Colbert had a math professor named Arthur Benjamin on.  It is highly entertaining.  There is a naughty little joke slipped in toward the end.

Andy Borowitz is pretty funny sometimes.

There have been riffs on the name of the new Apple device, iPad.  I think this is the funniest I’ve seen.

Apple Launches Text-sharing Device, the CoTex

Absorbs Heavy Flow of Data, Says Jobs

See the link for the rest.

John Moe, in “The Dog Who Hated Me“, hits a lot of right notes.  I liked the one about the hippie.

It was the movie “Hotel for Dogs” that sealed the deal. My kids had been asking for a dog for years, promising to take care of it, arguing how our family wouldn’t be complete until we had one. But after we rented that movie, in which humans can’t really find happiness without a canine pal, our kids became inconsolable in their dogless sorrow. Moaning, wailing — you’d have thought they severed an artery. Fine, we’ll get a dog. Yay, Dad!

Truth be told, I was almost as excited as they were. Dogs are a lot of work, but they can be delightful little balls of joy and fun as well, and who wouldn’t want more of that in the house? After some not very careful screening, we came across a dog online that needed a home: a little Yorkshire terrier that had bounced around a bit. We met with the latest owners at a Petco in the Minneapolis suburbs. Officially, we were there just to meet the dog and see if he was a good fit, but once the kids saw the thing, there was little doubt he was getting in our minivan.

As we drove, I successfully lobbied to name the dog Dave, since I’ve gotten along really well with every human I’ve known by that name. We brought him home, and the kids were over the moon with joy. Dave put up with all the handling, even the ham-fisted affections of the 1-year-old. He slept on my 8-year-old-son’s bed, just the way my boy had always dreamed. All was right.

Until the next day, when I came home from work, at which point the dog started barking his head off. He cowered; he growled. Same thing happened when I wrestled with the kids or chased them or even danced with them. (He may have had a point with my dancing.) I tried yelling at him to hush. I tried slipping him some bacon as I came in, and he barely accepted it, even though it’s bacon, and he’s a dog. He ate it, and then he barked at me some more.

On the one hand, it was kind of funny. But the dog’s hate/fear actually did kind of hurt my feelings. The one thing you expect from your dog is unconditional love and tail wags at the end of the day. There’s something kind of heartbreaking about coming home from work, from providing the income to make the house function, and being hated and feared when you walk in the door.

So I thought maybe he was beaten up by a man at some point, right? But male friends would come over, friends who look like me, and Dave would be fine. It was just me. My dog hated me.

Fortunately, I had one last card to play. There were health and safety reasons, concerns about the dog population, and I didn’t want to have to do it. And yet, there was one move that I could use on him that I didn’t think he could use on me: removal of testicles. Dave was not neutered when we adopted him, and I was confident that if this behavior was an alpha-male thing, well, a little scalpel work ought to take care of that nicely. The procedure took place on a Friday morning, and he was already home by the time I returned from work that afternoon. I parked out front and warily approached the front door. Holding my breath a bit, I turned the key.

I expected a certain amount of calmness to have set in after Dave’s procedure. I thought he’d be docile, a sort of cat-dog. Once inside the door, I paused to allow the realization of my arrival to spread through the house. Then the barking started. Loud, shrill, frightened, it came in the same familiar staccato bursts, even though Dave was still somewhat sedated and disoriented. It was like being verbally assaulted by some sort of sleepy incoherent hippie eunuch.

It has been a few weeks now since that procedure, and Dave has become a tad nicer to me in moments of calm, even seeking me out for belly rubs. But my dream of having a dog happy to see me at the end of the day — which is perhaps the single biggest responsibility in a dog’s job description — is destined to be unfulfilled. I think dog ownership, or cohabitation, really, teaches you a lesson no matter what. For most people that lesson is about the way love and simplicity and togetherness can provide respite from the slings and arrows of our human days. For me, it’s about accepting Dave for who he is. I’m sure he’d rather not fly into a dizzying rage whenever he sees me. Can’t be any fun for him. But he is who he is, just like all of us. I picked Dave’s name because it sounded human. I had no idea how prescient I was.

It’s a loving relationship, Dave’s and mine, but one in which one partner, without testicles, will always scream at the other, who has them, for no apparent reason.

Maybe Dave is worried about what was being cut off next.

I knew that a case about protected speech was before the Supreme Court and I knew which way that court would go.  The Roberts court is doing more legislating from the bench than any liberal court ever did.  I’m not a lawyer but here are comments from some people who are:

Many of those commenting on the decision inCitizens United v. Federal Election Commission have focused on the power-grab part. I agree with them. It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts had not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.

“If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more,” a wise judge once wrote. That was Chief Justice John G. Roberts — back when — and dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens rightly turned that line against him.

As bad as the court’s activism, though, was its shoddy scholarship.

I’m not a legal scholar, but I assumed that this too live crew was not up to the task.

