Proof That Hollywood’s Anti-War Propaganda Has Claimed Lives

This isn’t a call for censorship, but for responsibility.  You see about a year ago, an Islamofascist idiot killed two of our airmen, and two Americans helped to apprehend their killer and there have been developments in the case:

Germany's government presented the nation's highest civilian award Monday to two Americans who helped apprehend an Islamic extremist after he attacked a U.S. Air Force bus last year and killed two airmen.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich awarded the Federal Cross of Merit to U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Trevor Brewer and civilian airport employee Lamar Conner, both of whom chased the suspect until police could apprehend him, saying their deeds "were an example for all of us."

Arid Uka, a 21-year-old Kosovo Albanian, is currently on trial for the March 2 slayings and has admitted to the charges. He faces up to life in prison, and a verdict and sentence are expected Thursday.

And what motivated the attacks?  Well, let’s hear from the Islamofascist himself:

Uka gave a teary confession as his Frankfurt state court trial opened in August, saying that the night before the attack he had seen a video on Facebook that purported to show American soldiers raping a teenage Muslim girl. It turned out to be a scene from the 2007 Brian De Palma anti-war film "Redacted," taken out of context.

Uka told the court the video prompted him to do anything possible to prevent American soldiers from going to Afghanistan.

Breaking: Gabby Giffords to Resign

It’s sad, and infuriating, but it was also the right thing to do, given her situation:

Giffords to step down from Congress

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will step down from Congress this week to focus on her recovery, her staff announced Sunday.

"I have more work to do on my recovery, so to do what is best for Arizona, I will step down this week," Giffords said in a video message.

Giffords, a third-generation Arizonan who served five years in the state Legislature before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006, will not seek re-election this fall.

Giffords vowed to return public service.

"I will return and we will work together for Arizona and this great country," she said.

(Source.)  Any political assassination—or in this case, an attempt at assassination that rendered its victim significantly disabled for some time to come—is a slap in the face of democracy.  As I wrote over at Patterico’s a while back:

I don’t know or particularly care what she stood for on each of the issues.  She could have been for everything I am against and against everything I am for.  Because to me the issue is higher than normal politics.  It’s the fact that she was chosen to represent her district and as such they are entitled to the representative they have chosen.  And one man has vetoed that decision, an act that is unacceptable in a Republic.

It’s Admirable to Call Women B*tches? A Fisking of Althouse

I generally like Ann Althouse, but I think she went really wrong with this one.

So yesterday there was a rumor that Jay-Z had decided to stop using the word “b*tch” in his music, prompted by the birth of his daughter.  This was based on a poem he allegedly wrote which said:

Before I got in the game, made a change, and got rich

I didn’t think hard about using the word bitch

I rapped, I flipped it, I sold it, I lived it

Now with my daughter in this world I curse those that give it

Which kind-of sort-of indicates that he was swearing it off, and that led to an editorial in the Guardian which led to commentary by Althouse.  And then a while later, Rolling Stone reports that the whole thing as false (leading Althouse to update the story).  Of course one might suspect that Jay-Z was floating a trial balloon and when his fans reacted negatively, he decided to pretend he never said it, but really I am not interested in whether this story is true or not.  I am interested in Althouse’s reaction to it, before the Rolling Stone article came along dispelling the rumor.  So leaving out the update where she mentions the Rolling Stone article, she writes:

Now that he has a baby girl, Jay-Z will eschew the word "bitch."

Is that enough?

Is it even admirable? If you do something only when you've acquired a self-interest, it seems to me it would be more admirable to continue doing what you were doing before.

Site Announcements

Bad news everyone.  A group of people have learned of my true identity and they are getting ready to reveal it to the world.  Of course to do so might run afoul of Va. Code § 18.2-46.5(C).  That law states in relevant part that:

Any person who solicits, invites, recruits, encourages, or otherwise causes or attempts to cause another to participate in an act or acts of terrorism, as defined in § 18.2-46.4, is guilty of a Class 4 felony.

And a Class 4 felony allows for up to ten years in prison per offense.  And of course it is an additional crime to conspire to commit a crime in Virginia, also punishable with up to ten years in prison.

