"Linda had no idea her desk was so deadly, noting how 'sitting is probably killing me.'"

That sounds a bit dramatic, but new studies show that sitting may be as dangerous as smoking. As with smoking, the more you do it, the worse it is for you.

Here's my new solution to the problem of sitting at a desk all day... the furniture equivalent of a nicotine patch:



ADDED: The desk is a Jesper 7000 Basic Sit/Stand Desk.

"So we know that Congressman Weiner talked dirty to Lisa Weiss about fighting for the country in his cape and tights."

"And we know that an underaged girl, who loved Congressman Weiner, apparently quoted him talking about fighting for the country in his cape and tights."

If Weiner never talked about "cape and tights" publicly, the appearance of a "cape and tights" quote in a young girl's Tumblr writings is probative of private communications between the 2.

"Liberal paper takes six days to admit heinous fault that has been destroying lives since last week."

"The crossword puzzle on Friday provided an erroneous clue for 30-Across, seeking the answer 'Ute.' The clue should have read, 'Subject of a museum in western Colorado,' not 'Subject of a museum in eastern Colorado.'"

When the Supreme Court indulges Congress's indulgence in fuzziness.

SCOTUSblog says the Scalia dissent in Sykes v. United States is "awesome." Justice Scalia writes:

We face a Congress that puts forth an ever-increasing volume of laws in general, and of criminal laws in particular. It should be no surprise that as the volume increases, so do the number of imprecise laws. And no surprise that our indulgence of imprecisions that violate the Constitution encourages imprecisions that violate the Constitution. Fuzzy, leave-the-details-to-be-sorted-out-by-the-courts legislation is attractive to the Congressman who wants credit for addressing a national problem but does not have the time (or perhaps the votes) to grapple with the nittygritty. In the field of criminal law, at least, it is time to call a halt. I do not think it would be a radical step—indeed, I think it would be highly responsible—to limit ACCA to the named violent crimes. Congress can quickly add what it wishes. Because the majority prefers to let vagueness reign, I respectfully dissent.

I remember the time a colleague of mine yelled at me for saying exactly that. She was working on a complicated project dealing with how courts should sort out the details in for Congresses that indulge themselves with fuzziness.

Why are the protesters taking over Apple Stores?

Protesters take over the Apple Store in Madison, Wisconsin:



This happened last Saturday. One of the groups involved was US Uncut. I had never heard that name before, and I found it puzzling, because what sprang to my mind was the "intactivists" — the anti-circumcision folks who've made some headway recently in San Francisco. But it turns out US Uncut has nothing to do with wieners. Nothing to do with wieners!

US Uncut is a grassroots movement taking direct action against corporate tax cheats and unnecessary and unfair public service cuts across the U.S..

The group is targeting Apple:

“Apple is one of the most profitable companies in the world and now they're lobbying for extra tax loopholes,” said US Uncut San Francisco organizer Leslie Dreyer, “During a time of devestating budget cuts, we cannot afford for companies like Apple to try to finagle special treatment. I can sync my iPhone to my MacBook, why can’t I sync it to my values?”

That's what you get for being a conspicuously liberal corporation. The ultra-lefties target you... presumably, because they think you'll cave or support them in some way. You don't want look like an actual for-profit, capitalistic corporation, do you, Apple? That's what you get for cultivating the image of benevolence!

Camel massacre.

For the earth.

ADDED: If you're going to kill all those camels for the environment, why not do the fully conservationist thing and eat them? Anthony Bourdain shows how it's done in Saudi Arabia:

What Panchito's did to The Fat Black Pussycat.

It's a terrible shame!

Panchito's owner Bob Engelhardt was a regular at the Pussycat which he described as a 'cesspool'. It was situated in a quiet street behind the tourist mecca MacDougal Street.

He said the nostalgia was misplaced, and that the preservation group did not understand the spirit of Greenwich Village.

Engelhardt added:'There are buildings that are worth preserving. Ninety per cent of what's in the Village isn't.

