Two angels disguised as men came to the town of Sodom one evening. Abraham's nephew Lot met them at the city gate and invited them to stay with him. That night, all the men of Sodom, young and old alike, gathered at Lot's door and demanded that he release the strangers to them so that they could butt-rape* them.

Commentary: Sodom was not a popular tourist destination.

Lot, being a good host, refused this request and offered the mob his two virgin daughters instead.

Yes, Virginia, spines exist.  And, yes, even some Democrats have them.  We know this to be true because Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) went to the House floor this week and said this:

Ok. So suffrage isn’t really under attack. But twice this year I’ve read accounts of writers who think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to deny women the right to vote. It makes me wonder if the Republican party, having just this year burned major bridges with minorities and gays, is going for the trifecta.

In 1977, a publicly-admired man committed a violent crime against a woman, and the actual events are not in dispute. Between his arrest and his sentencing, the man fled the United States and settled in France. Decades later, the French strenuously resisted extraditing him to the States.

The whole discussion of executive compensation seems, like so many discussions these days, to have gone a bit off the rails.  The point is not whether an executive is being paid X number of dollars or whether the figure X is Y times the wage of the average worker within the firm, though the second question here is fodder for a discussion all its own.  The real crux of the issue is moral hazard.

I know, your first thought is ALWAYS. Bear with me, however, as I examine the edge cases. What qualifies as an edge case will vary from person to person, I imagine.

Starting with the most extreme case that is so extreme it's hard to imagine it being labeled as discrimination, consider our dating choices. Most of us (literally) discriminate on the basis of sex in those conditions, and almost no one would consider it wrong.

Three strangers on their way to Sodom stopped at Abraham’s house, and he offered them food and shelter. One of the strangers promised Abraham that Sarah would give birth in one year’s time. Sarah, who was eavesdropping on the conversation, heard the stranger and laughed, for at 90, she was post-menopausal.

The AP just broke a story that Bill Sparkman, a 51 year-old U.S. Census worker, has been found hanged in Kentucky, apparently with the word "fed" written on his chest.  Door-to-door operations have been suspended in Clay County, where the body was found.  The FBI is investigating.

A question that's been eating at me for a while:

Why do libertarians object to illegal immigrants?

Perhaps there are libertarians who do not, who extend their principles to encompass newcomers and their liberty to live and work where they please, without government interference. But my experience of libertarian pundits and of my own libertarian friends is that generally, they do not. The most anti-big-government libertarian of my friends also takes it as a given that illegal immigrants are a social ill.

Utah-based Internet wholesaler Overstock.com recently received a subpoena from the SEC. The SEC will be investigating “previously-announced restatements of its financial statements in 2006 and 2008 and other matters.” It is the second such investigation into Overstock.com’s finances in the last two years.

I can say unequivocally that I love Dr. Strangelove.  Kubrick is almost universally renowned as an auteur, but Dr. Strangelove stands out for many reasons, not the least of which were the fantastic contributions of George C. Scott and the multiple personalites of Peter Sellers.  Even the opening and closing credits are memorable.

WASHINGTON - The Health Insurance Corporate Person CIGNA has accepted the position of "Health Care Reform Czar," White House officials have confirmed. The Corporate Person will take over the job as the Obama Administration gets ready for its final push on health care reform.

I'm hoping to start a fairly regular set of postings on Quantum Mechanics and/or other weird science that fascinates me. However, if there's no interest (after all, it's outside the normal scope of all things dagblog), I'll drop it. With that in mind, I thought I'd start with an overview of Quantum Mechanics, talk about how it's really weird, and give my interpretation of it, all without delving into math or jargon. Well, I'll try to at least save any such delving for the comments section.

For those who find QM confusing, I offer up these quotes:

What happens when 300 million people, selected by fate to live together in one nation, stop being polite and start being real?

Maybe it's something in the air.  Or the water.  Or my Harvey Wallbanger.  Whatever the case, there's no denying that Americans have been letting it all hang out lately.

A quick (and true) parable from history: in 1189, Richard the Lion-Hearted decided that no Jews would be allowed at his coronation ceremony. When some leading London Jews showed up at the door, they were turned away, and when the gathered crowd saw this they concluded that the new King was solidly anti-Semitic and that the best way to celebrate would be to murder as many Jews as possible. Mobs killed almost sixty people and set the city's Jewish ghetto, the Jewry, on fire.