The Decade In Review

2000 (UN International Year for Declaring Peace Is Better Than War) – Stunned by the near collapse of civilization caused by the Y2K disaster, the dot.com bubble bursts, as millions of investors lose billions of dollars in what turn out to be essentially worthless assets. Fortunately, however, this sobering experience teaches both personal investors and the financial community a lasting lesson in the constant need for due diligence and sound investment in real and lasting value and the financial markets have grown steadily except for a minor downturn in 2007 ever since. Hillary Rodham Clinton furthers the cause of feminism by becoming elected a senator from New York on the strength of her personal qualifications alone. The Jamaican luge team mistakenly arrives for the Summer Olympics.

2001 (UN International Year of Kubrick Films) – Outraged at the discovery of a towering obsidian slab appearing in the midst of one of their millions of holy sites, a handful of Middle Eastern religious fanatics with financial and ideological ties to Saudi Arabia commandeer several commercial airplanes and crash them into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center, killing thousands. An even more outraged America supports President George W. Bush's decision to retaliate by laying plans to invade several neighboring Middle Eastern countries lacking the Bush family's close personal ties to the Royal Saudi family. Bush also explains to the American people that the terrorists “hate us for our freedoms” and that the only way to stop future acts of terrorism is for the U.S. government to take away as many of those freedoms as possible. Following emergency legislation by Congress, American pundits are required by law to write at least one version of the “bombing Afghanistan into the stone age would be an upgrade” joke as a prelude to the invasion. The U.S. then invades Afghanistan, a nation that had fought off the Soviet Union for a decade, and defeats it in a war lasting approximately thirty seven minutes. The Taliban is destroyed and never heard from again.

2002 (UN International Year of Ecotourists Wearing Crocs) – Twelve member states of the European Union convert their national currencies to the Euro, replacing portraits of national rulers and nationalist symbols with astrological symbols and a picture of Orangina on one side and a portrait of Bono on the other. Tourism booms as Americans discover they now need to convert only one foreign currency into “real money.” Except, of course, in England which retains the Cadbury bar as its official unit of currency. The No Child Left Behind Act is signed into law by President Bush. Parochial schools briefly consider but decide against a similar policy entitled No Child's Behind Left. Citing the lack of preparedness of most high school graduates, the School of Hard Knocks founds the Light Slaps Preparatory Academy. John Allen Muhammad (nee Williams), aka The Beltway Sniper, stages a seemingly random series of attacks in the Washington D.C. area, eventually killing at least ten people. Upon his final capture, white people are relieved to discover that finally, at long last a serial killer turns out not to be one of them.

2003 (UN International Year of Fresh Water Fishing) – Hu Jintao becomes president of the People's Republic of China, running on the campaign slogan “Let a million factories to supply Wal-Mart bloom.” Secretary of State Colin Powell explains to the United Nations that the U.S. has irrefutable proof that former President George H.W. Bush mislaid his Skull & Bones key ring somewhere in Iraq and urges the UN to authorize his son to “send in a few troops to look for it.” As it turns out, the key ring turns up several years later in a desk drawer in the Oval Office inside a box of stale cigars with a cryptic Post-it note reading “To the Big Guy, Love, Monica.” While they're there, though, U.S. troops stumble onto Osama bin Laden in a hidden bunker playing pinochle with his best friend, Saddam Hussein and a vast store of weapons of mass destruction including the collected works of Pauly Shore. Despite Hussein's former close personal ties to the Bush family, he meets an untimely, in the sense of overdue, death in a failed bungee jump attempt. After a stern talking to, Bin Laden admits that “this whole terrorist business has gotten out of hand” and retires to one of his family's summer caves on the Pakistani border. Al-Qaeda is disbanded and never heard from again. Gasoline prices plummet after Iraq enthusiastically embraces democracy and remain around 25 cents a gallon ever since.

