Hey, Asa?

Remember a while back when we were talking about Zarqawi and the terrorists in Iraq and all that good stuff, and I mentioned how, wouldn't it be interesting if there was a guy out there who hated democracy and progress and modern concepts of freedom and rights, BUT he was also adamantly opposed to blowing up buses and cop cars to reach his goals?

Well, I just realized that this type of non-violent medievalist does exist, and he's been right under our noses the whole time.

It's the Pope!

All churches are traditionalist to some degree, but the Roman Catholic Church is the most traditionalist of them all. And while the modern church is quite pacifist and uniform in its non-violent beliefs, it is, nevertheless, anti-progress (although I suppose it is for a type of Age of Faith-ish, spiritual progress...).

A email at National Review Online wonders why we established a parlimentary democracy in Iraq, rather than a federal one, like our own. Good question, and one I haven't really thought of. Here's the beginnings of the answer...

Apparently, the Brit definition of a "daisy chain" is a bit different from my own.

Today is the day I finally do a little internetting, and since I already showed up on Begum to be snarky I figure Ill blog too. Anyway, this is awesome: Batman Begins

Conservative blogger Hugh Hewitt recently interviewed Senator Rick Santorum on his radio show. This passage struck me as a bit strange, however.

Hewitt: Now in the caucus, do you folks meet on Wednesday and talk about these things? Is it a candid conversation among Senators about both the principles and the politics of the situation?

Santorum: Oh, trust me. Yes, it is very candid. But sometimes, very emotionally candid, but that's good. I mean, it's good to have those kinds of discussions and to do so without a whole lot of, well, with anybody else but Senators in the room, so you can sort of let it all out and let folks know what you think. Candidly, it's civil, but it's sometimes emotional, and it's important to have those discussions. And trust me, we've had them over the last few weeks.

Hmm...ol' Santorum TWICE mentioned that GOP caucus meetings get emotional. I'm sure this could mean there's lots of swearing and pussy jokes, but my first reaction is that "emotional" translates to "they all pray together," and occassionally, some senators cry when they confess their sins (you know, like looking up Maria Cantwell's skirt, or something.)

Although he's not the most religious type, I think Rhode Island senator Lincoln Chafee looks like he probably cries the most. I mean...just look at the guy. He's got wimp written all over him.

This part of this otherwise normal article made me laugh.

Blind people need a way to communicate with the machines that surround them, he says, from automated tellers to ticketing machines at train stations and airports ...

... That's the principle behind the Levar Burton Vision Enhancement Technology Center, a fledgling venture in Morgantown, West Virginia, that will pair the resources of West Virginia University and Georgia Tech with private-sector partners like Motorola Corp.

Levar Burton, who played blind Lt. Geordi La Forge in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," is lending his name and star power to fund-raising efforts for the center.

Though he's not blind, Burton wore a visor on the set that impaired his vision by 75 percent for nearly 12 hours a day.

I have to say, this ranks right up there with Sylvester Stallone training real-life boxers on The Contender.

Oh man, if this had been John Kerry during the campaign... "`I am sick and tired of (them saying) they somehow have a better understanding of Christianity, of the Judeo-Christian ethic, of values,'' Kerry added. ``We're talking about values? You show me where in the New Testament Jesus ever talked about the value of having taxes and taking money from poor people to give to the rich people in this country.'"

I think he would have won.

So, what do we think of the costume?

TIME has a fine (and non-Jesus!) piece up about the voluntary execution "movement" butting heads with the anti-death penalty movement.

This is the sort of debate I love, as it's intra-ideological. The libertarian/left's belief in the right-to-command your own fate, vs. the mainstream left's social do-gooder-ism. And why should a convicted murderer even have such broad-ranging rights to begin with? It's all so tricky. The article also hints around that that murderers demanding death might be playing a final game of sorts with justice. (I certainly believe that)

In Connecticut, Raymond Roode wishes the state would expedite Michael Ross's execution. Twenty years ago, Ross killed Roode's 14-year-old stepdaughter and her best friend. Roode says the state should execute Ross on its own schedule, not the killer's. He suspects Ross will find a way to get out of his May date with the needle. "It just makes me sick," says Roode, "that he's still calling the shots."

And in another sure-to-be death penalty case...

I really hope Florida kills this monster.

The normally staunch, mainline conservatives at Powerline take a decidedly nuanced (daresay, Muniz-esque) approach to understanding the GOP breakup over judges, Bolton, Schiavo.

