Spring is here
Life is skittles And life is beer…
Oh, it's not Spring until next week? Can't tell that from the non-Seattle weather today, although there's no need for air conditioning.
- I'll start off with something noncontroversial, like potential enforcement of civil rights in the courts and doing away with consent searches because they don't work and they're discriminatory. I think this is something I've commented on before (although these days, none of my best friends are white men in suits).
OK, I lied. That's not noncontroversial at all. It bloody well should be, but it isn't.
- Ed Burke remains a lawyer — as a convicted felon who spent decades abusing his office (among other white-collar offenses), he's now qualified to be the Governor of the State of Illinois. At least this time the ARDC actually
tookrecommended action less than a decade after the felony conviction (conviction after impeachment is a felony, especially when it's all but unanimous as it was for Blago). So, so sad that the elected State Supreme Court couldn't get a nonconflicted quorum to deal with another elected official. That's a big hint about both "state regulation of lawyers" and "elected judiciary"… - For a slightly one-sided (and dismissive of some critical historical context) but nonetheless vastly more perceptive view of one barrier to peace in the Levant: The Palestinian population is only treated as "Arabic" when it's politically advantageous. We won't get into the outright racism and bigotry behind the Balfour Declaration — the flip side, in which the white Christian European powers broke up the Ottoman Empire for their own advantage (and to get the Jews out of town a century ago, too!). Oops, I just did…
This set of complications is one reason I don't favor a two-state solution, with some version of the Radcliffe Line (<SARCASM> which has led to no problems whatsoever in the last 75 years </SARCASM>). I favor a zero-state solution; once outside powers draw lines based on religion and/or "race," failed states are inevitable in the fairly near future.
- Sometimes Ikea isn't just about swearing at the assembly instructions. Now that may seem of little interest to authors (at least not once they've put together that new desk, which is still necessary even in the age of e-book reference libraries), but it really does — especially regarding bullying by markholders. <SARCASM> But creative people don't need to worry about that at all (PDF). </SARCASM>
- Speaking of "big box stores," thought, consider the plight of the all-'murikan department store. Schade (especially given the history of union-busting, consumer deception and other unfair trade practices, and insider looting).