Wow. But not surprising. The ATF and the Obama administration, via Fast & Furious, supplied drug lord El Chapo with .50 cal weaponry. Zombie ships ply the ocean in hopes of paying just the interest, not the principle, on shipowners’ debt. One more place all that central bank bubble capital has been going for the last eight years. Right analysis? But completely crazy proposed solution to global bubbles. With state legislatures in session, it’s become political silly season. Most of the goofy new bills will never pass, so you can stop sending me alarming emails about junk that might not…
Category: Cannabis legalization
Father gets into a stand-off with police to prevent a hospital from taking his “brain dead” son off life support. Happened earlier this year but the follow-up is what’s making this a Christmas-season story. Pot for the homeless. (H/T jed) Also from jed: all the SF books to binge read over the holidays. (Can’t vouch for them myself ’cause I haven’t read any of them. If you’re buying, you know where to purchase them.) Dave Barry’s year in review. (I’ve lost track of the people who’ve sent this one to me; it’s definitely been making the rounds.) Jim Bovard’s Raging…
Of the new Omni-bust budget deal Jim Bovard sez: “Republican congressional leaders are like a football coach who believes the secret to winning is to punt early and often.” Rand Paul sez stop the bill — and he has some fairly decent ideas for alternatives. OTOH, Marijuana.com sez there are a couple of decent provisions in the 2,000 page monster sellout. On the other other hand, the USPS announces a completely unsurprising but curiously retro policy on carrying publications that contain — gasp! — ads for the dreaded Demon Weed. One wonders why they couldn’t have just kept their mouths…
How to escape the culture of mass deception (via RLW in comments). Written from a conservative, not libertarian, perspective. But the basic point is good. Thailand investigates the U.S. ambassador for lèse-majesté — because he criticized lèse-majesté arrests. Never, but never, ever, did I think anybody would say this about marijuana. Never. Ugh. Big data to be the next trillion-dollar business? Oh, please … Socks. Containing urine. Circulated by walking. Generating electricity. Just because you’re inept and unprepared, buddy, doesn’t mean the rest of us are. (Still, the certification process sounds horribly inadequate if it was anything like he describes.)…
Jim Bovard tries to go home from making a speech and gets investigated as a terrorist bomber. Seems this adorable little drug “kingpin” learned her trade from her rough, tough, posturing DEA daddy. Yeah, I know there’s a difference between fantasizing and actually taking steps toward committing torture, murder, and cannibalism. But seems to me that when you use the power and tools of your profession to choose and track specific victims, you’ve crossed that line. I’ll bet the appeals court would have seen that clearly had Gilberto Valle been anything other than a cop. Washington, DC: 2161 pot busts…
It’s long. It’s thorough. It’s a just-published Cato policy analysis by Dave Kopel on the costs and consequences of “gun control.” And in shorter, rougher language, El Neil excoriates those who would even ban useable information about firearms. (Found via Rational Review News) Canadian judge fines man $1 for growing pot. Oh, the times they are a changin’. (H/T MJR) OMG. This article about the addictive Internet is fascinating — until the author gets down to proposing “solutions.” Then it’s just creepy, and not because of what the developers are doing. Speaking of creepy, Chucky is far from the only…
For some reason, the NRA sat on its review of the notorious Armatrix iP1 “smart” gun and just recently released it. They probably didn’t mean it to be hilarious, but it is. Ten ways to lessen your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack. #BlackLivesMatter may get all the press, but Tommitrise Collins, college student and new mother, is a lot more impressive. Wendy McElroy found this one first, but it should be spread far and wide: thanks to asset forfeiture, U.S. cops now steal more property than all the nation’s burglars combined. What The Hunger Games movies say…
In case you’ve wondered how a jury could watch a video of a cop executing a man in cold blood and still vote to acquit, it’s because authoritarian mind-warping is so very effective. Lisa Mearkle. Remember the name. Lisa Mearkle. Idaho deputies ask rancher to put down an injured bull. Before he can, they put down the rancher. The family tell their story. I wonder what the “official” story will be. In all the news about local cops getting away with murder, Jim Bovard reminds us that their federal brothers and sisters are still doing their share — and still…
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…
Must get a few things done this morning, then will return to the “musings” I began the other day. Meantime, here’s some linkage … Never thought I’d see it, but here’s one pot-legalization initiative I hope falls on its corrupt, crony-capitalist face. What goes around comes around. Amazon is opening its first physical book store. The best cities for surviving the zombie apocalypse. Feel free to disagree. Is the USDA silencing scientists? Love (in a not-so-loving way) Conquest’s third law of politics. A happy (though also mysterious) dog tale via Shel in comments.