkling of coarse salt, a grind of pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. It's a gloriously simple dish that happily reproduces the colors of the Italian flag and virtually stares up from the plate, whispering "high summer."

The fact that you now can order some variation of it in February from half of America's restaurant menus or supermarket takeout counters goes a long way toward explaining what's behind the current national recall of tomatoes across the United States.

Contributing editor Max Boot says its time to re-up our Iraq commitment by protecting troops. Sci Fi Channel advisory board chairman Peter Schwartz says sci-fi should trade in its "Blade Runner" dystopias for some "Flash Gordon" fun to get people optimistic about the future. And Radisson Hotel LAX owner/operator Peter Dumon urges his fellow hoteliers to stop fighting the living wage.

The editorial board discusses the iPhone's limits, declares the start of silly season for oil policy, and wonders at the Bush administration's irrational immigration policy:

As we hustle to show resolve in the immigration "crisis," we're getting used to the idea that all private endeavor is subject to Washington's prior approval. What kind of country do we want? A few years ago, a border wall would have seemed a relic from medieval China or Central Europe in the totalitarian era. Now it is official U.S. policy.

On the letters page, readers respond to a two-page anti-gay-marriage ad that ran in The Times. L.A.'s Ari Solomon says, "I know newspaper subscriptions are down and ads help pay the rent, but this was blood money."

*Cartoon by Lisa Benson, Washington Post Writers Group

Columnist Joel Stein learns how to be a classical music snob:

[I]f people applaud between movements during a concert, I should stare, loudly shush and shake my head in disapproval. The musicians don't mind the clapping, but snotty audience members love to assert their knowledge of classical music etiquette. When I'm old enough to have really gotten the hang of this, I'm sure I'll be able to use my phone to excoriate the clappers on an online social network inhabited only by the snotty, old and self-obsessed. It would still be called Facebook.

Board of Equalization member Michelle Steel says Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger's plan to borrow against lottery earnings relies on Californians' financial recklessness. And CEO of Northrop Grumman Corp. Ronald D. Sugar argues that there's no reason to dispute his company's selection over Boeing for an Air Force contract.

The editorial board chides Republican members of Congress for pushing tax breaks for the rich over tax credits for renewable energy, and wonders if a Texas court acted too fast in allowing kids to be taken from a polygamist compound. The board also says actors should see online film clips as potential revenue, not as threats to their livelihood.

Readers react to the police union's practice of paying punished LAPD officers. Burbank's William Rogers says, "The patently absurd program neutralizes even the minimal enforcement action available." But Marco Rodriguez of Glendale counters, "The LAPD complaint system is shortsighted and broken. Officers from other cities laugh at what we get suspended for."

"Everyone who has tried posting books online has done it again. That's a pretty good indicator it works. An artist's enemy is obscurity, not piracy."

That's the no-introduction-needed Cory Doctorow talking about the brave new freeware-everywhere world with his fellow Canucks at MacLeans.

It's easy enough (and probably premature) to mock the death throes of intellectual property behemoths. Doctorow goes one better by actually making a living in the barter economy, though the details are a bit vague: He says he lives off the advertising at BoingBoing and is getting bigger advances on his novels. All I know of life on earth tells me every time a writer gets a generous book advance a publisher gets a little bit poorer, and it's not clear to me how long such a system can last. But that would be in keeping with Doctorow's contempt for stability as a goal:

The question to ask about any intellectual property rights regime, he says, is "does it encourage or discourage involvement, art-making, information-sharing?" In his opinion, the current system only serves corporate dinosaurs, "big dying institutions." They use copyright to try to regulate technology, to criminalize (or at least turn a profit on) all the peer-to-peer file sharing that is the "Internet's greatest achievement: lowering the cost of mass collaboration, the barriers to innovation."

It adds up to an eternal and futile attempt to throttle the mechanisms of change. Long before sheet-music publishers fought record makers (who later battled radio stations, who complained of TV and so on), monks who produced manuscripts were damning the printing press as the devil's engine. What's particularly galling for Doctorow is that "yesterday's pirate is today's admiral — Sony, the VCR pirate, denounced by moviemakers a generation ago, has come full circle to sue Napster's successors." Of course, institutions — especially wealthy ones — want to live on, even past their times, Doctorow acknowledges. "I used to be a bartender, and there was always somebody who didn't want the night to end. But there comes a time when you have to put the chairs up on the table."

As a fulltime employee of a big, dying institution and as the guy who never wants the bar to close, I can confirm that Doctorow is exactly right. Read the whole story.

I wouldn't get into a theological argument with my fellow Pittsburgh native Archbishop Donald Wuerl, of Washington, D.C.  But the archbishop has an unorthodox view of what goes on in American law schools.

Wuerl is chancellor of the Catholic University of America, the site of an address tomorrow by Pope Benedict XVI. In an interview with Newsweek, the archbishop defended the idea that theology professors at Catholic schools should be monitored for orthodoxy by drawing a comparison with law schools:

"You couldn't have a good law class where the professor said, 'I'm going to teach you what I think the Supreme Court should have said, so forget all these rulings. I'll teach what the law should be.' I think after a while the university would say, 'We need to shape up this law school'."

Likewise, Wuerl said, if a theology professor rejects a papal encyclical, "the university has to look the same way they'd look at a law professor that rejects the Supreme Court."

Actually, law school professors love to tell their students what they think the Supreme Court should have said. Far from getting you excommunicated, "rejecting" the Supreme Court — or at least certain of its decisions — is the path to preferment for a law professor. And it isn't just professors who diss the Supremes. Law students do, too. That sort of disputation is part of a legal education.

Of course, unlike the church, the court makes no claims of inerrancy.  As the late Justice Robert Jackson put it: "We're not final because we're infallible; we're infallible because we're final."

Seventh months after a Los Angeles Times editorial urged Hillary Clinton to expedite the release of records from her time as first lady, the National Archives and the Bill Clinton Library have disgorged more than 11,000 pages of her official schedules.

Having sifted through such artifacts in a previous life, I sympathize with the reporters who are now excavating the files for newsworthy nuggets. It helps when they’re available, as the Clinton cache is, on the Web or a CD. I have unfond memories of being part of a posse of reporters who had to prowl through the paper records of John G. Roberts Jr.’s service in the Reagan administration.

Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, the pesky public-interest group that filed suit to obtain the first lady files, said a quick eyeballing of the document (or datebook) dump indicated that Hillary was indeed a “co-president.” Fitton presumably meant this as a criticism, but it bolsters Hillary’s claim that her experience in the White House is relevant to her campaign to return there under her own colors. But if the Clinton campaign wants to make that argument, it should explain why it didn’t move heaven, Earth and the National Archives to produce this material earlier.

Heather Mac Donald's lightning-rod piece on campus rape takes the top spot this week, with Dallas Weaver's Blowback on copyright a very close second. Readers didn't make this another mostly-Obama week, opting instead for conscience-stricken paparazzi and stubborn sadness. Here they are:

1. What campus rape crisis? by Heather Mac Donald
2. Copyright this, by Dallas Weaver
3. Surge doesn't equal success, by Michael Kinsley
4. The snapper snapped, by Nick Stern
5. Too good to win, by Joel Stein
6. White like us, by Gregory Rodriguez
7. What a little bird told us, by Jonathan Rosen
8. The miracle of melancholia, by Eric G. Wilson
9. Stonehenges all around us, by Craig Childs
10. Food or fuel? by the editorial board

KUSC ran a richest-classical-composer feature a few days ago, which drew its top-10 list from a 2005 survey by a U.K. radio station. It's unlikely the numbers — which were apparently calculated in adjusted currencies — have changed much since then, so here's the list:

1. George Gershwin
2. Johann Strauss II
3. Giuseppe Verdi
4. Gioachino Rossini
5. George Frideric Handel
6. Joseph Haydn
7. Sergei Rachmaninoff
8. Giacomo Puccini
9. Niccolò Paganini
10. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 

Why is this interesting (to me at any rate)? Because longhair music is pretty much universally recognized as an art form that can't compete in an open market and must be supported through royal or (these days) public patronage. Yet this list is remarkable for the lack of patronage its members enjoyed. All but two of the composers on the list date to the industrial revolution or afterward, and the two who came earlier than that — Haydn and Handel — did plenty of lucrative for-profit work in Britain, which boasted the most liberal economy in Europe. Verdi, Rossini and Puccini were all piece-work producers who were less interested in pleasing the royal ear than in filling up the house with paying customers. Paganini and "Waltz King" Strauss were expert self-promoters and brand builders, Rachmaninoff made much of his fortune on recordings and performances, and Gershwin made it to the top of the list strictly by producing music for a large popular audience. I'm not sure he ever got a dime of public support.

By comparison, Richard Wagner, another 19th-century rock star with a long list of patrons and supporters including a king who built the composer his own mansion and theme-park/mini-city, didn't make the list. That's a special irony given how massively popular Wagner was and still is, not just in opera houses but throughout the popular culture.

You could counter that money earned is no indication of musical achievement, and that wastrels like Wolfgang Mozart and Franz Schubert, or humble workers like J.S. Bach, would top a list of actual composing value. True enough, but hardship and poverty are the default positions of human existence. It's success that's the unusual thing, and the numbers here indicate success becomes a little more likely in a profit-centered environment. Interestingly, Gershwin and Rachmaninoff, who both died before the middle of the 20th century, are the most recent names on the list. Audience indifference has since encouraged classical composers to avoid the uncertainty of the marketplace; but maybe all those composers with academic sits would have been better off trying to make a bigger buck. Maybe classical music needs more market discipline, not less.

If you aren't checking out Jon Healey's Bit Player blog on a regular basis, break that habit by reading this analysis of Google's China music effort, which aims to make legal downloads available in the Middle Kingdom. Says Healey:

If Google wins support from all the major record companies (only Universal Music Group has signed on so far, according to the Journal, and Silicon Valley Insider questioned even UMG's participation), it will have pushed the music industry closer than it's ever been before to a model that depends on advertisers, not consumers, to pay the freight.

One reason the Long Tail thesis has been so hard for old-school media companies to swallow is that when you're used to selling bazillions of copies of a few blockbusters, it's hard to build a Giganticorp-scalable business around selling less of more. In this case, the problem is taken care of: The music labels are selling nothing in China now.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez writes that Martin Luther King would be proud to see the 2008 presidential race:

Obama's life and work debunk the idea that his racial identity somehow effectively separates him from the majority. In his memoir, he recognizes that part of the work of the smaller community is to help redefine the broader national community. Ignoring narrow or defensive notions of racial pride, he sees no incongruity in being proudly African American and capably representing all Americans.

Nor has he felt the need to paint himself as "post-racial," or less black in any way, as he courts white voters.

But author Marcus Rediker points to something that would unsettle King, arguing that the U.S. has yet to properly atone for the slave trade. Lee "CultureGrrl" Rosenbaum says forget ownership, countries like Greece and Italy that can afford to share art wealth should.

The editorial board endorses in two contests: No on Proposition 91, and yes on Proposition 93. The board analyzes the presidential race and figures out which primaries are make-or-break ones for candidates.

Readers aren't happy with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement of a toll road through San Onofre State Park. Kurt Page of Laguna Niguel says, "Anyone who doesn't think that opening up pristine wilderness to development will ultimately increase gridlock just stands to make a buck from it."

Just in case our editorial on J.K. Rowling's suit against The Harry Potter Lexicon isn't fresh in your mind, our take was: Stupid idea, bad for the brand, bad for Rowling's longterm legacy and bad for the fans, but probably defensible from a legal and a property-rights standpoint:

The most compelling public-interest argument against the steady expansion of copyright duration and power has been that it discourages new work by outsiders without encouraging copyright owners to be more productive -- as was clearly the case when, for example, Margaret Mitchell's estate attempted to block "The Wind Done Gone," Alice Randall's parody of "Gone With the Wind." That is not the case here. Rowling is still alive, still creating material and still in a position to want, and merit, relatively full powers over her invented universe.

