Barefoot Ramblings has some new definitions to add to your holiday lexicon, and many of them are, I’m sure, quite familiar to you and I.

I’d like to add one. It’s called “Crazy Pizza Guy Rage”, and it happens when the pizza guy gets a delivery order to the Walmart Pharmacy this very afternoon just past, gone bye-bye! And after Crazy Pizza Guy gets through the traffic, and finds a parking space, and gets past the crazy people standing around outside the store, and ducks past the greeter, and starts weaving through shoppers like Maverick through Russian MiGs, he encounters his arch-nemesis: shopping cart lady, barreling down the aisle screaming “OUT OF MY WAY WORTHLESS PEOPLE” with half a dozen kids in tow.

But Crazy Pizza Guy is on a mission, and dammit, will not yield, instead ‘directing’ the shopping cart into the side of the aisle, thereby avoiding a collision that would leave his leg aching the rest of the day. Crazy Pizza Guy walks on by, neglecting to flip the bitch the bird, gets his money and tip, and heads on out. Another successful mission accomplished.

Crazy Pizza Guy Rage also occurs when every other jackass in the state of Maryland who CAN NOT DRIVE TO SAVE THEIR WORTHLESS LIVES fails to drive in a proper manner, this usually involving people who forget to make their turn and then try to back up on busy roads or who pull out in front of oncoming traffic even though they stand a SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN HELL of getting to wherever they need to get, they just really want to get honked at until they GET THEMSELVES GONNERED!

So when I panned I, Robot, I wrote that it stuck me as a poorly made Matrix prequel.

This afternoon I sat down with the intention of getting into some of the episodes in my Star Trek Season Two box set. In particular, I watched an episode entitled “The Ultimate Computer.”

The Enterprise is ordered to report to starbase, where a majority of the crew is removed, and the ship takes on a special guest: Dr. Daystrom, the scientist who invented many of the components of the Enterprise’s computer. He has a new project, the M-5, which Starfleet hopes will be able to assume almost complete control of a starship — in the case of Enterprise, reducing a crew of over four hundred to twenty.

It is Kirk’s mission to sit back and allow the M-5 to control the starship on a variety of missions, so that Starfleet can evaluate the machine’s ability to command. While the missions start easy, and include entering orbit and making recommendations for landing parties, the final phase includes a mock attack of four Federation starships, against which the M-5 must successfuly defend Enterprise.

At first everything goes okay - Kirk feels useless, Spock stands neutral, and McCoy goes after Spock with a vengeance: “Oh, you must be happy, you can be with a computer commander all day.” Spock demurs, stating that a computer can never replace a person’s instinct and judgement.

While the first few missions go okay, and M-5 defends well against a surprise mock attack by the Lexington, the Enterprise suddenly veers off course and attacks and destroys an automated ore freighter. Kirk wants the machine disconnected from the engine core against Daystrom’s wishes, and one of Scotty’s crew is vaporized — the machine, Spock points out, is not only perfectly capable of defending the starship, it is capable of defending itself.

As the scheduled war games fast approach, Kirk and his crew work frantically to disconnect the M-5, but there is nothing they can do, and the starship Excalibur is left dead in space, with Lexington and two others wounded. Finally, Kirk is able to defeat the machine and regain control of his ship. Once again, the moral of the story is that machine cannot replace a human being.

Unless you work in a supermarket, of course. The Giant Food in Hunt Valley, about a year ago, converted half a dozen or so checkout lanes to automated. I finally gave in and tried an automated lane about two months ago. It’s fast, convenient, and easy (so long as you don’t mind bagging your own groceries).

It also doesn’t require a human clerk to ring you up.

Machine replaces man.

And, no, I don’t think an automated checkout lane is going to take control of the store’s phasers and start shooting up minivans anytime soon, but we can hope, can’t we?

Lately conservatives have been bitching and moaning about how they’re vastly outnumbered on college campus. Jonathan Chait has a theory on why that is:

The main causes of the partisan disparity on campus have little to do with anything so nefarious as discrimination. First, Republicans don’t particularly want to be professors. To go into academia - a highly competitive field that does not offer great riches - you have to believe that living the life of the mind is more valuable than making a Wall Street salary. On most issues that offer a choice between having more money in your pocket and having something else - a cleaner environment, universal health insurance, etc. - conservatives tend to prefer the money and liberals tend to prefer the something else. It’s not so surprising that the same thinking would extend to career choices.

In the world of academia, that’s about the nastiest thing you can say about somebody. Bush’s supporters consider it a compliment. “Republicans, from Reagan to Bush, admire leaders who are straight-talking men of faith. The Republican leader doesn’t have to be book smart,” wrote conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks a week before the election. “Democrats, on the other hand, are more apt to emphasize being knowledgeable and thoughtful. They value leaders who see complexities, who possess the virtues of the well-educated.”

The conservatives wants their cake, and they want to eat it too. Fine. And when they stuff their face so full that they explode, I’ll be standing by with a broom and a dustbin to clean up their mess.

Because, y’know, people who blow up can’t clean up their own messes.

Hat tip: The Blue Bus.

These could come in handy on York Road. Also, so could a .45 automatic.