Question #116: New Year, Old Hat

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Are you making any New Year's resolutions this year?
- Olde Man Tyme

Dear Olde Man Tyme,
  No. I don't see the arbitrary choice of a dividing day between solar orbits as any reason to chain myself to the boulder of inevitable failure by adopting unreasonable aspirations which I have, thus far, been unable to achieve. If I was going to improve myself, it would have happened by now. I'm going to be unremarkable until I die. Thank you for playing.

Law Geekiness: The Rational Basis Standard of Review

  When applying the Rational Basis standard of review, the Court seems to be giving the government ever-wider freedom to act as it sees fit, without any meaningful check from the judiciary. In 1949, Justice Jackson's concurrence in Railway Express v. New York lauds the "salutary doctrine that cities, states and the Federal Government must exercise their powers so as not to discriminate between their inhabitants except upon some reasonable differentiation fairly related to the object of regulation."

  In 1973, the Court said that a suspect classification would be "examined to determine whether it rationally furthers some legitimate, articulated state purpose." San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 17 (1973).

  By 1980, United States Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Fritz saw Justice Rehnquist proclaiming that "where, as here, there are plausible reasons for Congress' actions, our inquiry is at an end." The Court no longer required that the actual reason for a law be rational. Rather, any sufficiently convincing post hoc justification that could be conceived of would suffice.

  In 1993, the Court in FCC v. Beach gave up all pretense of oversight, and instead placed the burden on litigants challenging a discriminatory law "to negate every conceivable basis which might support it." One pictures competing attorneys filling up notebooks with possible justifications and counterarguments. If the government attorney manages to think of just one more than the challenger, it's a check in the win column.

  The Court has done a neat job of ruling itself into a corner. When the Court found that the challenged Amendment in Romer v. Evans was discriminatory and motivated purely by hatred for homosexuals, the Court had to bludgeon the Rational Basis standard into a nearly unrecognizable state to enable it to strike the Amendment down. Critics who say that the Court was actually engaging in a stricter review are right. Unfortunately, the Court had very little choice. The Rational Basis standard has so little practical power to invalidate a law that the Court had to choose between dressing Intermediate Scrutiny in a hand-me-down Rational Basis t-shirt, or declaring sexual orientation a quasi-suspect classification and granting it the automatic protection of that stricter standard.

  Comparisons to the sexist reasoning in Muller v. Oregon immediately spring to mind. Again, the Court granted a much-needed protection, while (albeit a tad more subtly) endorsing intolerance toward the class it was protecting by upholding a particular discriminatory perception, namely that sexual orientation is a voluntary, rather than immutable, characteristic.

  All of that was the long way around to the following question; can the Rational Basis standard of review possibly get any more deferential? Is the chance to argue about the justification for the challenged legislation a certain thing, or will we see a day where the Court will simply deny certiorari if the government's list of justifications is longer than the challenger's list of arguments against them?

Question #115: Privacy Schmivacy

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Aren't you worried that a future employer will Google your name and refuse to hire you? You say fuck a whole bunch.
- HR On The DL

Dear HR On The DL,
  Job-hunting has become an electronic minefield, where a potential employer can too easily stumble over a picture of you doing unspeakable things with a bottle of cheap Vodka and a farm animal/fraternity pledge/Republican Senator. I've been lurking on the Internet since the days when the big innovation in text-only chat rooms was making the words turn different colors, and I've developed some reliable (so far) strategies for distancing myself from my incriminating past.*

1. Create an entirely fictitious online persona.
  If you craft a World Widentity (or three), and only interact with other web trolls while wearing your web mask, curious hiring managers will never know that you're the guy on the body mod blog with his cock stuffed through a hole in his left armpit. Just make sure that your new identity has a name that's different enough from your own that a search engine won't confuse the two. For instance, my real name is Wanklord Battlepants, while my Internet friends know me as Greg.

2. Don't ever have any fun in public. Ever.
  Does your idea of a good time involve nudity, intoxicating substances, farm animals or some combination thereof? Close the blinds, head down to the basement and go to town. If you don't leave the house, it's much easier to avoid being the subject of incriminating photos. If you find constant isolation too crazy-making, you'll have to be extra careful not to get involved in anything more scandalous than a lingering handshake.

3. Subterfuge = subterHUGE!
  If you're unwilling or unable to consider hermitage, a smart disinformation campaign can help you avoid awkward questions at your next interview. Getting a nickname, or even a fake name, and using it consistently will ensure that, should a third party post something scurrilous about you, the name being besmirched won't match the name on the résumé. Adding a prosthetic nose and fake beard to your party outfit makes deniability even more plausible, especially for the ladies.

4. Wait about 40 years.
  Whether we like it or not, the instant information technology of search engines and social networking is forcing a dramatic evolution of social standards of propriety and expectations of privacy. In another generation or two, the folks making hiring decisions will be sharing realtime 3-D scratch-n-sniff emotions (and nude pics) with wetwireless braincasting. They'll be sending text messages (and nude pics) from the womb. And they'll almost inevitably have much more realistic expectations about the range of human morality and sexuality, and how private behavior actually reflects on workplace ability.