Tim Wu in Slate also seems to think the suit is a bad decision, but he says Rowling ought to lose for strictly legal reasons:

The closest relevant legal precedent is the 2002 Beanie Baby decision by Judge Richard Posner (who has a taste for cases involving stuffed animals). Ty, the producer of Beanie Babies, doesn't like unauthorized guides to the Beanie Baby universe and their unflattering tendency to criticize the company, so it sued. Ruling against the company, Judge Posner used the same analogy that I have, comparing the guides to book reviews: "Both," he said, "are critical and evaluative as well as purely informational; and ownership of a copyright does not confer a legal right to control public evaluation of the copyrighted work." That's logic that should control the Potter case as well.

Even if the Beanie Baby case isn't directly controlling, the economics suggest the same result. How, exactly, are we hurt by the existence of competing guides to the Potter universe, one written by fans, the other by Rowling? It would be strange to say that since Fodor has written a perfectly good guide to London, we don't need the Lonely Planet or, for that matter, Wikitravel. Giving Rowling what she wants would be like giving Egypt the power to control guides to the pyramids.

I don't see how the Beanie Baby case is controlling, or even how it's relevant. A book about three-dimensional plush toys isn't taking nearly as much material as a book about another book, is it? All the value adds of descriptions and criticisms of the objects (objects that don't contain any words) are original to the authors of the Beanie Baby guide. Very few are original to the authors of the Harry Potter book — if they were, the book wouldn't be a reliable guide.

Wu argues that there's a threat here to "our collective wisdom" and "what we know." This is more properly understood not as a matter of what belongs to us but of what belongs to J.K. Rowling. A wiki-type online guide to the Potter books is an acceptable fair use because the added value is clear: It provides a reorganization of Rowling's stuff into another medium in a way that is clearly distinct from any of her books. A book is something different: By its nature as a guide it can't depart substantially from Rowling's work; the ratio of copyrighted to new material is so great as to make a fair-use claim very difficult.

Which, again, is not an argument that Rowling should be pursuing an action we called "petty, churlish and, from a business standpoint, probably ill-advised." It's a rare sign of good sense that, for example, Paramount does not go after the proprietors of Memory-Alpha. (And just to be clear, for the very reasons detailed above, I think Paramount would lose if it did; while the ratio of copyrighted to new stuff is still large, the act of describing content from a visual medium is itself transformative in a way that rearranging material from a written medium is not.) But just because sweet reason leads some copyright owners to behave with liberality doesn't mean all copyright owners should be required to do the same. The Harry Potter franchise is Rowling's to screw up any way she wishes.

When I worked in Pittsburgh we had a local politician — since elevated to statewide office — who littered his public and private remarks with the word “frankly” whether or not the comment in question required any frankness on his part.  This tic was tiresome and amusing at the same time. My colleagues and I wondered whether he he used the F-word at home. (“Frankly, that was a wonderful meal!”)

Rudy Giuliani has a similar problem.  In his “Meet the Press”  interview on Sunday, the former mayor introduced an array of explanations and  rationalizations with the phrase, “The reality is…”  My “reality” check of the transcript turned up 13 examples including “The reality is, it was a mistake for me to be on the [Iraq Study Group] panel" and (in response to a question about his protégé and former police commissioner Bernard Kerik, now under indictment) “Now, the reality is I made a mistake.  I made a mistake in not vetting him carefully enough.”

Just as a politician who says "frankly" constantly makes you wonder if he's really being candid, a presidential candidate who is constantly insisting that his opinions are "the reality" insprires suspicions that he's overcompensating. That, you might say, is the reality.

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy: You need to give “The reality is” a rest. And I say that frankly.

I vowed a long time ago never to refer to the "Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences" with a straight face until the Academy graduates its first class of cadets. But maybe sometimes all that solemn self-regard about Oscar® has its value.

Last week I got a chance to attend a 25th-anniversary screening of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. As I regard E.T. not only as a fine movie but as an essential weapon in America's Cold War soft power arsenal, I was bracing for the worst from this screening to a nearly full house (stocked with parents like me in various stages of disappointment, denial and bargaining at their children's insufficient enchantment with one of the great warhorses of our own youth). The film has been famously modified by its own creator, who in 2002 released a remix filled with bad improvements, including but not limited to some additional footage (in a movie that is not terribly fast-paced to begin with), the obligatory CGI version of the eponymous alien (seamless, flawless and charmless from what I've seen in the trailer) and most notoriously, digital hoodoo that removes the firearms from the hands of the federal-agent characters at the climax.

This last has always struck me as a crucial error in a drama that flirts throughout with tweeness and needs at least a hint of danger to work, but I've never wanted to find out. On the principle that you don't have to smell a whole egg to know it's rotten, I've avoided the re-edited version, but figured I'd swallow that scruple in the spirit of the occasion.

What a pleasant surprise to find I didn't have to do that. In the version screened the other night the feds were armed and dangerous the way God and Steven Spielberg made them. There was no additional footage or digital E.T. either. (I didn't pay attention to whether the word "terrorist" had been undisappeared from one line of dialogue.) And it turns out I have the Academy to thank. All official screenings must be of the version that was originally eligible for Academy Award consideration, which made it necessary to strike a brand new print of the undesecrated E.T. for this screening.

Sure, we could carp about the presumptiousness of honoring a film for its handful of technical awards without mentioning that the movie itself was beaten out for Best Picture by Richard Attenborough's Ghandi (a picture Ben Kingsley himself is unlikely to want to sit through again). But at least the Academy's strict adherence to its own rules resulted, in this case, in a small stumbling block on the path to universal mediocrity.

This also leaves me curious about this whole new-prints-of-old-versions business. It costs between $6,000 and $10,000 to strike a new print from existing materials, and according to a representative of the Academy, studios frequently make new prints for the organization's screenings, then donate them to the Academy's archives. In this case, however, the person I spoke with at the Academy says Universal did not donate the print after the screening. So where did it go? Seems like a simple question, but after a week of trying to find out from spokespeople for Universal and Dreamworks, I have no answer.

That doesn't mean there's anything fishy; the Academy representative I talked with noted that the organization already has several copies of the film in its archive and thus didn't particularly need to keep a new print. A spokesperson for Dreamworks says she believes the print will in fact be donated to the Academy (though for two days now she has been unable to confirm that) so it could just be a miscommunication. And of course, 10 grand is a drop in the bucket to these behemoths. But the rule of thumb is that when people can't get you information, there's something wrong with the information. And you'd think that having re-edited your old work, you'd keep a close watch on 35mm copies of what is now your rough draft.

