Internal Monologue

A little video contrasting the Bush of 10 years ago to the more recent Bush. His ability to articulate does seem to have declined. I don't know if pre-senile dementia is a good diagnosis. It could simply be that W had a reasonable grasp of the issues when he was in Texas, but is now in over his head.

Being in prison must suck, of course. But what I didn't know was how many petty scams there are to fleece inmates and their families of their money. This post on Orcinus has a letter from an inmate that details some of them: Take money orders. State law P.C. 2085.5 states that mainline institutions must take 33% of all incoming inmate funds for "restitution." I guess I wasn't clear on that when I told you not to send more money. [...] Another scam is the library. No, I don't get "points" [toward release or better conditions] for contributing to it -- I only feed the machine. Upon checking out a book, you sign a trust release for the amount of the book. These are processed every week. When a book isn't returned in seven days, you are charged for its full cost. But availability to the library is only given every TWO weeks. I didn't know this, until I was charged for two. Both books were turned in at the next available date -- but too late to av

Looks like Al Franken is going to run for Norm Coleman's senate seat in 2008. That was Paul Wellstone's seat, so it would be great to see it in Democratic hands once again. I suppose if Minnesota elected a WWF wrestler as Governor, they could elect a comedian as Senator.

The author of Desserts for Dummies has just been hired as the White House's pastry chef : President Bush's critics couldn't have planned it better themselves. According to Washington Wire , the White House has a new executive pastry chef, Bill Yosses, who also happens to be the author of Desserts for Dummies . Yes, sometimes they make it too easy . Desserts For Dummies

I'm quite late reporting this : I think everyone and their sister has heard by now that Joe Biden called Barack Obama the first mainstream African-American - not mainstream African-American presidential candidate, mind you, mainstream African-American - to be "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." And basically everyone, correctly, considers this more than a tad racist and in all probability lethal to Biden's campaign. Of course for something to be lethal to Biden's campaign, Biden's campaign must be alive to begin with. I've not heard too many folk speak highly of his chances even before this incident.

Just to show that the modern economy is capable of servicing every possible economic niche :

Via Marginal Revolution , here's a bit of Star Wars revisionist history : R2 and 3PO bail out in an escape pod, landing in vaguely the right area of Tattoine, where R2's first priority is transport. He arranges to be captured by a group of Jawas and, once on board their transport, he makes a deal with them (possibly using emergency funds stored about his person) to take him where he wants to go. The Jawas refuse to go directly to Kenobi for fear of marauding Sandpeople but they agree to R2's second request : transport to the Skywalker farm. They even get to keep the purchase price if they can sell R2 and 3PO there. The Jawas shake on it and go through with the plan. Han and Chewie have quite a different relationship as well: Fortunately, before coming to Tattoine, R2 had already arranged transport, which is waiting at Mos Eisley, under the command of the Rebellion's other chief field agent and espionage asset. Chewbacca. 20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in comm