Hippie Mail

Donna subscribes to a hippie magazine, the kind filled with ads for stones to control your aura, handmade Jesus sandals, and furniture made out of hemp. This, naturally, gets her on some awesome mailing lists.

We've gotten solicitations to buy farm animals for people in third-world nations (for just $267.99, you can provide dirt farmers like Iesco with enough wildebeest to last his family for six months!) and pleas to grow our own crops so as to end our dependence on fat cat corporations like Cashwise Foods and Piggly Wiggly and that corner grocery run by Iesco's cousin.

Our latest bit came with this totally awesome and not sensationalist headline blaring from the cover of the envelope:

How will this wolf pup survive... once its pack is slaughtered by aerial guns?

Awesome in every way, right? This was accompanied by a black and white picture of a cute little wolf pup staring at you right into your soul! from a field of weeds. Of course, the envelope was only so big, so what you couldn't see in the picture was the Apache gunship lining up for the kill shot. The pup was about to become goo, baby.

I have this vision of a fleet of helicopter gunships coming over the horizon, Flight of the Valkyries blaring, turning Yellowstone National Park into a Cambodian-style killing field. Spent brass from thousands of rounds from Vulcan cannons spilling to the ground like rain, like when Neo saved Morpheus by somehow not hitting him even once despite spraying the cannon fire back and forth indiscriminately. A lone wolf sniffs the air, then BLAM -- the wolf can't sniff anything anymore because a helicopter gunship blew off its nose! Glorious.

Of course, nothing this cool has, is, or ever will happen. The truth is that these wolves were on the endangered species list for years. With their only real predator taken out of the picture their population exploded. Now they are encroaching on populated areas. So a ban on hunting them was lifted in order to control their numbers. Makes sense right? Crazy hippies don't think that way though. Probably smoking too many ottomans.

Farmers Need Love Too

And not just the kind you get from cows and such. Real, honest farmer love. The kind only farmers can share. Two sharing farmers who want to share.

NOW It's Time To Look For The Good

Read this piece from Newsweek. Now try to imagine it being run when Bush was still in office. Look, I'm glad Bush is out. I don't happen to think he's the anti-christ like a lot of people, but it's clear he won't go down as one of our all-time great presidents.

But it makes me laugh (not in a good way) at how, now that we've got no Republicans to blame for things (Democrats control the White House and Congress, if you haven't heard), there are suddenly starting to appear stories about how things aren't really so bad. If you want more examples, go look at Slate (a site that generally leans left a bit with the exceptions of Hitchens and Kaus, and one I read often). The economy, the environment, the war -- nothing's quite as bad as it was 3 weeks ago.

Beam Me Two Feet To The Right, Scotty

Scientists have successfully transferred the quantum identity of an atom to another atom a few feet away. In other words, teleportation (cue Star Trek effects). This was done using the property of 'entanglement'; this is a tenent of quantum theory that says atom pairs that are separated can be changed by changing one of the pair. The other will reflect that change even across large distances.

This is obviously a long way from jumping into the transporter to visit the family in Georgia, but it's still pretty cool. I've heard of the entanglement property before, and always wondered if maybe it had something to do with the phenomenon of twins separated at birth growing up to have the same careers, haircuts and cars.

Class Action Lawyers Get Same Award As Clients

I wish this happened more often. Actually, I wish class action lawsuits were more stringently, well, regulated isn't the right word. But they too often end up screwing the people who were ostensibly to benefit from them. While the plaintiffs get gift cards or free downloads or an order of mozzarella sticks or whatever, the lawyers get millions of actual dollars.

In this case, though, the lawyers are getting the same award as their clients:

...Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brett Klein thought it only fair to provide that Yorba Linda attorney Neil B. Fineman be paid his fee with “12,500 ten-dollar Windsor Fashions gift cards.”

Never Mind the Butter, Here Come The Sex Pistols

What. The. Hell?

(thanks to RTftLC)

Update: link was broken. Fixed now.

Why We Don't Want (Or Need) Another New Deal (Updated)

There's a lot of talk about what the government should do to address the current financial crisis. My answer to this question is, government should do almost nothing. The more the government tries to fix things, the more muddled they are likely to become and the longer the current recession is likely to last.

This article opinion piece relays a brief history of the New Deal and explains why a majority of the actions taken by FDR ultimately prolonged the Great Depression. Read and forward it to everyone you know who thinks government's job is to take care of you.

Update: The Congressional Business Office likes the new stimulus package over the next two years, but says it will reduce GDP over the next ten years compared to if the government does nothing.

This doesn't fill me with confidence, either.

(this was originally posted at 7:17 am)