Pity the Poor Millionaire

The Medfly: All hail our glorious corporate masters, who have ever done naught but shower us with the eternal blessings of heaven! If they have a failing, it is that they are simply too kind and decent for this wicked, wicked world.

If I was Michael Medved, I'm not sure if I would cite their manufacture of electronics that allow my columns to be widely read as one of the good things about corporations.

Life's little ironies, part XXVIII

The Man from Fuddles:

I walked into the mall, produced the Flip Video camera, and was soon welcomed to the modern world by a nice security officer. He directed me to the office, where I was assigned a minder. This was a buzzkill, as you can imagine, so I wasn’t able to shoot as much as I wanted – didn’t want to drag her all over the place, and there’s always that why are you taking a picture of that? Vibe I get all. The. Time. I hate that.

Gee, Jimmy. Just imagine if you were Arab.

Oh, John, let's just love each other

Someone at Butt Propulsion Laboratories never found out what "You don't want to know" means:

But it does prompt this thought: isn't it a bad thing for a political movement if its core members are, in large part, stark, raving mad? Wouldn't you expect people to notice, and react adversely? And if so, will this start to happen some time soon?

If y'all will excuse me, I'm off to submit this to the Encyclopedia of Platonic Ideals for use in their "Asking a question to which you might not like the answer" entry.

Hits from the Wrong

1. Map presented that would look rather different if it went back oh, say, 150 years.

2. Privileged young woman criticizes political leader for getting expensive haircut while getting expensive haircut, pretends to read book.

3. Hugh Hewitt features image of man who couldn't be bothered to serve in US military Photoshopped into group shot with man who did serve and got shit on for it.

Plessy vs. Kissmyass

The Bush Supreme Court's exciting new plan to end racial discrimination by allowing racial discrimination is just the beginning! Yes, with Brown v. Board of Education all but overturned, Alito and company will now turn their attention to other little mistakes that have slipped past the Constitutional gatekeepers due to activist judges of long ago. Here's what else we can look forward to!

Loving v. Virginia overturned: Court rules that anti-miscegenation statutes are no longer unconstitutional provided that at least a dozen neighbors testify that the couple is "tacky".

Gates v. Collier overturned: Reinstates racial segregation in prison, citing precedent of McDougal v. Weight Machines. Rules that black prisoners are violating the equal protection act by being stronger than Latino prisoners.

United States v. Virginia overturned: Court finds that "separate but equal" facilities are still unconstitutional, but "equal but separate" ones are okay.

Lawrence v. Texas overturned: Citation of Fourteenth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable invasion of privacy to eliminate laws against consensual homosexuality is struck down when Justice Scalia, in the majority opinion, writes "I never heard of any Fourteenth Amendment."

Roe v. Wade overturned: most restrictions on first-trimester abortions are still ruled unconstitutional, but a major exception is introduced, outlawing abortions where the woman in question is pregnant.

Washington v. Glucksberg upheld: Court rules that not only are laws against assisted suicide constitutional, they are "super-duper-constitutional" (Justice Roberts). Justice Alito declares that there is no Constitutional right to die, but there is an obligation to die.

Katzenbach v. McClung overturned: Court reasserts primacy of states' rights against the Civil Rights Act, ruling that interstate commerce regulation does not take precedent over the right of businesses to discriminate so long as the businesses are located in a state.

Miranda v. Arizona modified: Criminal suspects must still be advised of their rights, but those rights need not be communicated in spoken English. They may, for example, be explained to the suspect via written Sanskrit, interpretive dance, or telepathy.

Furman v. Georgia altered: Court seeks retroactive execution of all criminals given sentences of 20 years or more from 1967-1976.

Boy Scouts of America v. Dale expanded: Where previous ruling allowed that private organizations' right of expressive association allows them to expel members based on their sexual orientation, new language replaces "private organizations" with "everybody", "expel" with "stab in the neck", "members" with "fellow citizens", and "sexual orientation" with "swarthiness".

More Like Health UNfair!

The Human Steyn has been posting a lot at the Corner, I guess to prove that he can say asinine things in whatever venue he finds himself. Here's his latest.

So let me just say that I think socialized health care is the single biggest factor in transforming the relationship of the individual to the state. In fact, once it's introduced it becomes very hard to have genuinely conservative government - certainly, not genuinely small government.

Lousy lunchpail-toting Johnny Wannalives. Back when the working classes had the good taste to contract dreadful diseases and perish quietly after churning out the next generation of lawn-tenders, people like me could have the non-tax-invasive governments we deserve! But ever since they caught this survival bug, they've added "basic medical care" to their list of absurd demands along with "safe workplaces" and "not being beaten with horsewhips". Bah!

In a public health care system, the doctors, nurses, janitors and administrators all need to be paid every Friday so the only point at which costs can be controlled is through the patient, by restricting access.

As opposed to in a private system, where everyone will work for free. You may think that this is the most incomprehensible thing that Steyn has to say in this post, but read on!

On the former point, the unloveliness of any British city after six in the evening - the dolly birds staggering around paralytic, the pools of "pavement pizza", the baying yobboes gagging for a shag and hurling bollards through the bus shelters to impress the crumpet - is a natural consequence of what happens when the state relieves the citizen of primal responsibilities.

Yes, before socialized medicine, there were to be found nowhere in England drunken women, vomit, loudmouthed young men on the prowl, or ruffians of any sort. In the days when you had to provide for your own health care -- say, the Victorian era -- you could travel from Penwith to Peterhead and never see such a sight. O, my England! That your pristine gentlemanly nature has been corrupted by kindness!

YOU'RE Not Real, Man!

Remember how they used to say that President Reagan had a problem telling reality from fantasy?

Well...

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said.

Yeah. See, though, that didn't happen. That was a television show.

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.

Well, he's got a point there. No jury in this country, or any other country, is ever going to convict Jack Bauer of anything. This was proven in State of Illinois vs. Little Bo Peep, 1957.

Scalia went on to say that, while he is in favor of allowing torture in order that Jack Bauer can continue to fight terrorism, he is against repealing existing anti-vigilante legislation no matter how much it would help Batman. He says he is undecided as to whether to allow Article 2 of the Constitution to be altered so that Pepe LePew could run for President.