Humor

Iowahawk’s occasional guest columnist T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII returns, somewhat chastened over his earlier gushing and fawning over Barack Obama. “Each day seems to introduce some new crisis on the world scene with hints of more to come, and one is left to wonder if even our elegant young President’s oratorical and tonsorial gifts are equal to the challenges ahead.” A sad time indeed for the conservative intellectual Doppelgaenger of Christopher Buckley, after several years of proving his bona fides as a committed Obamaphile. But read the whole thing.

Not a thigh-slapper, but a mostly clever parody of the Left in the transnational elites, the academy, and the Obama administration who eagerly swallow every piece of Islamist propaganda against Israel. It also skewers self-important musical “artists”:

Michael Ramirez is taking the measure of Presidents by the inspirational quality of their remarks. Use of the pronoun “I” is the mark of failure. 

Not really a thigh-slapper, but it still raises a strange image of what Fido might be telling you, as a male, the next time he buries his nose in a part of your anatomy. It may seem comical to onlookers and embarrassing to you, but it’s cheaper than a doctor’s visit. And this may become the state of medicine under Obama/Reid/PelosiCare.

Carbolic Smokeball comments on the doings of Joran van der Sloot, suspected in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway and the murder of a Peruvian woman, and on BP’s latest, getting-back-to-basics effort to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Michael Ramirez on the Palestinians’ (and the other usual suspects’) puzzlement about Israel

With the Obama administration and NASA cutting support for manned space flight, keeping man aloft in space may fall to private enterprise. What can you or I, well, mainly, you, contribute to the cause?

Scrappleface uses the theory of legal academics (and half the Supreme Court) that decisions by foreign judges about foreign constitutions in cases unconnected to the U.S. help determine the meaning of the U.S. constitution to analyze the constitutionality of Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. Even if the states that are challenging the law’s constitutionality are right under American constitutional understanding, the administration might convince the Court that the law should be upheld because it is constitutional under various foreign constitutions.

Michael Ramirez on the title of the future book about the Obama presidency:

Isn’t that always the problem? You save yourself for them, but they want the guys that are so wrong for them.

When life becomes so surreal that it goes to the highest levels of parody, it likely involves government and political correctness. Add taxpayer money spent on the Gay Pride celebration of International Day Against Homophobia and additional city funds spent on Homotopia. Mix in denial of funding for a military show because of lack of diversity. Even though the military featured a transsexual soldier.

Michael Ramirez on the Barack and Felipe show. Who says that Mexican politicians never support American presidents?

Prostitution, failing to stop at a railroad crossing, what’s the difference, anyway?

Carbolic Smokeball covers the news about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Having spent years working among the enlightened and entitled of the (mostly) non-Harvard branch of the A**hole-American community (which includes a generous representation of the real thing, however), I can empathize with this report. A guest columnist at Iowahawk presents the life story of Elena Kagan, truly a tale of meaning and of a life struggle to overcome adversity. Sample outtake from her story [as always with Iowahawk, CAUTION: Language Alert]:
“born precocious, a budding intellect nurtured by a crib full of Swedish monochrome creativity blocks and gender-neutral Balinese finger puppets, at age 3 she earned admission to Hundred Acre Wood Academy, one of the Upper West Side’s most selective Ivy League feeder preschools. From there it was off to Leon Trotsky Prep where she distinguished herself as captain of the state champion Feminist Theory team. She displayed a promising raw talent for academic Asshole bullshit, but it was not quite yet up to Harvard’s exacting standards. Still, she would not be dissuaded in her quest for the coveted brown brass ring of Harvard Assholicity. She persevered, honing her bullshit at Princeton and Oxford, two less selective junior colleges that sometimes offer a backdoor path into Harvard. And then, the long awaited call to ‘The Show’ — the famed Asshole Big Leagues of Harvard Law School, where in three years of intensive study America’s most promising young Assholes are taught everything there is to know, about everything worth knowing.”

Via Overlawyered, things are not always what they a-pear to be.

After World War II, Americans generously sent food packages to relieve hunger among Germans. Much to their astonishment many Germans, though obviously hungry, refused the packages. American officials finally solved the mystery. It turned out that the American packages were stamped “Gift.” That word means “poison” in German, and the people, having just lost the war, were suspicious that, what the victors claimed was food, just might be something else. Thus go the problems of linguistic misunderstanding. Here are other idiomatic (and idiotic) problems of sign language.

From Michael Ramirez, a rendition of the Tarnished State:
 

June is wedding month. For those “liberated” women (or the occasional guy) planning on hyphenating their names with their spouses’, consider the potential downsides.

Iowahawk presents the tale of the purloined pathfinder, starring Gotham Detective Bloomberg Holmes and Attorney General Holder in a case of mistaken terrorist identity.

I’m rather sure this is not on the bar exam. Perhaps it’s a variant of family law. I wonder if the State Bar offers a specialist’s certification.

Arizona responds to the L.A. City Council’s boycott decision.

The folks at Carbolic Smokeball have fallen hard for Elena Kagan, who seems to be constantly on their minds: They have uncovered Kagan’s background in the witness protection program. Before her appearance was altered, Kagan is said to have borne a strong resemblance to Taylor Swift. That background is what may have persuaded the President that Kagan is “the perfect nominee because she brings no ideological baggage to the [Senate confirmation] hearing, and in fact nobody knows the first thing whatsoever about her.  Including me.” Kagan’s new look seems not to have pleased Senator Patrick Leahy, though. The White House is also said to be taking concrete steps to squelch rumors that Kagan prefers playing in the all-girls league.

From Michael Ramirez, the White House’s priorities:

Once again, it is that time of year. Most people tell the passing of the years by reference to the calendar. The new year begins on January 1 and ends on the next December 31. Farmers perhaps are more in tune with a sowing, tending, reaping cycle that starts in early spring and ends in late fall, with a winter of driving the RV to Arizona. Professors tell time by academic year, an odd form of time-keeping. The “new year” begins in the late summer and ends with graduation in the late spring. The next three months are doing “other things,” unless, like Token Conservative, one teaches in summer school. In that case, there is a three-month limbo period.

Another such academic year has passed, and graduation once more is upon us. It is time, therefore, to reprise this timeless (and timely) advice column on graduation annoyances.

It has been said that being a professor is like being a perpetual student.  If the student being referenced is someone dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and not merely a seat warmer doing time until paroled with a degree, that observation has a lot of merit.  I know, I know, there are (tenured) professors who are little more than seat warmers doing time until the 401(k) kicks in, but they hardly began their careers that way.

One aspect of being a student is graduation, or so the parents, at least, hope.  That ceremony is a rite of passage that recognizes the graduate’s achievement or, perhaps, endurance.  For professors, it is rather a chore, lightened by having a last friendly encounter with some students who have made a good impression.  Such encounters are more likely in a comparatively small institution such as my law school, where the professors know many, if not most, of the students.  Part of my teaching is in a small special 2-year program.  The pedagogical intimacy fostered by the program makes for an even closer professor-student connection.  That has its good and bad sides, but at graduation it is definitely good.  Most of the students are smart and decent people, if not always fully-focused acolytes of The Law.  So there is a pride and a sense of loss (both of which may vary with the particular group) when they graduate.

Although I skipped my own law school graduation, I have now attended more than twenty such events at my school.  Add to that the graduations and promotion ceremonies (the latter are the “civil unions” of graduations) from college, high school, middle school, elementary school, the Little Tots kindergarten, the Tiny Tots nursery school, and I can hum Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March in my sleep.  So, here are some pet peeves about graduations collected over the years.

1.  If you are the speaker, avoid politics.  Not the time and place.  Although most liberal speakers respect that rule, folks from that side of the political spectrum seem much more prone to violate it than those from our side.  In fact, I have never seen a conservative speaker violate that rule.  Of course, that may be because there are far fewer conservative graduation speakers, too.  As a speaker, you may be correct to assume that most faculty are fellow-BDS sufferers (”Bush Derangement Syndrome”) and experience frequent Obamagasms. A goodly portion of the graduates may be so afflicted as well.  But quite likely at least 20-25% are not; among the parents and guests that percentage is likely to be higher.  You do not have time to convince them of the correctness of your thesis that Bush is responsible for original sin, that Cheney and the snake had a corrupt deal to get Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden so that Halliburton could take it over, or that Obama is, in truth and fact, The One.  So, all you do is annoy those graduates, parents, and guests and take away from their enjoyment of the day.  That’s not the thing to do for your hosts who will shortly try to get the graduates and their families to open their wallets for the old alma mater.  If you do not want to stick to the generally soothing, vaguely uplifting graduation speech matrix, fine.  Make balloon animals, make caustic comments about your ex-spouse, or give your take on the mysteries of the universe such as the nature of gravity or the reason why Donald Duck wears only a jacket but no pants.  The damage from such detours from the graduation norm is limited to you.  People may remember your speech (and you) as weird, but they will not be annoyed.  Better yet, they won’t hold your idiosyncracy against the school.

If you can, inject some humor.  If you can’t, be brief.  On second thought, be brief, anyway.

2.  If you are faculty, be at least minimally respectful to the speaker.  You don’t have to lead the standing ovation, but don’t lead the demonstrative exit from the stage during the speech, either.  Do what too many church goers seem to do:  Show up, mouth the words, stand up and sit down when everyone else does, and don’t make a spectacle of yourself so that the priest remembers that he hasn’t seen you there in awhile (not that that has happened to anyone I know).  When in doubt, quietly read a good book that you have brought.  In church that would be The Good Book, of course.

3.  If you are a student speaker, keep it light.  This is not the time to denounce the dean, get back at students or faculty for whatever slights you may perceive you suffered in school, or fawn at length over a professor with whom you have been infatuated, intellectually or otherwise (unless I am that professor, in which case, fawn at will).  Talk about your experiences so that other graduates can relate to them.  Don’t overdo the “We have triumphed heroically” theme.  Don’t single out others for particular mention.  Once you start down the road of mentioning some, where do you stop?  It becomes like trying to figure out whom to invite to a formal party and whom to exclude.  You’re just going to tick off some of the latter.  Good rule for graduation speeches:  First, do no harm.

4.  If you are a recipient of an honorary degree, great.  Accept the degree, perhaps with a few gracious comments.  The emphasis here is on “few.”  Don’t hijack the ceremony.  You are not the focal point of the occasion.  You have been selected out of recognition for some perceived good that you have done for someone, somewhere, sometime.  You have not been selected to analyze the state of the Union.  Having survived the graduation speakers, everyone is restive to get on with the show of awarding the real degrees.  Don’t make us rescind the honor bestowed on you.

5.  If you are a graduate, try, try, try, to act your age.  Seriously, dancing across the stage at a law school graduation?  Yelling at the audience?  Stick with champagne before the ceremony and lay off the 150-proof.  This is supposed to be a joyous, yet dignified, occasion to mark your academic and professional success.  You are joining the fraternity of lawyers, not of Tappa Kegga Bru.

And, what is it with bringing your kids to walk across the stage with you?  This started some years back when an occasional graduate would carry an infant, an extracurricular by-product of law school, across the stage.  That once had some cute novelty.  But now we have numerous graduates bringing gaggles of kids of all ages with them.  Enough already.  Next, people will be bringing their parents, spouses, educational loan originators, and pet goldfish.  If you cannot leave the kids with the other parent, a grandparent, or a guest at the ceremony for the few minutes while you walk across the stage, splurge on the child care and leave the little dears at home. I am qualified to give this advice. I have seven kids of my own. Don’t make me bring them on stage with me.

6.  If you are a guest at the graduation, see #5, above.  Act in accordance with your age and the occasion.  Clap and even cheer for your graduate.  Chanting the name in rhythmic cadence, “woofing,” or blowing air horns marks you as an ignoramus.  When I coached AYSO soccer, I taught my kids that, if they scored, they should congratulate each other.  But I told them also to knock off excessive showmanship.  It’s annoying and makes it look as if they rarely score.  So, the guests’ obnoxious display of family solidarity makes it seem like the graduate is the first person in their clan to get past the “I got readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic this year” stage.  Don’t make the graduate look as if he or she took five years to get through a three-year program, even if that’s what happened.  You know, “I remember junior year well.  It was the happiest three years of my life.”

7.  What is it with the academic attire?  I like the robes and hoods of the academic clan.  The lively contrast of the hoods that show the colors of the professors’ doctoral schools against the simple black of the robes lends dignity to the occasion.  But then it is all ruined by the mortarboard caps.  They are ugly and ill-fitting, with their square top attached to the cloth cap/helmet and their dangling tassel.  The whole headgear just screams for a plastic propeller to be attached on top.  The comedian Johnny Carson years ago had a skit where he dressed up in academic regalia and answered very corny and dumb questions.  Every time I see those ridiculous mortarboards I picture Johnny Carson sitting behind his desk.  They lend an overall air of parody to the whole occasion.  Solution?  Supply regular soft material academic caps, at least to the professors.

8.  One more thing:  Wear sunscreen.  I don’t really know why that’s good graduation advice, but I heard it somewhere.

Hail to the graduates.  Endow a professorship.  At least keep in touch.

Refuting the liberal nonsense that it is difficult to make jokes about Barack Obama because “he is trying to do good,” Iowahawk delivers another must-read, a celebrity roast of Barack Obama, starring “Pyongyang funnyman Kim Jong-Il! Borscht Belt headliner Vlady Putin! Queen of Mean Liz Windsor! Saudi Sheik of Schtick King Abdullah! Beijing jokeslinger Hu Jintao! Wacky al Qaeda Caveman Ayman al-Zawahiri! Nick ‘the Knife’ Sarkozy! Sassy Wanda Sykes! South-of-the-border slapstick team Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers! Taliban Madman Mullah Omar! Jon Stewart! Lovable Libyan lush Muammar al-Ghadaffi! Grovelin’ Guvner Gordy Brown! Bashar “The Chin” al-Assad! The Hamas Fattah Dancers! And starring your Master of Ceremonies — that suntan man with a plan from Iran — that Persian with a nuclear perversion — Sheckyyyyyy Ahmedinejad!” Read it and weep laugh. [CAUTION: Language alert. Seriously.]

Someone actually got paid to study this. I wonder how much this important news cost the taxpayers. I rather think that most men would do hands-on research like this without pay.

Like so many heterosexual American men, I am eagerly looking forward to the return, yet again, of the “Sex and the City” franchise. I wonder how many more appearances they will make before they will need to rename it “Menopause and the City.” Some have complained that there is no plot to the movie. But, in contrast to their failure to uncover other plots, the FBI has uncovered this one.

Today we celebrate Mom.

You know, the one who suffered through several hours of labor pains for you, and takes great pains to remind you of that fact for the next several decades.

The one who loves you unconditionally: “I know he shouldn’t have killed his neighbors over that dryer at the trailer park laundromat, but he’s really a good boy.”

The one who told you That Woman (or Man) is no good for you. And has been right again, and again, and again….

The one who wiped your nose and other parts without (too much) complaining.

The one who insisted that you eat your vegetables so you could be healthy, even if on a few more occasions than she will admit that vegetable was ketchup or relish at the local fast food joint.

The one who picked you up, patched your wounds, dried your tears, and comforted you when you were bullied. And then would take away your brother’s (or sister’s) privileges. As happened just last month.

The one who supplied the mercy to Dad’s justice whenever you messed up, which was all too often.

The one who some of your cockier Romeo teen-aged guy friends thought was hot, and your female friends thought was cool. You just didn’t see it, but then you were too busy ignoring her and copping attitudes.

The one who made you go to assorted lessons intended to improve your cultural sensibility and taste. Judging by the music to which you listen, the movies that you see, and the websites you visit (other than this one), her valiant efforts have been in vain. But that’s a mother’s love, to try to make a silk purse out of sows’ ears.

No matter how often she has complained to your face about when were you going to get a real job, finish your degree, get married, or have kids, she brags about you to others. You are her son or daughter ”the doctor,” even if the doctorate is from a graduate school of education that advertises its various branches on local radio stations.

So give her the one thing she wants from you—attention. Pick up the phone. Call her. Do it. Now.

Odd, but I did not see this Supreme Court opinion in the usual advance sheets. [Caution: Content warning.]

Now, this is a Facebook group to which I can relate.

Michael Ramirez reports some polling news:

Iowahawk investigates the connection between tsunamis (and volcanos and other natural disasters) and human carbon consumption. Lesson: “Don’t anger sacred water spirit Tai-Waku.”

OK, I’ve heard stories about swallowing goldfish during fraternity initiations, and then there were those dubious stories twenty years ago about Richard Gere and gerbils, but this prank combines the worst of both.

Unconvinced by the government’s “lone wolf” theory, Scrappleface asserts that the Times Square bombing attempt was the result of a conspiracy. Evidence? The bomber was able to get a parking space to fit an SUV in New York City.

Tired of Teleprompter Cicero’s orations? Make them fun again. With:

Here’s how to play. Make boards for all players, with the expressions jumbled. Feel free to add others. Every time he utters one of these trademark phrases, it’s time for a drink of alcohol. But first, jump up, point at the TV, and yell “bullsh*t” or its equivalent. Then drink up and put a marker on your square. Whoever gets five in a row is the winner. The good news is that you keep playing the game. Given that he took 17 minutes to (not) answer a simple tax question, a whole speech will be quite, umm, smashing. But remember, don’t drink and drive.
H/T Henning Knipprath at www.knipprathcellars.com

Then there was this unfortunate incident in Arizona recently.

The Fence Test
If you ever wondered what side of the political fence you sit on, take this test:

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one;
If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat;
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned.

If a conservative is a homosexual, he quietly leads his own life;
If a liberal is a homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how he can better his situation himself;
If a liberal is down-and-out, he wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels;
If a liberal doesn’t like a talk show host, he demands that the program be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church;
If a liberal is a non-believer, he wants any public mention of God and religion silenced.
(Unless the religion is other than Christianity or Judaism.)

If a conservative needs health care, he shops for it or chooses a job that provides it;
If a liberal needs health care, he demands that others pay for it.

If a conservative reads this, he’ll consider it an amusing caricature and forward it to his friends;
If a liberal reads this, he’ll deem it hate speech because he’s offended.

H/T Henning Knipprath, knipprathcellars.com

From Michael Ramirez, the President’s approach to dealing with two items on his agenda:

Whew! I’m glad I didn’t get this procedure done. (”Not that I need it,” he says.) I wonder if Obama/Reid/PelosiCare will cover this. Anyway, in a tight economy, best not to limit one’s job chances, if that Papua policeman’s job is beckoning. Lawyers, on the other hand, seem to have this procedure done a lot, judging by their personalities.

Awarding the Government Employee of the Year: 

It’s a thankless business, but someone has to write about this. I have posted about the Iranian cleric who blamed the recent increase in earthquakes on the immodest dress of women. In Iran, of all places. The chadors must be showing too much forehead and wrist. Of course, as I also noted (and linked), the far more rational secular Westerners are blaming the earthquakes on global warming. Probably from driving to many SUVs. Well, an American woman has begun a campaign on Facebook to prove the cleric wrong. By launching a “boobquake,” as she puts it. This is not just an attempt to titillate but an experiment to test his hypothesis. She urges all women on Monday to dress as “immodestly” as they can under their circumstances, e.g., low-cut tops, short shorts. Now, I say this is a global effort, something we should all get behind, in front of, or next to. I want to give her full support. Then, in the evening, the women as well as the men who watched them closely all day in this experiment can reveal whether or not the earth moved for them. So, whether the boobquake measures a gentle “A,” is a serious “DD” shaker, or comes in at any magnitude in between, get involved. Do it for science.

A new variant on an old favorite: The multiple bet scam joke. 

Carbolic Smokeball is on the job. How did I overlook this potential Supreme Court nominee?

Which is the better mode of dispute resolution, a lawsuit or a duel?

Only at an institution of higher “learning.” Another team gets quizzed by the commissars of political correctness about the suitability of its name. I appreciate the team’s explanation. It sounds so, well, stupid, that it is just the right response for the official stupidity on display in this process. It is wonderful theater when different identity groups fight each other. Predictably, in New Mexico the American Indian/Chicano coalition is going to prevail over the Domestic Abuse/Sexual Assault Taskforce commissars. Notice what the latter wanted: “The list included a recommendation that the team turn over all printed materials with the SAW name, including flyers, banners and T-shirts that the students bought with their own money, and accept El Refugio’s sponsorship and a new name approved by the Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Task Force.” All over a rather sophomoric name that no one in his or her right mind would see as a sponsorship of rape.

Who knew? Men and women think differently! No matter how many Womyn’s Studies departments and Womyn and the Law courses there are. Via Erik Knipprath.

Scrappleface analyzes S.E.I.U. boss Andrew Stern’s decision to resign his position of power to spend more time with the family. But which “Family” did Stern mean?

Here’s an idea if you’re planning ahead for gifts for your wife or girlfriend. Am trying to figure out how Nintendo might use this in an ad campaign.

My tax return, I’d like to burn- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes,
But here I sit, and I can’t quit- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes,
Those wages and some dividends- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes,
Deductions few, no credits, too- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes. 

The tax rate’s high, makes grown men cry- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes,
That AMT has got to me- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes,
My federal’s done; the state’s to come- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes,
The sum I owe, it kills me so- - - -Deep in the heart of taxes.

Finding their way through Form 1040.

From the archives, a timeless issue:

The federal government measures its tax collection in trillions of dollars, and the state and local governments combined almost match that effort. But the political class that is “managing” our economy constantly pleads impecuniousness. That is, of course, because their expenditures measure trillions more. So they threaten, finagle, and push to vacuum more money out of the pockets of hapless taxpayers. There is an entitlement culture, all right. It’s the culture of the tax collector believing himself to be entitled to your money, while perhaps deigning to leave you with enough for your subsistence.

But it is Easter time. A celebration of Jesus’s Resurrection. Jesus had sympathy and love for the despised tax collector. We may not be able to match such Divine love, but we can at least consider the tax collector’s situation from his or her perspective. What a burden to find additional trillions of dollars. Think about how often you find a penny that you leave lying on the ground. How long will it take our diligent tax collectors to find a couple of trillion additional dollars at that rate? And that’s just the feds, never mind Arnold and the gang in what passes for a legislature in California.

Or, consider having the tax collectors go through trash cans to find discarded cans and bottles. By the time the government pays for plastic bags, trash cans, or other non-recyclable containers to transport the recyclable containers to the recycling center, the tax collectors wouldn’t have a lot of taxes left to turn in.

The good news (from the tax collectors’ perspective) is that they have come up with very creative ways to transfer money from you to them. But, then, it’s easy for them to be creative. After all, what do they do as government workers those 364 days of the year while they await the Big Payoff on April 15? They have the time to sit around and scheme while you, poor drone, go to work.

Here are some examples of their handiwork, at all levels of their enterprise, federal, state, and local. Very creative. But insufficient, as the news reports tell us every day.

So, I, have come up with additional proposals for taxes. Joe Biden questioned the patriotism of Americans who want to retain some of their earnings and are reluctant to turn over even more of their income for Joe and the rest of the administration to distribute among its political supporters. And I don’t want to fail Joe’s definition of good character, which, for all I know, he plagiarized from someone else. In any case, I perform this service as a patriotic citizen. Consider it one of those charitable contributions that the administration wants to eliminate as a tax deduction for The Rich.

Taxes work best when they are levied on things that people need or really desire, so that demand for them is relatively inelastic in relation to price. Here, then, is Token Conservative’s list of new taxes, er, revenue enhancements, I mean, government policy investment opportunities.

1. New gas taxes are in constant rhetorical demand. I say, go for it. Impose new taxes on Mexican restaurants, barbeque joints, Tommy’s Burgers, and similar eateries whose wares produce excessive amounts of gas in the consumer. This tax is particularly beneficial, as it will reduce the emission of methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. We know it’s a potent greenhouse gas because everyone in the house turns green when too much of it is emitted.

2. Our governor and legislature have increased the vehicle tax. Hmm. Yes, there are lots of vehicles in California. But I think we can do better. I propose a “follicle tax.” This is like the traditional “head tax” assessed on each person. We charge a tax, once a year, based on the amount of hair that person has on his or her head. Just for people from New York or New Jersey, the tax will be assessed on the amount of hair on his (or her) back. Since most people love to show off their hair, there is unlikely to be much tax avoidance. For the cheats that may try to shave their heads, we can impute hair much as we impute income, by reconstructing their follicular wealth based on annual expenditures on hair products. We can also tax on “constructive” hair by basing it on “twelve-hour shadow” stubble. Any evidence of recent shaving will be construed as attempted tax fraud and trigger a hairy penalty.

Another advantage of this tax is that it is likely to hit younger people more than other taxes, such as income or real estate taxes, will. Taxing them gives young people an early stake in the community, “skin in the game,” as our Community organizer-in-Chief might say. Doing that is likely to rid them sooner of feel-good, pie-in-the-sky liberal redistributionist sympathies.

3. A variant of number 2 might be the “blonde tax.” Judging by the sales of blonde hair coloring products, this is another tax that people will tolerate. One drawback of the tax is that it will hit some localities or states more than others. For example, there are a lot of blondes in Minnesota, but fewer in Rhode Island. There are a lot more blondes in California than in Rhode Island. There probably are a lot more blondes in California from Rhode Island than they were when they lived in Rhode Island. So this tax is more suited as a state or local levy.

4. The Obama administration wants to cap CO2 emissions that industry belches into the air. They are amateurs. Just think about this. Humans exhale CO2. Now, you may say, “Well, I just emit a little bit of killer gas.” Sure, but you do this, what, 15 times a minute (more in the presence of your object of affection, be s/he live, virtual, or plastic), 900 times an hour, 23,000 times a day, more than 8 million times a year. Now, 8 million may not look like much in a government budget, but, my friend, you are a polluter. Multiply this by 6 billion others, and we have Earth in the Balance. What if we could just reduce inhaling and exhaling to pre-bong levels of the 1950s? You get ten breaths per minute. Above that there will be a tax. Don’t think of avoiding this tax. Every breath you take; every move you make; every step you take; the pollution police will be watching you.

Let me turn to my students for a minute. Those of you who are heavy breathers, and you (and I) know who you are, can buy CO2 emission rights from those who are shallow breathers. Again, we know who those are, too, because we can tell from their soft snoring when they fall asleep in class.

5. One target of taxation is income. A characteristic of income is its fluidity. As tax collectors are finding out in this recession, when income drops, collections do likewise. Assets are sturdier tax targets. Unless a bubble develops, asset-based taxes are relatively stable. This is particularly true for land, “real property.” Of course, people try to hide assets in overseas accounts, safe deposit boxes, behind the furnace in the cellar. But I have in mind an asset that people don’t hide or try to minimize. In fact, they are often quite brazen in their display. I am talking about the female bosom.

Among women, this tax is egalitarian in that there are no “haves” and “have-nots.” But the taxes go up, as the wealth in the asset increases. Just as with real estate taxes, the size of the acreage will affect taxes owed, though allowance might be made for minors whose assets are still in the development phase, and for those at the other end whose assets are suffering from depletion and accelerated depreciation. But, better than real estate taxes, there is not a finite supply of acreage. Indeed, particularly in Southern California cosmetic surgery offices, new acreage seems to be created with satisfying frequency. The tax will apply, whether the woman has obtained her land of plenty by luck of inheritance, by the sweat of her brow at the pectoral exercise machine in the gym, by diet, or by just buying the darn things. This is an obvious solution to the California budget shortfall.

Some are suggesting that the growth of these assets per woman over the last fifty years represents a temporary bubble. They remind us of lean periods such as the “flapper” years of the 1920s or the “Twiggy” fashion of the 1960s. I think that as long as the government does not foster foolish credit policies that lets women overextend themselves by purchasing obscenely huge assets, this is merely prudent expansion that rests on a solid foundation, not a bubble that lacks supporting infrastructure. Unlike the dollar. Indeed, if one were to judge various investments, I would surmise that female bosoms have held up better over the last decade than stocks, bonds, or real estate.

6. Some might object to the foregoing as sexually discriminatory, in that it taxes only female assets. So, let me propose a supplemental tax imposed on males. After all, why should their endowments go untaxed? There are some problems, though, that make such analogous taxation of male assets more problematic. One issue is determining the point of assessment. Real estate is assessed as of a particular date each year, as can be done with female bosoms. For the latter, we might choose Valentine’s Day, or the day of her husband’s/boyfriend’s/sugar daddy’s latest pay raise.

But the peculiarly male asset exhibits a tendency to rise and fall with (sometimes distressing) frequency. Factors such as older age and work stress may cause increased likelihood of a poorly-performing asset. Marriage, though, can modulate the erratic fluctuations and produce steadier and more predictable performance. Another problem is just trying to assess a “value” based on the size of the endowment, since all males but a few show-offs, as well as that 95% of women who lie to pollsters, insist that the real value of the asset is not based on its size. The point is that it becomes difficult to assess a value under those circumstances. This is not an effective and predictable tax system.

The best solution I can come up with is to tax condoms. Just as there are different tax rates for different levels of income or different uses of property, one can impose different taxes on the sale of condoms depending on their size. Instead of an “excise tax,” call it a “circumcise tax.” If a man buys “regular” condoms, assess a tax of x percent; if he buys “magnums,” make it 2x percent. Have condom manufacturers produce a subcompact “mini-me” size that will be taxed at x/2 percent.

