To appoint Senators.

I suppose it's a lot to ask of j-degreed dorks, understanding law and government and shit.

Hell, I'm just an IT goofball (exciting! ain't it ladies?) and I don't even understand the law. But I did read the 17th Amendment to the Constitution once. Missus freaky-haired Stone made me do that in high school a few *cough* years ago.

To wit:

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of each State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

Some criticized it as the "last nail in the coffin" of Federalism, and I'm not going to get into that debate. Rather, it's the law of the land, an amended Constitution, as provided for by the states that created it.

THE POINT. States created the federal government. Not the other way around. Not even a skittley-pootin unicorn can change this. That's just the fuckin way it is.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:15 AM | Comments (77)
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Update even before I post: Was gonnaÂ’ post this lame piece of junk last night, but Ace was sober enough to beat me to the punch.

Original post below. Please remember to read the legal notice at the bottom.

Again, nothing. Bereft of ideas. Had a good one with Steve Ballmer (CEO of Microsoft) raising his arm in a certain 1930-ish fashion with a huge Microsoft banner behind him. If interested, you'll have to go hunt it down here. But it appears to have been scrubbed. Speaking of Microsoft:

IÂ’ve posted this link before to the now-defunct SatireWire site where Microsoft is broken up into MicroSoft and MicroPatch, but you geekish fuckers always love reading about these infernal calculating machines.

No Skittles tonight: Only the parched arid desert for you ingrates. Now you suffer.

”Artist’s depiction of Antarctica, circa 2012”

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC, now a partially pwnd subsidiary of AllahPundit Global Industries which itself is a partially pwnd subsidiary of BloggyMac, incorporated and enacted by action of the U.S. Congress on or about January 22nd, 2009. All rights reserved.

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:29 AM | Comments (66)
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Smarter diplomacy = way deader threats to the Unicorn Millenium.

This nuanced approach to re-establishing our cozy to the world of nations with high explosives and fragmentation, it's giving me a +10 on the "gettin laid by being authentic and real and shit" posts of the past couple of days. I don't even feel like refilling that prescription anymore.

In other news, day four of Hopey Change, Gitmo Hunger Strikers Continue Striking at Hunger.

The 45 men refusing to eat were in no immediate medical danger, according to detention center spokeswoman, Navy Cmdr. Pauline Storum, who said visiting attorneys informed the prisoners of Obama's order to close the prison within a year.

Storum said a recent surge in the number of prisoners refusing to eat is linked to Obama's inauguration and the seventh anniversary of the prison at a U.S. base in Cuba. She said she expects the protest to dwindle as it has in the past.

"It's only been two days since the inauguration," she said in a phone interview from the base. "Call me next week and we'll see what the numbers are."

I just assumed we let em watch CNN down there. I had no idea things were so brutal.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:18 PM | Comments (91)
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Nine episodes left. Last week's was a little uneven. My recap is below the fold.

Spoiler Policy: Anything from the miniseries and the show up to and including tonight's episode is fair game; no need to warn or in some way obscure text for anything that comes from that material. However, anything you may have heard about future episodes should be kept to yourself. Thanks. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:32 PM | Comments (93)
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Don't get excited. Not going anywhere.

But there is a cute nugget at the end.

Among 43 subpoenas released by the Blagojevich administration Friday, one on Dec. 8 seeks any data relating to Obama advisers David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and 32 other people and organizations.

That was the day before the FBI arrested Blagojevich on charges that he tried to auction off Obama's Senate seat for campaign cash or a job. Wiretapped conversations show Blagojevich thought Jarrett was interested in the seat.

Obama's staff released a report in December clearing his advisers of wrongdoing in communicating with the two-term Democrat about the seat. But Axelrod, a Chicago political strategist now in the White House, was not mentioned.

Oversight? Or deliberately failing to mention Axelrod?

Thanks to TopSecretK9.

Related: Blago gave another strange press conference.

He claims he's being impeached because he won't allow the legislature to pass a tax hike, and also because he's a cowboy. Or something.

