Apparently MSNBC has suspended Keith Olbermann because he gave money to three political campaigns during the last election. One of NBC’s network rules, apparently, is that TV show hosts can’t make political contributions without special permission from the network. Their justification, of course, is that TV show hosts should be non-partisan, because otherwise how could you trust their opinions?

Of course, just because they look non-partisan doesn’t mean they’re non-ideological. It’s just a clever way of covering it up.

I have a different idea. NBC should actually require every news anchor or talk show host to donate at least $5000 to political campaigns. My guess is that the donations would overall be fairly predictable, but why pretend they wouldn’t be?

I’m admittedly one of those who’s a bit skeptical of FoxNews (and the others), but I appreciate that the most they claim is to be “Fair and Balanced,” and not “impartial,” which is how many others try to cast themselves. That’s a joke. To be impartial means to have no part in something, to have no vested interests, to be making no argument for what’s good ultimately. I don’t think that describes any network or show, now or ever.

So, free Keith Olbermann!

I didn’t think we’d acclimate this quickly. The temperature’s dropped down to 70F and I’m cold enough to put on a sweater. I like sweaters a lot.

Thomas Jefferson, who was not involved in the Constitutional Convention (I believe he was an ambassador in Europe at the time), wrote to Madison in December 20th, 1787:

The instability of ours laws is really a very grave inconvenience. I think that we ought to have provided for it by deciding that there would always be an interval of a year between the presentation of a law and the definitive vote. It would then be discussed and voted on without anyone’s being able to change a word, and if circumstances seemed to require a more prompt resolution, the proposition could be adopted not by a simple majority, but a majority of two-thirds of both houses.

Thoughts?

Alexis de Tocqueville with some ruminations on Congress:

When you enter the House of Representatives in Washington, you feel yourself struck by the vulgar aspect of this great assembly. Often the eye seeks in vain for a celebrated man within it. Almost all its members are obscure persons, whose name furnishes no image to one’s thoughts. They are, for the most part, village attorneys, those in trade, or even men belonging to the lowest classes. In a country where instruction is almost universally widespread, it is said that the people’s representatives do not always know how to write correctly.

Two steps away is the chamber of the Sentate, whose narrow precincts enclose a large portion of the celebrities of America. One perceives hardly a single man there who does not recall the idea of a recent illustrious [deed]. They are eloquent attorneys, distinguished generals, skillful magistrates, or well-known statesmen. All the words that issue from this assembly would do honor to the greatest parliamentary debates of Europe.

Whence this peculiar contrast? …. Both nevertheless emanate from the people, both are the product of universal suffrage, and up to now no voice has been raised in America to assert that the Senate is the enemy of popular interest. Where, therefore, does such an enormous difference come from? I see only a single fact that explains it: the election that produces the House of Representatives is direct; that from which the Senate emanates is subject to two stages.

What Tocqueville is describing is the way elections happened in the original Constitution, before the Seventeenth Amendment. The House was filled by direct election, and the Senate by the state‘s senators (who had been chosen by direct election); hence, a two-stage election. This process was so good that Tocqueville wrote:

It is easy to perceive a moment in the future when the American republics will be forced to multiply [the use of] two stages in their electoral system under penalty of being miserably lost on the shoals of democracy.

I shall not have difficulty avowing it; I see in the electoral double stage the sole means of putting the use of political freedom within the reach of all classes of the people.

Poor old Alex would be turning over in his grave.

As we speak, Tami is pushing slices of garlic up her nose.

Every now and then, when I don’t post for a while I feel like I need to have something amazing to share to start re-posting.

Well, this is it. She’s barely letting me post this–actually this is expressly against her will–so photos are out of the question. Sorry. (She says, “You’ve never written a post about me, and it’s gonna be this?!”)

Why is Tami pushing garlic up her nose? Because that sounded like a better option to her than irrigating her seriously-congested sinuses with water. Neither one is appealing, granted, but I know which one I’d choose, and it’s probably not the garlic … but she says its helping, so go figure.