5. If all else fails, go work in porn.
  Seriously, those guys don't care what or where you drink, who or what you like to please sexually in what public places, or what tattooed body parts you've got displayed on your blog. If you're morally flexible, there's a whole industry out there that's willing to become the next in your long line of unfortunate choices.

*All of this presupposes that you're smart enough not to post pictures or stories of your own drunken sexcapades. If you haven't made that connection yet, then no amount of listmaking on my part is going to save you from your own stupidity.

Question #114:

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  What are u doing RITE NOW???
- Wants 2 Know

Dear Wants 2 Know,
  Closing the blinds, turning off the lights and crouching behind the couch, preparing to call the police.

Question #113:

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  What's the best thing about being a blind, stupid, bleeding-heart, unrealistic, Satanloving, hellbound, hippie liberal cockface?
- One Nation Under GOD

Dear One Nation,
  I'd say it was the sense of smug superiority, but I suppose there's plenty of that at every point on the ideological spectrum. Self-righteous boobs of every political bent succumb to the temptation to cocoon themselves in the silky softness of like-minded opinion. Of course, affirmation addiction strikes non-political types as well. Without it, Michael Jackson might still have a nose and the Star Wars would likely have been Jar-Jar free.

  There are a lot of good things about being a liberal/progressive/lefty. Our girls are hotter. Our scientists don't waste time trying to prove that an invisible sky man made it all from scratch. Our gene pool tends to be broader and more diverse. We're allowed to acknowledge the cognitive dissonance that comes from a living in a country that listed equality as a sacred principle while simultaneously enshrining slavery in its founding document.

  On the whole though, the most awesome thing about being on the ideological left is the inevitable approbation of history. The progress of freedom and justice is a little like the stock market. In the short term, there are ups (Brown v. Board of Education) and downs (the USA PATRIOT Act). In the long term, it's all upward momentum. Social taboos evaporate and political barriers to individual expression erode. The doomsayers who warned that suffrage for women would ruin us, and that interracial marriage would destroy the American family, are dismissed as misguided fools. The uptight moralists claiming that gay marriage will tie "traditional" marriage to a stake and beat it to death with pink-handled hammers will eventually get the same treatment. Say what you will about self-confidence and the courage of your convictions, but it's awfully pleasant that history, and hindsight, keep proving us right. Er, correct.

Question #112: Obligatory Thanksgivingness

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  So, what are you thankful for?
- Bringin' Turkey Back

Dear Bringin' Turkey Back,
  I'm thankful that Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie got the modest, tasteful marketing campaign that a film of its obvious artistic merit so richly deserved.

Law-ku: Interrogation After Invocation

Please scrupulously
honor the invocation
of Miranda rights.

Right to be silent
is invoked for each offense.
Ask about past crimes.

Right to have counsel
is custody specific.
No further questions.

EDIT: Okay, so this isn't entirely correct. Under some circumstances, police can resume questioning about a crime even after the suspect invokes her right to remain silent, so the right isn't purely crime-specific. The preceding stupid poem makes no representation of accuracy.

If You've Ever Wondered What Law School Is Like

LAW SCHOOL MUSICAL

A Shout-out to the Meth Dealers and Users in the Audience

  A few years ago, I expressed my contempt for lavish entertainment industry awards shows by sniffing disdainfully at the Emmys. I compared the networks' skill at creating quality television with my own (total lack of) skill at making crystal meth. As part of my snark, I ran a quick search for instructions on operating a meth lab, and linked to a couple of the pages that came up.

  Enter a group called 1800NoDrugs, which offers referral services for drug users looking to get into rehab. They've created a website at methamphetamines.org which, through clever use of keywords, comes up in a search for instructions on making meth. Budding entrepreneurs looking for an all cash opportunity, and desperate junkies looking to do a little homebrewing, go out on the web looking for help in setting up their labs and wind up getting advice on finding a residential treatment program.

  I'm all for a little subterfuge in the pursuit of helping drug addicts get clean. I don't give a puddle of opiate-laced urine what people put into their bodies, but if a search for tips on manufacturing drugs misleads someone into getting help for a life-sodomizing dependency, that's fine by me.

  The confusing bit is that, after the offer for help in finding a rehab program, methamphetamines.org lists other links for meth-making info. It's as if the site is saying "Oops, sorry for wasting your time with an offer of potentially life-saving help. Here's that information you wanted on using volatile chemicals to make an addictive substance." Seriously? Make the wannabes go back to Google if they're that determined to be drug kingpins.

  I'm flogging this particular equine-American because, by virtue of its included links, my long-ago Emmy-bashing post wound up in this list of "crystal meth making instructions Resources." Which means that I get a few hits a week from people who are, one assumes, looking for help in playing Trailer Crack: The Home Game.

