Verdon sums things up pretty nicely regarding Sen. Clinton’s (D-NY) remarks regarding the “Common Good” the other day. Take a look, Verdon really understands the principle.

This is a PVC flamethrower created by a Something Awful forum user RolandTower. He better make sure to keep his identity pretty secret or else Homeland Security will come a’knocking on his door.

via Gizmodo

Ralph Nader interviewed by Pat Buchanan, here. Boo-ya. (Link via Volokh.)

Courtesy Steven Den Beste:

This in response to his latest post which I have not read. I’ll probably get to the whole thing, but it appears to be about chaos theory, medicine, and the economy.

This courtesy my buddy Blake, here are Today’s Front Pages from around the globe.

Last thing relating to M. Moore for a while, but this is too good to pass up.

It’s safe to say that Ted Rall would be all for F9/11. However, he hasn’t seen it, because Moore neglected to invite him to a screening, and he’s being amusingly petulant about it, here and here. Aw.

ABC News has an article on the successes and failures of African-American superheroes in the comic book industry. A few Marvel editors are interviewed along with some up-and-coming creators of black superhero characters. I find it odd that while the reporter lists Black Panther and Luke Cage as black superheroes who haven’t quite found mainstream popularity, he skips over the success of the Blade franchise until the very last sentence of the article.

It’s an interesting read nonetheless.

I can’t believe that Hillary Clinton actually said this:

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

Just read that last sentence over again a few times and think about what it means. Clinton, apparently, does not believe in individuals; that is, she’s a collectivist. Meaning that one of the Democratic Party big-wigs thinks in that horrible and perverse way. No, the Dems haven’t moved leftward, not at all…

Handover. Two days early.

The English-language blogocracy is pleased. Or not, depending on who you read. (Mind you, the latter writer is never pleased about anything.)

One of the problems with getting the news from blogs: Iraqis who take the time to blog in English are, for obvious reasons, a minority (and possibly more likely to be pro-war?) The guys at Iraq The Model occasionally translate the Arabic comments at this site, which is interesting. Of course, the Iraqis who take the time to post comments at a BBC site are also a minority. Still, it beats the hell out of the network news.

Looks like Ralph Nader gave Oregon a second shot last Saturday. Nader hosted a convention to collect the 1,000 signatures to get his name on the ballot in November. State law dictates that Nader must gather those signatures at a single event and this time about 1,150 people showed up, compared to the paltry 750 who came to the April convention.

Results should be available in a few days. If Nader fails a second time to get on the ballot, he can still qualify if he gathers enough signatures during a summer signature gathering drive. However, it will be obvious that most of Oregon doesn’t give a crap about him any more.

Lots of Michael Moore-related fun this week, especially once you filter out the predictable responses. Our confrere (but not neoconfrere, he would wish us to stress) Blog’s review is here. And this is one of the best straight reviews (as opposed to eviscerations) I’ve seen. Shockingly, it’s in a student newspaper.

UPDATED TO ADD: Bill’s review is now up.

For those of you who missed the NBA draft last night, Luke Jackson was selected in the first round as the number 10 pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers. I’m sure a lot of Oregonian eyes will be watching to see how he will mesh with Lebron James and the rest of the team.

Oregon Sports Fan has a few good links, while RoguePundit has some interesting opinions on the draft picks for the Trailblazers.

Go read Bruce Bartlett on Media Bias. Why? Because I am your stern-but-groovy master!

As much as I dislike Michael Moore, and as much as I think his films, television show, and books are nothing but hard-left agit prop that has no real chance of making anyone think about anything other that what an interminable fat-ass he is, this FEC thing is pretty bloody dumb. The money graphs:

In a draft advisory opinion placed on the FECs agenda for todays meeting, the agencys general counsel states that political documentary filmmakers may not air television or radio ads referring to federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.

The opinion is generated under the new McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, which prohibits corporate-funded ads that identify a federal candidate before a primary or general election.

This certainly curtails speech, odious, moronic speech, but speech none-the-less and seems rather unjust to me. If only Congress would think about the consequences before passing laws that hurt individual freedom in such a perverse way. All McCain-Feingold has done is make it more difficult for individuals to donate to political campagins, and now apparently the FEC can curtail movie ads. Great. [HATTIP: Antler]

“This” being a short post by Steve Verdon that isn’t econ related and contains two pretty good cartoons I didn’t feel like trying to find in the Cox&Forkum archive on my own.