World Record of the Week

I'm not going to discuss why faithful reader RB took the time to track this down. But it's the type of world record that needs further exposure...

Graham Barker of Tuart Hill, Western Australia, has collected 15.41g (.54oz) of his own navel fluff since 1984. As a child, Graham had collections of stamps and coins, and then he took an interest in rocks after studying a geology degree. It was only in a bored moment, in 1984, in a Brisbane youth hostel that he started rooting out his own navel fluff! He is often told he's crazy, but the eccentric Aussie defends his right to ferret for fluff: "I think it's really cool to collect something no one else has. I want to carry on indefinitely." Friends are now used to the shock of visiting the bathroom at Graham's home in Perth, Western Australia, as it's here he shows off his spectacular stash of navel fluff.

The real question is what happens when he gets married -- my future wife wants to toss out my old T-shirts, so I can' imagine what would happen to balls of lint. Then again, maybe this is a moot question -- I'm guessing this guy probably isn't bringing many girls home who aren't on video or paper.

Reason #175,679 Why I Don't Live in California

The Lord of Turth keeps us updated on crucial legislative efforts in the Golden State...

Entertainer Paula Abdul is urging California legislators to force nail salons to clean up their act.

Testifying Monday at a state legislative hearing in Sacramento, the 43-year-old dancer/choreographer/actress and "American Idol" judge talked about her own yearlong health ordeal caused by an unsanitary manicure.

Abdul said a trip in April 2004 to a Studio City nail shop that used unclean equipment sent her in and out of the hospital, and made her the butt of late-night talk show jokes.

"Being a professional dancer, I'm no stranger to pain, but this time the pain was so excruciating that even my hair touching my thumb caused me to scream," Abdul told the California Senate Business and Professions Committee in Sacramento.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman Leland Yee, would establish safety standards for manicure and pedicure equipment and rewrite state regulations mandating that nail shops follow sanitary practices.

..."I was publicly humiliated," Abdul said in her closing statement. "That is why with an open heart and a selfless agenda, I implore you to pass this bill."

There's almost an unlimited set of jokes available from this. But maybe this is proof positive that the Terminator needs to terminate the full-time legislature -- they clearly have too much time on their hands (seriously, no pun intended).

Meanwhile, can anyone explain to me how Abdul's last sentence makes any sense? How can this agenda be selfless if she's there because she was publicly humilated?

Lastly, I think there's at least one American Idol contestant who would state that Abdul's heart isn't the only thing that's open.

I Feel A Draft...

Bill Simmons' annual NBA Draft column is always a highlight for sports fans, even for those of us who would rather watch replays of college football games from the 1970's before sitting through another Spurs-Pistons finals. An excerpt features these gems...

8:07 – High schooler Martell Webster just went sixth to the coachless Blazers, where there's a 95 percent chance he'll be corrupted by D-Miles, Zach Randolph, Ruben Patterson and the rest of the chain gang. With one of the other picks they got in the Utah trade, they should draft the Whizzinator.

(Funny story about Webster and fellow stud high schooler Gerald Green from Monday night's draft preview special: Stu asked them if they knew who the first lottery pick ever was in 1985 … and both of them drew a blank. Then Stu gave them the "New York, New York" clue … still, complete blanks. Finally he told them and Webster defended himself with, "I was only 1." And you wonder why the age limit is coming in.)

...8:12 – New highlight of the night: Webster's grandmother's hat. It's looks like a chef's cap crossed with an overcooked souffle. Fantastic. Also, Portland GM John Nash (looking grim and nervous) just explained the pick by saying, "First of all, we think we took an outstanding young man, he's a terrific character, somebody that the community of Portland can be proud of, in addition to a very good player." Translation: Don't worry, this guy may stink down the road, but at least he won't end up in jail.

As for my Sixers, we drafted some high school kid who resembles Allen Iverson. Translation: Better hope the Eagles are the ones to break that title drought.

Paging Dick Durbin

A revelation of sorts in the left-wing dishrag... even if it only appears on page A15...

Senators from both sides of the aisle competed on Monday to extol the humane treatment of detainees whom they said they saw on a weekend trip to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. All said they opposed closing the center.

"I feel very good" about the detainees' treatment, Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said.

That feeling was also expressed by another Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

On Monday, Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, said he learned while visiting Guantánamo that some detainees "even have air-conditioning and semiprivate showers."

Another Republican, Senator Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, said soldiers and sailors at the camp "get more abuse from the detainees than they give to the detainees."

In the last month, several senators, including some Republicans, have suggested that Congress should investigate reports of abuses at the detention center or that the military should close it to remove a blot on the country's image.