'The Village was freedom. The Village was not rules and regulations set in concrete. It destroys everything the Village was always famous for.'

Consider freedom and historical preservation. What if the history to be preserved was a time of great sleaziness? What if that sleaziness is connected to artists we love?

Pick the choice closest to your beliefs.
	Property owners deserve great freedom in the putting up of signs that represent their business.
	Historical preservation outweighs the interests of the current owner.
	The old sign is cool and the new sign is dull and transitory, so I'm for preservation in this case.
	The old sign is sleazy and I like the new business, so I'm against preservation in this case.
pollcode.com free polls

"Resign? Hell no! I want Anthony Weiner to be the face of the Democratic Party."

Says John Hinderaker:

I completely fail to understand why any Republican would call for Weiner's resignation. Are you kidding? I want him in Congress forever, if possible! I want him representing his party on every other cable news show, as he has done for the last several years. I want people to snicker every time they see a "D" behind a Congressman's name. Anthony Weiner is the gift that keeps on giving, the twit that keeps on tweeting!

Yet the Democrats — it seems — would like the Republicans to do the work of ousting their masturbating boy. Here's Rush Limbaugh yesterday:

How about this headline: "Pelosi Wants a Weiner Probe.".. Okay, now, she was quick on the draw here, folks. ... Pelosi and the Democrats scared to death. "Oh, my God, this guy's poison! Get him out of here. Get him to the Ethics Committee."... Pelosi knows that the House is now in Republican hands. Therefore the Ethics Committee, at the end of the day, has a Republican majority....

The liberals are throwing Weiner under the bus and they're asking him to resign and a number of things, or could it be -- I just throw this out there as a possibility; I know it's gonna sound lame to some of you and it's gonna sound like a stretch but -- maybe Pelosi and the Democrats are hoping they send Weiner up there to the Ethics Committee and the Republicans go bonkers with it and start overreaching and turn Weiner into a victim of these rascally Republicans. She's doing this as a way of creating sympathy for the poor guy because these mean-spirited Republicans won't let him speak.

Now, I don't think this theory has any credence 'cause I don't think the Republicans have it in 'em to act that way. I don't think that they would overreach. But I do know that when it comes to the Democrats, everything is not what it appears to be on the surface. So I'm not totally convinced that simply demanding that the Ethics Committee take care of Weiner is, in fact, Pelosi and the Democrats wanting to wash their hands of Weiner. 

Wash their hands of Weiner... Pelosi Wants a Weiner Probe... Rush loves to dabble in the deniable dirty talk. But don't you think he's right that the Democrats would like to find a way to lure Republicans into the ones who end up looking bad? Those terrible Puritans, who want to end sex for everybody.

The end of Trouble.

Trouble, the dog that inherited $12 million from Leona Helmsley has died at the age of 12. A judge later reduced the amount to $2 million, saying when the dog's official caretaker said he could get by on $100,000 a year: "$8,000 for grooming, $1,200 for food and the rest for his fee and a full-time security guard."

The security was necessary after John Codie, a trustee of the $8 billion charitable trust, reported that Trouble had received 20 to 30 death and kidnapping threats....

Helmsley, who cut two grandchildren out of her will and evicted her son's widow after his death, was often seen cuddling the canine, which was always impeccably dressed.

Helmsley, who did 18 months in federal prison on tax evasion charges in the early 1990s, wanted Trouble interred with her in the 12,000-square-foot family mausoleum in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Westchester County.

But maybe you've noticed: Cemeteries for human being have a policy against the inclusion of nonhuman remains. Otherwise you'd see dogs buried next to people all over the place.

"In USA Magnited States of America, where you are FREE to TEXT in a THE-A-TER!"

Funny, but bad language....

The individual mandate "may violate the constitution of Ayn Rand, but they do not violate the Constitution of the United States."

Said Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said today, in oral arguments before the Eleventh Circuit, as reported by Sasha Volokh, who quips "Mr. Herbert Spencer, call your office."