  So, here's a friendly nod to the meth dealers and users wandering by. If the shakes subside long enough, feel free to browse around. Sorry, but you won't find any drug manufacturing instructions here. And in case you're wondering, I still don't watch the Emmys.

EDIT: I have caved to popular pressure and posted a sure-fire recipe for making crystal meth. Start building your drug empire here.

Happy Birthday, Earth!

  And let me say, for a sprightly lass of 6,010, you're still looking great. Don't worry about that slight equatorial bulge. It happens to all of us after our mid-5,000s.

Correction: Soda Comes In Cans

  As a helpful Livejournal user pointed out, my statement that single-serving energy drinks are sold in smaller sizes than soda ignored the existence of the humble 12 ounce can. While I can honestly say that I drink soda exclusively from 20 and 24 ounce plastic bottles, my ignorance is no excuse for so casually dismissing a whole group of containers. These valuable receptacles hold soda and beer with equal aplomb, and I made a terrible mistake when I overlooked their contribution to the portability of our society's beverages.

  I'd like to issue a public apology to the Aluminum-American community. I will endeavor in the future to be more sensitive to the needs and concerns of our recyclable cousins. I sincerely hope that my unfortunate lapse in judgment will lead to an open dialog about the size, shape, composition and contents of our drink containers, that will allow us all to be more understanding of containers that are different from our own. Thank you.

Question #111:

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  I need lots... LOTS of caffeine to get me through my day, but I'm pretty sure that all that coffee is eating a hole in my stomach. Any thoughts on a cleaner delivery system?
- McTwitchy

Dear McTwitchy,
  If you like your addiction to be warm in your belly, tea is the obvious answer. It's available in many different varieties, it smells lovely when you're brewing it and it's amenable to the same milk and sugar modifications as coffee. As a bonus, steeping each cup individually provides an easy way to regulate the strength of each dose. You can choose a gradual comedown or a drastic crash when you're ready to switch back to your resting heart rate.

  If the thought of drinking tea brings up uncomfortable memories of friendless weekends spent holding tea parties for discarded dolls and broken action figures, consider switching to soda. The upside, if the advertising is to be believed, is that you'll be instantly happier and more popular, and your thirst will be so thoroughly quenched that you'll be able to water plants with your mind. The downside is that soda doesn't pack as much caffeine per dose, and it's loaded either with sugar or foul-tasting artificial sweeteners that coat the tongue, making it impervious to pleasant tastes for decades.

  If you're on the verge of injecting pure caffeine into your eyeballs, you'll want to try one of the approximately 80,000 "energy drinks" that have flooded the market lately. They're like soda in the sense that they're carbonated and best served cold. Unlike soda, they may also contain some amount of a dubious "herbal" stimulant, and they don't even pretend to taste better than llama urine. They're also sold in smaller containers, presumably because the caffeine content of a soda-sized serving would kill a rhinoceros.

  No matter how desperate for a fix you are, resist the urge to drink the new Game Fuel variety of Mountain Dew. It has a decent caffeine content, but it tastes like I imagine antifreeze would after being vomited up by a large dog.

Things That I Hear On < 2 Hours of Sleep

RADIO: "The committee hopes to raise enough money to return the house to its original splendor."

ME: "What does a crappy artificial sweetener have to do with restoring a historic home?"

  The only consolation is that I didn't say it out loud. Nobody else will know.

Football: Strategies for Success

  Two important things that the Eagles need to do if they want to win:

1) Score (some number) points.

2) Stop the other team from scoring more than (some number) points.

  It sounds obvious, but this is Philadelphia. The most basic lessons are often the ones that we fail to grasp.

Question #110:

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  I invited two guys - who often cancel plans at the last minute - to go to an event with me. Now they're both planning to meet me there. Awkward city! What should I do?
- Two Popular

Dear Two Popular,
  The answer depends on the event in question. If it's an evening of facial stabbings and light verbal abuse, and your dates are only attending to curry your favor, ditch whichever guy is less amusing and have a good time with the other one. If it's a free money and sandwiches parade, and the ditchee is liable to show up without a date, you'll have to stay home altogether, or run the risk of being the soy cheese in a vegan embarrassment sandwich.

Question #109:

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  What would you do if I was furiously fisting myself all the time?
- Cavernous Vag

Dear Cavernous Vag,
  I'd recommend a water-based lubricant. Preferably, something sold by the gallon and dispensed with a garden hose.

  I'd also suggest buying yourself a webcam. If you're constantly elbow-deep in your own fun bits, it might be tough to keep a day job. Selling subscriptions to the live video feed of your arm disappearing into your distended pelvis might help you pay the bills.

Welcome Skepchicks and Readers

  A long-belated thank you to Rebecca and the rest of the free-thinking females over at Skepchick for graciously linking in my direction. I first discovered the Skepchicks through The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, and I've been a fan ever since.

  I'm neither as prolific nor as entertaining as the Skepchicks, but I try to do my small part to popularize rational thinking and objective inquiry. I'd humbly suggest that you might enjoy these recent items. Enjoy, and please comment if something amuses/offends/nauseates you.