(hat tip: Tom Maguire) As Maguire's pal Orrin Judd noted, the Democrats must be reading the poll numbers and realizing that the average American does not really care about whether there's abuse of Korans at Gitmo.

Hey, I don't know whether I should take these statements any more seriously than Durbin's, except that (1) at least these Senators were on the ground at the prison and (2) didn't use stupid over-the-top references to dead dictators. I don't really care about Koran abuse, but legit claims of abuse need to be investigated and, if true, the abuse needs to stop. We all have differing ideas of what constitutes abuse, but we can probably all agree on certain things being out of bounds. unfortunately for Durbin and his ilk, he basically forestalled (if not ended) serious debate about the treatment of detainees in order to score cheap political points -- and he didn't even get those.

As this former Vietnam POW's story makes clear, it's not a good idea to compare the treatment at Gitmo to the more awful practices at other places...

The detainees at Guantanamo receive new Korans and prayer rugs, and the guards are instructed not to disturb the inmates' prayers. Compare this with my experience in February 1971, when I watched as armed men dragged from our cell, successively, four of my cell mates after having led us in the Lord's Prayer. Their prayers were in defiance of a January 1971 regulation in which the Communists forbade any religious observances in our cells. Does Mr. Durbin somehow argue that our behavior is the equivalent of the behavior of the Communists?

Actually, I was one of the lucky ones. At another camp, during the time I was being interrogated in the summer of 1969, one man was tortured to death and several were severely beaten. In fact, according to Headquarters Marine Corps, 20 percent of my fellow Marines failed to survive captivity. Have 20 percent of the Islamo-fascists failed to survive Guantanamo?

The argument that detainees at Guantanamo are being treated badly is specious and silly. In the eyes of normal Americans, Democrats believe this argument because, as Jeanne Kirkpatrick said 20 years ago, they "always blame America first."

Some things don't change. Maybe that's the only real comparison between today's Iraq War and Vietnam -- the Democratic base still can't bring itself to take their country's side.

Damn You, Ebay!

Faithful reader KS points out an incredible opportunity that, alas, has passed all of us by.

I think I probably should have found a way to buy this for the wedding, but it won't fit in the garage.

We Need Hockey

The Lord of Truth notes that the NHL strike has claimed another victim...

Zamboni operator John Peragallo was charged with drunken driving after a fellow employee at the Mennen Sports Arena in Morristown called police and reported that the machine was speeding and nearly crashed into the boards.

Police arrived after Peragallo had parked the machine after grooming the ice during a break in a public skating session.

Police said Peragallo’s blood alcohol level was 0.12 percent.

How fast could a speeding Zamboni go? And as RB noted, when do they not look like they're crashing into the boards?

Now I Feel Old

As Johnny Red noted to me, it turns out that Rev. Edmund J. Dobbin, O.S.A., is stepping down as the President of Villanova University (our alma mater) at the end of the 2005-06 academic year. Yet another link to my beloved college years disappears.

I don't know that I had many thoughts about Rev. Dobbin during my four years in school, which probably means he did a good job. University Presidents are like referees in basketball games - they're doing their best job when we don't notice them. Plus, I had a great four years, and he deserves at least some credit for it. So best wishes to him in his next endeavor, and I hope Villanova finds another good man to take the helm.

Why Judges Matter

Jonah Goldberg's got a great take on the coming judicial confirmation battles, and why they matter, as he discusses the battle between those advocates of the so-called living Constitution and we conservatives who prefer the "dead" Constitution...

We’ve all heard about how great living constitutions are. The most extreme, but essentially representative, version of this “philosophy” can be found from the likes of Mary Frances Berry or the Los Angeles Times’s Robert Scheer. They matter-of-factly claim that without a “living” constitution, slavery and other such evils would still be constitutional. This is what leading constitutional legal theorists call “stupid.” The constitutionality of slavery, women’s suffrage and the like were decided by these things called the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Also, contra feminists, women got the vote not through a living constitution but by the mere expansion of the dead one — via the 19th Amendment.

This is not to say the “living constitution” is a myth. “It’s alive!” all right, as Dr. Frankenstein might say. Supreme Court justices have found the most interesting things swimming in the penumbras and emanations of the U.S. Constitution. The point is merely that it is batty to argue that constitutional change is impossible unless we view the Constitution as a completely viable life outside the womb of historical context and principled meaning.

The more reasonable arguments for a living constitution revolve around the view that society is changing too fast and the Constitution-as-written must grow to stay relevant. Al Gore said in 2000, “I would look for justices of the Supreme Court who understand that our Constitution is a living and breathing document, that it was intended by our founders to be interpreted in the light of the constantly evolving experience of the American people.”