The mini-me tax is like residential property; the regular is commercial; and the magnum is industrial. The beauty of the system, though, is that almost every American male wants to be seen buying the magnum, even if the resulting fit is like skin on a Shar-Pei. So they’ll pay the higher tax to be perceived as a titan of industry. No one wants to be seen as average in this matter, though, by definition, this is really perfectly respectable. And the mini-me will be bought only by a few oddballs like trendy slackers of dubious sexuality, Prius-driving liberal college professors, and various members of the Obama administration who can’t seem to be able to afford to pay their taxes.

7. Income taxes are usually paid on earnings. But income can be imputed. For example, if one grows one’s own food instead of working at the Kwik-E-Mart, getting a paycheck and then buying groceries at Von’s, one has avoided income taxes though one is in the same economic position as the working drone who must pay those taxes on his income. Thus, the value of what is grown should be imputed as income. This usually isn’t done because of the difficulty of enforcement and fear that the taxpayers would resort to the 18th century way of dealing with abusive tax collectors, by tarring and feathering.

However, one scenario of imputed tax might work. I call this the “American Idle” tax. You are either at work, or you are not. If you are not, you could be. And you selfishly are not contributing to the common good, in this time of hope and change. Thus, there should be income imputed to you whenever you are not at work, at the same rate of pay as when you are at work. [Note: There might appear to be some problems regarding government workers, as it is difficult to distinguish when they are working and when not. But they are getting paid for not working while in their offices, so the result from imputation of income will be the same for them.] That income, imputed or earned, can be taxed at regular rates.

8. Many jurisdictions impose licensing fees and business taxes on certain professions. I propose another tax that not only will raise money, but will further counteract global warming. I mean a “hot air” tax. This would impose a tax of one cent (a very small tax, really) on each word uttered or written by the Iowa Supreme Court, every politician, bureaucrat, judge (after an exemption of 1000 words per written opinion), journalist (loosely defined to include L.A. Times reporters), school administrator, lawyer, professor, and entertainer (other than singing songs or reading scripts). Oh, and to Britney Spears. In the spirit of not taxing activities on the internet, blogging would be excluded from this tax, as would be words from science and engineering professors. Finally, the words of anyone who is both a constitutional law professor and a blogger, and who also works at a private law school in Los Angeles that is not a component of a university, would be excluded. I wrote the tax; I write the exclusion.

9. There are gift taxes, estate taxes, and inheritance taxes. One can’t even give it away without Uncle demanding a cut. But why wait until the taxpayer dies? With life expectancy creeping up at least until Obama’s government health care program is fully operative, this is an unconscionable waste of time. Remember: A tax delayed is a tax avoided.

Just take the value of a taxpayer’s current assets at his or her wealthiest point, say, age 60, and calculate the likely value at his or her death. One can use forward-looking models developed by global warming enthusiasts. When those models have been used to predict current temperatures based on past statistics, they have inevitably and significantly overstated warming. This method then will greatly overstate the taxpayer’s likely wealth at death. But if the taxpayer objects to the use of this model, tell him he is an irrational ”denier” going against a scientific consensus and threaten him with job loss.

Assess a tax, perhaps 45%, based on that projected value and require the taxpayer to pay it now. If at his death, the projected value was too low, require the taxpayer’s estate to pay tax on the difference. If the projected value was too high, so what? What’s he going to do about it? He’s dead.

10. There is currently a lot of activity that is criminalized or otherwise frustrated by law. Those activities should be legalized and taxed. Frequently-proffered examples are anti-drug laws and anti-prostitution laws. Moreover, legalizing but taxing such activities will allow law enforcement to be used for more important things like waiting around while a mass killer finishes his peculiar leisurely pursuit of happiness, or ensuring a crime-free zone around donut shops by massive police presence. We are already doing that with gambling taxes. But a government that thinks nothing about tripling the national debt in the next ten years, and talking about annual trillion dollar (in today’s value) spending deficits, needs to match that on the tax side with equal audacity. Think big, Mr. President.

Tax, don’t criminalize, murder. There’s a hunting season for game. How about a hunting season on your neighbors, relatives, co-workers? Heck, to keep things from getting out of hand, limit the number of annual permits and hold drawings.

Tax, don’t criminalize, fraud. Wouldn’t it be more productive to assess an additional fraud tax on Bernie Madoff than to have him rot in jail? He’s much more useful getting people to give him their money, no questions asked, than mopping prison floors. And, let’s be honest, he’s really too old for prison recreation. Make the IRS his partner in getting money from The Rich.

Tax, don’t criminalize, trafficking in body parts. The buyer gets a needed part. The seller gets cash for something he didn’t really want or need. Society benefits in that the part will be put to its highest and best use. The government gets taxes. Everyone wins.

Tax, don’t criminalize, abortions. Scrap silly distinctions based on viability. Make the taxes higher, the later in the term. If the child is used for organ harvesting, tax that.

Let heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, no-sexuals, monogamists, bigamists, polygamists, and assorted masoch-ists get married, divorced, annulled. But tax, tax, tax. Sure, moral traditionalists might shudder at some of these ideas, but their religiously-motivated prejudices and stereotypes must not influence tax policy. Separation of church and state, and all that. The government’s need is great and unsatisfied, and there is nothing moral about taxes.

I have done my patriotic duty and served up a plan. Now it’s up to the President, Patriotic Joe, and Timmeh Geithner to get it done.

From Carbolic Smokeball, How the West would not have been won: With political correctness. When asked about this proposal, Rahm Emanuel (the Much Elder), chief of staff for the Great (Half-) White Father in Washington, is said to have replied, “F***ing Ret*rds,” thereby quickly earning himself a rebuke from Ms. Dogooder. There is no record of Ms. Dogooder’s fate after her efforts to get the Oglala chief to change his name, leading historians to believe that she was unceremoniously scalped when Crazy Horse got tired of her nagging [A bit of unplanned humor: “Horse,” “nagging—T.C.]. However, Ms. Dogooder seems to have produced many offspring that also have multiplied over the generations and are found in increasing numbers in government, schools, churches, and other civic institutions.

Don’t you just hate it when people don’t recognize your handiwork?

The city of Irving, Texas, demolished Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, through a series of controlled explosions to make room for a future facility. At least, that’s what they claim. Scrappleface has uncovered what may be a nefarious inside job by the CIA.

A recent Iowahawk classic, as the satirist takes aim at the absurd claims by Democrats and their media allies about the violence of tea party protesters and others opposed to turning the U.S. into an Obamanation. Iowahawk, acting on behalf of the Media Violence Project and the Center for the Study of Politician Sociopathy, has researched the violent actions of journalists and politicans and released his findings in “Journo-politico Violence: Deadly Threat or Menacing Trend?” Or both?

The claims of violence by conservative protesters by and large turn out to be false. Or, even more embarrassing to journalists (if they had a sense of shame), the violence is committed by registered Democrats or other anti-capitalist, anti-Bush leftists. Iowahawk’s copiously documented incidents, on the other hand, involve actual violence, threats, or other criminal activity (sex crimes with children, supporting international terrorist groups, and the always popular DUI) by journalists or politicians. What to do? Iowahawk’s David Burge and his assistants have put together a preventive strategy:

“In order to protect yourself and your family the MVP and the CSPS recommend that you recognize the warning signs and take quick corrective action. In specific:

• Hone your senses to be aware of journalists or politicians in your immediate vicinity. Be vigilant for satellite trucks, cameras, placards, bunting, and strangers with an excessive interest in hand shaking and baby kissing.
• If your ‘gut’ tells you something is amiss, leave before the situation escalates.
• Avoid eye contact, and walk by in a brisk, confident, determined manner.
• If contact is unavoidable, use distraction and evasive maneuvers. If confronted by a journalist, tell him his makeup is splotchy. For politicians, yell ‘hey, look over there! A rich campaign contributor!’

“These simple steps may buy you the critical seconds you need to avoid a lifetime of physical and psychological disability. But you can also do your part to help and inform your fellow at-risk citizens. Do you know of any journalist or politician-related crimes that have somehow slipped through our monitoring dragnet? Share them in the comment section of this post, along with appropriate links. To avoid server overload, please confine these to actual or potential instances of bodily harm, rather than garden variety immorality (graft, plagiarism, infidelity etc.).”

Iowahawk’s readers have left plenty of additional evidence of what the great satirist has documented.

On another topic, sad to see this happen to an advertising icon. First, the Lucky Charms leprechaun is suspected of being a former IRA terrorist, whose iconic “Everyone’s after me lucky charms” grew out of terrorist code for being wanted by the authorities. Then there was Tony the Tiger, who made lots of money and lived in a gated community. He seemed to have it all, including corn flakes that already came sweetened. But happiness eluded this tony Tiger, who, incredibly, sought some snap, crackel, and pop in the arms of serial mistresses. Now it’s Stan the cuckoo. What’s next? Cap’n Crunch training Somali pirates? The Quaker Oats guy as a militia commander?

From the archives, The Onion has some fun at the expense of liberals who prize the easy morality of bumpersticker posturing. The “report” addresses the burning question of whether people in Darfur are aware of all the things that American liberals, especially the elite class of celebutards, are doing for them.

President Obama throws out the first pitch. While he deserves some accolades for his apparent willingness to embarrass himself, it is also amusing to scroll down at the link and compare O’s throwing style to W’s. But, then, O is a professor of sorts, not a jock.

Might as well rub it in.  From Michael Ramirez:

Iowahawk applies the typical Republican Party progression from politcal chest-beating to whimpering, to the case of the recently passed Obama/Reid/PelosiCare law.

This is said to be a satellite photo of Earth Hour. I think it’s a preview of things to come after cap-and-tax and other environmentalist projects. See also this difference between political systems.

Heh:

While there are plenty of media people who sing the praises of the administration, someone on the other side has stepped up literally to sing. Borrowing from Kenny Rogers and “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille,” comes “You Picked a Fine Time to Lead Us, Barack.” Not as catchy as the Zydeco tune I posted during the election, but a solid effort.

My top ten April Fool’s Day-type hoaxes from the past year, some of which are holdovers from the prior year.

10. ”Jobs created or saved” by the “stimulus bill.”

9. American foreign “policy.”

8. Nobel Prize Winner Barack Obama.

7. Feminist theory on anything.

6. Cable television reality shows that, without seeming exception, make the old Jerry Springer television show look like high-brow Masterpiece Theatre.

5. Celebrity Single Motherhood as the new fashion accessory, replacing small dogs in purses.

4. Los Angeles Clippers Professional Basketball Team.

3. Global warming alarmism.

2. tie—Speaker Nancy Pelosi, second in line to be President, should anything happen to the incumbent; Vice-President Joe Biden.

1. Federal budgets measured in trillions of dollars with deficits that, at a minimum, approach a trillion dollars per year, for the indefinite future.

I mean, think about it. These are just too absurd to be real.

We’ve gone from the New Deal under FDR to the Fair Deal under Truman to the Big F***ing Deal with Biden. Did they change the name? I thought that Obama’s program is the Raw Deal.

With such planning skills and intellect, these guys have a bright future as government health care administrators.

Wheeling and dealing for votes, according to Iowahawk. [CAUTION: Rahm Emanuel language.]

A thought to brighten your day, courtesy of Neal Zaslavsky:
“When you are down in the dumps and think you have real problems,
Just remember:
Somewhere in this world there is a poor bastard named Mr. Pelosi….”

Carbolic Smokeball has come across a difficult case under new feminism-influenced sexual conduct law. [Caution: Content alert.]

When driving on the freeway, I occasionally see a woman applying her make-up or a man shaving with an electric shaver. Then there are the folks texting or talking on the cell phone, reading the newspaper or some document, or writing notes. Years back, one guy was even, well, never mind. But this takes multi-tasking while driving down to another level.

Looking into the future of government health care:

Been following the stories coming out of Washington about the intrigue and conflicts among Obama advisers Rahm Emanuel, David Axlerod, and Valerie Jarrett? About the tension in the Democratic Party House leadership, between Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland? The leaks to rival newspapers? For fascinating insight into the Washington political and media culture, here is a collection of apparent newspaper articles collated by that indefatigable investigative journalist, Dave Burge of Iowahawk. An Iowahawk classic, which, as usual, requires a [CAUTION: Content warning].

They’re so cute when they’re small. But then they grow up.

The Conservative Bolsheviki at the People’s Cube present the nominations for the Political Oscars.

For some reason, this seemed fitting for the students who are about to take my final exam.

Another lesson why the stupid criminals end up in court. My wife, who works in a criminal case courtroom, tells me that there is currently a very similar case before the judge.

Nancy in Blunderland:

Even if it hurts. Not really thigh-slappers, but a collection that one would expect to find in The Onion or Carbolic Smokeball. First, there is the Slaughter Option on voting for Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. Even the name is a hoot. Should have been co-sponsored by Senator Death Panel. It is a proposal by the Chairman of the House Rules Committee, Louise Slaughter, to vote on amendments to the Senate health care bill, without voting on that bill, by just “deeming it as having been voted on.” As NRO’s Yuval Levin noted, “Democratic leaders should be asking themselves just how they have gotten to the point that their strategy is to amend a law that doesn’t exist yet by passing a bill without voting on it. Surely it’s time to start over.”

Next, we have Nancy Pelosi explaining the reason why the health care bill must be passed. So that the stupid public can finally be told what’s in it.

Perhaps there is a connection with this, from the state of Oregon. Brilliant idea. If your tenth graders can’t pass standardized tenth grade tests as well as pupils from other states (other than, probably, California), just have them take the tests as eleventh graders. Next step: Change the IQ test formula until every is above-average, like from the fictional Lake Wobegon.

Now for something less gallowsy in its humor, here’s Iowahawk presenting Obama and the Democrats on health care as Henry V at Agincourt. I see Obama more as ordering the suicidal charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava (Baracklava?).

First there is the supermajority to cut off the filibuster. That takes 60 votes to get Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. If that doesn’t work, there is reconciliation, a sleight of hand that evades the usual rules. That takes 51 votes. If that doesn’t work, there is “staple-and-bind.”

From Scrappleface, Obama urges a majority vote. On the Constitution. No more of that pesky supermajority requirement that stands in the way of health care reform. A straight up-or-down vote.

Not wanting to enhance viewer numbers and thereby possibly encourage the Celebutards and anti-American directors in the film industry (which seems to encompass a discouragingly large proportion of them), I do not watch the Academy Awards marathons. To get some overview of the atmosphere at the most recent event, I am relying on Carbolic Smokeball and its Teen Film Critic. [Caution: Content warning.]

I have received a couple of reader requests for commentary on a new fashion phenomenon brought into public consciousness by that accomplished American personality, Jennifer Love Hewitt. To meet reader demand, and to re-assure those among you who are concerned that the economic end-times are upon us that things cannot be too bad if people are spending money on this procedure, here are my thoughts. With apology to Elizabeth Barrett Browning for my “sampling” of her work. [CAUTION: Content warning.]

At the door she met him, excited and flushed,
“I’ve got a surprise,” she whispered, and blushed.
Now inside, his hands clasp hers, full of love,
But as they embrace, he moves down from above.

After venturing to her mountains of bliss,
A stay that is followed by many a kiss,
His hands travel south for more exploration,
A mysterious canyon the next destination.

The terrain in that area once was quite bushy,
But now is smooth as a baby’s tushy.
Or was. Now his hands come upon a protrusion,
Then another, and more, adding to his confusion.

So many bumps he can feel all around,
He has to see what his hands there have found.
On gazing upon her, his eyes are bedazzled,
Like Jennifer Hewitt, she’s got “vajazzled.”

Decorating much of her southern region,
Are crystals galore, their number legion.
At first he is puzzled, he must admit.
Still, their sensuous sparkle is quite a hit.

Though if they go down from her mound of Venus,
That quite could annoy a visiting penis.
“They’re just on the hill,” she explains with a titter,
“The canyon below is pristine, without glitter.”

No longer content with a monologue,
The feminine private part’s now on this blog
And everywhere else, as an object of passion,
With fashion that’s art, and art that’s fashion.

How can one love it? Let me count the ways.
It might be left natural, or trimmed, waxed, or shaved.
But, ladies, if you just don’t want to go plain,
Don’t tattoo or pierce. Vajazzling’s no pain.

From the Carbolic Smokeball archives, a classic that recalls the scrutiny of various Obama officials and past associates arising out of their dubious political backgrounds.

Under the influence of woman.

I think I recognize a former student.

Carbolic Smokeball speculates about whether shooting six people will cost Amy Bishop tenure: “The troubling part for me was that she killed only members of historically disadvantaged groups, African-Americans and a South Asian,” explained one faculty member, speaking on condition of anonymity.  “I would have felt much better if she had targeted white males.” I’m on my school’s tenure committee, and this does not sound like satire.

Iowahawk undertakes (an appropriate word considering the financial state of newspapers) a brief tour of the history of The New York Times. All the news that fits, he prints.

Michael Ramirez on the “health care summit”:

There I thought that California was a nanny state. Is this a recurring problem in Minnesota? It takes the concept of the “hookah” to a whole new level.

To someone who makes his living in the legal academy, this satire about multiculturalism does not sound like a joke.

Is it real or is it the Onion? “Zurich prosecutors went after an angler whose ten-minute battle with a pike, they said, was unfair to the pike.”

Get well soon, Darth Cheney.

Carbolic Smokeball has published what I cannot confirm or deny (or remember) might be, or at least should have been, a letter written by Token Conservative after being caught by his wife doing research in the pages of the new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. [Caution: Content warning.]

Ah, Valentine’s Day. A day that has become synonymous with love, thanks to the efforts of the Hallmark Card Company. The day shares an artificiality with days of similar ilk, such as the frantic exuberance of New Year’s Eve, the self-conscious bacchanalia on Mardi Gras, and the forced conviviality of shared drunkenness on St. Patrick’s Day. Well, maybe the last one isn’t artificial. Still, the fair sex expects that at least lip service be paid to Valentine’s Day, if there is to be a meeting of lips in the future.

I hold a J.D. degree. Upon further study, a holder of such a degree may qualify for an LL.M. degree. I believe that stands for “LL-uu-vv Master,” and I have been studying the subject many years both from academic and practical angles. So, I am prepared to help especially the many male law students who have scored poorly on the Love Skills Assessment Test (LSAT). I am pleased to offer some needed advice on what to do—and what not to do—to assure that they are able to pass the bar to the romance that the females in their lives have invested in this day.

Here are some updated gift suggestions compiled in part through trial-and-error. For ease of understanding they are helpfully designated with “pass” and “fail.” CAUTION: Content warning.

1. There is the trite, but always welcome, symbolic gift of cut flowers. Pass, for this perennial favorite of hot, passionate romance. Fail.

2. Chocolates do wonders for the sweetie in your life. Pass, for these divine delectables destined to melt in her mouth. Fail.

3. A sensitive woman such as your object of affection loves poetry. Pass. Though, personally, I don’t get it, she will. And once she gets it, you may, too. Fail. [Content warning. Seriously.]

4. If you are not blessed with the looks of the male models on romance paperbacks (and you students know who you are; well, everyone else knows who you are), a bottle of the fruit of the vine may soften her gaze. Pass. Even though this works no better than much cheaper vintages, she will always think of you as the guy who introduced her to the Dom. Hint: Keep the bottle. In the future, buy the cheap (but still palatable) stuff at Trader Joe’s. Make sure she’s not looking when you pop the cork on the less pricey vintage. Then, (carefully and slowly!) fill the Trader Joe’s brew into the Dom bottle. Once the transfer is completed, ostentatiously display the bottle to her. She won’t know the difference because psychologically she’ll be expecting Dom. If she still can tell the difference, she’s high maintenance. Drop her. For non-sparkling wine and for those who are not on student loans but are paying their own way, this selection, too, will get you a pass. It will produce the right mood. She knows that something connected to that name just has to be good. This one is definitely risky and depends on context, such as how much of other fruit of the vine she has already imbibed. But it opens the possibility of bringing up a delicate topic in the future: “Remember when we drank…?” Fail.

5. Unless you just met her on the bus last night, sensuous lingerie will turn even a lawyer into a playful kitten. Pass, for sexy elegance when the lights get turned low, and for potential humor as you jokingly point out that the saleswoman took half off when you bought it. Fail. In fact, expulsion.

6. No woman can resist jewelry as a token of affection. Unless you’re asking her to marry you, it can be very simple. And, seriously, you’re not going to ask her to marry you on Valentine’s Day like 50 million other cliche’-trapped guys have, are you? On the other hand, proposing to her on Valentine’s Day will make it easier to spare yourself awkward moments in the future when she asks whether you remember the day you got engaged. Pass. Be sure to take your discount coupon. Fail. Hint: You might earn a “re-read,” if you ask that she buy this for herself as a present to you for your birthday.

7. Being with you on Valentine’s Day makes some women just want to curl up and die watch a good movie with their Romeo (you). This is one of those Mickey Mouse, easy courses even my old fraternity brothers could “Pass.” There’s not just one “right” answer. It’s like allowing you to make two choices on a true/false question. Or taking Professor Shaffer’s exams. Fail.

8. If she wants to be festive and enjoy a good meal, there are plenty of choices that will please her. Aim for a place with silverware, white table cloths and cloth napkins, though. Pass. Warning: Exercise caution and do advance research. At some restaurants the size of the serving varies inversely with the large dose of condescension from the waiters. You may need to fortify yourself prior to the date with a brief stop at In ‘N Out. Fail.

9. Your amour may fancy a romantic overnight stay with you. I am only recommending this if you are married (to each other—I know what the lawyers-to-be are thinking), as I am not condoning fornication, and the limit on your credit card is probably not high enough to pay for two of these rooms. Pass, summa cum laude. Bring your shades to heighten the mystery. Fail.

10. A stuffed animal will remind her of you when the two of you are apart. Pass. Fail.

11. For women, almost nothing beats time at a spa. If you are so inclined, you might even join her for at least some of the activities. I recommend skipping the waxing—too painful. (Don’t ask.) Ditto for the facial and the ‘cures—too Westside metrosexual. On the other hand, have the massage; you can keep a wary eye on her masseur. Pass. This one was recommended by the L.A. Weekly, so: Fail.

12. Perhaps the two of you are married or in a long-term relationship (or at least have discussed the proposition). You are thinking practically, like the dependable shlub you are, planning for the future. Fail. Fail. If you were expecting a “Pass” for this one, sorry. There is almost no way to pass this one, kind of like a certain constitutional law professor’s final exams.

Remember, you can spend little or a little more. Women say that what counts is not how much you spend but how carefully you think about what she might want that gets her feeling warm and fuzzy. This doesn’t have much resonance in some quarters today, but it’s not the size of your stimulus package, but how well you target your efforts. On the other hand, a man will also tell his woman with equally false sincerity that the dress she is asking about doesn’t make her look fat.

Good luck from Token Conservative, LL.M.

Andrew Klavan, a former screenwriter of horror films, explains the effect of government on wealth and productivity. He proposes an analogy: Government is to wealth and productivity as zombies are to the living.

Andrew Klavan teaches conservatives about The Culture. As my blog declares, borrowing from Margaret Thatcher, “The facts of life are conservative.” Fantasies, on the other hand, usually are liberal. The Culture is liberal. Ergo, The Culture is fantasy. Klavan explains the difference between reality and fantasy, i.e., The Culture.

Scrappleface finds that, after the setbacks the President has suffered with his health care proposals, he will focus on jobs. One proposal the President appears likely to present to Congress is legislation that “would provide a good job to every American regardless of his ability to work, and would prevent companies from declining to employ applicants who suffer pre-existing conditions like laziness, incompetence, or kleptomania.”

Mr. Obama will confer with various of his union supporters. Scrappleface relates that Presidential adviser David Axelrod says that Americans have written the President about their inability to find work: “‘Many tell heart-wrenching stories about how their chronic lethargy, lack of skill or proclivity for pocketing office supplies has created a kind of glass ceiling that shuts them out of the working world,’ he said. ‘As a man who got a great job during a lousy economy despite his lack of training or experience, President Obama can offer hope to these folks.’”

Under the proposed legislation’s employment guarantees, according to Scrappleface, the law would “‘de-couple jobs from balance sheets, freeing up corporations to hire regardless of the inherent instability of capitalism. Given the president’s experience in the free markets, to him that was just plain common sense.’”

Iowahawk’s occasional guest commentator, the soi-disant conservative T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII, has emerged from his yacht/Upper East Side apartment/Hamptons hideaway to opine about President Obama’s State of the Union speech. It is about time, as his fellow blue-blooded country club conservatives have grown increasingly despondent over the rise of the populist rabble that has scaled the ramparts of the Republican Party and is even now preparing to seize the last redoubts of sane “me-too” conservatism and drive out their social betters.

It started with that loud cigar-smoking, steak-eating Danton of the airwaves, Rush Limbaugh, inciting the rabble to seize the Bastille of talk radio and upset the calming uniformity of liberal legacy media’s information monopoly. Then there arose the Pravda of rabble politics, Fox News. “Fair and balanced,” my mizzen mast. More galling is that the commoners actually trust Fox News more than any other similar electronic purveyor of news, a category so broadly defined as to include even MSNBC.

Within very recent memory came that moose-hunting, big-haired, beauty pageant contestant from a place that civilization has yet to reach fully. She had the audacity to hope that she could become the first fecund female vice-president of this great country. She thought that she was qualified to be vice-president just because she had worked in a private business and held several executive political posts. The rabble responded to her incitements and nearly put her a heartbeat from the presidency of this once-great nation. It was a close-run thing indeed, averted only because a savior arose in the thigh-tingling form of the handsome philosopher prince, Barack Obama, who proved once and for all that, whatever the value of executive experience for the office of vice-president, such pedestrian qualifications are unnecessary to become president.

But the rabble refused to yield. Emboldened by the success of the Wasilla wolverine, they began to question the plans of the enlightened philosopher prince and his Democratic Party auxiliaries. Even as more and more of the guardian class of the Republican Party, such as David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, and Colin Powell threw in their lot with the prince Obama, the rabble actually came to townhall meetings. In their ambushes, they insolently thought it their right to question and challenge the Congressional barons who in the past had always come simply to deliver the latest decrees to those whose proper and natural role it is to obey. These proverbial peasants with pitchforks even dared to organize themselves into a seditious political movement that evokes the actions of our forefathers. It sullies the memory of those great men to remind ourselves of their own temporary fit of seditious insanity that resulted in our country breaking away from country club conservatism’s spiritual ancestor, King George III.

While the prince Obama has stayed above the fray, except for his justifiable scolding of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, this “Tea Party” movement has been rightly condemned by liberalism’s Patrick Henry, the great orator Keith Olbermann, and by their Ben Franklin, the sage Chris Matthews. Still, the forces of darkness continue to organize against our established order, as did the Vandals, Goths, Lombards, and other barbarians conspire against an earlier great civilization. They even succeeded in electing one of their own in the heart of what had been thought territory safe from their incursions, Massachusetts.

Predictably, this rabble leader Scott Brown shares their seditious values. He even drives an old pick-up truck, something the prince Obama treated with the appropriate derision and contempt, much to the mirth of his assemblage of 48 hastily-gathered courtiers. And one of Mr. Brown’s offspring participated in the lamentable “American Idol,” an entertainment opiate for the masses. What is next? Will she participate in a beauty pageant, too?

But just when matters looked darkest, the forces of enlightenment rallied around the soaring rhetoric of the prince Obama’s stirring call to action at the State of the Union speech. The effect of his electrifying effusions, read with great aplomb from a flawlessly-functioning teleprompter, was immediately visible. Again and again, his courtiers, like the oracular Joe Biden, that Helen of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and that modern Cicero, Charles Schumer, rose and clapped their hands in delirious abandon called for by our leader’s timeless oratory. We join the elation of our friends on the liberal side of the political spectrum.

No moment was more intoxicating than when he struck at those enablers of the rabble, the Supreme Court justices. Some of those malign be-robed Machiavels had distorted the Constitution to help people speak freely on matters of politics, matters that should be left to their more enlightened betters and in which they have no business meddling. Rightfully and righteously, our leader reminded these judges that they, too, are servants of the cause. But I was disgusted by the reaction of one of this lot, Samuel Alito, who had the temerity and impertinence quietly to mouth the words “not true” as our prince Obama was administering the well-deserved chastisement to the howls of delight from his courtiers.

There must be leaders and followers, and neither is destined to fill the other’s role. And in times such as ours, when partisanship only stirs up conflict and keeps us from harmony, there can be only one leader. Unity, not division. The ultimate unity is one, and we must all obey The One.

T. Coddington Van Voorhees, VII, speaking on behalf of country-club conservatives everywhere, uses his talents for lyrical writing to add his thoughts about the President’s State of the Union speech. Thanks to Iowahawk for providing him with a forum.

The Copenhagen “climate conference” or, in deference to our president and his success there, the “Hopenchangen” conference, is mercifully over with a satisfying level of acrimony and accusations of cheating and cabals all around. An at least temporary respite in the war of eco-elites against the human race. One of the seminal propaganda pieces in the eco-radicals’ efforts to justify lower standards of living for the non-elites through hoped-for imposition of a one-world socialist caliphate founded on the pseudo-religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming was Michael Mann’s ”hockey stick graph.” This purported to show relatively flat temperatures since, well, Adam and Eve, or, for scientific types, the beginning of the cosmically huge sequence of events of infinitesimally small likelihood each that mark the history of Gaia. In other words, for as long as climate “scientists” could decipher from tree ring samples from four lonely Siberian trees.

