Archive for 2006
RIS – Rest in Shame
As if there remained any reason whatsoever to support or be active in the Libertarian Party, this should should remove all doubt. reason: In 2002, the Libertarian Party called you the worst drug warrior in Congress. No hard feelings? Barr: To be honest with you that’s never come up in our discussions. I’m not going to let minor disagreements come between us. It has never come up? Minor disagreement? Honestly, I did not even read…Read More
Gifts for Geeks
A reader and fellow blogger alerts me to a gift guide for geeks that he's taken the time to put together. Go ahead and see if there's anything you can get for a geek, or for yourself if you are one.Read More
By the way…
The new banner for the new design is from this photo (click to enlarge)... I'm standing just in front of our cabin in the woods. That's one reason why this new design takes on added significance for me. This place is quickly becoming my favorite in the world, and if you're a regular reader, you know how much I've been around and lived around the world. In hopes you can share in my delight, here's…Read More
Behold the Power
Juvenile Impudence
I've had something on my mind for a few days since catching an entry from Billy before heading off for the weekend. He refers to an Andrew Sullivan entry displaying this YouTube video of an 8-yr-old girl with, shall we say, "certain views" about religion and a few other things. It's also partly an attack on Bill O'Reilly, whose response I will get to in a bit. I suppose the common reaction to such a…Read More
Now I’m Satisfied
At least until such point that I'm not, anymore. But I think that'll do it. I promise to stop torturing my kind readers with endless design changes. Perhaps you'll agree, though. If you begin with where I started, and then look at the various changes, and what I've finally and delightedly settled on, you can perhaps understand why I just kept at it. Delighted, I am. And I even hope it's pleasing to your eye…Read More
Richard Paey
Back in April, 2004, over 2 1/2 years ago, I posted that you could Rest Easier. You can rest easy now. Richard Paey, 45-year-old father of three, wheelchair bound and disabled from a car accident in 1985, suffering also from multiple sclerosis, is safely locked away for the next 25 years because he purchased pharmaceutical-grade medication to ease his suffering. This is the original Hit & Run article from Jacob Sullum I linked to. It's…Read More
Or, Just Weep
Balko points out that it's the 215th birthday of the Bill of Rights, a set of ten original amendments to the original U.S. Constitution. "Celebrate its birth, or weep for its death." How about neither? How on Earth could I, and why would anyone celebrate an act of such presumption as to wrest authority in an area where no human being or institution comprised of them can morally have any such authority? It's a very…Read More
Almost Christmas; Almost White
Up at the cabin with my side of the family: parents, and the families of two of my three brothers. Dad & mom are headed down to Houston later this week to spend real Christmas with my other brother and his two sons, so we all decided to do an Almost Christmas a week early. It's almost white, too. Temp dropped yesterday into the 20s and we got some light presip, so the ground is…Read More
John Sabotta Was Right
As much as I hate to admit it, he was right. I didn't like it much once it was up, and I grew increasingly ill-content with the whole thing. Just awful. I may not be finished with the new one and may try to play with the wording a bit, but I think I'm headed in a better direction. Of course, another alternative is to go with just the title, and put that tag line…Read More
“Land of the Free” Updates
Here's a Johnston update, a career-advancing DUI update, and "just another isolated incident." But nothing to be alarmed about.Read More
Sent Items
An email just out to an old friend concerning the subordination of the material to the spiritual, on the way to explaining why it's all about individualism vs. collectivism. This was prefaced by a question: ought people be free to determine their own values, whatever they may be? That question forms the foundation of where I'm trying to take this... And it's an important foundation because if this: [his argument about the material being subordinate…Read More
Something You Probably Didn’t Know About Some Jews
At least I didn't. I'll fully admit it. But if you've got an hour, I highly recommend viewing this video of a Jewish political movement that lasted from the late 1800s through the 1950s in America. Why do I think it's noteworthy? Well, I'm not sure, exactly. I call myself the same thing they call themselves, but we are far different in an area so important it's almost a complete mystery that we could be…Read More
Boggles
I wish I could just say I'm speechless, or slap my knee and laugh at the absurd hand dealt by what are shrugged off as "unintended consequences" by most, but the cause and implications are just all too unsurprising. So perhaps I should not have titled this "Boggles," because it really does not boggle my mind. Ever heard of the Wannsee Conference? I blogged about it here, too. The core principle at work is not…Read More
The Age of Some Reason
I wanted to blog this item last week, but for lack of time, here it is now, better late, I suppose. Robert Bidinatto points to an unforgivable flaw in an otherwise typically excellent Victor Davis Hanson essay. Who, exactly, does Dr. Hanson believe champions or represents reason today? Does he truly think that reason is the method of postmodern, relativistic leftists, who sneer at the very possibility of rationality and objectivity? Or is it the…Read More
Infants
The problem with the article I'm going to cite is that everyone will think it's an article about the specific thing he wrote about. But it's not. This statist impulse is a knee-jerk preference for deploying the force of the state (government) to achieve some benefit -- real or imagined, for one's self or others -- in place of voluntary alternatives such as persuasion, education or free choice. If people saw the options in such…Read More
A Day’s Work in the “Land of the Free”
That's the first "1,000 words." Here's the second. You know what? Since I'm tossing around clichés, here's another: every time I see something like this, I laugh. It's not because the image or its description is in any way funny. I'm laughing at you, dear reader. You; the one who thinks I just get way too worked up about the way things are going in the "Land of the Free." You; the one who thinks…Read More
20/20 Hindsight
This has got to be the saddest story I've seen in a while. It breaks my heart to no end. I was watching it a bit on the local and national news, last night, and thinking to myself: no chance they're finding him alive. Sad story, especially when you consider that had he just sat tight, he'd be warm at home with his wife and two daughters this moment. And now, for all the four…Read More
Charming
You head all about Michael Richards' racist rant, did you not? But, did you see "the" video? According to the YouTube description, and Fox News, he is: Activist and bookstore owner Dr. Kamau Kambon, who taught African Studies 241 in the Spring 2005 semester at North Carolina State University. You know what? I don't care about his rant. Of course, as a white guy in this double-standard culture, I refrained from expressing that I didn't…Read More
Running on Time
By all reasonable accounts, so far, it's a decent bet that the 2008 presidential election will feature Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain. Oh, boy. Can't wait for that one. Of course, it's going to be "the most important election of your life" -- superseding the last most important election of your life, which was...uh, just a minute...oh, yea: 2004. They just get importanter and importanter. Matt Welch has dealt John McCain a pretty scathing editorial,…Read More