Am I Missing Something Or Are They?

Josh writes:

I managed to finally see Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in its entirety yesterday. Great movie, so why all the hate ?

Horror movie idea

I was thinking about my Egyptian buried alive idea this morning when I thought up what might be a interesting idea for a story or horror movie. I don't have a beginning or middle part yet, only the last scene. The setting would be the storage facility of some law firm.

A couple of lawyers would be combing through all these archived exhibits from a largish civil suit of mild historical interest. As they read through all the archived legal briefs they begin to feel uneasy at the the grisly nature of much of the imagery used in the brief.

To make a long story short, the lawyers' unease increases until they ultimately end up suspecting, and then finding, one of their predecessors (a young promising associate attorney) had decided to make herself in to an "exhibit". This will be lead to some sick joke (preferably in Latin) to end the movie.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Desperation

Josh writes:

What does this say about the current state of political play for the Republican Party?

updated 5.03
Part II

To Do: Replenish Myelin, Keep Working

Josh writes:

What are the societal ramifications of fixing this glitch in evolutionary biology? And what would a fully sentient old person be like? How about employed for starters.

Department of Soft Bigotry

AP reports on tonight's "debate":

"Here's how it's played: Before a debate, rival campaigns build up the skills of their opponents while downgrading their own candidate's verbal abilities. That way, any bright moments make a performance seem like a home run.

For the Democratic contenders, the first major round of the Expectations Game came ahead of Thursday night's debate at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C. The 90-minute event offers eight candidates their initial chance to distinguish themselves on the long road to the nomination next year."

Republican Strength in Swing States

Our Polling Correspondent writes:

How to square the latest Q poll with this?

I think it has everything to do with an ingrained, readily available narrative. I suspect these Giuliani leads spring from the same well as this seeming Gore-momentum. A five year old well.

Question of the Day

The reader writes:

Tyler Cowen manages to scare the hell out of me today. Considering the central implication of the Fermi paradox and the news that earth-like planets may exist more frequently than originally thought, it may be that intelligent civilizations simply don't last that long.

Which got me thinking - how long after I die could the world end before I cease caring? We all hear the sun has a shelf life in the billions of years but no one is losing sleep over that. On the other hand, I'd be pretty distressed to know the world would blink out an hour after my death. I've got a lot of friends here, after all. But what about 50 years? Well, maybe I'll have kids around. That would suck for them - and I'm supposing I'd be emotionally invested. So maybe the answer is - I'll stop caring when the world ends when I can no longer conceive of being emotionally invested. In other words, when everybody I know or could know has died. A kind of common law construct.

Literally speaking, I assume that you would stop caring the moment you died. I think the more interesting question in response to your question is - why would you want the world to continue after you were gone? Speaking personally, I have always had a hard time going to bed at night. This is not because I have a hard time falling asleep, I don't. It's just that I don't like giving up consciousness. I think the reason for this is that I am a afraid that I am going to miss something.

If I had knowledge that you all were evaporated right after my death (actually I would prefer you all to expire the instant before I did), I could die knowing that I didn't miss anything cool. Think I'm crazy? The Pharaohs apparently didn't think so. Don't worry if I had the power to bury the world alive I wouldn't. I'm more progressive than that.

I don't think there is much here

In all honesty I have a hard time seeing what the big deal is here. I suspect that no one is actually offended, rather it seems like something serious people should be offended by (or something). In my view, tactically it probably isn't the best idea for Democrats to denounce these types of statements. I'm also not buying that just because the man makes jokes here or there about IEDs or Iran he is necessarily a clown.

I think McCain is a bad candidate for all the right reasons! I think he's an opportunist without any real convictions one way or the other. But unlike Rep. Murtha, I can't accept the idea that a soldier somewhere is demoralized or emotionally wounded by McCain's comments on the Daily show.

I know. That isn't terribly insightful. You already knew it

Two new books in the mail

I am anxiously waiting for the two new books that I have pre-ordered to arrive. First, Christopher Hitchens new book God Is not Great if I am not mistaken is to be released on the 1st of May. In my opinion some of the best things that the man writes deal with religion and culture. If you have not had the chance, do go and read his Slate column this week on the Virgina Tech shootings. I think it's superb!

Also, I ordered Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter. I am a big fan of Econolog and followed the dialog earlier this year on the topic in Cato Unbound. Having taken a few classes on voting behavior I am curious to see him expand upon his thesis.

basics of rejected .xxx tld

clipped from scrawford.blogware.com If, after creation of an xxx TLD, certain governments of the world want to ensure that their citizens do not see xxx content, it is within their prerogative as sovereigns to instruct internet access providers physically located within their territory to block such content.  Also, if certain governments want to ensure that *all* adult content providers with a physical presence in their country register exclusively within xxx, that is their prerogative as well.  (I note that such a requirement in the U.S. would violate the First Amendment to our Constitution.)  But this content-related censorship should not be ICANN’s concern, and ICANN should not allow itself to be used as a private lever for government chokepoint content control by making up reasons to avoid the creation of such a TLD in the first place.  To the extent there are public policy concerns with this TLD, they can be dealt with through local law.  Registration in (or visitation of) domains in this TLD is purely voluntary.