Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category
Huzzah for the SCOTUS
Thursday, June 26th, 2008If I'm to understand http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/ correctly, it would seem that the Supreme Court just recently released their ruling on Heller vs. The District of Columbia which has decided that the second amendment protects an individuals right to bear arms. This is outstanding news. Therefore, I hereby declare today Second Amendment ...
The Drug War
Thursday, June 19th, 2008I realize that it's bad form for me - the one author of this website that hardly ever authors - to have my most recent article in several weeks be nothing more than a simple drive by linking, but you know what? I do what I want! Here, John Stossel makes ...
What if climate-change alarmists are right?
Friday, May 23rd, 2008Max Borders presents a pretty good case as to why State solutions to those problems are worse than the problems themselves.
THAT is real journalism!
Saturday, May 17th, 2008Keith Olbermann gets a bad rap from libertarians because of his left-liberal socialism and the rarity of a dissenting commentator ever appearing as a guest on his show. Not having watched or heard much from him, I can't back up the latter accusation, but I've watched enough to know the ...
Happy Mother’s Day
Sunday, May 11th, 2008It was considered a pretty stupid idea back when it was introduced as a potential official holiday in the Senate.
Market anarchist blag carnival
Thursday, May 1st, 2008See the 14th monthly market anarchist blag carnival, at Radical Libertarian. I submitted my post about the abolition of government schools, from early in the month. There's lots of other good entries, but I haven't come close to getting through all of them. Thanks to Francois Tremblay for introducing me to ...
I hate hippies!
Saturday, April 19th, 2008On Chris Lander's web page Stuff White People Like, there are primarily two types of blag posts: entries into the ever-growing list of stuff white people like, and news items that exemplify white people liking those things. So far, the most famous and well-liked entry in the list of stuff ...
Obama’s wrong and so are (some of) his critics
Sunday, April 13th, 2008Barack Obama created a little stir with two of his speeches recently, at least among those of us who still haven't been bewitched by his ostentatious oratory. First, in San Francisco, he said, "So it's not surprising then that [when voters] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or ...
Vox Day writes something interesting
Saturday, April 12th, 2008In a rare departure from his self-glorifying discussions of his latest book and egotistical condescension towards atheists, scientists, feminists, and all non-Christian non-Creationists, Vox Day talks about politics and makes it funny at the same time: "You've got to put the video game away once in a while." - Barack Obama You know, ...
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 ...
‘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.
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
LRC blag back to normal?
Friday, February 29th, 2008Now that Ron Paul's presidential run has petered to an unfortunate end, I sincerely hope the Ron Paul fan club can go back to blagging about politics, freedom, and the State in general, and not Ron Paul and the election and polls all day, every day. Maybe now when I ...
Statist troll bingo
Monday, February 25th, 2008You can play anywhere, any time! (Created by Francois Tremblay.)
Good writing
Thursday, February 7th, 2008Johnny Kramer has some good advice on how it's done and how it's not done. I have a feeling that, when I read his column more carefully and thoroughly, I will see how a lot of his no-no's apply to me. I am not a trained writer, I admit (trained ...
Giant Douche vs. Turd Sandwich
Thursday, February 7th, 2008A friend of mine, Chris, wrote a cheerful and optimistic note about the upcoming election on Facebook: Due to extreme boredom, a desire to exercise my brain, and the fact that I am still apparently unqualified to be hired for any job in the Athens area, I have decided to write ...
High rents are usually caused by…
Thursday, February 7th, 2008Anyone, anyone? Bueller?... Bueller?... Government! Ding ding ding ding ding! I'm not sure if Brian of the MGoBlog was being serious or mocking the business-hating State worshipers who surround him in Ann Arbor when he wrote this blag post about Leopold Brothers closing, but I'm sure plenty of our enlightened ...
Blagging: “Karaoke for shy people”
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008Brilliant! I got that from Andrew Sullivan, who got it from this story in the New York Review of Books. The largest number of blog posts, some 37 percent, are now in Japanese, according to a recent Washington Post article by Blaine Harden, and most of these are polite and self-effacing—"karaoke ...
Derbyshire on Obama
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008Paeloconservative and NRO's resident sane person John Derbyshire makes at least a good point or two in his blag post of skepticism towards Obama's allure. Derb, like me, just doesn't get Barack Obama's attraction to the American people.I dunno, I must be missing a gene or two. Everybody, including even ...
Vox Day’s ignorance about scientists
Monday, January 28th, 2008Vox Day takes an ignorant shot at research scientists:While I have tremendous regard for the effectiveness of the scientific method, I have very, very little respect for scientists. They are very, very far from the impartial devotees of scientody that they so love to portray themselves being. With a few ...
Workaholics, workophiliacs, and clock watchers
Saturday, January 26th, 2008Because of a variety of factors, I've felt a little less than passionate and motivated about lab lately. I think these factors are mainly: fixation on computer-related free-time activities; frustration with getting scooped and having to hurry off our paper and then abandon the project; and lack of confidence that ...
Kooks and conspiracy theorists
Monday, January 21st, 2008Among libertarians online, mainly in their blags, there has been some discussion, pretty heated, disappointed, and resentful, about the revelations that Ron Paul's newsletter of the 1980's and early 1990's contained very strongly racist, anti-Semitic, bigoted, and conspiracy-theorist/paranoid essays. Very few of them ever had a byline, so no attribution ...
