If you plan on getting married, save up at least $30,000 and hire a wedding planner.  Or, better yet, elope.

Michael Moore posted this tripe - his plan to fix Wall Street - in his blog.  I wish to respond.

1. APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO CRIMINALLY INDICT ANYONE ON WALL STREET WHO KNOWINGLY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COLLAPSE.
You can only indict someone for committing a crime.  Contributing to an economic collapse by exploiting lack of regulation or employing ethically-dubious yet not unlawful methods is NOT a crime.  Furthermore, Article I of the Constitution states that "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. "
FAIL

2. THE RICH MUST PAY FOR THEIR OWN BAILOUT.
Okay...
a) Every couple who makes over a million dollars a year and every single taxpayer who makes over $500,000 a year will pay a 10% surcharge tax for five years.
Wait... so they're not actually paying for their own problems, but rather being lumped into a group based on income under the assumption that they're all somehow culpable?  Yeah.  That's "paying for their own bailout." 
b) Like nearly every other democracy, charge a 0.25% tax on every stock transaction. This will raise more than $200 billion in a year.
Because we can all afford higher taxes right now.  It's not like I have anything better to do with my retirement money (like, say, prepare for retirement.)
c) Because every stockholder is a patriotic American, stockholders will forgo receiving a dividend check for one quarter and instead this money will go the treasury to help pay for the bailout.
Don't you feel patriotic, FOO?  Then there's this minor detail that while the government has the power to tax, the government does NOT have the power to tell corporations how to spend its profits.  This idea sounds socialist and a half romantic on paper, but as a practical idea it is mindblowingly stupid.
d) 25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. Federal corporate tax revenues currently amount to 1.7% of the GDP compared to 5% in the 1950s. If we raise the corporate income tax back to the level of the 1950s, that gives us an extra $500 billion.
It's not about the tax rate, dumbass.  It's about tax shelters.  There's also this minor detail that if you try to tax too hard, corporations will pack up their toys and move overseas, leaving us with less revenue AND higher unemployment.  Sign me up!  How can we lose??

3. BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR HOMES, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BUILD AN EIGHTH HOME. There are 1.3 million homes in foreclosure right now ... So instead of giving the money to the banks as a gift, pay down each of these mortgages by $100,000.
Yes.  Because in addition to paying for my own $90,000 house I want to pay $100,000 toward some other idiot's mortgage because said idiot was too stupid to understand things like "you actually have to pay this off" and "balloon payment."  Yes, there are predatory lenders out there.  Yes, the price of housing is high.  But you know what?  There's this thing called "buying what you can afford."  I'd love to live in a $500,000 house as well.  But if my monthly take-home pay is $3000 a month and the mortgage payment is $3500 a month, there's a problem.  Especially if I'm encouraged to "self-declare" my income so I don't have to prove I'm able to afford the house.
This one burns me in particular because I did things the right way.  I got a fixed rate mortgage, I bought the house based on what I could afford from debt-to-income ratio and got a payment within guidelines for what housing should cost.  So the notion of rewarding people for getting mortgages they never should have had is repugnant to me because, in essence, I'm being punished for my lack of foolishness.

More to come...

So we're in the IRC chat room, and Lacerda makes it very clear to me he wants his last words recorded for posteriority.

In accordance with his wishes (and with prophesy), here are Lacerda's last words, as given to me.

"FUCK IT'S HOT"

I'm taking a class called The Right to Vote, which will culminate in a 15-20 page research paper (which I'm perfectly capable of writing myself.)  So I'm not asking people to do my homework for me.  That said, the topic of the paper is "The Right to Vote", which is incredibly broad and gives me a lot of latitude.  I'm leaning heavily toward the examination of voting as right vs. voting as privilege.

As I see it, there are three basic "levels" of what we can consider rights: "natural" or "inherent" rights, that is, rights which are inherent to each of us and at which we can arrive through rational thought (or divine revelation, if you believe in Natural Law theory); "derived" rights, or rights granted by society which are an extension of (but not necessarily a part of) inherent rights; and privileges, or concessions made by a legitimate government to the populace.  It is assumed that a legitimate government can infringe upon any right or privilege without being oppressive only after due process of law is followed.

Thus, "inherent" rights include things like the right to enjoy the fruits of one's labors (including property), the right to live and the right to one's thoughts and opinions.  "Derived" rights include the right to freedom of expression (because it may necessarily be limited for legitimate reasons, although these limitations are frequently oppressive), and "privileges" include things like driving.

My purpose in posting this is twofold: first, I'd like to know what the general consensus is with regard to where suffrage fits in this spectrum (I have my own opinion, but I'm not going public with that just yet.)  The second is that when I do make my argument, I want to make sure I have all my bases covered and have at least taken intelligent opinions with which I may not agree into account.  In other words, I'm asking you to help me exercise my brain.  I'm going to get very close to this material very quickly, and I have faith in Vespertine some of you to do a good job keeping me on my toes and forcing me to address issues I might not thought of having addressed.

I also fully anticipate that my opinions will change as I develop this, which is currently in its infancy.  I'm still trying to sort out what exactly I think, but I need to be put through my paces.
Thanks.

Thanks 
And no, we don't have a date set yet.

From Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia dismissed the idea that Guantanamo detainees have constitutional rights and called European concerns over the issue hypocritical, Newsweek magazine reported on Sunday.

What's particularly troubling is that SCOTUS is set to hear a related case very shortly, and it doesn't sound like Scalia will recuse himself (although he should, because he's already tipped his hand.)  Roberts has recused himself because he was sitting on the appellate court at the time.

