I just don’t get all this hate on uncovered boobage and Alan Simpson. If rights to seeing and saying tits aren’t constitutionally protected, what are? The very word is enshrined and embedded right there in the middle of “consTITution.”
In fact, I think that this invention, while not the worst one in the world, is right up there, and clearly unconstitutional (audio may not be safe for work).
[Via Burge on Facebook]
Thoughts from Frank J. on the vermin that perennially infest the nation’s capital:
Anyway, I guess the whole idea for how our country would work was that we’d basically govern ourselves and hire some people — our representative and senators — to represent us in the federal government, as none of us have time for that. And since we’d all elect them together out of our entire population, we’d pick only the best people to do it.
But here’s the problem. Who are the people who tend to run for political office? Political office is hard to get and takes a lot of effort, so only ambitious people seek it. That wouldn’t be so bad if we got smart/ambitious — and the useful kind of smart, not the pointless write-a-doctoral-thesis-on-transgender-Native-American-pottery “smart.”
But what do ambitious, capable people do in this country? They start their own businesses and lead successful lives comfortably away from the fickleness of the ballot box. So that just leaves the people who are ambitious but useless and just love the thought of being able to meddle in all the useful things everyone else is doing. And then the whole election process, where the politicians constantly lie and change their positions on issues to keep their jobs, tends to weed out the people who aren’t also sociopaths. So the system we have has basically set us up to be governed by ambitious, useless sociopaths who love to meddle in everything actual contributors to society are doing. So lawyers, for the most part.
And when you put these people in charge, of course they’re going to just try to grab more power so they can interfere even more, hence the steady bloating of government we’ve seen throughout American history. So what do we do? Change the system to make sure we get good, qualified people who aren’t arrogant weirdos to be our legislators?
Good luck with that. Fortunately, he has a better solution. They won’t like it, though.
First Ken Mehlman, and now this.
Clark Lindsey has compiled a list of links to reviews of the book
The video, explained.
Does he have a ghost twitterer? Mickey Kaus thinks so. If not, his campaign against Obama would have been all the more entertaining. It is pretty good stuff. If it’s not Fred, whoever it is could write for one of the night talk shows. Hey, maybe he does.
…meet dentistry. What would we do without Youtube?
Or is it Starfly? Either way, this is just wrong.
[Evening update]
The comments over there are great (not to disparage my own commenters…).
And now for something completely different — an estimate of how fast the signal of the Beacon of Gondor propagated:
After the first signal is on fire, Gandalf sees the next signal only 6 seconds later. WHAT? The guys (or gals) at the next station must have just been sitting there staring and waiting for a signal. Oh, it was probably like 40 years since the last time it was used. I guess you can do stuff like that if you don’t have youtube. But wait, the more I think about this, the more upset I get. I am ok with invisible rings, flying dragons, glowing swords and stuff. However, it is beyond the bounds of reason to expect me to believe that some guys are sitting way on the other mountain with a hair-triggered lighting mechanism. Six seconds. Seriously.
[Via Geekpress]
With potty mouth Mary Roach (who I’ve always thought had a wonderful name, and am glad that she didn’t change it when she married).
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s a review of her new book, Packing For Mars