Pre-election linkfest

Here's a short linkfest to keep you political junkies from having to hit the refresh button at your favorite news sites and blogs in the hope that you'll get some useful information.

1. Here's an argument against early voting. (via Instapundit) For what it's worth, I'm voting NO on the early-vote ballot issue in Maryland. What could possibly go wrong with early voting?

2. Contrary to some expectations, it seems younger Jews are more likely to vote for McCain than older ones. (via Volokh)

3. If you vote, you might be eligible for, er, sex toys. (via HotAir) If you vote early, you need to work on your technique.

4. Speaking of which, the feds may be moving closer to running a strip joint. Insert your own joke here. (hat tip: fee simple)

5. Headline of the day: "Nudist group wants clothing-optional polling site."

6. Obama salutes McCain.

7. Taxman. (via HotAir)

UPDATE: 8. The six most insane people to run for President. (hat tip: Right Hand Son)

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Wednesday linkfest

This is the place where I drop links that I've been collecting but haven't had time to write about while I've been trying to figure out my mother's taxes.

1. From the distaff side of the moronosphere, S.Weasel has a delightful tribute to Charlton Heston. Well, to his buttocks, anyway.

2. Speaking of the moronosphere, check doubleplusundead regularly for his daily roundups, called "around the moronosphere in 80 iq points." I think the Moron-in-Chief was responsible for that name.

3. Since it's tax time, I'd like to bring you this: "Woman Apologizes for Pitbull Attack on IRS Employee." (via TaxProf Blog)

4. Here's the barbecue guy who loves the NoKos. The FBI already knows about him, thanks to his dad. Really. Will there be a place for him as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration? And this: A coincidence?

5. Will you be more in love with your wife if she learns to play poker? This article says you will. It sounds totally asinine to me, because you play poker precisely to be alone with the boys, but there are some other tips for women that sound a little better than that.

6. If you live in Minnesota, your tax dollars are funding what may be a madrassa.

7. Ace writes about a post by a user at Obama's site attacking the Jews. A commenter finds the cached link after the post is taken down.

8. From the Department of Old: "Woman's Lawsuit Claims Bra Injured Her / Victoria's Secret Denies Claims." (via Ace's headlines last week)

9. From the Department of Not So New: Starbucks won't let you customize your card with "Laissez Faire" but will let you use "People Not Profits"? (via Volokh)

10. Child "maths" genius-ette becomes a call girl (with probably NSFW photo) (via Fark)

11. Get your ice cold Mets motivational poster, courtesy of Baseball Crank. Not that I've already given up on them -- that'll take another few days like yesterday.

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The dis-unitary Executive

When people ask me what it's like to work for the federal government, I usually try to disabuse them of some basic stereotypes. Like, for instance, that everyone is incompetent, lazy, and (if you're lucky) corrupt. It's just not true.

I tell them that the lawyers I work with are first class, many of them coming from top law schools, clerkships with well known judges, large law firms, etc. They've chosen to work in government for a variety of reasons, and they're giving up a chance to earn quite a lot more money. (The pay is actually pretty good, especially if you understand you're not working for a profit-making entity, but I realize that a lot of federal lawyers think the pay should be comparable to what the firms are paying. I certainly don't.) Overall, the quality of lawyers I've dealt with is high, and the taxpayers are getting their money's worth.

The support staff, I'll admit, is a mixed bag. We have a lot of capable secretaries, paralegals, and so on, but you'd have to concede there are some who just wouldn't make it in the private sector.

I think I had a conversation with one of those the other day.

I was calling someone at another federal agency that will remain anonymous, and I had the following conversation with the woman who answered the phone:

Woman: Office of the General Counsel. May I help you?

Me: May I speak to [name of person I'm calling], please?

Woman: Who's calling?

Me: [My real name] from the [agency I work for].

Woman: What's your name?

Me (slowly and distinctly): [My real name.] I'm at the [agency I work for].

Woman: Does he know what this is in reference to?

Me: I'm calling him about a Supreme Court case.

Woman: What's the name of the case?

Me: [Name of case.] We haven't spoken about this yet. In fact, I haven't spoken to him in about four years.

Woman: About four years?

Me: Do we have a bad connection? I could call back.

Woman: No, it's just that you were mumbling, or that's what it sounded like. If he's not there, do you want his voice mail?

Me: Yes! [I kept myself from adding the insult I was thinking of.]