The thing that I didn’t understand is how it became true that spending money was somehow ‘speech’ that was protected by the first amendment and how corporations got to have the same rights as people but none of the responsibilities.  Here’s a recap:

Go back almost a century, to the time when the modern corporation was created, and you’ll find laws that prohibit or limit the use of corporate money in elections. And yet this week, a 5-4 Supreme Court struck down the limits that Congress passed in 2002 in this tradition in the case Citizens United v. FEC.

The majority’s ruling unleashes a new wave of campaign cash and adds to the already considerable power of corporations. The court’s main rationale is that limits on using corporate treasuries for campaigns are a “classic example of censorship,” as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. To get there, Kennedy depends on two legal theories that blossomed as constitutional principles in the mid-1970s: money is speech and corporations are people. Both theories are strange, if not simply wrongheaded—why, according to the Constitution or common sense, would money be speech or corporations be people? The court has also employed theories not uniformly but, rather, as constitutional cover for dominance of the electoral system by corporations and by the wealthy.

The first theory appeared in a 1976 decision, Buckley v. Valeo, which invalidated some campaign-finance reforms that came out of Watergate. The Court concluded that most limits on campaign expenditures, and some limits on donations, are unconstitutional because money is itself speech and the “quantity of expression”—the amounts of money—can’t be limited.

President Obama smacks this idea down in rather general terms and scary words, but the truth is that the Supreme Court has gone off the rails of rational thought.

I hope President Obama gets to appoint a couple of justices that even things out.

Pepper Schwartz has made a name for herself in the field of sex research.  She is published many books about all things sexual.  One of her last books was about her journey through her late 50′s after she left her second marriage, one of 23 years.  Her blog on the Seattle PI had this bit yesterday.

Fidelity has its own rewards, and they include more than just avoiding ending up on the front page of the Enquirer or the subject of blistering attacks in the mass media. It is what you promised, and there is the pleasure of fulfilling your word. Furthermore, your feelings are focused, your energy is directed, and your issues have to be solved with the one person who holds the key to a harmonious and supportive relationship. It isn’t easy for people with a heavy duty sex drive or an ego that needs confirmation from others, but when it’s hard to do, it’s all the more satisfying to accomplish. Failing to do so has inevitable costs. Perhaps the worst cost is the dilution of the relationship- your intimacy is necessarily diminished and your energies are necessarily scattered.

That’s why, I think, there are so few “open marriages” that last. So few people who can handle “swinging”, and only a very small minority of people open up their relationship to polyamory (loving and having a sexual connection with more than one person in an honest relationship). It’s not just that few partners will tolerate sharing the person they love; it’s also because most people want to be faithful because it helps sustain and deepen a lifetime relationship. Furthermore, most people need to feel that they are uniquely loved and prioritized–if they love someone, they don’t want to be one of two or three partners, even if the person in question is famous or rich. Sure there are exceptions. Watch Big Love on television and you can see how polygamy functions under a theological directive, but even in that religiously supportive framework, you can also see jealousy and jockeying for first position. Try non-monogamy outside of a religious community and the vast majority of people will experience heartbreak and relationship melt down.

I think that most people are faithful, not because they were told to be, but because sooner or later, they learn that it works for them better than anything else. It turns out that fidelity is a worthy goal, even for a man who can have anyone.

Gee, who knew?  Acting on the best principles of your better brain stems may not be the best recipe for happiness.  Who knew?

The thrust of her article is about men who indulge in the lying and trustbreaking that infidelity entails.  Why is it always the men who are assumed to be the cheaters?  As one who knows too well, women are just as capable of cheating.

But then again, I wonder if infidelity was the cause of her marital breakup and on whose part.

I don’t know if I am a liberal or a conservative.  A colleague at work said that “I’m pretty conservative”, but I’m willing to bet that if we engaged in detailed policy discussions that he and I are not that far apart.  I don’t think that he has a lot in common with the cretins like David Horowitz who populate the Right these days.  And when I read some of the stuff that represents the Left, I get cranky.

Take Talk Left, for example, please.  Talk Left is run by Jeralyn, a defense attorney.  In this post, she talks about the extradition of Roman Polanski from Switzerland.  She takes the position that since Roman Polanski ‘served’ part of his sentence while undergoing mandatory psychiatric testing, the original planned sentence of 90 days is somehow in force.  WTF?

Instead, after the Judge had imposed and Polanski had served the diagnostic sentence, the Judge scheduled another sentencing hearing. And days before the hearing, he told the prosecutor and Roman’s lawyer he had changed his mind, he was going to ignore the evaluation and probation report and not allow the lawyers to argue at sentencing. The requirement of the psych evaluation was a mandatory component of sentencing for offenders where the victim was under 14. So the judge at least partially imposed the sentence, and Roman had served it.

The way I see it, or at least the argument I’d make, is that since the sentence had partially been served, the legal question to be decided by the Swiss is not what could he have been sentenced to, but how much time remained to be served. Since everyone, including the current Judge, agrees the original Judge intended to and promised to impose no more than 90 days, and Roman served 42 of them, there is less than four or six months remaining on his sentence and the request doesn’t comply with the U.S.- Swiss treaty or Swiss law.