Still, some of you may have noticed that a certain blog has disappeared.  I won’t name it here.  The reality is that it is not merely a matter of my safety but also that of my coworkers and out of respect for their wishes and rational fears I have removed that blog as well as any reference to participating in that blog at this site.  So, without any sense of resentment, I have removed it, for now.

The legal drama is still unfolding and I expect that it will continue to unfold.  Expect updates.

Buy My Novel, Today! (Updated!)

Update: Thanks to Dana at First Street Journal, Patterico and Beldar for their kind links, not to mention lots of people on twitter.  Of particular interest was Michelle Malkin’s mention on twitter, since, um...  she’s kind of a character in the novel.  So that is cool.

And a few people have asked or pondered how much of this goes to me and how much goes to Amazon.  The answer is that I get just a hair under 70% of every dollar they get.


Update (II): Also thanks to Paulitifact for the linkage.

We now resume the original post as is.

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So it turns out that in my spare time I have written a novel.  Go figure.  It is published on Amazon as a self-published Kindle book.  Here’s its cover image which I created myself:

Its full title is “Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History.”  You can purchase it, here, or you might consider going over to some of your favorite sites and using the Amazon search box on the sidebar of blogs such as Patterico’s, Althouse or Instapundit and the respective sites’ owners will get a little money back for themselves.  Right now it is coming up as the second item if you just search for “Aaron Worthing.”

I actually did the principal writing of it in 2006 and 2007, and since then I have been polishing it.  And of course I think some “stage fright” kept me from releasing it.  But I had begun to pitch the book to different publishers and I felt that the time to finally release it was now. This is in part because as time went on, certain parts of the novel started to get incredibly ironic.  You will have a hard time believing that I wrote this before certain events in my life—except for the fact that it would have been physically impossible to have written it after those events.

What’s it about?  Well, a few years back I was gripped with an idea.  What if, on September 11, 2001, there was a superhero there, who had the ability to intervene and really make things better.  Now very quickly I realized that it shouldn’t be a fairy tale where suddenly September 11 is not a disaster at all, but I had a vision of a gritty, realistic depiction of how a superhero would really look in our world, and how our world would respond to him.

So on one hand, you see the hero behave in a way that is much more realistic than you are used to.  As I said to Dustin the other day, a real superhero would never get a cat out of a tree.  He’d have much bigger fish to fry.  For instance, here is a little dialogue from the novel.  The speaker is FBI Agent Rini Miller who has been assigned as the hero’s liaison:

“I mean, okay, so you are a real life superhero, but who are the real life supervillians? Osama bin Laden, Yasir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung Il, and all the other murderous dictators and terrorists all over the world. Not some idiot in a silly costume.” She paused for effect, then added dryly, “well, I mean besides Gadhafi.”

To Google Legal Investigations Support

Update: You can read the text of the pleading I have filed, here.

I know you guys have been subpoenaed about this blog, so this message is for you.  (And for everyone else, this is going to be stuck at the top for a bit, so new posts will appear below it.)

I sent you an email to the same effect, but I wanted to tell you that a motion to quash will be filed by the “John Doe” at issue.  Please, do not comply with the request for information until there is an opportunity for me to fight it.

The Plaintiff, Mr. Brett C. Kimberlin, is a convicted terrorist (bomber, specifically) (Kimberlin v. White, 7 F.3d 527 (1993)) and perjurer (Kimberlin v. White, 798 F.Supp. 472 (1992)) and I believe that if you reveal my information to him, he will place my life in danger.

If you have any questions feel free to email me, and we can arrange to talk.

I thank you for your time and consideration.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Friday Frivolity, the 16-Bit Galactica Edition!

And for this week’s Friday Frivolity, we have the new Battlesstar Galactica, retold as a 16 Bit RPG:

Enjoy.  Via Joystiq.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Tantalizing News in the Kimberlin Saga

I haven’t seen the documents and I am unlikely to see it before Monday, but apparently filed two documents with the court today, according to the Maryland Judiciary Case Search website.

The first is listed as follows:

PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO WITHDRAW AS MOOT PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO COMPEL AND SUBPOENAS TO COMCAST AND GOOGLE SEEKING IDENTITY OF AARON WORTHING, FILED. (LP)

And the second is listed as this:

PLAINTIFF'S RESPONSE TO AARON WORTHING'S MOTION TO QUASH, FILED. (LP)

No, I am not precisely sure what this will mean until I see it.  There is cause for optimism, but also reason to worry that he is up to something more nefarious, but we’ll see.  And I am unlikely to see these motions before Monday.