This incident really made me wonder. Is there a training program somewhere that teaches people whose jobs involve answering the phone exactly how to fend off calls from callers who are obviously calling about business matters? I mean, it's not as if I were trying to sell someone a life-insurance policy or a magazine subscription.

By the end of the day, the lawyer I left a message for hadn't called me back yet, but I wonder whether he's going to call back and say, "Did you leave a message for me? It was hard to tell because the guy was mumbling."

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Three videos

Three videos (four, really) for your viewing pleasure.

1. PSA (sick). (Check here -- scroll down -- for another one that's almost, but not quite, as sick.)

2. Barbie and Ken spend the night?

3. Like, where are the munchies, dude?

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Flaunting it and groping it at the airports

Not long after I started Pillage Idiot, I wrote a series of posts on what I called "lawyer groping" at the airports. (Google it; I'm at the top.) A lawyer named Rhonda Gaynier had complained about having been subject to a bra-and-breast exam by TSA screeners at the airport. I concluded: "Brought to you by TSA, whose motto is: Better that 100 innocent lawyers be groped than that one suspicious Arab be inconvenienced."

It turned out that the groping was not limited to lawyers, or even to people who were mistaken for lawyers. In early 2006, a class action suit alleging illegal pat-downs and strip searches of black women at O'Hare International Airport was settled.

Today, we learn through HotAir, that if you're a Canadian newspaper columnist who's "a robust 34 FF," you might be subject to TSA screener groping, too. (Paula Simons: "If my bra is a threat to national security, we're in big trouble.")

Most people would agree that subjecting women who wear bras with underwire support to groping at the airport makes little sense. The TSA ought to be trying to figure out who's suspicious, not who's large-bosomed (which, I admit, is a lot easier). But as I argued in the first series of posts about Ms. Gaynier, we do stupid things precisely in order NOT to profile people. The lesson is that we need to change our approach to airport security through increased profiling and intelligent scrutiny of travelers.

Sadly, Paula Simons learns the wrong lesson. She says: "When we blindly follow rules, when we waste time and energy defending ourselves from imaginary enemies, we actually create the potential for real threats to overtake us." Like the imaginary enemies who flew jets into the World Trade Towers and Pentagon.

When someone is such a total fool, it's very hard to summon any sympathy. Grope away!

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Those pressing Jewish issues

I'm starting to sound like a broken record -- if anyone remembers what a record is. I'm not talking about Hank Aaron's recently broken homerun record, either.

I'm sick of talking about how Jewish groups seems concerned about anything but real Jewish issues, but I'm afraid I have to talk about that once again. I'll keep it short.

You know the story: Bush has nominated a former federal judge, Michael Mukasey, to be his Attorney General. Mukasey is an orthodox Jew.

In an article about the nomination published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, there is considerable discussion about Mukasey's record on terrorism. Which makes sense. This is an important part of his background.

But here comes one of my old favorites, Marc Stern of the American Jewish Congress:

The focus [on terrorism] concerned Stern, who noted that the Justice Department's bailiwick is much broader than terrorism.

"He's a cipher on abortion, he's a cipher on civil rights, he's a cipher on all the hot-button issues that move the administration's base," Stern said.

Never mind terrorism, which is the most important issue facing this country -- and, for that matter, that country of no real interest to Jews, Israel. Never mind terrorism; what does this orthodox Jew think about "Jewish issues" like abortion?

I suspect the JTA never actually spoke to the real Marc Stern. Some prankster called in and pretended to be Stern. And did a heck of a good job.

Click here to read more . . .

Not dead yet

Suppose you're speaking on the phone to someone who insists you're dead. Suppose that person is a federal government official.

Any advice on how to handle it?

No, it didn't happen to me. But here's a tidbit:

MADISON COUNTY, Ga. -- Twenty-two-year-old Lisa Kohlhagen of Colbert, Ga. in Madison County went through Army basic training but was discharged after a knee injury.

She said when her disability checks stopped coming, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs told her it was because she was dead.

And here's the best part:

“And I called them because it wasn’t there and they said, ‘You’re dead,’ and I said, ‘No, I’m not dead.’ And they kept trying to tell me I was dead but I’m not,” said Kohlhagen.

I keep thinking the conversation was going to be more like this: "I'm not dead." "Yes, you are." "I want a second opinion." "OK, you're ugly, too."

Or at least, "If I'm dead, that means I don't have to pay income tax any more, right?"

How would you have handled it?

(via Fark)

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