2004 (UN International Year of Rice-A-Roni, “The San Francisco Treat!”) – Ronald Reagan dies. As the six day long state funeral generates the highest Nielsen ratings of his career, Congress narrowly fails to pass legislation renaming America the United States of Reagan. George W. Bush is re-elected or, if you prefer, finally elected president with an overwhelming mandate of 50.7% of the popular vote. 230,000 people are killed when a tsunami hits Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other states in the Indian Ocean. Fortunately, most of the survivors have federal flood insurance policies and quickly rebuild. The Vatican gains full UN membership except voting rights and immediately introduces a resolution condemning Israel. The Montreal Expos move to Washington, D.C., restoring the city's proud tradition of a perennial cellar dwelling Major League Baseball team.

2005 (End of the UN International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, “You're on your own now, natives!”) – The Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming is established. Eventually, 187 nations ratify the agreement, none of which then proceed to comply with its terms. Hurricane Katrina strikes coastal areas from Louisiana to Alabama, killing over 1,800 people. Outraged Americans, most of whom were completely oblivious to last year's tsunami, accuse the federal government of failing to meet its constitutional responsibility to provide good weather. President Bush flies over the flooded area in Air Force One to observe the damage. Later it is discovered the flooded area just happened to be on the flight path to his Texas ranch, anyway. Controversial drawings of Muhammad playing poker with Jesus, Moses, Buddha and Elvis lead to protests across the Muslim world and at Graceland.

2006 (UN International Year of Tasty Desserts) – North Korea (motto: Powerful and Prosperous Nation) performs its first successful nuclear test. North Korean President Kim Jong-il explains that the weapons are necessary to protect North Korea from foreign enemies who “hate us for our freedoms.” Hugo Chavez is re-elected president of Venezuela, vowing to continue the socialist struggle against the imperialist powers who “hate us for our freedoms.” Despite cries of outrage from major stockholders in the Disney Company, Pluto is demoted to “dwarf planet” status. Millions of elementary school science tests are retroactively downgraded. Vice President Dick Cheney officially opens the Lawyer Season in southern Texas.

2007 (UN International Year of Flipper) – The United States population reaches the 300 million mark. 350 million if illegal aliens are counted. The U.S. also experiences a minor economic downturn, apparently the result of a small number of residential mortgages for which the lenders failed to confirm that the borrowers had, in fact, finished the basements and remodeled the kitchens as they said on their applications. Following news of the death of Marcel Marceau, millions pay their respects with a moment of silence. While President Bush undergoes a colonoscopy, Dick Cheney serves for 2 ½ hours as Acting President, during which time he orders a preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea, France and Massachusetts. Luckily, however, the launch codes had been misplaced and are only later discovered in the course of the president's colonoscopy.

2008 (UN International Year of Mr. Potato-Head) – Barack Obama is elected president of the United States, proving once and for all that a modern, Harvard educated, charismatic son of a white woman could be elected president even if his name wasn't Kennedy. Fidel Castro resigns as president of Cuba, declaring in a 3 ½ hour speech that the time has come for a younger man named Castro to take over the helm and continue the socialist struggle against the imperialist powers who “hate us for our freedoms.” Iceland goes bankrupt, considers renaming itself to Greenland II to promote tourism. The Channel Island of Fark officially abolishes feudalism. As the Writers Guild of America strike continues, the Golden Globe Awards are canceled because no one could be found to write the winners' names on those little cards. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announces his resignation so he can “spend more time with his rented family.”

2009 (UN International Year of Natural Fibers (No, really!)) – Following a botched initial attempt by Chief Justice Roberts to read a short paragraph of simple English correctly, Barack Obama is finally inaugurated as president of General Motors. A member of Congress accuses the president of lying, a situation roughly analogous to a streetwalker accusing a call girl of promiscuity. Bolivia becomes the first South American country to declare the right of indigenous people to govern themselves, following which Bolivian natives open the largest gambling casino in South America. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin resigns “to spend more time with Eliot Spitzer's family.” Late Night host David Letterman reveals an extortion plot “threatening to disclose he'd been spending time with Sarah Palin's family.” After an eight month long election contest, Al Franken is declared the winner of Minnesota Idol and takes his seat in the World's Greatest Debilitative Body. Michael Jackson dies, prompting resurgent sales of Jackson's “Thriller,” almost catching up with the Beatles “1” as the best selling album of the decade and further proving the pointlessness of any popular music recorded less than 25 years ago. Avatar proves to be the most annoyingly unwatchable movie of the decade, edging out The Hottie & the Nottie.

