Slashdot has a story about a company called Vocera who have invented, and use successfully on a daily basis, Star Trek-style communicator badges.

I am torn between elation at the prospect, and horror that someday soon the hellborn technology known as Nokia Walkie-Talkie will be replaced by an even more ubiquitous, irritating, and socially invasive way for people to talk remotely and at great volume about hair appointments, reality television, sporting events, and the two chicks they scored with last night that may be causally linked to the discharge of today.

As an addendum to Johno's post on the Scopes Monkey Trial for the new millennium, here is a picture of the Right Honorable County Commissioner J.C. Fugate, image courtesy of our good friend Norbizness:

And to think, some people thought the movie Joe Dirt was a parody. Sheesh.
 

As I mentioned in the comments to this post by Buckethead, I have a solution to our asteroid near-miss problem. Collateral benefits would include a missile defense shield and an invincible interstellar American army to extend our foreign policy ideals to Tattoine and beyond.

What, you ask, could this magic solution possibly be?

One word:

SU - PER - MAN

Turns out the Scopes Monkey people hate gays, too! This just in: Rhea County, the same Tennessee County that entertained us with the Scopes Monkey Trial almost 80 years ago are back for a second round, this time to ban gays. No, you misunderstand. Not to ban gays from doing things like marrying and wearing thongs in public... they want to ban gays.

Rhea County (search) commissioners unanimously voted to ask state lawmakers to introduce legislation amending Tennessee's criminal code so the county can charge homosexuals (search) with crimes against nature.

"We need to keep them out of here," said Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the motion.

County Attorney Gary Fritts also was asked by Fugate to find the best way to enact a local law banning homosexuals from living in Rhea County.

Well, at least we know where they stand. With a lot of people, they just won't put it out there like this. I just hope they realize that this law is hopelessly retrograde, paranoid, blinkered, hateful, un-Christian, unconstitutional, and a whole bunch of other stuff too, not to mention completely and utterly un-fabulous.

[wik] I propose a film starring Hugo Weaving: Priscilla, Queen of the Hill People.

[alsø wik] This just in: Jonah Goldberg can be a real douchebag sometimes.

[alsø alsø wik] A commenter at Michael Totten's site wonders, "[a]s for 'crimes against nature,' I suppose this would include levitation, time travel and moving faster than the speed of light?

Me, I thought they meant the Third Law of Homodynamics.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Craig at "Cha3n" parses Jacob Levy's post against one by Eugene Volokh on the legality of officiants of gay weddings saying "By the power vested in me by [yourstatehere]," when in reality everyone knows that [said state] vested no such power. Craig ends up dropping some mad science:

Assume arguendo that the Rhea County officials know that this legislation will be troubled from the start. The push for it can still be valuable - in similar ways to the minister's knowingly false statement. First, this push suggests a disagreement with the decision in Lawrence. If Lawrence is to ever be overturned, it will be because people passed laws knowing that a conflict loomed. Second, and perhaps more invidious, such a push for futile legislation may be incredibly effective in creating an environment in which no homosexual person wants to live. This is a successful push for publicity, even if it is a failed push for law. Codification is not the goal - exclusion of homosexuals is.

He's right, and somehow that makes Rhea County's move even more sleazy.

A 100 foot asteroid will pass within 26,500 miles of the Earth this evening. That distance is just beyond the geosynchronous orbit occupied by communications satellites. NASA says that there is no chance the rock will hit the Earth, this the closest recorded near miss we've seen. Asteroids about this size are estimated to pass this close on average once every two years, but this is the first time we've detected one ahead of time.

We really, really need to expand the Spacewatch Project so we can get a little more warning shold a bigger asteroid come a little closer.

By way of Andrew Ian Dodge, we find another gay online quiz. Not that there's anything wrong with that. This quiz is very similar to the traditional two-axis political scheme often used by Libertarians to trick the unwary into thinking they're libertarian. But it has one advantage: they give you a cool, pirate style map instead of a boring graph.

Commonsense and Wonder links to the mounting evidence of France's corrupt and nefarious involvement in the Iraq's oil industry.

the French interest in maintaining Saddam Hussein in power was spelled out in excruciating detail. The price tag: close to $100 billion. That was what French oil companies stood to profit in the first seven years of their exclusive oil arrangements - had Saddam remained in power.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

A while back, Ross posted a graph taken from a Paul Krugman article, and used this as a stick to beat up on the Bush administration. I have nothing in principle against beating up on the administration, but at the time I read Ross' post, it didn't seem quite right to me. Not being a super economic wiz, I couldn't put my finger on it, nor did I have to hand the references that would have helped. But, coming belatedly to the rescue are the economic genii at Marginal Revolution. (Of course, the belatedness of the rescue is entirely my fault for falling behind on my blog reading.)

This is the original graph, from Krugman:

Ross claimed that this must be evidence of gross incompetance, or of lying. There is a third option, though. Marginal Revolution gives another chart, with a larger timeframe:

MR contributor Alex Tabarrok says:

With this graph it becomes clear that the CEA has in essence been predicting a return to trend. Obviously, the CEA has been wrong, employment has not returned to trend, but that surely tells us more about the peculiar nature of this recession than it does about corruption at the CEA.

Has political progaganda taken the place of professional analysis? Indeed.

Remember to go to Marginal Revolution for all your economic needs.

Last week an Australian news outlet reported the planned opening of a new brothel in Brisbane.

The punchline? The director of the new venture is already a government employee, Nicole Mair, a "highly paid Queensland Health professional". The director position (a position I think I am unfamiliar with- sounds a little too B/D for me) only requires 4 hours a week, so she won't have to quit her job. Since she is already professionally familiar with icky stuff like hygiene and fluids, she feels she can set new standards in model whorehousery.

Ms. Mair promises hers will not be a "sleazy" brothel, but "valid (?), with ethical workplace standards, and the girls will work in a high-quality environment." Amen sister, cuz I am sick and tired of paying top dollar for underperforming whores. She will also be responsible for education, whatever that means in a brothel.

She also asserts that 1/3 of the ground floor chambers will be reserved for disabled customers, the only brothel in Brisbane to do so.

As skeevy and peculiar as it sounds to Yankee ears (I mean, can you imagine the state surgeon general running a whorehouse on the side? Um, legally?), thinking it over I just can't say anything bad about this project.

Ace of Spades provides this link to a news page covering the Iranian protests. Instapundit of course has a post with more links.