***

The quip refers to the Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. dissent in Lochner v. New York:

The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not. The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics.

Lochner is a much-deprecated case from 1905.

3 recall elections against Democratic state senators will go forward.

These will go forward on July 12 19th, along with a week after the 6 recall elections for Republican senators.

The Government Accountability Board... took note of Democrats' claims of fraud by circulators of the petitions against the three, but disallowed only about 230 signatures, connected to just one of the circulators, because of the fraud.

Good. 

We just watched Senator Grothman on the Eliot Spitzer show, and he said that "even on [his] darkest days," he did not picture the Democrats taking over the majority in the senate.

(By the way, it was really weird watching that, because Grothman was standing outside the Capitol, a couple miles from where we live, and the tornado warning siren went off. The siren went off on the television, not where we could hear it live, but it seemed to apply to us. We were having a big thunderstorm, with mothball-sized hail.)

ADDED: I had to correct the dates for the elections. Sorry I'd misread that. This means that when the Democrats face recall, we will already know whether there is a potential shift in the majority. That is, if at least 3 Republicans lose their seats, then it will create tremendous pressure on the Republicans to oust a Democrat to regain their majority. I'm assuming we'll know the outcome of the election at that point, but maybe we'll need some recounts and court challenges before we know.

"Apparently I made an horrific horror-film, but shouldn't a good horror film be horrific?"

"My dear people it is a f****cking MOVIE. It is all fictional. Not real. It is all make-belief. It is art. Give people their own choice to watch it or not. If people can't handle or like my movies they just don't watch them."

Director Tom Six responds to the British Board of Film Classification's ban on "The Human Centipede Part 2 (Full Sequence)."

IN THE COMMENTS: Chip Ahoy said:

You know what else is horrific. This has me completely terrified. I just now looked at photos of Palin's new home in Scottsdale and the whole place is empty except for one exceedingly macabre bit of taxidermy.

Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, is pregnant.

The NYT reports.

ADDED: Isn't this convenient? Turn off the criticism, lest it hurt Huma. We're supposed to accept the assertion, of course. Is it true. Oh! Shut up! How terrible to question this! It’s really outrageous. The implication is outrageous. It's outrageous.

Kirsten Powers on Anthony Weiner: "This is not about sex. It’s about dominating and inflicting physical pain on a woman."

Powers, who dated him a decade ago, and defended him last week, is now calling on him to resign:

By far the most disturbing information that we have been privy to—there is, no doubt, more out there that we don’t know—is the transcript of a nine-month "sexting" relationship Weiner had with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. Radar Online posted the transcript, and it is rife with misogyny and distorted views about women. In referring to oral sex, Wiener tells her, “You will gag on me before you c** with me in you” and “[I’m] thinking about gagging your hot mouth with my c***.” This is not about sex. It’s about dominating and inflicting physical pain on a woman, a fantasy the hard-corn porn industry makes billions of dollars on selling to men. You don’t want to gag a woman with your penis unless you have some serious issues with the way you see women.

Hard-corn porn? Hilarious typos aside... let's not go all Women's Studies about the man's efforts at writing about sex. It is not an easy literary task.

Okay. I just went and read the entire Weiner/Weiss transcript. (PDF.)  Read it out loud, in fact! A few thoughts:

Wisconsin protesters disrupt a Special Olympics ceremony!

In front of the Capitol today, protesters dressed as zombies stood between Governor Scott Walker and the group of Special Olympics participants he was honoring.

Quite aside from the unbelievable rudeness, how can the protesters be so blind about their own public relations?

ADDED: Here's a comment at the Walkerville Facebook page:

I don't know about anyone else but Im alright with this. Walker's actions affect many of these people more than me. They have every right to know what is going on in the state; most of them probably already do. Honestly I find the fact tht he was addressing this group offensive. It's like when he goes and visits a school. What a hypocritical liar.