The decade ends, thankfully and at long last, with a Blue Moon.

Juneau

Todd “First Dude” Palin: Gov, Honey, I think it's best to just tell 'em.
Sarah “The Gov” Palin: I'm Pregnant.
Bristol Palin: Oh, God.
Sarah Palin: But, uh ah, I'm not going to give it up for adoption and I'm certainly not going to get an abortion. After all, I'm only in my mid-forties and the First Dude and I are the perfect couple. Just look at how well you two turned out. Besides, if I play my cards right with the Geezer, pretty soon the federal government will be paying for the medical expenses and everything. And, and in, what, um, 50 or so odd years when your dad and I are both dead you can just pretend that this never happened.
Track Palin: You're pregnant?
Sarah Palin: I'm sorry. I'm sorry... And if it is any consolation I have heartburn that is radiating in my knee caps and I haven't taken a dump since like Wednesday... morning.
Bristol Palin: I didn't even know that you and Dad were still sexually active.
Sarah Palin: I, uh...
Track Palin: Who is the kid?
Sarah Palin: The-the baby? I don't really know much about it other than, I mean, it has fingernails, allegedly.
Bristol Palin: Nails, really?
Sarah Palin: Yeah!
Track Palin: No, I know. I mean what’s its name going to be?
Sarah Palin: Umm... We haven't decided on a boy's name yet, but if it's a girl, it's going to be Juneau Palin
Track Palin: Juneau Palin?
Sarah Palin: What?
Track Palin: God, can’t you people ever come up with, like, a normal name?
Todd “First Dude” Palin: Huh?
Bristol Palin: Anyway, Mom... Dad... while we’re on the topic of shenanigans....

Constant Viewer: Hancock

The first thing that must be said about Hancock is that, its misleading trailer aside, this is not a comedy but a serious summer superhero action movie. Okay, so the phrase “summer superhero action movie” probably shouldn’t ever be qualified by “serious.” Still, Constant Viewer thought he’d be seeing something of a send-up of the genre; the superhero equivalent of Last Action Hero (a much maligned and actually very good movie, by the way).

But no, Hancock has its comic moments but most of them are, in fact, on that disingenuous trailer. What you see when the lights go down is the story of a man whose past has been lost and whose present and future, as a result, are in danger of being lost as well. CV isn’t surprised his fellow reviewers have been all over the map about this movie, he really isn’t sure about it, himself.

This much in favor of Hancock can clearly be said. All three principal players, Will Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman, turn in strong performances in well written, three dimensional roles. (Okay, okay, 3-D by action movies standards, but hey, you know.) Theron’s part is substantially larger than CV expected, a fact which leads to a plot twist that caught CV entirely by surprise. The special effects are fun and it’s actually refreshing to see the ripple effect, if you will, of the typical superhero’s good deed doing.

On the other hand, CV came away thinking that Hancock is a brilliant concept that has been almost indifferently executed. Surely a malcontented alcoholic superhero is a character worthy of more exposition and exploration than he is given here and CV felt almost rushed through Hancock’s rehabilitation so that the movie’s far more conventional story could get going.

Will Smith is an enormous talent with enormous personal appeal. Among his contemporaries, probably only Tom Hanks is as hot and as personable a star. Smith's string of hits since before Independence Day is a simply amazing streak (never mind that CV thought Wild, Wild West sucked), and he’ll probably carry Hancock securely into financial success just on good will alone. Frankly, however, Hancock didn’t come close to the major movie it could or should have been, and that’s a damned shame.

George Carlin, 1937-2008

It is said of a man that you cannot know how far he has come unless you know where he began. Perhaps on the occasion of George Carlin’s death this might be said as well about American comedy in the last half century and so also of America, itself.

