If you say you don’t want this, then you’re either lying, or a damned fool and a scruffy-looking nerf herder.

Tom Joscelyn’s Venona Project points us to the site Antiwar.com, whose newest contributer is . . .

Michael Scheuer!

Galley Reader E.H. sends along a link to the The Darth Side, a blog run by Lord Vader himself. You ask for samples:

Have I mentioned before that I am surrounded by idiots? Let me cut to chase and just tell you up front: the rebels got away. All of them. General Veers, bless his heart, must have destroyed two dozen armed speeders and and an entire line of infantry — but those were just ants. We failed to take Mothma, Organa, Rieekan, Skywalker or even the traiterous fish Ackbar.

More, you say?

At any rate, the attack on the hidden rebel base began and I had General Veers mount a ground assault. Once his walkers had destroyed the rebel generator I made planetfall and personally supervised our incursion into the base. I must say that the stormtroopers’ new heavy weather gear makes them look very cool. Hats off to Palpatine. (Most people don’t know this but His Excellency designs all of our outerwear personally; he has a real flair for geometry, and a great sense of line.)

Here’s where I need your help. Soon, the forces of Lucasfilm will destroy the Darth Side. Perhaps they are on their way even as we speak.

But there is hope. I hear talk that the new Mac OS, Tiger, has a feature that allows you to download entire sites. Surely one of you has gotten Tiger already. You know what to do.

Last Thanksgiving, a homeless activist group known as May Day DC entered the Randall Homeless Shelter, south of the Capitol, to provide food and other necessities to those who were staying there. The next day, DC Protective Services and the property manager informed the activists that Randall was closed and that they needed to vacate the premises immediately. But the activists refused to leave and went to the rooftop, hanging signs demanding the goverment reopen the shelter. Media arrived and more officers and then a fire engine. When the engine ladder reached the roof, one of the activists handcuffed herself to it. In the end, the six activists were arrested and all charged with unlawful entry. This was the case my fellow jurors and I were handed.

We deliberated for a day and a half and ultimately found the defendants guilty. Why? There was enough circumstantial and direct evidence pointing to their knowledge that the Randall shelter was closed and that they were intending to protest it: The main door could only be opened from the inside, most of the windows and other entry ways were welded shut, and one had to edge his way in through a fence. One witness said one of the defendants told her she wanted to “reopen the shelter” and there was, of course, a poster that also read “reopen the shelter.” This suggests the defendants knew the shelter was closed (otherwise why protest to reopen that which you think is open?).

A second element of unlawful entry is the refusal to leave once told one is in a restricted area. The defendants claim they could not hear the police or property manager on a bullhorn because they were on the roof (one story up and a second story behind it). The defendants say it was windy. But a homeless man also on the roof said he heard the police on the ground order him down lest he be arrested–and this man was half-deaf. When the deputy chief of police asked “Who is in charge?” another defendant replied, “We’re all in charge.” Police later said some of the defendants jokingly said things like, “Do you hear anyone?” One defendant admits to his fear of heights yet is seen in a photo sitting on the edge of the building, dangling his feet. More damning was another defendant’s closing argument, in which she said, Haven’t you been in a conversation with someone and another group of people are talking in the distance but you don’t know what they’re saying because you don’t choose to listen?

Don’t choose to listen?

Finally, this afternoon at around 12:40 p.m., we came to agreement on how to find all six defendants. Guilty. And guilty on the first element of knowingly entering a restricted area–there wasn’t even any need to argue about the second element. And while we were all in agreement, I still found the verdict hard to deliver–because I would literally be delivering the verdict. Without my knowledge, the rest of the jury voted for me to be their foreman. And so, in front of the court, I told the judge (one of the nicest judges you will ever meet) that the jury found the defendants guilty. He asked me six times and each time I rendered that verdict with little emotion. It is a strange thing to do, handing down a verdict (let alone six times).

We don’t know what the sentencing will be like, but all of the jurors felt that strictly examining this case and determining the defendants innocence or guilt, we had done the right thing.

