VIENNA — Some of the world’s top AIDS experts issued a radical manifesto this week at the 18th International AIDS Conference: They declared the war on drugs a 50-year-old failure and called for it to be abandoned. No one heard. Story here. (NYTimes free registration required; sorry.)
Category: Government
Government evils — but I repeat myself
The Michael Bellesiles saga continues. The Chronicle of Higher Education (which first printed the latest Bellesiles baloney) investigated and discovered (no surprise) that the tale of the sad student and his soldier brother is false. But it’s the student’s fault. Um … aren’t historians responsible for checking their “facts”? I mean, isn’t that what they supposedly do for a living? And that tale Bellesiles retailed to the gullible was so obviously too good to be true. It just begged for the half hour it would have required to check it. (Tip o’ hat once again to J.F.) Kudos to jellydonut…
Where you might live if you wait long enough, then leave the U.S. Okay … where your great grandkids might live. Not enough trees for me, though. Imported trees don’t count. (Tip o’ hat to Pat.) Poor, poor pot growers! They just barely, almost, kinda-sorta get their business legal and … governments start to Wal-Martize them — that is, shut the little guys out and make alliances with monied collaborators — license, tax, hand out exclusive deals — all the usual. And then the hapless growers might get ordered to give their valuable product to the poor. Can’t win, can…
If you read tech blogs — and only if you read tech blogs (or a handful of online techzines) — you already know that, on July 9, some unnamed government agency, for unnamed reasons, ordered BurstNET to take 73,000 blogs permanently offline. All were part of the same WordPress platform called Blogetery. A week later, a forum-creating service was shut down just as mysteriously. If you rely on mainstream sources for your news — or even online mainstream alternatives — you haven’t heard a peep about any of this. Why did some unnamed government agency order the death of 73,000…
Y’know, there’s one thing nice about government. Really. There is. One thing. Government is very consistent. That is, once any government anywhere embarks on a stupid course, you can be sure that nothing short of the heat death of the universe will stay the bureaucrats from their dedicated stupidity. You gotta admit, that’s impressive consistency. To wit: You recall a teeny little flap the economy had a few years back involving subprime loans? Yes, I think you probably do. In fact, you don’t have to remember very far back — not more than 30 seconds ago — because we’re still…
You saw the recent, all-too-true cartoon The 24 Types of Libertarians. Embarrassingly funny. Well, here’s the remix: The 24 Types of Authoritarians. Also true. But not so personally embarrassing. Yeah. Right. The Obama White House is reaching out to business in a desperate, pre-election attempt to “end tensions.” But you know darned well that, if anything at all comes of the effort, it’ll be nothing more than the usual favors to big business. More competition-killing regulations. More subsidies. More strategically targeted taxes. More you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch yours. Hey, Obama: You want to really do something for business? Get the government the heck…
Common sense comes to a public school near you. Can’t possibly last. You heard the tut-tutting because more than a quarter of Americans recently polled didn’t know what country the famous forefathers won independence from. But what if respondents were just funnin’? C’mon. Everybody knows it was the Soviet Union. Which brings back fond memories of the witty (and now retired from writing) Patty Neill and her hysterical take on “How We Got the Data for the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse” Old. But timeless. On the more serious side, here’s an excellent Forbes piece from Michael Pento on…
The word Jefferson obliterated. (Alternative link if the WaPost link gives you trouble.)
Oh yes. Having centralized, government-managed online ID would be a great way to end Identity theft. You betcha. And it would give such a boost to e-commerce because everybody knows the fedgov is far more trustworthy and more concerned for your privacy than Amazon.com or eBay could ever be. And — of course! — your government-managed online ID would be voluntary. Strictly and always voluntary. And you can believe that with all your heart. Because “We’re from the government and we’re here to help you escape your dangerously ‘outdated’ decentralized logins.” Biggest load of codswallop I’ve read all week. And…
… could courageously admit that the U.S. government is flat outa money, proclaim the need to raise the retirement age to 70, endorse an overhaul of all “entitlements,” state that it’s time to tell the American people “we’re broke” … and then say … wait for it … wait for it … BECAUSE WE NEED THE MONEY… FOR WAR. War. Yeah. Not as in “defending our shores from foreign invaders.” But as in propping up inept dictators and their drug-kingpin families and sending computer-driven drones to kill women and kids because our peace-loving Democrat president thinks it’s a great idea…