Hmmmm

I'm not sure what I think about this. Hawaii signs what's being called the "anti-birther" law.

Once again, headlines are misleading.  It's not a law disallowing lawsuits or saying that "Dude, stfu, Obama's a natural born citizen" or the like.  It's a limited exception to Hawaii's freedom of information act that permits state agencies to decline repeated requests from the same person for the same information. It's openly acknowledged to have been passed because Hawaii's DOH is getting multiple requests from the same people on a monthly basis for the same information (ie the birth certificate).  This is to make those people go away. 

Here's why I'm torn.  I'm a big open records person.  If the government does it, it's my business.  The guys at Watts Up With That have done yeoman's work in fighting to get the data underlying climate change studies.  Climategate itself contains very juicy information about attempts to avoid FOIA requests.  Overall, FOIA is a fantastic thing.

Let's not kid ourselves, though, there are those who abuse it.  On a local level, there's a guy who is notorious for demanding all kinds of budget information and who refuses to accept what he's been given.  Now, with all the corruption around here, it's reasonable to assume some of the information is less than credible.  But I'm talking about the kook who thinks that the city is stashing cash in abandoned buildings.  (Though anymore that's not that far fetched)  This isn't a gadfly trying to make the city own up.  This is the aliens are telling me this level of nuts.  Under many open records laws, Nutty McNutbar's requests must be given the same response as my request for a copy of the permits for the building that a client is thinking about buying.

I do support some method of reaching a final determination as to a request and then prohibiting the same person from making the same request.  I think there should be a very high bar for this with the obligation on the governmental unit to prove that the information has been provided and that the information is complete.  I also would want severe sanctions if that turns out to be false later.  Not to mention that I think this should not be agency based but should be appealable to the court with the presumption that the person gets the information unless shown otherwise.  But Joe Blow shouldn't be allowed to gum up the works by spamming requests with no basis.

Note that my support for my own position isn't that strong.  I know from my own dealings that those fulfilling the requests are not precisely diligent.  I've had the lovely experience of being told that copies of the documents that I'm holding do not exist.  I know that will be abused by the governmental agencies to make people shut up.  But pretending it's not a problem isn't a rational response either.  There's a middle ground between everyone can ask for everything as many times as they want and shut up, the agency argues, when claiming all information has been disclosed.

Posted by: alexthechick at 11:58 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Yeah, just too rational, that's the ticket

Rick Moran, writing for The Moderate (yet reliably liberal) Voice claims that Utahns shitcanned Bob Bennett because he is too rational for the GOP right now.  He notes Bennett's support of the Bush Amnesty Bill, TARP and his effort to make a "compromised" sellout on socialist medicine.  He says this,

In short, it was a good old fashioned senate compromise on a thorny issue that, in another less mindlessly partisan time, would have served as a starting point for the two parties to work out their differences.

This is ridiculous, and Moran knows this, because its been hashed out eighty bajillion times in the blogosphere, at this stage we have a huge, huge split in philosophical and political thought in the US, and that's not going away.  There is no common ground to be had anymore, our philosophy is far too separated from the left's for there to be much in the way of reconciliation.  The only way to relieve tension from this philosophical and political divide is to decentralize government in a major way to relieve pressure, let the left run their states and communities their way, we'll run ours our way, but we're not going to see that happen, not as power hungry as the left is. 

Moar,

The Tea Party forces don’t want cooperation with the opposition to address the pressing needs of the people; they want war.

Oh no, we didn't ask for this war, we've been dragged into it by the left and elements of the right, and let me tell you,

And any Republican incumbent viewed as less than ideologically committed to total victory will be in trouble this year.

Bullshit.  This is not about demanding pure ideological rigidity from all GOPers, this is about having certain basic expectations from GOPers, we expect Scott Brown to be RINOy, yet we supported him strongly.  This is friggin' UTAH we're talking about here, it's wingnutty wingnut central there (and God bless'em for it!), we expect that their representatives are gonna be eeeeeeeevil wingnutty wingnuts themselves, and so do Utahns.  Bennett forgot that about his state, and sold out in the name of Getting Things Done^TM, even if those things were horribly destructive, or were at least sowing the seeds of destruction.  We're not interested in Getting Things Done^TM for the sake of Getting Things Done^TM anymore, and clearly Utah Republicans aren't either. 

