Chew gum while peeling onions and you won't cry.

I watched "Murderball" a few weeks ago. Not a movie I'd recommend (actually, a documentary flick that won Sundance a few years ago), but I got it from Netflix without knowing much about it. The film is about wheelchair rugby, a sport that is not what you'd expect.
It's also an Olympic sport, played at the Paralympic Games which are held right after the Olympics in the same city. The U.S. Wheelchair Rugby Team (a more marketable name than murderball) opens against China today - or yesterday, or whatever it is in China now. The U.S. is favored to win gold. After watching that flick I'm going to be following that sport as the tournament progresses in Beijing.
Did you see the movie?

This is pretty cool. It's what happens to his nose that surprised me.
Slow Motion Slap

As a brand new company the first product Motorola tried to develop was a record player for automobiles. At the time the best known record player was Victrola, which is why they chose the name Motorola.

I was near outrage over a comment about my running mate and lipstick. Then I realized that he couldn't have been talking about Polly Purebred, because she doesn't have lips.

I don't know what kinds of things can be done through an executive order as opposed to all the rigamaroll of getting a law passed, but once elected President I intend to find out. I'm going to issue executive orders and wait to see if anyone gives me grief. Part of that whole permission/forgiveness dynamic.

Another of my "first 100 days" orders will be to abolish enhanced sentencing for what are known as hate crimes. Forty five states and the feds have laws that increase the sentence if the crime was motivated by hatred of someone who is a member of a "protected class." That category includes things like race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and nationality.
Violent crime motivated by hate for someone based only on their membership in a class is indeed despicable. That kind of anger is the basest sort and especially detrimental to society. Among other things it often results in crimes of retribution.
But consider what it means to the victim. OK, the victim may well be dead. (Can you use the word "well" in the same sentence as "dead?") So think about the families of the victim.
Two beatings are committed, both equally violent and resulting in death. In the first case a man beats his neighbor because the neighbor's cat went "digging" in the perp's kids' sandbox. In the second case a man beats another to death only because he is of Middle Eastern descent.
The families of both victims grieve. Worse, both victims left a wife and children behind.
But the penalties for the two felons aren't the same. In fact, they can be very, very different, depending on the jurisdiction. And the only difference is that one is designated as a hate crime.
Should the life of the neighbor be of less value just because he doesn't belong to a protected class? That's the implication when the penalties are different. If the two men are equal in the sight of the law then their victimization should produce the same penalties.
Hate crime legislation may have had the intent of ensuring the safety of protected classes but it has had the effect of creating an odd sort of social inequality. And I wonder if that inequality won't, in the end, be at least as likely to do societal damage as that which hate crime legislation seeks to eliminate.

Other things on my to-do list:

• Auto-flush toilets will not be allowed to have blinking lights. Altogether too spooky.
• Skinny guys with big noses will be declared the new hotties.
• Snorkles will be allowed in any sporting event that involves swimming.
• Ceramic and cement lawn ornaments will be prohibited. Faux shutters, too. And those little lawn bridges that arch over...lawn.