So I'm positing or hoping that Spielberg has seen the error of his later years and is planning a New Coke/Classic Coke bait and switch, in which the original version of this Hollywood classic will sneak back into circulation, and the 2002 disimprovement will be quietly retired. Maybe this will even build into a groundswell, and all those director's cuts, definitive editions and other misguided remasterings will begin to recede in favor of the versions that actually pleased audiences in the first place. Then again, maybe not. But I'm still happy that the real E.T., rather than a post-9/11 impostor, got one more chance to phone home.

Columnist Rosa Brooks says torture is the new abortion — that is, the new GOP candidate litmus test:

Not too long ago, judicial nominees and political candidates could expect to be grilled on abortion. As the Republican leadership became dominated by right-wing evangelicals, staunch opposition to abortion became a precondition for those seeking support from GOP insiders. Soon, abortion was a litmus test for both parties. Just as Republicans would oppose any candidate or nominee who supported abortion rights, Democrats would oppose anyone who wanted Roe vs. Wade overturned....

These days, you can forget that old-style GOP rhetoric about "values," "human dignity" and the "culture of life." Because the GOP has a new litmus test for its nominees: Will you or will you not protect U.S. officials who order the torture of prisoners?

Columnist Patt Morrison asks, who needs writers when you can have retro TV? UC Irvine's Peter Navarro points out that Yahoo is just one of many tech firms taking part in China's totalitarian ways. Williams College's James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn say Hillary Clinton has taken a page from the FDR campaign handbook.

The board praises Google's plans to create cell phone programs and denounces Pakistan's targeted assault on democracy advocates. Finally, the board says an overhaul of the tax code would do more good than sticking to the alternative minimum tax.

Readers react to a briefly considered plan to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. L.A.'s Jon Krampner says, "Impeaching, convicting and removing Cheney from office would not only be the right thing to do, it would be popular."

On the front page of our paper today you'll see a glorious full-color photo of Jay Leno handing out donuts on a picket line. You can find it on our site. On the front page of The New York Times you'll find a shot of Tina Fey rocking an earnest look among some other group of picketers.

Now, before you say I'm just letting my plutocratic need to batten on the blood tallow of the proletariat get the best of me, let me affirm that I am very happy the WGA strike is on and I hope the work stoppage lasts for at least one full calendar year.

But I mean, if Jay Leno's aims are the same as those of the writers on strike, then who can be considered management in this situation? Yes, yes, I'm sure he has a WGA card or some such thing, but it's The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. He's the boss of the show. He's the person who is ultimately responsible for attracting viewers. He's the one responsible for making sure the program brings in more money than it spends. He answers if the product fails. He's the one responsible for making sure new shows come out and get seen, and he will be, or should be, fire if that fails to happen.

There's a word for that kind of person. It's "boss." Not a union boss — a real boss. Are we supposed to believe nobody under the level of NBC-Universal chairman Bob Wright can be considered management? If Jay's labor, who's management? This is a real question, not a rhetorical question.

Sometimes, MoveOn.org can outrage conservatives without having to actually do anything. Last month the liberal advocacy group drew brickbats for demanding that CafePress stop offering t-shirts and bumper stickers for sale that criticized the group by name. In a remarkable stretch of trademark law, MoveOn argued that the merch infringed on its trademark. CafePress, to its credit, dismissed most of the group's requests as groundless.

This week, Google removed four paid links that the re-election campaign of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, had bought on the grounds that they, too, infringed MoveOn's trademarks. The take-down was reported by the San Francisco Examiner, then picked up by bloggers such as Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit and Scott Cleland at The Precursor Blog. However, as noted by Cleland -- a frequent Google basher -- the main fault here lies not with MoveOn, but with Google and its knee-jerk defense of trademarks.

Collins' campaign bought the links, which you can see here, in an attempt to capitalize on MoveOn's singular unpopularity among Republicans. The name has become a conservative fundraiser's magic word, opening wallets almost as fast as "gay marriage" or "cut and run." But MoveOn had previously instructed Google to remove any use of its trademarked name in the text of a paid link, and when the search giant discovered the name in Collins' ads, down they came. (For those unfamiliar with Google's search advertising, the paid links are the ones that appear on the right side of the screen under the heading "Sponsored Links.")

Paradoxically, Google has fought in court to preserve its advertisers' rights to buy keywords based on trademarked names. Paid links are tied to keywords; for example, if you wanted to run an ad for your company's running shoes, you might try to buy the keywords Adidas, Nike and Reebok so that your ad would appear whenever someone used Google to search for one of those brands. And thanks in part to Google's legal team, Adidas, Nike and Reebok can't stop you from doing that. The director of Internet strategy for Collins' campaign, Lance Dutson of Maine Coast Design in Sears Mont, Maine, said that one of the keywords he'd bought had, in fact, been MoveOn.org. But that wasn't what got him into trouble, he said -- it was including "MoveOn.org" in the text of the ad.

Legally, the same principle should apply to keywords as to paid links. Uses of a trademarked name and phrase are verboten if they confuse readers, not simply because the trademark owner has asked for exclusivity. In Google's defense, one of the Collins campaign's links did seem to imply that it was backed by the liberal group. It read, "MoveOn.org in Maine/Susan Collins is MoveOn's primary target. Learn how you can help." Readers could easily think that MoveOn was the one seeking help, not Collins. The other three, however, were so obviously anti-MoveOn ads, there was no chance anyone would be confused into thinking the group had sponsored or approved them. This one was typical: "Help Fight MoveOn.org/MoveOn's money pollutes politics. Help Maine fight back." In each case, the ad closed with a link to www.SusanCollins.com, further clarifying the source.

Google squelched political speech with its reflexive removal of the ads based on a faulty application of trademark law. It needs to follow the lead of CafePress and think before it hits the delete key.

