Al Franken's opening statement from yesterday's Supreme Court confirmation hearing. About midway through Franken makes our terms clear when he calls out the real judicial activists. Franken oh-twelve?

Monday night links.

* After a brief flirtation with "top five" status, Brüno is back to being a box-office disappointment.

* Top ten comics cities. #2: Chris Ware's Chicago. Via MetaFilter.

* xkcd tackles the frighteningly addictive power of TV Tropes.

* SF by the numbers. Via Boing Boing.

* Why are we so fat?

* Also in the New Yorker: profiles of Al Franken and Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, last seen ratifying nature's right to exist.

* And allow me to offer my heartiest gerrycanavan.blogspot.com welcome to North Carolina's newest resident.

The Al Franken Decade has begun.

Sunday night links.

* The flag at right (via MeFi) is the marriage equality flag, which only includes those states which allow gays and lesbians to marry.

* Return of a meme I haven't seen since the 1990s: the end of science.

* Krugman spills the beans on Al Franken's secret wonkitude. A reader of his books and an infrequent listener to his radio show, I can confirm this is true: he has a much sharper and more wide-ranging intellect than the press gives him credit for.

* The Nation gets excited about the rediscovery of Secular America.

Obama agreed and remained true to his word. And then came the moment approximately 50 million Americans-- who identify themselves with terms like agnostic, atheist, materialist, humanist, nontheist, skeptic, bright, freethinker, agnostic, naturalist, or non-believer -- will never forget. In his inauguration speech, Obama said, "…Our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers."

Like 50 million other Americans I tell my nonexistent children about the Great Inclusion every night. And then, together as one all across the nation, we weep from joy.

* Lev Milman, a Duke undergrad, has been named a chess grandmaster.

* Grant Morrison is apparently working on a comic that will highlight the undisguised bondage imagery that makes up to the Wonder Woman mythos. (More here and here.)

“Tell me anybody's preference in story strips and I'll tell you his subconscious desires... Superman and the army of male comics characters who resemble him satisfy the simple desire to be stronger and more powerful than anybody else. Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaborately disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them.”
—Dr. William Moulton Marston, creator of Wonder Woman

And why not another?

But Marston was intent on more than merely fulfilling the fantasies of his male readers. In a letter to comics historian Coulton Waugh, he wrote, "Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world." Marston believed that submission to "loving authority" was the key to overcoming mankind's violent urges, and that strong, self-realized women were the hope for a better future. Wonder Woman was very consciously Marston's means of spreading these notions to impressionable young minds. As he said to Olive Richard, "I tell you, my inquiring friend, there's great hope for this world. Women will win!" He then goes on, "When women rule, there won't be any more [war] because the girls won't want to waste time killing men...I regard that as the greatest - no, even more - as the only hope for permanent peace.”

* Also on the "comics and sex" beat: X-Men Rictor and Shatterstar are out and proud, prompting a promise from Shatterstar creator Rob Liefeld to "someday undo this."

Infinite linkdump Thursday, just politics.

* The Mark Sanford story grows stranger by the day, with 19 South Carolina politicians now on the record calling for his resignation. (TPM reports that Senators DeMint and Graham have gone to Sanford to prevail on him to resign.) Today he backed off a pledge to release his travel records, which suggests more trouble may be brewing for him.

* Who could have imagined that Exxon-Mobil would lie about its continued support for climate-change "skepticism" advocacy groups?

* Highlights from the first day of the Al Franken Century.

* Democrats can now "hijack elections at their whim": just another responsible, measured, and most of all empirically provable claim from RNC chairman Michael Steele, truly our country's finest elder statesman.

* But it's not all craziness: Michele Bachmann is facing criticism from the GOP for her weird lies about the Census.

* What caused the financial crisis? Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone (via MeFi) points to bubble economies nutured and created by giant investment firms, pointing the finger especially at Goldman Sachs. An Oklahoma lawmaker says it was "abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery." I report, you decide.

* Malthusianism and world history: a chart from Conor Clarke.



It's clear these growth trends can continue forever.





* Ezra Klein has a new Washington Post column on the politics of food.

Politics Wednesday!

* Ben Smith at Politco dreams the dream: Franken '16?

* More good news: God's told Joe the Plumber not to run for office.

* But bad news: Glenn Beck guest Michael Scheuer says America's only hope is a massive terrorist attack. Don't miss Beck nodding sagely towards the end. Adam Serwer says it well:

But understand, this is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you're not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health-care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying sub-prime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone's head. Unpatriotic is phosphate-free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States.

