Month: April 2013
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What? Should I whine about the Constitution again?
I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again. I’m often glad I never had children in this once free country. Reading about a California couple whose baby was snatched by armed police who illegally entered the hous with hands on their guns — because the parents sought a second medical opinion — served…
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A Real Laffer
Frank left a link to this video from 28 August 2006 at On Market Monetarism My reply to Frank on his point about “monetarism is dead” (which I may have misunderstood): Peter Schiff restated monetarism in different terms – debt financed consumption – which blew bubbles. A bubble is another term for “local” inflation. Inflation…
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Cannabis talk here will lighten up sooner or later
The Rockford Register Star used Cannabis talk here will lighten up sooner or later as the headline for an article to discuss a 4:20 gathering at Whiskey’s Roadhouse that I attended. The article discusses the pessimism at the gathering while “everyone” else and especially Colorado is celebrating. I met the reporter at the gathering and…
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Free Soup
Well… no… Free book. Ill Met By Moonlight, my very first, ever published book is up in a re-edition, for free on Amazon till 2/5. Shakespeare, high-fallutin’ language and gender changing elves. (Okay, one. And, oh, boy, is he enough.) Did I mention Shakespeare? And that it’s free?
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As American as
apple pieAlex JonesIt seems that the Tsarnaev brothers’ mom is just your typical normal American mom who learned all about 9/11 on the Internet: Kilzer wrote that Tsarnaeva was a loving and supportive mother, and she felt sympathy for her plight after the April 15 bombings. But she stopped visiting the family’s home for spa treatments in…
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On Market Monetarism
Over the past couple years I’ve gradually become a convert to a collection of ideas called market monetarism (MM), which espouses the notion we should do away with inflation targets and replace them with a nominal GDP level target (NGPLT, for short). They seem to explain the current economic conditions better than Keynesian “liquidity trap” or…
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The nature of imitation
While art is often defined as an imitation of nature, nature is often an improvement on art. Check out these grains of sand: Or this view of the microstructure of austenitic steel. If the above had been painted by a Cubist in the teens or twenties, it would probably be hanging in a museum. Instead,…
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Rats in Their Heads
There is a meme going around facebook, an innocuous little question of “What was the last female writer you read, and the book?” It’s very popular and being echoed all over. It’s also a good example of how people think when they get rats in their head. “But, Sarah,” you say, “why would you object…
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Our rape culture is going to the dogs!
I often wonder whether Onion-style satire is infiltrating reality when I read about incidents like the one Bill Quick SteveF Steve linked earlier. At the University of Connecticut, a team logo featuring a Husky dog is being seriously criticized on the ground that it promotes “rape culture”: In an open letter to UC President Susan Herbst, self-described feminist student…
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True sustainability is the enemy of all environmentalists
Drudge links a headline about Iter Fusion’s apparent breakthrough: If Iter demonstrates that it is possible to build commercially-viable fusion reactors then it could become the experiment that saved the world in a century threatened by climate change and an expected three-fold increase in global energy demand. While I would of course defer to M.…
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How Much Is Free Worth?
I use TinyCAD and FreePCB and ViewMate Gerber reader to design PCBs. All free for the purposes I use them. What part of my work actually shows up as GDP (at least in the development stage)? The boards I get made by OSH Park plus the parts I buy from Mouser and Digikey. But I…
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The Banks Own The World
The conspiracy theorists are owed an apology. You can read all about it at: Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever. Money (heh) quote: But the biggest shock came out of a federal courtroom at the end of March – though if you follow these matters closely, it may not have been so shocking…
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They Took Her Kids
A lady with MS who was taking marijuana for her condition has had her kids taken away. She lives in Idaho and was part of an activist family. Idaho is not a medical marijuana state. Here is more of the story. While Lindsey and Sarah were vacationing, along with Lindsey’s husband Josh (the director of…
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Going Paperless In France
Sent to me by a fellow member of the ATeam (which I will explain much later).
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The world’s poor are about to be deeply moved
There is something about Ben Affleck that I have found annoying, and I really hadn’t stopped to think about it until his recent public vow of temporary poverty: The Oscar-winning director recently signed on to participate in the Global Poverty Project’s Live Below the Line, a campaign that challenges average (and above-average) people to live…
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The government did it! The Tsarnaevs are victims!
For some time now, I have complained about Drudge’s habit of regularly linking notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Infowars-dot-com. I don’t know whether it is a good sign or not, but today I see that Drudge has linked a story which expresses some skepticism about Jones. Jones — whose site has peddled conspiracy theories…
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Drugs cause gun violence? I know, let’s have another useless discussion!
M. Simon forwarded me an email containing the following remarks from Richard Feldman, President of the Independent Firearm Owners Association (IFoA): “We know that 35% to 45% or more of gun-violence is directly related to the black market in drug trafficking. Now is the time to open an adult discussion on this vital and inextricably…
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Violence and Value
Tim Blair notices this Waleed Aly cornucopia of nonsense, complete with a refreshingly honest graphical admission the media can’t wait for a Tea Party member to finally do something violent. It’s a target-rich environment, but this bit jumped out at me: It’s not just that we don’t value Iraqi lives as much as American ones (although…
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Absolutely not a clue!
This headline from yesterday’s Detroit Free Press says it all. No motive at all! There! Isn’t that clear?
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Phew!
Well here’s some interesting news. It turns out that the Boston Marath0n jihadists may have (gasp!) violated gun control laws: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts police official say the brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon before having shootouts with authorities didn’t have gun permits. And to think the NRA crackpots say gun control does…