Category Archives: Popular Culture

Finally, A Football Game Worth Watching

in Detroit:

The game between the New York Giants and the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis already had been postponed because of heavy snow. When the Metrodome’s roof collapsed early Sunday morning, the NFL moved the game to Detroit.

…“We hope it’s a great event,” Lions president Tom Lewand said. “It’s free. Obviously that’s something that was important to us. This is an opportunity for Detroit fans to come out and enjoy another NFL game. We think that we’ll have a good crowd, and that’s why we tried to make it as accessible as possible.”

Hard to beat the price, too. Though it’s also nice that the Lions managed to eke out a win against the Packers today.

Asking The Important Questions

Is Batman a state actor?

In Batman’s case, Commissioner Gordon is certainly a person for whom the State is responsible, and Batman often acts together with Gordon and obtains significant aid from Gordon in the form of information and evidence. Batman’s conduct is also otherwise chargeable to the State because the Gotham Police Department has worked with Batman on numerous occasions (and thus knows his methods) and operates the Bat Signal, expressly invoking Batman’s assistance in a traditionally public function. This suggests state action under the public function theory: “when private individuals or groups are endowed by the State with powers or functions governmental in nature, they become agencies or instrumentalities of the State and subject to its constitutional limitations.” Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296, 299 (1966).

But what about Superman? And who’s going to enforce the law against him?

[Update a couple minutes later]

Related: the brain-kill forensics of zombies.

Honesty From Gene Simmons

He wants his Obama vote back, and admits that he voted for him because he was black. I suspect that there are a lot of people in the same boat, and they won’t make the same mistake twice. They expiated their racial guilt in 2008.

[Update a while later]

This seems right to me:

…ask yourself this question: How many people do you know who voted for Obama in 2008 but now express regret about the vote or reservations about his leadership?

Probably plenty.

Now ask yourself this: How many people do you know who voted against Obama in 2008 but have since been won over?

Probably not a single one.

The buyers’ remorse is strong in this One.

A True Bitter Clinger

If this guy was a Tea Partier, the media would make him the face of the movement. But he did it out of a rational hatred of a young woman who’d never done anything to him except be on television, so it’s OK. Apparently his remote was broken, and he was too lazy to get up and change the channel.

[Update a few minutes later]

Iowahawk comments on Facebook: “After booking, he was offered tenure by the University of Wisconsin and a Senior Fellowship by Media Matters.”