The hockey stick graph not only flies in the face of observed reality but the historical record of mankind. Moreover, it was criticized soon after its appearance by Michael Crichton in “State of Fear.” When Canadian mathematician Stephen McIntyre asked for the data to support the graph, Mann tried to prevent him from getting the data, such as it was. Today, the graph has come in for such ridicule that it is essentially useless as evidence for anything but fraudulent science. Especially in light of the emails and the computer code uncovered from the “researchers” at the University of East Anglia, AGW, renamed climate change by some more opportunistic alarmists, is now a prime example of ideological dogma masquerading as (politicized) science.

Iowahawk, well known to his many followers as creator of first-rate broad satire from a conservative perspective, departs from his usual fare. Instead, he serves a straight-up recipe of do-it-yourself climate change science so that you, too, can develop your own hockey stick graph.

It would be a crime against the nature of things if one were to relegate Iowahawk’s talent to producing serious scientific analysis. To right the imbalance, here is a more impressionistic examination of climate science, climate scientists, and environmentalist protesters, all ingredients in one vast clown show orchestrated by the impresario, Al Gore.

For the occasion, it’s appropriate to make it a double feature, with Iowahawk’s presentation of research into the behavior and social interactions of the species ”climate researcher” at the University of East Anglia:

“During the upcoming research season, this hive alone will produce over 6 million metric tons of grant-sustaining climate data guano, but until recently little was known about the elusive genus of homo scientifica living inside. Where do they come from? What strange force draws them here year after year? In order to unravel the mystery, Iowahawk Geographic documentary filmmaker David Burge undertook a painstaking one-week project to finally capture the climate researchers in their native habitat.

“In this exclusive footage, Burge warily approaches the hive’s security drone, disguising himself as a smelly graduate student. Burge has theorized that as a member of the lowest stratum in the hive’s social system, the drone likely enjoys partying. He reaches into his backpack and offers the drone a pint of Guinness and a small bag of weed in exchange for the hive’s internal security tapes and email files. Success.”

In the words of a Kazakh reporter visiting the U.S., “Great success!”

I periodically link to the parody and humor site Carbolic Smokeball, which I find to be one of the cleverest on the internet. Though they occasionally miss the mark, that is not to be held against them, given the volume and overall quality of the product. Their winning percentage is as good as that of the L.A. Clippers. Sorry, Tim, I meant the L.A. Lakers.

In view of the valuable publicity I have provided the site, the creator/editor-in-chief, Tim Murray, felt emboldened to send me Carbolic Smokeball’s Year In Review of some of its columns from 2009. Obviously he was hoping that Token Conservative’s massive and literate readership would boost the count on his sitemeter.

Truth be told, the collection is terrific entertainment overall. The only criticism is that there is so much good stuff that, after a while, there is a sensory overload that reduces the potency of each new column. Sort of like watching too many “adult” movies, according to what I’ve been told. So, it might be best to savor the postings over several viewings. Perhaps by coming back to Token Conservative a number of times and using the link. Sure, that’s a shameless pitch for volume on my own sitemeter, but it’s worth it.

A sampler:
Obama enters D.C. preceding his inauguration:

A female suicide bomber who shatters the glass ceiling, among other parts of buildings, in response to which the National Organization for Women protests the disparity of virgins awaiting the bomber compared to the 72 that await male bombers. The pointed sarcasm scores with me, as that is precisely how some of my feminist colleagues would react.

Notre Dame University’s decision to invite Transylvania’s Count Dracula to give a commencement speech.

Hillary Clinton’s appearance in Playgirl Magazine, removing certain, ahem, doubts. Or, better, confirming them.

And the list goes on.

With the Christmas/Chanukkah/Muharram/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Emperor’s Birthday (Japan) season in full swing, and with the Multiculturalist-in-Chief ensconced in the White House and inclusiveness/diversity/one worldism regnant as the New World Order, let me extend appropriate holiday greetings that even President Obama and my faculty colleagues and their ideological soulmates in the academy should be able not to disapprove.

“GREETINGS FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON TO BOTH MY DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN FRIENDS……. 

To My Democratic Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. That is not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual proclivity of the wish. 

To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas”

Via Stephanie Knipprath

The President has finally come clean about what many of us have seen for a long time, his serial “transgressions” against the Constitution. The legacy media have declined to report these incidents, claiming that such issues are a private matter between the President and the American public that should not become a distraction as long as the President is pursuing the liberally correct political outcomes. Scrappleface has uncovered, the President has decided that the proper course after such bounteous infidelity is to take a hiatus from his duties. No word, though, about who will be in charge. If the President declares to the proper Congressional authorities that he is incapable of performing his duties, the 25th Amendment provides that the Vice-President shall be Acting President. That would mean Slow Joe Biden.  Rather than inflict that fate on the country, the President could simply declare that, while he is still capable of performing the tasks of the office, he will take a hiatus from making substantive decisions. Besides, his duties recently have been just to make speeches. That is a task admirably performed by TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States), and Mr. Obama is just needed to vocalize the written words.

I ran across this video on The Onion in my archive. It’s a spot-on depiction of the shallowness of clueless media/entertainment types, here about the efforts on behalf of Darfur. Does anyone remember Darfur, or has Hollywood become “Darfur-weary” after many years of genocide? The “recommendations” in the video for raising public awareness in Darfur about the efforts by Americans to remember the genocide are intended to be satirical, but they so well expose the thinness of the intellectual and moral veneer that covers the preening and posturing by the majority of celebutards that the line between parody and reality becomes faint, indeed.

Iowahawk has obtained a copy of the speech that President Obama wrote about his the new Afghanistan policy, you know, the speech that was not loaded into the Teleprompter. That last one was the one that he read to the West Point cadets. This one he wanted to give from the heart.

It hasn’t taken long since the release of the incriminating emails and computer codes that show the manipulation of the anthropogenic global warming “evidence” that is at the core of the climate change hype for the well-deserved ridicule to begin. Herewith a parody of global warming “science” by Minnesotans for Global Warming. Tune courtesy of Tommy James and the Shondells. Animation courtesy of JibJab.

One of the amusements when we visit family in northern Idaho or southern Utah is to spend an hour at the local Walmart people-watching. Lest this be seen as typical West Coast condescension towards the denizens of “fly-over country,” I find watching the people in certain venues closer to home equally entertaining. For example, a week ago, my family and I went to The Grove on L.A.’s Westside. Watching the locals (and plenty of tourists) mill about, we were treated to the stereotypes of L.A. that are just as bizarre as those at Walmart. There were the three young women chatting about the acting parts that they really wanted but didn’t get. There were the dysfunctional “reality” show participants Spencer and Heidi, signing their book on how to become famous, a happening that is parodic at so many levels it strains credulity to the point that it threatens to become a parody of its parodic self.

But back to Walmart. Each Walmart has folks that match the local color for stereotypes. For example, in southern Utah, one finds among Walmart shoppers a noticeable presence of women dressed in clothes from Little House on the Prairie. These women are said to be from various polygamous households in the nearby hinterlands. L.A. residents would have no problem expressing their disdain for such oddly-garbed folks, but would be dismayed if anyone expressed similar disdain for the oddly-garbed woman from India or the headscarf-enveloped Muslim woman.

None of those styles are likely to be found at the Walmarts in northern Idaho. However, aside from the local color, there seems to be a homogeneity to the appearance of many Walmart shoppers. Carbolic Smokeball has investigated this phenomenon and discovered that Walmart is taking no chances with sagging consumer purchases. According to that article the store has hired actors to impersonate a massive component of its customer base in an attempt to make its stores appear busy and entice more real customers to shop there during the holidays.

Speaking of Carbolic Smokeball, whatever you do, do not look at this article and picture from Hillary Clinton’s appearance in Playgirl magazine.

As we all, atheist and believer, Jew and Gentile, Republican and Democrat, and everyone else, engage in the ritual that unites us this holiday season, that is, wallowing in commercial excess, I put together a few lines in commemoration.

Oh, the traffic outside is frightful,
     And the couch is so delightful,
     But the store ads all let us know,
To the mall, to the mall, we must go.

It doesn’t show signs of stopping,
     All this crazy stressful shopping,
     The prices are dropped down low,
To the mall, to the mall, we shall go.

When we get to the parking lot,
     And I feel even more out of place,
     Swerve into the last parking spot,
You should’ve seen that driver’s face!

From store to store we’re flying,
     The kids are bored and crying,
     Just hurrying to and fro,
‘Round the mall, ‘round the mall, we all go.

Hope the banks once more are lending,
     ‘Cause this list is never-ending,
     Gifts for people we hardly know,
From the mall, from the mall, please let’s go.

When we finally call it a night,
     How you’ll hate leaving Macy’s at last,
     But you know that I’m really tight,
At the money we spent I’m aghast.

The crowds are slowly leaving,
     In the car the bags we’re heaving,
     But as long as you love me so,
To the mall, to the mall, I will go.

Only 27 more shopping days before Christmas!

President Obama pardons two turkeys today. No confirmation that Attorney General Holder acted as intermediary bagman as he did when he was in the Justice Department facilitating President Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive Marc Rich after a generous, perhaps coincidental, contribution to the Clinton Library fund by Rich’s ex-wife. This may be one time when the President does not hide behind Mr. Holder when a decision relating to the administration of justice is made.

Though Joe Biden and Tim Geithner were at the top of the very crowded White House list of turkeys, Rahm Emanuel lost in the preliminary rounds. The qualifications for officially pardoned White House turkey set by the “death panel” judges called for selection of a turkey “that knows when to strut and when to be calm, to gobble at all the right points.” Biden failed the last of these, as he gobbles at the wrong times. Geithner failed the first, as he doesn’t know to strut at all. Emanuel was strong on the first and mediocre on the third, as he tended to gobble in fowl language. Also, he utterly failed the second.

Polls increasingly indicate that Obama himself would have been a popular and logical choice as official White House turkey, as he clearly meets the three criteria judging by press coverage.

Speaking of the fast fading Obama luster in foreign capitals and the collapsing Obama “soft power” strategy to further American global interests, here is a Saturday Night Live interpretation of the success of President Obama’s Asian trip. [Caution: Raunchy language and theme at times.]

Much has been said in the “mainstream” media about the supposed infighting among Republicans that the talking heads hope will save the Democrats’ electoral bacon next November. They mistake ideological debate for a civil war and proclaim that debate as evidence of Republicans’ intolerance for diversity of views. They conclude that the party is in thrall to political ideologues.

Curiously, no similar attention is paid to the political threats by left-wing factions to punish Democratic Congressmen and Senators who vote against Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. They threaten to withhold campaign contributions. They threaten to run more liberal candidates in primary contests against these Democratic incumbents. But nary a word in the media about Democrats’ intolerance for diversity of views, a party in thrall to political ideologues, or an intra-party civil war.

Into the breach steps IMAO with their MoveOn.org Top 10 signs of a turncoat Democrat. Although the signs are astoundingly realistic, it’s a parody. The comments that follow the posting provide further examples of apostasy by non-Left Democrats that George Soros and MoveOn will seek to purge.

There has been a rising criticism of the media coverage of the Fort Hood massacre. There is much ridiculing of headlines and columns about the psychological stress from which the shooter suffered, the commonplace nature of merciless teasing in the military, the problem of easy access to guns, and similar rationales that focus on anything but the autonomous decision of the shooter and the shooter’s Islam-centered motives.

Out of a sense of public service, Iowahawk has collected a number of such headlines from some of the premier media establishments that this country can boast, such as MSNBC and NPR.

Scrappleface has tapped into a fundraising on behalf of the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, by journalists who see his action as a First Amendment issue: “As a disadvantaged Muslim American, and captive of the U.S. military, Hasan’s options for speaking truth to power were quite limited. He did what he could within his means, and now he’s being punished for this expression of free speech.”

Michael Ramirez takes aim at the keystone of cluelessness not only in the media, but also in the military, the civilian agencies, and the universities: Political correctness.

Glenn Beck has a contest to send in videos to sell his book, “Arguing With Idiots.” Here are a couple of good entries that made it to the Top 10.

HT: Janice Brenman

Scrappleface has got hold of the President’s upcoming plans following what Nancy Pelosi called the Democrats’ “victory” in the recent elections. The President, like so many fellow academics, plans to take a 9-month sabbatical from his many accomplishments that include. ”In just 365 days, we’ve already talked about restoring U.S. moral leadership, we’ve advanced proposals to transform our economy from the dysfunctional free market model, we’ve given speeches about reducing our dependence on foreign oil and creating a burgeoning green economy, we’ve promoted dialogue aimed at bringing quality health care to 47 million uninsured Americans, and we’ve expressed our intention to end George Bush’s futile war in Iraq, and to conquer al Qaeda in Afghanistan.” The President intends to contemplate the ideas of one of the greatest minds of his generation, himself, by re-reading his autobiography. “Vice President Biden will take over Obama’s daunting schedule of daily news conferences, political fundraisers, television interviews, health care rallies, White House visits with important celebrities, and the other presidential duties as outlined in Article 2 of Constitution.”

How did I miss this? According to Carbolic Smokeball, a confab of the world’s leading journalists has dismissed the long-held belief that former President Ronald Reagan’s economic and military strategy towards the Soviet Union was a critical factor in bringing down the Berlin Wall. These liberal messengers of truth have determined that the Wall was not torn down in 1989. If in fact the Wall is no longer standing, credit must be given to U.S. President Barack Obama. That makes his absence from the recent anniversary celebration even more puzzling.

Concerning the continuing Obamafication of the President most recently represented by NEA chief Rocco Landesman’s comparison of Obama to Caesar in literary and political glory, Iowahawk puts the matter in a different perspective. Iowahawk channels the spirit of an obviously down-with-it Julius Caesar, who schools Obamacus on what it means to be a Roman. [CAUTION: As usual with Iowahawk, language warning. Seriously, this time. It’s a classic.] Tame sample that gets to the crux of Mr. Obama’s, er, Obamacus’s, problem:

“Yo, Obamacus, the Juice was a rookie dictator himself once, and the Juice knows how it is. Every punk ruler-for-life wanna be the next Xerxes or Nero or Scarface. But you’re never gonna get emperor game till y’all start learning to handle your candle. Know what I’m sayin’? I know you be thinkin’ you’re some kind of stone cold Claudius, layin’ down some phat oratory at the Forum and plowing your enemies’ fields under with salt. But you still a teleprompter punk, and you gotta know what you don’t know.”

I have previously written that, based on the torture statutes, case law, and the description of the prescribed method of waterboarding, the procedure does not rise in brutality to the level of torture. However, that conclusion can change, depending on why, when, and how waterboarding is done. Has music performed the same role as waterboarding in efforts to deal with al Qaeda?

There is an effort by various musicians to find out whether their works were played to soften up detainees for interrogation until 2003. In this publicity-seeking grandstanding demand by mostly has-been acts six years after the fact, the musicians characterize the government’s action as torture. I entirely believe that the government played music, repeatedly and loudly, to destabilize the detainees’ psychological and emotional equilibrium. The U.S. did that during the Bush (I) administration to compel former Panamanian strongman and drug entrepreneur Manuel Noriega to surrender to U.S. forces after he holed up in the Vatican’s embassy in Panama City.

There is no doubt, then, that music can be and has been used to break down the resistance of the detainees. But whether or not it amounts to torture, as the musicians claim, depends on a number of circumstances. Playing some kinds of music may be torture per se. For example, having to listen at all to Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine, the Bee Gees, any form of rap, or the Meow Mix Jingle constitutes torture per se.

On the other hand, sometimes torture depends on the circumstances under which the music is played. For example, as every parent knows, probably going back to Mozart’s parents telling him to stop banging on the piano as if he were Little Richard, playing “what those crazy kids now call music” at high volume constitutes torture. Thus, it would only constitute torture having to listen to “The Real Slim Shady” if the volume were high enough actually to make out the song.

A different circumstance to weigh in a torture assessment may be the topic involved. Thus, Two Live Crew’s “Me So Horny,” Sir Mix-A-Lot’s paean to large rumps, or some of Fergie’s vocalizations would not constitute torture if they were played to get a recently-arrived detainee to talk. On the other hand, if those pieces are played to some guy who’s been detained at Gitmo for years and has been deprived of the reality of what those songs describe—that’s torture.

Another circumstance would be the number of times the song is repeated. Played often enough, say at Christmas time when the daughter is practicing for her ballet performance, even “The Nutcracker” becomes torture. Combine the repetitive playing with the intriguing name (”All right, pal, we’re going to introduce you to the Nutcracker”) as the detainee is led into an unfamiliar room, and, sure, that can be torture. Now, imagine if the song is “Jingle Bells,” or anything by bands named Deicide or Saliva. Even if those works are not torture per se, repeated exposure would be Poison (oh, wait, they aren’t named).

On the other hand, I don’t believe that hearing the theme songs from Sesame Street or Barney can constitute torture. They kind of fade into the subconscious over time as the brain adapts. With seven kids, over the years I have been exposed to those songs countless times. And, as this blog fully attests, I am perfectly normal.

Then there is the matter of styling. Listening to the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner can be a rousing experience. If done in that cute off-key way that kids sing it, listening to the styling can be heart-warming. But then there is the way “artistes” deliver their “interpretations” at sports events and other such gatherings. As these songsters pant and shriek and extend notes beyond their natural lifespans, at a volume usually associated with small jet engines, the experience turns torturous. The performers typically then misunderstand the clapping of hands as applause, leading them to believe they should pursue a career in singing. Judging from my reaction, the clapping is an attempt to see whether the listeners are still sensate and registers a general sense of relief that they have survived the pain and ordeal.

By itself, merely having to listen to the anthem of the Great Satan may be annoying to the detainees, but hardly torture. On the other hand, when it is sung as if by the Great Satan and his malevolent horde, it may well cross the line.

Just as with other techniques aimed at softening up the detainees, the playing of music might or might not be torture, then. It is often highly situational. I am pleased, though, to see so many musicians agree that their works arguably are crimes against humanity, something that many of us have long known. Yes, metalheads, I am talking about your favorite band.

But, not to worry any longer about such difficult distinctions. Our President has decreed that harsh interrogation methods will not be used. Everything must be non-coercive and in accordance with the Army Field Manual (except maybe at those temporary CIA secret prisons that are not being shut down though the President says that they sort of will be). Given its current culture of political correctness, I rather doubt that the Army would even allow the playing of a decent John Philip Sousa march. Instead, each detainee will now get a free head set and a playlist of cool jazz, with some classic Motown thrown in. Certain detainees may, if they wish, opt for a collection of show tunes, instead. Then each can select his own music as a prelude to the interrogation conversation over coffee and crullers.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my nightmare of President Obama winning multiple Nobel Peace Prizes as rewards for continuing efforts to end America’s status as the world’s superpower. After all, the Norwegian committee has made no bones about its reasons for giving Obama this year’s award based on a nomination that had to be received no later than about ten days after his inauguration as President. They gave him the award to help move him in the direction away from the perceived America-first unilateralism of George W. Bush. Obama’s first nine months in office have certainly given them cause for optimism.

Now comes Carbolic Smokeball. The lads there must have an “in” with Vegas oddsmakers, who seem to have posted Obama as the favorite to win the 2010 prize. Moreover, the President appears to be in a mood to defend his title multiple times over the next eight years. As the President has said, he may be skinny, but he’s tough, as he has shown in attacking the tea party protesters, doctors, insurance companies, auto companies, Rush Limbaugh, and FOX News. And he’ll keep saying that whenever he sits down and talks to Putin, Hu Jin-Tao, Kim Jong-Il, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, and anyone else who will listen.

Some timely satire from Tim Hawkins, set to that cloyingly happy tune, The Candy Man Can.

Scrappleface has breaking news about a move to broker a deal between the White House and Fox News. The key: Send in Hillary Clinton to propose “joint fact cuts without the normal monitoring and compliance protocols.” Past objection to be dropped. Fox News must drop its obsession with documenting White House truth claims.

Another sharp performance by Andrew Klavan on PJTV. This time he addresses the accusations of racism and the related problem of celebrity, well, stupidity.

Iowahawk channels what to those less charitably inclined than yours truly might suspiciously appear to be his inner Andrew Sullivan. He gives us an excerpt that reads like it could be from Sullivan’s latest literary offering, a gyno-mystery “Dial ‘M’ for Maternity.” The novel appears to be a thinly-fictionalized account of Sullivan’s own stellar detective work during the presidential election campaign in fall, 2008, to expose the nefarious plot by Sarah Palin and other Christianists to hide the fact that “her” baby Trig is really the child of her daughter Bristol. The latter participated in this cover-up by having another baby just eleven months later.

I was disappointed that, in this leaked excerpt, Sullivan did not establish whether Trig’s father is Bristol Palin’s own father, Todd, or someone else. Perhaps the baseball player Alex Rodriguez. But I suppose we have to wait for David Letterman to sort that out. If he can get away from his busy schedule of intercourse with the female employees under him, that is. Need to check with the show’s assignation director.

Once it served its purpose of helping to elect his object of (generally political) lust, Barack Obama, Sullivan’s heroic investigation into all things uterine regarding Palin has been unfairly dismissed as lunatic. But, then, as Plato warns in The Republic, those who have seen the true light will always be rejected as mad by those still trapped by the shackles of their ignorance and intellectual narrow-mindedness. Meanwhile, all someone like Sullivan can do is to use all means available to him to warn a disbelieving world about the dangers posed by the guns-’n-uterus policies of Palin’s Christianist minions. The cause endures.

The Onion reveals what Bill Clinton’s amorous life would have been like had he lost his run for political office and stayed a typical constitutional law professor.

In view of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, some have proposed that he receive other prizes. For example, the Cy Young Award, though some right-wing haters are claiming that he first has to throw a pitch that actually reaches home plate. Others have volunteered him for prizes in economics for his contributions to economic theory. Someone else defends the award because the President did host a peace conference between a White cop and a Black professor.

But Reason TV comes up with a slew of projected awards for the President based on the same level of accomplishment that got him the Nobel.

The video’s quality may be dodgy, but it is worth viewing.

Andrew Klavan of PJTV asks (and answers) the question so many have been asking, “Is Barack Obama Jesus Christ?” Christians have been waiting for Jesus’s return. Could this be it? For Jews, the question might be rephrased as, “Is Barack Obama the Messiah?” I don’t want to be sacrilegious in asking this question, and neither does Klavan. But seeing and hearing the imagery and the homage paid to candidate Obama by his followers in the media, among entertainment celebrities, unionized teachers, and assorted other disciples even before his ascension to the White House, one is curious. Hence, the value, indeed, necessity of Klavan’s investigation of this aspect of the unique being that is Barack Hussein Obama. Mmm, mmm, mmmm.

Iowahawk explains the benefits of membership in that exclusive club, the Nobel Peace Prize winners. With special testimonials from Yasser Arafat, Kofi Annan, and Jimmy Carter.

More mirth at the expense of The One getting his Nobel Peace Prize. These comments are courtesy of Mark Steyn.

Reacting to the remarks by the Democratic National Committee’s Director of Communications that Republicans have joined terrorists by daring to criticize the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s choice of recipient. As Jonah Goldberg points out, once again it’s the Democrats who consider even well-deserved criticism of Obama on even a minor matter to be unpatriotic.

Suggesting that Obama also be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his “groundbreaking work demonstrating that ‘profit’ is part of ‘overhead.’” There is a link in Steyn’s post that includes an embedded video of the President’s greatest hits of economic nonsense. Unfortunately, the buffering is annoying, but the subjects are hilarious. It includes the President’s famous “profit/earnings ratio” formula.

In response to a reader’s suggestion that the award might constitute an award analogous to a Lifetime Achievement award for those who get passed over for OSCARs, characterizing the Prize as a “Pre-Lifetime Achievement” award.

Bonus: Carbolic Smokeball is first out of the box with news about the President’s use of his new stature as Nobel Peace Prize winner: Apologize to the Moon for the spacecraft that was crashed into it in a search for ice.

James Delingpole in the UK Telegraph attributes Obama’s win to one of three factors. My money is on the quality of the competition: Robert Mugabe, Osama bin Laden, Ahmed Jibril, and the late Pol Pot.

American Girl is a remarkably successful brand of dolls marketed to girls eight years and older. Indeed, they are an American toy phenomenon. They are of American girls and for American girls. When my older daughters were younger, they each had an American doll. My eight-year-old, too, as well as her friends, are avid aficionados of the brand. The doll characters have grown from a small selection of girls based on American history to a more robust selection of historical character girls, along with dolls available for just one year as “Girl of the Year,” and a plethora of “Just Like You” dolls that the young doll fancier picks if she prefers a mini-me experience over an excellent time machine adventure. That explosion of characters happened after the Mattel toy company acquired the brand from its original owners. The dolls all have their stories. These try to be uplifting and positive stories, though they also have a studied tone of political correctness, a characteristic that fortunately is not excessively preachy.

Over time they have also broadened their ethnic perspective beyond all-American White girls to include an all-American Black girl from the Civil War era, an all-American version of a (New) Mexican girl from the 1820s, and an all-American Indian girl from the 1760s. The all-Asian-American girl market has not been served by a separate identity doll, but it has received a nod through a doll who is a friend of a featured 1970s doll. That may be a sort of second-class identity doll status for Asians, but the company, like university admissions committees, probably figured that Asians are less likely than other minority identity groups to complain about not getting their own separate and equal representative.

With the latest introduction of an all-American Jewish girl (a quasi-ethnic creation) it would seem that the identity market has been sated. That would be a wholly unsatisfactory prognosis for the American Girl business model. But the company is up to the task, creating a “friend” doll who represents the all-American homeless girl community. For good measure, dad has abandoned her family, so she also represents the all-American abandoned-by-dad girl community. One wonders how the homeless girls living under freeway overpasses in these desperate economic times can buy this doll that represents their acceptance by the community at large. Costing $95, it would take a lot of collected cans and bottles that are more likely used by such less fortunate Americans to buy food. Nor is the company using the proceeds from the sale of that doll to contribute to a fund to feed the homeless.

Since Mattel has chosen to expand its doll franchise for eight-year-olds into the gritty urban realism of the homeless and the gritty suburban realism of the abandoned-by-dad families, a whole new vista of marketing opportunities has unfolded. As an American very eager to teach the young as early as possible about renouncing all willingness to judge, about the multi-hued palette of experiences of American girls, and, in the Age of the Obamas, about the seamy underside of life that reflects America’s meanspiritedness and shortcomings, I have some other proposals for 21st century New American Girl dolls:

1.  Tara Sue Johnson. Comes complete with trailer (double-wide $15 extra) and  cousin Bobbi Jo (who is also her half-sister—$95 extra). Other special accessories include the meth lab run by her mom and by her uncle Bobby Joe; her pet pit bull, Killer; and a down-to-the-primer Monte Carlo mounted on blocks (wheels $10 extra). Follow her exciting days and nights as mom’s many men friends help Tara Sue pass the time watching TV and doing special things they all enjoy. Follow her adventures in her series of six books as Tara Sue, Bobbi Jo, their mom, Uncle Bobby Joe, and various of mom’s men friends rebuild their lives as six tornadoes hit their beloved trailer.
Learn how they gain strength from family as they overcome adversity from lab explosions, obesity, and lack of dental care. Oh, and learn about the evils of middle-class values.

2.  TaKeesha M’achel Williams. Comes complete with Momma, who looks like she is TaKeesha’s older sister (because, as her book tells us, Momma had TaKeesha at age 14). Accessories sold separately include TaKeesha’s birth certificate (father’s name $5 extra; choice of four possible fathers available); crack pipe and baggie with 2 extra rocks ($15—it’s not the real thing); set of six books, each with a heart-warming story about Momma, TaKeesha, and one of her younger siblings as they survive in their 3-room apartment in Building 5 of Henderson Gardens.
Learn how they gain strength from family as they overcome adversity from late welfare checks, drug dealers, and Father’s Day confusion. Oh, and learn about the evils of racism.

3.  Sam. A new theme for American Girl, the American Girl that’s also an American Boy. Comes with either of two other post-surgery versions, as a girl (Samantha) or as a boy (Samuel). She has no last name, ’cause last names don’t really matter, ya know, when her family doesn’t accept her. Special accessories include her best friend, Jeannie Leigh Cortes ($95) who found Sam with some other runaways at 3 A.M. talking to motorists stopped on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. Jeannie and Sam discover just how much they are alike, and now Sam is looking forward to having Jeannie become a foster parent for either of the post-surgery versions of Sam. Their story is told in the book that comes with every Sam doll. You choose the appropriate version for your little American girl. Other accessories available are fake driver’s license ($10) and map of local free clinics ($5).
Learn how Sam gains strength from her real family of runaways and Jeannie, and how she overcomes adversity from being hassled by cops, people who don’t pay for services, and Denny’s new anti-loitering policy after midnight. Oh, and learn about the evils of multi-sexism.

4.  Ana Yesica Morales. What self-confident American girl would not want to have this firebrand who does not take grief from any gringa? Or from any cholo, for that matter. Comes in two versions, with and without teardrop facial tattoos. As revealed in her book, she got the tattoos at age 12, when her boyfriend celebrated his parole release by inking her. Ana Yesica comes with her very own probation report that lists her adventures, starting at age 8, when this all-American dynamo and six of her friends jumped a fourth grader for her lunch money.
Also available are the other stories that teach young readers the virtues of family and education by showing Ana’s life in the barrio as she fulfills her dream of being in a girl band by dropping out of school, being initiated into womanhood down at the park by her neighbor Ramon and his five homeboys, becoming the leader of the Brown Girrlz, and getting arrested with the other Girrlz for tagging overpasses over the Pasadena Freeway, all at the age of 14. What an exciting year of change for Ana Yesica. Crucifix necklace extra ($10 or a couple of nickel bags).
Learn how Ana Yesica and her very extended family, including those who just made it through the tunnels under the border, overcome adversity from their turf being invaded by gang bangers from Highland Park; la migra; and the priority rules enforced by the old jefes down at the corner where the day laborers gather. Oh, and learn about the evils of the English-only education movement.