And it’s obviously true that the Founders never envisioned a world of embryonic stem cells or retinal-scan cat doors (coming soon!). And there are good answers for what the Supreme Court should do when the Constitution is truly silent on an issue. For example: It should stay silent.

But the problem here is that these arguments are all on the opposition’s turf. Conservatives aren’t merely anti-living Constitution — we are pro-dead Constitution. In order for us to live in freedom, the Constitution must die (Faster, Federalist Society! Kill! Kill!).

The case for dead constitutions is simple. They bind us to a set of rules for everybody. Recall the recent debate about the filibuster. The most powerful argument the Democrats could muster was that if you get rid of the traditional right of the minority in the Senate to bollix up the works, the Democrats will deny that right to Republicans the next time they’re in the majority (shudder).

The Constitution works on a similar principle, as does the rule of law. Political scientists call this “precommitment.” Having a set of rules with a fixed (i.e., dead, unliving, etc.) meaning ensures that future generations will be protected from judges or politicians who’d like to rule arbitrarily. This is what Chesterton was getting at when he called tradition “democracy for the dead.” We all like to believe that we have some say about what this country will be like for our children and grandchildren. A “living Constitution” denies us our voice in this regard because it basically holds that whatever decisions we make — including the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments — can be thrown out by any five dyspeptic justices on the Supreme Court. In other words, the justices who claim the Constitution is a wild card didn’t take their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution in good faith because they couldn’t know what they were swearing to.

“What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority,” Justice Scalia wrote this week, “is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle. That is what prevents judges from ruling now this way, now that — thumbs up or thumbs down — as their personal preferences dictate.”

Scalia's quote is a brilliant summation of where the problems lie today in the realm of Constitutional law. The Court's split in the Ten Commandments cases made so little sense that Scrappleface may have the best take on it. There's terrific analysis at Volokh by Todd Zywicki and Eugene Volokh himself. Both analyze the issue of whether these decisions actually engender divisiveness rather than preventing it, and this passage from Volokh made a lot of sense...

The opinions joined in these cases by Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer routinely stress that Ten Commandments displays and the like often threaten to produce "religious divisiveness," and that the Establishment Clause should be read as making such divisiveness into a reason for invalidating (at least some) government actions. Past Supreme Court cases have made similar claims.

But I wonder: What has caused more religious divisiveness in the last 35 years -- (1) government displays or presentations of the Ten Commandments, creches, graduation prayers, and the like, or (2) the Supreme Court's decisions striking down such actions?

My sense is that it's the latter, and by a lot: All these decisions have caused a tremendous amount of resentment among many (though of course not all) members of the more intensely religious denominations. And the resentment has been aimed not just at the Justices but at what many people see as secular elites defined by their attitudes on religious matter. The resentment is thus a form of religious division, and I've seen more evidence of that than I have of religious division caused simply (i.e., setting aside the litigation-caused division) by the presence of Ten Commandments displays, creches, or even graduation prayers.

Isn't there something strange about a jurisprudence that in seeking to avoid a problem (religious divisveness) causes more of the same problem, repeatedly, foreseeably, and, as best I can tell, with no end in sight?

There should be a retirement (or two) this week. Stay tuned.

Next Up, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Summer Home

Faithful reader RB tells us that our desire for a Hooters on Justice Stevens' land may be possible. At least, Justice Souter is learning the downsides to the Kelo decision, and I personally find this hilarious...

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

As always, this provides a wonderful opportunity for a Simpsons quote...

Bart: "Listen to yourself, man: you're hangin' with nerds."
Homer: "You take that back!"
Marge: "Homer, please! These boys sound very nice, but they're clearly nerds."
Homer: "Really? But nerds are my mortal enemy!"
Lisa: "Dad, nerds are nothing to fear. In fact, they've done some pretty memorable things. Some nerds of note include...popcorn magnate Orville Redenbacher, rock star David Byrne, and supreme court justice David Souter."
Homer: [gasp] "Oh, not Souter! Oh, no!"

I have a feeling Justice Souter might be saying, "Oh, no! Not Kelo!"

One Way to Clean Up New York

The Lord of Truth sent us this story last week, but we didn't know how great it was until we saw the picture...

An attempt to erect the world’s largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film — but much stickier.

The 25-foot-tall, 17½-ton treat of frozen Snapple juice melted faster than expected Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with kiwi-strawberry-flavored fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.

...Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world’s largest popsicle, but called off the stunt before it was pulled fully upright by a construction crane. Authorities said they were worried the thing would collapse in the 80-degree, first-day-of-summer heat.

