My friend Jere pointed out, quite accurately, that the question isn’t really “what did the kid in Kentucky write about?” The question is “when did we start arresting people for writing stories, no matter how disturbed?” Or, perhaps, “when did we stop trusting parents to raise kids and deal with problem situations?” It’s probably relevant that the biggest policy victory (pending) for the Democrats over the last few years has been Social Security, on which issue they’re coming down on the side of the government protecting people. We really like being protected these days.

Remember the kid in Kentucky who got in trouble for writing a story about zombies taking over his high school? It’s more complicated than he claimed. According to local police, there weren’t any zombies in the stories, and there’s more to the case against him than just some fiction. I did a little poking around to see if I could find anything out about this “No Limited Soldiers” gang. The only sign of it on Google is, um, a Command and Conquer clan. Their page seems to be down. I found their home page on archive.org, and whois data shows that the domain is registered to someone in the Netherlands, so probably no connection there. ...

Christopher Hitchens, of all people, has a good roundup of the Ohio voting machine irregularities. He’s such a contrarian.

The United Iraqi Alliance/Kurd talks are not going well. I’m saddened, if not surprised. While it’s certainly not unprecedented to have no clear winner a month after polls close (original), there’s no sign of the deadlock lifting. I suppose we’ll see what happens in three days. For all the talk about how the Iraqi election was the first domino, and about how recent events in Syria and Egypt are more dominos falling, I can’t help but wonder if the dominos represent democracy. Populism? Almost definitely. The ability of the people to force regime change? Sure. Newly found bravado for Shiites throughout the Middle East? Hm. ...

Everything old is new again, particularly my blog design. If you run into issues, drop me a comment or an email.

If you are a mad Aimee Mann fan like myself, you will want to know two things: first, that she has made a concept album and it is available for pre-order beginning March 9th for delivery beginning May 3rd. March 9th is tomorrow, not today, no matter how often I check the date on my computer. Second, the first three songs on the album are available for streaming on her website (original). ...

In Good Company is not actually a comedy. Easy to be fooled, considering that it was marketed as one. Really, though, it’s a light drama about a hotshot young executive who’s risen too quickly for his own good. I wouldn’t represent it as deep, or anything, but it’s charming and — here and there — touching. There’s a kind of division of responsibility going on. Topher Grace is the guy who gets character development; he’s the wunderkind who becomes Dennis Quaid’s boss when Sports America is purchased by a big megacorp. He gets to find out what it means to be an adult. Dennis Quaid is the guy who gets to act, which perhaps was not the intention of the director, but he does have the harder job. Topher is supposed to be callow, a bit shallow, and he spends a lot of the movie putting on a game face despite being terrified. The plot falls apart if Dennis Quaid can’t be angry at Topher while coming to care about him. Fortunately, Quaid turns in one of those excellent worn performances he’s capable of doing when he puts his mind to it, and thus grounds the film. ...

Day 34: Still no government in Iraq. The problem remains the same as it was the day after the election results were announced; the United Iraqi Alliance doesn’t have a 2/3rds majority by itself, the Kurds aren’t willing to form a coalition unless they get Kirkuk, and Allawi’s faction isn’t big enough to form a majority with the Kurds. Allawi has been pressuring the UIA in an effort to pull away enough votes to get a majority. Sistani, who backs the UIA, is lobbying against that (original) and will probably succeed in holding the line. The Kurds are claiming their issue is with the possibility of an Islamic state; this is a problem for them but Kirkuk is really the key bargaining point. ...

Truth be told (and that’s really kind of the point, isn’t it?), Hunter S. Thompson stopped writing well sometime in the 70s. It doesn’t matter. Even if you discount The Great Shark Hunt, which I personally wouldn’t, you’ve got a legacy the likes of which we don’t see often. Hell. It says enough about him to say that he was so dominant, so powerful, that (despite Tom Wolfe and George Plimpton) he birthed and killed gonzo. If you write like he wrote, you’re an imitator, and who thinks of gonzo journalism as anything else but writing in his style? ...

On the other hand, Scalia’s further comments on the display of the Ten Commandments are wrongheaded (original). His appeal to majority opinion is not only Constitutionally unsound — there is no question that the Constitution establishes the country and the laws thereof based upon the consent of the governed, and a strict constructionalist should not assert that the Constitution and our laws are derived from God — but poorly argued (original). He says “The minority should be tolerant of the majority expressing its belief that this government comes from God.” Perhaps so, but the government is not an instrument to express majority views. The majority of the country voted Republican in this last election; that does not mean the government is empowered to place displays extolling the virtues of the Republican Party in courthouses. ...