The story so far…

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested last month by the FBI on corruption charges. He was acccused of attempting to trying to sell (or, at the very least, barter) the United States Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, which it is his right and duty to fill. To date, Blagojevich remains defiant. He has not resigned, nor has he been impeached.

In fact, he went ahead and made an appointment to the seat anyway, former Illinois attorney general Roland Burris. Democrats have stated that they will refuse to seat any candidate appointed by Blagojevich. Republicans have called for a special election to fill the seat, but Democrats are unlikely to go along with such a plan, since it would potentially open up the seat to a Republican.

Senators on both sides of the aisle agree that Blagojevich has no moral authority to fill the seat, and that any candidate sent by Blagojevich will be tainted. On the other hand, it seems that Blagojevich has the legal authority to do so, and that any federal attempt to block his candidate could be viewed as a violation of states’ rights. However, Jesse White, the Illinois Secretary of State, has said that he would refuse to certify any Blagojevich appointment, so that might give the Senate some legal and political cover.

As far as I know, nobody has expressed any concern about Burris himself in terms of qualifications or suitability for the job, and nobody has accused him of gaining the appointment improperly.

Burris is headed to Washington today to start his new job. So I guess the Question of the Week is this:

Should Roland Burris be seated in the United States Senate?

I was both amused and frustrated by VerizonMath, a website dedicated to an odd billing discrepancy, and the agonizing exchange that followed. You should really listen to the whole phone call, but here is the basic issue:

George Vaccaro was quoted a price of .002 cents per kilobyte for data usage while traveling in Canada. He later learned that he was being billed at a rate of .002 dollars per kilobyte. So instead of being charged an extra 71 cents, as he had expected, he found a 71 dollar charge on his bill. When he called to complain, he was unable to get anyone to understand what he was talking about, no matter how clearly he tried to explain it.

My .002 cents is that the exchange reminds me of the Upton Sinclair quote (made popular recently by Al Gore):

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

If they understood what he was saying, they’d have to take the charge off of his bill, which they clearly were not prepared to do.

From Twelfth Night:

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Emerging wireless ads strut hotshot-emeritus Guido Daniele’s groovy hand-painting art from nations yon where you enjoy non-normative service, whether Egypt’s low runes or China’s worthy embankment.

More hand-painting ads here!

This blog turned two years old yesterday. Right now, it has a Technorati ranking of 453,743, with an authority of 13. As of midnight, New Year’s Eve, there were 525 posts in 62 categories, and 1,573 approved comments. The site also had 27,055 hits. Many thanks again to all who have visited and also to those of you who have joined in the fun.

I haven’t been around much in the past week, so I’ll post a light Googleplex today. All of the following phrases are search terms that brought people to this website in the past two weeks. As always, I invite readers to respond.

I first rise in Japan; for the Brits, never set;
I’m an athlete of Phoenix who drives to the net;
A Connecticut spot where you might place a bet;
And I brought to the Web its first Java applet.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Sara. See comments for answer.