Another one added

to my shitlist. Isn't there a law about sticking your head up your ass that far?

Trickery, trickery

How to perform strong man stunts (via GeekPress)

How to Survive a Deposition

10 question-types to look out for, and how to handle them (via Newmark). It's for Docs, but applicable more widely.

Susan Torres

Is this creepy or touching? I'm voting for touching, but I can understand how someone would think otherwise.

Downing

To a large extent I don't find the Downing Street Memos to be a big deal, just about everything in them we already knew or almost knew. Also, a lot of it is opinion, not fact, though intelligent, inside opinion. Then I remember that most people probably don't read Wanniski, Prather, et al, so hopefully this is the smoking gun to convince them that Bush should be impeached. Read Michael Smith, who broke the Memo story, if you need convincing of the illegality and irresponsible execution of the Iraq war. Smith was a staunch advocate of war, and these turned him to the light side. He actually undersells the situation, IMO.

Language can matter

NoodleFood commenter GDavis: Al Queda operatives are not human beings. Diana: I pretty much agree with GDavis. Quoting South Park: Isn't that fascism? No, because we don't call it fascism. (SP quote via Balko).

Uh-oh

Sauron lives (via Vodkapundit)

This has to be a record of some sort

Two asinine rulings in less than a month demolishing both rights and the English language. Well done, Supreme Court.
Julian Sanchez has a nice take on it.

Take the quiz

Here's a very useful quiz on your boss, with insightful questions like:
-Does he engage in dishonest schemes such as cooking
the books?
-Even if he has been convicted of a white-collar
crime, such as securities fraud, does he not accept
blame for what he did, even after getting out of
prison?
and
-Does he use his skill at lying to cheat or manipulate
other people in his quest for money, power, status,
and sex?
I would have never realized that these qualities are
bad to have and nor that my boss was a psychopath
without the aid of this quiz.

A thought

I have no idea if someone else has thought of this, but any possibility that Arthur Silber is Andrew Sullivan's other personality? Both AS, both gay, but one very strongly a Bush supporter (with a few caveats), the other very strongly opposing him and taking shots at the first. Has anyone ever seen them together?

Curb to my Sein?

Co-blogger Seth has started his own blog, Seth's Sports Writing. He felt that having his own site would better motivate him to write more often, which is probably right. So hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more posts from him going forward.
In separate news, my friend Commander surprised us at dinner by showing off his new Super Bowl ring. It is ridiculous, but in a good way. Wow.

Ugh

So I got taken to the woodshed over this post, for wanting to stick my nose up womb's and such. Nevermind that I was merely expressing the opinion that celebrating abortion is disgusting. Not villifying women who have them, but rather those who say 'abortion is good'. Back on Daily Kos, some dude wrote about his experience with abortion in response to the post I linked to. It's a bit sappy at times, I don't agree with much of it, and he uses that phrase I abhor "we were pregnant". But it's clear he using the phrase to emphasize that he was going through something too, and he's not saying that abortion affects men and women the same or similarly. His point is that it affects everyone to some degree, and that men (and women) need to realize it. So Stormcoming follows up her first offensive post with a second post bitching the guy out, for his "propagandistic terminology" and belittling the fact that he supported the woman he impregnated through the whole process. I guess when she helps women get abortions it's laudable, when a guy does it it's worthy of being sweared at. I called Stormcoming a feminazi in my first post (which, popular opinion to the contrary, does not mean feminist, it applies to people who celebrate abortion), but it looks like she's much more than that.

Stay Foolish

Jobs at Stanford's commencement (via Newmark)

Awful

Is it as bad as the Gulag? Of course not. But I'd like to think that we can do just a little bit better than "Hey, it's not as bad as the Gulag!"

Nice

I like to think this was meant for me.

Why I can't take liberals seriously

They get really worked about really stupid things like apologizing for lynchings. No amount of apologizing is sufficient from the people who committed the crimes, and requiring people who weren't involved to any degree in them to apologize is asinine. For not co-sponsoring legislation apologizing, people are pro-lynching? Wanker.

A lot of heart

The greatest gardener ever died May 29th. RIP (via NF)

Why I can't take liberals seriously (A continuing series)

"War, far from being rare or some isolated event, is a very real and NORMAL part of life.
War translates to 'maintaining the fundamental ability to own and control our own lives'.
War is necessary, it is lifesaving, it is normal, and you know what? I'll go ahead and say it in my out loud voice, war is good."
Oh, wait, she wasn't talking about war, she was talking about abortion. There are legitimate arguments on all sides of the abortion debate, and I want to hear them (laid out in an intelligent manner, of course, which is all too rare). This woman is a feminazi.

Scary

"The lone juror told reporters that she was convinced of Mr. Sihpol's guilt because she just could not believe the government would bring a case if there wasn't something to it."

Bastiat would be proud

Tierney on the Circus Maximusization of American cities.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Commerce Clause

Fafblog on what makes something commerce (via WW)

Miltie

"At the end of World War 2 the minimum wage was 40 cents an hour. Wartime inflation had made that so low in real terms as to be unimportant. The minimum wage was then raised sharply to 75 cents in 1950, to $1.00 in 1956. In the early fifties the unemployment rate for all teenagers averaged 10 percent compared with about 4 percent for all workers -- moderately higher, as one would expect for a group just entering the labor force. The unemployment rates for white and black teenagers were roughly equal. After minimum wage rates were raised sharply, the unemployment rate shot up for both white and black teenagers. Even more significant, an unemployment gap opened between the rates for white and black teenagers. Currently, the unemployment rate runs around 15 to 20 percent for white teenagers ; 35 to 45 percent for black teenagers. We regard the minimum wage rate as one of the most, if not the most, antiblack law on the statute books"
From Free To Choose, via RWN.

Tsk

You'd think that he'd learn his lesson after comparing one year figures to ten year figures the first time. Or I would anyway.

Ugh

Like most people (well, most people who don't have their heads up their asses and have lost any credibility when they make a procedural-type of argument), I'm dismayed at the Supreme Court's ruling in Raich v. Ashcroft. I wish I could say I'm shocked, but sadly this was all too typical. How is an act that isn't interstate and doesn't involve commerce called interstate commerce? I mean, I don't have a law degree or anything like that, but it seems to me that Justice Thomas is exactly right, "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers." Not that this is something new.
Off topic a little, please don't call Thomas Scalia's puppet anymore. He is clearly his own man, with strong convictions and well-thought out positions. You don't have to agree with him to recognize that he's just as legit a Justice as any of the other eight.
And off topic a little more, can someone explain to me why Thomas was wrong in Lawrence v. Texas? Clearly the federal government can't make sodomy illegal, but it's not so clear to me that this is true for the states. Don't point out why sodomy should be a right, show me why the Constitution prohibits states from having this type of law.

Watergate

Is Jude off his rocker, or is he right about Nixon? I don't know much about Watergate beyond the broad outline, so I have no clue. Note, Jude isn't saying there wasn't criminal activity in the White House, he's just denying Nixon's role in it. Like I said, I have no clue.

Freaky

Researchers teach monkeys about money. Monkeys begin rudimentary-level trading. Monkey prostitution appears. As it has always been, as it shall always be.
On a more family-friendly note, the Baby Name Wizard shows the history of a name's popularity. (Both via Freakonomics, who's name is growing more annoying to me over time).

Case closed

Was Okrent a bad public editor/ombudsman/voice of the reader? Absolutely. Is he right about Krugman? Yes. If anything, he understated the situation.

Some subtle, some not so much

Find the 'hidden' symbol (via NoodleFood)