Month: August 2010

  • “para endulzar su dia”

    The above expression relates to some practical advice I was given years ago during the course of my travels to Mexico. It means, “to sweeten your day,” and while there is nothing wrong with sweetening people’s days, the context of the usage of that travel phrase might very well be considered immoral, especially by moral…

  • “bullets used in the drug war”

    A lot of words are spewed forth in the War on Drugs, and when the drug war is combined with trouble at the border, the result is quite predictable. Every once in a while, though, I see things that push credulity beyond what I consider acceptable. I saw a recent example in this AP story,…

  • Religion of peace?

    Perhaps because of the Ground Zero Mosque flap, more people than ever are speculating over whether Barack Obama is a Muslim. This may sound counterintuitive, but I honestly hope the most powerful man in the world is in fact a Muslim. That’s not because I think he is one, but only because I think Islam…

  • Support your local tyrants!

    Government tyranny is hardly restricted to the federal government. Many people believe that the worst governmental tyrannies of all are committed by local government. New York and San Francisco have become infamous for regulating food and drinks, and San Francisco has led the way towards the use of invasive recycling police, banning the sale of…

  • I hate being barraged with a constant stream of copyrighted words which make me “liable”!

    One of the many electronic annoyances in life consists of the endless “updates” which are sometimes requested, other times demanded, and in the case of my antivirus software, performed automatically and without notice in the most annoying, computer-freezing manner. Lately I have been hassled by a box screaming at me to “Update Adobe Flash Player.”…

  • Moderation

    Meet the unabridged Abdul Rauf: The United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. Sure, that sounds like just the kind of guy we want building mosques in the 9/11 debris field. Supporters of the mosque are responding with the detached aplomb and reasonable behavior…

  • “Tea Party” fakers commit fraud within fraud

    I just got back from a long meeting of the Michigan State Board of Canvassers in Lansing. I am pleased to report that they voted to refuse certification of the obvious (IMO) attempt by Democratic Party operatives to place the fake “Tea Party” on the ballot. Many genuine Tea Partiers (including myself) were there, and…

  • Fun and games with Balkenkreuz subliminalism

    Saying “It reminds me of something, but I’m not sure what,” Glenn Reynolds linked this picture of the red hot new Dodge logo: It reminded me of something too. (Especially what’s buried in the middle.) I think it’s surprisingly evocative of the notorious 1933-1945 German Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht military logo, the dreaded Balkenkreuz. . To…

  • My dog is lacking in the wisdom of ancient repugnance

    Back in October, I worried about Coco possibly having a close encounter with a local skunk. I called it one of my worst fears, which it is, and I have dreaded the night when Coco and a skunk actually cross paths. It finally happened on Thursday “night,” then again last “night.” (The two encounters took…

  • Genetics And Trauma

    I got the video from Reason Magazine via Instapundit. What is interesting is that two of his three key markers for psychopathy are: genetics and trauma or abuse. Those are the two markers that I have been saying for years are the cause of chronic drug use. You can follow my trail some by reading…

  • Bombay Calling

    It’s A Beautiful Day. I wonder if Eric was in the audience?

  • the new tea?

    A headline in yesterday’s Detroit Free Press offers MSM confirmation of what I suspected in my earlier post about Michigan’s smoking ban. The headline is “Smoking ban dries up business,” and even though I consider it old news, I am still outraged by the number of Republicans who voted for such statist nonsense: …since Michigan’s…

  • Fertigate, and how! (A dull and non-controversial issue…)

    With my sincerest apologies to the beloved political junkies who visit this site (and seriously, because I’m one myself, you know you are always very welcome here), it’s time for a bland post about gardening. It’s been three weeks and five days since I started my backyard vegetable garden, and as I have had to…

  • Total Loss

    Seeking Alpha is taking a look at the problem with bundled mortgages. And they are huge. As in bigger than you can possibly imagine. Mortgages bundled into securities were a favorite investment of speculators at the height of the financial bubble leading up to the crash of 2008. The securities changed hands frequently, and the…

  • The “Personhood Amendment” — just what conservatives need now!

    An emerging issue epitomizes a phenomenon I have discussed in countless posts, and I hate to be a repetitive bore, so please bear with me…. I am hardly alone in noticing that like-minded, single-issue activists often associate with — and tend to exclusively surround themselves with — other like-minded, single-issue activists. The result is what…

  • A Cell Phone Mandate

    There is a bill pending in Congress to require FM radios in cell phones. The FM chip mandate is an attempt to mollify the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters); under the terms of the Performance Rights Act, the [broadcast- ed.] industry would pay approximately $100 million to broadcast music on terrestrial radio. The inclusion of…

  • I Am Israel

    Tall Dave (as he is known in Polywell Fusion circles) wrote a bit on Israel: The Jewish Burden of the Israeli Paradigm. Here is the video that can be found at the link he posted.

  • Tipping Point

    Reason Magazine is where I got the video. They have this to say: Fichtner points out, three public policy trajectories converging. The medical marijuana movement is gaining momentum. People are increasingly wakening up to the fact that drug prohibition creates more public health problems than it solves. And, in the same way that the Great…

  • The Jewish Burden of the Israeli Paradigm

    Via Michael Totten (for my money, the best journalist in the world), an absolutely fascinating essay from Yoram Hazony on how Israel is viewed by Europeans, with references to Kuhn. Israelis and friends of Israel can reasonably be divided on the question of whether this withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, or the parallel withdrawal from…

  • Hockey Stick Shattered For Good?

    This is possibly the second-biggest climate science news of the past ten years: some statisticians did a full rework of Mann’s infamous hockey stick papers, and he results were… not pretty. We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. … On the one hand, we…