Bottom line is, we upgraded from giant shit sandwich to a burger in Massachusetts, and from a burger to filet mignon in Utah, and we had no reason not to, and we have nothing to apologize for.  And we're going to keep upgrading where we can, because we know what is best in life,

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 09:29 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Paging Chris Hansen

If you get more than 30 seconds into this video without throwing up in your mouth, I question your proclivities.

Updated: link to video - I don't want to be looking at the screen cap for the video all day, it makes me sad for the little girls.

I pulled my daughter out of a dance school last year because the teenagers were out of control - telling the kids my daughter's age to "smack their butt", complaining in front of my daughter's class that their (the teenagers') costumes weren't sexy enough, when as far as I know my daughter had never heard the word 'sexy' before, and certainly wasn't thinking of it as something to aspire to. And this was a dance school that I'd specifically grilled before enrolling my daughter to make sure there weren't going to be revealing costumes and provocative dance.

Yeah, I'm a prude mom. But I'd rather be a prude mom and not be putting my daughter in a situation where she's learning things that preschool kids shouldn't know about. This is not 'blaming the rape victim', this is a simple matter of allowing my daughter to keep her innocence and not giving those pervs who would argue "she came on to me" any fuel for their sick minds.

Just for funsies, let's take a gander at some of the comments. Our three readers are smart people, youse guys are more than capable of realizing the sheer wrongness of the comments without me pointing it out.

more...

Posted by: Alice H at 08:33 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Put me some knowledge

While I feel bad for all the otters, birds, and fish what are getting coated by oil from the leak in the Gulf, is there a way to recover the oil that's leaked out and turn it into fuel? If not, are there companies that are working on processes that could do so? Because that would seem like a good idea, if it's at all possible.

(And while I feel bad for all those critters, they don't currently power my car, so they're kind of a secondary concern for me.)

Posted by: Sean M. at 12:47 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Greatest Love Song Ever?

Posted by: chad98036 at 09:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Guns for Burqas!

FrnakJ has a post about France banning the burqa.

He doesn't like the idea of banning things but the burqa is a very oppressive garment by its very existence. It proclaims that the person inside is property of one person. The man who is the only unrelated male who can see her face.

It gave me an idea: Guns for Burqas!

That way, the ones who like to wear burqas can wear them, the rest can defend themselves against the bastards who want to stuff them into one.

I call that win/win.
And it's totally Constitutional, the right to bear arms to bare arms is right there in the 2nd amendment to the interstate commerce clause.

h/t Veeshir

Posted by: Veeshir at 03:05 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Anwhere?

You know what's not offshore?
ANWR, that's what.

Just sayin'.

Posted by: Veeshir at 02:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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There will be blood

I've heard the mutterings for awhile now about how the Dems want to come after 401(k)s. I'll admit, I've chalked it up to some paranoia because, sure, the Dems might be stupid and might view what's mine as theirs, but they're not suicidal.

It's not looking so paranoid right now.  If the Obama Administration is stupid enough to try to take people's 401(k) funds, there will be blood in the streets.  I don't mean that in a figurative sense.  There will be actual blood in the streets.  Note, that I am not encouraging that, I am stating that I believe that will be the result (see re twitter bitching about descriptive v prescriptive statements).  Hey, if someone wants to put money into a government run annuity program voluntarily, go right ahead.  It's that whole voluntary thing that's key.  It is not paranoid to note that a government program that starts as "voluntary" may very well not end up that way.

I don't remember the exact figures, but there are trillions of dollars in various types of retirement accounts that the government cannot get their hands on right now.  If that changes?  Yeah.  I see an end to the protests being peaceful. 

Posted by: alexthechick at 11:47 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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So now Glenn Greenwald is a hyperbolic jerk

Most people have known that, as well as the fact that he is a sock-puppeteer, for some time, but sometimes you have to smack Huffington Post contributors with a very large clue bat before they can figure things out.

For Lawrence Lessig that smack was Greenwald calling him a liar after Lessig challenged him on some of his statements regarding Elena Kagan.

But Greenwald was not a fan of Kagan. He and I exchanged a number of emails about his views of Kagan. I thought his criticism of her was mistaken. But as I acknowledged to him, and in "print," the source of my judgment is my own private experience. And that private experience is no doubt not evidence for others. So I can well understand skepticism and questions, especially when someone is being appointed for life to such a critical job.

What struck me yesterday as I researched the issue, however, was how hyperbolic Glenn's campaign had become.