Carlin’s 1972 Class Clown was the first comedy album I ever bought. It was dedicated “to Leonard Schneider for taking all the risks." But like Schneider, aka Lenny Bruce, Carlin was himself arrested for obscenity, ironically for doing his best known bit from that album, “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television.” (As far as I can tell, at least when it comes to broadcast television, the list is still valid.)



I remember earlier appearances of Carlin, clean-shaven, dressed in suit and tie and more wacky than cutting-edge, doing guest appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, his Al Sleet, the hippy-dippy weatherman, cracking Johnny up rattling off a meteorological jargon packed weather report only to end with “But our radar has also just picked up hundreds of ICBMs heading our way, so I wouldn’t sweat the cold front.”

Carlin changed with the times over the course of the sixties and early seventies and, it could also be said, helped in his own small way to change them. The sort of comedy we tolerate, let alone laugh at, says something about us. Carlin was funnier than Bruce, his “observational” eye for the absurd or the merely comical, especially in matters of language, was much sharper than Seinfeld’s and his “transgressiveness” was far more authentic than 99% of the comics that came along after him.

I don’t think it would be too unfair to describe Carlin’s politics as left-libertarian, though the leftist bent often got the better of his libertarian inclinations whenever the two came into conflict. But it is probably more fair to say that Carlin’s comedy was a study in equal opportunity misanthropy, notwithstanding the fact that some targets are just richer than others. Regardless, his was a unique talent. In any ranking of 20th century comedy genius, a pantheon that would include, for example, Groucho Marx and Richard Pryor, George Carlin would almost certainly make the Top Ten.

Herewith, a 2005 Carlin interview with the Onion A.V. Club.

This Gives "Extra-Vehicular Activity" A Whole New Meaning

You think you have a hard time getting a plumber when you need one? Pity the poor astronauts awaiting a spare part to fix the toilet on the international space station. "Okay, that'll be $37.50 for the pump, $150 labor and $2,000,000 for the service call." (I admit it. I don't know how much each flight of the the space shuttle Discovery actually costs and just pulled a figure from my... well, never mind that.)

But my favorite quote from the story is as follows:

The space station's Russian-built toilet has been acting up for the past week. The three male residents have temporarily bypassed the problem, which involves urine collection, not solid waste.

Top 10 Surprises in McClellan White House Book

From the home office at the Crawfish Ranch, the Top Ten surprises in Scott McClellan's new White House exposé, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, are:

10. Cabinet meetings scheduled in president’s calendar as “keggers”

9. George Stephanopoulos’s secret stash of hair grooming products left behind podium includes "industrial strength mousse"

8. Flight jacket worn during “Mission Accomplished” speech borrowed from Indiana Jones

7. Karl Rove quit in disgust when polls showed public thought Cheney more evil

6. After hunting accident, Vice President Cheney’s wife Lynne heard to comment “His gun still fires? News to me.”

5. No one on White House staff has ever seen vice president between dawn and sundown

4. President overjoyed that The Hottie & The Nottie finally released on DVD

3. Staff panicked when president rehearsed Axis of Evil speech and kept saying “Iraq, Iran and North Dakota”

2. Secret Service code name for Vice President? “Mr. Burns”

And the number one surprise in Scott McClellan’s new White House “Tell All”:

1. President still pondering last minute third term run

Clinton Endorses Obama?

No, not really.
For now, just file under Stories That Wouldn't Surprise Us:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today in a surprise announcement just hours before the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin, former President William Jefferson Clinton declared his total and enthusiastic support for Barack Obama to become the Democratic Party nominee for president, effectively becoming the last significant member of the Democratic Party aside from Hillary herself to endorse Obama.

“You know I love Hillary,” Clinton explained, “and short of remaining faithful to her sexually I’d do just about anything for her; but politics is the art of the possible and, quite frankly, that bitch just won’t hunt, if you know what I mean.”

In a brief question and answer period following his announcement, Clinton said he thought poor white voters would vote for Obama over McCain in November. “After all, they voted for me twice, so this time all they have to do is vote for a black president who’s, you know, actually black.”

