After the bruising battle for the top opinion blog in past years, our regulars have been planning to prepare for this year’s competition. However, I am sorry to report that as of this morning I have decided to shelve the plans for a Turley Blog Death Star. Due to these lean times of downsizing and layoffs, the Death Star is no longer financially practicable in light of the recent report by Lehigh students that the star will cost $852 quadrillion. With current revenue generation from advertisements at zero, we will have to focus on other methods of seeking a competitive edge against Volokh Conspiracy, Ann Althouse and the rest.
The students concluded that it would require 1.08 x 1015 metric tons of steel to build the Death Star (which we planned to call the Friendship Star for marketing purposes). Based on the world’s current output it would take 833,315 years to produce enough steel and $852,000,000,000,000,000. Of course, I cannot imagine a better jobs bill if Congress were to offer the blog federal assistance.
In the interim, I want to introduce our latest weekend guest editor:
Source: Lehigh Valley
It shoud have stood Romney instead of Dark Vadar above.
Not having read the blawg (first lines only) nor the comments, I hasten to add my enlightened view.
Current events have trumped long laid plans.
Our leader has had an epiphanical experience. He realized that this is a defining year for mankind. He has not yet revealed his experience nor his final plan for Armageddon.
He is but diverting resources which must be available for greater challenges.
Which?
He realizes this is the year of the great election, many elections.
And who shall we vote for? Obvous say some, difficult say others.
Here is what the Prof experienced.
He realized that choosing the “right” man and the “right” people may not give the “right” results. If we choose a defective but less pestulent Obama and Co, then we will limp along in the same rut as before..
With the same opponent, marginally weakened, and just as intent on mankind’s demise in torturous forms.
If we instead empower Dark Vadar (sp). then we will precipitate us over the cliff, into the abyss of misery. The misery will unleash the masses from their earlier turgid repose eating scraps; and launch the final battle. Armageddon. The battle will mainly be brief, the massing of the folk will cause harsh reprisals, but the onrush of bodies will unleash such horror in the opposing forces that their drugs and intoxication from power will be rendered effectless. Pockets of resistance will continue but will untimately be subdued.
Meanwhile, JT is busy selecting his delegates to the Human Congress scheduled to assemble in Philadelphia, where this time they will not fail as before.
He has only five delegate spots. One is of course his. Let the competition begin. May the most peaceful and wise win.
Having use JT’s own space to write a blog, I hope he will not strike me dead.
He must realize and have anticipated that some will become so inspired that fits and/or visions will emerge, craving space for the lightning to flash and the deluges to fall. Or the writhings of those who have fallen into Lucifers hands. Take your pick.
Seriously, while JT does respect some at VC, it’s hard to take them as competition. This doesn’t mean they’re not a threat, but they do lack the irony and drollness that has characterized this blog as we all try to follow our ringleader’s joie de vivre. We don’t need no stinkin deathstar!
Why does it have to be made of steel? Wouldn’t plastics be better? Plus foam made from asteroid / meteor material?
“Where you can sell a “police state” as a “Patriot Act,” you can sell anything.”
Ain’t that the truth!
“… the Death Star (which we planned to call the Friendship Star for marketing purposes.)”
Nice touch of irony — I hope. Because:
“Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.” George Orwell, Politics and the English Language.
Put another way: “It’s not what you say, it’s what other people hear.” — Dr Frank Lunz, Words that Work.
Irony aside, Professor Turley’s Newspeak nomenclature would probably have generated a tsunami of orders for the “way-cool” product, whether it actually exised or not. Where you can sell a “police state” as a “Patriot Act,” you can sell anything.
I think that guy taught my tax law class.
I think the new dude’s handle should be Sithy Sisyphus.
maybe we could have a “bake sale”.
What’s the Empire’s likelihood of prevailing in a product liability suit against the contractors who built the first Death Star?
Rafflaw: “. . . many chinese workers would die building it . . . ”
Not if overseers built suicide nets around the construction site.
Gene H: “I’d also like to welcome our new guest blogger, Dick Cheney, into the fold.”
LOL!
I’ve always accepted Cheney as a stealth Vader, but now that he has cashed in a horcrux, i dunno.
The weekend crew is a great crew. They will need to ‘splain some things to the “new entity.”
Actually rafflow, I think the key is droid labor and the same factors that are causing massive job loss across the US and the world now, actually make building the Death Star cheap and inevitable.
Fire a few droids off to the moon or a large enough asteroid, wait a few years, and it will be done.
Remember how briefly this book was discussed, and how it was mostly ridiculed?
Jeremy Rifkin: The End of Work
I think the LeHigh Students that computed this figure don’t understand what’s about to hit them. Ask them again on their 25th Anniversary.
Hilarious! I think if we could get the Chinese to build it, we could get it for less. Of course, many chinese workers would die building it, but we could get if for at least a Quadrillion or two less!
“I’d also like to welcome our new guest blogger, Dick Cheney, into the fold.” Yes, of course, he now has a heart! Bring back the American Steel Industry and the Death Star is a go! 🙂
“we will have to focus on other methods of seeking a competitive edge against Volokh Conspiracy, Ann Althouse and the rest.”
**************
Ok JT. I’ll pull out my dusty copy of Bad Boy: The Life And Politics Of Lee Atwater.
How do you think Volokh wojuld look in a combat helmet while seated in a tank?
“In the interim, I want to introduce our latest weekend guest editor:”
HenMan … is that you?
Does that cost include the clan tartan paint job or is that for raw stainless steel?
I’d also like to welcome our new guest blogger, Dick Cheney, into the fold.