There's an email going around listing some ideas that will supposedly reform Congress. The email attributes its contents to gazillionaire investor Warren Buffet, but in actuality, Buffet only suggested the first idea in the email; the rest are by some anonymous author who evidently felt it necessary to appropriate Buffet's name.

The email, with my own arguments against what it proposes, is below. I should mention that I have no great regard for (the current) Congress, especially my current member who I regard as one of the biggest dirtbags on the planet.

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Ran a torture camp for dogs, using her own money. Sentenced to thirty months in jail.

Ran a torture camp for human beings, using public money. Left free and given fat pensions.

Moral: Never use your own money.

...it's a really, really good idea:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

(Emphasis added, of course.)

This applies to people regardless of whether we like them, whether they like us, whether they like our country, or whether people of similar skin color and religious background once carried out an attack against our country.

It applies to everyone, because if it doesn't then it applies to no one.

From Raw Story:

Greg Mitchell's new book, Atomic Cover-Up: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and The Greatest Movie Never Made, is the first to be devoted to the historic full-color footage that was covered up by the U.S. government for decades.

Google's "ad word team" notified Mitchell Monday that an online ad for the book's video trailer was being suspended because it "promotes violence."

"At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain the promotion of violence," an email to Mitchell said. "As noted in our advertising terms and conditions, Google may refuse any ads or terminate any of your ad campaigns at any time, for any reason."

You can watch the video trailer at the Raw Story link above. At no point does it advocate violence against anyone. By exposing the harm that war can cause, it might in some small way help to deter violence.

A lot of people think of Google as a benign alternative to some of the more obviously scummy corporations like Microsoft. They aren't. When it comes to corporations of that size, there's no such thing as benign. Think about this before you decide to trust them with custody of your email or any other documents.

Really! I know it's odd that I hadn't said anything before now. But there were these 140,737,488,355,327 votes for me in a file that I was editing in TextPad, and I forgot to save it. Good thing I eventually noticed.

Yes, I'm still alive. Thanks for asking. Life has been a bit busy, and considering that the readership of this site seems to consist of Joe Cantore, there's not a lot of incentive for me to post here.

But anyway.... Here's a puzzle for you. It's set in the mythical country of Libertaria. Commerce there only follows one rule, that markets must be free and open. Sellers can set whatever price they want to for their goods and/or services, but must then sell to anyone who meets that price; they may not set different prices depending on the customer. It's possible to get credit in Libertaria, but limits are set based on what the individual could reasonably be expected to pay back.

One not-very-fine day, the ship S. S. Libertaria goes down. Naturally, the ship's lifeboats have long ago been bought by speculators who want to maximize their profits, and they'll set optimum prices accordingly.

For purposes of the puzzle, let's suppose that the following people are on the boat:

• Jonas Grumby, ship's captain. Credit limit: $75,000; ships captains in Libertaria don't get paid much but he does have a Navy pension to borrow against.
• William Gilligan, ship's first mate. Credit limit: $35,000; he has no savings to speak of but is young and in good health.
• Thurston Howell III, investment banker, and Mrs. Howell, wife. Credit limit: $1,000,000 between the two of them.
• Ginger Grant, actress. Credit limit: $300,000.
• Roy Hinkley, scientist. Credit limit: $50,000.
• Mary Ann Summers, farmer's daughter. Credit limit: zero. Dad's farm isn't doing at all well this year.

Assuming the lifeboats have enough space to be able to transport any or all of these people, what price is optimal for the lifeboat owners to set? For advanced solving, add a non-fixed cost of $10 per passenger for later cleaning of the lifeboat.

America Speaking Out has a lot of, shall we say, creative suggestions, but this is my favorite:

This cuontry having to make safe a border. All kind nut peple make way into this great naton for make a trouble. when imgriants come cross a borders, have to catch, humliate by make a caca on a chest and send back home still with a caca on his chest. who going to risk embarass by have to go home to family with caca on chest for all a world to see? and to come back and have a same happen again? this how peples in mine father cuontry do thing and you never hear about illegal mexican come cross a border to his cuontry in a europe.

Well, that certainly clears everything up. (George? Is that you?)

I'm so glad the Republican caucus feels free to spend our tax money on stuff like this. Especially since they've already ruled out adopting any idea they don't already agree with.

...like the ones in Arizona. Because a campaign of racist scapegoating just isn't the same without a memorable tag line.

I'm torn between

Immigranten RAUS!

and

The USA: Not our brothers' keeper

What do you, the apparently non-existent readers, think?

For any out there who still think Afghanistan is the "good war," via Glenn Greenwald:

On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded. The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead were all "insurgents" or terrorists, (b) the bodies of three women had been found bound and gagged inside the home (including two pregnant women, one a mother of 10 children and the other a mother of six children, and a teenage girl), and (c) suggested that the women had already been killed by the time the U.S. had arrived, likely the victim of "honor killings" by the Taliban militants killed in the attack.

Although numerous witnesses on the scene as well as local investigators vehemently disputed the Pentagon's version, and insisted that all of the dead (including the women) were civilians and were killed by U.S. forces, the American media largely adopted the Pentagon's version, often without any questions. But enough evidence has now emerged disproving those claims such that the Pentagon was forced yesterday to admit that their original version was totally false and that it was U.S. troops who killed the women.

It's not the good war. There's no such thing.

Troops home, now.

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