Photo by Kevin Burkett on Flickr

Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia has hit upon a capital idea.  Recognizing that states are simply hapless tails on the federal dog, he has proposed a Constitutional amendment allowing a vote of 2/3 of the states to repeal any federal enactment.

Such an amendment would finally give the states a say in federal policy making.  No longer would they be subject to the arbitrary whims of a distant government.  This might finally bring the mighty federal beast to its knees.  Although it does make you wonder if it goes far enough.  Why stop at simply allowing states to repeal laws?  Why not let states make laws as well?  The states better represent the will of the people.  So let’s put the power where it belongs.

The one problem may be that this would give small states a lot of control.  The 34 smallest states (2/3 of 50) have only 28.5% of the population, and a majority vote by those states would force their will on everyone.  This means it’s possible that as few as 15% of the population could enact a law or overturn one.  It may be better then to balance the state vote by also holding a general vote of the population as a whole.  This would give the people a direct say as well.

Of course that means you now have two different votes to reconcile.  Which is more fair?  There are good arguments on both sides, so probably the best thing to do would be to require that both a vote of the states and a vote of the people  approve the proposed new law.  If 2/3 of the states and 2/3 of the people wanted something, then dammit, not even the President should be able to say no.

Although, the logistics of all these general elections would be kind of tedious and probably pretty expensive to implement.  Maybe a more efficient option would be for each state to elect people to represent its will.  Then divide the country up by population and have each group elect somebody to represent them.  We could then send all these people to a central location and have them work on our behalf to run the country.

This idea would be fair and efficient.  It would allow the country to act as a whole without subverting the best interests of the states or the people.  What could possibly go wrong?

If only the founding fathers had this sort of insight…

If you’ve spent any time watching the BP oil spill coverage on CNN, this xkcd comic seems to capture the experience nicely.  Not to mention the visual giggle I got out of the notion of a “rolling alligator filled wall of flame.”

It turns out that all us beer lovers have women to thank.  While the frosty beverage is now considered more the domain of men, back in days of yore, it was quite the opposite.  For thousands of years women were the sole brewers of beer as it was considered a food and thus fell under their purview.  It’s only been over the last 200 years (and more specifically, since the advent of pick-up trucks and football) that beer has been the dominion of men.

In almost all ancient societies, beer was given to mankind by a goddess.  In ancient Sumeria, women with the skill to craft beer were revered and held in the highest social regard.  In Viking society, only women were allowed to brew beer, and the equipment passed with them from mother to daughter.

So any way you look at it, every time you pop-a-top or crack-a-can or tap-a-keg, you should give thanks to women.  Obviously not all of them as that would make having a beer way too time consuming.  Maybe to keep things practical, just that the one who’s closest.  And be extra sincere if she’s the one who brought it to you.  If she brewed it herself?  Marry her.

I had the opportunity last Friday to see the new Avatar movie with my boys. I had passed on an earlier opportunity to see it as the theater only had the 2D version and I really wanted to experience the film as it was intended. Avatar was shot entirely as a 3D movie with special camera rigs, and I wanted to see what the director envisioned.

It was worth the wait. The movie is spectacular. It’s certainly not heavy into the plot or charater development. It’s a solid, yet predictable, story line. But the effects are breathtaking. The 3D is not overwhelming. It doesn’t try to play games by having stuff jump off the screen at you. Rather it adds a compelling depth of field to the view allowing you to feel immersed in the scene. This is the future of 3D. Further, the animation is so lifelike and blends so well with the real scenes and characters that you don’t really get a sense of what was computer generated and what was physically in front of a camera.

In many real senses, I think this film is the Star Wars of the next generation. Inasmuch as Star Wars set a significantly higher bar for theatrical quality effects in the 70′s, Avatar sets a new standard some 30 years later.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth the inflated price of a 3D ticket. I recommend the Real-D theaters over the IMAX as I think it’s a higher quality viewing technology. I also recommend you refrain from all beverages for 2 hours prior to start time and do not take a 32oz soda into the theater. It’s a 2hr 40min movie and you won’t want to miss any of it running to the rest room.

If those sedentary New Year’s Eves sitting on your couch with a plate of nachos just aren’t cutting it anymore… If you just feel the need to show off those new athletic skills you’ve honed watching all the Jenny Craig commercials… If you’re feeling the need to bond with Al Gore… then hop in your Prius and drive to Times Square.

Once there, courtesy of Duracell, you can hop on a Power Rover and help power the famous ball. These are basically big stationary bikes located around the area. They will store up the collective pedal power pumped into them through out the evening and light up the big ball for its classic drop to hearken the new year.

I sure hope there’s backup power, otherwise I fear we’ll only get the collective effort of a handful of drunk revelers, resulting in a barely glowing orb, flickering in and out of life as it descends. Come to think of it, that may be an accurate, albeit majorly depressing, harbinger of the year to come.

Christmas Day’s near miss terror attack on a Northwest Airlines flight headed to Detroit was arguably thwarted mostly by good luck. The would-be suicide bomber’s detonator failed. The quick thinking passengers then acted to subdue the man before he had a chance to fix the faulty bomb.

The news cycle is now in full-on scare mode. Everyone is calling for investigations on how the man could have been allowed on the plane. Looking into the man’s history, someone should have known he was dangerous. TSA is introducing new security regulations mostly intended to make us feel safer when we fly. And Republicans are positioning this as a failure of Obama’s national security policy.

Very little is being said about the realities of preventing a random single attacker. This guy, even in retrospect, was relatively low risk. Looked at another way, there are hundreds of thousands of people around the planet that are of a similar risk level as this guy was. And those are just the people we are aware of. The number probably climbs into the millions if we could truly analyze everyone’s behavior. There’s no practical way to track and monitor all of these people.

