Making Your #2 Pencil Dangerous

This is one more reason why the Internet exists -- without Al Gore's wondrous creation, we wouldn't have knowledge about something as important as how you can weaponize your office supplies.  Although this must only be round 1, since they haven't even come up with a use for the stapler yet.

Irony Can Be So Damn Ironic Sometimes

Moe Lane notices that Dan Rather is now stuck getting his story out via Al Gore's Interweb, just like me.  Of course, he probably brings down the editorial standards of the Internet.

The great thing about this?  I'd never heard of Rather's stupid theory, which means that no one is listening to him anymore.  I was there a long time ago, but it's nice to have company.

The Interweb Is Not What You Thought It Was

So apparently the Internet is not 50% porn.  Three thoughts:

1.  This is contrary to the wishes of teenage boys everywhere.

2.  Damn, the economy really does suck.

3.  I blame Al Gore for this.  Either there's four percent too much, or way too little, and it's clearly his fault.

Irrelevant Mystery of the Day

My wife and I were discussing one of her cousins' posting something on Facebook regarding an interaction with the Hansons.  Frankly, I had no idea the band was still around -- I'll be sure to pass that along to one of my good friends, who once noted that it was bands like Hanson that destroyed any chance he had at a musical career.  And I had no idea that meeting the Hansons would be considered newsworthy.  Then again, I once bragged about talking with Chris Matthews on a train, so what do I know?

Anyway, the entire exchange triggered a thought.  In the wake of the sad news regarding Bret Michaels, I immediately made a link between Poison and Hanson, which is admittedly difficult to do.  I started wondering which song using the word "bop" in the title is ultimately more annoying: Poison's "Unskinny Bop" or Hanson's "MMMBop."  My wife correctly pointed out another contender for the honor: Cindy Lauper's "She Bop".

This is a question that I'm not sure I can answer.  We could spend hours debating this, and I'm not even sure I could eliminate any of the contenders.  Anyway, I figured Al Gore's Interweb might provide an authoritative opinion on this, so I thought I'd post the question.  I'm hoping one of my three readers will weigh in.

There is one thing of which I am certain -- all three songs are far better than anything ever produced by the Scorpions.

One Year On, The GOP Got The Better Deal

Almost one year after switching parties, Arlen Specter wonders if he might have helped the country more if he had stayed a Republican (hat tip: Jim Geraghty).  I have a few thoughts:

1.  Speaking only for myself, but likely reflecting the opinion of many Republicans and former/current Specter constituents, I can only say that we don't want you back, Senator.

2.  The article appears in the Morning Call, the newspaper I grew up reading in Lower Macungie, PA.  Best thing about the paper -- the Sunday paper had, on the front page, a list of all of the college football scores from the day before.  This was in the days before Al Gore finished inventing the Interweb and before we had cable TV.  Ah, memories.  Now I'm convinced that my children will one day wonder why people ever read print editions of newspapers.

3.  The article has a picture of Specter from 1995.  Maybe it's just me, but you'd think they would ahve something more current.  If you ran a picture of me from 1995... well, let's not go there.  Let's just say I've changed a bit in 15 years.

4.  The article notes that Specter has voted with Democrats 99% of the time since switching, after voting with the GOP only 58% of the time during his long tenure as a Republican.  I know he's trying to win a primary, but the lockstep voting for the Obama agenda seems to prove what most critics of Specter have believed all along -- namely, that he's a narcissist only concerned with promoting himself, and that he will sell out anything just to retain power.  I'm not saying this makes him unique among politicians, just that any belief that he's some fair-minded moderate is total BS.

5.  It's actually pretty funny, but Obama was riding pretty high at this time last year when Specter switched parties.  Since then, his approval ratings have dropped significantly, the Dems' chances for retaining control of the House have cratered, the Democrats have lost gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, and the Democrats lost Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.  At this point, the Democrats should be begging Specter to return to the GOP.

The Miracle Braves' Secret Weapon -- Swastika Caps?

This might be the best bit of research I've seen in a long time. After finding a picture of a Hall of Famer wearing a cap with a swastika on it, Tom Schieber tracks down the backstory. Put simply, stories like this are why Al Gore invented the Internet.

On This Basis, Maybe Al Gore Can Take Credit For Inventing The Internet

Joe Biden wants credit for success in Iraq to go to the Obama Admininstrration...

I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.

