I own one two hundred sixty millionth of this seal.

Therefore I declare my right, as the citizen of a free country, to use it as I choose.

If you have a blog or other website, I encourage you to do the same.  As you place the seal on your website, repeat this ancient legal formula, a formula that your government, which is one of laws, not of men, is bound to respect:

Ipso facto.  E. pluribus unum.  Res gestae divi Augusti.  Agricola est bona.  Shai Gaba Umbala Shoombala OOM!

(Thanks to our friend CTrees for pointing out what has to be a simple misunderstanding on the part of the FBI, a misunderstanding which will no doubt be corrected once politicians who faithfully serve the American public are made aware of the problem.)

When I read that Maurizio Antoninetti (a serial filer of Americans With Disabilities Act claims) had sued a Mexican fast food chain for denying him "the Chipotle experience," my first thought was, "why the Hell would anyone want to undergo "the Chipotle experience" a second time?

But then, when I think of "the Chipotle experience," I associate it with this not-safe-for-work bit of humor:

Of course Antoninetti didn't actually want to feel "the Chipotle experience" even once.  As pointed out at the link, Antoninetti has sued at least 20 restaurants to which he never returned after receiving his ADA payout.

Dog bites mailman.  Poor dog owner: she gets sued.

Poor dog: he's probably been put to sleep.

Poor Wikipedia: it gets no respect from courts.

Poor mailman: he lost his case against the dog owner.

Poor mailman's attorney:  he tried to submit a Wikipedia article as evidence in superior court.

[P]laintiff argues that defendant Castaldo knew or should have known that her dog Dusty possessed a vicious propensity because, again, the Australian Heeler/Border Collie mix is an aggressive breed, and her means of restraining the dog shows her knowledge that the dog was dangerous. However, the only evidence presented by plaintiff that the Australian Heeler/Border Collie mix is generally known to have propensities for aggression comes from an article on Wikipedia.com, an online source that can be changed at any time by any user. In contrast to plaintiff’s Wikipedia article, Defendant Barefoot presented admissible evidence that Dusty did not have aggressive tendencies.

The plaintiff might as well have created a blog, "Dusty Is A Vicious Border Collie Mix," for all the good that Wikipedia did him as evidence.  In fact, I just created one for him. It's every bit as admissible as Wikipedia.

Practice tip for budding attorneys, law students, and scholars:  When it counts, don't count on Wikipedia.

Per the New York Times, the word of the day is "pontifical".  We hereby lay claim to definition #3.

In my unending quest to monetize Popehat to obey the exhortations of our spammers (the other exhortations weren't necessary, thankyouverymuch), I've decided to start auctioning off @popehat.com email addresses.

It's a brilliant idea. It's not mine, though. Michael Reagan came up with it. That's Michael Reagan, son of the (peace through strength be unto him) Great Communicator.

OK, Michael Reagan didn't mention Popehat specifically. But he did come up with the idea of monetizing a name this way. See, he's selling off Reagan.com email addresses to the general public. Now, I grant you, Michael's reasons are more noble than mine. He's not in it for the money. He's protecting the People from putting their hard-earned money indirectly into the hands of Obama and Pelosi, though their lapdog ISPs:

Unfortunately we have another problem. People who believe in true Reagan Conservative Values are unwittingly supporting the Obama, Pelosi and Reid liberal agenda! What do I mean? Well, every time you use your email from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals. These companies are, and will continue, to be huge supporters financially and with technology of those that are hurting our country.

Is that where you want your money to go? I didn’t so I changed things. I came up with the very first conservative email service provider. You now can put your name next to the name of the Greatest Conservative of all, my father Ronald Reagan.

It's not entirely clear to me how my gmail address, which I got for free, is helping Google destroy America, but I'm sure there's an explanation somewhere.

Anyway, now you can establish your unimpeachable conservative creds by paying the low, low price of — wait a minute. $39.95 per year? [fixed--year, not month.] What the fuck? Is it 1995? Is Nancy going to proofread my emails for me?

OK, we can undercut that. And why shouldn't we ride on the coattails of this great idea? Popehat has lots in common with Reagan. We have a devoted following that has only a vague sense of our actual political positions. We hold views that, at one point, were considered sensible, classic, principled conservatism and now are derided as anti-American liberalism. We have descendants eager to cash in on us!

Act now. Supplies are running out.

I was reading this entertaining Cracked article about six fictional corporations from movies that displayed both evil and incompetence, and noted that Cracked saw the same thing I did years ago: Weyland-Yutani Corp. must have some seriously patient stockholders if they keep losing expensive ships, androids, colonies, dropships, and Tom Skerritts just to capture an alien with acid blood, a mildly amusing birth process, and questionable dentition.

Cracked points out that Weyland-Yutani — which, based on the graphics from the original Alien, is a futuristic spinoff of Purina — has been throwing away resources for two hundred years. That's a lot. Ford's only been trying to make a decent car for a hundred. So why are they doing this? Cracked doesn't know.

But that's because Cracked is politically apathetic. To those of a political bent, it ought be immediately apparent what Weyland-Yutani is doing.

They're running a tax shelter.

The pursuit of aliens is simply an elaborate way to guarantee massive writeoffs to reduce W-Y's tax liability. It's perfect — they get rid of obsolete assets (Ian Holm was so last year's model. The Nostromo? A futuristic Buick.) and irritating personnel, and get to write them off at full (or even inflated) value. "Yeah, revenue was through the roof. But we only wound up paying twenty bucks this year, thanks to all those people getting eaten."

There's something oddly comforting about this. Whatever other terrifying and unknowable things the future holds, we can rest assured that shitty tax policy will continue. Thanks, space-Congress!