A Trio Channel rerun tonight of a 1983 episode of Late Night With David Letterman makes Robert the Llama Butcher reminisce. (Scroll down if the link doesn't work -- I had that problem, too, until I emailed Blogger [ed. note - this post is from my Blogspot days] technical support and they fixed my permalinks right up).

I liked REM's Murmur, too, (high school for me, not college) and remember playing Radio Free Europe in my first rock band, "Call Us Radical."

It's not only interesting to see how celebrities age, but to look back and see how they started out. Robert nails this point:

This particular Letterman was rather funny, in that Michael Sipe and the rest of the Artistes just looked like some garage-band made up of Mickey-D and WalMart employees, rather than the Sages they have since become. The performance was rushed and nervous. Sipe was in his pre-bald days and just looked like the average teenage punk wanting to know if you want fries with that. Heh. Doesn't change my appreciation of the album. Does remind me of the frail roots of all celebrity. Keep that in mind the next time Bono or Babwa Streisand starts bloviating about the Way Things Ought To be.

Indeed (although I find Bono far less annoying than Babs).

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I'm just a commercial lawyer. I almost never have to think of Constitutional Law, unlike the esteemed Tim Sandefur, who makes his living as a real life Constitutional litigator for the Pacific Legal Foundation.

So it's hard for me to even think of ten Supreme Court opinions, much less the ten that every American ought to read.

But here are the "top five" I would nominate:

1. Wickard v. Filburn. Ordinary people should understand just how radically the Court stretched the commerce clause during the New Deal ("What? You mean I can't grow corn on my own land for my own consumption???"). I remember being outraged at federal overreach when I read this case in law school. I would hope ordinary people would be equally outraged today.

2. Miranda v. Arizona. We all know the warnings from cop shows. We should read the original case to find out where they came from. Then, read the fourth and fifth amendments and decide where the court found the rule.

3. Marbury v. Madison. Why does the Supreme Court get the last word?

4. Roe v. Wade. Most people with an opinion on abortion talk about this case as though they understand what it means. Have they even read it?

5. Dred Scott v. Sandford. When the talking heads were running around three years ago yammering about the Court losing its "legitimacy" in the wake of Bush v. Gore, they evidently had no sense of history. This is arguably the lowest point in the Court's history, and one that gravely undermined the Court's (and much of the early Republic's) legitimacy.

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I wonder if Professor Hall knows about this project at Virginia Tech?

The picture in the linked article reminds me a little of the clear interactive computer screens at precrime headquarters in Minority Report.

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He's got a fantastic screed up today, covering everything from Captain Weenie to baby boomer "culture."

My favorite part (emphasis added):

God no. Please no. I think I speak for millions when I say that I am deathly sick of the counterculture sixties. The music, the war, the protests, all the hagiography - it's not a reflection of the era's importance but the self-importance of the generation who hung on the bus as it trundled along down the same old rutted road of history. I'm tired of hearing about the boomers' days of whine and neuroses; I'm weary of ritual genuflection to their musical icons; I'm utterly disinterested in most of the pop-cult trivia they hold so dear. We'll probably be better off when that demographic pig has been excreted from the python so we can see the era clearly without choking on the smoke.

Go read the whole thing.

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Geekpress links to an article on ten technologies that won't die.

I still use vacuum tubes (I have a couple of Hammond organs and a Leslie amplifier) and think analog watches and typewriters are valuable to have, just because it's nice to have a few well-crafted items that don't require electrical power.

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Here is the visited countries map:

create your own visited country map or check out these Google Hacks.

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Everyone else seems to be doing these, so here's mine:

create your own visited states map or check out these Google Hacks.

(Tim Sandefur's map was the last straw. There are some great places to see in all of the states he has missed).

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Patrick Stewart (a/k/a weenie Captain Jean Luc Picard) opposes human exploration of outer space.

Reason: "It would take up so many resources, which I personally feel should be directed at our own planet."

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I've always liked Long John Silver's, even though Mrs. Texasbestgrok's shellfish allergy has cut down on my opportunities to visit.

Turns out they have offered a free giant shrimp to anyone asking for it on March 15, 2004, but only if NASA discovers and announces "conclusive evidence" of an ocean on Mars before February 29, 2004.

Here are the official terms of the offer, for any lawyerly types. I particularly like this line in the press release: "In the letter [to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe], [Long John Silver's President] Davis also officially registered interest in Long John Silver's becoming the first seafood restaurant on Mars. 'It's not a matter of "if," it's just a matter of "when" human beings are able to live permanently on Mars. Long John Silver's mission is to feed people with delicious seafood wherever they are -- on earth or even outer space.'"

It may be a gimmick, but I plan to pay to sample a few of these giant shrimp as soon as they are available on February 15.

Update: I should have put a hat-tip to SFSignal in this article.

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Celeborn If I were a character in The Lord of the Rings, I would be Celeborn, Elf, King of Lothlorien, husband of Galadriel and grandfather of Arwen. In the movie, I am played by Marton Csokas. Who would you be? Zovakware Lord of the Rings Test with Perseus Web Survey Software

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Steven den Beste always makes me think, regardless of the topic he is covering.

Predictably, much of the major blogosphere's coverage of the Superbowl has focused on Nipplegate.

By contrast, Den Beste provides a more thoughtful commentary on the importance of the [non]event.

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A few weeks ago, I noted the strangely poetic nature of some spam that I had received.

James Lileks works this theme to better effect in this Backfence article.

Best lines: "The purpose, I think, is to see whether or not the e-mail address is valid. If the letter doesn't bounce back, then the address is valid. It's spam designed to sense whether you exist. It's almost metaphysical in its intent."

Read and enjoy.

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Some of you may remember Robert Tilton, the smarmy televangelist who used to broadcast from Carrollton, Texas (just a 'burb or two over from here).

A good friend of mine in Iowa sent me this hilarious video of Tilton at his slimy best, with some extra sound effects. Warning -- make sure you do not have any drink in your mouth while viewing this. I will not be held responsible for any damage to monitors or keyboards if you disregard this warning.

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And posts an interesting article on space access.

Of course, I wonder, does the current national space policy encourage the blooming of a thousand flowers? I couldn't agree more with the sentiment of "Get the government out of the way and let people do what they want to in space and who knows what people will decide to do there." What can we change to make it so? Read the whole thing and think.

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Strategy Page has a video demonstrating the effects of LSD on British troops in a test that appears to have been conducted in the early 1960s.

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