- Willie Nelson’s crusade against big pot. This is good. Really, really looooooong, but good.
- Project Veritas does it again, as officials at Vassar and Oberlin attempt to save poor, offended students from pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution.
- And along those same lines … (short video; H/T MJR)
- The dead “hero”: just another corrupt, threatening cop.
- Making Shakespeare politically correct. And dumb.
- Kevin D. Williamson declares Obamacare dead.
- Jose Fernandez-Partagas: one of those weirdly fascinating footnote people. I discovered him in an endnote to Isaac’s Storm. Strange life, strange (but awesome) end. Makes you want to know what made him tick.
Maggie McNeill has a great essay for the 5th of November: Wildfire
The entire short essay is well worth the read, as are her 5th of November essays from past years.
I’d like to see the video where Hillary wants to repeal the Bill of Rights. (Not that I think she wouldn’t like to do so, but that I can’t imagine her actually saying it.)
From the Obamacare article:
[when Democrats will get around to admitting that, purity of their hearts notwithstanding, they and they alone — not one Republican voted for Obamacare — have created a mess…]
The author is playing fast and loose with the truth. Obamacare (AKA Romneycare) has R fingerprints all over it, even if they didn’t like Obama getting the credit. This is explained in the book Tom Woods is promoting here:
http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-516-listen-to-this-episode-your-life-may-depend-on-it-how-to-secede-from-a-perverse-medical-system/
[Of course markets work for most people, and of course there are exceptions to that. For 93 percent of the population, the solution to health-care reform is: Let markets do their thing. The only real argument is how big a check to write to those looking after the other 7 percent, and how to structure the payments.]
Shall we just say that R’s are 93% supporters of the free market? Still leaving the “important stuff” to government? I could never be a conservative.
But besides these partisan flaws, the article was correct. Obamacare is dead. Next up, single payer. THAT will be more properly thought of as a Democrat plan. It will flop too, or become irrelevant when the economy crashes due to debt load.
Wow, thanks for sharing Mr. Partagas’ story. I’m embarrassed of my stacks of unfinished projects and half read books. I cannot imagine being able to hold his level of dedication, with or without overt reward. Amazing.
“I’d like to see the video where Hillary wants to repeal the Bill of Rights. (Not that I think she wouldn’t like to do so, but that I can’t imagine her actually saying it.)”
Paul — Mark Dice, the interviewer in that video, specializes in making up weird stuff — weird statist stuff, generally — and going around getting members of the public to agree with it.
Ragnar — I’m so glad somebody besides me found his story moving.
I’ve got my share of unfinished project, too. OTOH, you and I probably have … well, lives. He didn’t.
Mr. Partagas sounded like the kind of guy you want as a neighbor or uncle. I think it’s kinda cool that the library let him surf one if their sofas full time.
RIP.
Funny how the universe works… Mr. Partagas’ story reminded me of what I thought was a Bukowski quote. I was going to add a nifty extra part to match Mr. P’s life.
I found out 2 things.
1.) The premise of the quote is most likely from Kinky Friedman, not Bukowski.
2.) I had only known of the first line. (The fun meme-able part) My thought for an extra sentence was already included in the original… and was stated far better than any phrasing I could produce.
“Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain from you your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you, and let it devour your remains.”
Probably not good advice in its entirety but surely, and a bit eerily, fits the work and conclusion to Mr. Partagas’ chosen obsession.
Holy sh*t, Ragnar. That is a great quote — great and terrible. A part of me has always longed to have that mad a passion; a larger part recoils from it so strongly I want to be in a different universe from it.
I can see either Bukowski (never a fan) or Kinky Friedman there.
Happy Guy Fawkes Day! I think this’d make a great national holiday. I suppose we’d need to celebrate on the nearest Saturday though. V parties! Yeah!
On a completely more mundane note: Neuropolitics. In case anyone still thought that it was about issues and stuff.
It is regrettable that Paul is entirely correct. This is just a precursor to single-payer. In fact, in Colorado, there’s a movement afoot to do just that already. I’m not sure I’m old enough, but I hope I die before the whole thing falls apart. I don’t think I’m in a good position to survive the aftermath.
I think single payer will be the Next Big Thing as well, on the theory that government has so screwed up health care that only government can fix it.
[hurl]
I never hear about this sort of stuff, until after the fact. Likely I wouldn’t have gone, since it’s a work day, and I typically just want nothing more than to get home and unwind, but still …
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29078341/million-mask-march-remembers-guy-fawkes-winds-through
The whole “million” $THING march idea does seem worn out to me, though.
BTW just because I think govco will push single payer, does not mean it will work any better than Obamacare. Yes it does work (somewhat, sorta!) in Europe, but transplanting Eurosocialism over here always ends up badly (e.g. government schooling).
But I’m also not too worried about it. There will always be ways for people to get around it. That big no-insurance outfit in Oklahoma is expanding. There are lots of doctors who take cash payments (to find them, look at the outfit called “simplecare”, something I joined last night).
Also, being ever the optimist, Obamacare and single payer is a wonderful way to get ordinary people questioning statism and the government narrative. You see this all over these days.
While he’s most definitely a social conservative, Ben Carson does have a plan to privatize health care. It involves health savings accounts. Even with that he still wants government regulated health insurance companies, but they would be non-profit like many hospitals are now. At least someone is talking about dialing it back. I doubt if he will get nominated, let alone elected, and then he would have to overcome a bought and paid for congress. Chances are slim this will go anywhere, but at least SOMEONE wants it repealed.