Bloggish

Unsurprisingly, Supreme Court Justice/orgy-participant Antonin Scalia is a big fan of 24. What's a little more surprising is that Scalia thinks the show is real.

At a recent conference in Canada, Scalia took exception to a Canadian Judge's comment, "Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra 'What would Jack Bauer do?" Scalia proceeded to throw down:

"Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives... Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?... Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so."

Scalia's delusional faith in the decision-making of great men notwithstanding, the trend of mentioning of Jack Bauer in serious political/legal debate is disturbing. A little over a month ago, Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo invoked Bauer to great effect (at least in the audience's opinion) during a debate question over, essentially, a 24 scenario.

While 24 does bring up torture as a discussion point, the show never, as far as I can remember, shows a downside to torture. Those that are not in favor of torture (read: liberals) are seen as pussies because they don't realize that Jack always gets things right. Like so many action heroes before him, he is basically infallible. So yes, Antonin, if you can find someone else that is completely infallible, I'll be happy to excuse them from the law.

All of this makes arguing over Jack Bauer scenarios in the context of a debate on torture akin to invoking John Rambo's work in Vietnam and Afghanistan in a debate over how we could end the Iraq War. Although I shouldn't count that out - perhaps Rambo is this Administration's master plan for withdrawal from Iraq; we'll find out that Rambo IV is a documentary in which Sly Stallone single-handedly wins the war.

Read on...

Marty Markowitz is thinking of running: "I decided to take the first step on the journey to possibly running for Mayor of New York City."

Great article here about the time honored tradition of the Secret Service ascribing those they protect and defend with nicknames. Here is the rundown.

Now that Mike B. has left the Republican Party behind him, a Presidential run will be heavily discussed.

The Times already has a graphic looking at the success of third party candidates over the years. Even more interesting is when you take into account the current frontrunners: Rudy and Hillary, both of New York. A Clinton-Bloomberg-Giuliani battle would be great to watch, but hell for 95% of the country.

But here's my overly-premature question: who'll run with him? Can't be the green-tied man in the photo. Moreover, as his film bio shows, Arnie has never before co-starred with a Jewish man (not counting John Turturro's brief appearance in Collateral Damage); although he has starred with short men (see TWINS).

So who could it be? Hard to imagine any of the current contenders jumping ship to join him. The country's only other prominent independents are two Senators: a socialist, (Bernie Sanders of Vermont), and a joke (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut).

I'm fresh out of ideas.

Click through for the Sopranos-like video; Bill: "My money's on Smashmouth."

Taking the minimalist (read: boring) campaign advertisement style used by Chris Dodd to another level, Mike Gravel goes with a minimalist/surrealist motif:

Now, I'm down with the go-for-broke mentality as much as the next guy, but these must be a joke.

One more strange ad from Gravel...

You have to watch this... Staged or Real? Without researching, what do you think?

Wow. There are some great videos of a completely wasted Jake the Snake Roberts on YouTube.

Via the Wall Street Journal.

Story from the NY Times here and photos here.