Question #108:

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  What do you do for fun?
- I Need A New Hobby

Dear I Need A New Hobby,
  Your question presupposes that I have any significant leisure time. I'm a second year law student, so this "fun" you speak of doesn't sound familiar

  Okay, so I'm being a little facetious. I do occasionally have an unscheduled minute in which to contemplate my bastardly existence. I try to fill these fleeting moments of nagging purposelessness by reading, drawing and drifting bodiless through the fetid, stagnant intellectual morass of the Interwebs.

  Come to think of it, I'm not at all interesting. Not even a bit. You'd better try some other blog for tips on hobbies. The only really cool thing I do is talk to my wife, who took theoretical physics as an elective because "it sounded fun." Unfortunately, one jackass nodding along like he's smart enough to keep up with her is more than enough, so you're going to have to find your own brilliant woman to talk to. Good luck.

Question #107:

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Can you loan me 50 bucks?
- Fiscaliberal

Dear Fiscaliberal,
  Yes, as long as you can accept it in monthly installments of $.05 for the next 83 years. I'll leave nickels on the floor of the Spring Garden El station. Look for the first one in a few days.

In Case You're New Here

  You should know that I have a lot of problems with deism/religion. There is the usual complaint about the exclusiveness inherent in any belief system that purports to reveal the one true path to the divine. But when deists look to their patron spirit(s) as the driving force behind natural events, I start foaming at the mouth and gnawing on chair legs.

  The world is, almost completely at random, a stunningly beautiful and unfathomably horrible place. Invoking a supernatural explanation for unpredictable events is a double-edged sword. Also, both edges are coated in battery acid, and they're aiming for your exposed throat at the same time.

  At best, ascribing events like these to the influence of magical sky beings fosters the belief that natural events occur because of the everyday behavior of the persons affected. (At its logical extreme, of course, is the delusion that these events can be influenced or even controlled by good behavior, dietary restriction, virgin sacrifice, etc.) At worst, a default deistic explanation makes us less safe, by acting as a disincentive to actual productive inquiry.

  Our only hope for minimizing the damage from pandemic illness and natural disasters lies with objective scientific investigation. Better prediction of geological and meteorological events. Structures built from modern materials and designed to survive extreme stresses. Efficient, workable evacuation plans. Vaccines to prevent communicable diseases. These things don't just happen, no matter how humbly we petition or how hard we pray. They happen as the result of brain work and perseverance, and the underlying assumption that events that kill a lot of people should and can be prevented. If we call it the will of god(s) and trust in the power of prayer to save us, we're leaving it to chance. Without the will to make our own way in the Universe, and the scientific diligence to learn how it all works, we're signing on as the future test subjects in an experiment testing the power of fervent prayer to alter the trajectory of a civilization-killing asteroid. In that scenario, my money's on the giant rock.

New Posts Shortly

  I've got a couple of things cooking, I promise. Hectic events have put me a little behind with the updates, but there should be two new ones this week. In the meantime, feel free to send a question my way by clicking here.

Boy on a Stick and Slither:
  It brings the funny. I especially enjoyed this recent entry.

Now With 20% More Bells, Whistles:

  I've added some new functionality to Ask LBB. There's a new RSS feed, as well as an email subscription service. Your inbox, it burns us!

One Thing Athiests Never Do:
Pray for the deaths of people who disagree with them.

  When Wiley Drake, pastor of a Baptist church in Buena Park, California, used church letterhead and a church-affiliated radio show to endorse former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's candidacy for president, it raised some red flags. Under federal tax law, non-profit organizations (religious or not) aren't allowed to endorse candidates. Those that do so risk losing their non-profit status, and the attending tax benefits.

  There's a minor piece of oft-ignored legal jargon called the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It's supposed to keep religious zealots from interfering in government, and vice versa. Despite the creeping theocratic bent of the current administration, maintaining federal tax benefits for a religious organization that endorses candidates is still a no-no. So, a group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State asked the IRS to investigate the church's non-profit status.

  Instead of defending his actions, Drake called on his flock to join him in praying to their god for the deaths of two of Americans United's leaders. While I'm pretty confident that there's no grumpy bearded man in the sky, grinding fresh points onto a pair of lightning bolts and aiming for Americans United's headquarters, it does raise some interesting questions.

  Drake is asking for help to petition the omnipotent creator of the Universe to kill two human beings. How is that substantively different from trying to hire a hitman? The question of there actually being an omnipotent creator of the Universe is immaterial; Drake believes a god exists, and he's asked that god to pop a cap in his enemies.

  It's the belief that is the key here. If I believe that I've hired a hitman to kill someone, I've committed a crime. It doesn't matter if my "hitman" is an undercover FBI agent, and my intended target was never in any real danger. I've engaged in a conspiracy to commit murder. In many jurisdictions, the penalty for this crime is on par with what I'd face if I'd actually done some killing.