Logic like this is why some liberals get a bad name.

On the Talk Left blogroll is a link to Amygdala, a purported liberal blog.  But the poster there spends most of his time complaining about a variety of ailments and asking for money.   Amygdala appears on many liberal blogrolls.  I think that if I had as many problems as that guy has, I would not spend my time on line.

I know that part of the liberal mantra is to not be judgmental, but I think I can do without these two blogs representing liberalism.

My birthday is January 6, which is celebrated as Epiphany in most of the countries where Roman Catholicism is the major religion.  Epiphany is the day that the three wise men got to see Jesus.  It is celebrated on different days in other countries where Roman Catholicism is not the dominant religion.  It is celebrated on January 19 in Russia, for example.  I think this is because the Russians factored in the depth of the snow when thinking about how fast three kings on donkeys could travel.  In January, it is anus-deep snow in Russia, so that colored their thinking.

The Russians celebrate Epiphany with a ceremonial dip in very icy waters, symbolizing rebirth.  Here is one such celebrant now in her traditional costume.

Sometimes, the event is more involved, as shown below.  Here is one celebrant with a deacon.

It isn’t clear what the whole ceremony is about.  Here is a picture of the priest who will administer the ceremony.  I wonder if he knows.

Yeah, I think he has it figured out.

(Actually, he was the first to cross a river and get the cross the Sava River in Belgrade, but I like my story better.)

Frank Rich is commenting on how various players on the American Right are trying to plunder the tea bagger movement.

His behavior is not anomalous. Steele is representative of a fascinating but little noted development on the right: the rise of buckrakers who are exploiting the party’s anarchic confusion and divisions to cash in for their own private gain. In this cause, Steele is emulating no one if not Sarah Palin, whose hunger for celebrity and money outstrips even his own. As many suspected at the time, her 2008 campaign wardrobe, like the doomed campaign itself, was just a preview of coming attractions: she would surely dump the bother of serving as Alaska’s besieged governor for a lucrative star turn on Fox News. Last week she made it official.

Both Steele and Palin claim to be devotees of the tea party movement. “I’m a tea partier, I’m a town-haller, I’m a grass-roots-er” is how Steele put it in a recent radio interview, wet-kissing a market he hopes will buy his book. Palin has far more grandiose ambitions. She recently signed on as a speaker for the first Tea Party Convention, scheduled next month in Nashville — even though she had turned down a speaking invitation from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the traditional meet-and-greet for the right. The conservative conference doesn’t pay. The Tea Party Convention does. A blogger at Nashville Scene reported that Palin’s price for the event was $120,000.

The entire Tea Party Convention is a profit-seeking affair charging $560 a ticket — plus the cost of a room at the Opryland Hotel. Among the convention’s eight listed sponsors isTea Party Emporium, which gives as its contact address 444 Madison Avenue in New York, also home to the high-fashion brand Burberry. This emporium’s Web site offers a bejeweled tea bag at $89.99 for those furious at “a government hell bent on the largest redistribution of wealth in history.” This is almost as shameless as Glenn Beck, whose own tea party profiteering has included hawking gold coins merchandised by a sponsor of his radio show.

Movie fans should remember how the John Doe Clubs were exploited by Mr. Norton.

Pat Robertson said some things on the telly about Haiti and I would like to expand on them.  He said that Haitians, some years ago, made a pact with the devil to throw off their chains of bondage and get their freedom.  See here:

Let’s assume that is true.  The devil went down to Haiti looking to make a deal.  For their freedom, the devil got the country?  Hmmm.  I wonder what kind of deal I can strike to get Pat Robertson to shut up.  How about I make a deal to give the devil Kirkland?  Would that be too much?  Or too little?  I wonder if the devil would want all of Kirkland, or just the water front.

How about Redmond?  Maybe the devil wants Redmond.  Wait, Microsoft is already there.  I’m too late.

For a quick recap of Haiti’s history, check this link.

Haiti’s chronic impoverishment began at its birth in 1804, when, having overthrown its French rulers in a bloody, 12-year slave revolt, the newborn nation was subjected to crippling blockades and embargoes. This economic strangulation continued until 1825, when France offered to lift embargoes and recognize the Haitian Republic if the latter would pay restitution to France—for loss of property in Haiti, including slaves—of 150 million gold francs. The sum, about five times Haiti’s export revenue for 1825, was brutal, but Haiti had no choice: Pay up or perish over many more years of economic embargo, not to mention face French threats of invasion and reconquest. To pay, Haiti borrowed money at usurious rates from France, and did not finish paying off its debt until 1947, by which time its fate as the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country had been well and truly sealed.

But hey, if you know the devil, let him know that I’m prepared to deal.

The Onion News Network. Better than the real news.

Biden Criticized For Appearing In Hennessy Ads