And as my part in the ongoing War on Stupidity, I’d like to let everyone know that the Index to Creationist Claims, an incredibly detailed document listing and rebutting a long list of creationist bullshit arguments, is (as of recently), also a very large book. Much more convenient. Bonus: when your fundie opponent starts frothing, it also deals three dice bashing damage.
Now this is an interesting development in the Kelo case. Several leaders of both parties, in both houses of Congress, are introducing laws that would withold federal funding from economic development projects that would exercise eminent domain under the Kelo precident. Citing (the obvious) concern over private property rights, a bipartison backlash against these sorts of takings is starting to form. Support is far from unanimous, though - many member of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, (D-Va.) criticize the proposed legislation as a breach of seperation of powers, and a clear attempt to make an end-run around the judicial process.
That Pompous Idiot DeLay (R-Tex.), of course, continues to tilt at the windmill of the independent judiciary, stating “This Congress is not going to just sit by — idly sit by — and let an unaccountable judiciary make these kinds of decisions without taking our responsibility and our duty given to us by the Constitution to be a check on the judiciary. And this is an example of doing that.” He sees it as a continuation of a public backlash against the judiciary following the Scheivo issue, unlike sane and rational people, who recognize that these issues have precisely nothing in common, except that they are court rulings he disagrees with. This sort of rhetoric brings an essential question: for those like myself (libertarians, and more specifically, libertarians who feel that the Schievo case was rightly decided in the courts, and that DeLay is a dangerously moronic windbag) might this legislation be water from a poisoned well?
The problem with being a libertarian these days, of course, is that all your potential allies stink. Ally with DeLay on the eminent domain issue, and his theocratic nonsense tends to stick to your position like grime. Ally with the Dems on gay rights, and you end up getting lumped in with Michael Moore and his creepily strident ilk. It’s a tough time to be a small-government, fiscally conservative, civil libertarian.
Edit: After some thinking, more and more, I’m growing to oppose this legislation, for two reasons. The first, to which I give greater weight, is an egregious breach of the principles of federalism, principles that, except in exceptional or deeply aberrant situations, I support. I’ve always considered these sorts of federal laws, relying on financial pressure to bring state and local governments into line, as deeply shady, and I should not be letting my disgust over the Kelo decision affect my judgement in that regard. The second is that, despite my thoughts on the ruling, Pelosi may be right - it is, potentially, a dangerous erosion and undermining of the court’s ability to maintain judicial review. Combine that potentially dangerous precedent with the aforementioned concern that it may indeed be water from a poisoned well, and I find I cannot support this law, no matter how much I would like to.
I feel the need to create an anime music video: Saikano, with the Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 1″. Why do I feel this need? See above.
From Forbes magazine comes this article, describing just how much it would cost to be Batman:
Using commercially available training, technology and domestic help, the average guy could conceivably equip himself to become a real-world superhero, provided he’s got at least a couple million to spare.
(Hat tip to Winds of Change.)
These are some follow-up thoughts of mine, regarding both the ‘Lost Liberty Hotel’ news item and the Kelo decision itself, a few posts down, previously mentioned here and here.
There’s a case to be made (as Randy adds in an update to the original post on Volokh) that it’s an extremely bad idea to propagate the idea of retaliation against members of the judiciary for their good-faith execution of their duties. People (rightfully) castigated That Pompous Idiot DeLay for his remarks about bringing the judiciary to heel following the Schievo case. However, there’s also a difference between TPIDeLay’s remarks, which came very close to urging outright violence, and a ‘protest’ such as this, designed to highlight the absurdity of the Kelo decision. As others have said, reductio ad absurdium is a time-honored tactic.
I will, of course, be following this closely. More updates as events warrent, stay tuned.
Browsing a forum page*, I ran into the best leetspeak ever:
“OMGWTFBBQA/S/LLOLROFLMAONERFSTFU!!!!111!!!eleventy!MercurySable!!”
*No link, b/c its not open to the public.
Brief background: My first actual (BASIC does not, of course, count) computer programming language was Common LISP, a language I continue to find both elegant and powerful. A varient of LISP that I have some experience with is Scheme, a minimalist language that is practically identical to the Lambda Calculus in design. I like these languages because, first, I find purely functional programming interesting, second, because they’re not commonly used, given me an excuse to be a pretentious ass about them, and third, because I’m good at them. I’m probably more fluent in Perl, but I enjoy LISP more. As a side-effect, as long as you have an editor that does parenthesis matching, LISP is significantly more readable and maintainable then Perl. Granted, line noise is also more readable then Perl. This is not my problem.
The point, you ask? The point is, I’ve been doing a lot of Java development lately. Java is a language that is both flexible and reasonably powerful, but it’s not nearly as entertaining as, say, LISP. It’s purely object-oriented, a paradigm I consider highly overrated. Ah yes, the elusive point: This interesting compilier, called Bigloo, compiles Scheme code into C executables or Java runtime code (classes or JARs). The great Circle of Code is at last complete. Go forth, and develop in Scheme for deployment in your Java environment. Don’t thank me, I’m just doing my job.
Did that presidential address feel like a total non-starter to anyone else? No new news, no new announcements or policy statements. Same shit, different day, and I don’t think it’s persuading anyone who’d been opposing the war.
I don’t know, though, maybe I missed something.
