In looking for the Stepford Wives quote below, I found this interesting repository of information on things robotic.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you've been meaning to catch up on your 19th-century-gothic reading, this is a good place to start.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Wow. Somebody came to this site from a Google search for "stepford + wife + diy." (This old post created the hit).

And then, bless 'em, they stuck around for 13 minutes or so.

I wonder if his wife knows what project he's working on?

Posted by: JohnL at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Rob thinks Princess Ardala was "skanky?" I don't see that. I would instead say earthy, sexy, and a bit dangerous in a fun way (she was, after all, the "evil" queen). Of course that was during the glorious age of disco, and a lot of women on TV looked like that. Probably warped my tastes permanently. And Wilma Deering just seemed frigid and aloof.

Oh well, de gustibus and all that.

As to the "Battlestar Babes," back then it would have been Cassiopeia; nowadays it would be Lt. Sheba, hands down.

OK, let's increase the pathetic geek factor by an order of magnitude or two: Yeoman Rand, Uhura, or Nurse Chapel?

Posted by: JohnL at 10:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Essential Mark Steyn (via the Corner).

Posted by: JohnL at 10:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Father Tucker has changed his site template to a much more readable black-on-white layout.

I just complained about the white-on-black layout yesterday. I can't believe that my post had anything to do with this, but the result is much more pleasing to my eyes.

Update: He's changed it again. This time, it looks much cooler. The last change was more readable than the original layout, but this one is a much stronger template, while retaining the easy readability.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jonah Goldberg recently mentioned Buck Rogers in the 25th Century at The Corner. This show fell in that golden age range in my memory from around 5th to 7th grade -- as I was first beginning to appreciate both SciFi and girls.

Much commentary on the show centers on Erin Grey. Yeah, she was nice looking, but what about Princess Ardala (Pamela Hensley)?

Wowza.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you want to learn more about the Ninth Amendment, Tim Sandefur has been typing like mad on the subject for the past couple of days, carrying on a running discussion with the bloggers at Southern Appeal about the history, interpretation, and modern application of one of the least-understood amendments in the Bill of Rights.

He even scored a complimentary link from con-law guru Randy Barnett, who finds that Tim has been doing a good job defending the original meaning of the amendment.

I tend to side with Tim on this, at least in this part:

"We must not allow ourselves to be spooked into thinking that the end of good government is for the judiciary to defer. History reveals that the worst abuses of Americans have proceeded from a combination of the legislature and the executive, and that judicial restraint has far more often been a license for these oppressors than a protection for our freedom. Of course we don't want unelected judges running everything. But we do not want elected legislators running everything, either. The reason we have a constitution is to stop the legislature from governing certain things. The Ninth Amendment tells us that those 'certain things' are not limited to the things specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights -- there are other things. What are they? Well, there you must consult history, law, political philosophy, and so forth. That is what the Ninth Amendment means. That is what the privileges or immunities clause means. Any other interpretation would tend toward legislative absolutism and to rendering the Ninth Amendment a nullity, and must therefore be a flawed interpretation."

Click over and keep scrolling down.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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To Rob the Llama Butcher, sorry about the "blowback."

You didn't touch the nerve too badly, and what you say is right. I typically have no problems with very specialized outside counsel (say, our patent lawyers or employment counsel). The key to being a successful in-house lawyer is knowing when to stop being a jack-of-all-trades, and to defer to the expertise of competent outside counsel. Lord knows I have been saved more than once by a good lawyer on the outside (much more often than I have had to argue about a junior lawyer missing the point or padding a bill).

Posted by: JohnL at 09:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Unsolicited advice from Rob the Llama Butcher:

"If you want a memo on a particular point of law to present
to some government agency, don't write one yourself and send it to your
outside counsel for fixing up. Instead, just let them write it from the
ground up.

"Buh-lieve me, you'll save yourself a lot of time and money."

Unsolicited response from in-house counsel (me):

Only if you promise not to stick some first-year associate trained in law school to spot problems instead of answers on the project!

I've noticed that much of the work product outside lawyers prepare for me is wordier and covers far more ground than required by the scope of the project. Of course we're tossing around generalizations here, but. . .

<rant mode>Outside lawyers seem to focus more on problems than solutions. When you have a limited budget, you get pretty frustrated that a ham-handed rookie with no business sense is anally citing and shepardizing the basic principles of law known to all of us in perfect Bluebook fashion, but forgetting to answer the question we asked, all the while charging us close to $200 an hour!</rant mode>

Posted by: JohnL at 12:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've been noticing the proliferation of guest-bloggers recently at my daily reads.

Robert the Llama Butcher has noticed the trend, too. (Scroll down to Tuesday, February 17, at 9:14AM if the permalink doesn't work).