Smart move,trying to do this in the middle of a summer heat wave. Glad to know they've got some true Rhodes scholars working on this project. And seriously, who the hell chooses "kiwi-strawberry?"

Putting Out Fires

Mark Steyn writes an absolutely brilliant analysis of why a flag-burning amendment is unnecessary. Here's my favorite part...

Banning flag desecration flatters the desecrators and suggests that the flag of this great republic is a wee delicate bloom that has to be protected. It's not. It gets burned because it's strong. I'm a Canadian and one day, during the Kosovo war, I switched on the TV and there were some fellows jumping up and down in Belgrade burning the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. Big deal, seen it a million times. But then to my astonishment, some of those excitable Serbs produced a Maple Leaf from somewhere and started torching that. Don't ask me why -- we had a small contribution to the Kosovo bombing campaign but evidently it was enough to arouse the ire of Slobo's boys. I've never been so proud to be Canadian in years. I turned the sound up to see if they were yelling ''Death to the Little Satan!'' But you can't have everything.

That's the point: A flag has to be worth torching. When a flag gets burned, that's not a sign of its weakness but of its strength. If you can't stand the heat of your burning flag, get out of the superpower business. It's the left that believes the state can regulate everyone into thought-compliance. The right should understand that the battle of ideas is won out in the open.

That last line explains why the left struggles in our new information-obsessed society. More important, it tells the right why it should avoid the same type of trap.

Having respect for our flag is important, and it ticks me off when others burn it. But those who burn the flag, as Steyn notes, show us their true colors and inability to craft persuasive arguments. We should rightly condemn them for their lack of civility and class, but criminalizing their conduct seems unnecessary and wrong in a free society, especially when these folks have managed to trivialize themselves.

Next Up, Connecticut

The Supreme Court's decision in Kelo gets carried to its obvious conclusion in this hysterical bit...

Buoyed by the Supreme Court's decision to expand cities' power of eminent domain, New York City filed today to acquire the state of New Jersey for commercial development.

"New York has been facing some very difficult economic decisions," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "Building viable economic development strategies for the city has been our number one priority. We think that the Supreme Court decision really opens a door for us, and will allow New York City to finally resolve some of these intractable issues."

The Constitution says government may take private property "for public use" if it pays the owners "just compensation." Originally, public use meant the land was used for roads, canals or military bases, or to clear blighted areas. In today's decision, the court went a step further and said officials need not claim they were condemning blighted properties or clearing slums. Now, as long as officials hope to create jobs or raise tax collections, they can seize the homes of unwilling sellers, the court said. This "public purpose" is a "public use" of the land, the court said in Kelo vs. New London.

"The Supreme Court decision makes it easier for us to justify this course of action in the name of economic development," said Bloomberg, "although actually we could easily have made the case that taking over New Jersey would be analogous to condemning a blighted property. I mean, come on. Have you been there lately?"

New York will compensate the current residents of New Jersey with "fair market value" for their property, a total amount estimated to be well within Bloomberg's ability to pay out of his own pocket. After evicting all current residents from New Jersey, New York plans to add a new Olympic stadium, a Trump apartment complex, international airport, and, most critically, a 4,000 square mile landfill.

"I have mixed feelings about this," said Newark resident Franklin Comstock. "On the one hand, I am not thrilled to be kicked out of my home and be paid pennies on the dollar for the privilege. On the other hand, New York is evicting our state government as well, every last official and bureaucrat. That is an immensely appealing concept."

I can already see the legislatures in Pennsylvania and Maryland dueling over the right to acquire Delaware. I guess DC would theoretically be subject to getting taken by Virginia or Maryland as well... although a question would remain as to why either one would want the District.

The NHL May Finally Be Back

Please let this be right...

The finish line appears to be in sight for the National Hockey League and the NHL Players' Association to come to a new collective-bargaining agreement.

Both sides wrapped up five days of negotiations yesterday in Toronto. They will resume discussions Monday in New York.

"The meetings this week were good and we continue to make progress," said Bill Daly, the league's executive vice president and chief legal officer. "Obviously, we know that time is of the essence in working to conclude a new CBA, and both sides are proceeding on that basis."

Union senior director Ted Saskin echoed those sentiments.

"The two parties engaged in lengthy negotiations every day this week, and while progress has been made in a number of areas, there remains a considerable amount of work to be completed in order to reach an agreement," he said.

The two sides have agreed on the economic structure of the deal, including the percentage of revenue that will go to the league (believed to be about 54 percent), the salary cap (between $36 million and $38 million), and a luxury tax.