5.  Pat Downes. This is a very special American Girl for your special American Girl. She comes complete with special outfits. Sold separately is Pat’s very special friend, Mrs. Pennypacker, her special education teacher. Also sold separately are her special crutches and her special talking parrot, Birdie, with whom Pat likes to talk when Mrs. P is not around. Learn how this plucky twelve-year-old and her special family overcome adversity from educational bureaucrats, buckled concrete sidewalks, and the challenge posed by a parrot who enunciates words. Oh, and learn about the evils of private health insurance that doesn’t cover speech therapy.

6.  Lily White-Gaye. This is our adopted-American Girl. Brought to the U.S. from Thailand by Todd White and Will Gaye, she is lucky to have not just one, but two daddies. She comes with a simply fabulous collection of coordinated furniture for her room and boldly-colored clothes that make a statement wherever she goes, from classroom to playroom (all sold separately). There is also her pet cockapoo, Pooftie ($15), and her pet gerbil ($15, cage included). In her first book, learn how her daddies chose to adopt her after going to Thailand intending to get a couple of young boys.
Lily is best friends with Maria and Luz, two twelve-year-old girls from El Salvador who came to the U.S. six months ago with the help of the friendly people at ACORN. In her first book, Lily is trying to help Maria and Luz, whose new “mommy” and “daddy” have been arrested by the police, and who are no longer getting pocket money from the sad men whom they helped feel better.
Learn how Lily and her devoted daddies overcome adversity from bigoted family, bigoted neighbors, and bigoted strangers. Oh, and learn about the evils of heteronormativity. 

7. Wei-Wei (Suzie) Wu. Wei-Wei is our immigrant all-American Girl. She will be an inspiration to your little American Girl who likes math and music. Wei-Wei came to this country from the Republic of China (Taiwan) with her mother and father two years ago, when she was ten. She spoke very little English, but has now passed all high school graduation exams and is planning to go to college. Both of her friends call her Suzie. Sold separately are her calculator that Suzie always carries with her ($25), her violin that she uses for her guest appearances with the L.A. Philharmonic ($20), and her collections of admissions acceptances and scholarship offers from twenty top American colleges ($10—not redeemable).
One of her friends is Amisha Chandavishnu ($95) who came to this country from India with her family. Amisha and Suzie are best friends. Suzie’s book (comes with the doll) describes how they have difficulty keeping their friendship. Amisha’s parents have refused to let her go anywhere but school and have threatened to send her back to her grandparents’ village in Bangalore because Amisha wants to attend a birthday party for a non-Indian boy in her class.
Learn how Suzie and her small one-child family overcome adversity from going to college at age twelve; cultural and generational conflicts when Suzie tells her parents she wants to stay at college a full three years rather than two and-a-half and graduate with two majors and a minor instead of three full majors; and affirmative action policies that inexplicably have kept Suzie out of the University of Caucasians Lost among Asians (UCLA). Oh, and learn about the evils of Western cultural imperialism embodied in the Infinitesimal Calculus, just like Suzie will when she starts taking classes at college.

Well, Mattel, there they are. I expect royalties when these coming “Girl of the Year” dolls make you buckets of inflated dollars in the future.

There is a report out that Guantanamo detainees, oops, refugees, according to the State Department, admitted into the U.S. are showing a remarkable public spirit and community involvement. For example, many have volunteered as tour guides at local landmarks. Others have taken advantage of educational opportunities such as flight training and pharmacist licensing programs. And some rightwingers thought that these folks were too dangerous to release into the U.S.!

Time to stop beating around the bush and ask the question: 

From Matt McConnell

When Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez spoke at the United Nations recently, he commented that the smell of sulfur was gone. That was a reference to his insult against George W, Bush when Chavez last spoke at the UN and compared Bush to the devil. Michael Ramirez visualizes the smell left behind by Chavez.

I have noticed something recently that is cause for environmental concern and cries out for more government regulation of individuals’ lives. Perhaps others have noticed it, as well. When I rise in the morning, it is darker than it was a month or two ago. At the other end, it gets darker earlier in the evening. There is an obvious and increasing shortage of daylight. This is accompanied by more dead bees floating in the pool, cooler temperatures, and dying leaves. Berries and peaches are disappearing from stores, though there seem to be more apples and pears around.

Some hemispheric darkness deniers may denigrate and challenge this evidence. Unlike the global warming claims that are based on computer models that have repeatedly been shown to be defective, the facts about the decreasing daylight are obvious to anyone who looks. These anti-science Levellers assert that, in December, there will be increasing daylight. Even if true, that is only a temporary deviation. Scientists will tell you that, coming next June, the reduction of daylight will resume.

Someone else has written about the same phenomenon. But he has extrapolated the results from current environmental trends and predicts a total loss of daylight by next July. Along with other disasters.

One of the central tenets of the Left’s faith is the fervent belief in the perfectibility of human nature without the intervention of divine grace. Liberals are convinced that humans can succeed in this project themselves, albeit with the guiding hand of the liberal Illuminati. And, if a few heads need to be broken, well, that’s the price of progress. Conservatives, surveying the landscape of human history, see much beauty and wonder in the achievements of the human mind, but also find much wreckage caused by the frailties of human nature.

If one keeps that liberal article of faith in mind, one gets a clear picture of the ideological impulses behind Obama administration and its leftist colleagues in the Congressional leadership, impulses that are now manifesting themselves in concrete policy proposals in health care, environment, business, taxes, and education. There are many serious ramifications to this seemingly hard-wired liberal character trait. But it is also readily lampooned. Not that it will be by the legacy media, the educational establishment, or the American chapters of the transnational elites, for obvious reasons. As overwhelmingly leftist, they share that mindset.

Scrappleface, however, can be counted on to give the reader the humorous effects of liberal peccadilloes, and he has another winner here. We Are The World. We Are One.

Periodically, one comes across some story or another that relates the tale of a military veteran who has committed some crime, usually violent. The account then tells the sad tale of how this veteran is suffering from an affliction such as post-traumatic stress that has crippled his ability to function in society and contributed to, if not caused, his criminal act. The journalist then feels remiss were he or she not to delve into the military culture of killing that has, in the open or implied message of the article, resulted in this regrettable incident. Figures that show the numbers of crimes committed by veterans are analyzed and specific other crimes breathlessly reported. Never mind that the percentage of crimes committed by veterans, let alone people currently in the military, is lower than for others in the same age cohort. The reflexively anti-military orientation of most journalists makes the conclusions rather predictable.

Iowahawk has now examined the crime wave created by journalists, both active and former. And that doesn’t include Dan Rather’s journalistic fraud of trying to swing the election in favor of John Kerry through the forged Bush National Guard “documents.” “Rather lied, truth died.” Iowahawk is talking about real crime, such as murder, assault, theft, stalking, drunk driving, child molestation, child pornography….Well, one gets the picture.

In the midst of U.S. diplomatic and military steps that are disconcerting some allies, an event little-noticed among Americans has reaped condemnation abroad, the preemptive use of a massive American weapon of destruction against Pakistan.

Iowahawk has another entertaining guest column from everyone’s favorite country-club conservative, T. Coddington Van Voorhees, VII, editor of The National Topsider. Any resemblance to the late William F. Buckley, founder of The National Review, is purely accidental, I’m sure, as Buckley was a fairly rambunctious individual who did not shrink from confrontation and controversy. Coddy, on the other hand, is of the “we can do business with this guy” faction of conservatism, if “this guy” comes from, or aspires to associate with, the same elite and has the same cultural markers as those conservatives. The guy’s political views and ideology do not matter; he’s “one of us.”

Coddy is dismayed by the harsh reception Obama’s health care plan has received from the rabble, as he perceives Obama as a true conservative president. At a meeting with Obama, Rahm Emanuel, David Frum, and others, described with hilarious accuracy, Coddy promises the President the stimulating support of the conservative intellectual movement to persuade the masses to accept the health care plan.

A church building in a Catholic parish is infested with bats. The priest calls the local extermination service to get rid of the pests. After several tries with different companies, there is still no success. The bats are as numerous as ever. Having failed with human science, the priest returns to his spiritual roots and seeks help from within the Church.

He first calls upon a Franciscan, a member of an order whose founder was particularly fond of animals and who became the patron saint of animals. The Franciscan enters the church steeple and talks with the bats. He gently reminds the bats that a church is a place for humans to worship and that they are disturbing that sacred and solemn function. He kindly asks that, in the spirit of brotherhood, the bats leave the church building and find a new abode. The bats just laugh and return to the church the next day with their extended families, bringing more bats.

The dismayed priest then turns to a Benedictine, a member of a group whose founder was a keen administrator and who provided detailed rules on how to live a proper life. The Benedictine, too, talks to the bats and advises them on how properly to live their lives in an orderly fashion. He shows them that other places are much more suitable abodes for bats than the church steeple, such as city hall, and explains to them exactly how they will be happier elsewhere. The bats just laugh and return to the church the next day with their friends, bringing more bats.

Next comes a Dominican, a member of an order whose founder loved to teach and spread the word of God. The Dominican goes to the bats and for an hour preaches the word of God to them with the message that humans have been given dominion of the world, and that the bats must obey. He then takes out a blackboard, quotes Saint Thomas Aquinas to the bats, and proves to them through reason that bats do not belong in the church steeple. At the conclusion, the bats, as usual, laugh at the Dominican. They return to the church the next day with more bats, even ones they don’t like.

The priest is getting desperate about the bat infestation. Finally, a Jesuit appears. The Jesuit climbs into the church steeple. He closes the door and windows to keep the bats from escaping. Without further ado, he baptizes the bats Catholic and confirms them. He then leaves. The startled bats spend their first day as full-fledged Catholics in the church. The next day, adopting the habit of their human coreligionists, they leave and never go near a church again.

Adapted from Mike Lynch.

President Obama prepares for yet another campaign appearance speech, this time before an audience whose members have difficulty controlling themselves, have short attention spans, don’t do their reading homework, and have no sense of the value of money. Congress, in other words. The President, whose failure to appear before the television cameras for what must be at least thirty hours, is expected to be accompanied by his faithful teleprompter in an effort to rouse the Congress from its torpor and the public away from its pesky insistence that radically transforming the government and economy is not a path trod lightly. Or, better, not trod at all.

Holman Jenkins of The Wall Street Journal has a copy of a speech that the President should give, were he honest about the health insurance/care policies. It is a clever satire that one can appreciate for both its honesty and its humor:

“To the American people I promise tonight, whatever compromises lay ahead, whatever the arduous negotiations, Democrats and Republicans will work together to continue to drive the current system off a cliff. (Applause from Democrats in the audience; Nancy Pelosi beams.)

“Even if we cannot enact my administration’s ‘public option,’ we will extend the great work of previous generations, making sure private health care continues to be unaffordable to more and more Americans, and piling up fresh mandates on employers so fewer and fewer of our citizens will have either jobs or health insurance.”

Andrew Malcolm of Top of the Ticket blog at the L.A. Times gives good advice to the President and the Republicans, providing handy ten-step lists to make sure the speech is a success or, if you’re a Republican, that it’s not. Malcolm has the substance down exactly right:

“As a real good talker, the president’s MO has been to leave the legislative details to the Hill, be perfectly clear about the need for a government option but hedge about its necessity and drive home instead why America can no longer go down this or that road because bad things are sure to happen if we don’t change to his course, which he hasn’t really spelled out but we should trust that, although unknown, it would be better than the other bad things he says are surely en route.”

Michael Ramirez sums up the national security policy of the Obama administration.

The health care townhall meeting revolt may have quited down as the dog-days of August turn into September’s Labor Day getaways, and as Congresscritters follow the Dear Leader’s example and head for the safety of by-invitation-only events and telephonic gatherings. The latter “virtual” meeting makes sense, as lawmakers have at best only a virtual idea what the bill says. Still, Iowahawk is on the case. He has apparently persuaded Linda Douglass, the seemingly newly-appointed Deputy Assistant Under-Minister of Truth, White House Health Care Task Force (and former C-BS reporter, naturally) to write a guest column that exposes the difference between grass roots participants and astroturfers. The former are those loyal pro-ObamaCare union members and bureaucrats; the latter are the over-dressed (probably racist) rabble that oppose this magic program from this magnificent President. Pictorial evidence abounds.

This is a still-little known torture used to extract confessions from detained terrorists. The Obama administration is likely to abandon such interrogations, preferring to outsource them to the Egyptians and Syrians. Apparently, “to gore” is not just the torture of being forced to listen to a former Vice-President.

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture? 

An old-style ethnic pol rejoins the Democratic Party pool of potential candidates for 2010. Former Ohio Democratic Congressman James Traficant has been released from prison after serving seven years for his bribery and racketeering conviction. There was a rumor that his toupee, distraught at years of forced separation from its skull, had left Traficant and hooked up with Donald Trump’s hair for some follicular fun. But that rumor turned out to be false, judging by the photos of Traficant leaving prison. Traficant and his toupee appear to be reunited.

There are those who believe that Traficant should now be tried and incarcerated for numerous fashion felonies such as these.

Are there almost insurmountable problems of cost with Obamacare? Are the elderly the main reasons for the high cost of medical care? The People’s Cube has a solution for the cost problems. One possible glitch: It’s a concept the administration has already shown itself too inept to administer in another context.

A boy’s confession:

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose girl.”
The priest asks, “Is that you, little Joey Pagano?”
“Yes, Father, it is.”
“And who was the girl you were with?”
“I can’t tell you, Father. I don’t want to ruin her reputation.”
“Well, Joey, I’m sure to find out her name sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now. Was it Erin O’Donnell?”
“I cannot say.”
“Was it Tina Minetti?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“Was it Ruth Wilhelm?”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot name her.”
“Was it Dolores Mejia?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Was it Paula Witkowski, then?”
“Please, Father, I cannot tell you.”
The priest sighs in frustration. “You’re very tight-lipped. I admire that. But you’ve sinned and have to atone. You cannot be an altar boy for four months. Now go and behave yourself.”
Joey walks back to his pew. His friend Geno slides over and whispers, “What’d you get?”
“Four months vacation and five good leads.”

Via Henning Knipprath @ Knipprath Cellars

[TC: I believe this priest is part of the new elite Obama interrogation team that’s going to use new, non-coercive questioning to break detained al Qaeda terrorists.]

With detainee interrogations no longer to be done by those dastardly CIA agents who blew smoke in the eyes of defenseless terrorist suspects like some high school bullies from a ’50s B-movie, someone else will need to take on that task.

Scrappleface nominates investigative journalist and devastating interviewer Katie Couric. With Katie’s skill at breaking down Caribou Barbie, she is a natural. And her network, the appropriately named C-BS, competing at levels of viewership reminiscent of the late The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, could use the boost of publicity. With her perkiness and faux sensitivity, she can get from these High Value Detainees the type of useful and truthful information that has characterized her career. BTW, shouldn’t this new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group have the acronym HiV DIG, rather than HIG?

Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard blog prefers that the President himself conduct these interrogations. You know, sit down and talk (probably not over a beer, though a hookah might work) without preconceptions or preconditions. The President might apologize for previous American policy of hunting down al Qaeda types and promise just to shoot cruise missiles at abandoned camps. As Goldfarb notes, “Think about the rapport he would have, what with his ability to quote the ‘Holy Koran,’ his smattering of Arabic and Indonesian, his fond memories of summers in Pakistan. Really, who better to do this job than the president himself?” One can’t forget his dialectically nuanced pronunciation of Pukki-stahn that will surely impress the terrorists who, in their charm-induced trance akin to those cobras under the control of a fakir (careful with that pronunciation, by the way), will readily give up all they know.

President Obama has touted his health insurance plan as a way to promote choice, competition, and reduced costs. Iowahawk has found Obama’s secret. Uncovering the tale of Mrs. Petrowski, he shows that the choice is between the window and the green jello. The competition is among those who will persuade her to take the final step. The reduced costs come from getting her to take the plunge. Just don’t call them death panels. They’re the “End of Life Quality Assurance Counselors.”

I am not a cat person. That admission is the equivalent of walking into a sports bar in L.A. on a Saturday in the fall and announcing you’re not a USC fan. Half the people there will revile you, and the other half will embrace you. But it gets worse. Admitting you’re not a cat lover is a big mark against you with those female feline fanatics that constitute three-quarters of unattached women. It’s an interesting speculation which is cause and which is effect, the attachment to cats or the lack of a male companion. But I digress.

The epitome of cat craziness has to be women over 65, at least ninety percent of whom exhibit some version of this malady. Reports of law enforcement or other governmental agents finding the dwelling of this or that elderly woman overrun by near-feral felines are hardly news any more.

I bring all this up to report on the adventure we had to find a suitable replacement for my mother-in-law’s cat that recently died. My eight-year old daughter had grown quite fond of Oliver, who in his youth was the typical playful kitten but who now could barely drag around his arthritic twenty-year old body. He was also suffering from kidney problems and other ailments, so that, despite still consuming impressive amounts of food and water, he looked like the Dr. Death of cats with his white fur and emaciated body. Most of the time he slept. Were there ObamaCatCare, he would have been end-of-life-planned to another world long ago. Forget kidney care. Oliver would not even have got so much as a cat scan. Still, Lexi, my daughter, looked after him and played with him with dogged devotion. I see that as a good sign for how she will treat her parents when they are in a similarly catatonic state.

Oliver had beaten predictions of his death so long that it almost surprised us when he finally left for the big celestial cattery. I say almost, because for a couple of weeks prior to that day, I had been saying to my wife that the cat was acting strangely. He was especially clingy, and I thought that he was instinctively readying himself for his grand finale.

My eight-year old had a good cry over Oliver’s death. But then, showing that psychological resilience children possess and adults fail to fathom, Lexi soon turned her attention to the task of replacing him. To that end, she and her mother perused the internet for cat ads. Craig’s List turned out to be as good a source for dozens of potential feline friends as for human relationships. But the unscreened nature of the cats available on Craig’s List matches their human counterparts, so that selecting a possible pet is as unpredictable an adventure as using Craig’s List for dating. There seems to be a need for a higher class of pet match-making service, a miew-harmony.com, perhaps.

On finding a candidate with a cat adoption agency in the San Fernando Valley, my wife filled out an on-line application worthy of the FBI. The only thing missing was a space for fingerprints. It asked about previous ownership of cats, and what had happened to them. My wife wisely rejected my proposed answer that they had ended up heroically helping to advance science at various labs. She was asked whether the new cat would be an inside or an outside cat. In light of our difference of opinion, she split the difference and wrote that the cat would do some of each. Big mistake.

Then there was the other background information disclosure, from employment to driver’s license. As to the former, my wife nixed my suggestion to put that we were the owners of a Thai restaurant. The form asked whether we would agree to have people from the cat agency periodically come to our house to check on the cat. My inclination was to tell them jokingly they were welcome any time they could get past our German Shepherd/Doberman mix. My wife just told them, “No.” The form also requested a complete list of people and animals at the house. It demanded that any children under six be sent to live somewhere else.

Actually, I made up that last one. But after dealing with the other quirky requests, by the time the form was completed such a demand would have surprised no one.

After some discussions on the telephone, it was agreed that we would pick up the cat at a large pet food store in the San Fernando Valley. I anticipated a brief get-acquainted session that would end with a grateful pet adoption agent (and a grateful cat) accompanying us in plenty of time to return home for a productive afternoon.

Was I ever wrong! I have bought cars, complete with financing, in less time than it took to get out of the door with that cat. Forget the cars; my children were born more quickly. There are Hollywood marriages that have lasted less time.

After yet another review of the application, there was a lengthy dissertation on cat care and the physical and psychological needs of the cat. Subtly addressing the disturbing tendency of many animal lovers to consider animals worthier than humans, my wife noted that nothing like that was ever demanded of me or my wife to take our children out of the hospital. The woman was aghast that we had checked that we did not want anyone to come to our house. “Why would you not want us to come check on the cat,” she asked, dumbfounded. “Because we think you’re nuts, and don’t want you anywhere near our children,” were the words that wanted to tumble out of our mouths. Instead, “You have our address. You can drive by,” was our response.

Then came a list of warnings about improper food. “Don’t feed the cat a lot of fish. She can get mercury poisoning.” My thoughts were that I should tell her that crazed cat fanciers who go to people’s houses and cause trouble often get .38 caliber lead poisoning.

In similar vein, we were warned not to feed her luncheon meat. Too many preservatives that could be harmful. I was tempted to ask why such cold cuts were fine for humans. If we get killed eating luncheon meat, we won’t be able to adopt cats in order not to feed them cold cuts. No chocolate, which once and for all ended our long-held plans to indulge the cat with a steady diet of chocolate-covered cat’s tongues (cookies).

By this time I assumed that such basic cat cuisine as birds, mice, rats, lizards, and other “meals-on- the-hoof” were beyond the pale, and I was beginning to wonder what to feed the animal. How had cats ever evolved and survived for millions of years without this combination FDA, OSHA, and EPA? The commissar of cats then helpfully suggested that some cats like to eat peas and cantaloupe, and that we should feed that to our new charge.

Now it was my turn to be dumbfounded. Had this woman seen too many showings of Madagascar and various Disney animation movies that feature the new politically-correct vegetarian carnivore? Had she never looked at a cat’s teeth? Was she unreservedly bonkers? My wife shot me urgent glances not to stir the pot, or we might not get out of there before closing.

I took a closer look at this woman. She didn’t physically appear to be deranged. Botoxed, likely. Other “work,” probably. But no wild, Cosmo Kramer eyes. So this must simply be the muted manifestation of some neurosis that raged internally in the deep recesses of her superego.

We finally loosed our own ultimate weapon, the three-year old. I had been entertaining him, trying to smooth the closing of the “adoption” that my wife was handling. It was now time to unleash him. Such an escalation was risky. After all, his antics of running around the store, yelling, and touching all the cats to the misgivings of the disapproving cat handlers, could cause the whole deal to collapse. But, as the saying goes, desperate (and passing) times call for desperate measures.

Whatever the reason, we finally got out of there. With the cat. And numerous instructions.

Since then, we have received a call asking again to come visit the house. “No,” was the emphatic answer. Further, there has been a follow-up email with a reminder of a promise (never made) permanently to seal the pet door to keep the cat from going into the backyard. This is another fascinating psychological phenomenon. Cats are roaming animals. Yet this woman has an attitude I have noticed with many cat fanciers. They maintain a tighter policy of detention and incarceration of their charges than does the U.S. at Guantanamo.

As an interesting side note, the cat has ignored the pet door. The only one who uses it is the three-year-old when he sneaks out of his room at nap-time and crawls outside to play with his trucks.

With the passage of time, I have come to a measured response. The whole experience reminds one of a small and private version of the nanny state. Endless forms and inquiries. Long wait times. Being treated like incompetents who lack the common sense to live their lives without the help of such busybodies.

But, then, these folks mean well, which in this particular context is mildly annoying but not harmful. It is a basic human need to be loved and to extend love. We are social creatures. Most people extend that love to family, friends, and, through personal altruism, less fortunate strangers. A few, perhaps those who lack the aforementioned outlets, offer it to animals. They anthropomorphize those animals from pets into animal companions. And, sure, they’re a bit daft in the eyes of most. But they do, in a fundamental way, perform a valuable service, that is, connecting a little black and white kitten with an eight-year-old girl who, now that her little brother has turned into a pest, also wants something to love.

John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain has become a bete-noire for many conservatives. The 24-year old seeks to gain publicity and a role in Republican politics by imitating her father’s “maverick” role. Her tactics have certainly gained her the former goal, as she is a frequent guest on various overtly liberal programs (such as MSNBC talking heads) and more covertly liberal ones (such as the legacy media’s morning shows). But those same tactics are not likely to gain her prominence in party politics. Following her father’s footsteps in poking fingers in the eyes of the conservative base is more likely to cause exile than access.

There are some other problems with her approach. John McCain’s inspiring history as an American patriot and hero gave him a degree of cover for his maverickness. People might gnash their teeth, but forgive him some of his lack of political couth and his willingness to treat his Democratic opponents with respect but insult his Republican allies. But such an analogy to Obama foreign policy, that is, “Respect and talk to your enemies, ignore and berate your allies,” is not a workable proposition for someone who is generally viewed as an over-privileged rich kid of few no accomplishments. Being seen as the Paris Hilton of politics does not indicate a lot of political capital.

Moreover, Ms. McCain has not brought a lot of substance to her style. While she may try to advertise her repeated scolding and belittling of her fellow Republicans and her crush on President Obama as a youthful edginess, her substance only exposes her youthful ignorance. Unlike her father who, especially recently, seems to have found a way back to his conservative roots of the 80s (though one may be forgiven a certain suspiciousness about how long that will last), her own policy positions are either downright liberal (same-sex marriage) or shallow and confused (most other things). She does appear to be “pro-life,” though it is not exactly clear why.

But lack of substance on the issues of the day is not even the most annoying thing about her. That, other than the aforementioned figurative eye-poking, is her lack of political maturity. She has opened a Twitter account and is busy tweeting. She has cited her greater number of Twitter followers as evidence that her message more resonates with younger people and therefore is better for the Republican Party’s future than that of various conservative columnists, best-selling authors, or politicians. Even if that were remotely plausible as a claim in general, a look at the substance of her Twitter postings must dispel that notion quickly. Her proclamations of delight in sexual intercourse, tattoos, and men, and her similar speculations do not attest to a degree of advanced political or philosophical sophistication.

So now Meghan is on to bigger pastures, a book. Given her infatuation with President Obama, maybe she’ll call it “I Dream I’m My Father,” or “Am I Audacity or Hope?”

Dr. Zero at Hot Air seems to have obtained an early galley version of a chapter from Ms. McCain’s new book. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Penn and Teller explain Obamanomics. HT: Melonie Johnson

An Israeli doctor says, “Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks.”

A Russian doctor says, “In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in two weeks.”

An ILLINOIS doctor, not to be outdone, says, “You guys are way behind. We recently took a man with no brains out of ILLINOIS , put him in the White House for THREE MONTHS, and now half the COUNTRY is looking for work.”

Scrappleface has his own interpretations of the Obama health plan. Obama Plan Forces Rich Kids to Care For Ailing Parents, a hilarious take-down of Obama’s use of his mother’s cancer to promote his health policy. An older article, Obama Health Plan: Give Organs of Rich to Poor, a riff on then-Senator Obama’s redistributionist rhetoric. Another older column, Schumer: SCHIP Should Cover All Un-Aborted Kids, is, well, vintage Senator Schumer. Difficult to tell the parody from the real thing, which says a lot about Senator Schumer.

Iowahawk Productions presents the people’s car that you shall buy. From GM (Government Motors) comes the 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition. The video shows the evolution of the model from its earlier, more basic versions. All the cool people are trading in their Priuses and Smart cars for this baby. And it’ll set you back less than $700,000 in inflated 2012 money. (That’s $35,000 in today’s money.)

It is 2011, and the death of Justice John Paul Stevens has brought another opportunity for President Obama to nominate someone to the Supreme Court. Following his success with Sonia Sotomayor, the President has determined that the best path is the one that brought him success with her. The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on the nominee, federal court of appeals judge Pat Queen. Some excerpts:

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.): You certainly have a compelling life story, a story that has been misrepresented by your opponents as “freakish” and a result of “identity politics.” They make the scurrilous charge that you were chosen for reasons of your ethnicity and the like. Here is your chance to refute those critics.

Judge Queen: Thank you, Senator. I believe that I represent so many ingredients in the beautiful salad that is America. I was going to say “stew” but, as a vegan, I believe that conjures up images of the genocide, or I should say faunicide, of so many Bovine-Americans. The blood of so many cultures runs through my veins, from my mother’s pinoy father, who came to work in the sugar fields in Hawaii, to my mother’s mother who is half-native Hawaiian, half-African. Then there is my father’s father, Salvador Reyes, who came from Mexico to work in the strawberry fields in California and married his bride, a half-Cheyenne, half-Ukrainian. Not that we are conscious of such things….

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL): Judge Queen, you said that your paternal grandfather’s name was Reyes. Yet your name is Queen. How did that come to be?

Judge Queen: Senator, this is another example of how I represent the aspirations of all Americans. Denying my grandfather’s proud mestizo heritage, my father changed his name to King, in a squalid attempt to “assimilate.” He always told us that he disliked the whole hyphenated-American label, and that the U.S. was a melting pot. There were even rumors he was a Republican. As I explain in my autobiography, My Nightmare Of A Father, we considered him a “coconut,” brown on the outside, white on the inside.

Sen. Sessions: But how did you get your name, “Pat Queen”?

Judge Queen: As you know, I was born a male, but became part of our community of Transgendered-Americans.

Sen. Sessions: Are those “drag queens” that wear female clothing? Is that why you changed your name?

Judge Queen: No, Senator, wrong on several levels. That is not why I changed my name. You are referring not to the Transgendered-American community to which I belong, but to the Transvestite-American community to which I once belonged. And “drag queen” is offensive to them. It makes them sound flamboyant, as if they were exhibitionists appearing in Vegas shows or something. So, I changed my name to reflect my new sense of self as a female. Also, I was lucky. I didn’t have to change my first name.

