I think that Will's protocol for acceptable tune-whistling is right on-target and I would like to comment on whistling conduct of an entirely different nature: the two-toned catcall.

I've spoken to a lot of women who have been subjects of this behavior and their responses have surprisingly ranged from flattery to fear. I find that it almost exclusively happens to me when jogging past construction sites and that my reaction varies with the construction site. For example, while passing Henry Crown Field House, the whistle evoked little more than passing disdain in me. Though I sneered and huffed a signal of displeasure at the untoward behavior, I did not feel threatened or greatly offended. However, my reaction was quite different when it occurred while jogging past a remote construction site in suburban Ohio. There, I was actually quite scared knowing that there was no one around to deter a situation should one arise. I immediately changed my path and quickened my pace until I reached a busier road. The threat to me in both situations was probably nil but while the first scenario was just a nuisance, it was downright menacing to hear that same whistle in the more remote area.

My suggestion is thus: the two-toned catcall is never appropriate. I'm certain that those concerned with etiquette would never engage in such an indecorous act but those who do probably don't realize how menacing it can be. Many offenders and their targets may consider it a harmless complement from afar but regardless of intent, it can be quite disturbing.

Will lists his favorites, which earn him acclaim from the educated, libertarian kind of folk.

Good, but doesn't beat my two favorites (and for others who appreciate Southern drug-humor puns):

In my sister's room (not on her car, she's only at the learner's permit age):
HOOKED ON QUACK.

In a similiar vein, QUACK KILLS.

What is this Quack of which I speak? Why, premium quality duck hunting calls, of course. You can pick it up at Mack's Prairie Wings in Stuttgart, AR, home of the World's Championship Duck Calling Contest. Even cooler, though, are the shotgun shell Christmas tree lights which are hanging over the door to my room.

I should also plug the Car Talk bumper sticker that I have a habit of giving people (none of whom heed it or put it on their car, but that's another story): DRIVE NOW, TALK LATER.
[Enough's enough with the procrastination and the parenthetical comments, just because the paper you're avoiding is on Arkansas politics doesn't mean this is how you should spend your time. -- Love, your inner conscience]

(Via my father, and How Appealling). So what on earth is Justice Janice Rogers Brown doing? Arlen Specter tosses her an easy question, and she doesn't even answer it. (You can listen to the excerpt on All Things Considered here with Realplayer)

Senator Specter asked her "Well doesn't the supremacy clause of the Constitution mean that the Equal Protection of the Fourteenth Amendment trumps California Proposition 209?"

Brown: (clarifying) "Doesn't the Supremacy Clause mean that?"

Specter: "Yes."

Brown: "Well the US Supreme Court has not said that."

Specter: "Well, the state cannot have a constitutional provision that conflicts with a U.S. Constitutional provision, can it?"

Brown: "This is not an issue that I have looked at in detail."

Excuse me? Now, I have a lot of sympathy for nominees who want to avoid answering tough questions, and I think not enough judicial nominees take a tough line with the Senators. "Look, Senator, I don't know for sure how I'll rule with respect to Roe v. Wade, and even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you." All the same, this wasn't even a hard question. Yes, of course the Supremacy Clause means that a state can't abrogate a constitutional right. What was at issue in the case of Proposition 209 was not whether the California Proposition could beat the U.S. Constitution; the question was whether the Proposition did conflict. It didn't. Judge O'Scannlain explained why:

The first step in determining whether a law violates the Equal Protection Clause is to identify the classification that it draws. Proposition 209 provides that the State of California shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race or gender. Rather than classifying individuals by race or gender, Proposition 209 prohibits the State from classifying individuals by race or gender. A law that prohibits the State from classifying individuals by race or gender a fortiori does not classify individuals by race or gender. Proposition 209's ban on race and gender preferences, as a matter of law and logic, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause in any conventional sense.

Sometimes somebody writes something so jaw-droppingly brilliant that you can only muster up a combination of "I wish I'd thought of that," and "maybe I did think of that. Did I think of that?" Jacob Levy seems to come up with a disproportionate number of such jaw-droppingly brilliant things. His post on why mocking religion means taking it seriously is one such. Go read it.

A punchline:

...Mocking the belief while respecting the believer is no more a paradox than hating the sin and loving the sinner, and indeed rests on the same underlying thought-- that one's fellow humans aren't to be treated with kid gloves at the cost of denying them access to the truth.... (read the whole thing)

U2 are almost ready with their new album, and more importantly, ready to start touring for big audiences again. I have rather complicated emotional feelings about their last album, but this is clearly good news.

The group-blog trend continues, with En Banc, a cleverly-titled, law-blog. This blog is particularly worth your attention because it assimilates a lot of other good bloggers. It's got PG, from Half The Sins of Mankind, Unlearned Hand, Jeremy Blachman, Greg Goelzhauser from the Law and Economics Blog, and some other folks who I'm sure are very sharp, although I'm not yet familiar with their blogs. They've even declared us a role-model.

The biggest problem so far is that the blog has comments.

UPDATE:

Dan Moore asks:

I'm sorry, Will, but what exactly is wrong with blogs having comments? Is trackback okay?