When it comes to human sexuality, Americans tend to be among the more uptight people in the western world.  It is a known fact that parent-child discussions of the facts of life are often lacking, and sex ed in schools is so wrapped up in political agendas that the plain facts seldom get discussed without any "spin."  Media watchdogs howl about the baring of breasteses (however brief or "inadvertent") on non-premium TV during daytime and prime time.  Computer games depicting nudity or simulated sex acts are plastered with warning stickers.  Indeed, it seems that "mainstream" America is bound and determined to protect us from our genitalia.

It is also true that we're addicted to sex.  When driving through the Bible Belt, it was with no small amusement that I saw 3 consecutive billboards that (no kidding) advertised: We Bare All, Jesus Is Lord, Walt Disney Family Vacations.  In fact, it seems that along the highway I saw as many ads for strip clubs (couples welcome!) as I did dire messages about the state of your soul if you didn't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, renounce sex and alcohol and vote Republican.  Now, in all fairness, the strip clubs tended to be in out-of-the-way places, relegated to definite second-class status.  Indeed, it almost seemed like a cancer people accepted had to be there, but not in their neck of the woods.  But there's no question sex sells, and it seems there are more adult-oriented places of business every time I head down south.

Without commenting on the dichotomy so clearly apparent here, I'm here to state that which very few others want to admit publicly: the sex industry in general, and the pornography industry in particular, are far more beneficial than they are harmful.  It took Larry Flint to determine the boundaries of the First Amendment: there's nothing saying you can't prevent minors from looking at adult-oriented material, and there's nothing saying you can't bar the depiction of illegal activities, but you cannot prevent someone from publishing material that depicts activity that is legal, even if it may be deemed morally offensive to some.  Indeed, when talking about the boundaries of obscene materials, I believe it was the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun who famously stated that he couldn't define pornography (as opposed to art) but "I know it when I see it."  And from a legal standpoint, that means exactly nothing.  The lines are so blurry they can't even be defined in general terms.

Looking at pornography from a more practical point of view, the sex industry has formed the backbone of market sectors worth billions of dollars.  Once upon a time, if you wanted to watch dirty movies, you'd have to go to seedy movie theaters which carried something of a strong social stigma with them if you were seen nearby.  Pornographers were among the first to embrace videotape technology because it meant they could provide the porn without nearly as much of a social stigma.  The VCR was available for purchase, the porn industry provided a lot of the early viewing material before Hollywood realized it could be such a cash cow.  And there was a redux with the advent of DVD technology.  Indeed, it was porn that pushed the early envelope for DVDs by being the first to utilize simultaneous multiple angles and similar advances.

In the Broadway musical AvenueQ, there is a now-famous song called "The Internet Is for Porn", which is about exactly that.  And while the Internet was actually developed as a research and communications system for universities and the US military, it was the porn industry that transformed it into what we have today.  Porn drove the development of secure online credit card transactions and provided the business model for other mainstream online businesses.  It is no understatement to say that Amazon, ebay, Newegg, Paypal and practically every other e-tailer, bank and company that uses SSL technology and deals with secure personal information owes a quiet debt of gratitude to the porn industry.  Porn may be the crazy uncle nobody wants to talk about, but make no mistake: the telecommunications and home entertainment industry owe a HUGE debt to the porn industry for daring to break ground and forge the path for more "mainstream" applications.

Next week, our "esteemed" President will deliver the State of the Union address, and it struck me that pretty much all State of the Union addresses are generally pretty similar.

So I thought we as a group should go ahead and prepare the State of the Union Address for President Bush.  Every SOTU needs at least the following elements (although the order can vary):
1. A cheerful, inclusive introduction with shout-outs to favored line-toers, fundraisers, lobbyists, token women and minorities and moderate members of the opposite party who didn't stonewall his pet projects.
2. If it's not the President's first SOTU, an overly optimistic glossing over of all the good things that happened in the previous year.  There should be an applause break every 3-4 sentences.
2a. If it IS the President's first SOTU and he's replacing someone from the opposing party, he should carry on at great lenghts about the great job his predecessor did, while at the same time trashing just about every major accomplishment his predecessor pulled off.
3. Overly optimistic look ahead at the coming year.  This section MUST include the phrase "but there is much yet to be done" or a variant thereof.  This is usually an ideal time to justify the breaking of campaign promises while pinning it on the lack of cooperation by the opposite party.  There should be an applause break every 6-8 sentences.
4. A "frank" discussion of problems facing the nation, almost all of which involve the opposing party or vague outside threats to "national security."  This is the "serious" section, in which applause breaks are few and far between, but should be powerful.  The most important problem facing America is ALWAYS this $outside_threat (it used to be communism, now it's terrorism), and the importance of coming together and uniting to combat this problem as one nation is underscored.  The most important aspect of unity is, of course, accusing the other party of not caring about national security.
5. The economy through rose-colored glasses: the economy is getting better, more jobs are just around the corner and our nation's economic health has never been greater.  Hand-picked numbers from several "key sectors" are cited as evidence, even though they have no bearing on reality.  An "economic stimulus plan" is either introduced or a crappy plan stalled by disgruntled members of the opposite party in Congress is urged to be passed.  The applause rate should pick up a lot of steam here.
6. The rah-rah go America let's all work together one nation's rockets' red glare from sea to shining sea section: This part should include an average of one sound bite every 16.4 seconds, and should have enough "spontaneous" applause that the President is routinely "interrupted" while trying to read his next sentence.  The President's party's side of the chamber should be on their feet in near hysteria by the end of this section.
7. Very brief closing and basking in the obligatory standing ovation.

What can we come up with here?

Don't know much about this guy, but early returns are not good.  Apparently he's very much in the mold of Fat Tony and a darling of the conservatives, meaning he's an ideologue rather than a jurist.

The Roberts nomination didn't bother me.  This one does.

Or, in the alternative, find the long-lost twin!