Times sportswriter Christine Daniels says that the transgender community won't let Democrats leave them out of anti-discrimination bill without a fight:

Big miscalculation. The strategy did not yield the usual we-got-ours run for safety. Lesbian, gay and bisexual activists stood alongside their trans sisters and brothers, and together we raised the roof. It was a beautiful noise, let me tell you.

It was so much noise -- about 140 gay and trans rights groups told Pelosi in no uncertain terms that protection for the transgendered needed to stay in the bill -- that she and Frank consented to delay a House vote until later this month. In these intervening weeks, Congress and America need to hear from the transgender people who live and walk and work among them -- you're reading one now....

Gioia Diliberto explores fashion's piracy paradox -- knockoffs fuel innovation but rob designers. And the University of Virginia's Larry J. Sabato thinks it's time the U.S. had a new Constitution.

The editorial board wonders why Rep. Jane Harman flip-flopped on the Armenian genocide resolution. It tells Gov. Schwarzenegger which of the many bills on his desk deserve approval, and argues in favor of the state's Dream Act, which would help undocumented college students.

Readers react to a first hand account of the Blackwater m.o. Ojai's Kathi Smith says "How much more good could have been done if [Janessa]Gans had written her Blackwater story about careening through the streets of Baghdad, terrorizing the populace, as soon it happened, rather than years later?"

Columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that journalists don't ever discuss the patriotism that holds the U.S. together:

I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness.

Yet the strangest and most ironic aspect of our national culture is that we have an aversion to talking about a national culture. Samuel Huntington, one of the country's premier social scientists, has become something of a pariah for constantly reminding people (in books such as "The Clash of Civilizations" and "Who Are We?") that the United States is a nation, not just a government and a bunch of interest groups.

The New America Foundation's Tomás R. Jiménez says race isn't to blame for the academic struggles of Latinos in the U.S. New York University's Jonathan Zimmerman remembers the murder of Amish school girls one year ago, and what it taught us. UC San Diego's Barbara F. Walter notes that civil wars usually drag on and rarely produce peace deals.

The editorial board praises rock band Radiohead for coming up with a pay-what-you-want plan to sell its new album. The board thinks Santa Ana city appointees shouldn't have to choose between blogging and serving the public. The board also weighs in on what the latest attacks in Darfur mean for peace efforts.

Readers react to Bush's plan to veto an expansion of kids' healthcare. Marcia D'Amico of Portland, Ore. writes, "By threatening to veto this bill, Bush once again proves that while he champions the rights of the unborn, he cares little for the child once it leaves the womb."

Columnist Joel Stein asks if Paris Hilton is a plagiarist:

I've spent five weeks e-mailing and calling Elliot Mintz, Hilton's publicist, making it clear that the L.A. Times was about to run a story about this accusation. Though he said he'd get back to me, he hasn't. I'm guessing when you're Hilton's publicist, you're a busy guy. In retrospect, I should have gotten his attention by saying Hilton wore the same dress as [Judi] DeBella.

Meanwhile, DeBella's family and friends -- who mocked her ruthlessly when she told them she was writing letters to Hilton -- are encouraging her to sue.

Columnist Rosa Brooks imagines the Columbia University president introducing Bush the way he did Ahmadinejad. Claremont McKenna's John J. Pitney Jr. explains why the California GOP is at war with itself. And Ohio State Univeristy's Daniel P. Tokaji argues that asking for ID at the polls could burden poor and minority voters.

The editorial board advises the governor how to reach his goal of reduced carbon emissions by 2020. The board shows how a pro-choice group has inadvertently made a strong case for net neutrality, and praises the mayor for bringing in a major private donation for L.A. schools.

MoveOn.org's excessively discounted broadside against General David Petraeus in the New York Times two weeks ago won't rank as its most successful tactic. The full-page nastygram appears not only to have solidified Republican opposition in the Senate for proposals to curtail the Iraq war effort, but also to have shaken the group's rich Hollywood funding base.

So it's not too surprising that the liberal advocacy group would be a mite touchy from all the blowback online, even though it should be used to the abuse by now. So touchy, in fact, that it's been sending out cease-and-desist letters to CafePress, a website that lets people offer custom-designed t-shirts, coffee mugs and the like for sale. Last week it demanded that the site remove eight items, arguing that they violated MoveOn's merchandising trademarks.

Trademark law doesn't confer monopoly rights over all uses of a registered phrase or symbol, however, and it wasn't created simply to protect the trademark owner's interests. Instead, it's designed to protect consumers against being misled or confused about brands. The courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of parodies and critiques; that's why www.famousbrandnamesucks.com doesn't violate famousbrandname's trademark. And most, if not all, of the items targeted by MoveOn were clearly designed to razz it, not to trick buyers into thinking they were the group's products.

Beyond that, it's amazing that MoveOn would try to squelch political speech. That's another clear purpose of the targeted items. Take, for example, this message on a t-shirt designed by a lifelong Democrat from Southern California:

General Petraeus has done more for this country than MoveOn.org. MoveOn.org, the worst friend a Democrat could have! Move Away from Move On!

To its credit, CafePress refused to take down five bumper stickers, and it reinstated a t-shirt that it had taken down briefly in response to MoveOn's initial request. "While we understand that negative commentary is unsavory, our shopkeepers’ parodies of the MoveOn.org trademark are permissible here, especially when one considers the First Amendment implications raised by the social and political importance of your organization, the policies it advocates, and the countervailing messages conveyed by the parodies," wrote Daniel Pontes of CafePress to Carrie Olson, MoveOn's chief operating officer. Olson had been the one requesting the takedown.

CafePress and MoveOn declined to discuss the episode on the record. The anonymous designer of the t-shirt mentioned above withdrew her creation anyway, explaining in a note on her CafePress page that she didn't want to fight "a large group with the money to run ads in the NY Times demeaning a four star general." Not that her t-shirts were flying off the virtual CafePress shelves; she'd yet to record her first sale after a week and a half on the site.

Perhaps the most delicious irony here is that MoveOn hasn't exactly been scrupulous in its regard to other people's intellectual property. After all, it seems to have borrowed the Petraeus/Betray Us rhyme from a familiar radio host -- without crediting him, of course.