  I'll say it again, because I think it bears repeating. Drake believes that he and his followers are asking an omnipotent (and not at all imaginary) being to kill his enemies. He has clearly shown the intent to cause the deaths of two people. This has to be a criminal act. If it wasn't all so laughably stupid, I'd say Drake should be prosecuted for his threats.

ReligionNewsBlog
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
LA Times (registration required)

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  I demand that you explain the unfathomable popularity of LOLcats. Get to it.
- Not LOLing

Dear Not LOLing,
  LOLcats and their spawn - LOLPresidents, LOLBots, even LOLJesus - operate on the two bedrock principles of Internet humor:
1) Anything you can do, I can do better. (Ur captions. Let me improov upon them.)
2) Nothing makes a mildly amusing joke more funny that beating it into the ground until the whole world gets sick of it, and it can come back as ironic on a webcomic t-shirt.

  Anybody who tells you that Web2.0 isn't a vast field of suck lit by vanishingly rare glimmers of talent is probably hoping to quit working in favor of blogging full time.

Random Internal Soundtrack

  Ever since I managed to wash my iPod in the pocket of my jacket, the soundtrack of my commute has been a collection of overheard conversation, transit engine noise, and the tinny buzz of music from out of the headphones of the future deaf community. On days when I forget to bring something to read, my brain often fills the background noise with snatches of poorly remembered songs. I can usually only recall a few bars or so, and that short bit invariably lodges in my brain like a tumor with ninja training, repeating on an endless, maddening loop until I get involved in some task or other.

  This morning, for some unfathomable reason, I got brain-smacked by the opening verse of the showtune Big Spender. I haven't heard it in years, but that's de rigueur for these random songbombs. What made it notable was that my stunted, malformed psyche managed to conjure up a version I've never heard before. I was hearing it sung by bathhouse-era Bette Midler. Loud, brassy, lungs that could power a small wind farm. I didn't even know that she'd recorded the song; thirty seconds on Google revealed 2005's Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook, containing Midler's recording of the song, a version arranged by her old bathhouse piano player, Barry Manilow.

  I haven't ever heard this version of the song, nor do I plan to, so I guess I'll never know how similar it is to the one my brain vomited up. I just found the whole episode mildly disconcerting, and I thought I'd share my disquiet with the Internet. Isn't this the kind of thing that convinces the credulous that they're psychic?

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Have you ever thought about politics?
- Will Vote For Food

Dear Will Vote For Food,
  I burn a lot of brain cells fuming about how modern political discourse sounds like an elementary school playground. Contentious issues are debated in a more verbose version of "nuh uh!" "yuh huh!" and there's a remarkable amount of noise that carries very little information.

  However, I suspect that the thrust of your question is whether or not I've ever considered running for office. I have considered it, and pretty much ruled it out. I'm appalled by the the money-driven campaigning process. I find the personalities and people who are attracted to politics irksome. I can't stomach the necessary pandering to every group and interest that it takes to get elected. Finally, there's enough questionable conduct in my misspent past that I doubt I'd survive the public vivisection that awaits a candidate for any office higher than dogcatcher.

  But the thing that turns me off most about American politics is the way that anyone who has the temerity to allow their opinions to be influenced by actual events is labeled a "flip-flopper." Seriously? The whole of scientific and intellectual pursuit is grounded in the proposition that you have to be willing to scrutinize your beliefs. You base your opinions on the best available evidence, but if new evidence undermines those beliefs, you have to be willing to abandon them, no matter how compelling or comfortable they are.

  That's why science is inherently progressive. You can believe as hard as you want that the Universe revolves around the Earth, until somebody points out that the other planets move in a way that only be explained if they and the Earth are all orbiting the sun. At that point, I want the people in charge* of my country to have the intellectual fortitude to not jam their heads in the sand and insist that the Universe is heliocentric.

  If, to use a purely hypothetical example, you support a military action due in part to evidence that the target is trying to build a nuclear weapon, and latter it turns out that the nuclear weapon bits were incorrect, withdrawing your support for that military action wouldn't make you indecisive. It would make you a person who values truth over slavish devotion to an erroneous idea.

  And yet, for some unfathomable reason, the American voting public relates to its elected officials like a four-year-old to its father. Daddy knows everything; he can answer every question you pose, and he's never wrong. Why would he ever need to change his mind?

  All of that is a long way of saying that I don't think I could get elected to political office. I don't believe I have a soul to sell, but I do value what's left of my brain, and I pride myself on a modicum of ability to think critically. Until being a successful politician doesn't necessitate coating one's brain in intellectual cement to block out new information, I'll have to stay on the "despondent voter" side of the political equation.

* For purposes of America, assume these people are old, rich white men.

Blogger Goes Batshit:
  For those of you reading Ask LBB on Livejournal or in a feed reader of some sort, I have no clue why Blogger suddenly decided to republish more than a dozen of my recent entries. Unlike the last time this happened, I wasn't muddling about in the archives, or doing anything else that could have caused it. Blogger just seems to have had a Gary Busey moment. Sorry about that.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  In 1,000 years, what will archaeologists who dig up Nike merchandise with the Michael Jordan logo think it means?
- Sarawesome

Dear Sarawesome,
  It's hard to say what future researchers, rummaging through the remains of long-vanished early-millennial America, will make of the iconic spread-eagled silhouette. Will they recognize it as representative of superlative basketball talent turned into marketing gold? Or will they mistake it for a weirdly lumpy bird?