It does make you think of that terrific movie Twelve Angry Men and where you fit within that cast. Are you the Jack Ward, eager just to get the hell out and go to the baseball game? Or are you Lee Cobb, bringing your personal baggage into the jury room? (Martin Balsam, one of my favorite actors, played the foreman.)

Kathy, the Cake Eating Editrix, has tagged me with a meme, the idea of which is to pick five professions from a list and say what you would do in them. My vanity knows no bounds and I’m never going to be tapped for the Proust Questionaire, so why not give it a whirl. Readers who are more clever than I am are invited to post their own answers:

If I could be an athlete. . . I’d lead the Sixers to the NBA Finals by providing Answer the silky-smooth, turnover-free, defensive-minded point guard he’s never had. In the NBA Finals we would, of course, lose to the Lakers. Just because this is a fantasy doesn’t mean that I get to ignore immutable laws of nature.

If I could be a writer. . . I’d be David Grann. Or Andy Ferguson. Either would suffice.

If I could be a scientist. . . I’d prove the existence of enough dimensions to support String Theory.

If I could be a librarian. . . Giles. Natch.

If I could be a professor. . . I’d teach a course on biochemistry in a manner that’s actually engaging. (Easier than it sounds.) I’d begin each semester by announcing that everyone was going to get A’s and that people not interested in the actual material needn’t bother showing up. Then, at the end of the semester, I’d fail the grade-grubbers who’d been cutting. You can only pull that trick once, but boy, would it be worth it.

Here’s the complete list to choose from:

If I could be a scientist…

If I could be a farmer…

If I could be a musician…

If I could be a doctor…

If I could be a painter…

If I could be a gardener…

If I could be a missionary…

If I could be a chef…

If I could be an architect…

If I could be a linguist…

If I could be a psychologist…

If I could be a librarian…

If I could be an athlete…

If I could be a lawyer…

If I could be an innkeeper…

If I could be a professor…

If I could be a writer…

If I could be a backup dancer…

If I could be a llama-rider…

If I could be a bonnie pirate…

If I could be a midget stripper…

If I could be a proctologist…

I pass the meme on to the Law Jedi and Erasmus.

Also, if you haven’t read it, Tom Donnelly’s piece on Chinese nationalism is pretty great.

Buoyed by the successful killing of Terri Schiavo, Glenn Reynolds carried this little note this morning:

IT’S NOT LIKE THERE’S A WAR ON, or anything.

The link takes you to a post on the Corner, where Kathryn Lopez noted the passing of the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act in the House.

Galley Friend C.L. writes in:

All of which makes me wonder if Glenn would be willing to trash talk Martin Luther King, Jr. After all, why should he have bothered with civil rights or basic matters of justice? It wasn’t like there was a war on, or anything.

Good point.

Update, 12:00 p.m.: Reader AK adds:

Reynolds is right. There’s a war on. We shouldn’t spend our time worrying about other matters, like transhumanism, gay marriage, the Mazda RX-8, campus photoblogging, the Nikon BJ6900LMNOP, our brother’s bands, and space exploration.

Blogging has been light lately, what with my time being taken up by real writing assignments, being sick, and spooning. I’d apologize, but that would suggest that having Galley Slaves content in your life matters to you–and you and I both know that it doesn’t. We are not children; this farce does not become us.

Anyway, Mickey Kaus catches Andrew Sullivan in a compromising “Magpie” situation, where Kaus wrote something and Sullivan parroted it, as if it were his own thoughts, on TV. I would remind Kaus and readers that this isn’t the first time.

In February, Sullivan wrote a long piece about iPods that was clearly cribbed, in conceit, if not in execution, from Christine Rosen’s long essay on the subject in The New Atlantis. Sullivan gave Rosen not even a dollop of credit in passing.

None of this is plagiarism, exactly. And Sullivan isn’t violating the letter of any journalistic law. But it is the sort of thing that tends to catch up with you eventually. Don’t be surprised if Sullivan eventually gets caught out for his magpieing.