Clinton also said the chances of Hillary being offered or accepting the Vice Presidential nomination were “about as likely as me giving Kenneth Starr ‘a Monica,’” and he flatly denied rumors that his endorsement came at the price of Obama naming him for the first Supreme Court vacancy. When asked as he was leaving the stage why then there were numerous recent reports of him interviewing female law students “for possible clerkship openings,” Clinton simply smiled and declined comment.

A Farewell to Claws?

With a hat tip to Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward, the (U.K.) Daily Mail reports:

People could be prosecuted for being cruel to pet spiders, octopuses and restaurant lobsters under animal welfare plans being considered by the Government....

While it is illegal to mistreat a goldfish, there is nothing to stop people mistreating pet tarantulas or lobsters kept in restaurant aquariums....

While [restaurants] would still be able to boil the crustaceans alive to kill them, they would have to make sure they are kept in clean, warm uncrowded tanks up to that point.

Ah, yes, I can see it now ...

From "A Clean, Well-Heated Tank," by Ernest Lemmingway:

"What did he want to kill himself for?"

"How should I know?"

"How did he do it?"

"He plunged into a pot of boiling water."

"Who pulled him out?"

"The cook."

"Why did they do it?"

"Twenty-three dollars a pound."

Paris Hilton's Prison Diary

A must read. (H/T Arts & Letters Daily)

Debate Parody: Republican Candidates' Closing Remarks

CNN Moderator: And that concludes the question and answer portion of this evening’s Republican presidential candidate debate here in New Hampshire. To conclude tonight’s event, we have asked the candidates, well, some of them anyway, to adapt a television, movie or play monologue as their closing speeches. We will now ask them, in alphabetical order, to give those closing remarks:



Rudy Giuliani:

He that shall live that day, and see old age,
Will daily on the campaign trail feast the voters,
And say 'Once was 9/11.'
Then will he load his film and show his clips,
And say 'These photo ops I had on 9/11 Day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What sound bites spoke that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words -
Rudy the Mayor, and also maybe W.,
Be in their frothy mugs freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the speechwriter ever type;
And 9/11 shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the closing of the polls,
But we in it shall be remembered -
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that casts his vote for me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentile his condition;
And candidates for president now-a-stage
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not there,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That posed with us upon 9/11 Day.

* * * * *



John McCain:

This copy of the Constitution was in your daddy's pocket when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured and put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew that if the gooks ever saw the document, they would confiscate it and take it away. The way your dad looked at it, the Constitution was your birthright. He'd be damned if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yellow hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something: in his ass. Five long years, he wore this document up his ass. Then, when he died of dysentery, he gave me the Constitution. I hid this uncomfortable and legislatively constricting piece of paper up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give it to you. Sorry about that brown stain blotting out some of the Bill of Rights.

* * * * *



Ron Paul:

The key to faking out the Republican mainstream is the anti-tax stand. It's a good non-specific position. A lot of people will tell you that opposing abortion is a dead lock, but if you get any press on it, you could land on the rubber chicken circuit in the Bible Belt. That's worse than Congress. What you do is, you pull out a pocket edition of the Constitution, discover to your ‘astonishment’ there’s nothing about hydroelectric plants or an Air Force in it and then you vote no on the appropriation bill. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is politics.

I did have a debate today. That wasn't bullshit. It's on Islamic fascism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not Islamic, I don't plan on being Islamic, so who gives a crap if some of them are fascists? They could be communist Druids - that still wouldn't change the fact that we’re not on the Gold Standard. Not that I condone fascism, or any ism for that matter. Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism - he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: "I don't believe in Beatles - I just believe in me." A good point there. Of course, he was the Walrus. I could be Dr. Walrus - I'd still have to put up with morons like Giuliani.

* * * * *



Mitt Romney:

Ah, hello. Well, first of all I'd like to apologize for the behavior of certain of my colleagues you may have seen earlier, but they are from broken homes, circus families and so on and they are in no way representative of the new modern improved Republican Party or of today’s mostly monogamous Mormon Church. They are a small vociferous minority... and may I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no polygamy in the Republican Party, at least not among those of us who are also in the Mormon Church, which is more than some non-Mormon Republicans can say, not that I’d ever mention it. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit, but all new members are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find more than two toothbrushes in the master bathroom, they're to tell me immediately so that I can take every measure to hush the whole thing up. And, finally, child brides are right out, unless the candidate is an actor.