A new low for Randall Munroe
Monday, January 21st, 2008I thought today's xkcd comic was uncharacteristically smug and laaaaaame. I mean, is it about religion? Or people who think they're prophets? Or magicians like David Blaine or something? I took it as the first one. I'm not even religious. I don't believe in a religion. But I found it completely ...
Maybe they do deserve their reputation…
Monday, January 21st, 2008Having lived next to the state for most of my life, I never knew South Carolinians were quite this ignorant and misguided about things.
Republocrats in a nutshell
Saturday, January 19th, 2008One Tony Woodlief sums up our political system quite nicely:Both parties are convinced that government is exceptionally skilled at doing things they want more of, and entirely incompetent when it comes to things they don't like. Every candidate is a candidate for change, using the failed ideas of the past, ...
Wow, freedom of choice works
Saturday, January 19th, 2008Customers desert a chain of restaurants that banned smoking. Businessmen made a calculation, implemented a policy, offered it to their customers, and the customers chose against them. End of story. Or maybe not. But it should be. That's kind of how protection of private property rights works in giving the ...
Undecided voters
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008As I've heard people on TV, the radio, in person, and my friends on Facebook declare themselves undecided voters in the Michigan primary and other states, I keep recalling Brian's line in a recent Family Guy episode: "Undecided voters are the biggest idiots on the planet." (I would have provided ...
Primary one-upmanship
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008As you might have heard, the state of Michigan might not have any say in the nomination of the Democratic candidate for president at the Democrats' convention in August because the state tried to increase its impact and visibility by moving its primary up from February 5 to January 15. ...
The danger of legislating morality
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008Vox Day blags about atheist Brent Rasmussen, who, like the Christian libertarian Day, understands that if you use the violent, coercive police power of the State to force your moral-religious beliefs on others, then your victims can, with equal justification and ease, force theirs upon you when they have gained ...
He Needs More Cowbell.
Monday, January 14th, 2008You've probably already read this. But regardless, I'm linking it anyway. Christopher Walken is awesome. Last Second Clarification Edit: It should be noted that this is not actually written by Christopher Walken (or at least I suspect heavily it is not - if it is, though, it would be much more ...
Ryan McMaken is a natural selection “skeptic”
Sunday, January 13th, 2008So that's what fundamentalist Catholic nutjobs are calling themselves these days. Crazy kids. Notice how he tries to preemptively deflect such "vilification" from himself, even though it happens to apply to him perfectly, though admittedly not to other skeptics such as Fred Reed. He concludes: Beyond labeling everything they disagree ...
Anthony de Jasay on the State
Saturday, January 12th, 2008I've been reading Anthony de Jasay's magnum opus, The State, since before Christmas but haven't gotten through it very fast. I don't read it regularly or in large blocks of time, and it is a very deep book. Every passage impresses me with his analysis and logic, though. I ...
Thousands demand to be exploited
Saturday, January 12th, 2008From Sean Corrigan of the Mises blag: Atlanta-Journal Constitution: "They came in droves—high school students, retirees, young moms, the unemployed—all for a shot at a job at a new Wal-Mart on Memorial Drive in central DeKalb County. In just two days, and with virtually no advertising or even any signs, ...
You’re to blame, Boortz
Saturday, January 12th, 2008Fascist neocon warmonger Neal Boortz and every other nationally recognized neoconservative pundit are just beside themselves in their fervent hatred of Hillary Clinton, their desperate pleas that the nation do anything it can to keep her out of the White House, and their predictions of dire consequences if she wins. ...
Circular reasoning
Saturday, January 12th, 2008Unfortunately for them, Creationists must rely on nothing but disputations of (supposedly) unconvincing science and circular reasoning to argue their points. While the former certainly can have its value, the embarrassing multitude and speciousness of their circular arguments renders the rest of their statements less credible. A recent commenter at Vox ...
People who defeat their own arguments
Saturday, January 12th, 2008I don't know why I was thinking about this now, but when I was at home for Thanksgiving I found an article from Fark.com about Black Friday scams that retailers don't want you to know about, and how to avoid them. I actually made the unwise move of reading the ...
Helpless
Sunday, January 6th, 2008In my readings on the internet in recent years, I have learned about what an evil, greedy, deceitful, manipulative, criminal, homicidal cult Scientology is. I know what L. Ron Hubbard's real motives were in creating his cult (greed, power, control), and I know he had indications of paranoid schizophrenia, traits ...
Habeas Wha?
Friday, December 28th, 2007Is posting a speech a total cop out when it comes to submitting a post? You bet. But that doesn't make this speech, concerning the ever growing disdain the Federal Government has for every American's natural right to habeas corpus, any less relevant. Please, enjoy the wonderful Judge Napolitano. ...
Home air fascism
Thursday, December 27th, 2007The December 14, 2007 edition of NPR's "Science Friday" with Ira Flatow was a veritable orgy of statolatrist megalomania and top-rate fodder for libertarian ranting. Their topic during the hour in question was toxins in the air in our homes. You can listen to the entire hour here (click the play ...
Objectivists against Ron Paul
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007Stephan Kinsella has an excellent refutation of the Objectivist disapproval of Ron Paul as candidate for president—and, indeed, his entire philosophy in general. Kinsella says, It is clear that the primary objection of Objectivists to Paul is his foreign policy views and non-interventionism. The other criticisms do not seem to ...
Minarchism, libertarianism, and negative rights
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007Jeffrey Tucker's recent account of his experience in court spawned a quite lively discussion in the Mises blag about private provision of law enforcement in the absence of a State. I made one of the comments towards the end. Many of the minarchist positions and objections are good and well ...