They better get this deal done. If I'm stuck with just the NBA playoffs again next year, I might get desperate and start watching soccer.

Save Us From Amnesty

This is over a week old, but well worth noting...

Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet "prisoner of conscience" adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the "gulag of our time."

"Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?" I asked him.

"Sure," he said, "but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees."

The same would be true if they claimed the detainees had four arms each. Glad to see Amnesty sets such high standards.

Karl Rove = Evil Genius

Man, George Lucas should have cast Karl Rove as the Emporer. At least then he might have had some skillful enemies. At this moment, the Democrats are less effective than Jawas, let alone the Jedi Knights.

Rove apparently ticked off the Democrats with some comments the other day...

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

Told of Mr. Rove's remarks, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, replied: "In New York, where everyone unified after 9/11, the last thing we need is somebody who seeks to divide us for political purposes."

Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

Now, that last word is key. Rove doesn't say Democrats -- he says liberals. Perhaps he should have said "some liberals"... but please note that he also paints with a broad brush on the term "conservatives" earlier in the speech. In any case, I'd have to say liberals would have to admit to the accuracy of such a point, as outlined in this Moveon.org petition that started just 48 hours after 9/11...

We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of the United States of America and of countries around the world, appeal to the President of The United States, George W. Bush; to the NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson; to the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi; and to all leaders internationally to use moderation and restraint in responding to the recent terrorist attacks against the United States. We implore the powers that be to use, wherever possible, international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than the instruments of war, violence or destruction.

Granted, MoveOn believes that it now possesses the Democratic Party; to quote MoveOn's Eli Pariser regarding the Democratic Party, "Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back.” Ed Morrissey has more examples of liberal equivocation following 9/11. And those examples are ones of liberal Democrats who are in elected office.

Regardless, Dems have reacted with great offense... as if they're admitting that they are all liberals. Hell, John Kerry wants President Bush to fire Rove (maybe Kerry wants to hire him). Instapundit nails the problem for the Democrats...

Trouble is, those demands just provide an excuse for Republicans to repeat every single stupid or unpatriotic thing that every Democratic politician ever said. And there are a lot of those. Examples can be found here, and here, and here. And, of course, there's this. And because the usual suspects in the media could be expected to pick up on the Rove story much faster than the Durbin story (as they did) now there's a news hook.

We'll ignore the media's usual inability to notice offensive comments about the U.S. military from Senate Democrats on the Senate floor for a few days while immediately hammering offensive comments about liberals from a Presidential advisor at a fundraiser. Nothing absurd there, as Steve Spruiell notes.

But here's the really fun part. The Democrats, by taking offense, have done the following...

1. Ensure the Durbin story gets more play.
2. Make sure everyone equates the word "liberal" with Democrat.
3. Equated Rove, an important advisor, with one of their important elected leaders, which means the GOP's staff are as important as elected politicians from the left.
4. Let us all take a fresh look at the horrendous and pathetic responses suggested by liberals following 9/11.
5. Made the GOP laugh.

I'm not sure Rove could have done any better if he had the Democrats under mind-control. Of course, the Dems would need minds first.

Glad To See The Hubble is Spotting Something No One's Seen

Man, this is just eerie...

A spectacular, luminous ring offers the best evidence yet that a nearby star is circled by a newly formed solar system.

The ring is composed of dust particles in orbit around Fomalhaut, a bright star located just 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces Austalis – or the Southern Fish. A recent image captured with the Hubble Space Telescope - which makes the system look uncannily like the Great Eye of Sauron from the blockbusting Lord of the Rings trilogy - confirms that Fomalhaut’s ring is curiously offset with respect to the star.

(hat tip: Vodkapundit, who's got a larger picture) That picture looks like it's from a cut scene from The Return of the King. Actually, they may try releasing a new DVD with that picture.

Amusing T-Shirt or Bumper Sticker Slogan We've Seen Lately

Call it a new feature. After all, if I find it entertaining, why shouldn't you... I mean, it's not like you've shown good taste by choosing to frequent this site.

To kick off this lame and potentially semi-regular feature, we'll give you a two-for-one.

First... last week in Boston, we witnessed the following bumper sticker: "More People Smoke Than Voted for Bill Clinton."

Yes, but do they inhale?

Second... according to the Southern Partisan, he saw a t-shirt which said "More People Have Died in Ted Kennedy's Car than in Gitmo."

I don't know if that's technically true -- if I recall correctly, Pfc. Santiago died after he received a Code Red from Lance Corporal Dawson and Pfc. Downey. Of course, that was on orders from Colonel Jessup and Lt. Kendrick.