Month: March 2010

The Tea Parties have gotten a lot of people’s shorts in a knot. Check out this video: And this response to it: Just another day in the slow hari kari of our media elites. Click on the above image and learn how to spread it around. BTW the above videos are a fine addition to…

In his column today, Leonard Pitts echoes a tired but familiar theme — that because crazy people show up at Tea Parties, the movement is itself crazy, and because “conservatism” is reluctant to denounce the nutcases, all conservatives are somehow tainted: …in the tea party movement, some conservatives finally meet a cognitive disconnect they simply…

Fox News is reporting that the bank owned by the family of Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias will fail. Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias says things don’t look good for the struggling bank his family owns. Giannoulias told the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board Wednesday that it’s likely the bank his father founded 30 years ago will…

There’s a lot of speculation here about the Pentagon shooting suspect who has been identified as “John Patrick Bedell” since Glenn Reynolds linked the original report. If the Freepers are correct, he may be a Lew Rockwell-following, gay, Obama-loving, pot-growing, Bush-hating 9/11 conspiracy theorist. As to whose narrative this might fit, I have no idea.…

Glenn Reynolds quoted part of a remark by Ann Althouse which made me wish I had voted for Barack Obama: …Barack Obama won the presidency by holding himself out as powerfully virtuous, as the man who would change the way Washington works. When I voted for Obama, I didn’t think that was going to be…

Can people be taxed into adopting better health habits? It’s a fascinating idea, and it seems to be the primary goal of Philadelphia’s Mayor Michael Nutter, who wants to impose unprecedentedly high taxes on soft drinks: Mayor Nutter, balking at cutting “core services” and running out of ways to raise money, is expected to balance…

I am very sorry to see that Jon Swift — whose real name was Al Weisel, and who described himself as “a reasonable conservative who likes to write about politics and culture” — has died. I can’t help notice that his blogging seems to have stopped not long after the inauguration of Barack Obama. I…

The New York Times linked to my article Climate “Science” Is Ruining Everything. My article was about how the government gets the science it pays for. I discussed drug war “science” and how it relates to climate “science”. The NYTs thinks that the problem with climate science is not dodgy science but a failure to…

From the comments in a New York Times piece on why so many engineers in the Muslim world are terrorists: In every field and every endeavor there are those who are just as crazy as ever. But even the crazy see one thing clear: If you want something done, call an engineer. Robert Marino H/T…

Clayton Cramer is expounding at length on why pot should not be legalized. He cites a government funded study. In the comments I found this: 13. Roux’s Papa: Well – having used pot twice in my life and the second time experiencing a debilitating effect that would truly alarm a vibrant young man and exactly…

Back in the good old 1930s, when radio and talking movies were the rage, few Americans thought to question the voices of authority which issued sanctimonious pronouncements in stentorian tones. “Marihuana” was addictive and dangerous! And all of our youth were at risk to dope peddlers in schoolyards! What the authorities wanted most of all…

As M. Simon made clear in his post about a recycled story, things are going worse than we thought in the Drug War (rapidly approaching its centennial). The drug war is touted as one war worth fighting. Does anyone still believe that any more? And what is the lead in every single article? It is…

Justin pointed me to a fascinating Newsweek report about a new archeological find at Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey which turns conventional knowledge of early human on its head: Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the…

It appears that our drug prohibition enforcement agencies are in need of a PR boost. Why do I say that? Because they are recycling this story. Drug gangs taking over US public lands Not far from Yosemite’s waterfalls and in the middle of California’s redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are quietly commandeering U.S. public land…

Roger Kimball thinks Al Gore has become quite a comedian, and cites with devastating approval his recent column in the New York Times: It is just lovely that the New York Times — the world’s most discredited newspaper — would give so thoroughly discredited a mountebank this lavish soapbox upon which to make a fool…