- MamaLiberty reviews Jackie Clay’s Summer of the Eagles.
- Somebody in the mainstream media finally questions whether it’s right to destroy mom & pop businesses that aren’t sufficiently politically correct. Glad ordinary folk don’t even need to ask questions like that.
- Back when the RICO statutes were first passed, libertarian alarmists predicted that they’d be so misused that the feds would soon be busting penny-ante poker games. Well, it seems they’ve been misused for just about everything except that. But here’s one of the most creative turns of the RICO story.
- David Boaz notes that the final stage of socialism is when you run out of toilet paper. Talkin’ to you there, Venezuela.
- Feinstein continues to be a laugh a minute when it comes to tech knowledge. (H/T MJR)
- The Daily Beast interviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
- Opting out of email. Yeah. Sounds like a great idea when you have a &^%$##/! administrative assistant at your beck and call. To the rest of us this advice sounds as clueless as “let them eat cake.”
- Psychology Gone Wrong: The Dark Sides of Science and Therapy Sounds like an important book. Here’s a good overview.
Email… as with so many other things, great when you are in control, and a nightmare when it controls you. I used to get easily 1500+ emails a day when I managed The SierraTimes cybermagazine. I’ve had more and less since – and never had any sort of staff or assistant.
The key is taking control, setting priorities, a logical filter system, white lists and so forth to sort them. A good spam filter is the most important of those, and the discipline to avoid even looking at them. An auto delete feature for the spam is best.
Since I’m hearing impaired, using the telephone is usually not much of an option, and I appreciate the time flexibility of email so I’m not disturbed when I’m resting or sleeping. Those who have a brilliant idea, hot news, or a serious gripe can get it off their chests immediately, and I can deal with it when I’m ready and willing to do so. Win/win.
From that Atlantic article:
“The interest in restoring civic equality was so compelling that it trumped the interest in associational choice within that sphere.”
Well, let’s dispense with the notion that the ruling class gives a rat’s ass about “restoring civic equality”, shall we? That’s like saying the government is interested in increasing education, and therefore must provide government schools. To anyone with even the smidgen of curiosity, these self-serving notions are quickly discounted.
The reason we have anti-discrimination statutes is the same reason we had Jim Crow laws before them: divide and conquer. Government has not changed its spots. Discrimination would melt away if not for government picking winners and losers, and forcing people to associate with others they had rather not associate with. If Jews were forced to associate with Nazis, would that make Jews look more fondly on the Nazi ideology?
The way to reduce discrimination is the way Jesse Owens did it, or the way Jackie Robinson did it. There was no government “help” involved. Such “help” would have poisoned their efforts.
But yeah, at least this article comes half way toward reason. 😉
I find it encouraging the gofundme thing has generated so much support. Americans can be an ornery bunch when they get the idea they are being pushed by self-selected “betters”.
[The Atlanta case was the most high-profile of the cheating cases in 40 states and Washington, D.C., that have been tracked over the last five years by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, also known as FairTest, a non-profit organisation that scrutinises practices.]
Good luck getting government to straighten up and fly right. As Mencken put it, “People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?” Maybe it makes more sense for people to just pull their kids out of these schools.
I support the right of people to live in buttwipe-free societies if that is their desire, but I prefer not to participate in such schemes myself. 🙂
Thanks for that link on Feinstein. That article had a link to the “Streisand Effect”; ya learn something new every day. I’m glad it happens although some of those examples went over my head. Flying penises?
Maybe the Islamic “honor brigade” could use some flying penises themselves. Who was it, maybe Mark Twain, who noted that the more ridiculous the idea, the more firmly people will cling to it? Although I find Islam just as ridiculous as other religions, I don’t like to see Muslims treated poorly either. Thanks for the link to that interview; she seems to be a very sensible person.
I don’t spend much time on email. The trick is to pick and choose which ones you respond to. After a while, people stop sending emails to you. 🙂
The RICO story was a hilarious tale of karma richly deserved, but the most “creative” turn was the last:
The whole expletive story is about common core type programs failing, but they think the next program will work.
I toured Romania in the 70s, when it was still behind the Iron Curtain. The two private suburban homes I stayed in not only lacked toilet paper, they had back-yard outhouses. The hotels had toilet paper in most bathrooms, but we never had a room bathroom where the sink, toilet, and overhead light all worked.
I interviewed a woman who crossed into West Germany shortly after the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989. She told me that East Berlin women were still waiting in long lines to buy cotton-wool and ribbon to make their own sanitary pads.
Communism sucks.
Feinstein’s other delusion is that making a bomb is hard enough that you need the Anarchists’ Cookbook to figure it out. A bomb is simply a case that will burst, preferably into hard sharp shards or flaming debris, and something inside to burst it. If you can’t figure one out yourself, just say radical things on the intertubez and the FBI will assign you a helper.
6. 6.Are there people better qualified in your company to answer the questions you are receiving in your in-box?
Claire nailed this one. “Uh, no. I’m it, whether it’s communicating with clients or emptying the trash can.”
Unauthorized memorial bust of Snowden erected in NY: http://m.animalnewyork.com/2015/theres-a-massive-illicit-bust-of-edward-snowden-stuck-to-a-war-monument-in-brooklyn/