Metal Edge magazine editor Philip Freeman says the album isn't dead:

Yes, album sales for the first half of 2007 were down 15% compared with the same period last year, and the record industry has entered what seems like a perpetual state of panic. And yes, most music that's being downloaded legally is bought a la carte, song by song. But that doesn't mean albums, or even CDs, are doomed.

Certain genres -- pop, hip-hop, dance music -- have always been, and will always be, about the perfect song. Albums are more contemplative, presuming and demanding both commitment and patience on the listener's part. But for those of us who love the idea of being permitted into an artist's world for an hour or so, that's how it should be -- and these are good times.

Ambitious, personal music, frequently in lavish packaging, whether by arty metal acts such as Sunn O))) or rap mega-stars such as Kanye West, is reaching the fans it's meant for.

Pediatrician Harvey Karp and attorney Rachel Gibson argue against toxic chemicals in kids' toys. The Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia and Leonard Gilroy answer conspiracy theorists' fears that a Texas highway project will hurt U.S. sovereignty. And columnist Patt Morrison thinks identity politics are so 20th century.

The editorial board isn't surprised that L.A. leads the nation in traffic congestion. The board notes a bipartisan consensus on healthcare in Sacramento and says it's time to make a deal. And finally the board comments on Europe's ruling that Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive behavior.

On the letters page, readers react to the Blackwater controversy in Iraq. Santa Monica's Forrest Murray asks, "Is there a difference between an 'enemy combatant' and a privateer Blackwater contract player with state-of-the-art weaponry?"

The editorial board comments on the new O.J. Simpson saga:

The events that transpired Thursday at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas remain murky to all but their participants, who are giving contradictory accounts. The facts were at first murky in June 1994 too, when the only things the world knew were that Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a male acquaintance were found murdered outside her Brentwood condominium and that O.J. was the prime suspect. This time, age and the knowledge that he can get away with anything seem to have mellowed Simpson; rather than lead police on a low-speed chase down the Strip in a white Bronco, he calmly granted media interviews in his hotel room until officers arrived to arrest him Sunday morning.

The board hopes Congress will protect attorney-client privilege no matter who the client is, and also evaluates Bush's nominee to replace Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that Alan Greenspan is no Bush-basher, contrary to liberal claims. Human Rights Watch U.S. program director Jamie Fellner says California's sex offender registries and residency restrictions may make us feel safer, but they don't really work. The University of Iowa's Kembrew McLeod reveals the story of 1970s psychic Uri Geller, who has the power to make embarrassing YouTube clips vanish, but possibly not the power to escape copyright laws. Doshisha University's Philip J. Cunningham visits China and finds that Mao Tse-Tung has become the very thing he worked to ban from China--a brand name.

Readers respond to the editorial board's take on the achievement gap. Los Angeles Leadership Academy executive director Roger Lowenstein says, "...your point that 'race' needs to be acknowledged is unfortunate and dead wrong."

The editorial board praises state legislators on their approach to healthcare, pollution, and the rights of celebrities:

Dying isn't so good for one's work ethic, but it doesn't stop the work from continuing to earn money. Copyrights last for 70 years after the death of the author, composer or artist. Patent royalties can be collected for up to 20 years, with or without the inventor's presence on Earth. And in California, individuals control the rights to their names, likenesses and voices for 70 years beyond their interment.

Courts originally recognized the latter, known as the right of publicity, as an extension of the right to privacy. The name and image of a celebrity had value, and that person deserved the chance to capitalize on it exclusively. That approach made sense, as long as the rights didn't trump free speech.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg notices that despite all the second anniversary Katrina remembrances in the media, no one mentioned all the media mess-ups during the disaster. CultureGrrl blogger Lee Rosenbaum explains why public art collections are dwindling. And Times blogger Peter Viles demonstrates how real estate bloggers and the anti-bailout opinions they express are ignored by politicians.

Readers react to the Los Angeles school board's decision to siphon kids' lunch funds to pay for healthcare for part-time cafeteria workers. School Board member Tamar Galatzan isn't a fan of the idea: "While it's a national tragedy that millions of Americans do not have health insurance, this is no way to address the problem."

Columnist Rosa Brooks suggests we succeed in Iraq by withdrawing:

The honest (though not very satisfying) answer is that no one really knows what will happen in Iraq after the United States leaves. Interestingly, a poll in March found that a majority of Iraqis thought the security situation would improve immediately after a U.S. withdrawal. But things could also get worse -- and anyone who claims to have a crystal ball is lying.

We long ago squandered any capacity to guarantee a happy ending for the Iraqis. But, as several other recent Center for American Progress reports suggest, there are still steps we can take to minimize the chance that a U.S. withdrawal will make things worse for them.

Contributing editor Ian Buruma notes that Asians freed Asia, contrary to Bush rhetoric. Peruvian playwright Alonso Alegría points out how politics has intruded on quake relief efforts in his country. And columnist Joel Stein dreams the impossible dream -- of a home urinal.

The editorial board says long waits on death row don't justify sped-up executions. The board also examines the Bush administration's loosening of mining regulations, and Viacom's attempt to rebrand "South Park" through the web.

Readers respond to Tamar Jacoby's fears that new immigration rules will hurt the economy. Irving Moskovitz of Pacific Palisades says, "I guess the Confederacy was right. Without slavery, the entire agricultural (and industrial) economy will collapse."

The editorial board thinks fashion copyrights would kill creativity in the industry, and asks L.A. County to finally close Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital:

Just walking into the building, inspectors saw that patients were in immediate jeopardy. Further probing showed that staff failed to track records, properly mix medicine and sterilize equipment. At a time when the hospital should have been most on its toes, with staff well aware that they were being evaluated for the quality of care they delivered, a patient notoriously was left writhing on the floor for nearly an hour while nurses ignored her and a custodian swept up around her dying body. Others were left misdiagnosed, untreated or abused.

Contributing editor Erin Aubry Kaplan asks where middle-class blacks were when King-Harbor needed them. Columnist Ronald Brownstein says it's too bad the tactically brilliant Rove served a flawed strategy. The Cato Institute's Sigrid Fry-Revere argues in favor of experimental drugs for the terminally ill, and writer Bruce Kluger thinks that even though DVDs won't fry a baby's brain, time is probably better spent with parents.