[P]utting it kindly, Senators are an independent breed. To take an extreme example, if the North Vietnamese couldn't effectively coerce John McCain, why should we expect Bill Frist be able to do so? Voinovich is no McCain, but he was the mayor of Cleveland and the governor of Ohio, and he's his own man.

Second, the Republican majority represents a coalition of conservatives and moderates. It's not realistic to expect that all Republican moderates in the Senate will support every conservative position. John Bolton is a radically conservative nominee for the U.N job. That's precisely why conservatives like his nomination so much -- we feel that the U.N. is broken and needs a radical fix. But we shouldn't be surprised if some moderates see the matter differently and resist Bolton. More generally, with significantly less than half of the American voters being politically conservative, we shouldn't be surprised if conservatives fail to win every battle in Congress.

Man, 2006 is going to be sooooo interesting.

Vagina shaped water stain found in Chicago!

VT Senator Jeffords announces retirement.

Then again, I don't think anybody saw this coming.

Right now the early buzz is on Rep. Sanders an independent, who once described himself as a socialist on the O'Reilly Factor (ah, television...) to run. The GOP has no chance, unless they run Gov. Jim Douglas. Then they have a chance, albeit a weak one.

From the SuperHeroHype.com message boards:

Which is better, Marvel or DC?

"Well, Marvel is like your cool uncle who takes you to see R rated movies and ride the fast rollercoasters. But, as awesome as he is, he'll never be your dad."

Yep, that's it. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Well, Ratzinger is the new Pope. I'm not going to get into all the business about whether he's too conservative or whatever. He's a Catholic Cardinal. Of course, he's conservative. He (really!) believes in his Church's teachings. Fine.

What does bother me is the fact that he's 78. So, the Church learned nothing from this whole JPII business, huh? I mean, wasn't the big argument in favor of JPII's greatness that he came in relatively young and left a big mark? This Ratzinger has what? Three, maybe five years before complete senility sets in? Then we're going to have go through this whole goddamn thing again. The death. The funeral. The media. The conclave. Ugh. Count me out.

So, Fark.com had this little thread (it's crappy, so I won't link to it) going where folks are asked to submit the name they would take if they were elected to Pope.

My choices:

Pope John-Paul Picard

Pope Pontius Pilate

A couple weeks back Asa and I chit-chatted over the type of government featured in Star Trek. I said it was sort of a militant Scandanavia, where all needs were met and all were reasonably well off. I may, however, have arrived at such a conclusion without doing my homework. Or rather, I may have bought right into established untruths about Scandanavia's "success." This NYT editorial raises some very interesting facts about that murky land of blondes and 70% tax rates.

The study found, if the E.U. was treated as a single American state, it would rank fifth from the bottom, topping only Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi. In short, while Scandinavians are constantly told how much better they have it than Americans, Timbro's statistics suggest otherwise. So did a paper by a Swedish economics writer, Johan Norberg.

Contrasting "the American dream" with "the European daydream," Mr. Norberg described the difference: "Economic growth in the last 25 years has been 3 percent per annum in the U.S., compared to 2.2 percent in the E.U. That means that the American economy has almost doubled, whereas the E.U. economy has grown by slightly more than half. The purchasing power in the U.S. is $36,100 per capita, and in the E.U. $26,000 - and the gap is constantly widening."

In late March, another study, this one from KPMG, the international accounting and consulting firm, cast light on this paradox. It indicated that when disposable income was adjusted for cost of living, Scandinavians were the poorest people in Western Europe. Danes had the lowest adjusted income, Norwegians the second lowest, Swedes the third. Spain and Portugal, with two of Europe's least regulated economies, led the list.

Like I said, this is an editorial, so the numbers have invariably been spun to some degree, but it's an interesting view nonetheless.

Go Google Sightseeing. It'll be great.

You stupid prick.

Bush has a slime-mold beetle named after him. The guy says he did it to honor Bush (and Cheney and Rumsfeld too!) which I guess he means he's either a liar or collosally naive. I suppose I don't care though. Humor doesn't care.

Marvel got schooled in the 2005 Eisner nominations.

Just sayin'.

Oh yeah, and it's odd that Chris Ware got nominated for best short story for the cover of McSweeneys. It's kind of like nominating someone's opening credits for best short film. Which isn't to say that it's totally unreasonable, just odd.

