Almost as quickly as it got Verve, it lost it. Why? Because I hit the 25 MB ceiling much sooner than expected, and did not feel like shelling out an extra $5.00 a month. So instead, I belatedly took Geoffrey Allen’s sage advice and signed up with ICD Soft instead. I’m still paying $5 a month, but am getting 333 MB storage space instead of 25. What a deal!

Right now might be an excellent opportunity for the “Bush Lied” crowd to keep quiet. Failing that, they might want to consider coming up with a new conspiracy theory.

Link via Southern California Lawyer.

UPDATE: There is no truth to the rumors of an Iraq-specific version of this shirt (hat tip: LGF) reading “And I’m really, really sorry that the idiot President I didn’t vote for played such a major role in overthrowing that fine statesman of a President you did vote for.”

Can just anybody get a patent for anything these days?

The Senate Rules Committee has unanimously approved S. Res. 138, which would sharply limit the ability of sore losers the minority party to throw a hissy-fit over filibuster the majority party’s nominations. The resolution now goes to the floor for a vote.

What are the chances that the By Any Means Necessary Party will try to filibuster this resolution?

I’ve moved again, this time from Hosting Matters to Verve Hosting. Nothing against Hosting Matters; their service was great. It’s just that Verve offers a slightly better deal for a little less money, so here I am. This time the move should be largely transparent. If you got to this page by the normal route (xrlq.com), it’s already done.

CNN and FoxNews both quote Presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt has making the following illegal campaign promise:

When I’m president, we’ll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day.

Anyone concerned about the accuracy of the quote is invited to watch it on C-Span. I haven’t, but Eugene has, and vouches that it’s in context (at 45:40, to be exact).

Thanks to Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds for the links.

If you are wondering why our “summer” weather has thus far been so dreadful and almost winter-like, don’t blame yourself, blame me.

Acting Governor Joe “Gray” Davis would do well to read this article before signing AB 45, the cell phone bill.

Link via Matt “I Am Not A Blogger” Drudge.

Here’s a way to vex the anti-recall types: sign their phony petitions as many times as you can, preferably with obviously phony, joke names. These petitions, unlike the pro-recall petitions or teh various petitions you’ll see from time to time, have no validity under the election laws. Thus, you won’t be breaking any laws by spoiling those non-petitions. The signature gathers are merely exercising their First Amendment rights, and you would be exercising yours.

Why do I recommend this? Simple. The more signatures – real or phony – the anti-recall people gather, the more likely they are to get cocky and overplay their “but we won fair and square” hand, which is guaranteed to alienate all but the most partisan Democrats. It will also increase the chances that electable Democrats will stay out of the race because they’ve overestimated Davis’s chance of survival.

In other news, this letter writer has just threatened to punish Davis for the VLF increase by signing the petition to get Davis recall. There you have it, folks, he’s been caught red-handed committing “recall activity.” Quick, somebody call (213) 382-4111 to report this would-be recaller, so Davis’s goons can stop him before he recalls again.

Kevin Roderick of L.A. Observed takes Hugh Hewitt to task for a June 21, 2003 entry (scroll down) complaining of an L.A. Times article that downplayed the recent decision of Acting Governor Joe “Gray” Davis to triple the vehicle licensing tax and described the tax as a “fee.” Citing no evidence beyond a reference to its official name (“Vehicle License Fee”), Kevin further argues in a comment that calling the VLF a tax is “less accurate” than calling it a fee.

Personally, I fail to see how it can be less accurate to call a tax a tax (which it is, by any objective measure) rather than calling it a fee (which it is in name only). The VLF has all the attributes of a tax, and an ad valorem one to boot. It has none of the attributes of a user fee, as its name suggests; even the DMV doesn’t pretend it costs them more to process the registration of a Lexus than a Corrolla. The IRS understands this, too, which is why the VLF portion of your registration bill is deductible as a “tax,” while the rest of the DMV’s charges are considered non-deductible “fees,” as are all vehicle registration charges in most states.

Now, there’s nothing inherently objectionable about calling any legislative act by its official name, even if that name can be quirky or misleading. Whether or not you happen to believe that the Taxpayer’s Relief Act of 1997 was a huge relief to taxpayers, that’s what it’s called, and that’s probably what it should be called. But it’s also what capital letters are for: to demonstrate to the reader that the paper is merely calling something by its official name, and not opining as to whether or not that name is an accurate description. By calling it a “vehicle license fee” in lower case, the Times seems to be smuggling in a legal conclusion on an issue that is currently being challenged by Republicans. If the Times wants to argue the VLF increase should be upheld as a “fee” increase not subject to Prop 13, or struck down as a “tax” increase that violated it, that’s what the editorial page is for. It has no place in an ostensibly neutral news article, however.

It is worth noting that, contrary to the implications of both Hewitt’s article and Roderick’s rebuttal, the Times article in question does refer to the VLF as a “tax” on several occasions. I could have done without the reference in the sixth paragraph to “[t]he so-called ‘car tax,’” however. If an objective news reporter is going to call the VLF by any name other than its official title (in caps, dammit!), then one can scarcely think of a fairer, less loaded name for it than “car tax.” The phrase does not warrant sneer quotes or the “so-called” treatment any more than did the “so-called counseling of [abortion] patients” that sparked the now-famous Carroll memo.