* * * * *



Tom Tancredo:

Son, we live in a country that has borders, and those borders have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Romney? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for illegal immigrants, and you curse the border patrol. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the occasional illegal's death, while tragic, probably saved jobs. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves jobs. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me to build that wall, you need me to build that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. English words. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the Navajo blanket of the very security that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a post hole shovel, and help build the wall. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

* * * * *

CNN Moderator: Thank you, Gentlemen. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of time, so as the closing credits role, let’s hear briefly from all the other candidates:

Chorus (Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Tommy Thompson) in unison:



We represent the Rest of the Pack,
The Rest of the Pack,
The Rest of the Pack,
And in the name of the Rest of the Paaaaaaaack,
We’d like a house to drop on these guys, too!

* * * * *

Top Ten Reactions to "Covert" Iran Destabilization Plans

ABC News reports that the CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government. With apologies to David Letterman, here are my Top Ten reactions:

10. “A coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation,” huh? I wondered what Karl Rove was up to these days.

9. Thank goodness no one in Iran has internet access or reads English.

8. Upon learning that Elliot Abrams has provided advice regarding the covert operation, Iranian leaders have apparently hired Daniel Ortega in response.

7. Shouldn’t that be covert “African American” operation?

6. It was either this or Cheney was going to take Iran quail hunting.

5. It isn’t true that in deference to President Bush’s alma mater the campaign is named “Operation Mullah Mullah” or that Bush is referred to in the plan as “Cheerleader One.”

4. Rudy Giuliani has preemptively criticized Ron Paul over the insulting notion that the Iranians might object and retaliate.

3. In related news, share prices for the Acme Flammable American Flag Company rose 23% on heavy trading.

2. Leaked reports of other “nonlethal presidential findings” include 87 cents in loose change and a Smirnoff Preferred Customer courtesy card in the president’s jeans.

1. Osama who?

Wolfowitz's Possible Successors?

Milton Drysdale:

Pros: Extensive experience providing banking services for gun wielding semi-literates.

Cons: Miss Jane Hathaway, real brains behind Drysdale's success, fled to undisclosed location in 1967 with accomplice Jethro Bodine after bank examiner discovered fifty million dollars missing from Bank of Beverly Hills vault.


Rich Uncle Pennybags (a.k.a. Monopoly Man):

Pros: Holds two Get Out of Jail Free cards. Once won second prize in a beauty contest. Snappy dresser.

Cons: Tendency to tear down residential housing to build luxury hotels.


Gordon Gekko:

Pros: "Greed is good" motto reduces Invisible Hand and rational self-interest theories to terms underdeveloped nation populations can understand.

Cons: Sharp dealing reputation inconsistent with high moral standards insisted upon by World Bank for all non-Third-World personnel. Hideous taste in neckties.


Scrooge McDuck:

Pros: Favors fiscal and monetary policies designed to discourage runaway inflation.

Cons: Insistence on gold backed currency and tight credit limits money supply growth in pace with expanding economy.


C. Montgomery Burns:

Pros: Gay friendly employer. Understands importance of safe, clean, reliable source of energy. Comfortable with monopoly ownership typical of kleptocracies.

Cons: Victorian attitudes may prove offensive to post-Colonial regimes. Preference for nuclear power poses weaponization risks.

What? No Drinking Section on the New SAT?

Former co-blogger Thoreau links to the Onion's provocative consideration of whether American high school graduates are being adequately prepared for college level drinking. While there, however, be sure to check out the tragic plight of American executives displaced by Mexican immigrants.

Life Imitates Zork?

You are standing inside a White House, having just been elected to the presidency of the United States....

What do you want to do now?
> INVADE IRAQ


"Who is the boss? Me! I am the boss of you!"
-- White House legal memorandum (full text) regarding scope of Executive war powers.

