Saucers of Mud

I’ve been saying that the Web is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for years. Months, anyway.

I mean…

[H]e also had a device that looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million “pages” could be summoned at a moment’s notice. It looked insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words DON’T PANIC printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact that most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in.

The only thing Adams got wrong is that he made the editorial standards a bit too high.

Given that Senate Republicans suck, and “centrist” Senate Democrats suck too, and that it’s now seemingly de rigueur to filibuster anything and everything because the Republicans have no interest in allowing the government to function after the people decisively rejected them (see point one: they suck) — given all that, I say, it’s very frustrating that Al Franken is still being prevented from taking his seat by Norm Coleman’s desperate maneuverings, which have very little chance to change the outcome of the election, but which may well be designed to keep Franken out of the Senate seat he won.

I hope that when they do seat Franken, he starts issuing weekly video addresses under the name “Franken Sense.”

The following is a bunch of nonsense about Nethack, which I believe will be of interest to none of my readers, so I’m putting it below the fold.

(more…)

These are the same video. I don’t really think I have anything more to say.

First video comparison here.

Congress has apparently passed a bill beefing up the role of the TARP Inspector General, saying that he does not need Justice Department approval to among other things “carry a firearm while engaged in official duties as authorized under this Act or other statute.” I guess that’s the part of the Inspector General Act Janet Rehnquist was relying on.

(Seriously, it sounds like the bill increases the Inspector General’s independence and oversight powers, and that’s a good thing.)

New Pepsi Max: Tastes like being hit in the head with a bowling ball!

Pepsi Max: Because men are morons.

The rule that a fumble through the end zone is a touchback is a really stupid rule. You should change it. Why should the defense be rewarded for letting the offense get really close to the end zone before the fumble that no one recovers? It would make more sense to treat a fumble through the end zone like any other fumble forward out of bounds, namely spot it at the point of the fumble.

Also, sudden-death overtime is less ridiculous in football than it would be in baseball, but only this.

I’m posting this now before the game, so this is not inspired by any particular event. Also, a song: