(NUNAL) (EYEBALL)

As we are discussing Primitive and Old Regular Baptists in class, I figured my students would want to see (and hear) this: Appalachia Old Regular Baptist (Baptismal) Ball Branch

This is a worthwhile consideration by Stephen Griffin of the distortion of Constitutional history by legal scholars, who write articles in non-peer reviewed law reviews and then cite their own scholarship to defend radical and ahistorical positions. One extreme of this technique is John Yoo and his invention of unrestrained executive power: " Remember advocates of original meaning don’t like looking for subjective intent (how the notables actually thought). They elevate “objective” evidence of original meaning over subjective intent. But, as Woody Allen once remarked, “Objectivity is subjective” (maybe it was the reverse – see Love and Death). This means we can look for evidence of meaning anywhere in the eighteenth century (or earlier) regardless of how closely it is connected with the debates that led to the Constitution’s adoption. The search for “objective” evidence of meaning allows the subjectivity of the scholar to do the picking and choosing among possible worlds of mean...

Growing from 3 pages to 110, the bailout bill is at least giving the taxpayers marginally more value on a per-word basis. Perhaps the theory is that if it is longer, nobody will read it. The Washington Post has helpfully provided a short annotated description of it part by part.

We went to the Norfolk Botanical Garden this weekend, where I haven't been in seven or so years, it was a nice place to spend the afternoon. It didn't hurt that there is a large rubberized area colored like the globe with dozens of waterjets for Lark to run through. Here she is running along the west coast of Africa. The Garden folks are no fools--make the kids happy with a waterpark in the middle of the garden and the parents are much more amenable to shelling out for the place. Actually, it is a nice Botanical Garden as these things go, especially since this climate can support such wide diversity . In the middle of it all is this tree, which seems a bit unimpressive save for the gate around it. It turns out this is one of the rarest trees in the world, a Wollemi Pine. There are only 100 matures Wollemi Pines in the wild. They were discovered in Australia in 1994, though the fossil record of them goes back 90 million years. (I am kind of surprised that the Botanical Gard...

My 'History of the New South' class talked a bit about kudzu this week, and at such a point it is always worth reading James Dickey's fine poem "Kudzu," which you can read in its entirety here .

This has been circulating, you may have seen it already. It's pretty funny: DEAR AMERICAN: I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE. I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU. I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE. THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY...

Laugh line of the day: ""We certainly understand a lot of the questions up there," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "What the vice president and others will emphasize is that this is absolutely necessary to do right now. In no way should it signal any abandonment" of the free market system. "