  The key seems to be whether or not some civilization ending event happens between now and our hypothetical dig. We live in a hyperrecorded, obsessively archived age; the Intertubes are clogged with pictures of every cat in the industrialized world. With the sheer volume of information being stored every second, and given a smooth ascent into a glorious, flying car-filled future, it's hard to believe that any society sophisticated enough to make organized study of its predecessors wouldn't be able to find some reference to explain a symbol that was, during our time, so ubiquitous.

  Then again, the logo could be uncovered on the other side of a catastrophe sufficiently horrible to destroy our delicate technological infrastructure. There are plenty of candidates; supervolcanoes, asteroid strikes, nuclear war and drug-resistant bacteria could all do the trick. It's hard to know what a rebuilt civilization, without the benefit of our LOLcats, will think of us and our marketing tools. However, I can say with a fair degree of certainty that they'll think those FCUK shirts are pretty fucking stupid.

The Machine, It Works!
  I've successfully created the world's first chronometeorological transfer device. This morning, I swapped the August heat and humidity in the Delaware Valley for the drab, dreary chilliness of mid-October. I'm still damp, but it's from rain and not sweat. I consider this a victory.

Link Pimpin':
  Spend some time beneath the tracks of the Market-Frankford El with David Kessler's Shadow World. It's a video blog featuring the people who live and work in the city's Kensington section. These are folks you don't see in the "Philly's awesome" flick that runs before Imax movies at the Franklin Institute. Their neighborhood struggles like an underfed vine in the grimy shadow of the El. The videos don't editorialize; there is no Michael Moore-ish self-promotion. Just simple, revealing moments among the city's forgotten, that should be mandatory viewing for the mayoral candidates.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Do you ever get tired of being sarcastic all the time?
- Wondering

Dear Wondering,
  Are you kidding? I live in a world where thousands of Americans are dying in an occupied foreign country, which was invaded partly on the advice of a Vice President who doesn't believe he's part of the Executive branch of government. I'm pretty sure I sneer in my sleep.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  How do you refinish wood floors?
- n00b homeowner

Dear n00b homeowner,
  Because I have fewer home repair skills that the three-day-old corpse of Bob Vila, I refinish wood floors by buying an area rug to hide the worn spots. If this isn't acceptable, try grabbing the phone book and flipping to "Contractors." If you find one that's reliable and reasonably priced, let me know. My floor is starting to look like a jigsaw puzzle made entirely of braided polyester.

This is why I love Lore Sjöberg:

  Bad Gods presents The Drama Club.

Whaddaya know.
  When I write the word "porn," traffic jumps.

  Porn porn porn porn porn.


  Porn.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  where can you go check out a porn flick being filmed here in Los angeles?
- Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,
  About 20 miles Northwest of L.A. lies the city of Chatsworth, California. Chatsworth is the putative capital of an area that is referred to, completely without irony, as "Porn Valley." A good amount of the pornography consumed in the United States (particularly the more mainstream flavors) is produced in that area.

  I don't know about any studio's policy regarding tours or fans visiting sets, but I suspect that they discourage it. They wouldn't want you to see the sex for free, and the tedium of a film set might permanently put you off the product.

  The good news is, there are hundreds of companies within a few square miles competing to fulfill your demand for gooey facials. If you grab the yellow pages and start calling any company that has "Entertainment" or "Media" or "Video" in its name, it won't take you long to get an adult company, and you might get a few of them to give you a set visit if you claim to be a big fan.

  If you really want an all-access pass to porn, go get an undergraduate film degree, and then get a job as a Production Assistant. Then you'll get to see live XXX action, while simultaneously being paid a pittance to write down numbers on a clipboard and stick labels on things.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Why do they have writing credits on porn movies? Does somebody write all the "ooh baby oh baby?"
- Hey Everybody Likes Porn

Dear HELP,
  Nobody's sitting in front of a keyboard typing out every grunt and groan. Those are pretty much spontaneous. There might be a hit list of positions that the performers are supposed to contort themselves into, but that type of pre-shoot planning probably happens between the actors and the director.

  However, you can bet that the dialog in any non-sex interlude has been pre-scripted, at least in a general way. The performers don't decide on the spot that the guy should dress up as a plumber, and the four girls with the gigantic dildo should pretend to be a cash-strapped sorority with a clogged sink.

  As a general rule of thumb, the bigger the budget and the more involved the "story" surrounding the hot XXX action, the more likely it is that somebody wrote down the lines ahead of time. If it's an amateur production, the pale flabby guy getting head from the wan-looking blond is probably the director, producer and cameraman as well as the male star. Chances are he's spent too much time at the mall chatting up desperate women, offering to pay for lunch in exchange for on-camera sex, to be able to come up with a compelling scenario. Everything beyond the semi-competent blowjob is probably improvised.

