Pun Salad

Also:

… and make your body loop de loop:

• Things are shakin' up in Franklin Falls [click to embiggen]:

  

  I blame Canada. (Image grabbed from the handy New England Seismic Center site.)

• The great debate over the past few days: whether the Obama Administration exemplifies garden-variety thuggish contempt for the rule of law, or is actually putting us on the road to something even worse. Michael Barone lines up on the thuggery side:

  For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.

  Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command "no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law."

  Obama doesn't. "If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so," write the editors of the Economist, who then suggest that markets see Obama as "an American version of Vladimir Putin." Except that Putin is an effective thug.

• Taking the "it's worse than that" viewpoint is Thomas Sowell:

  The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP's money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed "czars" controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.

  Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power -- versus the rule of law and the preservation of freedom -- are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?

  "The truth is probably somewhere in between."

• At Q&O Mr. McQ notes that things aren't much better in the legislative branch:
  1. The House is punting on one of its few duties: producing a budget. Because they don't want to do that and then face the electorate.

  2. But they're working hard on the "campaign finance reform" (actually: "incumbency protection") bill, which is apparently back from the dead. Because it's vitally important that happen before they have to face the electorate.

  3. And Democrats on both ends of the Capitol are proudly announcing that they're not feeling bound by Obama's campaign promise about no tax increases for people making under a quarter mil.

  132 days until Election Day…

• David Malki of Wondermark compiles then-and-now pictures of couples entwined forever in great (and some not-so-great) romantic movies. Go find out who's stood up to the ravages of time, and who hasn't. (<cough>Carrie Fisher</cough>) If you need help identifying the movies, the commenters have figured them out.