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Well

As affirmative action programs go, at least this one comes with a stigma for applying.

Besides, I’ve already got the rallying cry ready: We’re here and we can stop a train with our hideous, hideous faces, get used to it!

Be a shame to pass up something that catchy.

30 Replies to “Well”

  1. Benedick says:

    Do I qualify if one of my grandparents was ugly? Or is the ugly then too diluted?

    Off topic: Jeff this is right up your alley, on Clarence Thomas and (in the second part of the piece) the effectiveness and wages of his originalist approach . . .

    http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/08/28/new-blue-nightmare-clarence-thomas-and-the-amendment-of-doom/

  2. cranky-d says:

    Finally, a special-interest group that’s aimed at me. I can hardly wait until I get my free money.

  3. dicentra says:

    That’s a weird link:

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/opinion/sunday/ugly-you-may-have-a-case.xml;.w5?rec=t

    It wants me to open a file. I refuse.

  4. sdferr says:

    The next topic for Constitutional revisionism is the expansive reading of the commerce clause that the New Deal judges used to justify the Roosevelt administration’s ambitious economic programs. The Obamacare health reform depends on that kind of reading of the commerce clause; the penumbras must stretch pretty far for the Constitution to give Congress the right to require all Americans to buy private health insurance. And if the commerce clause can be stretched this far, one must ask whether there is anything that the Constitution blocks Congress from doing.

    Revisionism is a stinkassed word for what Thomas is doing, since he’s doing nothing of the sort. But whatever, he’s doing it, which counts everything to me.

  5. mojo says:

    Boy howdy.

    Now if we can just get “stupid” and “venal” classified as disabilities, Waxman will REALLY be in the gravy…

  6. LBascom says:

    Huh, I’ve been the constant victim of prejudice and stereotyping because of my extreme good looks.

    The grass only looks greener on the other side of the fence buddy…

  7. donald says:

    Venal is one of the greatest words ever.

  8. Pablo says:

    What, no Fishbone?

  9. donald says:

    Ya know I’m not a handsome man, but I ain’t no al gore.

    Dude’s ugly in his very soul. Ask tipper.

  10. TaiChiWawa says:

    Alternate rallying cry:

    Don’t call us ugliest, ugly-ist!

  11. McGehee says:

    Ugly people rule the world and always have. Just look at the Habsburgs.

  12. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’m too sexy for your handout

  13. dicentra says:

    Just look at the Habsburgs.

    And their crowning achievement, Carlos II of Spain, the walking genetic trainwreck.

  14. McGehee says:

    Seriously. This is the Habsburgs’ idea of “the Handsome.”

  15. donald says:

    Whoa! On the charles thing. On second thought, call me Rock.

  16. Abe Froman says:

    I’m so glad I’m not in book publishing or something. Ugly people make the work day feel longer.

  17. newrouter says:

    this part is fun

    Thomas argues that to understand what the Constitution meant to the framers, one needs to do more than read the words on the page and look to see how Samuel Johnson and perhaps Noah Webster defined them in their dictionaries.

    Thomas is not a fundamentalist reading the Constitution au pied de la lettre; the original intent of the founders can be established only after research and reflection. The Eighth Amendment ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” can only be understood if one understands the thought of the period, the types of punishment then widely used, and the political and cultural traditions that shaped the thinking of the founders on questions of justice and punishment. One then takes that understanding, however tentative, and applies it to the circumstances of a given case today.

    It is not the only possible way to read the Constitution, but it is a very interesting one and it may be the only politically sustainable way for the Court to read it in a contentious and divided country. Without some rule of interpretation that the average person can understand and accept as legitimate, the Court gradually loses legitimacy in the public eye. The originalist interpretation, whatever objections can be made to it intellectually and historically, is politically compelling. It resonates with the American propensity for commonsense reasoning. To say that the Founders meant what they meant and that the first job of a judge is to be faithful to their intent is something that strikes many Americans as sensible, practical and fair.

    Link

  18. Jim in KC says:

    What we really need is to make protected classes of people based on ugly features–toes, noses, etc. Just “ugly” isn’t specific enough.

  19. Mueller says:

    Finally, a special-interest group that’s aimed at me. I can hardly wait until I get my free money.