Edit: I should add that I don’t necessarily think this was a bad speech - probably one of his better, frankly, although every time he mangles ‘nuclear’ I die a little. I just don’t think it had much of a point besides hammering the message.
So, recent history lesson: SCOTUS decides that private property rights are a joke, and local governments may gleefully appropriate private property from one party, and give it to another. Enter this press release from Freestar Media - apparently, one Logan Darrow Clements is seeking to have the home of Justice David Souter, one of the affirments in the Kelo case, seized, so that he can develop it into the “Lost Liberty Hotel”, which he promises will bring significant tax benefits to the community. With a copy of Atlas Shrugged in every room (instead of the Gideon Bible). The actual request can be found here. Delightful.
(Hat tip to Randy Barnette at The Volokh Conspiracy.)
Edit: Also from Volokh - Kelo dissent t-shirts and mugs, with a line that will no doubt soon be a famous one in the annals of legal history:
“Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’s interpretation of the Constitution.”
- Justice Thomas, Kelo v. City of New London, dissenting
Or Steve goes to the movies
Alright, there was no story whatsoever in this movie. It starts very dull, a couple of chuckles, while the movie sets up the life of John and Jane Smith, one gung-ho shooter and one sex killer. Then, they discover each other, and some Spy vs. Spy like humor ensues. Then, there was the second half, “their better half” so to speak. The two go through each moment from their marriage to now explaining what was really going on. The climax is now a personal favorite of mine, as the best way to handle being at a furniture store. So many funny quotes, but here’s one that doesn’t require set-up.
Mr.: How many people have you killed?
…
Mrs.: 312.
Mr.: How?
Mrs.: Some two at a time.
Overall, an honorable way to kill 2 hours, but not a super awesome way.
Ok, do you know about this? Google is awesome, and video.google.com is looking to to be just as awesome. It just launched yesterday, so its not all up to speed yet. Alot of the videos have been cataloged, but not available yet.
Read the rest of this entry »
I’m a big fan of AMD. I’ve picked their chips in the last three computers I’ve purchased. They always seemed like the scrappy underdog, but they have good products at good prices, and that’s what ultimately swayed me.
I don’t have a clue how valid or invalid the new claims made against Intel are, but it may be interesting following this story as it unfolds.
And check out those quotes on the left. Crazy
A six-nation allience known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), agreed today to build a $5.6 billion nuclear fusion reactor in France. Construction will take about seven years to complete. The group had been deadlocked about the location of the plant, as Japan had been pressing heavily for the position. The agreement will provide for the prototype and additional facilities to be developed in Japan, while the final reactor would be in France.
Greenpeace is howling as usually, because even saying “nuclear” causes their little heads to explode.
Excellent news, though, and Greenpeace can suck it.
Well, this post may not mean anything to everyone out there who doesn’t play City of Heroes, but I think its mostly entertaining just for the odd factor. Anyway, someone put together a video using CoH video that’s just surreal. Not laugh out loud funny, not dirty, but mesmerizing, at least to me. But like I said, you may not get anything out of it.
EDIT: Heh, out of bandwith on the original link. Here’s another mirror, and Here’s a rapidshare mirror.
So, AMD released its Faster Than You ™ processor today. Shortly after, I came across this list of alternatives to purchasing new AMD chip which is pretty rediculously expensive. But for pre-teens who are already using their fps to compensate for their underdeveloped bodies I suppose it is necessary.
Science and technology offer hope to men who think their woman is faking it. Women lose higher brain functions during climax. Is this news or did the medical community really think men were that different?
Successful launch of science fiction. Novel space travel technique finally employed. Hypergates to follow.
We are now, officially, consumer whores.
And in today’s Google-related hilarity, the ads seem to be keying on “doom” and are offering emergency supplies.
Our good friends over at Random Drivel are hittin’ the big time. I hope they remember all the little people when they’re all sitting around in weather inappropriate pink faux fur coats, sipping champagne poolside, while the steel drums play in the background.
This article over at The Panda’s Thumb is an insightful analysis of the application of the recent McCreary SCOTUS ruling to the separation of church and state, particularly as it applies to the evolution/intelligent-design (non)debate. The McCreary case, one of the two cases regarding the public display of the Ten Commandments recently decided by the court, upheld the Lemon test for deciding establishment clause issues.
Lemon calls for a three-fold test: Purpose (the law must have a clear non-religious purpose), effect (it must neither advance nor inhibit religion), and entanglement (it must not needlessly entangle church and state). The plaintiffs in McCreary attempted to remove or weaken the purpose prong, arguing that it was impossible for a court to rightly ascertain the mind of the legislature when making the law. That argument was struck down for being incredibly stupid.
The application of this decision to the ID problem is clear: Despite the Discovery Institute’s best efforts, ID proponents keep reminding the world that ID is essentially creationism in a lab coat. In particular, the infamous “Wedge Document”, authored by members of another ID advocacy group, the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, makes it obvious that ID is an attempt to overthrow essentially the basis of science and replace it with Biblical-literalist bullshit. Well, thanks to the Lemon decision, we can be reasonably confident that this won’t fly in court - the purpose of ID is pretty clear.
From those who bring us Badger, Badger, Badger comes Zombie Badgers and Badger Sports
Note: All of them have sound.
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