Jonah Nails It

One of my most favoritest of the Pundit People weighs in on the Recall Gray Davis thing. In a perfect world he'll have the final word on this... but it's not a perfect world. I think a good rule of thumb with anything concerning governance, i.e. new laws, new policies, traditions, etc. is a variation of the Golden Rule: Don't support anything you wouldn't support if it was in the hands of people who fundamentally disagree with you. I suppose I could put it into Game Theory words, but if I remember correctly the Golden Rule is actually in play in Game Theory. In fact, "tit-for-tat" is the way to "win" Game Theory, at least in foreign relations. Works with plenty of other stuff as well.

The Constitution is a great big delaying mechanism, at least for the stuff it doesn't allow in the first place. Momentary passions of the people get transformed into bills, then bills go back and forth for a year or two and get debated and the ideas get changed, then a president might sign them into law or he might veto them, whereas they shoot back... that takes time, lets everybody get all the necessary information, etc. While there isn't much reason to ignore The People in the long run, there are plenty of reasons to ignore them in the short run.

And when you've got a popular political discourse whose main drive is to limit the expression of ideas to no more than one sentence of no more than 8 seconds, preferably in an easy-to-repeat mantra-style phrase, let's just say there's some oversimplification of the various ideas involved. Bumper-sticker politics.

No great revelation there. Californians do some stupid things. A lot of them believe patently stupid things. For example: "Elect Gray Davis", "Re-elect Gray Davis", and "Recall Gray Davis". I say thee nay--you made your bed, now wallow in it. Hell, most states figure out they elected a crappy governor in ONE term. The other states figured out California elected a crappy governor in one term. And we TOLD you this, California. What'd you do? Elected him again. Showed us, huh?

Stop whining.

Here's some lefty-grade subtlety for you.



To put it in context, Tom DeLay is a racist (according to this particular silly old woman) because he wants to redistrict Texas congressional districts. Mind you, this is a Texas House thing, not a U.S. House thing--Tom DeLay is just a really big supporter. But, you know, "KKK" rhymes with "DeLay" and it doesn't rhyme with "Perry" or "Craddick."

In true NYT fashion, the SA Expressed-Views is "flooding the zone" on this one.

Nerd Wisdom

Was discussing a matter at work today involving old business processes that continue long after their use, to a large extent because people forgot why a process was put in place to begin with. Part of the reason our precious Bonfire fell so many years ago. I told a little tale about a princess that had a favorite flower in the palace garden, and her father had someone stand guard over it day and night. A couple of hundred years later it took a lot of research to figure out why there had to be a guard on a specific piece of empty dirty all the time.
Really, quite a timeless tale. I lifted it straight out of an episode of Babylon 5. Wasn't going to claim that as my own and that's the first and only place I've heard it told. Good going, Joe.

Being a sheep

Okay, I'm sure nobody wanted an X-Men love-in on 4CH. But looook: my collection goes back (now that I type this again I'm feeling like Joe Quesada's version of Micah Wright) to 1979 or 1980 thereabouts. And yeah, I've read them all. You just don't keep that many issues of any X-Men comic around because you feel lukewarmly towards them. I even picked up stuff like X-Terminators, Beauty & the Beast (unread, I admit--no idea which box they're in now), all of X-Factor. And Fallen Angels! Fallen Angels was pretty good. There was a 2-issue short a few years back called X-Men: Brood that was really really good. But I dig the Brood the mostest so that may have skewed things a bit.
By the way, these two line "reviews" are why I won't be reviewing any current comics on 4CH.
Oh! And a shout out to my two readers: My Dearest Colleen and a fellow named Roscoe Ellis. Just in case they come back. Mayhap someday I'll get a visit from her highness Meryl Yourish. That'd make THREE ENTIRE SOULS! And yet, still no instructions for my agents.

Cease-fire

So the various "Palestinian" death cults have started a 90-day cease-fire with Israel. I give it till Wednesday. Expect something along the lines of "We had to blow more people up because Israel was being provocative." And expect the various media around to say, "Hm. That dastardly Israel..."

We'll see. Hope we won't, but... sigh.

Thorn in my dad's side

Well, I'm resisting an urge--found out that McCormick has these nifty peppercorn-grinder things. Not just the grinder, the grinder's integrated into the normal packaging. The urge I'm resisting is the one that usually goes, "Dad, I went to the store and looked for [your] version of my favorite spice (Garlic Pepper Blend by McCormick) but it wasn't there."

I'm sure he appreciates me bringing that up. He'll never read this. And it'll take just a little research to find out what goes where "[your]" is, gentle reader.

The reason I thought of this (originally) was that the Kingpin, I suppose after John Gotti got to be such a Name, was often obliquely referred to as a "humble dealer in spices." Nobody ever meant it (thus always in Reuterquotes), but that what they called him. So my dad runs this spice company in Gonzales, TX [more or less: he's over Operations and Financial and actually works for the people that own the company] and every once in a while he gets to talking about various stuff that happened in a week and I think of my dad as "a humble dealer in spices." But he's not fat and doesn't have peoples' legs broken or anything. He's an accountant. And, like digital cable and high speed Internet, the costumed vigilante element doesn't run all the way out to Gonzales, TX. But they should. It's really really nice there if you don't mind the aforementioned lack of digital cable and high speed Internet.

Brings to mind another visual of 200-lb Daddy swinging his 240-lb Former Tax Exemption #1 around by his ankles. Or him ruining my life and then blowing up my apartment and me thinking, "Dad, you shouldn't have signed it..."

Humble dealer in spices. My dad.