Nobrainer’s Think Tank

The brief bus ride to work brought to my ears a part of an NPR segment about how a Supreme Court justice should view the law of the land. Breyer recently wrote a book about the need to consider the Constitution as an evolving document. Justice Scalia disagrees. Instead, he argues, that interpretations based on current situations make the Court too politically driven. Breyer counters that the Framers left the written words to be vague so that the document could come to life.

My feeling is that Breyer is incorrect. Clearly I’m no scholar of the law or Constitution. However, writing highly detailed and very specific legislation often causes more problems. The Framers knew that and built a broad framework — a framework built to allow new and unforseeable questions to be answered based on the best guess of the intent of the Framers — not on the political climate of the times.

Your thoughts?

That, apparently was part of the message at the 9th annual Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival (No, I was not in attendance; my invitation must have been lost).

Among the hippies there was a table for the “Coalition Against Civilization”, which advances such ideas as “anarcho-primitivism”. The whole thing is kinda funny because the ideas are so far out there. I just had to link to it because it was in C-Ville.

… of the English language. What oft misused phrases really bother you? I have long since lost count, but one of them struck me this morning. As usual, it wasn’t a direct strike, it was a small domino effect.

A couple months ago now, there was a post on Fanblogs about University of Miami football players being involved in a “brawl” amongst themselves. Quick reading of the referenced article (the only article I could find, even after a Google news search) made it sound a lot more like a scuffle between the O and D during practice. Last night a post titled “Clayton charged with battery; allegedly ran over campus parking services employee.” That was soon followed by text from an article:

Clayton’s car hit parking services employee James Seymour. Seymour wasn’t injured.

Hitting someone with your car is not running over them. I’ll just assume it was a simple mistake and move on. Part of the reason I recently complained about Drudge, is because of the way he tends to make headlines seem overly dramatic for what is often very sedate material.

Still with me? Probably not. Don’t worry I would have quit reading already too.

One word that I absolutely hate to hear used in conversation is “electrocute” or its variations. Electrocution specifically implies death. So when I hear “Bubba got electrocuted last week,” I assume that the state finally put Bubba out of his misery for being a convicted goat rapist. Or I imagine that Bubba decided to change fuses while standing in a flooded basement. Then I’m usually informed that Bubba merely shocked (it has nothing to do with the shocker) himself when he drunkenly mistook the terminals on his car battery for a pair of nips.

And that was today’s language lesson, brought to you by the number threeve.

Yeah, my dumbass decided to turn 4 hours of experiments into 6. So that means I’ve had an extra 2 hours to kill tonight. Having read all the usual blogs, news sites, online magazines, etc., I went to Poot’s blog and started clicking the little “next blog” button at the top. Most of the “next blogs” were uninteresting to me, but I present 3 that caught my eye.

Poverty Tourism

This is the new buzzword people. Poverty tourism is the breakthrough concept that is going to make the Indian Tourism industry really boom! Remember Munna Bhai (Pooor People, Reeeeel People)?

There is an article about it here.

Though the phrase sounds somewhat derogatory, the general attitude of whoever writes about this issue seems to be politically correct, but I think its just to avoid flaming.

I think Poverty Tourism, in the long run, will make the so called first-worlders more sensitive to international poverty and will force a rethink on poverty in their home country.

I wasn’t interested enough to read the article, but I think the idea will have a horrible long-term effect. Making poverty profitable will not end poverty. Although I think in the short term it is good for countries to try to develop business in the hopes they can work their way out of poverty.

Holistic Healing Schools. It’s Time to Start Thinking about Mother’s Day.

What is a Holistic Healing School? Holistic healing schools educate potential healers in alternative mind, body health care programs like aromatherapy, astrology, Feng Shui, hypnosis, meditation, natural and energy healing, new age, spiritualism, yoga, massage therapy, and so much more. Holistic healing schools teach natural ways of alleviating pain and even homeopathic ways to cure our ills.

It never crossed my mind before, but how many effing alternatives do you need? To be naturally healthy do I have to smell the right things, read the daily Zodiac reports, arrange my furniture correctly, snap myself unconscious, etc., etc? To have to invest in so many crazy schemes to be healthy seems to imply that none of them work very well (if at all). I guess I’ll have to call up Miss Information and see if I can get straightened out.

Finally:

Economic Engine

Unique Idea that wiil change our world for the better ~~~”THE AMERICAN DREAM HOUSING LOTTERY”~~As American’s (sic) we need to let our elected officials know we will support the American Dream Housing Lottery: CALL the White House 1-202-456-1111 or contact your local politicians and tell them you want to be EMPOWERED!

So that was the blog description, here’s the first paragraph of the first post I ran across:

What if we (AMERICA) could build an economic engine that would greatly reduce poverty, create millions of jobs, pay the deficits of local, state and federal governments, reduce homelessness, reduce the number of illegal imigrants that are coming to our country,increase home ownership, increase small business, increase manufacturing and inject debt free capital assets into the economy all with a voluntary tax?

What. the. fuck? The post kind of goes on and on about fixing the world, without clearly defining how. Even after looking at more posts, the only thing I can definitely say is that they are pushing a federal housing lottery. I felt like I was watching a late night infomercial. “Do you want an iron that will instantly unwrinkle your clothes, steam your broccoli, and mighty your penis all while saving you money? Of course you do. And for just 5 low, low payme….” You get the idea.

So, I have finally wasted enough time. Back to the lab I go.

What’s the current law/penalty for spammers?

Like all of you, I get plenty of junk from non-reputable companies that I doubt will ever really get caught doing anything. However, there’s a pub in DC that put me on their email list after I attended a couple of their “all you can drink” events. After receiving several emails, I decided to click the little link to unsubscribe. I was assured that my address was removed and that I would no longer receive the emails. And I didn’t for many months. Then they started again. So I unsubscribed again. I got a couple more and I unsubscribed again. I believe I have unsubscribed 4 times now, 3 times at least. Now clearly they are in the wrong, can I have them prosecuted and receive any compensation for their harassment?

THERE’S HIS FIRST CAMPAIGN AD FOR SC:

McCain is ‘a warmonger,’ Sheehan says after meeting (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/25/05)

Peace mom Cindy Sheehan didn’t change her opposition to the war in Iraq after meeting Tuesday with one of its supporters, Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam veteran whom she called “a warmonger.” [...]

“He tried to tell us what George Bush would have said,” Sheehan, who protested at the president’s Texas home over the summer, told reporters. [...]

McCain, R-Ariz., also seemed disappointed in the meeting, which he said had been misrepresented as including some of his constituents. Only one person in her small delegation has ties to the state, and that person no longer lives there. [...]

“He is a warmonger, and I’m not,” Sheehan said after meeting with McCain.

Let’s see Rudy match that. Not just the name-calling from the looney Left but a Bush comparison? You can’t buy that stuff.