“At the risk of being politically incorrect, is it really worth voting in an election when D stands for Dumb-ass and R stands for retarded? … I can’t think of a time when I have been more disenchanted with America’s political class and that is saying something, as I basically distrust them to start.” –Dan Riehl. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

How much is it gonna cost you per month to use all those cool features in Apple’s upcoming drool-inducing iPhone? Turns out it’s not too much:

Essentially you are paying an additional $20 over AT&T’s regular plans and getting unlimited data, 200 SMS messages, and the visual voicemail feature. AT&T’s SmartPhone Connect, which includes unlimited data, doesn’t provide you with text messaging and costs the same — tack on an additional $5 for the 200-message package and the iPhone package is a bit cheaper. Assuming you wanted the data plan if you got a smart phone, you’d save $120 by going with the iPhone over the two years of the contract, which oughta make that initial higher cost slightly easier to take.

EDIT–ADDITION BY JAY JOHNSON– I didn’t really think this warranted a new topic, and don’t want to step on David’s toes, but I found something else about the iPhone monthly plan pricing that could be important to possible consumers. If you are already an existing AT&T customer (as I am, and unlike some, I’ve been very pleased with the service), the rates to add an iPhone to your package is even less than the chart posted above. In fact, it’s a LOT less. The three packages, from left to right above are $20, $30, and $40 respectively. There are also discounted rates available for customers with a “family plan” with multiple iPhones. Effectively, if you’re an AT&T customer already, it’s almost a no-brainer, if you can swing the $499-$599 for the unit. With what the machine can do (iPod, mobile internet/email machine, phone, camera), I think the price is not heinous. Especially, if it’s only going to cost me another $30 a month in service.

The Washington Post is in the midst of publishing a four-part series on Dick Cheney — “unfolding like daily Pulitzer bait,” in Jonah Goldberg’s words — that, from what I’ve read, is pretty fascinating (though admittedly, I haven’t read most of it). The Volokh Conspiracy’s Orin Kerr calls it a “must-read: highly recommended.” (He also pokes fun at the recent which-branch-of-government-is-Cheney-in kerfuffle with the headline, “WASH POST PROFILES INFLUENTIAL LEGISLATOR.” Heh.)

Goldberg’s column in today’s L.A. Times is good, too. He writes admiringly of Cheney, but ultimately concludes that the veep’s tendency to favor confrontation over compromise “creates a blowback that hobbles your efforts in the long run far more than compromise does.”

Oh, and about that whole branches-of-government thing? Goldberg writes:

[S]eemingly countless sources inside the Bush administration tell the Post that [Cheney] has a contempt for bureaucratic and legislative consensus-building that rivals his contempt for cultivating public support through the media. As a result, he often succeeds in bulldozing policies — on enemy interrogations, etc. — all the way to the president’s desk. But he’s isolated when it comes time to defend these policies in Congress and the public.

Take the current argument over Cheney’s self-exemption from the rules on how classified documents should be handled. Instead of getting a waiver from the president, Cheney argued that he’s immune to executive orders because he’s also the president of the Senate and hence a member of the legislative branch too. Not only is this a goofy argument on its face, it does nothing to restore executive authority. It’s not like the vice presidency was an outpost of the legislative branch before Watergate. Cheney’s argument amounts to a convenient rationalization for his own secretive style.

Such opportunism undermines his more principled arguments and exhausts the goodwill of his defenders, precisely when Cheney needs that goodwill for bigger and better things. And it sends his detractors on the left around the bend, just like President Clinton’s abuses — real and perceived — drove many of us on the right to kick our TV sets. The fact is that Cheney’s cause isn’t helped when millions of Americans think he’s a comic book villain. …

“The irony with the Cheney crowd pushing the envelope on presidential power is that the president has now ended up with lesser powers than he would have had if they had made less extravagant monarchical claims,” Bruce Fein, an associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan, told the Post.

UPDATE: Will Republicans lead a charge to get rid of Cheney… and replace him with Fred Thompson? (Hat tip: Dan Riehl who cites this as one of many reasons he’s “had it with Republicans.”)

Today’s NYTimes Science Section is all about evolution. Which, while interesting in itself, might not have caused me to post anything here. The fact that this article is about my advisor, on the other hand, I think warrants a post.

Ron Paul has been barred from the Iowa debate.

So, when the Democrats let Lieberman speak his mind then decided to vote for the other guy, that was a Stalinist Purge. What’s this, then?

The Senate will vote today on an effort to revive the stalled immigration-reform bill. 60 votes are needed to bring it back to the floor. National Review Online does the math, and concludes that the bill’s supporters have 59 votes — which means they just need to peel away one of seven fence-sitting senators who claim to oppose the bill, but may vote to revive it in today’s crucial procedural vote: Sens. Bond, Brownback, Burr, Cochran, Coleman, Ensign and Webb.

Says NRO: “If any of these senators votes to revive the bill, his professions of opposition to amnesty should no longer be taken seriously. He will have done his crucial bit, when the amnesty bill was most vulnerable, to help shepherd it to passage. We know how senators who claim to oppose amnesty will try to explain away a vote to revive the bill. They will rely on procedural obfuscation: They didn’t want to obstruct the process, they wanted to get a vote on an amendment, etc. But amnesty is staying in the bill — no amendment to strike the bill’s central features has any chance of passage — and it deserves to be obstructed.”

A poster at Red State outlines what he calls the “top 10 defects of the amnesty bill.” On the other side of the ideological spectrum, a poster at Daily Kos makes the “progressive case against the immigration bill.” Who exactly supports this bill, again?

UPDATE: The bill advanced, 64-35. So now they’ll debate the bill and vote on various amendments, followed by “a second, now-crucial, cloture vote to cut off debate later this week,” says Mickey Kaus. “If a net five Senators switch between today and the second vote, the bill is (again) dead. That’s a much more plausible scenario in this case than it usually is.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first ever BrendanLoy.com-inspired artwork, courtesy of my NDLS classmate Emily Chang. She painted this painting…

…based on this photograph, taken by yours truly in Arizona last Thanksgiving:

Cool!

(Posted with permission. Thanks, Emily!)

A near calamity was just averted. Becky noticed that the little water-circulator thingy in Pug the Goldfish’s tank wasn’t running. Turns out, its cord had been yanked out of the electrical socket behind the couch. The space between the couch and the wall is easily large enough to fit a cat, so I suspect feline foul play. This was obviously part of a plot to deprive poor Pug of oxygen, thus making him easier prey. Unsatisfied with tuna scraps, the kitties are plotting to obtain some fresh fish, by any means necessary. Sasha’s futile pawing at the glass door previously seemed cute and harmless, but now I realize she was actually training for an assault on the fishtank. All she has to do is figure out how to scratch through solid glass (or plastic, as the case may be), and Pug is in real trouble…

P.S. Earlier today, Becky noticed Robbie taking a long, hard look at Pug. Hmm. Could this be a multi-species anti-fish terrorist conspiracy? Hey, if Sunnis and Shiites can work together against a common enemy, maybe cats and dogs can, too. Though I’m thinking Robbie is probably a mercenary: I bet the cats have promised him a share of their dry food (he loves cat food) in return for his cooperation. Come to think of it, he ate some of their food while we were at Target this evening!! They meowed plaintively when we got home, whining like he’d stolen it and they were oh-so-hungry, and I foolishly obliged by refilling their bowl… little did I know they were plotting against us the whole time!

;)