…

So I called Greenwald on that on Rachel Maddow's show last night. I said I had enormous respect for Greenwald's work. But that his hyperbole needed to be "checked." And much of my ten minutes or so was devoted to pointing out the incompleteness in Glenn's raging campaign to discredit the president's nominee to the Supreme Court.

…

This morning Glenn responded to my challenging his hyperbole by calling me a liar. I had "spew[ed] total falsehoods on TV," he claimed.

Funny, funny stuff.

Posted by: chad98036 at 11:15 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Okay, which one of you morons is this?

Drunken woman steals a bottle of wine from a grocery store, then nearly rams into a Burger King with her Corvette...all this while being topless, while it was snowing.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:46 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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So, some MFM hacks at USA Today declare Americans are actually undertaxed

Using some creative calculating. I'm gonna go ahead and ignore the DPUD Stylebook that says math will not be involved and link Jeff M's takedown anyway.  No worries, alex or someone will post some hotassery and all will be well with the world.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 08:36 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I don't know why I was the first one to post this little story ...

... but, I am nevertheless happy to pass the information on.  You, uh, um, tech geek guys may be interested.  Yeah.

Posted by: Ember at 07:58 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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*taps chin* what could have happened *taps chin*

It appears that some Somali pirates just poof disappeared after the Russians let them go.

Gee. What could possibly have happened? It's a mystery, really.

Posted by: alexthechick at 07:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Sometimes I wonder what the hell is the matter with people

A five year old kid who lost his leg in an accident has been bullied repeatedly on his school bus, culminating in an attempt to steal his artificial leg and a black eye from a 13 year old 6' 150 lb teenager.  The father goes to the parents and they refuse to do anything, so he goes to the school district. 

Any guesses on how they dealt with the situation?  (Answer below the fold)
more...

Posted by: chad98036 at 04:11 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Hmm...

Is it just me, or did our sidebar disappear?

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 03:55 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Make Hummus, Not Hamas

If only this were the standard method of conflict resolution in the middle east:

On Saturday, more than 300 Lebanese cooks established the latest record for hummus. Hummus is fervently regarded by the Lebanese to be their national dish. This assertion is despite Israeli declarations to the contrary. The Lebanese maintained that the hummus is their national dish in the company of a Guinness World Records delegate, who confirmed that the hummus prepared on Saturday weighed 11.5 tons. That is 23,042 pounds.

The culinary battle has been played out in public for years between Israel and Lebanon with two sides outshining each other for the designation of the world’s best or world’s largest hummus dish.

Now that's a weapon of mass digestion! AHAHAHAHA!!!

...

I'm precious.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 08:40 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Ask A Moron: alexitis

alexthechick asks, "Does this look infected to you?"

Yes. 

Now, before you get angry I'd just like to apologize and try to explain.  You see, I have it on pretty good authority that I'm not required to inform you of any condition I may have because it may interfere with my right to a fun, happy and fulfilling life.

Just think of it as a way to always remember our time together.*

* - We were hobo hunting and things got REAL.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 08:38 AM | Comments (28) | Add Comment
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The birth of the music video

It happened long before MTV was ever a twinkle in the eye of some douchebag cable teevee programming executive...



There's no real reason why I'm posting this, other than to get you to think about what it must have been like to be one of the Beatles back in the 60s.

You could have been Ringo Starr and still ordered anything you wanted that was available on this planet from room service. Or anything that was impossible.  Like a poached dodo egg.

(This is still most likely possible if you happen to be Ringo Starr.)

Posted by: Sean M. at 05:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Driven to distraction

Well, hey, I guess that while it's comforting to know that in spite of his many, many foreign policy gaffes (inappropriate bows, shitty gifts, outright snubs of the Crowned Heads of Europe, etc.) at least our president isn't distracted by urges to bang his supermodel wife.

Oh, wait.

(Notice there in that Newsweek link that they question Olivia Wilde's position on the list while...well, I think you know where I'm going with this.)

Posted by: Sean M. at 02:07 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Jeffrey Toobin: Role Model

Remember this the next time you see his sanctimonious mug on TV lecturing you about something or other.

Toobin and Casey Greenfield, a 36 year-old Yale-educated lawyer—daughter CBS analyst Jeff Greenfield—had an on-and-off affair for many years. In 2008, he got her pregnant. And Toobin went above and beyond his duty as her lover: He offered to pay for an abortion. But that's not all: He would also pay for her to have another baby with a sperm donor, according to the Daily News.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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