    Not so fast handsome. I, being truly hideous, have first dibs. And I’m fat. So there. A twofer.

  20. irongrampa says:

    Never even registered on the give-a-shit-meter.

    Guess I’m all done wasting eyeballs and eardrums on garbage like that.

  21. dicentra says:

    This is why, if I ever decide to commit suicide by leaping in front of a speeding freight train, I’ll have to do it at night.

  22. Jeff G. says:

    The originalist interpretation, whatever objections can be made to it intellectually and historically, is politically compelling. It resonates with the American propensity for commonsense reasoning. To say that the Founders meant what they meant and that the first job of a judge is to be faithful to their intent is something that strikes many Americans as sensible, practical and fair.

    It’s also the only method that counts as “interpreting,” if by interpreting we mean interpreting — that is, trying to understand the signs left us for purpose of outlining what the social contract is as dictated by that very document.

    Without such an idea — for instance, textualists will tell you that the document exists by itself, and that we must read it without an appeal to original intent — what you have is a perversion of linguistic logic and a transference of the grounds for meaning to the reader/receiver.

    As I’ve said a million times now, intentionalism just is. That we write our legal texts to adhere as closely as possible to the common vernacular — to convention — is itself a legal convention that acknowledges the need for clarity and ease of unpacking. But as Thomas points out implicitly is that what “reasonable” people may see today as the “plain meaning of the text” may not at the time have meant any such thing to the framers, and so is antithetical to the intent — and thus, to the text, and so the law as they decided upon it.

    At any rate, there’s a reason why I’ve always been a Thomas fan. And note, too, that he points out that it takes effort and scholarship often times to try to reconstruct intent. That is, we look at things like historical situatedness; inter- and intratextuality, conventional vs legal usages; punctuation; etc., — all as a way of doing one thing: understanding the signs marked by the signifiers we’re engaging with. That is, interpreting.

  23. serr8d says:

    This is the scary part…

    How could we remedy this injustice? …

    A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals? …

    You might reasonably disagree and argue for protecting all deserving groups. Either way, you shouldn’t be surprised to see the United States heading toward this new legal frontier.

    At least we don’t have nishibot detailing the bell-ugly curve, and how to slice out unworthy swarthy people to achieve her eugenically-structured nirvana.

    That said, anyone see Lady GarGoyle last night? Proves that The Ugly can and DO succeed!

  24. newrouter says:

    we really should stop playing this game:

    But they aren’t going to be removed. I predict a reprimand or at most censure. Still, I must say, that if the tables were turned and the liberal justice had done what Prosser did and the conservative justice had done what Bradley did, there would be cries for removing the justice who did what Bradley did. Look at the investigative file. Picture the Wisconsin protesters picking through that in search of material to make the strongest case against the justice who did what Bradley did. And if the Democratic party controlled the legislature? The protesters would be screaming for impeachment.

    But the conservatives are mostly giving Bradley a pass.

    Link

    and

    Given last year’s Supreme Court decision in New Process Steel, you know that the National Labor Relations Board must have three members to effectuate its rulings and decisions. You may recall the reason for the New Process Steel decision stemmed from Senate Democrats’ purposeful and calculating decision not to allow President Bush’s nominees to be confirmed as members to the National Labor Relations Board, as well as the blocking of any recess appointments.

    With the expiration of Chairman Liebman’s term this past weekend, the NLRB is once again down to three members—two union appointees (newly appointed Chairman Mark Pearce and Member Craig Becker) and yourself. If you resign your position, the NLRB will become incapacitated—unable to wreak any more havoc on America’s job creators. Moreover, as long as Congress does not go into recess, thereby depriving the President the ability to recess appoint any more union extremists, America’s employers may begin to breathe with some ease again and, as a result, begin to create jobs.

    Link

  25. TheGeezer says:

    <i.We’re here and we can stop a train with our hideous, hideous faces

    Damn. All I can do with my face is stop a clock.

  26. McGehee says:

    I haven’t tried stopping a train with my face, but I learned the hard way that stopping a taxi works better with a hand waving money.

  27. Bastiat says:

    Harrison Bergeron, call your office!

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