Good thing he and the President backed all of the measures that resulted in this success. You know, like the surge... I'm sure the videotape will show Obama was a big supporter.



Oops. And lest you think Biden was on board with the surge, you can watch this.



Well, perhaps Obama later acknowledged the surge worked. Right?



Well, I guess we can give them credit for acknowledging that Iraq is now a success. Coming soon, Biden will claim that Obama did a bang up job beating the British at Yorktown.

The Interweb Keeps Teaching Me Stuff I Did Not Know

The latest fact I did not know -- that both Bob Roberts and Office Space started out as SNL sketches. It's also funny that Tim Robbins refused to release the soundtrack for Bob Roberts because he worried listeners would take the conservative songs seriously.

Meanwhile, on behalf of Tim Meadows fans everywhere, I'm highly upset that The Ladies Man didn't merit a mention, if only for the line, "Ya know, when a man works hard his entire life enduring hundreds of ladies, many of whom he does not even remember you'd like to think that at the end of the day he will be given a lot of money, without having had to earn it."

This Week Was Like Christmas All Over Again

As one of my friends noted in an email, this week just keeps getting better and better for folks on the right...

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority apparently agreed.

"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.

However, Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting from the main holding, said, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

As many of my close friends know, I despise McCain-Feingold, and think most campaign finance laws are at best next to useless and at worst clear infringements on the most important form of free speech. But give credit where credit is due -- Justice Stevens dissent ran 90 friggin' pages or so. Of course, I'll probably agree more with Justice Scalia's 9 page concurrence. I also agree with this post by Tim Lee over at Cato...

While I regarded the decision as a victory for free speech, a large number of folks on the left — many of whom support free speech in other contexts — were aghast at the decision, arguing that it would vastly enhance the influence of large corporations in the political process.

Part of my disagreement with these guys is that I’m just a free speech zealot. The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” and I don’t see how that language can be squared with a statute that limits the distribution of a political documentary. The best you can say, I think, is that limiting corporate influence is a “compelling state interest” sufficient to overcome the First Amendment’s ban on speech abridgment, but that’s just another way of saying that you don’t care about free speech very much.

Second, I think it’s important to remember that “corporations” encompass much more than large, for-profit businesses. They also include a wide variety of non-profit and advocacy groups, including the ACLU, the NRA, and NARAL, that are, by any reasonable definition, grassroots organizations advocating the views of large numbers of voters. Indeed, as the ACLU pointed out in its amicus brief, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) prohibited the ACLU from running ads criticizing members of Congress who voted for the awful FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Even if you think it’s appropriate for Congress to regulate the speech of Exxon-Mobil and Pfizer, I think it’s awfully hard to square the First Amendment with a law that limits the ability of NARAL or the NRA to advocate for its members’ views.

But more fundamentally, I don’t buy the idea that limiting corruption is a state interest sufficiently compelling to overcome the First Amendment interest in free speech. I think supporters of BCRA misunderstand how corporations wield influence and dramatically overestimate the power of television advertisements. It’s true, of course, that a corporation prepared to spend $1 million on ads criticizing a particular legislator will get that legislator’s attention. But there’s nothing unique about this. It can also get his attention by hiring a lobbying firm that employs a former staffer. It can get his attention by arranging $100,000 in bundled contributions from executives, clients, and friends of the company. It can get his attention by creating astroturf organizations. And there are probably lots of other mechanisms I haven’t thought of.

The key difference between independent expenditures and the other mechanisms is that independent expenditures are the most open and transparent. To run an effective “issue ad,” a corporation has to make an argument that is persuasive to voters. I don’t want to sugar coat the situation; sometimes independent expenditures finance ads that are sleazy and misleading. But given a choice between corporations spending their money on ads about how Senator Smith hates America or spending their money on K Street, I’ll take the ads, because at least voters still get the final decision.

Lee also makes some smart points about how the tubes of the Interweb and other forms of communication have made traditional ad campaigns less effective. I think he's right on this, and it's one more reason why the Supreme Court opinion makes sense. And as Anthony Kennedy pointed out in his opinion, it's somewhat hard to square limits on speech by corporations, when at the same time traditional news gathering and editorial analysis by media corporations were free from restrictions. Ed Whelan has some more good stuff from the Kennedy opinion...