Patriotism is dead, long live patriotism.

* TPM and Washington Monthly tackle the EPA SUPPRESSION!!!!! "scandal" that's been making the rounds; turns out a hobbyist working on non-climate matters for the agency decided a memo no one asked him to write prepared in his spare time should be published alongside recommendations produced by actual experts in the field. Fox News, naturally, agrees. Inhofe (R-Jupiter) has gone further, demanding Monday a criminal investigation.

* Also in climate news: Thomas Friedman says Waxman-Markey is very, very bad and we should support it. For what it's worth Kevin Drum agrees.

What can we expect from the Democrats now that Al Franken is their 60th Senator? Ezra Klein points out that 60 is a big number, one not achieved by either party since 1974. Open Left thinks this is a boost to the public option in health care. Grist looks ahead to climate change and the Senate version of ACES. The Nation talks filibusters.

It falls to Donkeylicious to remind us that there are still a lot of bad Democrats, including two who have thus far disappointed me, Kay Hagan and Claire McCaskill.

Why not him? The Minnesota Supreme Court has unanimously declared Al Franken the winner of the state's Senate race after eight months of litigation.



UPDATE: At his press conference, Coleman announced he concedes.

Even more Sunday night links.

* Ev psych on the ropes? We can only dare to hope.

* MetaFilter remembers the Stonewall protests.

* Also from MetaFilter: Are we doing enough to prevent the asteroid apocalypse?

* Pawlenty says he'll finally let Franken be seated once the state Supreme Court issues its ruling. Aren't we moving a little fast, Tim? It's only been eight months.

* Katrina vanden Heuvel with Steve Benen against bipartisanship.

* 3 Quarks Daily's top science blog posts of 2009.

* And Ze Frank plays "That Makes Me Think Of" again at Time, this week about thigns that are and aren't black and white. Can't we get The Show back already? We keep getting closer and closer.

Coleman loses ...a lot of money: he's been ordered to pay $94,000 in Al Franken's court costs, hardly anything compared to what either candidate has actually spent on the recount. Should there be punitive damages when a case is as frivolous as Coleman's? Much of election challenge law rests on an unspoken presumption that bitter candidates won't intentionally seek to delay the seating of their opponents out of spite; with that assumption apparently out the window, it's hard for me to say offhand how the rules should be rewritten. But they should.

Norm Coleman to finally give up? More here speculating on the possibility that he'll run for governor.

Due to various academic commitments, this blog has been very Blogspot Nights lately. I'm not happy about it but it may not change soon—once my comics class is over I have a few weeks off before work at [Undisclosed Location] starts up again.

Let's struggle onward together.

* Daily Kos has a compilation of the obsessive hate directed from Bill O'Reilly towards Dr. George Tiller for the crime of practicing medicine. O'Reilly's response tonight on the air was essentially that Tiller had it coming.

* Birthers overrun government transparency program.

* Petraeus says the U.S. violated the Geneva Conventions, while General Ricardo Sanchez calls for a Truth Commission. More from Attackerman.

* Barack Obama has declared June LGBT Pride Month. Hey, how great! It's like he's almost actually taking action! Call me when you're repealed DADT.

* Oprah and pseudoscience. Via Kevin Drum.

* The accusation that Sonia Sotomayor has—as The New York Times uncritically put it—a "race-based approach to the law" is turning out to be one of the most reality-detached arguments to make it into the mainstream since Saddam’s mushroom clouds. All the relevant evidence—all of it—proves how false that accusation is.

* Franken and Coleman went to the Minnesota Supreme Court today, and Coleman got smacked.

* And atheist children will kill you for candy.

Links for Wednesday.

* First-gen Sierra adventure games in your browser. Your childhood says come back home, all is forgiven.

* The setup for this Flash Forward show seems pretty good, but man do I wish Brannon Braga weren't involved.

* McSweeney's has the syllabus for "ENG 371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era."

* Long-time Republican strategist declares defeat in NY-20, while Norm Coleman presses on in the courts with his unique metaphysical argument that he is the only logically possible winner in the Minnesota Senate race.

* David Simon on Bill Moyers.

* Roberto Bolaño, 2666, and the Ciudad Juárez murders.

* What happens when you "run government like a business."

