Month: November 2011

I don’t know about mixing but burning definitely seems to be a possibility.

I recently stumbled onto what is considered the first jazz song ever published: “Jelly Roll Blues” — variously said to have been composed in 1902 (which is disputed) , 1905, and 1910 by Jelly Roll Morton. At any rate, the song was first published in 1915, at which time jazz could definitively be said to…

In my earlier post about the war on drugs, I mentioned Ronald Reagan’s unfortunate (although quite possibly inevitable) role thusly: Amazingly, the problem wasn’t solved by news laws, so we launched a “war.” Try as I might, I simply cannot figure out what is “conservative” about it. Unless conservatism is to be forever defined by…

Mary Anastasia O’ Grady has a great article in today’s WSJ. The tantalizing title of “A Path to Victory in the Drug War” had me rolling my eyes until I started reading: The classical argument in favor of marijuana legalization rests on personal liberty. Why, proponents ask, should the federal government tell free citizens what…

The possibility of having Hillary Clinton run for president is being discussed seriously by veteran Democrats. If President Obama were to withdraw, he would put great pressure on the Republicans to come to the table and negotiate—especially if the president singularly focused in the way we have suggested on the economy, job creation, and debt…

Evidently the merest twitch around police is grounds for immediate execution. And just for you geographically challenged (like me) East Point is in Georgia. Here is the story. Dwight Person, 54, was shot Thursday afternoon when, according to police, he made a threatening gesture at a female officer “that put her in fear of her…

I realize Michigan does not speak for the nation, but I thought this poll was interesting enough to share. Romney not only beats Obama by a sizable margin here, while Gingrich loses by a sizable margin. Moreover, if you look at the breakdowns (whether by party affiliation/non-affiliation, age, sex, race, positions on abortion, whatever), there…

It is one of the most regular questions asked of any professional writer: How do I break into the field? It is also one of the most difficult questions to answer and one that at any time you ask it as a newby, you can be sure of getting an answer that’s AT LEAST ten…

I was following a track back to Frank‘s Trifonov and came across this post on High IQ Kids More Likely To Use Drugs. I found an interesting turn of phrase explaining such “evidence” there. I’d chalk it up to hushing the internal carousal that’s still spinning like a mad, cackling bastard at two in the…

It’s Saturday night and I need a throwaway post so I can get back to what I was trying to do before I was rudely reminded that I am neglecting the blog. So…. how about a throwaway post on our thrown away freedom? The latest incident involves what has become almost standard police practice: shooting…

My friend Karridine has a new update from Bangkok. He has some news on what he has been doing with the money you have sent. Send him some more. BkkFloodHelp(at)Gmail-dot-com ====================== Another week, another million cubic meters pass over the sandbags and around the retainer walls, showing the people of Bangkok that SOME areas get…

Readers know what I think of Newt Gingrich, but right now I am fascinated by what conservatives think. Especially Tea Party conservatives. What I read in in yesterday’s WSJ was enough to make my head spin in two directions: Consulting work Newt Gingrich performed for Freddie Mac is drawing new scrutiny, now that the Republican…

Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log has more. An unnamed source on the OPERA team told ScienceInsider that the controversy over the faster-than-light findings was exhausting. “Everyone should be convinced that the result is real, and they are not,” the source was quoted as saying. Other researchers, including physicists with the MINOS experiment at Fermilab, are working…

While the Occupy movement has trouble with basic logic and reason, their reaction to the nutcase arrested (and charged with attempted assassination) for shooting at the White House is just plain bizarre. They actually held a moment of silence for him, and expressed “solidarity” with the accused shooter. I kid you not; here’s the video:…

In my haste to get this up I totally forgot to mention that commenter Frank wrote this and I did some very minor stuff like making the links work and embedding the videos. ==== A wonderful thing happened this past May in Tel Aviv, Israel. In a tiny country beseiged by enemies and former allies,…

Libertarians/liberals have a utopian view of foreign policy. Forgetting that the leadership of most countries could be compared unfavorably to outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The Department Of Health and Human Services (it has very little to do with health and is into denying services) has denied permission for an FDA approved study of cannabis for treating PTSD. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has blocked a pilot study to examine the benefits of marijuana for veterans…

Is showering while kids are present now a crime? According to at least one interpretation of the law, it apparently is: [U]nder Pennsylvania’s child protection laws, what Sandusky admitted to in an interview with NBC’s Bob Costas could fit the definition of indecent exposure. If children under 16 were involved, it could be a first-degree…

The more Newt Gingrich’s star continues to rise, the more nauseated I become. The biggest problem I have with the man is his support of the death penalty for drug offenses. Under normal circumstances, that would be a deal killer for me. But these are not normal circumstances; we have a president who must be…

Mike McQueary, whose Grand Jury testimony brought down Joe Paterno and got several other Penn State officials indicted (and whose story of the anal rape and constantly shifting statements convince me that he is not credible), has changed his story yet again. Mike McQueary, the Penn State assistant football coach under fire for his reported…