The law before us is an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations—including nonprofit advocacy corporations—either to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. Thus, the following acts would all be felonies under §441b: The Sierra Club runs an ad, within the crucial phase of 60 days before the general election, that exhorts the public to disapprove of a Congressman who favors logging in national forests; the National Rifle Association publishes a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U. S. Senator supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creates a Web site telling the public to vote for a Presidential candidate in light of that candidate’s defense of free speech. These prohibitions are classic examples of censorship.…

When word concerning the plot of the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reached the circles of Government, some officials sought, by persuasion, to discourage its distribution. Under Austin, though, officials could have done more than discourage its distribution—they could have banned the film. After all, it, like Hillary, was speech funded by a corporation that was critical of Members of Congress. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington may be fiction and caricature; but fiction and caricature can be a powerful force.

Modern day movies, television comedies, or skits onYoutube.com might portray public officials or public policies in unflattering ways. Yet if a covered transmission during the blackout period creates the background for candidate endorsement or opposition, a felony occurs solely because a corporation, other than an exempt media corporation, has made the “purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value” in order to engage in political speech. Speech would be suppressed in the realm where its necessity is most evident: in the public dialogue preceding a real election. Governments are often hostile to speech, but under our law and our tradition it seems stranger than fiction for our Government to make this political speech a crime. Yet this is the statute’s purpose and design.

Now, I know some folks are already trying to cut down the opinion -- Brad Smith mentions a couple of likely unconstitutional bills introduced by Alan Grayson in Congress that would seek to effectively overturn the decision. The President's on board with trying to curtail the impact of the decision, although SCOTUSblog does a pretty good job outlining why Congress is unlikely to pass a bill with real impact, because the Court's opinion (and the First Amendment) will be difficult to navigate. The best option might end up being public financing of campaigns, but we're not sure the public will be on board with that -- and they certainly shouldn't be, since such an idea will probably end up being a huge incumbent-protection device.

At the end of the day, I'm pretty thrilled with any opinion that causes Keith Olbermann to go off the deep end. In fact, that may be a pretty good way of describing stuff from now on. If Olbermann thinks it's mildly upsetting, it's probably good; if he thinks it's the coming of the apocolypse, we should throw a party.

More Reasons Al Gore Invented The Interweb

Loyal reader ST sends us the link to this site, which designed the posters linked in this earlier post. A perfect place to go shopping before Valentine's Day, dontya think?

One More Reason Al Gore Invented The Internet

Somebody has way too much time on their hands.



More great posters here.

One More Reason Al Gore Invented the Internet Is...

... so that we can relive Bea Arthur singing in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Circa 1978, I think I watched a VHS tape of part of the special once, which is notable for (a) being so hated by George Lucas that it's never been re-released in any form after its original showing, and (b) apparently being the first appearance of Boba Fett in a Star Wars production.



Merry Christmas, everyone.

You May Commence Shuddering

A generation ago, I'd never have known about Katie Couric's dirty dancing. I think I like that time better. And now, I have one more reason I never watch the CBS Evening News.

You know, I think it's high time we acknowledge that the Internet is a tool of the devil (no, I'm not referring to Al Gore... although that beard is creepy). If it's not, can someone please explain those pictures? Wouldn't the world be a better place without those pictures being widely disseminated?

Thanks, Al Gore

On the list of items you can only find on the Internet...

Honestly I have no idea who made these. I found them in some random forum. But come on. When someone takes the time to make all these wacko demotivational posters with a Bon Jovi theme combined with anime? Let’s just say there has to be a place on the internet for this crap.

(hat tip: Jonah Goldberg) Can't argue with the last sentance.

What Annoying Song is Stuck in My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

Loyal fan of the blog ST sent me an email yesterday noting that he had just looked up the fact that the song "Automatic" was by the Pointer Sisters. As we later discussed, this falls in the realm of facts that we both probably knew, but couldn't recall. This is of course the problem with education and learning -- every time you learn something, it crowds out knowledge you already had. Like that time Homer took that home wine-making class and forgot how to drive... wait, I'm jumping into a Simpsons quote. Stick with the current subject.

Anyway, these facts that we used to know and later disappeared from knowledge... prior to the Internet, how would we have looked them up? Hell, it's faster now, since there's an App to answer that question. So thank you, Al Gore, for inventing the Internet. Without it, I wouldn't be able to get this stuck in anyone's head...


And yes, I did have to take the clip from Soul Train. You're welcome.