Sen. Sessions: So, you are still male genetically? Have you finished the process of becoming female physically?

Judge Queen: Not entirely. I have chosen not to make the, ahh, final cut. I prefer to have both female and male characteristics. I’m all about choice.

Sen. Sessions: Now, you have a life partner, who is female. Am I correct?

Judge Queen: Yes. My attraction has always been towards women.

Sen. Sessions: Then, why did you not just stay fully male?

Judge Queen: Senator, as scholarship in Feminist Studies and Queer Studies has shown, male and female are merely roles assigned to individuals by the dominant patriarchy to oppress and exclude the “Other.” Such concepts are not hard-wired. Biology is not destiny. Without such roles, we are free to choose. On the other hand, we cannot help for whom we have physical attraction. That is hard-wired into us; Biology is destiny. Choice is not an option. The idea that we choose whom we love is something imposed by the dominant patriarchy to oppress and exclude the “Other” by enforced heteronormativity.

Sen. Sessions: So, let me get this straight. I fully choose, despite my physiology, whether I am male or female. But I have no choice, because of my physiology, as to whether I am attracted to males or females. As a general proposition, my sex is what I choose, but with whom I have sex is beyond my control?

Judge Queen: Yes, that has been shown by groundbreaking articles such as one law review article by a professor at a Los Angeles law school. The article argues for a fundamental constitutionally-protected right of hairstyle, dress, make-up, tattoos, and piercings as an aspect of gender role preferences or projecting outward one’s sexual relations orientation. That is the post-structuralist, anti-essentialist insight provided by the legal academy whose conferences I attend. And, please, Senator your use of the word “straight” itself has revealed you to be freighted with preconceptions about your heteronormativity in opposition to the “Other,” which in your mind is somehow confused or mistaken, not “straight.” This is internal to you, and you are helpless, really, to overcome it.

Sen. Sessions: I’m just a poor Alabama country lawyer. I have no idea what you are talking about, and this is a half-hour I’d really like to get back at the end of my life. My time for questions mercifully is up. 

Senator Schumer (D-NY): Where are the cameras? Why aren’t they working? I don’t have any questions until the cameras are working.

Sen. Kyl (R-AZ): I want to ask you about a speech you made at UC Berkeley. You said, “With my rich experience as a, by definition, wise, Filipino-African-Hawaiian-Mexican-Cheyenne-Ukrainian-some drops of Armenian-a dash of German-and a hint of Italian-Transgendered-Lesbian-Unitarian-Human-American, I can make a heck of a lot better decisions than some boring Wonder-bread Christian heterosexual White guy with a wife and kids. Really, those breeders ought to be neutered and not be permitted to overpopulate the world with their irrational faith and their addiction to bourgeois notions of freedom and responsibility.” Judge, I am very disturbed by what that tells me about you. You seem to have a very violent mindset, and you focus excessively on tribal characteristics that bode ill for a job that requires you to apply the law impartially to all.

Judge Queen: You have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law. That speech was one instance.

Sen. Kyl: You made the speech seven times, and it was reprinted in the “Filipino-African-Hawaiian-Mexican-Cheyenne-Ukrainian-some drops of Armenian-a dash of German-and a hint of Italian-Transgendered-Lesbian-Unitarian-Human-American Law Journal.”

Judge Queen: Well, they needed something else to publish besides a review of Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory: Theorizing the Filipina/American Experience. I just have found that making that kind of comparison and putting down Christian heterosexual White males always is a crowd pleaser at law school conferences, as it reflects the dominant theme of what gets published as scholarship. The White professors love it because, well, I don’t quite get why they love it. Maybe some guilt thing. And for the others, it appeals to their sense of grievance-based entitlement. Also to their racial, and whatever else, superiority. You have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law.

Sen. Kyl: But those are very disturbing words.

Judge Queen: As I said, Senator, you have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law. I can see how those words may sound harsh to some, but if you look at the context, I was just trying to inspire the students to achieve what I have achieved….

Sen. Schumer: Have they got those cameras fixed yet? No? Mr. Chairman, I find these conditions intolerable and can’t work with this. I’ll have to pass again.

Sen. Cornyn (R-TX): But the conference to which Sen. Kyle referred, where you first made the speech, and then six more times, was on “How To Get Rid of a Constitution Made by Dead White European Males and Create a Socialist Paradise with Rights to Government-Funded Everything, Including Abortion.” That suggests to us that you are not able to live up to your oath to support the Constitution.

Judge Queen: Senator, that’s a very typical conference or symposium put on by law schools and attended by professors and by lawyers from organizations affiliated with or supported by the American Bar Association. By the way, the ABA is a wonderful group and, as you know, judged me the most brilliant jurist ever, nominated by the most brilliant President ever. They were able to see those qualities despite the plodding and inelegant writing style that has been my hallmrk all my life. That is the highest rating they have ever given anyone and is certainly higher than the “barely qualified with reservations” ranking they typically give Republican nominees. So, you have to take that speech in the context it was given. It was far less controversial than most of the speeches there, which advocated speech restriction, property forfeiture, confinement, and even worse for those heterosexual White Christian males I mentioned. Compared to the usual law professors, students, and attorneys who attend these things, I was the conservative on that panel. You have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law.

Sen. Cornyn: Do you stand by those words, then?

Judge Queen: As I believe I said before, you have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law. I can see how someone might take those words to mean exactly what they say formally, as you do. But you are proving my point. As a heterosexual White Christian male, you are thinking linearly, as all of you do. So you think that words mean what they say. Ninety-nine percent of the population probably reads them the same as you do. But that is simply the result of the centuries-long oppression of such groups by the White patriarchy. Left to their own devices, by their inherent physiological characteristics, the collection of “Other” naturally thinks more holistically and comprehensively. We lawyers and law professors know that words do not mean what they say. We prove that everyday by confusing law students and by bringing successful law suits that challenge the generally-understood meaning of words in contracts, wills, statutes, and Constitutions. Such words are nothing until the judge in a lawsuit declares them to be so.

Sen. Cornyn: So, are you saying now that our thinking is determined by our physiological characteristics divided by race, gender, sexual proclivity, and religion?

Judge Queen: No. Of course not. It may seem to you as if I’m saying that, because those are the words I used. You need to look at the context of the words for their meaning. You just misunderstood them because your pituitary gland causes you to secrete a heterosexual White Christian male hormone. But, I can understand how someone like you might read them that way. Again, I was trying to inspire the students then, just as I am trying to inspire everyone now. You have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law.

Sen. Cornyn: My pituitary gland?

Judge Queen: Look, Senator, I did not intend those words to mean what they say when read in their obvious meaning. That was the point of my speech. We need people to become judges who know what contracts, wills, statutes, and Constitutions really mean beyond the meaning of those words as commonly understood when written. If figuring out the meaning of laws were that easy, ordinary individuals who have not received years of training at college and law school would understand what the law requires. If that happened, where would we be?

Sen. Schumer: I have just been told there is a working television camera at a press conference outside the Capitol. I’m going to go over there and see if I can ask my questions from there. If you can’t hear them, Judge, don’t worry. They are very lengthy questions so I can get camera time, and your answers don’t really matter. I’m voting for you.

Sen. Graham (R-SC): Hello, Judge. I like you, and I’ll vote for you. But there are some things that really disturb me. Let me go back to your words that a wise person of your physiological characteristics will make better decisions than a White male.

Judge Queen: Only a heterosexual White Christian male. Again, you have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law. You have to look at the context of the speech. I was only trying to inspire. That is how everyone there understood those words. Since you are voting on my nomination, from your context I will say the words were poorly chosen, and I do not think that any group can come to a better decision than any other. I certainly would have chosen my words differently if I had any inkling that the country would elect a President so radical he’d even consider nominating someone with a record of my speeches. But the speeches were made during the Bush administration, and for a long time it looked as if the Republicans would be running things until I was retired. Who knew?

Sen. Graham: Do you believe that, as the President said, that judges must exercise empathy when deciding cases?

Judge Queen: You have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law. Judges decide according to the law. They do not make law. Congress makes law. The judges just interpret the law. Judges do not decide cases based on empathy. If the President meant what the obvious meaning of those words is, then I disagree with him. But, I don’t think that he meant what you think he did when he said those words. He is thoroughly post-modern and does not believe in Truths. He went to Harvard Law and taught at an American Bar Association law school, after all. Only as a part-timer, and he only taught equal protection law, which is what they commonly have professors they classify as “minorities” teach. But still. You have to look at the context of the words. He was only trying to inspire. Besides, there are no mistakes, only differing degrees of being right. And, as his supporters know, President Obama is not just President, he is the embodiment of all hope and salvation. Since he really can’t make a mistake, then, his words cannot mean what you think.

Sen. Graham: My time is up.

Sen. Franken (D-MN): Say, did you see that episode of L.A. Law, where they had the guy with multiple personalities who had committed murder, and he got off when some of his personalities fought with the other one and turned him in to the police? At least I think it was L.A. Law.

Judge Queen: Umh, no.

Sen. Franken: Me, neither. Say, did you watch the Ally McBeal episode where the guy has the affair with the judge? At least I think it was Ally McBeal.

Judge Queen: No.

Sen. Franken: Me, neither. Say, did you watch the Boston Legal episode where the guy adopted his gay lover so that his kids wouldn’t get his money? At least I think it was Boston Legal.

Judge Queen: No.

Sen. Franken: OK, then. What do think of Justice Scalia’s theory of orgasm?…No, wait. [Turning to an aide for help.] Oh, the word is originalism. Have you ever heard of that?

Judge Queen: Yes, I have. Justice Scalia takes the position that….

Sen. Franken: Whatever. I don’t want to hear about some old guy’s “positions.” That stuff’s boring. Have you heard of the case of New York Workers’ Compensation Board v. Alan Franken, Inc.?

Judge Queen: No.

Sen. Franken: Good. Just some problems with not paying workers’ comp on my employees. They were independent contractors, I swear. Thought we’d have some time for you to give me advice. I’m new here. I don’t know what I’m doing. They’re gonna cancel the show. I’m gonna die homeless and penniless and twenty pounds overweight. But really, I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me….And that’s…okay.

Sen. Leahy: We’re going to take a break to escort Sen. Franken back to the changing room.

                                                                  *          *          *

Sen. Leahy: OK, thank God that’s over and done. Why couldn’t he be one of yours, Senator Coburn?

Sen. Coburn (R-OK): Even I might have advised abortion to his mother, Mr. Chairman. Judge Queen, do you believe, as you have stated, that words mean only what judges say they mean? That suggests that you believe that judges can make law and ignore the words of the Constitution.

Judge Queen: Senator, you have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law. Judges do not make law. Congress makes law. Judges interpret laws. We cannot ignore words.

Sen. Coburn: But what does that mean, to “interpret laws”?

Judge Queen: It means that laws are interpreted. You have to look at the context of the words. For example, just because the Second Amendment protects “the right to keep and bear arms” does not mean that people have the right to have weapons to defend themselves. It just means they can keep their arms. I would look at that word as not just protecting arms. From the context I would say that the amendment also protects one’s right to legs, torso, head, liver, tonsils, spleen, and so on. Except perhaps for a certain racial group that has used up its historical allotment of enjoying this right. The wording of that amendment has nothing to do with weapons. It is really a prohibition against capital punishment and dismemberment. To take another example. Looking at the due process clauses in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, they protect “liberty.” Well, not every liberty can be protected, however. For example, government could not exist without heavily taxing the fruits of your labor, and any judge who overturned a tax law or a regulatory law passed by Congress would be making law. At the same time, as everyone knows, the word liberty is related to libertinism. Contextually speaking, then, a judge would interpret liberty to protect anything that relates to libertinism. So laws that restrict sexual behavior, drug use, abortion, so-called vice laws are prohibited by the Constitution. Well, except anti-smoking laws that exclude weed. Those are OK. A judge overturning 100-year-old abortion laws in dozens of states is not making law. That’s for Congress to do. That judge is interpreting the law, which is what judges do. Judges do not make law. We interpret law and apply law to cases. It isn’t our view of what’s good policy that we are imposing. It just happens that the Constitution always commands what we judges and the law professors prefer as good policy. That only shows the wisdom of the well-selected judges. Referring to wise judges, please remember I am only trying to inspire students.

Sen. Coburn: One last question. You wrote an article that said that you thought the Constitution to be “hopelessly Eurocentric, a toxic condition that can only be mitigated by using foreign authorities to bring its terms more in line with the jurisprudence of courts in other countries.” You specifically cited favorably the forced abortion doctrine of the Communist Chinese to be applied to families who have a heterosexual White Christian male. You also lauded Canadian “hate speech” law to silence speech “offensive to any minority group.” Then you noted approvingly the Cuban and Venezuelan approaches to people’s rights to their own property. Other than in cases dealing with treaties or international contracts, do you believe that judges should use foreign law? Specifically, in applying the Constitution.

Judge Queen: No, I do not believe that judges should use foreign law made by the “Other,” that is, non-heterosexual White Christian males, when deciding cases under the American Constitution, a product of just such a heteronormative White patriarchy, if that use would be to “make law.” That is for Congress to do. Judges do not make law. You have to look a the context of what I am saying. You have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law. Judges interpret the law. So, in that sense, judges should not “use” foreign law. But I have always said, and taken in context, the words in the article you mention can be read that way, judges can use foreign law to help them understand American law. They only decide the case based on American law, but they use foreign law to see whether their understanding of the words and of American law is consistent with that of the “Other.” The judge’s use of foreign law then is just “thinking aloud.” It’s the same as when the judge puts in references to law review articles, books on Oprah’s list of fiction, recipes from Martha Stewart, or David Letterman jokes. None of them have any connection to the reality lived in by most people. But it gets the judge noticed by those he or she quotes or cites. Maybe some invitation for a trip, conference, or appearance will come of it. But a judge must never use foreign law to limit the American Constitution’s protection of abortion in the various ways that all but six of the other countries in the world do. That would be making law, and doing so on the basis of foreign law. And judges are very careful not to make law. Congress does that. Judges interpret the law and apply law to the facts.

Sen. Kohl (D-WI): Judge Queen, in reviewing your judicial temperament, you have received many glowing reports. But there are also a lot of complaints from lawyers about what they perceive as your short temper and your bullying.

Judge Queen: Senator, we have an “active bench.” We ask lots of questions.

Sen. Kohl: But your colleagues don’t receive such reports.

Judge Queen: Well, then, those complaints come from the heterosexual White Christian male lawyers. They cannot handle having their superiority challenged by the “Other,” especially a Filipino-African-Hawaiian-Mexican-Cheyenne-Ukrainian-some drops of Armenian-a dash of German-and a hint of Italian-Transgendered-Lesbian-Unitarian-Human-American judge. They may perceive that to be bullying, but if you look at the context, you will see that the opposing lawyers in those cases probably came from some historically-disadvantaged and now-protected minority group. I was trying to inspire those lawyers by my alleged bullying of their opponents. So, again, these are relative concepts. What may have been bullying to one side’s lawyers may well have been inspiring to the other side’s. You have to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law.

Sen. Kohl: Thank you. That makes sense to me….

Sen. Leahy: Judge Green, you have said many words of wisdom and have shown yourself to be a true representative of the state of the legal profession in the United States today. Have you any last message for this committee?

Judge Queen: My name is Queen. But thank you, Senator. I would just ask the committee not to consider speeches I have given or books and articles I have written during my life. I ask that even if those efforts appear to show a coherent philosophy based on the generally-understood meaning of the words I used. Rather, I would ask the committee to look at my record as a judge for seventeen years and my fealty to the law; at the context not the content of anything I’ve said or written; at my goal to inspire others; and at the fact that I have said numerous times before this committee that, unlike what appears to you to be the result of my decisions, judges do not make law. We only decide cases and faithfully apply the law Congress makes. Swear.

That bible for college applicants, the Princeton Review, has come up with its rankings for Top Ten Party Schools. I regret, yet am also relieved, to report that Southwestern Law School once again has not made that list, maintaining an unbroken record. Here, then, is the list:

1. Penn State University, 2. University of Florida, 3. University of Mississippi, 4. University of Georgia, 5. Ohio University, 6. West Virginia University, 7. University of Texas, 8. University of Wisconsin, 9. Florida State University, 10. UC Santa Barbara.

My alma mater, Pomona College, was the top-ranked school for “classroom experience.”

Rounding out the bottom ten party schools, judged as having the least enjoyable party scene:

10. Ayatollah Khamene’i Institute of Criminology, 9. George Will School of Punditry, 8. North Korea Tech (stolen from Jimmy Fallon), 7. Missionary Training Seminary, Latter Day Saints Campus, 6. Berkeley Collective for the Study of Marxist Dialectics, 5. Burbank City College Extension Campus for Senior Citizens, 4. Amish School of Plow Repair (stolen from Jimmy Fallon), 3. Feminist Un-gendered and Correct Knowledge University, 2. Saudi Women’s College of Outdoor Fashion Design, 1. Dick Cheney Institute for Advanced Interrogation Training.

According to Scrappleface, the Republicans have proposed an amendment to the Obamacare bill in Congress. They want to cover an affliction that usually affects people about halfway through the second term of a President. They become weary of the incumbent and react with increased depression and resentment to his very appearance. Thus, after six years of Clinton, there was palpable “Clinton fatigue.” After six years of Bush, “Bush fatigue” became widespread.

Republicans want to have the government program pay for the treatment and cure of “Obama fatigue,” which, like the swine flu this year, has arrived well ahead of the usual season for this affliction. It is only six months into his first term, yet Obama’s omnipresence has already caused an epidemic of Obama fatigue, as shown by his falling approval ratings that are now below those of George W. Bush at the same time in his presidency. Failure to address what is fast becoming a national emergency is not an option.

Judge Sotomayor has taken time from her busy confirmation schedule to write a guest column for Iowahawk. Through the wise use of allegory she provides some great insights into how her addition to the bench will add to the pursuit of justice. Here’s a sample of her wisdom. [Caution: Irreverent racial/ethnic stereotyping. Oh, and typos. I guess when she was hired out of law school, they didn’t hire her to type.]

“This is exactly the kind of wise, precedent-faithful Latina legal approach that I believe will be welcome by others on the Supreme Court bench, all of whom bring their own unique genetic legal wisdom and instinctual empathy. Justices Roberts and Souter for example, with their aloof, sexless, constipated, emotionally-stunted WASPy intellects and natural affinity for preppy white collar criminals. Justice Stevens has this as well, along with a keen grasp for the legal issues facing Americans with senile dementia. As an Irishman, Justice Kennedy enjoys a natural ‘gift of the gab’ and poetically tragic alcoholism. Like you, I imagine that Justice Breyer can be kind of pushy and whiny, but we should also remember that as a Jew he is probably very skilled at cases that involve complicated numbers and math. To the casual observer, it probably seems absurd to have greasy Italian ‘goodfellas’ like Justices Alito and Scalia working inside the legal system, but if we give them a chance they may eventually break the code of Omerta and finally turn state’s evidence against their Cosa Nostra bosses. Yes, many have criticized Justice Thomas for being a self-hating ‘Oreo’ and ‘Uncle Tom,’ but I like to think that deep inside him still lurks the the DNA of an angry Cadillac-driving streetwise Superfly, ready to show ‘The Man’ that his pimp hand is strong.”

If the Judiciary Committee could just read this to get a better look inside her soul.

Today was a warm summer day, and my wife decided that a trip with the 3-year old to the local outdoor mall’s water fountain would be an exciting diversion. The fountain is a series of holes in the ground from which water spurts and splashes at different intervals. This was not the first such excursion, and the little one was happy to go. They arrived at the fountain. My wife let him loose to enjoy himself and to allow her a few minutes of respite.

Then he stripped.

With little ado, he decided that the enjoyable fountain experience would be enhanced if the brisk coolness of the water, the gentle breath of the afternoon breeze, and the enveloping warmth of the sunshine were extended to parts of the body not usually exposed to that combination of tactile pleasures. Curiously, he left his shirt on, obviously aiming for a radical reversal of socially-approved tan lines. Mom quickly admonished him that following the sartorial model of Donald Duck (shirt/jacket, but no pants) was contrary to established suburban customs of attire. The junior Chippendale’s performer looked genuinely perplexed.

For a reason. This is not the first time he has pulled a full monty in public. He frequently bares all in the backyard and in the house, where such displays are tolerated and no longer are big news to the residents. But that’s in private. Then we went to Kauai, and, well, the water was warm, the air intoxicating, and the beach relatively uncrowded. It felt so natural to take off the swimsuit and almost complete the appearance of a cherub in paradise. Smooth skin, round face; golden curls; only the wings were missing. He quickly became accustomed to the sensuality of romping nude in the water. It became his habit, leading in one instance to the obvious puzzlement of a little girl whose face, after gazing at him, betrayed a lack of comprehension. She knew that something looked different about him, but seemed not to be able to quite put her finger on it, figuratively and literally.

Then there came the airport incident in Lihue, Kauai, on the trip home. While trying to explain to the TSA official why I had no identification, due to having lost my wallet on the way to the airport, I glanced over at the neighboring line of passengers. There was the three-year old nudist clad only in shoes. He had become the physical embodiment of what passengers feel like when they are herded through airport security. On further inquiry, it turns out that he had seen a young woman remove her sweatshirt at the request of the TSA inspector. He had interpreted that gesture as an invitation to party naked one last time. A friendly aloha in the islands.

A few weeks later came the first incident at the fountain. While mom was engaged in conversation with another mother, he casually shed the pants. Oblivious to the Puritan fetters of shorts and bathing suits that constrained the other children, the miniature primitive had enjoyed his Rousseauian freedom for some minutes before Mom became aware of his condition. Though forced by her to conform to the confining standards of civilization, he retained that yearning to be free and recollected the feelings of the sun, wind, and water on his…well, one gets the picture.

So, when he returned to that Fountain of Youthfulness today, he sought to relive his earlier blissful innocence sans habille. It all makes sense. It is said that we all seek to recover that innocence of childhood. He’s just getting an early start in a very basic way.

Iowahawk addresses a provision of the cap-and-trade bill that has not been reported by a media compliant with the administration’s economy-wrecking goals. That provision is the “ritual virgin sacrifice provision”to go with the national oxygen-rationing, witch burnings, dousings, and phrenology research. The virgin sacrifice is to supplicate the Earth-Spirit and to further Nancy Pelosi’s plan to useburnt offerings of taxes and virgins to keep Gaia from unleashing her angry burning wrath on us through a temperature rise of 1degree in the next four centuries.

This provision has roused opposition from the Virgin-American community, including the Wizard and Warlocks Guild, the American Society of Renaissance Faire Royalty, the National Association of Space Fantasists, the Brotherhood of Sports Bar Regulars, and MENSA. A special exclusion protects Henry Waxman and other members of Congress. Read the whole subversive story.

It is difficult to believe that more than a year has passed since that day. The memory of the emotional havoc it caused is still vivid. I am talking about the visit a year ago by the then 2-year old little terror, also known as “the golden-curled prince,” and his mother to the local library.

I first became aware of the disastrous outing when my work at my home office was interrupted by a loud voice that I recognized as my wife’s. Since my wife rarely raises her voice in matters not directed at me, this was decidedly odd. Her stern instructions to “Go to your room,” were followed by the sound of a door shutting and enraged screaming that I recognized to be the voice of the little prince. As my wife strode past the office door, I made the mistake of inquiring as to the cause of the commotion. Thus began her sad tale, which ended in a cascade of tears—hers.

It all started innocently enough that day, to pick out some books for the two littlest tokens. Then the real fun began as the two-year-old turned the library into a chamber of emotional horrors. To start, while Mom was looking for a title on the library computer, her son turned off the companion computer, necessitating the intervention of a librarian to restart it. Like a skilled military leader having created a tactical diversion, he proceeded to the main task: Pull several dozen books off the shelves. Faster than Mom could put them back.

With that skirmish eventually concluded and order superficially restored, Mom focused on finding some books for the then seven-year old blonde princess, when her concentration was interrupted by a crash. Looking about, Mom saw a toppled CD-stand with its contents splayed across the floor and a certain tow-headed boy nearby.

After that excitement, matters seemed to calm down. But it was a false calm, as the little terror had run to the giant fishtank in the library and was turning the lights on and off. When apprehended, he celebrated the event by running through the library while screaming at the top of his voice. He likely didn’t notice, and even more likely didn’t care, about the startled looks from the rest of the children, who were peacefully using the library for its intended purpose. Same about the icy glares from the bespectacled librarians.

Finally, with the book search completed, it was time for the check-out. But standing in line is so b-o-r-i-n-g. It’s much more fun for a young lad to dash out the library toward the street, Mom frantically behind yelling and yanking him back out of potential danger. Only to be taunted with cries of “child abuse” by a couple of wet-behind-the-ears pre-adolescent bicycle riders passing by.

As said, a year has passed. How fast they grow up. Hoping that retirement or memory loss on the part of the library personnel would facilitate the matter, Mom decided that the time had come to risk another trip to the library with the little terror. An encouraging omen was that no one pointed at a “Wanted” poster and stopped them from entering, and, aside from some screaming and dashing about, everything was relatively civilized. With such hopeful development, maybe we can start taking him to the library more often. And next time even do it without having the family wear Groucho Marx disguises.

I recently called on a student in my summer school class to answer a question about a fact hypothetical. The question directly connected to the legal principle we’d been discussing. Both the question itself and the appropriate answer were rather straightforward. Yet, the student clearly was taken by surprise because she had not been paying attention. So she asked me to “rephrase the question.” Given the simplicity of the question, this was not really an option. So I assumed she had not been listening at all and took her question as a request for me to “repeat the question.”

This is a recurrent problem in law school and, if I had my druthers, I’d like to give points (plus and minus) for class participation and web surfing. It is clear that she was doing the latter, not delving into legal authorities to explore the deeper meaning of the legal principle at issue. The problem is so widespread that it has become the source of general gallows humor among faculty and even produced articles and opinion pieces, scholarly speculations, and a Doonesbury comic strip.

This is a particularly creative riff on the topic, by NYU law students using Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire as their artistic framework. Maybe our SBA could have a revue like this. Are our students less talented than those at NYU?

Please Repeat the Question from Amanda Bakale on Vimeo. Via Professor Jim Kushner.

This post about writes itself. Seems that the White House has attracted an unusual, though not unprecedented, number of flies. [Don’t bother with the cornucopia of wisecracks; it’s all low-hanging fruit.] Even the New York Times rouses itself from its customary literary torpor to write about the problem in an entertaining manner.

President Obama triggered scrutiny when he killed one of the invading flies, thus showing reflexes and resolve (and brutality) that he seems to lack when dealing with terrorists. PETA was aghast:

“’Well, I guess it can’t be said that President Obama wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ lamented Alisa Mullins of PETA on the organization’s blog. The animal rights group announced that it would send over one of its Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher contraptions to the White House in the event of ‘future insect incidents.’”

If this had been the Clinton administration, PETA would have been more effective sending over a naked actress to make its point.

To show that conservatives, too, can show solidarity with Obama, one of my sons and I today killed three flies that had invaded the house. Erik used the swoop-and-grab method, whereas I employed the towel-snap. His was more efficient; mine more “shock and awe.”

Going PETA one more, Iowahawk has details about the inevitable wrongful death action filed by the fly’s widow over her husband’s assassination by the President. The problems I see involve presidential immunity from money damage actions under Nixon v. Fitzgerald, though the fly’s widow presumably could argue that Obama’s fatal smack was not “official conduct.” Certainly Clinton v. Jonescan be read to say that any suit arising out of a connection between a President’s hand and a “fly” does not grant him immunity. There is also the issue of the widow’s standing to sue, though one suspects that the people from PETA will take the case on her behalf. Finally, there is likely to be a mootness problem, as the widow herself, and her children, grand-children, and a hundred more generations of descendants are likely to die before the case gets resolved. Fortunately, the Supreme Court can hold that this is one of those rare cases that are “capable of repetition, yet evading review,” and that the mootness doctrine should not apply in light of the weighty issues of deadly executive power to be addressed.

Politicians share personality traits with which group?

A.   Nurses

B.   Serial Killers

C.   Kindergarten teachers

D.   Librarians

If you chose “B,” serial killers, you’re correct. If you chose anything else, come on, get real. Let’s see, superficial charm, check; an exaggerated sense of self-worth, check; glibness, check; lying, check; lack of remorse, check; and manipulation of others, check.  But, hey, we vote for these people.

While I posted yesterday about the new development of “fun-employment” for those in their twenties and thirties who have met the darkside of the recession, Iowahawk has uncovered the “first draft” of the article in the L.A. Timesthat broke the story on this new cultural phenomenon. That first draft is soo much better, no wonder the Times didn’t use it.

When the Supreme Court loosened restrictions on lawyer ads in the 1970s, I wonder if the justices had in their minds these examples of attorney advertisements. Why did the faces of certain students flash before me as I watched these videos?

Via Mark Steyn comes this post from the blogger Scaramouche. Life imitates art, this time it’s the appointment of the professed justice of empathy, Sonia Sotomayor, in parody of the Audrey Hepburn-Fred Astaire film Funny Face. Obama is the new professor of empathecalism and Sotomayor is Hepburn (with considerable artistic license for appearance). But, as Steyn observes, it is unlikely that the GOP has the deftness and nimbleness to be considered Fred Astaire.

Scrappleface has a way out for the President from his Guantanamo detainee conundrum. Just declare the detainees to be fetuses. It once and for all solves the thorny issue of what rights foreign terrorists have under the U.S. Constitution. If they are deemed to be fetuses, under the views of the civil libertarians who plead the terrorists’ cause they have no rights at all.