Her Majesty's a Pretty Nice Girl

Every fifty years, just like clockwork, the Queen of England shows up at my alma mater, originally named “Their Majesties’ Royall Colledge of William and Mary in Virginia.” Founded in 1693, William & Mary discreetly dropped the “Their Majesties’ Royall” part after a bit of trouble with England back in the 1770s and then at some unknown point finally noticed and corrected the “Colledge” typo, too. Needless to say, the real King William and Queen Mary have long ago, as my Baptist relatives would say, gone to glory and, just like my rich Uncle D.A., left not so much as a farthing in their wills to the College, either. Still, the royal name remains and suffices for subsequent English monarchs to drop by when they’re in the neighborhood.

As was Elizabeth II, here to help honor the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown (as she was for the 350th) and soon to be dropping in at the White House for tea and chicken-fried steak sandwiches. No word yet on whether any of Pocahontas’s ancestors descendants [thanks, Seamus] were invited either to the Jamestown celebration or the White House fête or whether discussion of lax immigration laws are on the agenda.

I’m not sure what value the perpetuation of royalty still contributes to Great Britain. Some argue it is important as a matter of national identity, others argue it helps tourism. Maybe. It’s their business and not mine, in any case. I frankly feel a little sorry for Elizabeth Windsor. By all accounts she’s had a pretty stressful and a pretty boring life. Most celebrities find at least some private space where they can kick off their shoes and scratch where it itches, but I get the impression this poor woman needs to retreat to the smallest room in the palace to get that sort of privacy.

Our own Founding Fathers, who themselves have taken on a sort of Arthurian mythos by now, were pretty clear that titles of nobility were a bad idea for the new republic and made a point of making them unconstitutional. Of course, between the progressives’ notion of a “living Constitution” and our own George II’s increasingly imperial view of the presidency, this might not last much longer. Still, we tend to reserve our fawning admiration for actors, musicians and athletes whose celebrity can in at least some tenuous sense be said to have been achieved rather than inherited. Heck, these days it’s hardly worth even being born a Kennedy any more.

Other people’s royalty, on the other hand, continue to fascinate Americans. Many of us are impressed even by such minor honorifics as knighthoods and take to calling actor Anthony Hopkins “Sir Anthony” at the drop of a fava bean. Hopkins is a fine actor, but let’s face it, his stardom and hence his knighthood rests on having played the world’s most famous psychotic cannibal. (Lucky for Helen Mirren, I suppose, she got her damehood in 2003, long after the death of Elizabeth I and before her staring role in The Queen.) Though far from a psychotic cannibal, one has to wonder whether Mick Jagger quite personifies the knightly ideals of chivalry, either. Oh well, there’s always been a bit of supply and demand about these things. According to Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage, in the 13th century knights were expected to do military service and so many men therefore declined the honor that King Henry III began imposing fines on those who refused.

Anyway, while her Virginia visit is already concluded and you’re probably not invited to the big white-tie dinner at the White House on Monday, just in case you do bump into the Queen while she’s in the U.S. (she’s going to the Kentucky Derby, I hear), the Commonwealth of Virginia has posted a brief royal etiquette guide.

Oh, and if you are going to be at the White House Monday night and especially if you’re going to be hosting the dinner, I thought I might add a few more etiquette tips to the list:

1. Do not refer to your Guest of Honor as Queenie.

2. Do not have Queen’s Greatest Hit’s piped in over the White House stereo.

3. Do not invite the Queen to “pull my finger.” (The Duke of Edinburgh does this all the time at the palace and it really ticks the Queen off.)

4. Do not refer to the twins as “my own princess problems, if you know what I mean?”

5. Do not demand she show you a Five Pound note to prove it’s really her.

6. Do not ask her if it’s true J.K Rowling is worth a lot more than she is now.

7. Do not serve Steak Diane.

8. Do not offer a summer vacation swap of the White House for Buckingham Palace.

9. Do not ask if Prince Charles is planning to run for king when she retires. And finally,

10. Do not ask if she has any suggestions where you and Laura can get a good price on a couple of crowns.

Oh, If Only There Was a Green Party to Save the Red Planet from Itself!

