After skimming through my blog entries from the last government shutdown, I’m struck by how blasé I was about the whole thing. Of course, I was able to use vacation time during that time and I wasn’t too worried about losing any income. Now, I’m officially laid off and will be filing for unemployment, which leaves me feeling decidedly un-blasé. Actually, I should do that now. Enjoy your 4th.

Less than 7 hours remain until a possible state government shutdown and I’m still not sure if I’ll be reporting to work tomorrow. GOP leaders spoke to reporters about an hour ago and expressed optimism that a shutdown could be avoided, but it’s in their interest to project optimism. Unlike Governor Dayton, they are up for election next year and voters may take out their frustration with this gridlock on them. I’m skeptical that a deal will be reached tonight, but I’d be happy to proven wrong.

What frustrates me most about this mess is that any final deal is unlikely to resolve the state’s structural deficit. This deal will probably include short-term fixes (Medicaid surcharges, accounting shifts, maybe gambling revenue) that will only patch up the hole until the next election. In two years, we’ll probably face another deficit and–depending on the composition of the Legislature at the time–another round of political brinkmanship over the continued operation of state government. A couple of decades ago, no state political leader would even contemplate allowing a shutdown to occur. Now, it’s becoming just another bargaining chip in service of ideology. This isn’t the kind of sane, responsible governance that has characterized Minnesota for so long.

We should be better than this.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia will never be mistaken for a geek, but his majority opinion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn. is worth a read if you have an interest in videogames and 1st Amendment jurisprudence. The ruling strikes down California’s ban on the sale of violent videogames and Scalia makes a compelling, carefully reasoned argument for extending 1st Amendment protections to videogames while affirming that children also enjoy 1st Amendment protections from the state’s paternalistic instincts. He compares the current hand-wringing regarding videogames’ effects on children to previous episodes in American history when dime novels, movies, and comic books all took their turns as punching bags for anyone who feared our nation’s youth stood on the brink of degeneracy. And while Scalia can’t resist making a few of his patented rhetorical flourishes, the decision is free of the unfortunate histrionics that sometimes appear in his opinions (although usually when he’s in the minority).

We also learn that Justices Breyer and Alito are complete buzzkills who will never understand the pleasure of taking down a zombie with a headshot delivered by a double-barreled shotgun.

Now that the Harry Potter series will be available as e-books beginning in October, I may actually get around to finishing the books. I read the first two volumes way back in the early Aughts, but somehow never made time for the rest. I could easily borrow the books from my fan-girl sister, but I don’t mind contributing a few dollars to Ms. Rowling’s cultural empire. As long as I can read them on any device of my choosing, I’ll have no complaints. But now I must decide whether to see the final movie before reading the rest of the books. Thanks to the spoilerific nature of the Internet, I know the generals of the story’s ending, but not the specifics.

What say you, Potter-maniacs? Will seeing the final movie affect my enjoyment of books 3-7?

You’ve seen Pulp Fiction, right? Have you seem it with everything edited out except the bad language? Because you will now. Warning: Extremely NSFW unless you’re Rahm Emmanuel’s personal secretary.

The weird thing about this video is that it still provides a rough outline of the movie’s plot. I’m tempted to show this to someone who has never seen Pulp Fiction, followed by the movie itself. Afterwards, I’d ask which version they found more entertaining.