Is it just me?

There are lots of reasons that I would never buy a Dell computer, but their ad campaign is just one more. I just don’t get the deal with this “Stephen.” Is it really effective?

I mean, maybe they figure that younger people don’t see the similarity (though I would have thought with Nick at Nite that even many Gen X and Yers would also). But to the degree that some of their market is boomers, why in the world do they think that anyone would buy a computer being promoted by Eddie Haskell?

And if people will buy a computer being hawked by Eddie Haskell, does this explain Bill Clinton’s success?

[Update]

Reader Stephen Karlson asks:

Only now have you recognized that this kid is the second coming of Eddie Haskell? That’s been common knowledge on words-l@uga.edu for a long time.

Yup. Guess I’m just “out of it” (whatever the heck “it” is…)

Will it sell computers? I don’t know. Is it any less goofy than the talking cow Gateway are using?

Less goofy? No. But given an endorsement by a cow vs Eddie Haskell, I’ll have to go with the bovine recommendation. If it can talk, it’s worthy of the benefit of the doubt, but Eddie Haskell…well…

Clearly, the Democrats have decided that the American people will (in that bizarre Clintonian concept) “compartmentalize” their approval of the Commander-in-Chief and their supposed concern about his domestic agenda. It’s possible they’re right, but if the particular tactic they’ve chosen to employ works, I once again weep for the intelligence and economic perspicacity of the populace.

Apparently, they’re running the phrase “Bush recession” up the flagpole to see how many salute. And their apparent rationale (I can see no other, since it’s been their main gripe with his economic policy from day one, if not day negative six months–i.e., during the campaign, as a “risky tax scheme”) is his “gargantuan (i.e., on the order of a percent of the GDP over the period) tax cut”.

Now let’s tie one intellectual hand behind our back, and ignore the fact that the recession probably started within two months of Bush being sweared in, and that the economy was in fact already slowing in the summer before the election, and that economies don’t turn on a dime, so our current condition was largely due to decisions made more than a year ago (ignoring the spike from the September attacks–surely even they aren’t going to attempt to blame Bush for that?).

Can these Democrats cite a single historical precedent for a recession being caused by a tax cut?

For extra credit, can they put forth a plausible theoretical mechanism by which this might occur?

No, I didn’t think they could…

Oh, well, at least we can be thankful that we don’t have Al Gore around any more with his mindless and oxymoronic phrase, “blowing a hole in the deficit.”

Did They Take Custody Of The Car, Too?

According to the Times (the real one–not that pretense of a newspaper in New York), the Cyclops (aka Mullah Omar) has been captured, but the US forces will not confirm it. Perhaps we’ll know more in the morning.

According to this report we have some data that strongly indicates that our memory capacity is indeed finite in a practical sense (i.e., we have to delete old memories to make room for new ones.

Interesting.

A useful discussion over at Instapundit (not to imply that Professor Reynolds is in the habit of discussing unuseful stuff) about gun registration and whether Ashcroft is following the law and the Constitution in not going through gun purchase lists looking for terrorists. In a previous post, Glenn mentioned that some of his pro-gun friends consider him “wet” because he believes gun registration to be Constitutional (though under the federal statutes he cites and quotes here, not legal).

This is an issue that continually rankles me (not gun registration, but the inability to distinguish between good ideas, and Constitutional ideas). Almost always, when discussing court decisions, each debater uses, as a center of gravity of the discussion, not what is legal or Constitutional, but what they want the outcome to be. I suspect that this is simply another symptom of the abysmal state of our educational system. Roe v Wade is a classical example of this. Supporters of the decision support it not because there’s a clear basis in the Constitution for it (even Ruth Bader Ginsburg is skeptical on that score), but because they want abortion to be universally legal, and the Constitution be damned. I oppose the decision not because I want abortions made illegal (though I do in fact believe that it should be left up to the states), but because I consider it an abortion of a decision, and one that sets an ugly penumbra of an emanation of a precedent.

I think that gun registration is a very, very bad idea, for reasons that have been discussed in length at many times in many places, but I agree with Glenn–it isn’t per se unconstitutional. It’s unfortunate that we can’t somehow segregate these two discussions from each other, because when they get entangled, as they inevitably do, it makes the issues that much harder to resolve.