* I don't agree with everything Amanda Marcotte has to say about prostitution here, but she's certainly right about Eliot Spitzer; it's completely insane to me that some people actually seem willing to give the guy another chance.

* The best article about the "sexting" crisis you're likely to read.

He then told the parents and teens to line up if they wanted to view the photos, which were printed out onto index cards. As the 17-year-old who took semi-nude self-portraits waited in line, she realized that Mr. Skumanick and other investigators had viewed the pictures. When the adults began to crowd around Mr. Skumanick, the 17-year-old worried they could see her photo and recalls she said, "I think the worst punishment is knowing that all you old guys saw me naked. I just think you guys are all just perverts."

If your laws allow people to be charged with distributing child pornography for sending other people naked pictures of themselves, you need some new laws.

* Nate Silver thinks the libertarians are taking over the Republican Party. That would certainly be a huge improvement, as long as we're not just talking about glibertarians.

* The headline reads, "Obama keeps prosecutions on the table."

Al Franken has been declared the winner in the Minnesota Senate race, though Pawlenty and his secretary of state still has to sign off on it for Franken to take office—which they won't, because Republicans are cheaters. Don't miss the spectacle of nearly the entire Minnesota Supreme Court recusing themselves from Coleman's inevitable appeal.

"If you asked me what I would do, I would step back. I just think the healing process is so important. The possibility of any change of this magnitude in the voting system we have would be so remote — that would be my judgment. Mr. Franken will decide what Mr. Franken will do."
—Norm Coleman, two days after election day.

UPDATE: Minnesota's secretary of state is elected, not appointed, and is actually a Democrat now, Mark Ritchie. gerrycanavan.blogspot.com regrets the error. Mistakes were made.

Tuesday night linkdumps can't/won't stop.

* The Vermont legislature overruled the governor and legalized gay marriage in the state. Vermont had been the first state to approve civil unions; now it is the first state to introduce gay marriage via the legislature. Way to go Vermonters.

* Obama is very popular. Republicans are not. More gloating at Washington Monthly, Matt Yglesias, and MyDD.

* Franken continues to win and yet somehow continues not to take office. Odd how that works.

* How not to photograph.

Tuesday Night Linkdump #1.

* Republicans, no longer satisfied by stealing elections after the fact, are now filing election challenges before the polls even close.

Ordering the respondent New York State Board of Elections and the Commissioners thereof to certify the name of James Tedisco as elected to the public office of Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 20th Congressional District, in Dutchess, New York, at the Special Election held therefor on the 31st Day of March, 2009, or alternatively enjoining the improper issuance of a certificate of election for the said public office.

Can't argue with the fairness of that.

* And speaking of Republicans stealing elections: Coleman's kind of doing it wrong.

* Ken Jennings loves metafiction, which by the transitive property means I love Ken Jennings.

* Terminator timelines. On a whiteboard.

* Star Wars as Dallas. Cute, but both these references are so very old. Between this, Terminator, Star Trek, and Watchmen, has this country actually produced anything since the 1980s?



* Mapping 'the zone of sanity'. Away from the coasts things aren't that bad, precisely because the imaginary growth of the Bush years never really touched these places in the first place.

I can't help it: I'm addicted to news of the Minnesota Senate race. The latest insanity: Norm Coleman is now asking to count votes he successfully barred from the count several weeks ago. When this is over, Minnesota really needs to change its laws so that disgruntled losing candidates can't hold up the seating of the victors through frivolous lawsuits. Of course, when this is over Al Franken will also be an incumbent Senator coasting to reelection after reelection...

Fox News (yes, they still exist) is actually telling people that Barack Obama isn't president because John Roberts botched the oath of office. Via Ta-Nehisi Coates, though it must be noted that Shankar predicted this would happen during the inauguration itself.

UPDATE: TPM has the video, which makes it clear that this is a case of what the Honorable Al Franken (Sen-MN) used to call "kidding on the square." Via C&L.

"Burris likely to be seated," says the Page. Here, I suspect, is why: with Franken likely tied up in lawsuits for a while they need Burris to get an extra ten committee slots. However it shakes out, you've got to admire Harry Reid's continued anti-Midas touch; the man can turn anything into a lose-lose situation.

UPDATE: Reid is out in front to prolong the agony. He says there's actually no deal yet and forcefully adds "I have not yet begun to be humiliated." Well done, sir.

Norm Coleman, man of honor, will sue to keep his Senate seat despite saying two days after Election Day that he wouldn't.