Re: the Newsweek story, above, Iowahawk tells the real story of this former dentist office favorite’s fall on hard times.

From the broken-clock-is-right-twice-a-day file. I am not a fan of Her Dowdiness, the columnist for the New York Times. Predictable soft Leftie tailor-made for the elites that love the Times and whose diminishing numbers are driving the paper out of business. But she nailed this wonderful caricature of Cheney and Rumsfeld, though I suspect the column is written not out of a sense of appreciation for those two, but out of a sense of impatience and disappointment with The One.

Most people tell the passing of the years by reference to the calendar. The new year begins on January 1 and ends on the next December 31. Farmers perhaps are more in tune with a sowing, tending, reaping cycle that starts in early spring and ends in late fall, with a winter of driving the RV to Arizona. Professors tell time by academic year, an odd form of time-keeping. The “new year” begins in the late summer and ends with graduation in the late spring. The next three months are doing “other things,” unless, like Token Conservative, one teaches in summer school. In that case, there is a three-month limbo period.

Another such academic year has passed, and graduation once more is upon us. It is time, therefore, to reprise this timeless (and timely) advice column on graduation annoyances.

It has been said that being a professor is like being a perpetual student.  If the student being referenced is someone dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and not merely a seat warmer doing time until paroled with a degree, that observation has a lot of merit.  I know, I know, there are (tenured) professors who are little more than seat warmers doing time until the 401(k) kicks in, but they hardly began their careers that way.

One aspect of being a student is graduation, or so the parents, at least, hope.  That ceremony is a rite of passage that recognizes the graduate’s achievement or, perhaps, endurance.  For professors, it is rather a chore, lightened by having a last friendly encounter with some students who have made a good impression.  Such encounters are more likely in a comparatively small institution such as my law school, where the professors know many, if not most, of the students.  Part of my teaching is in a small special 2-year program.  The pedagogical intimacy fostered by the program makes for an even closer professor-student connection.  That has its good and bad sides, but at graduation it is definitely good.  Most of the students are smart and decent people, if not always fully-focused acolytes of The Law.  So there is a pride and a sense of loss (both of which may vary with the particular group) when they graduate.

Although I skipped my own law school graduation, I have now attended more than twenty such events at my school.  Add to that the graduations and promotion ceremonies (the latter are the “civil unions” of graduations) from college, high school, middle school, elementary school, the Little Tots kindergarten, the Tiny Tots nursery school, and I can hum Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March in my sleep.  So, here are some pet peeves about graduations collected over the years.

1.  If you are the speaker, avoid politics.  Not the time and place.  Although most liberal speakers respect that rule, folks from that side of the political spectrum seem much more prone to violate it than those from our side.  In fact, I have never seen a conservative speaker violate that rule.  Of course, that may be because there are far fewer conservative graduation speakers, too.  As a speaker, you may be correct to assume that most faculty are fellow-BDS sufferers (”Bush Derangement Syndrome”) and experience frequent Obamagasms. A goodly portion of the graduates may be so afflicted as well.  But quite likely at least 20-25% are not; among the parents and guests that percentage is likely to be higher.  You do not have time to convince them of the correctness of your thesis that Bush is responsible for original sin, that Cheney and the snake had a corrupt deal to get Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden so that Halliburton could take it over, or that Obama is, in truth and fact, The One.  So, all you do is annoy those graduates, parents, and guests and take away from their enjoyment of the day.  That’s not the thing to do for your hosts who will shortly try to get the graduates and their families to open their wallets for the old alma mater.  If you do not want to stick to the generally soothing, vaguely uplifting graduation speech matrix, fine.  Make balloon animals, make caustic comments about your ex-spouse, or give your take on the mysteries of the universe such as the nature of gravity or the reason why Donald Duck wears only a jacket but no pants.  The damage from such detours from the graduation norm is limited to you.  People may remember your speech (and you) as weird, but they will not be annoyed.  Better yet, they won’t hold your idiosyncracy against the school.

If you can, inject some humor.  If you can’t, be brief.  On second thought, be brief, anyway.

2.  If you are faculty, be at least minimally respectful to the speaker.  You don’t have to lead the standing ovation, but don’t lead the demonstrative exit from the stage during the speech, either.  Do what too many church goers seem to do:  Show up, mouth the words, stand up and sit down when everyone else does, and don’t make a spectacle of yourself so that the priest remembers that he hasn’t seen you there in awhile (not that that has happened to anyone I know).  When in doubt, quietly read a good book that you have brought.  In church that would be The Good Book, of course.

3.  If you are a student speaker, keep it light.  This is not the time to denounce the dean, get back at students or faculty for whatever slights you may perceive you suffered in school, or fawn at length over a professor with whom you have been infatuated, intellectually or otherwise (unless I am that professor, in which case, fawn at will).  Talk about your experiences so that other graduates can relate to them.  Don’t overdo the “We have triumphed heroically” theme.  Don’t single out others for particular mention.  Once you start down the road of mentioning some, where do you stop?  It becomes like trying to figure out whom to invite to a formal party and whom to exclude.  You’re just going to tick off some of the latter.  Good rule for graduation speeches:  First, do no harm.

4.  If you are a recipient of an honorary degree, great.  Accept the degree, perhaps with a few gracious comments.  The emphasis here is on “few.”  Don’t hijack the ceremony.  You are not the focal point of the occasion.  You have been selected out of recognition for some perceived good that you have done for someone, somewhere, sometime.  You have not been selected to analyze the state of the Union.  Having survived the graduation speakers, everyone is restive to get on with the show of awarding the real degrees.  Don’t make us rescind the honor bestowed on you.

5.  If you are a graduate, try, try, try, to act your age.  Seriously, dancing across the stage at a law school graduation?  Yelling at the audience?  Stick with champagne before the ceremony and lay off the 150-proof.  This is supposed to be a joyous, yet dignified, occasion to mark your academic and professional success.  You are joining the fraternity of lawyers, not of Tappa Kegga Bru.

And, what is it with bringing your kids to walk across the stage with you?  This started some years back when an occasional graduate would carry an infant, an extracurricular by-product of law school, across the stage.  That once had some cute novelty.  But now we have numerous graduates bringing gaggles of kids of all ages with them.  Enough already.  Next, people will be bringing their parents, spouses, educational loan originators, and pet goldfish.  If you cannot leave the kids with the other parent, a grandparent, or a guest at the ceremony for the few minutes while you walk across the stage, splurge on the child care and leave the little dears at home. I am qualified to give this advice. I have seven kids of my own. Don’t make me bring them on stage with me.

6.  If you are a guest at the graduation, see #5, above.  Act in accordance with your age and the occasion.  Clap and even cheer for your graduate.  Chanting the name in rhythmic cadence, “woofing,” or blowing air horns marks you as an ignoramus.  When I coached AYSO soccer, I taught my kids that, if they scored, they should congratulate each other.  But I told them also to knock off excessive showmanship.  It’s annoying and makes it look as if they rarely score.  So, the guests’ obnoxious display of family solidarity makes it seem like the graduate is the first person in their clan to get past the “I got readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic this year” stage.  Don’t make the graduate look as if he or she took five years to get through a three-year program, even if that’s what happened.  You know, “I remember junior year well.  It was the happiest three years of my life.”

7.  What is it with the academic attire?  I like the robes and hoods of the academic clan.  The lively contrast of the hoods that show the colors of the professors’ doctoral schools against the simple black of the robes lends dignity to the occasion.  But then it is all ruined by the mortarboard caps.  They are ugly and ill-fitting, with their square top attached to the cloth cap/helmet and their dangling tassel.  The whole headgear just screams for a plastic propeller to be attached on top.  The comedian Johnny Carson years ago had a skit where he dressed up in academic regalia and answered very corny and dumb questions.  Every time I see those ridiculous mortarboards I picture Johnny Carson sitting behind his desk.  They lend an overall air of parody to the whole occasion.  Solution?  Supply regular soft material academic caps, at least to the professors.

8.  One more thing:  Wear sunscreen.  I don’t really know why that’s good graduation advice, but I heard it somewhere.

Hail to the graduates.  Endow a professorship.  At least keep in touch.

Scott Ott at Scrappleface has learned about a CIA program to help Nancy Pelosi recall what she knew about the CIA’s waterboarding and when she knew it.

Today we celebrate Mom.

You know, the one who suffered through several hours of labor pains for you, and takes great pains to remind you of that fact for the next several decades.

The one who loves you unconditionally: “I know he shouldn’t have killed his neighbors over that dryer at the trailer park laundromat, but he’s really a good boy.”

The one who told you That Woman (or Man) is no good for you. And has been right again, and again, and again….

The one who wiped your nose and other parts without (too much) complaining.

The one who insisted that you eat your vegetables so you could be healthy, even if on a few more occasions than she will admit that vegetable was ketchup or relish at the local fast food joint.

The one who picked you up, patched your wounds, dried your tears, and comforted you when you were bullied. And then would take away your brother’s (or sister’s) privileges. As happened just last month.

The one who supplied the mercy to Dad’s justice whenever you messed up, which was all too often.

The one who some of your cockier Romeo teen-aged guy friends thought was hot, and your female friends thought was cool. You just didn’t see it, but then you were too busy ignoring her and copping attitudes.

The one who made you go to assorted lessons intended to improve your cultural sensibility and taste. Judging by the music to which you listen, the movies that you see, and the websites you visit, her valiant efforts have been in vain. But that’s a mother’s love, to try to make a silk purse out of sows’ ears.

No matter how often she has complained to your face about when were you going to get a real job, finish your degree, get married, or have kids, she brags about you to others. You are her son or daughter ”the doctor,” even if the doctorate is from a graduate school of education that advertises its various branches on local radio stations.

So give her the one thing she wants from you—attention. Pick up the phone. Call her. Do it. Now.

The popular use of the Internet generally has been a highly positive development. There is tremendous access to information and a much more democratic flow of that information. That promotes an energy, innovation, and creativity that cannot be matched by a slow, top-down dissemination of information funneled through limited numbers of outlets.

As always, there is a downside. One of the costs of the freedom of communication is its inevitable corrosive effect on civility. Many psychologically immature or troubled people are incapable or unwilling to observe a line between robust debate and personal attack. Crossing the line between freedom of expression and abuse is made easier by the anonymous nature of the mode of exchange. Predictably, communication on blogs often degenerates in quality as it increases in vitriol. When I visit other blogs, I sometimes skim through comments. Finding good comments is like panning for gold. It also becomes apparent rather quickly that there are different types of commenters.

This article takes a delightfully sardonic look at various categories of commenters. One may even recognize oneself in some of them.

Many people believe that the federal government should ban “assault weapons.” Such a suggestion triggers the inevitable storm of protest from Constitution-clingers, such as the NRA. Instead, government should turn its attention to real killing machines. Scrappleface has identified them. Fully automatic assault vehicles, which kill several times as many people as do all firearms. Worse, while most victims of firearms are people with criminal records, automatic assault vehicles kill mainly innocent bystanders.

President Obama has decided that being President means making the rounds of countries to apologize and beg forgiveness of leftist European elites, Turkish Islamist politicians, and leftist Latin American thugs for sundry real or imagined U.S. sins and to remain (as with many things) ambiguous about reparations for slavery. I thought it to be a good idea to help Mr. Obama continue his excellent adventure by reminding him of the many so-far unsaid things of which the U.S. remains guilty.

1. Russians are due an apology and compensation for the U.S. agreeing to buy Alaska for a measly few million dollars when possession of Alaska over the past half century would have given the Russians a much better spot from which to undermine the U.S. The Americans deprived Russia of that advantage, and also got a lot of oil to boot. But, fortunately, because of the environmentalists, much of that oil will not leave the ground and can be exploited by the Russians when we return the state to them. When that happens, SNL’s Sarah Palin will finally be right that she can see Russia from her window.

2. The Europeans are due an apology because the U.S. acted so arrogantly in sending troops over there in World War II and preventing the Europeans from having a common language and government—German. They’ve now had to work to develop a common government for five decades and still haven’t been able to accomplish that.

3. Those who demand reparations for slavery, a system abandoned a century-and-a-half ago after a war that caused the deaths of more than 600,000 Americans, because they are the same skin color as those long-dead slaves, can never be adequately compensated by money for the loss of their cultural patrimony. Instead, after the obligatory apology, those who still feel aggrieved should be offered free repatriation to Congo, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Rwanda, or whichever earthly paradise they would be occupying but for the fact that their ancestors were captured and sold into slavery by those ancestors’ relatives, neighbors, or the tribe down the path.

4. The city of Hamburg, Germany, is due compensation for loss of reputation caused by American capitalists such as McDonald’s selling certain offerings as “hamburgers.”

5. At least an apology is owed for the profound disappointment suffered by the males who come to the U.S. from abroad as immigrants, students, workers, or visitors, expecting American women to be as represented in the videos of Madonna, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and the rest of the MTV/VH-1 coterie. “Land of Opportunity,” my foot.

6. Along similar lines, an abject apology is due the many millions around the world whose struggles to lead a productive and fulfilling life have been thwarted by American cultural imperialism, as they adopt the urban underclass attitudes and lifestyles so prominently feted in American music, movies, clothing, and language.

7. The U.S. must apologize for producing 25% of the wealth produced by humans. If it weren’t for this unconscionable and overweening effort, doctors in Laos would be the ones producing cures for cancer, engineers in Equatorial Guinea would be the ones designing interplanetary exploration vehicles, and farmers in Albania would be the ones developing means to multiply crop yields to feed the hungry. Oh, and the EU would be the ones whose navy and air force would bring relief to overseas disaster victims.

8. The French are owed an apology for the rude affront to their Gallic delusions pride caused by the Simpsons, another example of American cultural aggression. Being called “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” is something no people should have to endure as a reminder of surrendering to the Mexicans in the 1860s and to the Germans within a few months in 1871 and 1940, and having to be rescued from surrender to the Germans in 1914 by the British and Russian Empires and in 1918 by the Americans. I’m going to leave out the surrenders to the British in 1763, to the British/Prussian/Allied forces in 1814 and 1815, to the Viet Minh in 1954, and to the Algerians in 1958.

9. The descendants of citizens of the Confederate States of America are owed an apology and compensation for the horrors inflicted on them by that unilateralist and Rethuglican terrorist, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s actions resulted in more than a quarter-million of them dead, their economy in ruins, large swaths of land intentionally devastated in a campaign of calculated terror, and their peculiar cultural and economic arrangements smashed in a frenzy of intolerance that did not respect cultural diversity or reflect multi-cultural tolerance. What ever happened to democratic self-determination of peoples? Thousands of Americans were detained in military prisons without charges and brutally treated. Even as ordinary civil courts were open, ordinary American citizens were tried in military courts for daring to offer dissent to Lincoln’s unnecessary and incompetently-waged war and his refusal to negotiate a political solution. In addition to an apology, the President must call for a “truth commission” and for a Congressional investigation led by Senator Patrick Leahy, whose calls for such an investigation of the Bush administration obviously qualify him for the task.

10. Apologies and compensation are also due our indigenous people, who, without the invasion of the ghastly European-Americans would still be able to live their idyllic existence as hunter-gatherers punctuated by bloody warfare and a tradition of torturing captives, and be able to do so without such racist oppressions as the wheel, an alphabet, horses, not to mention sanitary plumbing, modern medicine and science, and anything mechanical or electrical.

Iowahawk has been channeling the North Koreans in his attempt to pressure high-hit bloggers to share links and money with him.

Recently, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano endorsed the report that speculated about potential terrorist activities from Iraq War veterans and various individuals with views opposed to government, taxes, or abortion. Now, Iowahawk has come across a film script that seems to have been prepared by DHS, demonstrating how such rabid right-wing constitutionalists threaten to undermine the new American Free Prize System.

Scrappleface dissects the administration’s upcoming report on left-wing extremists.

Finding their way through Form 1040.

The federal government measures its tax collection in trillions of dollars, and the state and local governments combined almost match that effort. But the political class that is “managing” our economy constantly pleads impecuniousness. That is, of course, because their expenditures measure trillions more. So they threaten, finagle, and push to vacuum more money out of the pockets of hapless taxpayers. There is an entitlement culture, all right. It’s the culture of the tax collector believing himself to be entitled to your money, while perhaps deigning to leave you with enough for your subsistence.

But it is Easter time. A celebration of Jesus’s Resurrection. Jesus had sympathy and love for the despised tax collector. We may not be able to match such Divine love, but we can at least consider the tax collector’s situation from his or her perspective. What a burden to find additional trillions of dollars. Think about how often you find a penny that you leave lying on the ground. How long will it take our diligent tax collectors to find a couple of trillion additional dollars at that rate? And that’s just the feds, never mind Arnold and the gang in what passes for a legislature in California.

Or, consider having the tax collectors go through trash cans to find discarded cans and bottles. By the time the government pays for plastic bags, trash cans, or other non-recyclable containers to transport the recyclable containers to the recycling center, the tax collectors wouldn’t have a lot of taxes left to turn in.

The good news (from the tax collectors’ perspective) is that they have come up with very creative ways to transfer money from you to them. But, then, it’s easy for them to be creative. After all, what do they do as government workers those 364 days of the year while they await the Big Payoff on April 15? They have the time to sit around and scheme while you, poor drone, go to work.

Here are some examples of their handiwork, at all levels of their enterprise, federal, state, and local. Very creative. But insufficient, as the news reports tell us every day.

So, I, have come up with additional proposals for taxes. Joe Biden questioned the patriotism of Americans who want to retain some of their earnings and are reluctant to turn over even more of their income for Joe and the rest of the administration to distribute among its political supporters. And I don’t want to fail Joe’s definition of good character, which, for all I know, he plagiarized from someone else. In any case, I perform this service as a patriotic citizen. Consider it one of those charitable contributions that the administration wants to eliminate as a tax deduction for The Rich.

Taxes work best when they are levied on things that people need or really desire, so that demand for them is relatively inelastic in relation to price. Here, then, is Token Conservative’s list of new taxes, er, revenue enhancements, I mean, government policy investment opportunities.

1. New gas taxes are in constant rhetorical demand. I say, go for it. Impose new taxes on Mexican restaurants, barbeque joints, Tommy’s Burgers, and similar eateries whose wares produce excessive amounts of gas in the consumer. This tax is particularly beneficial, as it will reduce the emission of methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. We know it’s a potent greenhouse gas because everyone in the house turns green when too much of it is emitted.

2. Our governor and legislature have increased the vehicle tax. Hmm. Yes, there are lots of vehicles in California. But I think we can do better. I propose a “follicle tax.” This is like the traditional “head tax” assessed on each person. We charge a tax, once a year, based on the amount of hair that person has on his or her head. Just for people from New York or New Jersey, the tax will be assessed on the amount of hair on his (or her) back. Since most people love to show off their hair, there is unlikely to be much tax avoidance. For the cheats that may try to shave their heads, we can impute hair much as we impute income, by reconstructing their follicular wealth based on annual expenditures on hair products. We can also tax on “constructive” hair by basing it on “twelve-hour shadow” stubble. Any evidence of recent shaving will be construed as attempted tax fraud and trigger a hairy penalty.

Another advantage of this tax is that it is likely to hit younger people more than other taxes, such as income or real estate taxes, will. Taxing them gives young people an early stake in the community, “skin in the game,” as our Community organizer-in-Chief might say. Doing that is likely to rid them sooner of feel-good, pie-in-the-sky liberal redistributionist sympathies.

3. A variant of number 2 might be the “blonde tax.” Judging by the sales of blonde hair coloring products, this is another tax that people will tolerate. One drawback of the tax is that it will hit some localities or states more than others. For example, there are a lot of blondes in Minnesota, but fewer in Rhode Island. There are a lot more blondes in California than in Rhode Island. There probably are a lot more blondes in California from Rhode Island than they were when they lived in Rhode Island. So this tax is more suited as a state or local levy.

4. The Obama administration wants to cap CO2 emissions that industry belches into the air. They are amateurs. Just think about this. Humans exhale CO2. Now, you may say, “Well, I just emit a little bit of killer gas.” Sure, but you do this, what, 15 times a minute (more in the presence of your object of affection, be s/he live, virtual, or plastic), 900 times an hour, 23,000 times a day, more than 8 million times a year. Now, 8 million may not look like much in a government budget, but, my friend, you are a polluter. Multiply this by 6 billion others, and we have Earth in the Balance. What if we could just reduce inhaling and exhaling to pre-bong levels of the 1950s? You get ten breaths per minute. Above that there will be a tax. Don’t think of avoiding this tax. Every breath you take; every move you make; every step you take; the pollution police will be watching you.

Let me turn to my students for a minute. Those of you who are heavy breathers, and you (and I) know who you are, can buy CO2 emission rights from those who are shallow breathers. Again, we know who those are, too, because we can tell from their soft snoring when they fall asleep in class.

5. One target of taxation is income. A characteristic of income is its fluidity. As tax collectors are finding out in this recession, when income drops, collections do likewise. Assets are sturdier tax targets. Unless a bubble develops, asset-based taxes are relatively stable. This is particularly true for land, “real property.” Of course, people try to hide assets in overseas accounts, safe deposit boxes, behind the furnace in the cellar. But I have in mind an asset that people don’t hide or try to minimize. In fact, they are often quite brazen in their display. I am talking about the female bosom.

Among women, this tax is egalitarian in that there are no “haves” and “have-nots.” But the taxes go up, as the wealth in the asset increases. Just as with real estate taxes, the size of the acreage will affect taxes owed, though allowance might be made for minors whose assets are still in the development phase, and for those at the other end whose assets are suffering from depletion and accelerated depreciation. But, better than real estate taxes, there is not a finite supply of acreage. Indeed, particularly in Southern California cosmetic surgery offices, new acreage seems to be created with satisfying frequency. The tax will apply, whether the woman has obtained her land of plenty by luck of inheritance, by the sweat of her brow at the pectoral exercise machine in the gym, by diet, or by just buying the darn things. This is an obvious solution to the California budget shortfall.

Some are suggesting that the growth of these assets per woman over the last fifty years represents a temporary bubble. They remind us of lean periods such as the “flapper” years of the 1920s or the “Twiggy” fashion of the 1960s. I think that as long as the government does not foster foolish credit policies that lets women overextend themselves by purchasing obscenely huge assets, this is merely prudent expansion that rests on a solid foundation, not a bubble that lacks supporting infrastructure. Unlike the dollar. Indeed, if one were to judge various investments, I would surmise that female bosoms have held up better over the last decade than stocks, bonds, or real estate.

6. Some might object to the foregoing as sexually discriminatory, in that it taxes only female assets. So, let me propose a supplemental tax imposed on males. After all, why should their endowments go untaxed? There are some problems, though, that make such analogous taxation of male assets more problematic. One issue is determining the point of assessment. Real estate is assessed as of a particular date each year, as can be done with female bosoms. For the latter, we might choose Valentine’s Day, or the day of her husband’s/boyfriend’s/sugar daddy’s latest pay raise.

But the peculiarly male asset exhibits a tendency to rise and fall with (sometimes distressing) frequency. Factors such as older age and work stress may cause increased likelihood of a poorly-performing asset. Marriage, though, can modulate the erratic fluctuations and produce steadier and more predictable performance. Another problem is just trying to assess a “value” based on the size of the endowment, since all males but a few show-offs, as well as that 95% of women who lie to pollsters, insist that the real value of the asset is not based on its size. The point is that it becomes difficult to assess a value under those circumstances. This is not an effective and predictable tax system.

The best solution I can come up with is to tax condoms. Just as there are different tax rates for different levels of income or different uses of property, one can impose different taxes on the sale of condoms depending on their size. Instead of an “excise tax,” call it a “circumcise tax.” If a man buys “regular” condoms, assess a tax of x percent; if he buys “magnums,” make it 2x percent. Have condom manufacturers produce a subcompact “mini-me” size that will be taxed at x/2 percent.

The mini-me tax is like residential property; the regular is commercial; and the magnum is industrial. The beauty of the system, though, is that almost every American male wants to be seen buying the magnum, even if the resulting fit is like skin on a Shar-Pei. So they’ll pay the higher tax to be perceived as a titan of industry. No one wants to be seen as average in this matter, though, by definition, this is really perfectly respectable. And the mini-me will be bought only by a few oddballs like trendy slackers of dubious sexuality, Prius-driving liberal college professors, and various members of the Obama administration who can’t seem to be able to afford to pay their taxes.

7. Income taxes are usually paid on earnings. But income can be imputed. For example, if one grows one’s own food instead of working at the Kwik-E-Mart, getting a paycheck and then buying groceries at Von’s, one has avoided income taxes though one is in the same economic position as the working drone who must pay those taxes on his income. Thus, the value of what is grown should be imputed as income. This usually isn’t done because of the difficulty of enforcement and fear that the taxpayers would resort to the 18th century way of dealing with abusive tax collectors, by tarring and feathering.

However, one scenario of imputed tax might work. I call this the “American Idle” tax. You are either at work, or you are not. If you are not, you could be. And you selfishly are not contributing to the common good, in this time of hope and change. Thus, there should be income imputed to you whenever you are not at work, at the same rate of pay as when you are at work. [Note: There might appear to be some problems regarding government workers, as it is difficult to distinguish when they are working and when not. But they are getting paid for not working while in their offices, so the result from imputation of income will be the same for them.] That income, imputed or earned, can be taxed at regular rates.

8. Many jurisdictions impose licensing fees and business taxes on certain professions. I propose another tax that not only will raise money, but will further counteract global warming. I mean a “hot air” tax. This would impose a tax of one cent (a very small tax, really) on each word uttered or written by the Iowa Supreme Court, every politician, bureaucrat, judge (after an exemption of 1000 words per written opinion), journalist (loosely defined to include L.A. Times reporters), school administrator, lawyer, professor, and entertainer (other than singing songs or reading scripts). Oh, and to Britney Spears. In the spirit of not taxing activities on the internet, blogging would be excluded from this tax, as would be words from science and engineering professors. Finally, the words of anyone who is both a constitutional law professor and a blogger, and who also works at a private law school in Los Angeles that is not a component of a university, would be excluded. I wrote the tax; I write the exclusion.

9. There are gift taxes, estate taxes, and inheritance taxes. One can’t even give it away without Uncle demanding a cut. But why wait until the taxpayer dies? With life expectancy creeping up at least until Obama’s government health care program is fully operative, this is an unconscionable waste of time. Remember: A tax delayed is a tax avoided.

Just take the value of a taxpayer’s current assets at his or her wealthiest point, say, age 60, and calculate the likely value at his or her death. One can use forward-looking models developed by global warming enthusiasts. When those models have been used to predict current temperatures based on past statistics, they have inevitably and significantly overstated warming. This method then will greatly overstate the taxpayer’s likely wealth at death. But if the taxpayer objects to the use of this model, tell him he is an irrational ”denier” going against a scientific consensus and threaten him with job loss.

Assess a tax, perhaps 45%, based on that projected value and require the taxpayer to pay it now. If at his death, the projected value was too low, require the taxpayer’s estate to pay tax on the difference. If the projected value was too high, so what? What’s he going to do about it? He’s dead.

10. There is currently a lot of activity that is criminalized or otherwise frustrated by law. Those activities should be legalized and taxed. Frequently-proffered examples are anti-drug laws and anti-prostitution laws. Moreover, legalizing but taxing such activities will allow law enforcement to be used for more important things like waiting around while a mass killer finishes his peculiar leisurely pursuit of happiness, or ensuring a crime-free zone around donut shops by massive police presence. We are already doing that with gambling taxes. But a government that thinks nothing about tripling the national debt in the next ten years, and talking about annual trillion dollar (in today’s value) spending deficits, needs to match that on the tax side with equal audacity. Think big, Mr. President.

Tax, don’t criminalize, murder. There’s a hunting season for game. How about a hunting season on your neighbors, relatives, co-workers? Heck, to keep things from getting out of hand, limit the number of annual permits and hold drawings.

Tax, don’t criminalize, fraud. Wouldn’t it be more productive to assess an additional fraud tax on Bernie Madoff than to have him rot in jail? He’s much more useful getting people to give him their money, no questions asked, than mopping prison floors. And, let’s be honest, he’s really too old for prison recreation. Make the IRS his partner in getting money from The Rich.

Tax, don’t criminalize, trafficking in body parts. The buyer gets a needed part. The seller gets cash for something he didn’t really want or need. Society benefits in that the part will be put to its highest and best use. The government gets taxes. Everyone wins.

Tax, don’t criminalize, abortions. Scrap silly distinctions based on viability. Make the taxes higher, the later in the term. If the child is used for organ harvesting, tax that.

Let heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, no-sexuals, monogamists, bigamists, polygamists, and assorted masoch-ists get married, divorced, annulled. But tax, tax, tax. Sure, moral traditionalists might shudder at some of these ideas, but their religiously-motivated prejudices and stereotypes must not influence tax policy. Separation of church and state, and all that. The government’s need is great and unsatisfied, and there is nothing moral about taxes.

I have done my patriotic duty and served up a plan. Now it’s up to the President, Patriotic Joe, and Timmeh Geithner to get it done.

It’s time to check in with the comrades from The People’s Cube, the “Stalinist version of The Onion,” as Rush Limbaugh puts it. One of the writers, Red Square, was born in the Soviet Union and made the jump to the U.S. Having come to appreciate freedom and the opportunities for personal advancement in the U.S., Red Square is concerned that Obama’s vision of the future bears an eerie resemblance to the past that he left behind.