Voting commences.
  Now's the time to weigh in on the awesomeness (or not) of the illustrated entries I've been dabbling with lately. Set your browser to stun and hit me up at www.littlebaldbastard.com, or click here to vote without your mom seeing my site in your browser history.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Why do people have to use silent letters? Seriously! They should just be eliminated.
- Fonetically Challenged

Dear Fonetically Challenged,
  Silent letters are artifacts from the slapped together, ad hoc conglomeration of words that is the English language. They are the linguistic equivalent of the appendix, glaring evidence that the language just sort of happened, without any conscious (or competent) guidance.

  Ditching silent letters would go a long way toward simplifying a notoriously difficult to learn language. Unfortunately, spelling nerds have opposed every effort. For those of us without any particular physical prowess or intellectual acumen, an obsession with perfect spelling gives us a rare opportunity to feel superior to more gifted individuals. We're not about to give up our secret weapon.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Why do people have to use silent letters? Seriously! They should just be eliminated.
- Fonetically Challenged

Dear Fonetically Challenged,
  Silent letters are artifacts from the slapped together, ad hoc conglomeration of words that is the English language. They are the linguistic equivalent of the appendix, glaring evidence that the language just sort of happened, without any conscious (or competent) guidance.

  Ditching silent letters would go a long way toward simplifying a notoriously difficult to learn language. Unfortunately, spelling nerds have opposed every effort. For those of us without any particular physical prowess or intellectual acumen, an obsession with perfect spelling gives us a rare opportunity to feel superior to more gifted individuals. We're not about to give up our secret weapon.

Stupid Weather Tricks
  Back in June, I groused about how summer heat in Philadelphia is invariably accompanied by horrible, indoor swimming pool level humidity. Yesterday, I was proven wrong. The high was around 90, but the humidity was low. The result was a sky of clear blue instead of hazy grey, a slight but pleasant breeze, and the opportunity for perspiration to actually evaporate.

  Well played, stationary high pressure system. Well played. I see what you did there.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Is this all there is?
- Desperately Seeking Soothing

Dear Desperately Seeking Soothing,
  I like to think so. Who wants to slog through life hoping for a reward after it's over?

  The concept of a post-off-mortal-coil-shuffling reward is one of the oldest tools of religious authority. If the faithful believe that there's a fabulous reward coming later on, they'll shoulder their burdens (or strap on their dynamite corsets) and trudge on until it's their turn as the bug on the cosmic windshield.

  It's tempting, when my faith in human nature is at its lowest ebb, to believe that the concept of a reward in heaven is nothing more than a carrot, meant to keep the masses quiet as they bear the burden of crushing poverty, while their church amasses a sizable (an non-taxable) fortune. But I suspect that the truth is a bit more complicated.

  If people knew that this was the only life on the agenda, they might work a lot harder trying to make this life as good as possible: taking chances, trying new things, helping out their fellow short-timers. If you die and there's no there there, then the journey finally becomes more important than the destination.

  Then again, some of us might use that as an excuse to treat the world and our fellows even more callously, if that's possible. If you're not going to punished in the afterlife, why should you care about whose feelings (or face) you stomp on?

  All of that was a roundabout way of saying yes, this is all there is. You get one life, just like everybody else. Don't wait around expecting to get all the things you want once your body lies mouldering in the grave. Planning for retirement is daunting enough; planning for eternity is impractical and unnecessary. Just try to keep in mind that everyone else is living their one life too, and it's not a zero-sum game.

  I'll ditch the philosophy and get back to the snark next time, I promise.

Someone Needs To Burn Down Bravo

  I don't usually go in for that "celebrity gossip blog" bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, celebrities are either human beings who deserve some modicum of privacy, or camera-fellating attention whores who don't need their already inflated egos stroked by the constant attention. I'm making an exception, however, for Bravo's new voyeurgasm Hey Paula.

  The satellite box was left on Bravo the other night, so when whatever it was that I was watching ended, I wound up right in the middle of en episode of Hey Paula. (I'd tell you what I was watching previously, but the memory of it was completely pounded out of my brain by the sheer horror of the subsequent spectacle.) I know I'm not the first person to observe this, but that woman is a fucking train wreck. She's whiny, hysterical, abusive and dismissive to her small army of personal staff, wildly more self-absorbed than her resume should permit, and she can't get through a sentence without slurring some relatively simple word.

  Anyone who's given even a cursory glance in the direction of American Idol knows that Abdul appears to be drunker than an Irish wake pretty much constantly. On her own show, she defends her behavior with a mantra of complaints about how little sleep she gets. On behalf of America, Ms. Abdul, I'd like to respectfully ask you to shut your fucking cry hole. Take one afternoon out of selling your crappy costume jewelry on QVC and take a nap. You'll either catch up on some sleep, or you'll lay off the hooch for a couple of hours. Either way, you might be able to get through your next public appearance without stumbling about in (a remarkable simulation of) a drunken stupor.