And he presides over this is amazing church.

So, Oregon is doing something really strange with regard to gay marriage.

As we all know, last November, the state's people passed by 57-43% a constitutional amendment declaring marriage to be for men and women only.

What complicates everything, however, is that last summer, the state's Supreme Court took up a case to determine whether marriage licenses granted to gays in Spring 2004 were constitutional. So effectively, mid-way through a lengthy court case, the law changed!

But that's not all!

Oregon nevertheless possesses a number of laws providing for equal rights and equal protections and blablabla. So while the case in question -- Li vs. State of Oregon -- is rendered moot by the Marriage Amendment, it is however, still viable under other state laws.

The end result is that when the State Supreme Court issues their ruling tomorrow, any number of screwy, strange events can happen.

Among them:

Gay marriages before the amendment stand, Civil Unions ordered
Gay marriages struck down, Civil Unions ordered
No Civil Unions, no gay marriage
The case is sent back to lower court; gay marriages stand
The case is sent back, no gay marriages

Oh, but wait. It gets better. Much better.

The other possible solution is that the Oregon Supreme Court could strike down the marriage statute — and the institution of marriage — altogether. Then no one would be the beneficiary of this privilege and true equality could be achieved. This solution is not merely the crazy idea of an academic. In Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Supreme Court founds that the Massachusetts marriage law violated "the basic premises of individual liberty and equality under law protected by the Massachusetts constitution." The court considered doing away with marriage altogether, but rejected that option in favor of extending marriage to same-sex couples. That solution was the most consistent with Massachusetts social policy. As the court stated, "Eliminating civil marriage would be wholly inconsistent with the Legislature’s deep commitment to fostering stable families and would dismantle a vital organizing principle of our society." But we in Oregon have made it impossible for our courts to extend marriage to same-sex couples.

On a tangential note to Asa's post on judicial activism, here's an awesome New Yorker article on Justice Scalia(aaaaaaaaaa).

I probably disagree with half of everything Scalia says (he's social conservative and religous; I'm not), but Scalia's hands down my favorite justice because he possesses a brilliant, classically educated mind and he is the court's best writer. I also enjoy the fact that he can put up a strong, logical defense of "Originalism," a Constitutional position most on the Left and Libertarian Right lampoon and dismiss out-of-hand. I like when people defend strange, unpopular things.

Anyway, did you know that Scalia and Ginsburg(!) are cool with each other?

Ginsburg is a closer personal friend, however. The Scalia and Ginsburg families spend every New Year's Eve together. Ginsburg has said that Scalia is the only one of her brethren who can reliably make her laugh-and the only one who can carry a tune. Scalia has said that Ginsburg is the liberal with whom he'd most like to be stuck on a desert island.

That's hilarious. And so is Scalia. Read the piece!

Now that the Radical Right, ie Republican Party Leadership, has declared that it was "activist judges" (their favorite scapegoat!) who got Terry Schaivo "murdered" I think one thing has become clear: "Activist judge" now means, and probably only ever meant, "judges who disagree with me." Every judge, mostly conservatives, who heard the case ruled in favor of the husband, and I've not read a single argument stating that any of them didn't uphold the law. Despite huge pressure from Congress they interpreted and applied the law as written, regardless of their personal beliefs. Which is, you know, what the Judiciary is supposed to do. The GOP is just upset that there is an independent judiciary that can check their power and slap their hand a bit when they over-reach.

I'm glad we've got that one cleared up.

These were the words one poster on IMDB used to describe David Brent, Ricky Gervais' character on The Office. I like to think that Asa and I are able to impart such traits into the cast of Junk Science. For I find delusional desperation to be one of the funniest traits a comedic character can possess.

It's here. And it's wonderfully kinky.

Oh, BBC, how you make me laugh.

Cookie Monster, the biscuit-eating puppet on US children's show Sesame Street, will cut down on his favourite food as part of an anti-obesity drive.

I guess what I'm really laughing at is that in the UK Cookie Monster becomes the "Biscuit Monster."

Hung out with Vince, O he of the trailer night, tonight. When we got to his house he immediately took us downstairs. "I have something to show you."

Holy shit. Monster Squad trailer. He just got it today. The best part, quite frankly, is that they play out the scene fighting the werewolf, give the setup, show the title, and then the button is "Wolfman's got nards."

Good marketing people on that thing.

