Still Here . . .

. . . just impossibly busy. I'll be over the hump this weekend, so thanks for your patience!

Meantime, there are two current news items I simply can't ignore.

Item 1, from the Scumbag Defense Lawyer files: Zacarias Moussaoui has been convicted, faces the death penalty in the sentencing phase . . . and his lawyers plan to put on the Chewbacca defense.

Court-appointed defense lawyers, whom Moussaoui has tried to reject, will summon experts to suggest he is schizophrenic after an impoverished childhood during which he faced racism in France over his Moroccan ancestry.

Like the Hippocratic Oath, defense lawyers have a duty to zealously represent their clients. However, this duty does not extend to fabricating stupendous propaganda that directly undercuts your own country's security (i.e., by reinforcing the myth that jihadis kill people out of low self-esteem).

The flip side is, if that's all they've got, Moussaoui will fry.

Item 2, from the Scumbag Academic Files: At a time when Islamists are actively trying to accomplish it, UT-Austin Prof Eric Pianka advocates the extermination of 90% of humanity. Not everyone. 90%. No doubt he envisions the surviving 10% to be enlightened intellectuals such as himself.

AUSTIN - A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead. Humanity's collapse is a notion he embraces.

Indeed, his words deal, very literally, on a life-and-death scale, yet he smiles and jokes candidly throughout the lecture. "This is really an exciting time," he said Friday amid warnings of apocalypse, destruction and disease.

6.5 billion humans is too many. In his estimation, "We've grown fat, apathetic and miserable," all the while leaving the planet parched. The solution? A 90 percent reduction.

"[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity," Pianka said. "We're looking forward to a huge collapse."

Pianka said, "Good terrorists would be taking [the Ebola virus] so that they had microbes they could let loose on the Earth that would kill 90 percent of people."

Thanks, dickweed, that's very helpful.