Right Here Waiting

What Aren't They Telling Us?!?!?!?!

The $1T coin is a fun fantasy to think about (though, I contend, terrible policy). And as long as we're thinking about ways to abuse the mint, maybe we should take a look what Congress is already doing...

Here’s how it works: In June of last year, Rep. Peter Roksam (R-IL) introduced legislation authorizing a commemorative coin honoring the Lions Club, a service organization based in Oak Brook, IL – part of Roksam’s district.

The legislation dictates that proceeds from the coin sales be used to pay for the cost of producing the coins, but adds: “all surcharges received by the Secretary from the sale of coins issued under this Act shall be promptly paid by the Secretary to the Lions Clubs International Foundation for the purposes.”

In other words, assuming the costs of production are covered, the legislation will steer federal funds to an organization in Roksam’s home district. No earmarks required.

Drum wonders about what will happen with alcohol consumption if pot is legalized:

One of the interesting questions about marijuana legalization is the effect it might have on alcohol consumption. On one theory, pot and alcohol are substitutes. That is, there's a certain amount of total demand for psychoactive drugs, so if pot use goes up, alcohol use will go down. That would be a big win, since alcohol use is generally a lot more dangerous than marijuana use.

Pot and booze could be kindof sortof equal when it comes to simply wanting to get a buzz on - your Saturday night party scenario. But there are situations where pot could just never replace alcohol. For example: dining.

Beer and wine compliment most foods, extremely well, at times. We have regular meals at our house which require a specific bottle of wine; ex. penne with grilled chicken, pesto and asparagus absolutely requires an Ecco Domani Pinot Grigo (a perfectly average $10 white wine); we've even reached the point where we will refuse to drink that particular wine with any other food (because it tastes kinda funky with everything else). But pot just doesn't have anything to offer in that respect; it has no flavor to compliment foods, and the effect doesn't exactly enhance appreciation of flavors. Pot might make you want to eat a lot of Totino's pizza (lemma tell ya...), but it won't be an important component of a nice dinner. And that means that people who want to enjoy a glass or two of wine with dinner are never going to replace their wine with pot.

Now I don't know how much of the overall nationwide alcohol market that kind of drinking represents, but it's the vast majority of the alcohol budget in my house. We might have a glass of wine, or a beer, or a G&T on a weekend afternoon, but most of our typical wine drinking revolves around dinners.

Angry Birds Star Wars: fun!

In other news:

the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that giving someone the finger is an "ancient gesture of insult" and "is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity."

Yay!

If wingnut blogs were demanding that President Romney create a couple of $1 trillion platinum coins in order to pay the government's bills, would lefty blogs be supporting the notion?

I doubt it. They'd be signing petitions about impeachment and agitating that Congress close the apparent loophole ASAP.

It's a gimmick, almost certainly bound to cause at least as much fiscal and economic trouble as it purports to solve. And furthermore, it is something our cautious and drama-averse President would never try.

Might be time to step away from political blogs again. Without the big easy target of an election to talk about, they're starting to get silly.

As the old saying goes, an American-hating socialist is a conservative who's been mugged by a cerebrovascular accident.

Wiki on Gödel's incompleteness theorems:

The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an "effective procedure" (e.g., a computer program, but it could be any sort of algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the relations of the natural numbers (arithmetic). For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system.

Federal judge Colleen McMahon on US "targeted killings":

I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.

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(no, don't bother telling me i'm abusing Gödel. i already know)

I'm curious: when did "increasing government revenue" become a fundamental goal of the left?

I consider myself a lefty, but I've never felt that "increasing government revenue" for its own sake is something I should fight for.

An acceptable year. Here are my three favorite new records.

1. Gentleman Jesse - Leaving Atlanta
2. Alabama Shakes - Boys And Girls
3. Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits

Interestingly, each of these sounds like it could've been made decades ago. The 70s, 60s and 80s, respectively. That's what I hear in almost every record I've bought this year, actually. And what doesn't sound old, I haven't really liked. I'm old too, I guess.

Anyway, check out those records. Good stuff.

You?