Now I Cry

According to this Boston Globe Article (thanks, psb!), President Bush "has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution." This is done in things called "signing statements," "official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law."

As I discussed with palecur earlier, "signing statements" are an important means by which a President can sign legislation into law and yet still uphold his oath to protect and serve the Consitution by effectively blocking otherwise unconscionable parts of the law. (Think: a President willfully ignoring race-based legislation, for example.) Some could make the more effective argument that vetoes are an even better means for this, but those can be mighty contentious. So let me go on record as saying that as long as a President is using these signing statements in a good faith attempt to protect and serve the Constitution, there are arguments that could be made in their favor.

What happens, though, when a President demonstrates that he has no regard whatsoever for the Constitution? In that case, friends, signing statements are akin to tyranny.

A Cosmic Sense of Humor

NASA presents the Titan probe descent data movie, with, and I kid you not, bells and whistles. (11MB .mov file, with sound)

The Small Giantess and the Elephant of Royal of Luxe

On May 19, 2005, an odd object appeared in the Place Saint Pierre in Nantes, France:



Soon, a time-travelling elephant showed up to watch the proceedings:



And shortly thereafter, a little giantess exited the odd shell:



Click here to see what happened next. (The navigation is not necessarily intuitive; click on the at the bottom to see more.)

As if this wasn't cool enough, the troupe that put this together just repeated their show in London.

Please, petite Géante, come to San Francisco!