AdamSmith

It is not quite clear to me how voter ID laws will prevent vote fraud engineered by election officials, which is how it historically has happened, as you point out.

You go looking for good sense in all the wrong places.

What a great name. Like a Henry James character.

This rather dreadfully named web site "Findadeath.com" confirms your recall about Jack: http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/c/Jack%20Cassidy/jack_cassidy.htm BTW, TV actors from this era seldom got more than their pay for each show -- residuals were nonexistent unless you had the foresight and clout to negotiate them. Or unless you had the business savvy to own your production company a la Desilu or, I think also, Gleason did. About 20 years ago I happened to get to know Chris Knight a little bit due to his then career in software marketing and he said he and his Brady Bunch compeers were forever kicking themselves over this state of affairs.

Also reminds a bit of the running gag on old SNL shows about the family that all had huge asses.

You know, I have seen some recent scholarship to the effect that the word was mistranslated, and that the promised reward for holy jihad is not so many virgins, but actually so many grapes. There may be some disappointed self-martyrs!

It very much matches the way I read the forum, which is by clicking the View New Content button. Thanks, Oz!

Agree wholeheartedly! That is the only regret I have ever had from chasing dick & ass -- when I let it get away.

P.S. If musical instruments do that to you, you will definitely want to avoid this passage from The Merchant of Venice where Shylock is saying... Some men there are love not a gaping pig, Some that are mad if they behold a cat, And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose, Cannot contain their urine. (Made the weirder in performance by Elizabethan pronunciation of "urine" having a long "i.")

Sorry about that. Just doing one's modest best.

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch? W.C. Fields

North Korea is running out of virgins for Kim Jong-un's dance troupe. It's every dictator's nightmare By Tim Stanley World Last updated: August 20th, 2013 Kim Jong-un may have to turn to other forms of entertainment A quick recap for those of you who aren't obsessed with North Korea. The Democratic Republic long ago realised that it couldn't do the basics like grow food or keep the lights on, so it decided to focus on the fields of military and light entertainment instead. Of course much of its military output is entertaining and much of its entertainment has a decidedly military feel – from mass games to girl bands singing about the birds, the bees and nuclear fallout. And all of this variety performance is being slowly undone by the country's continued slide into mass poverty. The missiles are old and probably unusuable. And the entertainment corp is starting to look a little frayed, too. The Kim family has long been entertained by dance troupes comprised entirely of virgin girls. But – oh, the irony! – the Kims' taste for Stalinist economics is reducing the number of virgins available for recruitment. A defector told the Chosun Ilbo, "Dire economic straits compounded by a weakening regime have led to an increase in prostitution, drug abuse and human trafficking in North Korea." The regime blames this on the decadent influence of capitalism (as if every household has HBO), but the sad reality is that empty bellies are forcing young girls to sell their bodies in order to feed their families. The result: "A physical exam for the military draft of 16-year-olds … in Chongjin showed that more than 60 percent of the girls had had sexual experiences". The defector reports that this means the dance troupes are becoming understaffed – although the cynical would point out that virgins who entertain the Kims don't stay virgins for very long. They're a family of "playboys", in the way that seedy old men who put a coin in a slot and watch a naked woman slowly rotate behind a window think they're a veritable Roger Moore. Poor old Kim. His harem has lost its traditional purity and, to add insult to injury, his sportsmen are escaping the misery of North Korea life by getting high. The defector adds that, "more than 30 percent of athletes tested positive for drug use in a doping test for a sporting event in 2012 to mark late leader Kim Jong-il's birthday on Feb. 16". That must've been fun to watch: a game of football in which 30 per cent of the players think the ball they're chasing is a white rabbit. And Kim can't even get his own, horribly real white elephant off the ground. His plan to build the world's coolest ski resort has hit the barrier of trade sanctions, with the Swiss refusing to sell him more than $7 million in ski lifts and cable cars – and they've rubbed salt into the wound by extending the trade embargo to include luxury items like golf clubs, horse saddles and perfume. Then again, it was always doubtful that a North Korean ski resort was going to become the Zermatt of East Asia. Cocktails with the William and Kate in the shadow of a gulag? I think not. Under the Kims, North Korea is part barracks and part brothel – an odd outcome for a society supposedly dedicated to peace and ending exploitation. But then it's probably inaccurate for us to regard the regime as communist anymore. A recent change to the constitution excised the remaining commitment to building socialism and replaced it with the importance of keeping the Kim bloodline in power. Virgin dance troupes and lavish ski resorts: this is an ossified monarchy, not a socialist state. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100231814/north-korea-is-running-out-of-virgins-for-kim-jong-uns-dance-troupe-its-every-dictators-nightmare/

What is wrong with me? My first thought was... http://www.stsulpice.com/

No need, I have it:

Oh, that too...

Gratifyingly dyspeptic corrective viewpoint... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/royal-baby-pictures-william-kate-george

You dirty old man!

It is pointless to argue with you about this. But merely to note that the bad apples now include: - The current president - His predecessor - The Director of National Intelligence - The leaders of Congress - The members of the FISA Court - The officers and staff of the NSA A "few" indeed.

Your point is on. One indeed feels old. And she is a genuine talent ... and yet, and yet ... why does it seem faintly hilarious to use "essential" in the same line as "Britney Spears"?

Slate has a pretty sharp evisceration of Christie's anti-gay-marriage position: http://mobile.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/08/chris_christie_s_legal_brief_on_gay_marriage_pure_nonsense.html?original_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dchris%2Bchristie%2Bgay%2Bmarriage%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari

Of course not. It should be wielded behind me.

Greenwald Partner falsely detained as Terrorist: How to Create a Dictatorship Posted on 08/19/2013 by Juan Cole How to turn a democracy into a STASI authoritarian state in 10 easy steps: 1. Misuse the concept of a Top Secret government document (say, the date of D-Day) and extend classification to trillions of mundane documents a year. 2. Classify all government crimes and violations of the Constitution as secret 3. Create a class of 4.5 million privileged individuals, many of them corporate employees, with access to classified documents but allege it is illegal for public to see leaked classified documents 4. Spy on the public in violation of the Constitution 5. Classify environmental activists as terrorists while allowing Big Coal and Big Oil to pollute and destroy the planet 6. Share info gained from NSA spying on public with DEA, FBI, local law enforcement to protect pharmaceuticals & liquor industry from competition from pot, or to protect polluters from activists 7. Falsify to judges and defense attorneys how allegedly incriminating info was discovered 8. Lie and deny to Congress you are spying on the public. 9. Criminalize the revelation of government crimes and spying as Espionage 10. Further criminalize whistleblowing as “Terrorism”, have compradors arrest innocent people, detain them, and confiscate personal effects with no cause or warrant (i.e. David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald) Presto, what looks like a democracy is really an authoritarian state ruling on its own behalf and that of 2000 corporations, databasing the activities of 312 million innocent citizens and actively helping destroy the planet while forestalling climate activism http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/greenwald-terrorist-dictatorship.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+juancole/ymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29