James Lileks thinks that whistling is "auditory onanism":

I whistle the guitar parts. That’s not good. I’m a good whistler, but still: no one wants to hear anyone else whistle. It’s auditory onanism.

Of course, as a confessed whistler, I certainly have a stake in this inquiry. Make no mistake about that. Still, the initial analysis from first principles doesn't seem promising. Whistling is, after all, music. It's often not even particularly good music. The etiquette rule about music is generally that one isn't supposed to subject the unwilling to one's own musical tastes. This rule takes on special force when one is also producing the music in question, since it's easier to ask "could you turn that down? I'd like to be able to hear you better," than it is to ask, "could you stop making that racket? I'd like to be able to hear you worse." This doesn't bode well for whistlers.

On the other hand, there's hope. Smoking, after all, is also intrusive but self-gratifying behavior, but etiquette has found ways to cope with that (though not well enough to keep the law from blundering its way in). And whistling also bears serious resemblance to smoking-- it's an "onanistic" behavior that gives pleasure to one but annoyance to many others, but not all others. It's a behavior that only a select portion of the population engages in-- some people because they're physically inhibited from it, and others because they just don't like to. And a man in a trenchcoat and fedora leaning against a building waiting for somebody needs to be either whistling or smoking.

Indeed, whistling's historical pedigree surely must hold out some hope to the committed whistler. Think of Robin Williams whistling his way about the courtyard in The Dead Poet's Society, or King Arthur's subjects in Camelot, to say nothing of Lauren Bacall ("Just put your lips together and blow."). Can etiquette so callously turn its back on our history and tradition?

So, having concluded that the analysis from first principles leaves with a case that is at least "close," we turn to published authority-- Miss Manners. In a 6/26/88 column, Miss Manners dispatches with a special case of our inquiry in a way that bodes badly for whistlers:

Q: We are a group of women who play cards weekly. In the middle of a game, one of the women begins to whistle. I find this disturbing and ill-mannered. When I mentioned this, I was told that there is nothing wrong about a woman whistling.

A: Traditionally, whistling during card games is not a matter of gender so much as survival. Miss Manners prefers that such people be silenced with a glare, but has heard of its being done with a bullet.

Q. I have been informed that whistling is unladylike. While I realize that it is never polite to annoy one's neighbor, would Miss Manners be so kind as to tell me how this gender distinction came about, and whether it is still in effect? I will cease at a word from Miss Manners.

A. Then how would you get Miss Manners a taxicab when she needs one?
While it is true that whistling is unladylike most of the time, it is also true, although your informant neglected to tell you, that it is ungentlemanly at such times.

People of either gender may skip happily along a country road whistling, but neither may whistle in a bus or a theatrical dressing room.

The principle is that people who enjoy themselves in potentially intrusive ways ought to restrain themselves -- preferably without being asked, but most certainly if they are (politely) asked -- in the presence of those on whom such activities have an unpleasant effect. Is that a sufficiently non-provocative way of putting it?

It is not that we want to spoil anybody's fun -- only that we want to take reasonable precautions against spoiling the pleasure of others. (That neither of these statements is true does not disturb Miss Manners; decent people must act as if they were.) It is not an even contest: The wish not to be disturbed has precedence over the desire to do something generally recognized as disturbing.
In a society that has emphasized individual rights at the expense of community preferences, the idea that one shouldn't exercise one's right to annoy people is a hard-won principle. It ought to be more widely applied, and noise would be a good place to start.

There is nothing inherently wrong in talking, laughing, playing music, playing really loud music, snapping chewing gum, whistling, whispering or receiving telephone calls, but there are wrong places to do each of these things, and people should not have to bop one another on the head to establish where they are.

Well, since everybody else is recounting bumper/fender stickers, I thought I'd offer up a few of my own favorites. [Note, this list will necessarily be made more esoteric by the fact that I'm listing only stickers I own, even though I've never owned a car on which to stick them.]

If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

God was my co-pilot, but we crash-landed in the Andes and I had to eat him.

I'm not nearly as think as you confused I am!

Everything I need to know I learned in sniper school.

Duct tape is like the force; it has a light side and a dark side and binds the universe together.

Incidentally, if you're ready to stop reading about Gregg Easterbrook, anti-semitism, et.al., make this Jeremy Reff post the last thing you read about it.

Hum. I woke up this morning, and read this piece by Dahlia Lithwick and told myself I'd write a response as soon as I got back from class. But when I returned and poked around the blogopshere a bit, I noticed that Sasha Volokh had beaten me to it. He writes, for example:

If we want defendants to have counsel because we want to help them, then we should let them define their own interests, and not assume that being freed (or living) is better than being imprisoned (or executed) after having put up what you thought was a dignified fight, with the friends you want and using your own arguments. (Read the whole thing)

Thus, the odd result that the test for baseline competence includes the inquiry of whether you are sufficiently together to assist your counsel. If you are, you are somehow competent enough to fire her.

In the long history of British criminal jurisprudence, there was only one tribunal that ever adopted a practice of forcing counsel upon an unwilling defendant in a criminal proceeding. The tribunal was the Star Chamber.