A useful discussion over at Instapundit (not to imply that Professor Reynolds is in the habit of discussing unuseful stuff) about gun registration and whether Ashcroft is following the law and the Constitution in not going through gun purchase lists looking for terrorists. In a previous post, Glenn mentioned that some of his pro-gun friends consider him “wet” because he believes gun registration to be Constitutional (though under the federal statutes he cites and quotes here, not legal).

This is an issue that continually rankles me (not gun registration, but the inability to distinguish between good ideas, and Constitutional ideas). Almost always, when discussing court decisions, each debater uses, as a center of gravity of the discussion, not what is legal or Constitutional, but what they want the outcome to be. I suspect that this is simply another symptom of the abysmal state of our educational system. Roe v Wade is a classical example of this. Supporters of the decision support it not because there’s a clear basis in the Constitution for it (even Ruth Bader Ginsburg is skeptical on that score), but because they want abortion to be universally legal, and the Constitution be damned. I oppose the decision not because I want abortions made illegal (though I do in fact believe that it should be left up to the states), but because I consider it an abortion of a decision, and one that sets an ugly penumbra of an emanation of a precedent.

I think that gun registration is a very, very bad idea, for reasons that have been discussed in length at many times in many places, but I agree with Glenn–it isn’t per se unconstitutional. It’s unfortunate that we can’t somehow segregate these two discussions from each other, because when they get entangled, as they inevitably do, it makes the issues that much harder to resolve.

A useful discussion over at Instapundit (not to imply that Professor Reynolds is in the habit of discussing unuseful stuff) about gun registration and whether Ashcroft is following the law and the Constitution in not going through gun purchase lists looking for terrorists. In a previous post, Glenn mentioned that some of his pro-gun friends consider him “wet” because he believes gun registration to be Constitutional (though under the federal statutes he cites and quotes here, not legal).

This is an issue that continually rankles me (not gun registration, but the inability to distinguish between good ideas, and Constitutional ideas). Almost always, when discussing court decisions, each debater uses, as a center of gravity of the discussion, not what is legal or Constitutional, but what they want the outcome to be. I suspect that this is simply another symptom of the abysmal state of our educational system. Roe v Wade is a classical example of this. Supporters of the decision support it not because there’s a clear basis in the Constitution for it (even Ruth Bader Ginsburg is skeptical on that score), but because they want abortion to be universally legal, and the Constitution be damned. I oppose the decision not because I want abortions made illegal (though I do in fact believe that it should be left up to the states), but because I consider it an abortion of a decision, and one that sets an ugly penumbra of an emanation of a precedent.

I think that gun registration is a very, very bad idea, for reasons that have been discussed in length at many times in many places, but I agree with Glenn–it isn’t per se unconstitutional. It’s unfortunate that we can’t somehow segregate these two discussions from each other, because when they get entangled, as they inevitably do, it makes the issues that much harder to resolve.

Reader Charlie Banks weighs in on the Twelve Days Accounting Controversy via email:

Tricky conundrum regarding Lords a-Leaping, although I have a possible solution: such displays could easily pass as performance art. Of course, since there’s a Christmas theme the ACLU would have issues with government funding for such displays, so one might simply define the Twelve Lords cost as the average price of one ticket for a privately-sponsored performance art display. Or perhaps two tickets, if this unnamed “true love” loves the receiver as truly as he/she claims…

Well, it didn’t say they were explicitly Chistmas-oriented leaps (just what would those look like, he wondered inanely?)–they may be just garden variety. Surely even the ACLU can’t complain about giving tickets to a performance as a Christmas present?

A few more questions regarding other services: are the maids/drummers/pipers/etc. working at minimum wage, or are they backed by the farm worker/musician/etc. unions? And what of the ladies dancing…exactly what kind of dancing are we talking about here? Nine ladies tap dancing may not cost the same as, say, nine ladies lap dancing.

Lap dancing. Hmmmmm…now that’s what I would call true love, though (appropriately) not the kind of which Dr. Laura would approve…

It’s going to be slow posting today, and probably for the next week and a half–I’m suffering with a dial-up connection, and it’s my only phone line. I may take the time to do some longer, more thoughtful pieces.

According to Opinion Journal in reference to Administration civil liberties proposals:

Newspapers and TV networks pretended there was great “bipartisan” angst about all this, especially military tribunals, though the only conservative critics were libertarians they usually ignore.

I suspect that Bob “Drug War” Barr would be shocked to be described as a libertarian…