Whiskey Fire

Hard to Follow When I'm Slow

I submit that there is a Great American Comic Legal Novel buried somewhere in the details here. I submit also that if I were the judge involved, I'd commence drinking heavily. Oy.

Perhaps Scott Lemieux has some thoughts. Mine are not fit for publication even by this site's abysmally low standards. Scott, however, is a professional, and I have every confidence that he will be able to rationally explain this:

Over the years, Mr. Moore said, his paintings and prints have cumulatively sold “in the low millions.” An 8-by-10 reproduction sells for $25 retail, or $35 if it is signed. An original watercolor might go for $22,000, an oil for $65,000.

Alabama has sucked for years now, and watercolors go for $22K... Slainte.

So Much for Civility...

Wow. This is really kind of unbelievable...

LAUER: And you brought up Michael J. Fox. Let me just ask you: You know, Rush Limbaugh started a lot of controversy when he said perhaps Michael J. Fox was exaggerating or faking these effects of Parkinson's disease in that ad promoting stem cell research. Didn't Rush Limbaugh just say what a lot of people were privately thinking?

[...]

LAUER: But also, Susan, last word. If Michael Fox goes out there politically and puts himself in the fray, he has to expect to be, you know, taken to account, correct?

ESTRICH: Correct. And he is being taken to account.

Fascinating, the way we understand "civility" nowadays.

Head Full of Nothing

NTodd trembles to hear what I might say about Althouse's recent attempt to delve a sub-basement for the NYTimes opinion pages even below the dank, spidery cellars of stupid currently infested by the likes of Tommy Friedman and Davey Brooks.

But I'm not sure what I might add to what Mr. Greenwald had to say, or what Mr. Lemieux mentioned in passing. These are of course real lawyers -- and I? Merely a humble community college professor what is full of jealousy. And of course "insolent." (Althouse once called me "insolent," which is still pretty much the greatest thing ever. Whenever I feel blue, I remember that Ann Althouse once told me I was "insolent," and it makes a nothing day suddenly seem worthwhile.)

The fun thing about Althouse is that she will give utterance to pretty much any bubbly thought that wafts unbidden into her beautiful mind. If Gerty McDowell had a blog, tenure, and were less literate, you'd have Althouse. Or, oh, I dunno...  a Ron Burgundy joke would work almost as well. Or maybe all one need invoke is the sort of profundity that billows out from the mouths of bongs. To wit:

As to the zoo, I do think people roam about looking for animals to identify with. No one stares at the camels. There's always a crowd gazing into the eyes of the chimpanzee. It is far more interesting to watch the people as they watch the animals or to watch the animals and think of people.

Like, totally.

Venturing out here onto the speculative limb myself, I'd imagine that one of the reasons why doorknobs like Althouse and David Brooks are so otherwise unaccountably popular is that they have a gift for making stupid shit sound like genuine argument. You don't need to actually know anything to be an Althouse fan, as her commenters are usually so eager to prove. You just need to have a good line in bullshit. Oh, and you can't use the word "bullshit," because it's dirty. And you know someone is civil and smart because those people don't use cuss words. Or something.

Did you ever wonder if moths get jealous of butterflies? Also, I don't think so many people would drink milk if it was orange.

Spewlunking

In the world of law and law enforcement, we saw two big stories today: the JonBenet thing, and perhaps even more importantly, the decision in the NSA wiretapping case, discussed here, here, and here by lawyers. I'm not a lawyer, but I tend to agree that while the decision is welcome, the First Amendment kind of got dragged in by the scruff of the neck. Anyway.

What baffles me are not so much the specifically legal issues in the case but the moral and, well, strategic ones. I fail to see why we should be weakening, not strengthening, our system of laws. If they hate us for our liberty, why compromise it? Why even cut corners? It's all very strange -- unless one considers that terrorism may be more than just a serious threat. It's also a way to make things happen that powerful people had always wanted to happen. Could be. It's just barely possible.

But hey, why be gloomy! Let's look in at the blog of noted constitutional law professor Ann Althouse, and see what she has to say about the case. That's always fun. Hmmm. She incisively points out, "We'll see how well that holds up." Fascinating. A brain like a steel grease trap, this woman. She also finds the time to accuse the NY Times Style section of being shallow, which is true enough, but reading this kind of criticism from Althouse is a bit like listening to Frankenstein tell Chewbacca to get some goddamn elocution lessons, already. (As was depicted in the smash Broadway musical, My Fair Wookie.)

And so night falls once more on our moronic Republic, which sleeps safer knowing that the villain in the JonBenet case may have finally been caught, even though the real killer of OJ's wife, and countless terrorists, yet roam free all throughout the dark vales of Connecticut, knocking down mailboxes and making Republicans say stupid paranoid shit.