Posted by: Ace at 03:53 PM | Comments (36)
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They're getting sexually aroused by bonobo monkeys fornicating. So why the hell can't I even get a hand-jay?

Oh, and they're liars too.

While the subjects watched on a computer screen, Chivers... measured their arousal in two ways, objectively and subjectively... The genitals of the volunteers were connected to plethysmographs [also known as "bonermeters" -- ace]...

The men, on average, responded genitally in what Chivers terms “category specific” ways. Males who identified themselves as straight swelled while gazing at heterosexual or lesbian sex and while watching the masturbating and exercising women....

All was different with the women. No matter what their self-proclaimed sexual orientation, they showed, on the whole, strong and swift genital arousal when the screen offered men with men, women with women and women with men. They responded objectively much more to the exercising woman than to the strolling man, and their blood flow rose quickly... as they watched the apes. And with the women, especially the straight women, mind and genitals seemed scarcely to belong to the same person. The readings from the plethysmograph and the keypad werenÂ’t in much accord. During shots of lesbian coupling, heterosexual women reported less excitement than their vaginas indicated; watching gay men, they reported a great deal less; and viewing heterosexual intercourse, they reported much more. Among the lesbian volunteers, the two readings converged when women appeared on the screen. But when the films featured only men, the lesbians reported less engagement than the plethysmograph recorded. Whether straight or gay, the women claimed almost no arousal whatsoever while staring at the bonobos.

Monkeys? You sick twists are getting off on monkeys?

I guess we know which gender came up with "hot monkey sex."

Based on Chivers' research, the following is the most sexually arousing video for women ever produced. It's got it all.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:23 PM | Comments (151)
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Isn't that how the MSM would headline this strike on Al Qaeda, were Bush still president?

Witnesses report a slender, mocha-colored man with chiseled pecs and dressed in a Valkyrie's armor (but not in a gay way, or at least not super-gay way) mounted upon a winged unicorn, descending upon the terrorist hold-out, smiting the malefactors and sending their heads arcing hither and yon.

Conflicting reports say the vision of Sword-Slinging Awesomeness might actually have been some Predator-launched Hellfire missiles.

Posted by: Ace at 12:02 PM | Comments (69)
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Eh. I suppose it's nice that a Hollywood liberal set aside his self-righteousness for a moment for some actual introspection.

A spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Kim Farah, took offense at Hanks's comments, telling FOX News, "Expressing an opinion in a free and democratic society is as American as it gets."

Now, in a exclusive statement to PEOPLE through his representative Leslee Dart, Hanks is softening his stance.

Last week, I labeled members of the Mormon church who supported California's Proposition 8 as "un-American." I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination. But everyone has a right to vote their conscience – nothing could be more American. To say members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who contributed to Proposition 8 are "un-American" creates more division when the time calls for respectful disagreement. No one should use "un- American" lightly or in haste. I did. I should not have.

Sincerely,

Tom Hanks.

Note however he does not apologize for his impulse to demonize a religious minority.

As Rusty at My Pet Jawa noted: "Also un-Amereican? Americans." Who support such measures by around 60-40.

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (92)
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Stealing from Hot Air again, because this is too depressing to write about myself.

As for Allah's comment that there's nothing the GOP can do -- in practical terms, he's right.

But the liberals couldn't do anything -- or much -- from 2002-2006, but they managed to do an awful lot to undermine the president.

We can do the same, albeit in a more positive way; that is, rather than pure childish carping and sniping, we can continue offering sober counterproposals.

Will we "win" on them? No, not yet. But we have to highlight -- incessantly -- crap like the hundreds of millions of dollars for "contraceptive stimulus," as Boehner does here.

We do not have the media with us. Obviously. But our leaders still have to get the word out, to the extent they can.

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (107)
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The irkedness comes at 3:20, but as Rodney writes, if you skip ahead you miss all the fawning over His Awesomeness. The press is a bunch of geek-girls from the AV Squad all flustered to have the captain of the basketball team pay them a visit.

Note the cameraman saying, "I just wanted to say it again: Mr. President."

Funny, I don't remember the press being eager to call Bush by that title.

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (108)
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