Letter writers react to the long delays at LAX. UCLA Professor Algirdas Avizienis says, "In 40 years of studying computer reliability, I have not seen more apparent incompetence than the 10-hour search for 'a faulty hardware switch' at LAX on Aug. 11."

I'll confess, I'm freakishly interested in all things DRM. So I've been eagerly waiting for Universal Music Group to announce that it would try selling DRM-free tracks -- something that's been rumored for a while, but only became official today. And while the actual tracks haven't shown up yet, I can't help but feel ... disappointed. The more I thought about it, the less important it seemed, at least in terms of music sales. Read why at the Bit Player blog.

Sound off about recent web-only content from the folks at Opinion L.A.:

Opinion Daily: "Foreclosure heaven" Sometime house hunter Paul Thornton looks at all those defaulting borrowers and longs to give them a Rupert Pupkinesque "Tough luck, suckers; better luck next time." But will Democratic busybodies ruin his only chance to afford a home?

Dust-Up: "Golden state, gay marriage" Lorri L. Jean and Ron Prentice lock horns over same-sex nuptials.

Opinion Daily: "Was Ted Kennedy right about Scotus?" Michael McGough reviews the Roberts-Alito court's record and finds both more and less reason for concern than originally advertised.

Dust-Up: "Rumor romp" Luke Ford and Eric Spillman get to wrasslin' over blogs, ethics, gossip and the fall of the destination media.

Opinion Daily: "Torrent trackers get RAMmed" Jon Healey tracks the indexers, indexes the trackers, and finds a world of confusion in efforts to crack down on online copyright infringement.

Dust-Up: "Subprime players" Should the government bail out bad loans? How many people will lose their homes? Can Paul Thornton ever afford to buy a house? Robert Camerota and Paul Leonard to duke it out on these issues and more.

There's plenty more where those came from, and more coming every day. So make your opinion known in the comments, or email us at opinionla@latimes.com.

Attributor, a company that I opined about back in April, has some interesting insights about the online leaks of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Hint: don't blame the Potter fan sites -- it's the splogs! Read more about Attributor's findings at the Bit Player blog.

I wrote an Opinion Daily column last month about the lobbying surrounding the proposed XM-Sirius merger, and what motivates some interest groups that are, well, less than household names to weigh in -- mainly on the pro-merger side. In a nutshell, many groups throw in their 2 cents because they want to be seen as having influence, both by their constituents and by the Washington establishment.

The lobbying on this issue took a bizarre twist today, when none other than the Catholic Archbishop of New York, His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan, threw his support behind the merger in an op-ed in the New York Post. The church is an interested observer here; it has channel on Sirius called, innovatively, "The Catholic Channel." According to Egan, the merger is "an unmatched opportunity to strengthen this new medium and position satellite radio to compete with the ever-growing list of audio entertainment providers." In addition, he wrote, the companies have promised to offer "more choice at lower prices" post-merger, along with the ability to block and not pay for channels with offensive content.

Say what you will about Cardinal Egan's grasp of communications regulation or antitrust law, but he certainly knows how to deliver the talking points.

The ever-reliable PaidContent.org recently reported that Sony is all but yanking the respirator out of Connect, its online store for downloadable music, video and e-books. Connect launched with an airborne concert by Sheryl Crow, but that was the only part of the venture that ever took flight. Read more at the Bit Player blog.

You, the Fabulous Little People, weigh in on recent Opinion Dailies:

Of "Battle Royalty," Jon Healey's savage nightmare journey into the coming internet radio apocalypse, David Young of Wilmington, N.C. writes:

In point of fact, a Happy Meal is only $3.29. 

Seriously, though, Mr. Newhouse seems to ignore the fact that the rates set by a separate CARP for Satellite Radio deemed fair compensation for labels and artists to be just 7.5% of revenue.  By avoiding that little tidbit, Mr. Newhouse seems to be ignoring the fact that as a percentage, webcasters are being asked to pay anywhere from 75% to upwards of 200% of gross revenue in royalties.  Bear in mind that gross revenue has not been adjusted for overhead, operating costs, etc.  So, while what webcasters are being asked to pay may amount to TWO happy meals in terms of actual dollars (per listener, per year), as a percentage of their revenue, it is grossly overreaching….especially when contrasted by what Satellite Radio is required to pay (a mere 7.5% of gross revenues).  There may be issues needing to be addressed by the current business models for Internet Radio…but belittling the plight of current webcasters in such a biased manner is simply asinine, in my view.  The way in which the rates were set for webcasters goes against the very nature of what is fair and just in this country.  If 7.5% of revenue is acceptable to labels and artists for Satellite Radio, it stands to reason that it should also be acceptable for Webcasting.  Why the need for the double standard?

In my point of view, this whole affair basically comes down to an issue of controlling content dispersal on the web.  Right now, the labels don’t control the distribution channels on the web.  By eliminating smaller webcasters, and subjecting larger ones to ever-increasing fees, it seems to me the RIAA and SoundExchange are seeking to regain control of all music distribution.  Were I Pandora, Live365 or other webcasters, I would be charging a “finders-fee” for each and every song that is purchased and downloaded through a link from my service.  It’s only logical that if the labels and artists expect to be paid for use of their music, that a service that directly connects a listener to an online store where that listener can instantly purchase a song should be compensated for providing that service in the first place.

Omaha, Nebraska's own Jim Daskiewicz has had enough:

As a listener fed up with the big entertainment giants, sign me up as fan of niche music.

I'm with the Save Net Radio Coalition.

Note to the big producers, I'm not stealing your stuff, I'm just not interested.  My money goes to the labels and producers that provide music I want to listen to.  And, oh yes, netcasters aren't decreasing my purchases, they are introducing me to new artists who are reaping the benefits.

Related: If you, like David and Jim, have an internet radio jones, you may also want to plug your earphones into this week's Dust-Up between Jay Rosenthal and Kurt Hanson.

Michael McGough's poignant yet bold profile of the junior senator from the Ocean State, "Whitehouse takes Gonzales to the woodshed," draws the following response from Jason Brown in Germany:

Thank you for writing about this.  My grandfather, Martin Rossman, worked at the LA Times for 30 years until approx. 1992, primarily on the Foreign Desk.