Anyway, due to issues at the house, it will be light blogging otherwise.  But I think I will try to give you at least a Friday frivolity.

And if you want to catch up on this saga, use this link to collect all of the posts on the subject.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Brett Kimberlin, Convicted Terrorist and Perjurer, Accuses Me of Unethical Conduct

Update: Thanks to DonkeyTale for the link, as well as numerous twitterers.


Update (II): And thanks to Blazing Cat Fur for the linky goodness as well.

So this is the latest installment in the Kimberlin saga.  As regular readers know, a few weeks back Ron Brynaert and then Brett Kimberlin engaged in a campaign to determine my true identity.  In Kimberlin’s case, this convicted terrorist (bomber, specifically) (Kimberlin v. White, 7 F.3d 527 (6th  Cir. 1993)) and perjurer (Kimberlin v. White, 798 F.Supp. 472 (W.D. Tenn. 1992)) subpoenaed Google and Comcast in order to obtain my identity and address.  The latter subpoena was issued without providing notice to me as required by Maryland civil procedure.  I filed a response in that case last Thursday, which you can read here (and there are links there to catch up on this whole saga).  My filing has been described by DonkeyTale as “one of the most epic pantsings I have ever seen performed anywhere” so it might be worth a read.

And regular readers would also know that because of the rules of court which frankly does not yet take account for this situation, I had to find a Maryland attorney to represent me and Ken at Popehat helped me to obtain one.

So last Friday, Brett Kimberlin sent my lawyer an email.  And I am going to quote it to you in full,* and fisk the entire thing.  Now, naturally I do not plan to reveal to the world if he has also entered into any settlement negotiations with me, because those are special.  We want to encourage that kind of discussion without fear that the other side could use it against them.  Indeed the rules of evidence limits my ability to use such discussions in court.  And while nothing legally prevents me from publicizing any attempts to settle, it seems like good policy.

But this email isn’t about attempting to settle things, as you will soon see.  In my opinion, this email was an attempt to deprive me of my counsel, and as such this latest act of thuggery (in my opinion) by this crew is fair game.

So pull up a bowl of popcorn and let the fisking begin, and please note that all spelling errors were in the original, with the caveat you will see at the end in the footnote:

[Update: I have changed the formatting so his words are in red and italicized, so it is easier to separate what he says from other sources I quote.  Let me know if that helps make this more readable.]

From: [Brett Kimberlin]

Date: Friday, December 30, 2011 12:09 PM

To: [My Maryland lawyer]; [her associate]

Attach: Socrates Final Peaace Order.pdf

Subject: FW: Kimberlin v. Allen

Dear [My Maryland Lawyer]:

Nice chatting with you. Please do not send this email to Mr. Worthing because he will post it on the Internet as he did with my legal communications to him.

Did Our Deadliest Sniper Take Out Jesse Ventura?

I mean Chris Kyle didn’t kill him, but he allegedly decked him.  Of course there is a warning language with this video, but here you go...

No, violence is never the appropriate response to words alone.  Indeed, it’s a good thing the statute of limitations has likely run, because what he described would be a crime.  But if this story is true, Ventura is a grade-A a—hole and unsuited for any political office again.

But I would like to know if there is independent verification of Chris Kyle’s story.  And this is all in connection to a book tour relating to his claim to being our deadliest sniper, so...  take it all with an appropriate grain of salt.

And in any case, it is worth remembering who Michael Monsoor was.  So how about we let Presient Bush explain?

Hat tip: Soopermexican.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

Today’s AWESOME “Momma-Bear” Video (Update: Instalink!)

Update: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the Instalink.


New visitors might want to check out my BLOCKBUSTER saga where a convicted terrorist and perjurer sought to obtain my true name and address by subpoenaing Google and Comcast.  You might want to start with the filing I sent to the court, here.  It has been described by another blogger as “one of the most epic pantsings I have ever seen performed anywhere” so you might enjoy it.  You can also use this link to keep abreast of the whole saga.


