Marvel at the spectacle of Patton Oswalt vs. John Hodgman in the Ultimate Science Fiction Trivia Challenge throwdown on WFMU’s Best Show:

Wackety Schmackety Doo….That is all.

In the last two and a quarter centuries of American history, it’s always been fashionable for politicians and politically motivated organizations to include callbacks to well-known historical documents and quotations in their speeches and published materials. President Obama titled his speech on race in America during the 2008 campain “A More Perfect Union,” referencing the Preamble of the US constitution. Fatuous GasbagsTV/radio personalities borrow titles from Thomas Paine pamphlets for their screedsbooks. Borrowing bits of (usually incorrectly interpreted) history is the Tea Party movement’s stock in trade, or at least the source of much of their iconography.

There is a lot of good to be taken from the words of the Founders. There’s a great deal of wisdom and poetry to Jefferson’s prose in the Declaration of Independence, and in words of the “Committee of Five” (but mostly, apparently, Madison and Hamilton) in the US Constitution. They also left a lot to improve on (The three-fifths compromise, slavery in general), but over the years, our country has made great strides toward correcting these oversights. That’s their most important legacy, really: the Constitution as a “living document” that can be interpreted and amended by future generations as necessary.

However, The Declaration and the Constitution are hardly the only written records left to us by the guys who got the whole American experience started. They were pretty prolific gentlemen, and there’s a lot of good in some of the lesser known pieces.

In that spirit, this latest entry in the occasional stuff I like a lot series makes mention of a few of those other documents worth noting lying scattered about the cradle of liberty:

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bills? paid.
con registration? mailed.
fish tank? cleaned.
oil? changed.
taxes? filed.

To celebrate, here’s a picture of a baby tapir:

His name is “watermelon”. no lie.

enjoy your weekend, everybody.

I saw this screencap image presented at wonkette today:

To be fair, I don’t know the context in which this ‘question’ was presented, but really, in what context is that question not weird and inappropriate?

But then, we are talking Fox News here, so who knows.

Remember that history lesson about the filibuster from a couple of days ago, where I lamented the modern nature of the filibuster, and wished it would return to the contest of endurance where the dissenting minority had to back up the sincerity of their opposition by actually talking things to death?

Well, stuff like that occasionally still happens. It got really close this week, with the actions of Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY). Senator Bunning has, for the last several days, been using procedural tricks* to hold up the passage of a bill extending emergency short-term unemployment benefits, citing an opposition to deficit spending.

As this gambit went on, he drew the ire of both the Democratic majority and the leadership of the Republican minority, almost all of whom noted that it was bad for the country (not to mention politically damaging all around) to cut off unemployment checks and stall several job-creating federally-funded works projects when the unemployment rate is hovering around ten percent.

This time, however, instead of assuming the procedural filibuster and moving on, the Senate leadership called Bunning’s bluff, threatening an all-night session and using further tactics to force Bunning to actually filibuster the unemployment insurance bill in order to block it.

In the end, Bunning backed down, took a deal that was offered and rejected earlier, and the bill passed 77-19; crisis averted.

Now, I’m firmly of the opinion that Bunning was on the wrong side of this one, even if his general feeling on "pay-as-you-go" is a good idea. When the economy’s as awful as it is, though, you don’t cut off people’s unemployment insurance checks and stall federal projects that actually create jobs – in this case, it was a genuine emergency.

However, I can’t help but admire the guy’s conviction** to try, even if I believe the principle he’s supporting seems more like simple obstructionism than a committment to fiscal responsibility (after all, Bunning had no problem with deficit spending when a Republican administration proposed it in relation to war or tax cuts).

Really, this is all I was looking for, a system that puts these sort of specatcles where the public can see them; I want my representatives to get out there and own their issues, and to back up their words with actions. With passion and well-conceived arguments, their case will be made. Conversely, if their heart’s not really in it, that case will be made as well.

____________

* – Just to note, this whole business doesn’t fit the classical definition of "filibuster", though it’s close enough as a procedural tactic that the term, while technically incorrect, isn’t entirely inappropriate, and the media’s using it as kind of a shorthand. Sadly, it still does muck up people’s understanding of the concept, and reinforcing part of the point I made last time about people not understanding how government works.

