UPDATED UPDATE: Yeah comments are down - we have Top Men working on it.
New hamster - crisis averted.

UPDATE: You can watch the filibuster live here. Never mind - it's over now.

The Five Laws of the Internet

Well maybe not law-laws but violating them will certainly get you snarked and mocked.
And that's on the Bingo and Quilting forums - the rest of the Internet plays a bit rougher.

Poe's Law
"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."
i.e. humor doesn't naturally pass through the intertubes without assistance.

Godwin's Law
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Cohen's Law
"Whoever resorts to the argument "whoever resorts to the argument that. has automatically lost the debate" has automatically lost the debate."

Skitt's Law
"Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself."

The Law of Exclamation
"The more exclamation points used in an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters."
i.e. THIS!!!! is the sign of the liar/kook.

And then you have the Rules of the Internet.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:07 PM | Comments (1059)
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Why can't the president just admit what is obvious, that he's not permitted to murder American citizens?

But maybe this isn't just a pose -- maybe Barack Obama really believes that American citizens don't have greater rights than foreign combatants on foreign shores.

If so, we might need to discuss that conceit.

Posted by: Ace at 03:55 PM | Comments (902)
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Just happened.

Meanwhile, an aid to Michael Bloomberg, who believes he should control what soft drinks you drink, thinks you should also trust the President's unilateral authority to kill Americans without process.

Paul Would Now End the Filibuster for a Sense of the Senate Resolution... but the Democrats intend to object to even voting on it.

And yes, Dick Durbin objected. He said they'd "have a hearing."

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (380)
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I started this Twitter hashtag and couldn't quite get it working. It's actually a more difficult joke than I initially guessed.

So, that's where you guys come in. Can this joke be rescued?

I had noted that besides Python and The Office, there's actually not much British stuff that's actually funny. Some British guy (or an Anglophile) objected and named a whole bunch of supposedly funny British sitcoms.

They all sounded made up to me. Stuff like "Yes, Minister" and such. Like parodies of what Americans would think British TV consisted of. So I started making up my own:

Barclay Mews

The Duchess & the Dollymop

Reginald's War

Humprey Pye, Private in the Her Majesty's Territorial Army

'Ere's Your Bumbershoot, Love

'Allo 'Allo (which turned out to be a real British TV show, of course)

The Quite Remarkable Claims of Tuppence Twaddle

Paddington Station Belles

Oo, Me Bleedin' Corns Are Killing Me

Samantha Snogs

Well I Say! (a game show about famous quotations)

Bob's Yer Uncle!

Now you go.

By the way I have an Epic Comedy Premise much better than this but I want to write it up as like a real comedy thing, with .jpg's and fonts and everything, so that's going to take some time.

Posted by: Ace at 01:48 PM | Comments (710)
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The Washington Monument strategy, make it as painful as the public as possible so that they insist that the money begin flowing to DC again. Always cut the critical or highly visible stuff first, never the unnecessary stuff, because the public wants the latter stuff cut. If you cut that, they'll just say "Good."

So make it painful. Cut police, cut firemen, close schools, cancel WH tours.

Louis Gomert attempted to make it a rule of the Continuing Resolution that no federal funds shall be expended to ferry Obama to or from a golf course so long as WH tours remained cancelled.

He's now asking Obama to voluntarily give up those expensive taxpayer-funded jaunts, to shift the saving to the tours program.

You can guess Obama's answer, I'm sure.

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 PM | Comments (134)
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Ted Cruz joined earlier, which is good.

But it's a bit of a feather in Rand Paul's cap that he's now shamed a Democrat to join.

Apparently he mentioned the legal concept of Outlawry, and made the point that someone deemed by the state to be in this hazardous legal state at least should have the right to be formally notified of such.

Sort of exactly the point I made.

Live: Here's an online feed.

Rubio's now up. Reportedly he began with a water joke.

This Is Exciting: Thoughts on restoring the nation's character to good working order.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (853)
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... do you guys go back and re-hit the button, but this time, adding a little bit of Authority in your button-push? With a bit of a Jaunty Nobleman's Flourish as you smartly bounce your finger away from the button?

Or is that just me?

Meanwhile, I think this is funny.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (271)
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So I'm doing my part.

Guys -- don't rape people. Come on, that's bush-league. Straighten up and fly right.

So there you go, now there's no more rape.

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 AM | Comments (400)
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I had a fantastic post loaded with content ready to go but...the sequester.

One thing that hasn't been cut because of sequester....talking in DC. Rand Paul is going old school and filibustering the nomination of John Brennan by talking. He's holding up the nomination because he didn't like Eric Holder's answer to his question about whether Obama claims the right to be able to use a drone on an American citizen.

I think Paul asked the wrong question and I'm not sure he's right about Holder's answer.

“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States," Holder said.

Holder said "catastrophic" attacks such as the Sept. 11 attacks or the attack on Pearl Harbor are examples of circumstances where the president could conceivably feel such an action is necessary.

I read Holder's answer (full letter here- PDF) as basically adopting the same position as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney position that they had the authority to down a jet that might have been part of the 9/11 attacks. That's just awkward for everyone.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:24 AM | Comments (552)
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more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:21 AM | Comments (359)
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