Not to beat upon a dead horse, but let me harp upon the Volokh Conspiracy a little more. Specifically, David Bernstein and Randy Barnett. Firstly, can anyone tell these guys apart? Every third post is pure self-promotion, and the rare post that isn’t some kind of book or appearance plug (or both!) is a one more rehash of how anti-Zionism is the same thing as anti-semitism. How many times do I have to read “allowing its own destruction by endorsing the ‘right of return'”? And how am I supposed to take seriously a link to an article written by, I kid you not, the director of the Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem?

Most of the stuff that’s left after you filter out these two jokers is great. (Except Sasha’s interminable lyrics posts. We get it! You’re the “hip” one!) Eugene has the solution, which he posted in an entry I’m nominating as the best post to the Volokh Conspiracy ever. In short, just tack “?exclude=davidb,randy” on the end of every volokh.com URL, and you’re golden. Remember, we’re all libertarians here, so it’s not censorship unless you’re a government agency.

Okay, my lighthouse keepers, I need you to find something out for me. Why is R. Kelly wearing a mask all the time now? I know he claims to be the “pied piper of R&B” (and isn’t that an unfortunate comparison to be making, Kells?) but that can’t be the whole story. Here’s a guy on trial for various and sundry transgressive acts involving minors — I think that R. Kelly in a Zorro mask is ruling it, but I could see some people finding it a little creepy.

He’s wearing the mask in his video for Step in the name of love [decent midi, ringtone appropriate] and also in the new Cassidy video for Hotel [horrible midi, ringtone length] — both really very good songs. And now we can see that he wore the damn thing to the Grammys. I would seriously like to know the real story behind this. I will keep you posted if I learn more.

Well, Steev has been predicting this for years, but it finally happened. Tucked into a little update on the Wrestling Observer is this tidbit:

Sable is out of action due to leaking implants.

How about that? Who would have thought it would happen to Sable, though? She’s not the most active wrestler these days, for which I am thankful. Let’s all just ponder for a moment what would happen to her “career” if, instead of having her leaky implants replaced, she had them removed.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Wasn’t that fun?

So I voted today, and what should appear on my ballot but this, this amazing sight! I felt certain that it wasn’t my personal hero (Speech ’56), but rather some other, lesser Jerry Orbach. Turns out I was right. This J. Orbach is some former Cook County judge and former Chicago alderman. Well, shameless electioneering stunts like having the same name as a well-respected character actor won’t get you anywhere with me. I voted for the other guy.

In other Northwestern Alum news, I did not vote for Jack Ryan, even though I have compelling evidence that he, at one time, was sleeping with Jeri Ryan (Speech ’90). Firstly, I took the Democratic ballot, and secondly, even though I consider it a major accomplishment to have bedded Jeri Ryan, it’s not listed anywhere on his official bio page. I have to believe that he’s, for some reason, not running on a platform of sleeping with Hollywood starlets and former beauty pageant winners. I just can’t get behind someone like that. It makes me question his motives for running for Senate in the first place. I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that there’s an ongoing controversy about the divorce records, and there are even darker rumors (rumors, mind you!) that may remind certain people of Eric Bischoff and his marriage.

In other Jeri Ryan news, Philthee (Speech ’99) claimed the other day that she went to Northwestern at the same time we did. Well, that’s just not the case, Phil. Faced!

Is it just me, or is the Volokh Conspiracy less interesting lately? The last really interesting thing I read there was Eugene’s call for inventions the Romans could have had, and he hasn’t followed up on it yet! Where is the love?

My personal diagnosis is that there’s been a sharp spike in self-promotional posts from various bloggers, of the “Here’s an article I wrote for some liberatarian rag” or “I’m going to be speaking to five pimply and friendless college conservatives on such and such a date”. There’s also been a lot of “doesn’t this {blank} smack of anti-semitism, and isn’t it just awful but also entirely banal?”

Maybe it’s just the political season, but DAMN these guys are off their game.