  Unless, of course, you're counting on your dubious behavior for publicity that your far more dubious talent and your appallingly infantile personality could never generate. In that case, keep it up. Just keep your fingers crossed that your fans don't get wise.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Wanna Fanta? Please?
- DoubleThickShake

Dear DoubleThickShake,
  If you're talking about the horrible solution of carbonated water, complex chemical "fruit" flavors and high fructose corn syrup, I'll pass. I'd like my blood sugar to stay below "Immediate Diabetes" for as long as possible.

  If you're using "Fanta" as a euphemism for some sort of shameful sexual act, the answer is still no. Also, you desperately need to think up a better come-on, or give up your last fleeting hopes of ever scoring.

  [click picture to embiggen]

Impending Experiment

  I'm thinking I might try illustrating a question and answer every now and again. I worked up a picture for the Fanta question, and I'm going to post it tomorrow morning. I'd appreciate hearing if anyone has trouble with feeds or other displays; feedback about the picture itself is also welcome.

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
  Is you is or is you ain't my baby?
- veemer098

Dear veemer098,
  Yes. Yes I am. Feed me, clothe me, grind away at a job you hate to keep me in health insurance, save diligently for my college education, and then sit by the phone broken-hearted because I never call. In about 20 years, we'll discuss nursing homes.

For The Love Of Astronauts!
  For the love of astronauts, DO NOT wear flip-flops to work and then complain about injury or discomfort of your feet. That's what they make shoes for. You're basically wearing a dry sponge held on by a rubber thong. Of course it's going to be uncomfortable. By choosing to wear such impractical (and onomatopoeic) footwear in a professional environment, you've forfeited your right to complain about the state of your feet.

For The Love Of Astronauts...
  I've decided that, in situations where a believer would invoke an omnipresent deity, I'm going to start swearing to astronauts.* After all, astronauts are the only beings that I know for sure have been smiling down on us from above the clouds.

*For purposes of this exercise, "astronauts" will include Russian cosmonauts, Chinese taikonauts, and any whatever-nauts from future manned space programs. My admiration for those who've flown in space is not bound by anything so silly as nationality.

Tales From The Blue Line

  On my way home from work yesterday, I spotted a convergence of psychobabble chicanery that I'd previously seen only in unpleasant dreams. At one end of the car, a skinny, semi-professional looking blond woman reading The Secret. At the other end of the car, a rough, badly-used looking older gentleman cracking open a large envelope full of glossy Scientology paraphernalia. I swear I could see a fog bank of stupidity forming where their individual credulities converged.

  I'm sure I've beaten you about the head quite enough with my outrage over The Secret, but I don't think I've ever broached the subject of Hollywood's favorite cult "religion." (I don't have a tag for it yet, and until I find an alternate reality where my memory isn't so porous, I'll have to trust the silicon overlord.)

  I don't have the energy to get into it here. The alien warlords and ghosts are almost too ridiculous to comprehend. However, I will make this (not at all insightful) observation; any "religion" that charges you money to learn their teachings is a fucking cult, regardless of what any number of brain-addled celebrities would like you to believe.

  By the way, Scientology is also Hollywood's most notoriously litigious cult "religion," so I'll be sure to post a link to my legal defense fund as soon as I receive the cease and desist letter.

New Comics, Part 1

  I've added some new comics to my reading schedule as well my links list, and I thought I'd share. Because it's my blog, damn it.

Bad Gods: Lore Sjöberg is a venerable Internet humorist, inspiring belly laughs as one of the Brunching Shuttlecocks, as the creator of Table of Malcontents, and as the author of the Alt Text blog for Wired. Bad Gods started as a weekly Flash animation, went dormant for awhile, and recently resurfaced as a non-animated meta Internet observational humor sort of thing. I'm not quite sure where this new incarnation is going, but I've kept it in my RSS reader despite a year-long dearth of updates. Lore is the kind of funny I aspire to, before I devolve into fart jokes and incessant profanity. Updates M&W.

Gunnerkrigg Court: Gunnerkrigg Court concerns the supernatural goings-on at the spooky titular boarding school. It has a very graphic novel kind of feel, with interesting panel layouts and a rich color palette. Author/artist Tom Siddell writes convincing dialog for children, which is rare. Better yet, he knows when it's appropriate to drop the "blah blah" and let the visuals tell the story, which is nearly unheard of in a lot of online cartooning. The serialized story isn't comedy necessarily, but it does observe richly emotional and comic moments between the players (human and otherwise). Updates M,W&F.

Monday Ends In "Why?"

  Why does a bluegrass cover of Gin and Juice make me so happy?

CNN.com: Late To The Party

  CNN.com apparently just noticed that the author of The Secret is getting rich by preying on the fears and desires of the desperate, credulous masses. Seriously, CNN? I was griping about this back in March, and even then it wasn't particularly breaking news. How are you just getting around to this now?