Month: October 2003

I had been planning a post tonight on a different subject, but as my luck had it, the damned Verizon DSL connection crapped out, and I spent — literally — four hours talking to technical support (in FIVE phone calls), being led like an idiot through countless cruel and pointless idle exercises I knew would…

According to this blogger, the champions of statistical integrity who’ve been attacking John Lott believe guns are some sort of evil phallic symbol. (Link via Instapundit.) Numbers and statistics must be getting awfully boring! The anti-gun number crunchers also seem to believe that among the crimes caused by guns is the theft of guns themselves…

This is a very scary idea which must be stopped: one of the industry guys said that their big legislative priority is to try to create a regime where you have to register with a unique, verifiable ID to access the Internet. Not long ago, there was an excellent discussion of the genuinely Orwellian potential…

Glenn Reynolds offers one of the best analyses I have seen of the California election. One of his readers opined: Part of the blame for the California mess must be assigned to the state’s Republicans for their sheer political ineptness in recent years. The system doesn’t work when there is no credible opposition party. Very…

What do you do if you are surrounded on all sides by people who want to civilize you, and convert you and your people to their way of life? Head for the hills? Long, long ago, a tribe of people (generally considered to be of Mongolian stock) did just that, settling in the remote Naga…

UPDATE: This post can also be read at Blogcritics.org. (A great site, by the way!) Is Stephen W. Stanton a prophet? My clairvoyant skills are not what they should be, so I cannot predict today’s California election results. But I am pretty good at predicting retrospectively, and I think I can fairly state that if…

Why would anyone buy this ridiculous item? Give me a break! UPDATE IN THE INTEREST OF FULL DISCLOSURE: Like Don Watkins, I am a major fan of both Howard Stern and Frank J. This places me in a clear conflict of interest with regard to monkey references — because for many years I thought that…

Arthur Silber offers some astute comments on this story, which is a revisitation of the “reparative therapy” issue: Certainly adults have the right to pursue any kind of therapy they wish, to whatever end. I don’t think anybody ever seriously said otherwise. It does sound to me, however, as if the reservations expressed in the…

There’s a lot of fuss right now about Fox News, and “misperceptions.” This study cites (gulp!) statistics which purport to demonstrate that Americans who get their news from Fox suffer from a higher number of “misperceptions” about the war in Iraq than those who get their news from other networks. NPR’s fans (according to the…

Yow! Mike Silverman reports that as of now, the Traditional Values Coalition: has their entire web site hidden behind a password/registration system. Not just their “private” membership alerts and such, but even their press releases require you to go through a complex registration process which includes a random number generator! I’ve never heard of any…

Not that anyone cares about facts, but I love the way they become such a joke — especially during a last minute, campaign smear feeding frenzy. It seems that “a few words” disappeared from Schwarzenegger’s reported comments from 30 years ago — but now they have been “found.” The source claims he is “amazed” —…

It’s still (barely) Friday, which means that I had to find an online test. ANY online test. Friday online tests are a Classical Values tradition (even if they’re as kooky as this one). Anyway, I don’t know much about Princess Bride characters, because I haven’t read the book OR seen the movie. But I took…

This is going to be a tough post, but I see some major new anti-drug tyranny ahead, and, while I know I can do little to stop it, I couldn’t live with myself if I remained silent and watched while another of the few remaining shreds of freedom is lost forever. I sincerely, truly hope…

Americans are known to have a short political memory. The election is a year away. Therefore, things are being done right now which are intended to resonate with voters in one year. Next November, middle class voters, it is hoped, will think of one word when they think of Republicans: SLEAZE. That was what the…

This woman would be safer (and better off) as an atheist. Instead, she has taken the time to read the Koran and study the hadiths, and make an impassioned plea for Muslim tolerance. For this (and for her self-described lesbianism) she has received death threats. Is freedom of speech incompatible with Islamic fundamentalism? (A lot…

I need to apologize. Because I take pride in avoiding the ad hominem approach to arguing, and try to stick to logic as much as I can, I am not proud of something I said the other night when I retaliated in kind to what I saw as a rude comment. The commenter (that’s this…

If you want to understand the California election, read this (link from the ever-vigilant Roger Simon): What we have is a wildcard election with a wildcard entrant (Arnold Schwartzenneger) threatening the Christian Conservative stranglehold on the California Republican party. The Republican Party here (which produced mildly notable politicians like Ronald Regan prior to the christian…

Dull and uninspired. That’s the assessment of more than one blogger about the designs proposed so far as replacements for the World Trade Center. Here’s Megan McArdle, writing at Tech Central Station (and here’s her blog link): The answers that have been so far offered by the LMDC have been thoroughly unsatisfactory. None of the…