Link-o-rama I have just updated my blogroll to include many more worthwhile blogs. Most of these new additions are long overdue. If I didn't include you this time and I should have, then it's not a slight, but an inadvertent oversight. Just remind me that you're still out there. I didn't intend to drop anybody from my roll (unless you've merged or gone out of business), so if you suddenly can't find your name any more, it was an honest mistake, just let me know. Likewise if I spelled your name wrong or something.

And this is just as good a day as any to say that I added Michele to my blogroll, which I was planning to do anyway.

Army Fires Arabic Linguists for Being Gay
Hey guys! We're in the middle of a war. We need all the talented people we can muster. My Arabic is rusty, but I remember enough to know that the Arabic word for "insane" is "majnun". [link from Mike Silverman]

Of course the Democrats and Republicans will do whatever they can to get around the campaign finance laws. As long as the government regulates commerce and spends tax dollars, interested parties will inevitably pay what it takes to influence the political and regulatory processes. So-called "campaign finance reforms" only raise the cost of participation and therefore give the advantage for purchasing influence to established moneyed interests relative to everyone else. While some folks are apparently naive enough to think that campaign finance reform will somehow benefit the average taxpayer, those in Congress who actually craft the laws are cynical enough to make the laws work in their favor.

What would you do if you were the President and you wanted to fire your SEC Chairman? You can't actually fire him, because you don't have the statutory authority to do so. What you might do instead, as a first step, would be to have one of your senior aides make an anonymous statement to a reporter to the effect that the White House is angry about something that the SEC Chairman has done, and to add that "no decision has been made" whether to ask for his resignation.