He describes the six dialectical contradictions of socialism in the Soviet Union that may soon be coming to the U.S. He then discloses other such contradictions in current American liberalism, too many of which unfortunately are true.

While on the site, check out the great sidebars of “ads” and “news.” Link to their glossary for fine liberal definitions. For example, for “choice,” the commissars tell us, “It is best exemplified by a statement that Maxine Waters, a US Congresswoman (D-Calif) made at a Pro-Abortion Rally in Washington, DC on 4/25/04: ‘I have to march because my mother could not have an abortion.’” Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer. Who says California voters don’t have a wicked sense of humor?

At least since the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate, there has been an open conflict among conservatives between the elites and the base. The focus of contention has often been on Sarah Palin herself. At the very least, she has been a frequent lightning rod for the elite’s disenchantment with the influence of the “coarser elements” of the movement. To gain a better insight into the elite’s disdain for Palin and her supporters, Iowahawk has consulted that commodore of the conservative elites, T. Coddington Van Voorhees, VII. His dissection of Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana demonstrates the elite’s keen understanding of the trends in American conservatism.

When I did my first year of law school at Harvard (before grad school and transfer to Stanford), my civil procedure professor was Arthur R. Miller. Professor Miller was a rising star at the time, and he has certainly lived up to his potential as a teacher, litigator, and media presence. He cultivated a certain flamboyance, from his classroom theatrics, to his romantic relationship with a much younger, tall, blonde student, to his often stylish mode of dress. Hey, wait a minute, why does some of that sound vaguely familiar?

As a subject, civil procedure can be the Mojave Desert of law. Talk about a dry topic. Miller managed to make most of it tolerable. I rather enjoyed jurisdiction, in fact. That did not keep me from being absolutely lost when he called on me for the ancient precedent of Pennoyer v. Neff, a jurisdiction case I had read and thoroughly (I thought) prepared. I even had a premonition that he would call on me for the case, which is why I had prepared it so carefully. It is the only case in law school where I fell completely apart under questioning. He was actually quite gracious about it afterwards, because he could tell I had done the work and wasn’t just blowing smoke. Still, it was quite the “learning experience.”

Miller and I are probably on opposite ends of the political spectrum, and he has since decamped to New York University Law School, cough, cough.

I came across this South Park-like ode to Professor Miller. Kind of cool.

Following the story about the proposed British law against “homophobic” jokes that I covered earlier, Iowahawk brings news of British success at intercepting smuggling of dangerous jokes into the country.{Caution: mature topic]

Do you want the President to fail? Do you think that Rush Limbaugh is un-American for suggesting so? Both? Now everyone can put in his two cents about whether President Obama should fail by voting in this poll.

In celebration of President Obama’s renaming of the Global War on Terror the “Overseas Contingency Operation,” Fred Schwarz of National Review has created the Obama-Matic Content-Free Euphemism Generator. It works really well. You, too, can work for the administration as it changes the names (if not the content) of those bad policies of the evil Bush administration. Cross-cultural Consensus Capability; Worldwide Correction Facility; Progressive Diversity Process. Impressive, yet simple. And, one shudders to think, eminently credible.

As we wait and wonder whether the Conficker computer worm is real or an April Fool’s Day joke, there are some truly frightening stories floating around that I hope to hear are just elaborate hoaxes or practical jokes. Here are my top ten, right now:

10. Pants worn by American males that are “belted” around the bottom of their butt cheeks, whether or not the displayed underwear is sewn onto the pants.

9. United Nations Human Rights Commission chaired by Lybia; Canadian Human Rights Commission having as a member someone who trolls websites uttering “hate speech” to find purveyors of “hate speech” to place in front of the tribunal; Ontario Human Rights Commission having as a member someone who derisively refers to the First Amendment’s free speech protection as an “American concept” not accepted in Canada; Any Human Rights Commission.

8. Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore.

7. Feminist theory on anything.

6. Cable television reality shows that, without seeming exception, make the old Jerry Springer television show look like high-brow Masterpiece Theatre.

5. Celebrity Single Motherhood as the new fashion accessory, replacing small dogs in purses.

4. Los Angeles Clippers Professional Basketball Team.

3. Global warming alarmism breathlessly peddled by celebutards.

2. Senator Al Franken.

1. Federal budgets measured in trillions of dollars with deficits that, at a minimum, approach a trillion dollars per year, for the indefinite future.

I mean, think about it. These are just too absurd to be real.

The President obviously has a deep and fascinating connection with his teleprompter. The teleprompter has helped catapult Barack Obama into the White House and has, since, saved the President from various gaffes that he is inclined to making when the two are separated. Is there any doubt that, had Mr. Obama’s teleprompter been nearby during his appearance on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, there would have been no Obama joke at the expense of the Special Olympics?

So it is only fitting that the teleprompter should set up his own blog to talk about his adventures with the Big Guy. I especially like his postings about Rush Limbaugh and about the veiled Iranian Specialist Prompter from the State Department.

Meanwhile, the “progressive” Slate magazine still has its Jacob Weisberg feature, “Bushism of the Day.” W has been gone two months. But, rather than focus on the walking risibility that is Barack Obama without his faithful companion, Teleprompter, Slate continues desperately to keep alive its out-of-date comedy routine. How progressive.

Professor Victor Davis Hanson writes a wonderful parody. He imagines what would have happened had the Bush administration, upon taking office, acted as the Obama administration has, from its policy ineptness, to its nominees’ ethical problems, to its pursuit of “enemies” in the opposing party, to the Blitzkrieg for its ideological agenda, to the President’s personal prickliness and shunting of responsibility. How would the media have reacted by now? Though the answer is obvious, the article underscores the problem and skewers the usual suspects.

Jonathan Swift (no, not that one) contributes his ideas for the prevention of global warming: Craft the carbon tax, “stimulus,” and health care to eliminate the rabble while promoting the propagation of the “right kind” of people. That’s how you save a planet, and the Obama-Pelosi program is a good step to doing just that by making ordinary life much more expensive in the future and rationing health care.

As a general rule, when blogging about law, politics, religion, and philosophy, one should strive to avoid exploiting the easy joke. Cleverness should be the guide. But sometimes the subject is just too seductive. The will is overcome. One relents to temptation, and the cheap punch line appears. So it is here, I must warn.

It is reassuring to know that, in the midst of what has been decried as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, government still has time to address the really hairy problems of the day. The New Jersey legislature is contemplating a bill to make “Brazilian waxes” illegal. Brazilian waxes, for the uninitiated, are cosmetic procedures that today involve the removal of a hirsute patch from (typically female) areas of the anatomy deemed inappropriate for full exposure in almost all public settings. These procedures came about as bikini bathing suits became ever more miniaturized to string bikinis and then thongs. Such garments are a sort of fashion equivalent to string theory in physics, as their physical location, shape, and coverage can shift in unpredictable ways, thereby necessitating the tonsorial innovation that is the topic here.

To be sure, New Jersey is not Brazil, and Hoboken is not Rio. But what the women may lack in innate sensuality, they make up in enthusiasm. Apparently the procedure is quite popular with the masses, and rumors of the legislature’s plan have caused women and the beauty industry to wax wroth over this intrusion into personal autonomy. The legislature claims public health reasons, but some cynics suspect that this is naked political favoritism at work since waxing of other areas of the female corpus would still be legal. The laser industry has become the focus of suspicion.

If this law passes, presumably private in-the-home removal by shaving or waxing would increase. Some libertarian waxers baldly predict a rise in undercover waxings by untrained personnel. Those latter are usually known as “husbands” or “significant others.” And shaving at home would be available for those too intimidated to be waxed by amateurs. Given the supposed public health basis of the law, an obvious public service announcement presents itself, “The wife you shave may be your own.”

New Jersey is a Democratic state that President Obama carried handily in the election. Are New Jersey Democrats following their party leader and adopting yet another pro-Bush policy now that the campaign is over? If so, this is not the time. Allowing the women in the Garden State to have professionals, ahh, landscape the affected area injects money into the economy and stimulates further growth (of the economy). After all, if the feds can promise miracles from taking people’s money and spending it, what’s wrong with private wax-and-spend efforts?

*With apologies to Mark Steyn and, of course, President George H.W. Bush.

UPDATE: It’s gone. The proposal to ban Brazilian waxes has been abandoned. The territory down under is now safe for denuding.

Today is that great day when all are Irish, no matter that neither they nor any of their ancestors have been within a thousand miles of the Emerald Isle. We celebrate by drinking alcohol, wearing the color green, drinking alcohol, eating cabbage (green, naturally), drinking alcohol, dancing a reel with some comely lass named Erin or Megan (if you want to dance with Sean, that’s not from my perspective, so you’re on your own), and, of course, drinking alcohol.

Notice the theme. Drinking. Alcohol. Beer, stout, or Old Bushmills. For the more delicate, Bailey’s Irish Creme will do. If you drink anything with less than 5% alcohol, color it green, one of the vilest customs associated with that color. The only product of that color that is more vile to consume is the green eggs and ham that my children’s preschool class used to fix for Dad’s Day set about this time of year. Eating that food was done presumably as a test of manhood less traumatic for the children to watch than having the dads, say, suspend themselves from the ceiling by hooks through their pectorals. As one might guess I do not like green eggs and ham; I do not like them, Sam I am. But I digress.

The copious consumption of alcohol is done socially and often accompanied by more or less boozy renditions of Danny Boy or some Irish song ever recorded by the Irish Rovers (and available on amazon.com). More recently, the hard core contingent’s theme song more likely tends to Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping” (”I get knocked down…”). Not to overintellectualize boozing habits, but I attribute this change to our greater personal nihilism resulting from the increasing legal regimentation of our lives. By the way, no insult to the Irish intended when I use an English band’s song about politicking as the source of a Saint Patrick’s Day drinking song.

As the liquor takes effect, it becomes easier to tell those Irish jokes that sound more humorous to the listener in direct relation to his blood alcohol content:

Father Michael leaves church in Dublin late Saturday night. He walks down the street and notices a figure on the sidewalk swerving from lamppost to building and back again. As he gets closer, he recognizes a parishioner. “Drunk again, Murphy!” thunders Father Michael. Murphy, leaning precariously against a lamppost, looks up at the priest. “Why, Father! Me, too!” comes the surprised response.

See what I mean?

But let us think this through. What are we celebrating here? First, as revelers reminisce about their exaggerated connections to the “Auld Sod,” consider that people fled the place in droves. It was so bad that, despite the kinds of birthrates one might expect from a thoroughly Catholic nation, it took Ireland three generations to make up the population losses it suffered in the second half of the 19^th century. For decades, the largest Irish cities were not in Ireland.

Second, could there be a holiday that perpetuates more of an ethnic stereotype? Imagine celebrating a holiday on behalf of the Germans (the largest group of European ethnic ancestry among Americans) by dressing in leather pants and funny hats and, with beer stein in hand, invading other neighborhoods. Oh, wait, except for the last part, we call that Oktoberfest. Remember the parade scene in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”?

Well, how about an Italian holiday where we all eat pasta, drink vino, wear black suits and sunglasses, drive big American cars, say “youse” and “goombah” a lot, and talk about our connections to “The Family”? (I hasten to add that I know that there is no such thing as “The Family.” I swear omerta.)

Or how about a day that celebrates our African-American heritage by eating lots of fried chicken and watermelon, washed down by Colt .45 malt liquor or grape Kool-Aid, and accompanied by hours of hip-hop dancing and characterized by unusual syntax and verb forms when talking? You know, the kind of speaking otherwise done only by white suburban teenage boys. Al Sharpton and his posse would be in a red alert in moments.

I am sure that people can think of stereotypes of other ethnic groups, a particularly entertaining project with the help of (non-green) alcohol. The French are my favorite target, with the English not far behind (remember, we’re all Irish today).

But, hey, I don’t want to be a spoilsport. Let us hoist one to the Irish and their valuable contributions to our way of life, food (such as the appropriately named “blaa”), and entertainers then and now.

So, Officer O’Rourke hears a crash. He looks over and sees that a car has collided with another from behind. He walks over to the car in front, and sees the rabbi from the local synagogue. The rabbi is fine, except for a cut lip. O’Rourke storms over to the second car to confront the miscreant who has done this to the rabbi. When he gets there, he looks in and exclaims, “Well, ‘ow fast d’ ye think ‘e was goin’ when ‘e backed into ye, Father?”

Time for a refill.

Had enough with the antics of whiners, hypocrites, and enablers of the legions of the perpetually offended and other professional victims? Then don’t pay attention to members of Congress and the administration. Want to fight back? Then rally around something one of my students forwarded to me, a “Bill of Wrongs”:

“We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional idiots out there. 

“We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights.

“ARTICLE I:            You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth.   More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

“ARTICLE II:           You do not have the right to never be offended.  This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone—not just you!  You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.

“ARTICLE III:         You do not have the right to be free from harm.  If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful.  Do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

“ARTICLE IV:         You do not have the right to free food and housing.  Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

“ARTICLE V:          You do not have the right to physically harm other people.  If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don’t be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

“ARTICLE VI:         You do not have the right to the possessions of others.  If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don’t be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won’t have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

“ARTICLE VII:        You do not have the right to a job.  All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

“ARTICLE VIII:      You do not have the right to happiness.  Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

“ARTICLE IX:         This is an English speaking country.  We don’t care where you are from, English is our language.  Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!

“ARTICLE X:           You do not have the right to change our country’s history or heritage.  This country was founded on the belief in one true God.  And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution.  The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!” 

 HT: Neal Zaslavsky

A cautionary tale for some law students (interested in products liability), this item can also be read as a parable for what happens when the economic system of an otherwise healthy body politic is subjected to too much government stimulus and intervention. The system becomes too rigid to adapt to changing conditions and eventually collapses. Two Russian “female friends” are optional.

I provided my prognostications of the movies people will be talking about in 2009. Happy news. Iowahawk provides his round-up of the fabulous feature flicks forecast for 2009.

Oscar weekend has come and gone. That’s a time for self-congratulation to add to the constant self-absorption in a company town such as L.A., or at least in certain areas habituated by those who work in The Industry. But now, it is time to look ahead to 2009. Trying to scope out likely Oscar candidates for next year, I contacted my Industry insider, Les Silverscreen. Les was on his way from his hillside house in Silver Lake to the studios in Burbank to meet about a project, so he had time to chat on his mobile. He told me about some exciting deals in development.

Les told me that the new concept in Hollywood is BOPI, “Bush-Out/Patriotism-In.” When I sounded incredulous, he gave me the example of the many Democrats on election night who were singing the national anthem, though some of the more enthusiastic were overheard singing The Internationale. He also reminded me of the “Pledge” that many entertainers have made to serve Obama. So there is now a whole different way of properly showing one’s narcissism in Hollywood since November 4.

I asked Les whether that meant fewer movies like Redacted, Rendition, or In the Valley of Elah, which showed the U.S. military and government as corrupt, murderous, evil, conspiratorial, or all of the foregoing. He told me not to be ridiculous. The U.S. military and officials would still be treated that way, except now when they engaged in their atrocities and conspiracies they would be shown to be disobeying clear and direct orders from Obama.

Some of the exciting projects:

A couple of foreign films look particularly promising. Famed German director Leni Weisenheimer is making Der Triumph des Kools (The Triumph of the Cool) about the athletic basketball talents and aloof smartness of a young bi-racial loner at an exclusive Hawaiian prep school that carry him along to become the leader of the greatest military power of his time. There are terrific scenes of hundreds of thousands of tearful and fainting admirers lining the streets shouting his name. One particularly thigh-tingling event is when he finally delivers a powerful speech in a stadium on a huge stage decorated with columns and flags.

The other foreign film is by noted Japanese director Akira Arigato, The Seven Uncle Samurai. This is a story of an outnumbered motley crew of dedicated and tenacious men and women who heroically rescue a community from the clutches of an evil and despotic robber baron and his henchmen. The robber baron is the infamous Dik Che-ni, a foreign occupier who works through his political puppet, Gorgo Bushido. Bushido has become a liability, so Che-ni has recruited the Mikado Mekkein and a temptress from the north, Sarako Palinomi to continue his nefarious rule. But the brave band, led by the Samurai Barako and his constant companion Mi-chel, thwarts their devious plans. Barako’s plan succeeds when one of Mekkein’s friends, Hilari, turns on him and joins forces with Barako. They start out with ten members of the group, but on their quest Barako has to please the gods of victory by forcing three of his group, the spirit-master Jeremia, the sage Ayer-san, and the enforcer Belago to commit harakiri.

One comedy film that shows great potential is Big Momma’s White House, a tale of subterfuge and confusion all surrounding a larger-than-life woman who lives in the house. Another is The Fresh Community Organizer of Hyde Park, a full-length feature based on a popular television series.

On the dramatic side, there are several blockbusters in the works. The first, The Next Ten Commandments, is about a great leader who helps his people, called liberals, escape from bondage at the hands of an oppressor known as the Great Republican, Ronaldus Magnus, and his descendants. After they gain their freedom, the leader gives his people ten commandments to follow, Hope, Change, Obey, Pledge, Sacrifice, Don’t be complacent. The rest are still being put together by the creative department headed by a Nancy Pilates or something-or-other. I couldn’t quite catch the name Les mentioned. Anyway, to make sure that the oppressors cannot put the liberal leader’s people in bondage again, the leader lets loose various evils on the oppressors. He first lets loose a plague of paper money that makes the oppressors’ money worthless. He then takes over their banks and destroys the money changers’ investments. Then he gives to those who recognize him as their leader land and houses at a special low price and forces their oppressors to pay for that land and houses. At that point, Les passed through a dead zone for phone reception, and I could not hear the rest of the list.

Another planned blockbuster is The Really Greatest Story Ever Told. This is the story of a “lightworker” who becomes man to save humans from themselves and to bring them salvation. The story opens when he is born in a military-style building run by a public “free” clinic because, due to high health care costs, there was no room for them at the private hospital. In commemoration of that, his parents call him Barrack. As a young boy, Barrack astounds everyone by preaching at a school, called a madrassah, of a different religion. After he grows up, he becomes a community organizer. Soon, he is gathering many disciples who follow him as their master. He performs miracles. At his sermons, people faint as the evil spirits of capitalism and selfishness leave them. He heals the sick through the laying on of handfuls of money he has taken from the moneychangers and other financial dealers. He takes a small quantity of dough, pronounces his secret “stimulus” over it, and inflates it into a large amount, so large as to be incomprehensible to the people watching in awe. He makes the ocean waters recede from their current levels. His followers are amazed when he tells them it is time to make the temperatures go down. They are more amazed when the temperatures promptly go down each day from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. And the people, too, are amazed. Who is this man, named Barrack, they ask? Is he The One? He tells them that they must believe in him, but he also assures them that they are the change they have been waiting for.

Several documentaries are also in the running. One is Celsius 1/20, by a huge name in Hollywood whose movies make fat profits. Or, maybe Les said it was a fat name whose movies make huge profits; I can’t recall. In a complete reversal of the usual tone of this man’s films, the story takes a respectful, even fawning, look at the first 100 days of the presidency of Barack Obama that began January 20. Another is The Last Temptation of Obama. The central thesis of the movie is that Obama has been subjected to the many temptations that ordinary humans face, such as fear, doubt, depression, reluctance (well, not really that one), and smoking. He faces and conquers these weaknesses (in the case of depression by spending trillions of dollars) without ever giving into them, except for the smoking.  A third promising film is a look at the future of the Social Security System. The producers are still deciding whether to call the film No Country for Old People, No Old People for the Country, or Logan’s Run 2.

Bollywood is seeking to build on its success in the U.S. with Slumdawg Community Organizer. This is the story of a theretofore-unknown community organizer who is running for President. During the campaign he seems to have an answer for everything. People wonder how a mere community organizer who has never done anything significant could know all these things. Is he just lucky in the questions he is asked? Are his listerners just reading their own thoughts into his answers? Slowly it emerges that the answers are based on other aspects of his life, as a Harvard Law School student, as a student at an exclusive Hawaiian prep school, as a long-time resident of Indonesia attending a Muslim school, as an associate at a Chicago law firm, as a confidante of a controversial preacher, and as a state senator known for his ambiguous “present” votes. But will he win the election, or will the evil forces arrayed against him seize power to deny him his prize?

Finally, indie productions are expected to go full bore with new films. Les Silverscreen listed some of them for me. There are actually two new genres proposed for the next Oscars to deal with the love that the non-conformist and creative members of the indie community all have for our dear leader. The categories, which will be used for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival, are Obamadramas and Barackumentaries. Some titles for films in development include, The Obama Story, The Story of Obama, Obama’s Story, and Barack’s World. One filmmaker wanted to call hers The Story of O, but ran into copyright issues.

If Les Silverscreen is right, this year promises to be yet another triumph for the creative spirit of Hollywood that causes our filmmakers, each in his or her unique way, to challenge convention and to speak truth to power.

With numbers in the news, Iowahawk is on the case. He notes the discovery of the largest number ever, the “stimulus,” with the unusual characteristic that it has no defined limits. It might be fair, then, to say that as we grasp the concept of the stimulus we are approaching, but not quite reaching, a “value” of infinity. Think of it as the relationship of an asymptote to the y-axis as a function of x. Notice also his analysis of the magic of numbers in relation to the census as the White House takes the delicate task of calculating that number out of the hands of the Commerce Department. As always with Iowahawk, viewer discretion is advised as to linguistic content.

Claudia Rosett, a columnist for Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, presents the formula for success for the Iranians (or anyone else so inclined) to acquire nuclear weapons. After all, as the article boldly proclaims, “the big bomb is no longer just a longed-for luxury, but a totalitarian must-have.”

Ah, Valentine’s Day. A day that has become synonymous with love, thanks to the efforts of the Hallmark Card Company. The day shares an artificiality with days of similar ilk, such as the frantic exuberance of New Year’s Eve, the self-conscious bacchanalia on Mardi Gras, and the forced conviviality of shared drunkenness on St. Patrick’s Day. Well, maybe the last one isn’t artificial. Still, the fair sex expects that at least lip service be paid to this day, if there is to be a meeting of lips in the future.

I hold a J.D. degree. Upon further study, a holder of such a degree may qualify for an LL.M. degree. I believe that stands for “LL-uu-vv Master,” and I have been studying the subject many years both from academic and practical angles. So, I am prepared to help especially the many male law students who have scored poorly on the Love Skills Assessment Test (LSAT). I am pleased to offer some needed advice on what to do—and what not to do—to assure that they are able to pass the bar to the romance that the females in their lives have invested in this day.

Here are some gift suggestions compiled in part through trial-and-error. For ease of understanding they are helpfully designated with “pass” and “fail.” CAUTION: Content warning.

1. There is the trite, but always welcome, symbolic gift of cut flowers. Pass, for this perennial favorite of hot, passionate romance. Fail.

2. Chocolates do wonders for the sweetie in your life. Pass, for these divine delectables destined to melt in her mouth. Fail.

3. A sensitive woman such as your object of affection loves poetry. Pass. Though, personally, I don’t get it, she will. And then, too, will you. Fail.

4. If you are not blessed with the looks of the male models on romance paperbacks (and you students know who you are; well, everyone else knows who you are), a bottle of the fruit of the vine may soften her gaze. Pass. Even though this works no better than much cheaper vintages, she will always think of you as the guy who introduced her to the Dom. Hint: Keep the bottle. In the future, buy the cheap (but still palatable) stuff at Trader Joe’s. Make sure she’s not looking when you pop the cork on the less pricey vintage. Then, (carefully and slowly!) fill the Trader Joe’s brew into the Dom bottle. Ostentatiously display it to her. She won’t know the difference because psychologically she’ll be expecting Dom. If she can still tell the difference, she’s high maintenance. Drop her. For those who are not on student loans and who are paying their own way, this, too, is a pass. It will produce the right mood. She will be convinced that something connected to that picture just has to be good. Fail.

5. Unless you just met her on the bus last night, sensuous lingerie will turn even a lawyer into a playful kitten. Pass, for sexy elegance when the lights get turned low, and potential humor as you jokingly point out that the saleswoman took half off when you bought it. Fail. In fact, expulsion.

6. No woman can resist jewelry as a token of affection. Unless you’re asking her to marry you, it can be very simple. And, seriously, you’re not going to ask her to marry you on Valentine’s Day like 50 million other cliche’-trapped guys have, are you? On the other hand, proposing to her on Valentine’s Day will make it easier to spare yourself awkward moments in the future when she asks whether you remember the day you got engaged. Pass. Be sure to take your discount coupon. Fail. Hint: You might earn a “re-read,” if you ask that she buy this for herself as a present to you for your birthday.

7. Being with you on Valentine’s Day makes some women just want to curl up and die watch a good movie with their Romeo (you). This is one of those Mickey Mouse, easy courses even my old fraternity brothers could “Pass.”  There’s not just one “right” answer. It’s like allowing you to make two choices on a true/false test. Or taking Professor Shaffer’s exams. Fail.

8. If she wants to be festive and enjoy a good meal, there are plenty of choices that will please her. Aim for a place with silverware, white table cloths and cloth napkins, though. Pass. Warning: Exercise caution and do advance research. At some restaurants the minute size of the serving varies inversely with the large dose of condescension from the waiters. You may need to fortify yourself prior to the date with a brief stop at In ‘N Out. Fail.

9. Your amour may fancy a romantic overnight stay with you. I am only recommending this if you are married (to each other—I know what the lawyers-to-be were thinking), as I am not condoning fornication, and the limit on your credit card is probably not high enough to pay for two of these rooms. Pass, summa cum laude. Bring your shades to heighten the mystery. Fail.

10. A stuffed animal will remind her of you when the two of you are apart. Pass. Fail.

11. For women, almost nothing beats time at a spa. If you are so inclined, you might even join her for at least some of the activities. I recommend skipping the waxing—too painful. Ditto for the facial and the ‘cures—too westside metrosexual. On the other hand, have the massage; you can keep a wary eye on her masseur. Pass. This one is recommended by the L.A. Weekly, so: Fail.

12. Perhaps the two of you are married or in a long-term relationship (or at least have discussed the proposition). You are thinking practically, like the dependable shlub you are, planning for the future. Fail. Fail. If you were expecting a “Pass” for this one, sorry. There is almost no way to pass this one, kind of like a certain constitutional law professor’s final exams.

Remember, you can spend little or a little more. Women say that what counts is not how much you spend but how carefully you think about what she might want that gets her feeling warm and fuzzy. This doesn’t have much resonance in some quarters today, but it’s not the size of your stimulus package, but how well you target your efforts. But then, men also tell their women that the dress doesn’t make them look fat.

Good luck from Token Conservative, LL.M.

Iowahawk gives advice to the tax audit-struck.

With the unexpected news that all of the House Republicans (and eleven sensible Democrats) voted against the $800 Billion Mother-of-all-pork-barrels Act of 2009, comes Rush Limbaugh’s proposal for bipartisanship. If the government insists on this bill, and Obama declares that the Republicans better sign on to his bill because he won, Rush proposes a truly bipartisan product. The bill should be split between spending and tax relief according to the Democrat and Republican percentages of the vote. Obama decides how the funds will be spent, and Rush decides how the tax relief will proceed. Then compare the results.

Some posts just write themselves. Mark Steyn cannot hide his glee. Be sure to click the link. Note the picture that accompanies the story. Here is a teaser:

“Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital after being mauled by his own ‘clinically depressed’ pet dog. The 76-year-old statesman was savaged by his white Maltese dog - which suffers from frenzied fits and is being treated with anti-depressants.”

Now it’s time to think of jokes at the expense of the French. Channeling Homer Simpson.

Sometimes the New York Times has something interesting to say. Maybe publishing more of these articles will get their circulation numbers up. This article makes one glad, though, to live in the typical American development with street names like Tender Blossom Road, Fluffy Bunny Court, or even Wisteria Lane that give the cuddly, homey feeling that builders try to convey when they sell their standard issue three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style house on one-sixth of an acre.

CAUTION: Could be interpreted as having coarse language.

President Obama is planning to fulfill his campaign pledge to close the Guantanamo detention center for unlawful enemy combatants and other assorted terrorists. No word yet on whether he plans to abandon the naval base and return it to the “New” Left’s romantic matinee idol, Fidel Castro. In any event, the celebrated closing won’t happen for a year, because things are, ahem, “complicated.” Yes, because other countries won’t take the people we’re trying to release even though we assure them that these lovable blokes were taken by mistake and present no danger. And then there are the guys we want to release who in the past have sued to stay at Gitmo rather than be returned to their home countries. The famous case of the Uighurs comes to mind. Remember, these were the guys caught at terrorist training camps, but who have the “excuse” that they’re not anti-American terrorists. Perish the thought. They’re anti-Chinese terrorists. Well, alright, then. Not surprisingly, the Chinese have a keen interest in “talking” to these guys. They have assured the U.S. that the Uighurs won’t be tortured. The Chinese just want to talk with them, after they have taken a long relaxing drip-by-drip welcome-home “shower.” Strangely, not many other countries seem excited about taking these trained only-anti-Chinese terrorists, though a federal district moron judge is considering releasing them to the environs of D.C. No trained terrorists would ever want to go near D.C. must be the judge’s thinking. Just hasn’t ever happened.

Then there are the guys who have proudly admitted to killing, torturing, bombing, or conspiring to do one or more of the preceding against Americans. The Goodfellas of the bunch. Where do we house these guys if we take them off a well-guarded prison on an island? Scrappleface, whose two-month absence has been painful for those of us who appreciate clever (note the qualifier) parody, apparently has talked with some Democrats about the proper place for these guys.