And his allusion to a certain 1990s movie has me thinking. . .

I wonder if the Missus would let Ms. De Mornay move in for a while to help me with my, er, posting duties? Hmmm.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sorry Mr. Oakley, Burt Rutan borrows your appellation in this recent Christian Science Monitor article.

Money quote: [Regarding certification of Burt's aircraft, only one of which -- the Starship -- ever obtained it]: "It would be a waste" to seek certification, says [Rutan's brother] Dick. "He's an innovative, creative designer. Why should he waste all of his time trying to certify an airplane with a bunch of know-nothing bureaucrats?"

We haven't heard much from Scaled Composites recently, but apparently Rutan's crew is now waiting for the FAA/AST to issue their license. I'll wager that he will win the X-Prize very shortly after getting the license.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Virginia Postrel introduces the concept of dynamism versus stasism in The Future And Its Enemies by referring to the common ground found between "leftist" Jeremy Rifkin and "right-winger" Pat Buchanan in their disdain for and fear of the future.

I get used to seeing dynamist opinions expressed by libertarians almost exclusively. These days, most of the left seems to be anti-western, anti-progress. So it is interesting (and heartening) to run across a leftist site dedicated to an optimistic future achieved through technology. While the bloggers at Cyborg Democracy show a little too much comfort with a "soft" precautionary principle, they are in favor of change, and are giving a great deal of thought to many issues surrounding transhumanism.

Check it out.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Be like the greatest Starfleet Captain of all time.

(Via Dave Barry's guest-blogger Judi).

Posted by: JohnL at 11:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Interesting compilation of music containing biblical or religious references, from Billy Joel to Iron Maiden, the Indigo Girls to Simon and Garfunkel (and many many more). (Hat tip: Instapundit).

While you're there, be sure to check out the rest of Father Tucker's site. He has some interesting posts on the music and liturgy of post-Islamic Christians in Spain, brain fingerprinting, Mel Gibson's Passion, and the Jesuits, among others.

Go check the whole thing out. Despite the irritating light-text-on-a-dark-background style, I'm adding it to my permanent links on the left.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Somehow, even with my light posting over the last 2 weeks, I have evolved into a Flippery Fish (although I fear I could regress to Slimy Mollusc at any point) in the TTLB Ecosystem.

I'll try to consolidate this progress with some fresh posts this week. Many thanks to my 4 or 5 regular readers (and those of you anonymous individuals searching Google for "alessandra + ambrosio + new + pictures" and "saddam + hussein + outcast + flesh" and "why + is + my + tetra + swimming + nose down") for this step up the evolutionary ladder.

If you read this looking for some real content on evolution, I'm sorry to disappoint. But Gene Expression should satisfy you with a fresh post on the evolution of ideas. They also spot an interesting article on the evolution of language and point out a new article on evolution and paleontology. Enjoy.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I got this from a spammer selling "generic" Cialis.

Looks like something Jim Morrison would have written, had he survived the sixties and gone into advertising:

Now and then, mastadon over tea party
Give secret financial aid to ribbon behind.
Sometimes around hand laughs out loud,
But living with graduated cylinder
Always know tripod behind!
Gonad for jersey cow laugh and drink all night
With traffic light from tape recorder,
Or prime minister about secretly admire around debutante.
Particle accelerator around impresario meditates,
Because fairy related to organize power drill beyond stovepipe.
When bullfrog for lunatic ruminates, behind toothpick panics.
A few bonbons, and wheelbarrow living with gonad
To arrive at a state of mastadon.
Most tea parties believe that over pickup truck
Conquer mortician behind.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thanks to Jay Manifold (who linked to this page), I found this page on Space Settlements at NASA.

Reminds me of the big dreams I had of someday living or vacationing in space. Not the cramped government housing represented by Mir and the ISS. Instead, vast space habitats, like the station in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Maybe with life-extension technology I'll live long enough to see structures like these built. Unless of course the religious fanatics and allied Luddites ban cloning and nanotech research.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jan Cydzik survived the Nazis. Then, he suffered the Soviets. He got a $1500 reparations check from the German government and bought a grandfather clock to commemorate the three years of slave labor he performed for the Germans. The Russians haven't paid him anything. Not that he's complaining.

Read the whole thing (minimal registration required to access).

(Hat tip: Catallarchy).

Posted by: JohnL at 08:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Heh. Now I'm part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

As a libertarian, I don't see myself as "right wing" in much of anything, but I appreciate the recognition. On the really big issues (especially regarding limits of federal power), libertarians and conservatives tend to share quite a bit of common ground.

I guess the link resulted from Tim Sandefur's mention of our postings on the Supreme Court Canon.

Looking at Tim's list, it's obvious that I haven't done much to keep up with Con Law since my graduation from law school in 1994.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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