Category: Uncategorized

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…

A whiff of corruption: Kent Conrad says no, of course you can’t pass Obamacare through reconciliation. And it has to go through his committee, so… I’ve said for a while liberal wonks like Jonathon Cohn were underestimating the collegial tradition in the Senate, and sure enough it turns out they aren’t going to change all…

While the last thing I want to do is leap to the defense of President Obama, I thought I should make a simple observation about the Boris Karloff comparison that has been floating around. Rush Limbaugh seems to have started it with this remark: Obama was sitting there and his lips were pursed. There as…

I don’t mean to be a bore about these things, but I try to be fair, and not long ago I wrote a long post complaining about “two dishonest words that especially offend me,” because of their inherently argumentative nature as well as their tendency to distort perceptions of reality. Anyway, because I used the…

The hysteria over the killing of a trainer by a killer whale has now reached a media crescendo — replete with psychoanalysis of the animal’s motives, often in the context of a narrative that sees man as the oppressor. This is causing some people with knowledge about animals to roll their eyes and remark the…

Dr. Helen links a video which ought to be seen by anyone who doesn’t believe misandry exists… Let me pause right there to note an unexpected irony which proves one of the points made by the video. As I typed the first sentence of this post, the word “misandry” was flagged in red, even though…

Any method for doing anything that cannot be sustained for 100 billion years minimum is unsustainable. Nothing is sustainable in the long term. So why not just focus on getting by with an eye towards future requirements? And let me add that the things people were doing 200 years ago were unsustainable. And 200 years…

Quite foolishly in my view, Senator John McCain has introduced new legislation that would give broad new powers to the FDA to regulate the vitamin and dietary supplement industry — right on down to your corner store. Steven Joyal looks into why McCain would do such a thing, and concludes it’s because of baseball: Most…

I have been feeling under the weather lately, and as I had some leftover rice in a ziplock bag, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and see how well my rice cooker performs at making jook. Also called congee, it is renowned throughout Asia as the ideal sick person’s food, as well…

Via Ann Althouse, I just learned about a vicious attack by a killer whale: The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to the theme park after receiving a call that an employee had been attacked and injured in the “killer whale tank.” The woman who was killed was a 40-year-old senior trainer at the…