Stumbled onto this on Craigslist and it just struck me a bit funny: "PS this screenplay is like a contemporary spin-off of Cheech & Chong, but funnier, with 1-3 jokes per page!"

Nevermind that we've already had at least two contemporary Cheech and Chong movies and just consider that selling point. I didn't realize people had joke per page counts, though I guess I should have.

If you thought Congress was playing God during the Schiavo-athon, now comes word of a bi-partisan effort to control time and the Earth's rotation.

If Congress passes an energy bill, Americans may see more daylight-saving time.

Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.

If you haven't been checking up on the Carrot Art Contest you should mosey on over. The whole enterprise has gone in a bold new direction.

Thanks to Laurel and Kevin for hittin' this shit up.

The Chicago Sun-Times has this article contrasting Hitler and the Pope. It also has some interesting things to say about Nazism.

It would be a mistake to believe that Nazism had no spiritual power while it still lived. As "Downfall" makes clear, it was a dark, negative, and self-consuming form of spirituality -- but a form of spirituality nonetheless. Hitler's denunciations of "compassion" point to its central perversion: It was an attempt to make power, violence and oppression things of virtue and beauty -- and weakness a sin. It was a pagan inversion of the Christian message.

Also, the New Republic has a good article up that talks about how besides being a good Pope, JPII was also a pretty good playwright. I would not put JPII in the realm of Jefferson or Franklin when it comes to the great polymaths of our times, but JPII certainly had a hyper-literate quality that nearly all contemporary men lack.

Quick: Name a world leader who could easily go off and totally kick ass at another pursuit/occupation/endeavour.

I can't think of any. Asa and I have talked about this before, but Taft was the only (fairly recent) successful presidential multitalent we could think of, as he was capable enough to get himself elected President, and to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Although not regarded as the greatest POTUS or SCOTUS member, he clearly possessed exceptional political, social, and legal skills.

Matt Yglesias talks about Karl Marx for a while and puts forward a fairly simple understanding of Marxist theory (the revolution happened too soon) that leads me to think of nothing more than Star Trek. The essential point here is that we're not there yet, but someday there will be so much wealth that it makes sense to just convert to Socialism. Unlike Soviet Russia, where there clearly wasn't enough wealth to go around, as the World economy grows we will hit the point where, if income is redistributed, literally everyone can live well. That is the system they have in Star Trek right? They have the resources and so they's done away with money and gotten on with business of exploring the universe and blowing up Romulans.

Sounds good to me. Every once in a while I still get a bit wiggy when I think about how money is, for the most part, entirely conceptual.

As if dicking around with Superman, Lex Luthor, the Joker, and Batman wasn't enough, everyone's favorite bad comic writer has set his sights on Will Eisner's Spirit. But, fret not. Loeb's not doing a Spirit comic. No, it's much worse.

He's doing a Spirit movie.

(I actually haven't been mad at Loeb for quite a while, but after thinking about this, and that awful first run on Superman/Batman 18 months ago, I started getting angry again.)

A lot of people seem really peeved about Countdown to Infinite Crisis. It invalidates the comedy years of the JLA! They kill my favorite character! Etc. I guess I just don't get this sentiment. These must be the same people who read Identity Crisis and decided that they could never read a Sue Dibny story the same again. Did Dark Knight Returns invalidate Silver Age Batman? What the hell? Appreciate each story on its own merits people.

Jiminy.

If there's one fascinating legacy to come out of JPII's reign, it's that he's left Europe decidedly post-Christian, while Black Africa now sits in the middle of a Catholic Renaissance. According to an AP report I read this morning, almost 1/5th of the worldwide Catholic population is Black African.

Learning that so many sub-Saharan Africans are devout Roman Catholics is especially fascinating to my insular American eyes. Our country probably possesses one of longest traditions of Christian Africans in the world, but most -- if not all -- of today's African-American Christians worship a decidedly Protestant brand of Jesus.

Catholicism's return to Africa also strikes me as a historical full-circle of sorts, as the early Christian church once had a huge presence on the continent -- from Carthage, to Alexandria, to East Africa, and Ethiopia -- before the Muslim Arab invasions changed everything.

PCPD and I once went to a mass job fair for this thing. We sat through an hour+ lecture about how it's going to remake television and how television sucks balls and blablabla.

All I can say, is if the network is anything like the mission statement we heard last year, this thing is going to be an unmitigated disaster.