Every time I’ve had to look up airplane tickets I’ve checked a bunch of different sites, but there are a few that have been particularly helpful. I thought I’d share them–and some that I’ve just heard about–and hear from you what other good ones might be.

Tried and true is kayak.com, which I like because you can open a lot of others from the same page. Another good one is cheapoair.com, and then of course Expedia, Orbitz, etc.

Some ones that I’ve recently given test runs, and which seem very good, are:
- www.itasoftware.com, which gives you lots of search options and returns very good prices.
- www.fly.com and www.farecompare.com, which have returned some great prices as well.

And another useful site I’ve heard of is  www.yapta.com, which allows you to track a flight price either before or after you buy it. If you find a cheaper price after you’ve paid for a ticket, they’ll help you get a refund.

Any other great links for the sometimes-travelers among us?

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Canadian Geese flee south to escape the hard winter that all the other Canucks just have to put up with.  (My wife has just told me off for ending my sentence with a preposition. In the words of Winston Churchill, “That is something which we shall not ‘up with put’!”).

So, blah blah blah, … all the other Canucks just have to ‘up with put.’ (My wife is not looking now, or she would comment on the infinitive I just split … and she would be right. Urk!)

It’s no secret that Canadians really like Americans. That’s why they subsidize their prescription drugs for us. Canadian geese especially love to come and vacation down here, which is alright, until New York decided to do this.

New York is going to kill 170,000 Canadian geese. That’s the plan, anyway. It’s hard to love that idea, but I can’t really come up with a better one. Some of the people who commented on the news story had some, though.

Dan says: “Seems to me that reducing the human population of the state by about the same number would have a huge beneficial impact on the environment, general safety, the economy, and so forth.”

Riki (unclear on the concept) says: “Why not just relocate them somewhere else? They really don’t have to die.”

Jim says: “The state playing God like this gives me the chills.”

Jeffrey says: “This quote seems to sum up my feelings on the issue: “I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.” ~Charles Lindbergh”

formerjewnowwiccan says: “Humans immediately go for a form of Genocide. It is disgusting. Poor Mother Earth. I am sending as much healing energy to Gaia as I can.”

Needless to say, there are about 24 pages of comments, with two different sets of people who can’t begin to fathom each other.

The only thing you need is an active imagination and internet access. Everything follows from that. All you have to do is write down any word that sounds like it MIGHT be a word.

Such as “noser.” I took a chance, and who knew? According to “clanmcdouggall.net” it means a person who tests whiskey by smelling it.

Now you know how to win at Boggle!*

(*Caveat: I have not actually won the last five times I played Boggle, and mostly people won’t let you use words found in random places like “clanmcdouggall.net.” Prejudice against Scottish people for inventing the kilt is still too strong.)

The Blue Screen of Death (ie, the “BSOD”) has been striking my computer with some regularity lately. First it turned out that ZoneAlarm was causing serious software conflicts so I had to say goodbye to that ol’ time favorite.

Then, just recently, I installed a little gadget called “PC Tune-Up” which I’d used in WinXP (I’ve got Windows 7 now) and it proceeded to corrupt the registry and make it impossible to start up Windows. I couldn’t do a System Restore because Win 7 had securely locked my hard drive, so I had to return the computer to factory defaults (ie, system wipe). Luckily I had all my data backed up.

I’m not sure whether to be peeved at 3rd party software that doesn’t warn me it’s incompatible with my version of Windows, with Windows 7 for being too permissive and too secure, or with Dell, just because they sold me this laptop.

Anyways, I just reinstalled all my software and restored my data, and now I’m going to image my system so that, when it gets old and crabby, I can restore it to this blissful, uncomplicated state.

I just really hope BSODs don’t come in ugly sets of three, like other things do … because the only thing worse at this point would be hardware failure.

Here’s a nice 4-minute video that lays out the economics of minimum wage laws, when they’re good and when they’re bad.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

If the figures haven’t changed much, 80% of those on the minimum wage are high school and college students. Students need money too, of course, but it doesn’t help anyone to make students more expensive to hire–most employers would probably just hire less of them.