Taliban spokesperson sends email with the bcc addresses on the cc line.

400 addressees revealed:

The list, made up of more than 400 recipients, consists mostly of journalists, but also includes an address appearing to belong to a provincial governor, an Afghan legislator, several academics and activists, an[d] l Afghan consultative committee, and a representative of Gulbuddein Hekmatar, an Afghan warlord whose outlawed group Hezb-i-Islami is believed to be behind several attacks against coalition troops.

Obama's insipid emails are annoying Leon Wieseltier.

I was going to do a blog post a week or so ago titled Barack Obama is spamming me — you could sing it to this tune — but it was clear enough on the face of the email that a simple click would unsubscribe me from his email list, and since something stopped me from clicking, I could see I'd be lying if I posted that. But Wieseltier has his column bitching about the email:

"As we begin the work of remaking America," the president wrote to me, "we must draw on the common hopes that brought us together this week." And: "I'm counting on you to keep the spirit of unity and service alive." And: "We face many challenges. But we face them as one nation." And: "Our journey is just beginning." And: "Thank you for all you do." It is all perfectly platitudinous, a Hallmark homily, but not in Obama's universe. Does the renovation of the civic sense really require such a return to literalness? I do not look to the White House for irony, but the extent to which the Obama bliss is premised upon such undisabused belief vexes me.

Bliss premised upon undisabused belief vexes Wieseltier. Indeed! He's no platitudipus. Can you imagine someone running for President and saying he was "vexed" let alone saying he was vexed by "undisabused belief"? I mock Wieseltier even as I thoroughly agree that the Obama's aphorisms are hollow and inane.

Wieseltier ends his column — confession: I skipped the middle — by disapproving of a President's using an email list:

Scholars have documented the inexorable effect...

... the vexingly exorable effect...

... of the Internet in creating "communities of interest," and the Obama machine wishes to portray the nation itself as a community of interest; but this returns us once again to that mythical unity. What is more likely happening is that Obama's community of interest is depicting itself as America's community of interest. Communities of interest are formations of exclusiveness enabled by technologies of inclusiveness.

Communities of interest are formations of exclusiveness enabled by technologies of inclusiveness. It trips off the tongue!

So it was odd to get that email from my president. I voted for him, and I gave him a few dollars, but I do not revolve in his vast magical orbit.

Yo, Leon, you can unsubscribe from the list.

The personal touch had a distinctly de-personalizing effect, the way Amazon does when it teaches me about my tastes. The Obama machine may be excited to be connected to me...

Isn't it freaky when you're having an encounter with a machine and the machine gets excited?

... but I am not excited to be connected to it. I am not connected to it. The jazziness of the means aside...

Jazziness? When was email last jazzy? In 1999? 1989?

... this was junk mail.

And thus, Leon Wieseltier reveals that he is the last man on earth to perceive that email can be "junk mail" — or — in the jazzy slang of the day, here's a word for you — spam. The kids call it spam. And the kids who started calling it spam are now in their 40s.

The L.A. Times goes after 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski again.

Click the "Kozinski" tag if you don't remember the previous controversy. Now, the same reporter, Scott Glover, has a story about an email list run by Kozinski -- joined by accepting his invitation -- that sent out various humor items:

On the gag list, Kozinski periodically distributed jokes to a group of friends and associates, including his law clerks, colleagues on the federal bench, prominent attorneys and journalists. The jokes he sent ranged from silly to politically oriented to raunchy....

Do Kozinski's actions indicate a lack of judgment or are they merely the harmless expression of a free-spirited man who happens to be a highly regarded judge?

Patterico is not amused: Who cares what humor someone sends around to a willing group of friends? "To some, jokes like this are funny. To others, they’re annoying and tasteless... [I]t’s just not something that merits coverage in a newspaper," he says.

But wait. If the email went around to a lot of judges and it is truly offensive, I care! What if most or all of the recipients were men and much of the humor was demeaning to women? That would matter. What if it was full of racial and religious stereotypes? That would matter. You know people by what they think is funny. If there is insight to be had into the minds of judges, I want it! These people are trusted with immense power, and the federal judges have life tenure. Don't coddle them.

Now, let's go back to Glover's article and see whether he's found the kind of humor that I say matters:

The Times was given 13 jokes by three sources that were circulated on the gag list between 2003 and 2008.

One joke sent last spring poked fun at the Taliban, stating, "You may be a Taliban if ..." any of the following 12 statements are true. Among the statements: "You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't afford shoes" and "You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon 'unclean.' "...

The most graphic joke was set up as a three-page letter ostensibly written by a man to his estranged wife. The man sarcastically tells his wife that he still loves and misses her while at the same time detailing his recent sexual escapades with a young student, a single mother and his wife's younger sister. The single mom, the man says, acts like "a real woman . . . [who is] not hung up about God and her career and whether the kids can hear us."

Does this rise to the level that I've said matters? No.

But does that mean that the L.A. Times was wrong to publish this article? I'd say no to that too. I don't think it's important to publish this article. If federal judges were circulating racist jokes, it would be wrong to suppress it to protect these elite and insulated individuals. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong to share this insight into judicial minds. There was no prying into their private lives, no stalking or trickery.

Patterico places great emphasis on the fact that list membership was voluntary. There are 2 reasons why this doesn't make it all okay. The first I've already stated. The minds of judges affect the public, so it's good to have evidence of what those minds are really like. Just as I want news reports of things politicians accidentally say into a live microphone when they think they are speaking privately, I want to know what judges find funny when they talk -- or email -- amongst themselves.

The second reason appears in Glover's article:

Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School and former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, was skeptical that those who found jokes on the list offensive would necessarily complain, given Kozinski's commanding stature in the legal community.

"If you're ambitious, he's the last person you want to offend," she said.

It's just too hard to say no and, having said yes, to say take me off your list.

***

And, by the way, didn't sending jokes around to all your friends become completely uncool more than a decade ago? Why didn't Kozinski realize he was spamming everybody?