Re-regulation of business eh Mr. The Duck? Why? Dean said. “Right now, workers are getting screwed.” Oh, class warfare, I guess that’s why. Thanks Karl, really. Oh, and here’s the biggest pinko-quote:

Dean listed likely targets for what he dubbed as his “re-regulation” campaign: utilities, large media companies and any business that offers stock options. Dean did not rule out “re-regulating” the telecommunications industry, too.

Any business that offers options? What in God’s name are you thinking, Mr. The Duck? By that I guess you mean every company with a public stock in America! I wasn’t going to vote for him anyway, but this just seals the deal. Protectionist on trade and a “re-regulator” at home; it makes me long for Clinton democrats. Christ, what is the world coming to?

UPDATE (Hat Tip: Instapundit) Steve Verdon has more.

There are, of course, worse things to get bits of you stuck in…but this is pretty embarrassing.

In other news: DenBeste hates a lot of the “features” in the new versions of windows as much as I do. And he’s right; the most annoying is not displaying directories in the damn mode to which I set them. I have it set on “list” for a reason, windows, do what I say.

Upon the occasion of Mickey Mouse’s 75th birthday:

“Mickey Mouse offers up a … symbol of innocence while hiding the role it plays in commodifying children’s dreams and extending the logic of the market into all aspects of their lives.”

–Penn State professor Henry Giroux, author of The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence. Yep, Mickey Mouse is a dirty capitalist Fat, um, Cat. The white gloves say it all.

UO shoutout: In the article, Giroux makes our own Disney-critiquing professor Janet Wasko sound mild by comparison.

Good stuff from the Guardian. Or the Observer. They’re essentially the same damn newspaper, anyway.

Unfortunately, I have the distinct feeling that David Aaronovitch’s (for it is he) piece is being printed as a daringly contrarian viewpoint. Still, it is what it is.

Remember the Brunching Shuttlecocks? If you don’t, well, there’s no saving you. But, Lore is back! He’s updating the Book of Ratings and Lore Brand Comics. Also, the Self-Made-Critic has a new site with new reviews and all sorts of great stuff. Just to titilate you, here’s a bit from the latest set of Ratings:

Rice. A diamond. A duck. A lake. I feel like the Arkansas quarter shows the possible answers to some demented multiple choice question the Devil keeps in his ass. If you put photographs of those things in front of me and asked what they had in common, I would boggle at them until my angry brain cut me off from reality and informed me I was now Duke of Teacup Land. I would be a wise but firm ruler to the small, breakable people of Teacup Land, living a long life and siring many strong sons who would fight over the throne even as they stood over my deathbed. Eventually I would drift off into smug death, never knowing that the answer as “Arkansas.”

Nobody ever accused me of over-researching this stuff, but I feel it is my duty to point out that the CIA has a webpage for kids.

And for the headline, I apologize. That is all.

I haven’t been watching Fox’s Tru Calling, because it looks just appallingly bad. And that is why we have Television Without Pity, who has assigned one of my favorite people to recap it. The show probably won’t last very long, but while it’s here we have this. And it’s good to have:

She enters The Crypt and the tense music plays. We hear whispery breathing. Okay, people, there is no tension to this part of the show. None. It’s not a surprise, because it’s what the show is about. Stop dragging it out.

Come on, don’t look at me like you have anything better to do than read a fifteen-page recap of a TV show. It’s Friday.

To be read in a plaintive B-movie voice: What Has Science Done?

Well, amongst other things, it’s finally created tomacco. This story is sure to raise the profile of the great state of Oregon in the global scientific community, even if it turns out to be completely bogus. Which, let’s face it, is a distinct possibility.

“I’m amazed to have grown anything,” Mr. Baur said in a telephone interview from his Lake Oswego home. “It looks like a tomato, but the plumbing has changed. Now there’s nicotine pumping in from the roots.”

Lake Oswego. I should have known. Dreier, I’m looking in your direction.

(Hat tip: Hit & Run.)

The Governor has fired the entire State Board Of Higher Education save Rachel Pilliod and one other person whose name I cannot remember at the moment. I know there’s a wire story out there someplace, but I wanted to blog it before the Emerald gets it into print tomorrow morning. I know Jan knows, and Jared…Bruce told them too. Verified by the Gov’s office. And that’s news to me.

On the one hand, I think it’s pretty funny. On the other I think it’s kind of dumb. Then again, Dean deserves it for saying something really stupid and, if the kids just sat there with flags, I’ve got no problem. I’m sure they had to endure plenty of jeers from “Generation Dean” as it were. Also, it seems that our friends at the Dartmouth Review might have been tangentially involved. The only really scary thing to come out of this is buried all the way in the last paragraph:

Laurel Stavis, a spokeswoman for Dartmouth College, said it wasn’t clear to her whether the demonstration or the posters violated school policy.

“There’s no speech code,” she said. “There’s a difference between speech and behavior. We do have a college regulation that speaks to offensive behavior, but not to offensive speech.”

This is a clear case of student speech, it’s not “behavior.” I think Danimal can back me up that the courts have long held visual symbols to be speech. Tinker vs. DesMoines jumps immediately to mind. Yeah, this case is a lot different than that, but it deals with a visual symbol. I’m sure that Generation Dumb will be calling for a speech code at Dartmouth soon, God. What is the world coming to? And, furthermore, who cares if speech (or behavior for that matter) is merely “offensive”? That standard is applied much too often in academia, where feelings and motivations are more important than results. Reminds me of a man who once strained a gnat and swallowed a camel, but that’s a story for a different time….

I cannot believe I missed this.

On Nov. 4, I made my first (and probably last) appearance on talk radio.

I cannot believe I missed this.

Closely paraphrased, the first words from my mouth as soon as we hit the air were: “The mainstream media is all lies.”

I cannot believe I missed this. I’m calling KUGN to see if they have a tape. I cannot believe I missed this.

It could always be worse, kids. Here‘s a pearl from up the road in Corvallis.

I’m not posting the link to vehemently disagree with his interpretation of the First Amendment. I’m not posting the link to make mean-spirited fun of the picture. (Hang on. Too late.) No, I’m posting the link to introduce this week’s exciting fill in the punchline competition! (Prize: a drink.)

Nearly every state that ratified the First Amendment had laws which made obscenity a crime. In other words, there is a very significant difference between The New York Times and Jiggles Tavern.

Is there, now.

If midterms are getting you down, or you just plain don’t care about studying. Might I suggest taking a look at this video, it’s positively stunning.

This piece from McSweeneys is the funniest grammar reference I have seen in a long time. I laughed until my chair was wet.

Money Quote: The prefix “IR-” is a negative. The suffix “-LESS” is a negative. How many fucking negatives do you need in one goddamned word? So help me God, I will beat the shit out of you with a tire iron.

Remember this post from back in July about Bush needed to back down on steel tariffs to avert trade war with Europe? Well, now it seems that the EU is threatening us with just such an action if the steel tariff is not removed by December 15th. Greeeeat! Just what our new-found economic resurgence needs, 8-100 percent [yes, it is a huge range] tariffs on imports to the EU from the USA. Oh yeah, that’ll be good for us. Criminy, here’s hoping that the protectionist elements in Washington realize what this will mean and wise up.