Go, Joe, go

Joe Lieberman, I-CT, seriously needs to lose his job. He’s up for re-election in 2012—if he’s foolish enough to run again. I can hardly wait to find out who his opponents are, so I can start donating to them.

Max Havelaar Revisited

In 1860, Multatuli published his Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. It opens with a “motto” that spawned the Dutch saying “Barbertje moet hangen.” In it, a man called Lothario is accused of having murdered Barbertje. He claims innocence, and that he is “a good man.” The judge admonishes him that he’s just adding to his transgressions. When Barbertje shows up, proving Lothario’s innocence, the judge condemns him to be hung anyway for being guilty of “self-conceit.” Why the saying says that Barbertje must be hung in stead of Lothario is discussed briefly here.

On Monday, in the case of Troy Davis, Judge Scalia said in a dissenting opinion that

This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.

Nice. If we go through the motions, you will hang. Your guilt or innocence is irrelevant.

A Guy Named Hayseed

On the idea of Armageddon, PZ Myers concludes

if your ideal expectation for the near-future is a world-wide catastrophe that has hundreds of millions of people dying in nuclear fireballs, there’s something wrong with you.

This Helps

My favorite stop along the way: the Starbucks at exit 53 in Colby, KS.

Boredom

It’s a long way to Wichita.

The Latest in Airline Publicity Stunts

It started with Spring Airlines, and now Ryanair is jumping on the bandwagon: supposedly, these airlines will be selling standing-room tickets. This is such an astoundingly bad idea, I’d be amazed if it was anything more than a desparate attempt at publicity.

Hello world!

This is the new blog, using WordPress this time. For reference, here’s the old blog. For now, I’m using the WordPress web interface to edit the blog, but I intend to try and download the WordPress software and iPhone app. Eventually.