The original post follows.


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A eighteen year old single mother in Oklahoma faced her worst nightmare recently.  Her husband had died on Christmas day and a pair of (alleged) burglars apparently thought she was an easy target (allegedly), trying to break into her home on New Years Eve.  But instead she went into “Momma-Bear” mode and the intruders paid the price.  ABC has the video:

The sad thing is that she was worried enough that she might get in trouble that she felt the need to ask 911 for advice.  And frankly they should have known the law enough to have told her that she would be just fine.

A while back I ruminated on the way that guns allowed disabled people to achieve a certain equality in a way that was quintessentially human:

About Those Crying North Koreans...

It’s not because they are actually upset, its because they are scared of being seen as insufficiently mournful of his passing.  So says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch:

Since Kim Jong Il's death was announced on Monday, many people have marveled at the mourning scenes featured on North Korean state television, made viral on the Internet: North Koreans prostrate, weeping, hitting the ground. Many have asked whether the anguish is genuine. How could citizens mourn the passing of a totalitarian, such a gross abuser of human rights?

The answer may be found in the human rights abuses themselves.

It is a lamentable characteristic of totalitarian regimes that they often demand acts of deceit from those they oppress. Often it is a matter of simple survival. Those who hate the regime are obliged to demonstrate patriotism. To fail is to risk persecution. The only alternative is to flee, a choice made by tens of thousands of North Koreans in the past two decades....

For many, to live in North Korea is to live in fear for one's very existence. In a context like this, there is no way to know what is genuine and what is theatrical. Totalitarianism and fear impair the idea of truth and the concept of objectivity.

Via Volokh.

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Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.

A Note on the Law of Cyberstalking in Virginia

Now what I am about to say here is not legal advice .  I am a lawyer but I am not your lawyer.  In fact, let me quote from Beldar’s disclaimer:

Any legal opinions or information that I may publish on the BeldarBlog weblog should be considered to be exclusively for purposes of entertainment. No reader of this website should ever rely upon any legal opinions or other information published here — not even just a little bit! If you need legal advice or information that you can rely upon, I strongly recommend that you consult directly — in person preferably, or at a minimum by telephone, and not over the Internet — with a lawyer duly licensed to practice law in the state (or territory or country) where you live.

Now I won’t go that far.  I don’t think this is purely for entertainment purposes, but often I talk about law so you can understand how our legal system works better, so that as informed citizens of the republic you can choose whether the law needs to be reformed or not.  But you still should never say, “but Aaron Worthing said that the law said X” as a formal legal opinion.  That would be a grievous mistake.

But in talking about the wisdom of the laws already on the books, I have to say that Virginia really has an eloquent solution to the problem of cyberstalking.  Although the statutes in question originated in the 1950’s, Virginia’s statutes against business conspiracy provide a unique remedy to a certain version of the problem.  I have used them a lot in my day job and they would work very well in certain cyberstalking situations.  Those statutes are Va Code §18.2-499 and §18.2-500.  These statutes make it illegal for two or more people to conspire for the purpose of “willfully and maliciously injuring another in his reputation, trade, business or profession by any means whatever[.]”  §18.2-499.  So in other words if two or more people agree to harm your business, your reputation, etc. then they run afoul of the statute.

Sort of.  Obviously not all combinations to harm a business should be outlawed—indeed could be outlawed—consistent with basic economic freedom.  The courts in Virginia have reasonably read into this statute a requirement that there be a conspiracy “to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish some purpose, not in itself criminal or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means.”  Hechler Chevrolet, Inc. v. General Motors, 337 S.E.2d 744 (Va. 1985).  As the Hechler court observed: “There can be no conspiracy to do an act which the law allows.”

So that means that if I and a friend decide to work together to build a car so great that it will drive all of the other car companies out of business, that isn’t a violation of this statute even if it is motivated by malice toward the car companies.  That’s just free market competition.  But if we conspire to make our car successful by sabotaging Toyotas, or even just by defamation of another company, then we can be held liable for that conspiracy.

So to the person facing cyberstalking, if it is more than one person working in concert, then this statute might apply in a number of ways.  For instance, if defamation occurs, or if they intentionally inflict emotional distress on you or a number of other unlawful means on you, then you might be covered.