Pun Salad

• I pointed to a couple of Prof Sowell's columns on immigration yesterday. Part III of the series is here. Strong stuff, and pretty convincing from someone who likes the free market, but is also a clear-eyed expert in how cultures work, or don't.

  Fairness dictates that I point out (or, more accurately, link to Radley Balko pointing out) that there are fallacious arguments on the other side as well. No, folks, illegal immigration is not like slavery.

  But neither is opposing illegal immigration like asking illegals to "ride on the back of the bus." If I had a nickel for every bad argument I'd seen on either side …

• Tom Maguire looks at Bob Kerrey's defense of the loutish behavior of the New School's student body in response to John McCain's graduation speech there. Saith Kerrey:

  … student protests are a necessary and essential part of democratic free expression. Did we not love the brave and disrespectful students at Tiananmen? Did we not applaud the determination of the student led movements that helped bring down the dictators that ruled Eastern Europe in 1991? Have we forgotten the critical difference students made in reversing an unlawful election in Ukraine or in driving the Syrians from Lebanon or who still seethe in discontent under the religious law of Iran's mullahs?

  Maguire sticks the obvious pin into this inflated idiotic rhetoric:

  Well - it must be delightful for the New Schoolers to have their President pandering so, but I hope they have learned enough to realize that no, when you are in the heart of New York City surrounded by thousands of like minded progressives, standing up to a solitary seventy year old man is not Tiananmen.

  Meanwhile, Ann Coulter checks out Jean Rohe, the student speaker at the New School commencement.

  We mostly heard about Rohe's bravery from Rohe—and, really, who is in a better position to judge? As Rohe herself put it: "If there's one thing that I know about myself, it is that I care for people, and in that sense I have a great deal of character."

  Raising the obvious question: who's more narcissistic, Jean Rohe, or Dr. Diana? Discuss amongst yourselves.

• On the hypocrisy watch, John Henke analyzes when it's OK to compare people to Goebbels, and when it's not.

• Actual Yahoo news headline: Cate Blanchett to play Dylan in biopic. Co-starring Harvey Keitel as Joan Baez?

For fans of Linux, Batman, and South Park who don't like Al Gore much, it's pretty funny:

(Via the Ankle Biters. They also suggest reading this Robert Balling article.)