Not to be outdone, ABC has obtained a “secret list” of bases in the U.S. to which these folks can be transferred. Is it only me, or is there something odd about calling it a list of “secret bases” when it has just been published by ABC? I know reader and viewer numbers are down, but really now. Or is the network admitting to knowing publication of classified information in an effort to garner the coveted New York Times award for disclosing national secrets helpful to terrorist enemies, complete with gold-plated statue of Benedict Arnold? I am still looking to see if they also published blueprints of the prisons’ ventilation systems. The problem, as ABC relates it, is that the governors whose states seem to be contenders for the honor of housing these guys are suffering from an immediate and virulent NIMBY (”Not In My Backyard”) attack.

May I make some suggestions for housing the Gitmo terrorists, then, not necessarily in order of preference:

1. The Obama White House. Hey, if these guys aren’t out to harm us, why not put them downstairs from Michelle and the kids? Show that acclaimed Obama leadership.

2. The Supreme Court building. These were the Solomons who rendered the decisions that overturned centuries of Anglo-American judicial precedent and constitutional law to give these alien unlawful enemy combatants kept outside U.S. borders the right to habeas corpus review. Alternatively, put them in the abodes of Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Breyer, or Ginsburg. Especially Souter, ’cause he’s strange and might creep out the terrorists so they’ll confess.

3. Nancy Pelosi’s house or House (of Representatives). Pelosi is more eager to put Bush and Cheney on trial than these guys. She must think the terrorists are less dangerous than Bush and Cheney, yet she was in the same room with Bush on at least eight occasions during State of the Union addresses. So, putting the terrorists in her den shouldn’t bother her at all.

4. Cuffed to the idiot prosecutor at Gitmo who, despite her lack of actual knowledge and her loose definitions, is doing her best to undermine the cases against the terrorists by claiming they were tortured and their cases should be dismissed.

5. Shackled to Glenn Greenwald. Just because he is a consummate fool, and maybe the pals of the terrorists will try to rescue them. Alternatives: Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Al Franken, Michael Moore (he could have several shackled to him), most of the women on The View, Andrew Sullivan.

6. The L.A. bus and subway system. They seem to have experience with these types of people. Riders of the buses and subway here are familiar with wild-eyed, bearded men in odd-looking clothing babbling in a strange tongue while staring at them menacingly.

7. The houses of the attorneys of these people. Hey, they insist their clients are lovable teddy bears wrongly seized by the rapacious U.S. military, tortured by the sadistic minions of Dick Cheney, and deprived of their constitutional rights as enemy aliens held abroad. I’m sure that they know their clients better than anyone else and should be happy to share accommodations with them.

8. The homes of any number of law school professors who either want to go after Bush, Cheney, et al. for “crimes” in fighting these terrorists, or who have assisted directly or indirectly in bringing the cases that have eroded the security of American citizens in favor of creating constitutional rights for the terrorists. These professors always pat themselves on the backs for being so brave to oppose the evil Bush administration. Here’s an opportunity for them to help out their idol Obama by showing just a fraction of that bravery.

9. The houses of entertainment celebrities. Think Team America, or Obama pledge videos. Enough said.

10. John Edwards’s mansion. It’s larger than Gitmo, maybe even than Cuba. So there won’t be complaints about cramped quarters. Alternative: Al Gore’s mansion. A bit more cramped but better air conditioning, lighting, and other energy-consuming comforts. And Al is rarely home, being flown around the globe in private jets or driving in capacious SUVs to combat the ozone hole and man-made global warming caused by excessive use of fossil fuels.

Michael Ramirez is on board.

So, you think you can do better than Obama’s speech writers in putting together material for The One to read from the teleprompter? Well, big talker, here’s your chance to cause the earth to be healed and the oceans to stop rising (especially after high tide). Warning: My effort turned out like Hunter Thompson writing on acid. OK, that last phrase was redundant. I meant, it turned out like Hunter Thompson writing.

So, Obamania is in full swing at my school. On inauguration day, the Student Affairs Office, the Black Law Students’ Association, and The Commentator (student newspaper) are sponsoring an “Inauguration Viewing Party,” with a live broadcast, a playback of the whole event later, live chat with students at the inauguration, and live text feedback on Twitter. Flyers all over the school proclaim the happy event, which is advertised as the “44th Annual Inauguration of President Barack Obama.” WHAT? There is an “annual inauguration”?  And this is the “44th”? And of “President Barack Obama”? Aren’t they getting ahead of themselves here? I remember the Left’s BDS sufferers writing how they were convinced that Bush and Cheney would seize power and never surrender it. I don’t see Bush getting inaugurated 44 times, even annually. Bush only got two inaugurations. Is this a sign of things to come, of what Obama supporters will want from their idol?

The sponsors are displaying the ignorance of American civics that I confront with disconcerting frequency in my constitutional law class. Now on another point, did the school hold inauguration parties in 2001 or 2005 for President Bush? The question is purely rhetorical. We know what a school where three-fourths of the students and more than nine-tenths of the faculty are Democrats will do about the inauguration of a Republican.

For further eye-rolling mirth, I received the latest edition of the Stanford alumni magazine. On one of the pages was a photo with a crowd of students around a bonfire. It was accompanied by an enthusiastic paragraph-length description of the pictured event. The fire was in celebration of Obama’s election win. The paragraph noted that several students expressed that as a result of that event, for the first time in their lives they were really proud of their country. I’m not making this up. It’s not an attempt at humor. And, no, there was not a trace of irony in the paragraph. This channeling of Michelle Obama’s notorious remarks was made in all sincerity. It reflects the state of mind of many people in the liberal academic circles in which the Obamas have travelled. I know. From personal experience.

Earlier today, Ann Coulter was on The View to talk about her new book. I don’t know why. It seems that neither the studio audience nor the viewing audience would be Ann’s target demographic. For one thing, reading Ann’s book requires a minimal level of intelligence. Predictably, the menopausal harridans from The View shrieked like witches from a parody of Macbeth. Ann handled them with aplomb, even though they were determined not to let her make her points. The robotic audience was cued by producers to applaud and laugh at certain moments designed to make the liberal intellectual husks that are the co-hosts look good. Ann gave better than she got, but, then, it was a fair fight. There were only four of them against her, with the “conservative” co-host only occasionally entering the fray—against Ann.

The point here is to ask why Ann Coulter did not do to the audience and the panel what Christopher Hitchens did to the moonbat audience on the Bill Maher program. Surely, she must have been tempted. Hitchens is reacting to one of the most tiresome of anti-Bush tropes in the liberal arsenal of insults, the alleged stupidity of George W. Bush. As I and others have made the point, this is too often uttered by liberals who are insecure about their intellectual irrelevance. They sport as their mental prowess the sixteen units they took at the local community college before dropping out from its theater arts program. The one I saw with such a bumper sticker at my school had a license plate rim proudly announcing her status as an alumna from, wait for it, California State University, Los Angeles, a lower-tier-type institution not to be confused with UCLA.

Hitchens finally reacts in the only manner that such people understand. [Warning: Language alert.]

George H.W. Bush: “And then, just before I got hit by the spinnaker, Biff handed the tiller to the Budster….”

Barack Obama (thinking): “Just wait, grandpa, have I got an estate tax increase coming for you!”

George W. Bush (thinking): “Go ahead and throw the shoe, David Gregory. I’ve waited eight years for the chance to kick your sorry a**!”

Bill Clinton (thinking): “Whoa! I’d like to get me some of that there sweet thing!” (Though the press reports that he cooed, “I just love that rug.” Insert joke here.)

Jimmy Carter (Cue banjo theme from the movie Deliverance): “Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.”

When it rains, it pours. Yesterday I posted about Hustler publisher Larry Flynt’s proposal to get a federal bail-out over the sagging fortunes of the porn industry. Now along comes a curious family feud involving Mr. Flynt. It seems that his nephews, after learning Mr. Flynt’s “craft” by working for him, have gone off to make their own cinematographic classics, such as Positive Exposure and Sex at Your Service.

Well, apparently the master pornographer is unimpressed. He has sued the two journeymen videographers for trademark violation. Seems they are using the family name to continue the family tradition. This, of course, is also their name, so they justifiably explain that they should be able to use it without fear of trademark violation. You can’t trademark a family name. But the master pornmonger thinks that their inferior product will cause porn connoiseurs to denigrate the classic Flynt oeuvre: “Flynt said he is going to court to protect his good name, saying that he is concerned that Jimmy Flynt II and Dustin Flynt might tarnish the Flynt franchise by producing lower-quality porn that the lawsuit calls ‘inferior products’ and ‘knock-off goods.’”

The young knockers-offers had worked for their uncle for ten years before being “laid off” for being “unproductive.” [Ed: I don’t know what the standard for being “unproductive” in making porn is, either.] Perhaps these cut-backs in workforce were harbingers of porn’s bust that gave rise to Mr. Flynt’s government bail-out gambit.

Mr. Flynt has little faith in the younger artists, and he is convinced that their venture will fail. But the young turks are having none of it. They say that their work surpasses anything Hustler has ever done. From what I saw of Hustler pictorials many years ago, and I cannot believe that they have assumed positions of greater modesty since then, I shudder to think what work that “surpasses anything Hustler has done” looks like.

Just in time for the arrival of the year-end reports of decimated retirement funds, comes a money-saving collection of some culinary tips for, wait for it, squirrel. The advantages are numerous. The meat is fresh; catching them lets you feel like a “provider” for the family in a very primal way; you can use this experience as training to work up to Sarah Palin’s level of hunting; there seems to be an inexhaustible supply; in the spring you won’t have to pull as many peanut plants out of your garden that grew because the pests buried peanuts fed to them by the old lady next door; tastes like rabbit (which tastes like chicken). For your trailer-park relatives, you can prepare them road-kill style: Skin ‘em and throw ‘em on the barbeque. Add beer. For that dinner with the local literary study club, try this one:

“Henderson, who cooks with both poetry and passion, sometimes prepares his squirrels “to recreate the bosky woods they come from,” braising them with bacon, “pig’s trotter [Ed: I have no idea], porcini and whole peeled shallots to recreate the forest floor.” He serves it with wilted watercress “to evoke the treetops.”

Gooood eatin’.

What a great way to keep adultery within the marriage. Or is this even adultery? A metaphysical conundrum! But the ending is a downer. I was hoping more for something like I Like Pina Coladas (Escape). This will not be a successful sitcom plot line.

I was not going to get into retrospectives about 2008, but, as we have learned from The One, pledges are made to be broken. Especially when the incomparable Dave Barry serves up a buffet of spot-on observations and pointed asides, especially about Obama supporters and the media (who may be one and the same).

The incomparable Iowahawk publishes a column by a “guest columnist” described as the “chief of the housekeeping staff” on the estate of Caroline Kennedy. “Rosa Ortiz” extols the virtues and qualifications of Caroline Kennedy to be Senator from New York. Whoever reads this endorsement cannot but be convinced that Mrs. Kennedy (Schlossberg) deserves to be the junior Senator from the Empire State. If even her domestic help is moved to lobby on her behalf, she is clearly a woman of the people. This 21st century female Cicero is eminently deserving of her place in “the greatest deliberative body in the world.”

Rather than dwell on the past and 2008, let us look forward to the future and 2009. After all, since things will be different in the future than they are now (not better, just different), this is the change we have been waiting for. Since the future is ahead of us, we can, all of us, regardless of race, creed, color, sex, age, etc., look forward to it. Here are some possible stories we will hear in 2009, some even more improbable than others.

Ex-Gov. Blagojevich is accused of selling prison jobs and other favors from his cell in the “convicted politicians” wing of the Illinois State Prison. Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel claims that tapes of his 21 visits to Blago in prison are not connected to the accusation.

Professor Butler Shaffer renounces anarchism as “incoherent fabulism” and agrees that government is needed to deal with people who “rip off” others. Suspicion rises that Shaffer is upset at another professor who uses Shaffer’s blog writings on his own blog.

“Global warming” is discovered to be an elaborate hoax created by illusionists Penn & Teller for their Vegas act in collaboration with a cadre of students from Cal Tech. Suspicions were raised by a global dip in temperature, record Northern Hemisphere snow and Antarctic ice, and Penn Gillette’s resemblance to a ranting Al Gore. The final straw came with a three-inch snowfall in Las Vegas that paralyzed the city. (Ed.’s note: Sure, it was easy convincing people with their minds on vacation that the world was hot when you work in Las Vegas through the summer.)

Fresh from their success in exciting the country with the candidacy of Sarah Palin, for the first time in a couple of decades the Republican Party selects a national chairman with charisma and political savvy.

Investment adviser Bernard Madoff, convicted of a huge pyramid scheme fraud, is sentenced to one year of penthouse arrest and subsequent 1000 hours of community service advising millionaire amateur investors how to spot investment scams. With time already served tending plants on his rooftop garden, he should be eligible to use his driver and limousine to go to community service in less than six months. Meanwhile, Madoff has written a best-selling book of investment advice for the public. The book claims that, for the past half-century, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange have moved inversely to Oprah Winfrey’s weight. In 2008, Ms. Winfrey gained considerable poundage that she had shed over the preceding seven years. In another matter relating to huge pyramid schemes, Congress unilaterally cuts Social Security benefits for retirees beginning in 2017, after Obama will have left office.

The Los Angeles Times, reversing years of declining circulation, claims that paid subscriptions have risen to 845, rebounding to the 1874 level. In a burst of confidence, the paper fires the last conservative on its staff, an assistant printer, and instead hires three more former Democratic operatives as columnists.

Torrid Clothing introduces a new Michelle Obama line of clothing.

Southwestern Law School professor convinces the dean that every student who took his constitutional law exam deserves an “A.” (Ed.’s note: I don’t think that’ll happen, either.)

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, soon to be 87 years young, is overheard telling fellow justice Antonin Scalia, “They’ll get my seat on the Court when they pry my cold, dead fingers from it.” This disappoints a delegation from Senate Democrats sent to tell Stevens that he can resign now that a leftist is President. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate Magazine immediately changes her previous fawning accolades of Stevens to reporting unsubstantiated rumors that he is senile and refuses to wear anything under his judicial robe.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt plan to acquire several more children this year. In addition to giving birth to quadruplets after undergoing fertility treatments, Ms. Jolie announces several initiatives to adopt children from all continents to add to her adoptees from Africa and Asia. While adopting a child from Antarctica would appear to be the most daunting task, adoption from Europe is actually the most difficult. With their falling birthrates resulting in declining populations, Europeans have no children available for adoption. In response, Mr. Pitt’s ex-girlfriend Jennifer Aniston denies rumors that she is jealous of Ms. Jolie after posing nude for yet another magazine cover. Her effort to steal the spotlight from her non-rival for Mr. Pitt’s affection hits a rough spot when only a magazine dedicated to low-rider automobiles bids on the pictures.

The Detroit Lions win a regular season football game, 2-0.

The chairmen of GM, Ford, and Chrysler declare their opposition to a bail-out, saying that their shareholders, creditors, directors, officers, and employees all have it coming to them for decades of unsustainable greed and eye-popping mismanagement.

President Obama pronounces the Token Conservative blog his favorite read. Blogger last seen running into the desert screaming about The Twilight Zone.

The other day I was using one of my credit cards to scrape ice off the window of one of our cars. Given the attitude of the banks towards consumer credit limits, this probably is the card’s highest and best current use. Now, some might say, “So what? This is December.” Sure, but I live about ten miles from the Pacific Ocean in Southern California. Moreover, it isn’t the first time this season that I have had to use the card in this manner to deal with a “frozen asset.” This has been a recurrent event during the last several winters, though so far this year our landscaping has escaped the ravages from previous episodes of “unusual” freezing that must be further evidence of “anthropogenic global warming.”

Anyway, we decided that, if we were going to deal with freezing temperatures we might as well go somewhere outside Southern California. We could go to visit family at our house in Northern Idaho. But the Coeur d’Alene area was going through the snowiest December on record by far, with the single worst storm in fifty years, and the coldest temperature in almost twenty years. This manifestation of global warming seemed a bit too radical for us pampered Angelenos. So, we decided to head to Southern Utah to visit my wife’s father and his wife. There, in the booming retiree haven of medical clinics and golf courses known as St. George, the frost might give a little nip. But there would be no danger of frostbite just from stepping outside.

We packed up the car with clothes, toys, cameras, clothes, toys, computer, and clothes and toys. Mrs. Token Conservative, the two youngest tokens, and yours truly set off at 10 in the morning on Saturday, for what was expected to be a seven-hour drive, including breaks. A disquieting omen was when the littlest token, the almost-three-year-old golden-curled prince, posed a question he would repeat even more frequently than new Al Franken votes were discovered after voting ended in Minnesota, “Are we at Grandpa’s house now?” The problem? We had not yet left our town.

Eventually everyone settled in, with eyes glued to the portable DVD player showing classic Looney Tunes cartoons, though the driver also kept an eye on the highway. Traffic was flowing smoothly, and there was an air of optimism about a smooth travel day. That illusion was shattered on Interstate 210 just before Interstate 15. They say that Christmas is a season when people focus on tradition and seek the comfort of the known and constant. Well, one known and constant associated with L.A. is stop-and-crawl freeway traffic. We were able to enjoy this tradition of fumes from idling engines and asbestos from brake linings and clutches for almost 15 miles. At an average pace of 10-15 miles per hour, this took, well, the math is easy. The reason for the delay? Throngs of people heading for the ski resorts in the San Gabriel Mountains. What economic slowdown?

With an hour behind schedule, and a particularly insistent voice demanding lunch (no, not Mrs. TC), we limped into Barstow. Hoping to give the two-year-old master of psychological torture a work-out that would ready him for a long nap and usher in a period of familial peace, we visited the Burger King establishment with its children’s play annex. Of course, the annex was closed “due to construction.” So, back into the car and over to the old reliable Golden Arches. Say what you will about McD’s (and I’d rather say very little), their McFacilities are predictable. After a meal and a decent work-out for the offspring, back on the road.

Unfortunately, there was no nap. Instead, the refrain, “I want to go to Grandpa’s house” was to make its appearance as a revised version of the earlier slogan. It was to be heard for the rest of the trip at regular intervals. Usually delivered in a nasal whine, but with interesting variations from matter-of-fact statement to primal scream, it became the aural equivalent of Chinese water torture. No response would end the ordeal. The soothingly rational, “That’s where we’re going”: No effect. The annoyed, “I know. I’d like to get there, too, with my sanity”: Might as well have been talking to a deaf person. The outraged and high-decibel, “Stop saying that and play with your toys”: Like shouting into a storm, even with an occasional “dammit” added to underscore the sentiment.

Things couldn’t get much worse. Well, until twenty or so miles past Baker, when traffic came to a halt once more. I was rather certain that this was not caused by a horde of skiers heading for resorts in the Eastern Mojave Desert. So I harbored the dark and sinful hope that this congestion was due to a recent accident ahead. After all, that might mean potentially a short delay only. Alas, three lanes of traffic eventually merged into two, and then into one. Why? Well, after about 15 miles and 40 minutes, the reason appeared: A lone construction worker, protected by a Highway Patrolman, repairing a pothole. Meanwhile, opposite traffic had three lanes available, including one on our side of the freeway. Go figure. The one bright spot was when one of the wise guys who decided to get a jump on everyone by driving in the coned-off lane got pulled over right in front of us by the afore-mentioned Highway Patrolman. Christmas spirit, my posterior! I laughed out loud and pointed at him. That felt good, however fleetingly. He only had to deal with an annoyed cop for a few minutes; we still had to deal with an annoying two-year-old for a few hours. In due time, I’ll ponder more critically my lapse into immature and un-Christian behavior. But not yet.

We decided our jittery nerves needed some soothing. The salve appeared in the form of a Starbucks sign at Primm, Nevada, another spot that doesn’t live up to its name, if an earlier billboard advertisement for a “topless revue” there was to be believed. Anyway, as soon as we got out of the car, Master “Maybe now you’ve figured out why it’s called the ‘terrible twos,’ Dad” turned on the charm. We were standing in line and he was laughing and putting on a show so that the woman behind us was moved to tell us, “He is so adorable.” Since we were near a gambling area, I figured “Well, how much will you pay me for this amazing specimen of cuteness,” might be viewed as suspiciously as yelling, “Hi, Jack” to your friend on an airplane flight. So, I meekly responded, “Isn’t he, though? Quite the Dr. Jekyll compared to the last several hours of driving with Master Hyde.” “I just love his blond curls,” came the woman’s reply. “That is an attractive feature of his,” was all I could muster.

He continued his cute and happy charade all the way until we got into the car and once more were out of public view. Then, the psychological gamesmanship resumed with renewed intensity. It was more of the same with the “Grandpa’s House” Chorus from the “I can’t Handel this” performer. Crying jags were interspersed with missiles in the form of Matchbox cars launched by the little terrorist. Of course, he then had the impertinence to demand his cars back. He has a future working for the Iranians as a nuclear arms negotiator. When his sister moved too close, he diversified his method of amusement by pulling her hair so that the screams of the would-be-scalped sibling provided a counterpoint movement in this symphony of horror. Mom’s admonitions and Dad’s threats directions delivered fortissimo  and con molto brio had no more than a few seconds’ effect.

By the time Las Vegas appeared, my thoughts had wandered to the Christmas story and another child often pictured improbably with a head of blond curls, the Christ child. I thought about the flight of Joseph and Mary with their child to Egypt to escape the edict of King Herod to kill all newborn males. They were fleeing through a dark and cold desert and must have seen Egypt as a magic haven the way a deceived and tired traveller might see Vegas lit up in the night sky. But what if Baby Jesus had behaved the way our “adorable” child had just behaved on our trans-desert journey? What would have been the temptation simply to go to Herod and say, “You’re looking for this kid? He’s yours. Take him.” How that would have altered the fate of mankind!

Vegas provided more of that comforting constant in life, the I-15 construction project that surely has been going on since Joseph and Mary’s journey. Heck, it’s been going on since before they built the pyramid. Well, at least the pyramid on the Vegas Strip. Once we were past that traffic jam, it should only be about an hour-and-a-half more of whining and carrying on. It was.

Meanwhile, the air in the car was thicker with tension and animosity than a family-law courtroom. Things were so bad that the eight-year old sister was roused to read her brother a couple of books. That momentary peace was like the interludes of quiet in World War I between long bouts of trench warfare designed to grind down the resources of the opposing forces. As expected, this attempt at peace-making by big sister came to naught, and the interludes soon ended. It had the same chance of success as talking without preconditions to leaders of countries whose goal is to destroy you. So big sister, too, became increasingly vocal about her frustrations. Sad to say, but the two-year-old’s assymetrical warfare was defeating all attempts by the rest of the TC family to deal with him. And, looking at him and then at us, no one would believe us if we told this tale. So, the only remaining tactic: Stoic calm. And going 85 miles per hour. Miles per gallon be damned. This was an emergency.

With the gas tank on reserve, as I dared not take the time to delay the end further by stopping at a gas station, we arrived at “Grandpa’s House.” Nine hours of being held hostage in a small confined space by a not-yet-three-year-old master of psy-ops were over. I breathed the air of freedom once more, trying not to think about the return trip. No more whining and crying for now. As I wearily carried in the bags and brought in the tiny terrorist’s toy cars, he was playing peacefully in front of his adoring grandfather. Raising his blue eyes to look at me, he said angelically, “Thank you, Daddy.”

Apparently, President Bush has taken the Baghdad shoe attack on him in stride. However, when he returned to face the White House press corps, they were determined not to be outdone in rudeness by some Third World upstart. Cameras caught what appears to be David Gregory throwing a shoe at Bush, but hitting what appears to be Helen Thomas. If you look closely, a part of Keith Olbermann is visible next to Gregory.

HT: Matthew Knipprath

One of my two favorite classic rock groups is Creedence Clearwater Revival. Among CCR’s big hits was Down on the Corner, also known as Willy and the Poor Boys from the eponymous album. 

In light of events in Chicago, I propose an alternative verse to the same tune:

Early in the evenin’, or just about any time,

Over by the statehouse, they start to get in line.

Four guys in the corner, trying to make a deal,

Blago tells Adviser A to take it, it’s a steal.

CHORUS:

Down in Springfield, up on State Street,

Blago and the Chi-Boyz are playin’,

Bring a million, buy a seat.

Jesse Jackson, Jr., is candidate number 5,

Rumors that he’s playing, he says are all just jive.

Barry sent Emanuel to talk up candidates, too,

Since he brought no million, he can kiss Blago’s wazoo.

CHORUS:

Down in Springfield, up on State Street,

Blago and the Chi-Boyz are playin’,

Bring a million, buy a seat.

You don’t need a dollar, just to hang around,

But if you’ve got a million, won’t you lay your money down?

If you want the Senate seat, better make some noise,

People come from all around to pay off Blago’s boyz.

CHORUS:

Down in Springfield, up on State Street,

Blago and the Chi-Boyz are playin’,

Bring a million, buy a seat.

From Ed Whelan at National Review’s Bench Memos, comes this excerpt from his feature about liberal judicial activism in history. I have posted before about Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals. Reinhardt is an icon, an aging liberal lion who sees the Constitution as, at best, a shadowy road map for his creativity in constitutional matters. Never mind that he routinely gets reversed when his decisions are taken up by the Supreme Court. As he has responded when asked why he persists in his constitutional fabulism despite the Supreme Court’s reversals, “They can’t catch ‘em all.” Here is Judge Reinhardt the art critic, on the finer distinctions between nude table dancing and nude stage dancing and what the whole thing has to do with the Constitution:

December 1 1998—Something called “table dancing” earns Ninth Circuit judge Stephen Reinhardt’s special solicitude. In dissent in Colacurcio v. City of Kent, Reinhardt ponders “whether table dancing constitutes a separate form of expressive communication from other types of nude dancing—that is, whether table dancers communicate a message different in content than that communicated by nude stage dancers, and other nude dancers who perform at a distance of more than ten feet from their customers.” Reinhardt determines that a city ordinance that requires nude dancers to perform at least ten feet from patrons effectively outlaws table dancing. The ordinance, in his view, is not content-neutral as a matter of law because those challenging the ordinance offered evidence that “stage dancers and table dancers communicate different expressive content in their respective messages.” Among other things, this evidence indicated that the “message of the table dancer is personal interest in and understanding of the customer,” whereas the message sent by stage dancing is “coldness and impersonality.” Further, Reinhardt says, evidence indicated that the city “banned proximity precisely because it wants to constrain dancers from doing the very things that … are essential to the message—chiefly getting close enough to the patrons so that they can communicate the message in the form that only table dancing permits.”

No word yet from His Honor whether lap dancing expresses a message different still from the other types. Talk about personal attention. My attention certainly would rise more from a lap dance than a mere table dance. One wonders how much time Reinhardt had to spend learning about these dances to hone his expertise as a nude dancing savant and critic.

With Christmas fast approaching and everyone very busy, it is stressful to match that perfect gift to the particular person. Reuters has helpfully assembled a list of trendy and unusual items sure to get the giver a lot of attention when gifts are opened that day. Although it is hard to pick a favorite, I am going with the Wealth Redistribution 2008 Holiday Ornament, you know, the one that is no longer on your tree. Were I a golfer, though, I might have been tempted by the Potty Putter, and were I an Obamacon, I would have considered the “Yes, We Can” can opener. I’m still trying to figure out who could best use the Underwear Repair Kit—maybe one of the untenured faculty members. If you don’t like the Reuters list, here is a traditional Spanish gift for that Europhile Obamabot friend. Happy shopping.

As we all, atheist and believer, Jew and Gentile, Republican and Democrat, and everyone else, engage in the ritual that unites us this holiday season, that is, wallowing in commercial excess, I put together a few lines in commemoration.

Oh, the traffic outside is frightful,
     And the couch is so delightful,
     But the store ads all let us know,
To the mall, to the mall, we must go.

It doesn’t show signs of stopping,
     All this crazy stressful shopping,
     The prices are dropped down low,
To the mall, to the mall, we shall go.

When we get to the parking lot,
     And I feel even more out of place,
     Swerve into the last parking spot,
You should’ve seen that driver’s face!

From store to store we’re flying,
     The kids are bored and crying,
     Just hurrying to and fro,
‘Round the mall, ‘round the mall, we all go.

Hope the banks once more are lending,
     ‘Cause this list is never-ending,
     Gifts for people we hardly know,
From the mall, from the mall, please let’s go.

When we finally call it a night,
     How you’ll hate leaving Macy’s at last,
     But you know that I’m really tight,
At the money we spent I’m aghast.

The crowds are slowly leaving,
     In the car the bags we’re heaving,
     But as long as you love me so,
To the mall, to the mall, I will go.

Only 26 more shopping days before Christmas!

Along the same vein as those events described in the previous post, comes this item that is so hard to believe it seems to come straight from The Onion: Gift certificates from Planned Parenthood, redeemable for that abortion she’s always wanted. The certificates can be redeemed for various services, but the group did not want to put limitations on their use. Mustn’t be judgmental, after all. Adding to the tone of parody is the Planned Parenthood news release, which states in part: ” Why not buy a loved one a gift this holiday season that they [sic] really need,” Cockrum says in a press release LifeNews.com obtained. “The gift certificates are also a wonderful idea for that person in your life who puts everyone else first.” Puts everyone else first—through an abortion?

Mark Steyn adds his idea for a gift card.

But then, maybe he sits in the first row. That would explain why he took notes in class. No word whether the would-be thief was a particularly competitive fellow student.