Month: April 2009

The announcement that Pat Toomey will be running against Arlen Specter (again) in the Republican Primary election is a reminder of a stubborn problem plaguing the Republican Party. While I’m not enamored of Specter’s borderline liberalism, I find Toomey’s social conservatism annoying, but it isn’t the point of this post to weigh in on the…

Polywell Fusion looks to be getting a $2 million boost from the DoD Recovery Act Plan. Here is what the DoD has to say about their plan. Today, March 20, 2009, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its EXPENDITURE PLAN for the projects to be funded with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.…

In news that warms my heart, I see that right here in Ann Arbor, a Tax Day Tea Party Protest drew over 200 people: About 200 residents turned up for the Tax Day Tea Party on the University of Michigan’s Diag at noon today. The protest coincided with similar events across the country. And locally,…

While I am not always successful, I often seek to understand what drives the mental processes of those who devote their lives to meddling with other people’s lives. Sometimes, though, these mental processes prove very difficult to understand, as I found when I read this report about a Michigan state task force which wants to…

M. Simon just sent me a wonderful quote about progress: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. This is so because those who gain positions of power tend always to extend the bounds of it. Power must always be constrained or limited else it will increase to…

Which reminds me a lot of America in the 50s when it was comic books, duck tail haircuts, and rock ‘n roll. It seems there is always some tool of the devil that needs exploiting. And the tools of the devil go in an out of fashion. In 1914 the once legal over the counter…

Speaking of activists with the power to ruin lives, one of the things that has long concerned me about activists in government is their natural tendency to misuse the power of government to go after people they don’t like. While I don’t know whether liberal activist types have now taken over the Department of Homeland…

Ever since I moved to Ann Arbor in August, I’ve wondered why gasoline prices are so much higher here than in surrounding communities. I assumed it was because the gas stations have to pay higher rents. But the higher prices are not my imagination; today I saw official confirmation: AAA Michigan says gasoline prices in…

Glenn Beck talks with the former Deputy Foreign Minister of Mexico. And as long as we are on the topic of Mexico. The rumor that 90% of the guns involved in Mexico’s crimes come from America is a flat out lie. And suppose the “loophole” that allows so many American guns into Mexico was closed.…

I realize that gun grabbers routinely misrepresent facts and figures, but the ongoing campaign by Mexican officials to make it look like US guns are flooding their country is getting ridiculous. In the latest, Mexico’s US Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan repeats the claim that 90 percent of the weapons seized in Mexico can be traced to…

Jennifer Rubin takes issue with the feminist/socialist “comparable worth” doctrine, which she sees as another bad idea that will not die: There are some public policy ideas that won’t die — no matter how bad they are. One of these is “comparable worth.” It is built on the misguided policy notion that there is a…

The immediate pirate crisis is over with the killing of three pirates, the capture of a wounded fourth and the recovery of Captain Phillips unharmed physically. The American captain taken hostage by Somali pirates aboard a lifeboat was freed today after making a second daring escape bid that allowed waiting US forces to open fire…

From a report that Glenn Reynolds linked earlier, I read that Joe Biden bought a pedigreed German Shepherd puppy from a breeder. Not much of a story there, but what happened later illustrates something I consider a very serious (and possibly unsolvable) problem. Because of an unstoppable movement of single-issue activist fanatics, the breeder has…

Yep. New research shows that salt may be an anti-depressant. Does demolishing a salty bag of potato chips seem to put you in a better mood? If so, you’re not alone, according to psychologists at the University of Iowa who say salt may be nature’s anti-depressant. Researchers based the conclusion on studies on rats. They…

Red Alerts reports on a school teacher who was using drugs and alcohol to sexually exploit youth. Red asks this question: Victimless Crime Files: Why Do Adults Want Kids to Get High? Red Alerts then says: The truth is that only two kinds of adults involved with drugs, ones with addiction problems/psychological issues and the…

And just in case you are wondering about the title. It is a play on Philip K. Dick’s book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which led to the movie with Harrison Ford called Blade Runner. Cross Posted at Power and Control H/T EDN Magazine

Are libertarians conservative? More properly, are libertarians included — and should they be? — within the rubric of the word “conservative”? This is not an idle question, as there is a fierce ongoing debate (linked by Glenn Reynolds earlier) about the Tea Party Movement, and it seems to me that this debate goes to the…

I have mixed feelings about the news that the Obama administration is denying that the president bowed to Saudi King Abdullah: The White House is denying that the president bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London, a scene that drew criticism on the right and praise from some Arab…

Laugh all you want but this is no joke. The article linked is about batteries for cars. Anyway, this battery issue — and many like it — hasn’t stopped GM from announcing yet another Car Of The Future. Only this time they’ve partnered themselves up with Segway. You have got to be fucking kidding me.…

It appears that there is a “new” weed to improve male sexual performance. And I’m not talking about marijuana. Nope. I’m talking about the appropriately named “Horny Goat Weed”. The soft green heart-shaped leaf of the horny goat weed could hold the key to a new drug for treating erectile dysfunction. Researchers say the Viagra…