The (U.K.) Sunday Times reports:

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Money quote:

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

Known life or not, my money's on Martian conservatives and interplanetary corporations being behind it all.

Wittgenstein's Dissertation

Okay, so I'm only writing about this as a set-up to one of my favorite academic stories. The QUICK and the ED has a post over the probably forced resignation of M.I.T. Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones, of whom it was discovered after some 28 years of service that she had fabricated her own c.v. and did not even possess an undergraduate degree. The point of the blog post (and the very different point of my writing about it) is as follows:

This shows how rigid the credentialing mentality has become in higher education, trumping three decades of undisputed good work. It wasn't always that way. When Ludwig Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1929, they simply accepted his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as a doctoral thesis.

Well, now. However excellent at her job Ms Jones may have been, Wittgenstein's Tractatus had already been published in 1921 (how many doctoral dissertations can that be said about?), was widely influential and hailed as a masterpiece almost immediately, especially among the Vienna Circle logical positivists, and it remains one of the most important works of philosophy of the 20th century if not of the entire history of philosophy. The work had in large measure been prompted by Wittgenstein's interest, first, in the work of logician Gottlob Frege (there's a good story there, too) who, in turn, sent him to study with Bertrand Russell at Cambridge. Russell's colleague at Cambridge, fellow philosopher G.E. Moore had recommended the Latin title, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, to Wittgenstein.

When Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1929, bestowal of his PhD degree was itself a complete sham to enable him to get a paid position, Russell having noticed that Wittgenstein's earlier years there technically met the PhD residency requirement. In that generation at both Oxford and Cambridge, possession of a PhD was not a requirement for an academic career. Promising scholars who had taken "First" (highest honors) B.A. degrees simply continued in their studies and were (and still are) awarded M.A. degrees "in course" after several years; that is, these scholars are not required to complete any further formal course work or write a thesis. Today, as I understand it, British universities typically expect aspiring scholars to complete a PhD just like in the U.S. However, as late as the 1970s a former teacher of mine and a full professor at a major American university held only a B.A. from Oxford, having been too cheap to pay the small fee Oxford required to grant him the M.A.

Now for the story. Wittgenstein's "examining committee" was comprised of - guess who? - Bertrand Russell, whom Wittgenstein contended never did understand the Tractatus, and G.E. Moore, who had probably never even bothered to try. As the story goes, they basically met for tea one afternoon, Russell and Wittgenstein argued for a while and Moore said practically nothing. The "examiners" recommendation was a foregone conclusion, but a written recommendation nonetheless had to be submitted to the university. Moore wrote the recommendation. I have never seen the actual document and reports of its wording vary, so I will simply relate the recommendation in full as it was told to me:

It is my opinion that Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a work of philosophical genius. It nonetheless fully meets the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

[Insert USC Mascot Joke Here]

A little over a month ago, I posted over at Inactivist a piece entitled "Introducing Our New NCAA Approved Mascot, ... the Central State Condom!" It read as follows:

Herewith, one wit's list of the Worst NCAA Division I College Mascots, complete with pictures. (And check out the three Honorable Mentions at the end, too. Go Dartmouth!)

Alas, it's only a matter of time before the whole college mascot tradition dies a slow, painful and politically correct death. For example, American Indian mascots of any sort are now verboten as far as that steaming pile of faux-rectitude, the NCAA is concerned. My bet is they'll go all PETA and come after animal mascots next, at which point all that will be left to pick from will be Dead White Guys (always dicey) and politically correct inanimate objects.

Proving once again that life imitates art, I give you:

They Fight Crime! **

He's a former actor with such screen credits as Jesuit Joe and Grey Owl. She's the reigning 2007 Miss America. They fight crime!

(** - Title explained here.)

Speaking of the Road to Hell...

... and other destinations, the good folks at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Urban Transportation Studies have assembled a web page dedicated to odd traffic signs. I don't vouch for any of them (including the above) not being Photoshopped or, even if the photos are untouched, not being gag signs. Still, they're well worth a quick look and a lighthearted laugh.