But even so, shouldn’t he have been prevented from getting on the plane? At what cost? There are no magic detectors for passengers headed onto planes. Short of requiring that we all fly naked with no luggage or carry-ons and remain in our seats throughout the flight, there will always be some risk that someone will slip through. And even if we managed to make the planes safe, trying to provide similar security measures to every gathering of a few hundred people would be prohibitive. We just squeeze the balloon. Make the planes safe, and the terrorists will move to shopping malls, movies theaters, trains, or some other venue.

The simple reality is that while reasonable precautions are certainly in order, and we should all be vigilant against emerging threats, none of us is ever guaranteed to be 100% safe. Sometimes we get through the day simply because we weren’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. We didn’t die in a traffic accident, we didn’t fall in the tub, we weren’t on the flight with the mechanical failure, and we weren’t walking on the sidewalk near where the car-bomb went off.

I’m elated that guy’s bomb failed. But I’m unwilling to let the fact that he tried drive me into a sense of fear about flying or other terrorist attacks. Every time we succumb to that fear, the terrorists actually win, whether they killed anyone or not. We can’t allow their effort alone to be a success.

It seems that back in 1978, hot on the heels of the so-called Summer of Star Wars, CBS aired a holiday special of the movie. It was only aired the one time. This poor unfortunate classic wanna-be. While its parent movie was destined to be a timeless classic, this special, despite aspirations to join the ranks of The Grinch, Frosty, and Rudolph, wound up in the scrap pile like so much holiday wrapping paper. It’s hard to imagine how this missed. After all, if adding Bea Arthur and Art Carney, with a special musical appearance by Jefferson Starship, to the cast doesn’t make Mark, Carrie, and Harrison more Christmassy, then I guess nothing does.

For your viewing pleasure, the special has been boiled down to its five minute essence, which I’m sure you’ll agree is more than enough. Enjoy…

Now that you can even get a Snuggie in a full Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme, I can’t imagine why you’d need to shop further for mobile domestic warmth products. Don’t those nice young men look toasty? And nothing says I’m the coolest dude on campus like TMNT gear.

But just in case you’re still feeling a chill in the room, those wacky Japanese can hook you up. You’ll be the envy of the household in this mummy bag with feet. (I’d recommend a nice pair of wool socks though.)

Your honey will certainly understand that tonight is not the night when they find you wrapped in this sexy nylon bodysuit. Ohh baby… I wonder if this comes in a TMNT theme?

There is an alternative medicine technique known as ear candling that claims to do everything from remove ear wax to stabilize your emotions, purify your blood, or even align your chakras. (Important because I’m sure you know how painful having your chakras out of whack can be.)

The process involves sticking a special hollow candle in your ear and lighting the sucker up. The idea is that the flame draws on the ear canal and creates a mild vacuum. If it did, I suppose I can see how you could rationalize why that might dislodge ear wax, but I suspect it would require a much larger ear drum damaging vacuum to actually remove any wax buildup. No matter, since the physics is flawed anyway. An open tube with warm air at one end would create a draft through the tube as the hot air rose, assuming there was an air supply in your head somewhere. But nobody’s that blonde, so you won’t really get a vacuum.

I have no idea why this should purify your blood. However, it does make a modicum of sense that it would stabilize your emotions. After all, you’d need to achieve an unnatural level of calm before allowing a friend to shove a flaming stick in your ear.

And if this seems like a good idea, and your friend is a really good sport, you might also try the Butt Candle. This is an actual product, intended to relieve constipation and intestinal blockage. It works pretty much like the ear candle except you use a different orifice. And there are a few additional precautions. For example, should you have excessive hair “down there,” the instructions recommend you use a plant mister to pre-dampen the area and thus avoid any “follicular ignition.”

It strikes me there may be other issues as well. For example, your ear isn’t prone to emitting flammable gasses. Having partaken in a few locker room fart lightings over the years, the prospect of open flames in that region, especially while constipated, are met with a touch of trepidation.

And it recommends you use this product while lying on your back and holding your knees toward your chest. While this is certainly a dignified position for anyone to be in with a flaming stick up their butt, I don’t know if they’ve fully considered the male anatomy here. When guys are in that position, stuff that you’d rather not set on fire should be hanging near the open flame. Sing it with me… “Chet’s nuts roasting on an open fire…“

I can only assume the plan is that by the time you get into this position, have the hair burned off your butt, your junk roasted medium well, and your friend gets the pictures up on the Internet, constipation is the least of your worries.

Choir directors have been lamenting the disproportionate number of girls in choir, especially in those high school years. It’s just tough getting the guys interested. Well Paradise Valley, AZ choir director Mary Segall has a novel solution… take the choir on a field trip to Hooters.

Okay, so the official story is that the trip was to perform at a downtown Phoenix location, and Hooters was the only restaurant in the area that could accommodate 40 people for lunch. And I understand why she’s sticking to that story what with being suspended and all.

But we know the real truth…

Why Santy Claus? Why?…

A woman in El Dorado Hills, California really really does want a hippo for Christmas. Or at least she wants her old hippo back. Apparently thieves made off yesterday with a 300 pound pink fiberglass hippo that was in her yard. So, if you should encounter any pink hippos over the holiday, you know where to send them.

This song is sort of a family tradition, in the sense that we try not to miss opportunities to infect one another with it this time of year. Just thought I’d share the seasonal joy. It strikes that perfect balance between catchy and annoying such that you can’t help but listen to it, and then once you do you can’t get it out of your head.

Go on… click “Play”. You know you want to…

Who says nothing good ever came from a bunch of people sitting around drinking beer?

Or maybe you prefer a larger scale project because you have a large amount of friends and a stupid amount of beer? Try this 1000 bottle Christmas Tree…