I currently live in Germany and follow your paper online everyday.  I was quite pleased when you (finally) changed course on your opinion of the Iraq War.  It was probably illegal and now is only a chance for weapons manufacturers to please stockholders, young kids (both American and Middle Eastern) to die needlessly and a chance for the rest of the world (except for Albania, apparently) to think we are a rogue nation.

Please keep up on the Attorney scandal.  I have been following this case since late January and am convinced that the politicization of our Justice system might be the worst part of the Bush Administration, and that is saying a lot.

Please look more into Debra Yang (former USA in LA) and her apparent 1.5 million signing bonus (like she's Russell Martin on the Dodgers or something) for leaving public life and taking a job at the very law firm who is representing Jerry Lewis, the same man she was investigating before leaving her job.  Was she forced out as well?  Imagine if the law firm was encouraged by the White House to make Yang "an offer she couldn't refuse", 1.5 million bucks and now all her info on the case is perhaps lost because she works for the law firm that represents him.

Please check and see if major investigations in LA and SD are still moving forward or have they been stalled since this debacle in December 2006.

Congresswoman Sanchez is of Lakewood district is doing an excellent job of questioning justice department officials in House Judiciary Committee hearings.

All right, I've got to teach a university class on American newspapers here in Germany and will probably use your editorial on Senator Whitehouse in class this week or next, thanks!

cheers
Jason
www.jasonconga.blogspot.com

My searing-in-its-intensity woolgatherer on Carol Shloss' suit against the Joyce estate, "Portrait of the old man as a copyright miser," draws a cheer from Orlando, Florida's Gregory W. Herbert, Esq....

thanks for the in-depth reporting and analysis.  important topic for IP lawyers and anyone interested in the internet too.

...and a jeer from Shloss herself:

I read Tim Cavanaugh's "Portrait of the old man as a copyright miser" (5 June 2007) with interest. Being the "plaintiff of choice" in the case, I can tell you that the suit was not a "laundry-list" suit, nor did it involve issues of privacy that gave Stephen James Joyce some "sentimentally compelling" argument. It involved real damage. Mr. Joyce condemned my biography of Lucia Joyce without having read a word of it. He did not object to the content of the book (how could he?) but to its very right to exist. Having engineered an expurgated text with his refusal of permissions, he argued that the resulting narrative was not scholarship, but "a joke." Having created a hellish situation for everyone involved in publishing the book, he called the suit a "nuisance."

Mr Cavanaugh, who has obviously not read the book either, concludes that it is a "sordid family history few of us would want to see made public." Had he bothered to open the covers of the biography, he would have discovered a disturbing narrative without a demonstration of its veracity--the very qualities that stoked Katie Roiphe's disparaging review. Precisely.

This is the issue that prompted the lawsuit in the first place. The harm done by overly aggressive and controlling estates is not only real but far reaching, as Cavanaugh's opinion piece continues to demonstrate. He simply recirculates the negative judgment of a carefully researched work that was damaged by the extension of copyright laws, by the litigious nature of an angry heir, and by the fear engendered by his aggression.

Thank heaven for the Stanford Fair Use Project that, at this moment, is one of the few resources for scholars who have difficult stories to tell and who need the truth provided by historical evidence to confirm their work. Carol Loeb Shloss

These are the runners up. The clear winner in recent reader mail volume is Ronald Brownstein's "Border brouhaha baffles Beltway," whose correspondence we'll be publishing in a separate post. Thanks a lot for writing, and keep those cards and letters coming!

Columnist Jonah Goldberg has a not-so-modest proposal to get rid of public schools:

[O]ne of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run 90% of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run 90% of the schools — particularly when it gets terrible results?

Dickinson College's Crispin Sartwell remembers Richard Rorty, while the U.S. Naval War College's Christopher J. Fettweis declares the Iraq war lost, and lays out what that means. Erika Schickel reminds the South Coast Air Quality Management District that humans have a "prehistoric jones" for fire.

The editorial board calls for immediate peace talks in Iraq, serious energy reform in the Senate, and a payroll system that actually works for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Letter writers respond to Sally Denton's assessment of how Mitt Romney's Mormonism will impact his campaign. See why Robert P. Sechler of Seal Beach thinks "an analogy between Romney and John F. Kennedy is a bucket with some big holes."

Online, in this week's dust-up, publisher Kurt Hanson and attorney Jay Rosenthal discuss the economics of online music. Today they ask if webcasting should be open to hobbyists, or just those who can make money for labels and artists.

Magazine editor Michael Patrick Leahy writes this week's blowback, critiquing coverage of the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

The editorial board weighs in on the now-stalled immigration reform:

The shameful — and we hope temporary — shelving of an immigration reform bill by the Senate contradicts the aphorism that success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan. This failure has plenty of fathers: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who issued an ultimatum he couldn't enforce; Republican senators who played to the know-nothing fringe; and the Bush administration, which blessed a "grand bargain" reached by a bipartisan group of senators but didn't follow through with enough pressure on recalcitrant members of the president's party.

The board says that a proposed California vote on Iraq may have less to do with war and more to do with term limits. Slingbox, which lets cable and satellite subscribers watch baseball games online, is okay by the board, even if Major League Baseball isn't a fan. 

On the op-ed page, columnist Rosa Brooks explains why the phrase "unlawful enemy combatant" used to be legally meaningless, and what that means for Guantanamo Bay detainee trials. James Traub wonders is the Iraq war signals the end of the "democracy promotion" doctrine. Charlotte Allen says Paris Hilton might have taken a lesson from Martha Stewart on using jailtime to her advantage, and columnist Joel Stein thinks Southern California doesn't deserve a Stanley Cup-winning hockey team. 

Letter writers continue discussing the Six Day War. San Francisco's Bill Kennedy Kedem notes that forty years later, threats of annihilation "continue by oil-fueled, fundamentalist-inspired Arab and Persian governments."

A deal announced today by Sling Media and the National Hockey League shows off not only an intriguing TV-PC convergence app, but also a content provider recognizing the opportunity to make it work for them. Read more about it at the Bit Player blog.