Archive for March, 2008
Not a sleeping giant
Monday, March 31st, 2008After September 11, 2001, I remember callers to talk-radio shows (probably Boortz and Hannity) and possibly online columnists (perhaps at TownHall.com or World Net Daily) using the old phrase "they've awoken a sleeping giant" to refer to the crimes committed against Americans and the wrath they were about to incur. ...
Government funding of science
Monday, March 31st, 2008Obviously the main problem with scientific research across the world today is the fact that it is funded primarily with tax money. The main problem with scientific research, according to most scientists, is that not enough tax money is given to scientists. Bruce Alberts, lead author of one of the most ...
The ice cream of the future
Thursday, March 27th, 2008I've raised this point several times over the last several years: Dippin' Dots, that delicious iced cream product found in shopping malls, amusement parks, and occasionally other places, has claimed it is "the ice cream of the future" for at least 15 years. Come on, it's the future by now. ...
Stocks before whore, everyone’s poor
Thursday, March 27th, 2008The March 17 Daily Show had a great couple of segments on the idiotic federal government and Federal Reserve and the recession the United States is in. A rerun of this ran tonight at 8:00, which is why I'm blagging about it now. Talking about the $600 tax refund the State ...
Grade-A tirade
Thursday, March 27th, 2008Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an absolutely fantastic tirade about the complete embarrassment and failure of the Bush regime. Some highlights (the majority of the article, perhaps): You are not paying taxes merely to fund torture and bomb-dropping and the killing of countless innocents in Iraq in ...
Staggering ignorance
Friday, March 21st, 2008In this week's issue of Nature, John Browning reviews Nicholas Carr's latest book, The Big Switch. I like reading Nicholas Carr's blag, Rough Type, for its insights and commentaries on the computer/technology industry and its future. This post isn't really about Carr or his book or his blag or the future ...
Bar-stool economics
Thursday, March 20th, 2008The tax system of our country analogized to pub-goers. Kelly: To discover the only reason I deemed this link worthy of posting on our blag, notice who its author is. Hat tip: Radley Balko.
‘Speak English’ signs allowed on private property
Thursday, March 20th, 2008Well, that's good because DISCRIMINATION ISN'T A VIOLATION OF RIGHTS, you self-righteous, brain-dead busybodies. Article from MSNBC.
R.I.P., Arthur C. Clarke
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008The author of Rendezvous With Rama, Childhood's End, The Fountains of Paradise, and 2001: A Space Odyssey and one of the "big three" Grand Masters of science-fiction (Heinlein, Asimov) has died at the age of 90.
Corporate-State Socialism in action
Monday, March 17th, 2008Sheldon Richman wrote two posts in the last two days that are great examples of blag posts about libertarianism and economics for non-libertarians. They are very instructive because they mention ways in which specific State actions help the rich and powerful and screw the little guy. In this case the ...
Libertarians and Godwin’s Law
Friday, March 14th, 2008Libertarian writers need to learn Godwin's Law. It states that as a discussion on an internet forum grows longer, the probability of someone comparing another group or ideology to Hitler or the Nazis approaches 1. It might be more appropriately called Godwin's Rule nowadays, because the rule is that you ...
Unintended consequences in agriculture
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008Jack Hedin, a farmer from Minnesota, tells his story of how the United States Department of Agriculture prevents local growers from expanding to more than just farmers' markets. This is the result of coercive policies whose stated goal is to promote agriculture and help farmers. Since it must necessarily be ...
Cantor set
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008Wabulon, a blagger at Gene Callahan's Crash Landing, wrote a post that Kelly would probably like about the Cantor set. I didn't get it at all. I used to be good at math, really good, before I got too close to that vast discipline known as number theory. I never ...
Why computers work and health care doesn’t
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008I think arguing by analogy is quite effective as a way to introduce an argument to someone whose beliefs are very different from yours. It can be quite instructive. Bill Walker wrote a good article last month about the contrast between the computer industry and the health care industry. Instead ...
Well, then I’m going to live forever
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008Yet another study extolls the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption on cardiovascular health. The study actually didn't find that drinking wine makes you live longer, probably because it wasn't a long enough study. After 4 years of follow-up, new moderate drinkers had a 38% lower chance of developing cardiovascular disease ...
Smoking ban prediction
Monday, March 10th, 2008As far as I am aware, the only friend or semi-close acquaintance of mine who opposes bans on smoking in "public" (i.e., private) businesses is Kelly. I wouldn't be surprised if some of my family did, because they are pretty libertarian, but it's never come up. Then there's the college ...
California criminalizes home-schooling
Monday, March 10th, 2008I keep telling you, it IS happening here. Charles Johnson has some excellent commentary, as usual, on this.
Dilbert on nonvoting
Monday, March 10th, 2008I was perusing Francois Tremblay's blag and was delighted to find this post, consisting entirely of a Dilbert comic on nonvoting that Wally Conger posted. (By the way, at first I assumed that whoever first uploaded this comic got it from February 16 (my birthday) of the 2008 Dilbert page-a-day ...
Rights don’t come from the Constitution
Sunday, March 9th, 2008Facebook's US politics question for today was: "Does the Second Amendment give individual citizens the right to own guns?" Um, the Constitution doesn't GIVE anybody any rights to anything, you fucking retards. And even if that were the stated purpose of a Constitution, the fact that it claims to give someone ...
PC idiocy at Harvard
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008At Harvard University, that bastion of tolerance and openness, one of its gyms will be closed to men for a few hours a week. Why? To encourage women to use the weight room unintimidated? To allow more women's club sports to flourish? No, it is "to accommodate Muslim women who ...
Taking aim at president-worship
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008Werner Lange wrote a column in the Chicago Tribune entitled "Taking aim at Presidents' Day". He reveals himself to be enamored of the highest State power in the world and wholly ignorant of basic American history. What or whom are we really celebrating on this day? The office or the ...