If you want to kick off your weekend on a positive note, whatever you do, don’t read Paul Krugman’s latest opinion piece. He writes that a Republican takeover of the House will ensure several more years of political instability and economic weakness. I want to believe that things won’t be quite so dire, but it’s difficult to argue with his underlying assumptions. The economy could still recover quickly in spite of Washington gridlock, but most of the economists I’ve read seem to think that’s unlikely. Then again, the future has a tendency to unfold in ways that don’t quite go according to plan.

Scientists continue to make strides in their quest to let me download porn just by thinking about it. In a recent experiment, human test subjects with previously installed brain electrodes were able to choose one displayed image over the other just by thinking about the selected picture. This might not seem like a big deal, but it gives researchers a better idea of how specific neurons are fired when generating a thought or concept. If the activity of specific neurons can be measured, it might point the way to brain-computer interfaces that are sufficiently fine-tuned to allow the user to perform complex tasks via neural activity.

In other words, brain-powered porn surfing is inching towards reality.

A Boston College law student recently wrote an open letter to the dean requesting a refund in exchange for leaving school without a J.D. The author argues that he shouldn’t be saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans at a time when the job market for newly minted attorneys is atrocious. I sympathize with his plight, but I’m not sure I find his argument to have much merit. Law schools make no guarantees about a graduate’s ability to find a job even in the best of economic times. They may brag about job placement rates in their brochures, but any 1L knows that this doesn’t rise to the level of a contractual promise. Law schools are in the business of providing a legal education; what happens after that is largely up to the individual. That service may be vastly overpriced given current employment prospects, but that’s a different argument. College students across the country who are confronting the strong possibility of unemployment or underemployment could make similar demands, but most studies show that college grads have increased earning power over the long run. Law school grads will probably enjoy even greater earning power than college grads over the long term, but that’s admittedly little consolation to those currently searching for work.

October is National Disability Employment Month here in the U.S., but American gimps aren’t the only ones venturing into the job market. Liz Carr, a columnist for the BBC’s disability-themed Ouch! website, writes about the challenges of adapting to the rigors of a 9-to-5 office job after years of self-employment. She comments on the shock of getting up early, being the only person with a visible disability in the office, and bringing an attendant to work with her every day. Much of it sounds awfully familiar, although the awkward behavior of colleagues that Liz describes is a distant memory for me. Once my team members realized I wasn’t likely to die in the middle of a meeting, they quickly became pretty comfortable in my presence.

A word of advice to Liz as she settles into office life: volunteer to take on some extra assignment that nobody else wants. You’d be surprised how quickly that earns you friends.

Law students don’t have a reputation for spontaneously bursting into laughter, but that’s what happened during a debate at a Delaware law school when Delaware Republican Senate candidate (and avowed anti-onanist) Christine O’Donnell challenged her opponent’s assertion that the principle of separation of church and state is contained in the the Constitution. Her comments prompted a lot of guffaws from the audience, but liberal commentator Peter Daou points out that O’Donnell is simply (if clumsily) repeating a talking point that is popular among Christian conservatives: the words “separation of church and state” don’t appear verbatim in the Constitution, which means the whole concept was fabricated by godless liberals after one of their cocaine-fueled orgies. O’Donnell may not care if the audience laughs at her because she knows she has almost zero chance of winning the election. Instead, she may be burnishing her far-right credentials for a post-election gig as an authoritative voice of the Tea Party.

If that is her strategy, it’s a clever one. The Tea Party needs telegencic spokespersons, but I’m not sure O’Donnell is ready for the Sunday talk show circuit. Silly me; she probably won’t venture far from the Fox News lair.