** a conviction probably supported in large part because Bunning is retiring, and doesn’t have to worry about re-election. I imagine that’s a freeing place to be, not to having to worry about keeping your job. Probably makes a lot of decisions a lot clearer for Senator Bunning. It’s too bad he’s decided to be an asshole about it.

Commenter tannenburg‘s brilliant and succinct deconstruction of the ethos of a certain political faction deserves a celebratory cry of “THIS!!!!111!eleventyone1!” from all corners.

I know I’m overly snarky here, but I keep hearing “I’m ignorant, and angry about things which I’m ignorant of, but by God if you tell me I’m ignorant and try to educate me I’ll get even more ignorantly angry about these things I’m ignorant about!”

What makes this bit of wisdom so beautiful, however, is how it not only applies to steeped beverage enthusiasts, but also to a broad spectrum of people in general on various subjects. Truly a “one size fits all” nugget of wisdom worthy of recognition.

So, Sir or Madam, please collect your prize below:

…because, well, according to my PS3 this afternoon, it’s 12/31/1999.

It seems there’s a glitch out there that’s causing early-gen “fat” PS3s to go a little wacky today. Something to do with the clock/calendar chip, causing problems connecting to the playstation network and in some cases, corrupting downloaded content and trophy records.

So far, it doesn’t seem like it’s RRoD serious, and ought to be fixed up no problem with a firmware update, though Sony’s official advice, stating that “In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system…”, seems a little ominous.

Luckily, I finished up my first playthough of Dragon Age: Origins on Saturday. There’ll be hell to pay, however, if this doesn’t get sorted out by 3/10, when Final Fantasy XIII comes out.

Until then, however, there are books, and y’know, going outside.

update: changed the title, because, y’know, why bother being direct when oblique is available. Also, according to the experts on the internets, things are maybe back to normal; apparently a code error in the fat ps3s told it that 2010 was a leap year, and when confronted with the fact that it wasn’t, it got cranky.

The snow they were expecting hasn’t gotten here yet, but damn, if it isn’t really cold and windy around here.

At least the music is random again:

1. “God Only Knows” – Orianthi
2. “Ride Across the River” – Dire Straits
3. “Only Ones Who Know” – Arctic Monkeys
4. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” – Matthew Sweet & Suzanna Hoffs
5. “The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth” – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
6. “Road Trip” – Molly Lewis
7. “Swingin’ Party” – The Replacements
8. “Reservations” – Wilco
9. “Relator” – Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson
10. “Pollution of the Mind” – Miss Kittin

For the most part, I got a pretty good public school education. The breadth of knowledge I left high school with was sufficient to prepare me for more in-depth study at the university level, and equipped me well enough to function as a base-level responsible adult in American public life.

I can, however, point to one big hole in my education. As generally useful as the rest of Mr. Ely’s “Civics. What is Civics? Civics is the study of government and citizenship” class was*, he completely missed the boat on explaining the concept of the Senate filibuster in the modern (post 1975) context; a flaw which evidence collected since then indicates is a common one, and one which prevents many Americans from properly understanding exactly how their government works.

While the historical idea of the dramatic endurance tactic of talking a bill to death, including the example reading from the phone book on the Senate floor was covered (I think we even watched a few minutes of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to illustrate the point), The modern practice, which differs significantly, was not.

—(great swaths of the next couple of paragraphs are summarized from this article, which describes things beautifully)—

This is going to get long, so I’m putting in a jump. Here comes the science social studies:

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“When I saw it was a snake’s head I just threw it down and called my kids and said I got a snake head in the green beans, everybody said ‘oh lord, you got a snake head in the green beans’…”

Yep, a woman prone to run-on sentences found a “snake head” in her green beans.

The bean company claims they are “not responsible for the accident” and are “denying liability”. And, best of all, they claim it was a frog, and not a snake head at all.

Apparently, this is an important distiction.

Based on photographic evidence, I tend to agree, this is anura, not serpentes:

hiss! ribbit.