As if my Monday wasn’t already sucking hard enough on its own, I received this letter today:

Dear Resident:

About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.

Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Robert M. Groves
Director, U.S. Census Bureau

This letter literally made me throw up a little in my mouth. Gone is even the pretense that the census will only be used for its proper, constitutional purpose. If filling out the census form means I’ll be helping my community get its “fair share” of stolen loot, then I won’t be filling it out at all.

[Royal personages] do not have the right to receive physical obeisance from American citizens. Miss Manners has had to issue the decree many times now that American ladies should not curtsy [ed: nor should American gentlemen bow] to royalty, and there are still those who do so at every available opportunity. They are in error, not only in the matter of world etiquette, but of geography, physics and ancient and modern history.

. . .

Bending the knee is the traditional gesture of an inferior to a superior. . . . The curtsy is but one form of the gesture of adoring a sovereign. . . .

Thus, those who believe that curtsying demonstrates their own high social rank or breeding are mistaken. Their geography is faulty if they think that bending down will elevate them; the notion that there is a law of physics stating that what goes down must come up is erroneous.

As for history, Miss Manners considers that the matter was settled by the philosopher Callisthenes, who disabused Alexander the Great of the notion that the Persian custom of groveling to royalty could be established in Macedonia and Greece. . . .

If you require more recent history, there is that matter of the war that we Americans fought to free ourselves of subjugation to the British Crown. . . .

How, then, do we Americans properly treat royalty? With the dignity and respect we naturally show to heads of state and other foreign officials. Our traditional form of greeting is to shake the hand. This gesture is not interchangeable with that of the curtsy [ed: or bow, or genuflection], as the State Department once tried to suggest when obfuscating the matter, claiming that the word “curtsy” being derived from “courtsey,” it signified no more. Your government should not have to inform you that the word “courtesy” derives from behavior in the courts of royalty, which is no business of ours.

Judith A. Martin, Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior 692-94. (2d Ed. 2005).

~U.S. President Barack Obama visits King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud in Saudi Arabia in June, 2009

~U.S. President Barack Obama visits Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko in Japan in November, 2009

Update, 24 Nov. 2009:

~U.S. President Barack Obama visits Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in China in November, 2009

According to Reuters, FCC commissioners voted 5-0 today to proceed with crafting a “net neutrality” rule, sending the current language (which would strip telecom companies of the right to control how they use their own property) to the printing office for public comment. Comments will be accepted until January 14th.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available online here [PDF].

You can upload your comments using ECFS here, using proceeding number 09-191. You can read others’ comments on ECFS here.

I’m writing comments to submit right now. I’ll post my comments here when I finish. I encourage everyone who loves the Internet and doesn’t want to see it become the Postal Service of the 21st Century to do the same.

Via Prawfsblawg, a story from Reuters India reports that a British official has asked California Governor Schwarzenegger to shut down a Website that she says encourages prostitution in the UK. Prostitution is legal in the UK. Quoth the official,

Surely it can’t be too difficult for “The Terminator” to terminate Punternet and that’s what I am demanding that he does.

Patently, Ms Harman is not acquainted with our First Amendment, which is precisely what prevents “The Terminator” from “terminating” such a Website. The Website’s owner responds with a brief lesson in free speech, then thanks Ms Harman for the beneficial effects of her ignorance:

In closing, I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused. I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the PunterNet community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never have found them.

Just remembered I forgot to comment on the recent capture in Switzerland of notorious international fugitive and child rapist Roman Polanski, who apparently also has directed a number of quite good movie-films.

Lessons Polanski should learn from this affair:

1. Don’t rape children.
2. Don’t skip bail.
3. Don’t plead guilty if you aren’t willing to do the max.
4. DON’T RAPE CHILDREN!