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…
Category: Government
Government evils — but I repeat myself
Americans aren’t as politically polarized as pols and the MSM would have us imagine. Among other things we’re united in distrusting the government. (H/T PT) Turn in your standard-capacity magazines orders L.A. gov. Then … crickets … Not one. Not a single one. The president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University says he’s not running a day care. And George Will asks: American higher education — higher than what, exactly? The push to ban cash grows louder as currencies race for the bottom. One difference in this article: it lists various ways people might (and will) dodge the coming cash bans. Not…
It’s here: the 3D-printed revolver. The hoplophobic panic will surely not be far behind. (H/T S) It’s also here: the first private space race. I doubt the Bezos vs Musk is quite as theatrically adversarial as the media would have us think. What a good thing, though, eh? May the best man win. Better yet, may both men win. Over at The Zelman Partisans Nicki turns to DC police chief Lanier and asks, “Take ’em out with what?” and I ask if the Jewish leaders of Europe have no sense of history or just no sense. Carl-Bear Bussjaeger also has…
When it finally dawns on the social-justice pecksniffs just how many things in every culture are “appropriated” from some other culture, they’re gonna be in a world of hurt. Randall Munroe gives Time an interview as only the creator of xkcd could give it. (H/T jed in comments) “Who turned my blue state red?” Talk about blowback. That’s blowback. Odd couple: Black Lives Matter and Bloomberg. Half of me hopes he takes those officious overreacting officials for every dime — and thinks it’s too bad any judgment won’t come out of their own pockets. The other half of me is…
I grew up in a classless world. (Not classless as in “Donald Trump ain’t got no class,” but as in “Anyone can grow up to be president.”)
Maybe this was less true for some people of my generation, but I simply don’t remember ever caring two hoots about somebody’s economic class or status or anyone else caring about mine.
I like Ross Douthat. In this day of screaming absolutes he always has a nuanced take on things. But even he says that the current campus crisis is something U.S. universities deserve. And if anybody had doubts about what a bunch of whiny brats those “oppressed” university students at Mizzou are, check out their reactions to the slaughter in Paris. Whaaaaaa-waaaaa, nobody’s paying attention to US! Will the little narcissists ever feel shame? Meanwhile at Yale the social justice pecksniffs protest a free-speech panel. Australia is going to try out a hip, cool, and groovy cloud-based virtual passport system. Think…
And here’s the second and final part of the guest post by Sandy Sandfort. Part I is here
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TRUTH IN GOVERNMENT? YOU BETCHA! (Part II)
A Short Guide on How to Read Government “Tells”
By Sandy Sandfort
Before I give you two final financial examples, I will give one from my own family. On 5 April 1933, FDR signed Executive Order 6102 (just like Obama, he had a pen and a telephone) which required Americans to turn in their gold in exchange for paper money at $20.67 per ounce.
When my father read about the order in the newspaper, he immediately told my mother, “They’re going to devalue the dollar!” In other words, he skipped past all the order’s rhetoric and jumped to the “why.” When he figured out what and why the order was given (devaluation), he set about illegally amassing as many gold coins as he could. He was able to get rid of a lot of paper in exchange for a lot of gold. As he predicted, the dollar was devalued (40% to $35 per ounce. For decades, he and my mother paid for fun trips to Mexico with gold coins they sold in Mexico for the world price of $35 per ounce.
I’m deadlining this week. Friend Sandy Sandfort has stepped in with an original two-parter about one of everybody’s favorite subjects: politicians moving their lips.
Sandy has a new website in the works. If you’d like to be notified when it goes live, contact Sandy at sandy-at-privilegedcommunications-dot-net (corrected address) with the subject line “new website notice.”
Sandy would also like to exchange some of his Bitcoin for USD (which can be sent to his U.S. bank, though he resides in Panama). Contact him at sandfort-at-gmail-dot-com if you’re interested in making the trade.
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TRUTH IN GOVERNMENT? YOU BETCHA! (Part I)
A Short Guide on How to Read Government “Tells”
By Sandy Sandfort
I don’t need to tell readers here that governments lie. We all know that lies are fundamental to manipulating the citizenry. This does not mean, however, that you shouldn’t pay attention to what government spokespeople say. If you know how to listen, you can gather vital intel to protect yourself and your family. By understanding why certain things are said—or not said—you can improve your chances of surviving government-created calamities and maybe even come out ahead of the game sometime.
Governments do have “tells” just like poker players. If you learn to read those tells, you have an edge over the other players at the table. Believe me, in America, with a third of a billion players at the table, you really want to have that edge.
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…
Take driverless cars, for instance. If we were in a less tech-perilous, tyranny-seeking time, I think most of us would be excited about them.
You and I may be skeptical about a specific new technology, but we tend not to be technophobes. We’re not ones who reject the new out of hand. We may not want to buy the first flying cars or be on the first ship to colonize Mars or the Moon, but we probably have friends who do want to and maybe even know a few who will. We jumped on computers years ahead of the average and were getting acquainted on BBSes before the Worldwide Web tempted slower adopters in.
So no, we don’t innately distrust tech.