Okay, I don’t usually link to stuff from Alex Jones Paranoialand. I roll my eyes at others who do. But tell me, you physics and geophysics guys out there (and I just know there are dozens of science geeks reading this blog): How far out of reality is this? I could do that. I mean, if I really wanted to, you know. (Short video) “Do marijuana and driving mix?” Well, I don’t know. (The business of driving super-slow to be safer is one way cops already use to spot the impaired.) But you can be sure cannabis is getting closer…
Category: Miscellaneous
Great story of the week: Homeless man rescues hopeless dog. Via Rational Review News, top honors go to a Forest Ranger who sounds like he deserves them. “Democracy breeds gullibility.” Which breeds worse. Dudeism! Now there’s a religion I could get behind. If I weren’t too busy swinging in a hammock in the shade. Sipping a Margarita. Tip o’ hat to Pirate King Lufty at The Mental Militia Forums. Long before I ever heard the terms “paleo diet,” “caveman diet,” “neanderthal diet,” or “pirmal diet” my food intake had been moving in that direction. My body simply told me (after…
If this is true, I really feel for all you folks who live in the Gulf states or along the South Atlantic coast. (Some NSFW language behind that link.) Heck, every person with a heart already feels for you — and for the critters that dwell in the Gulf. Hoping it’s not really as much worse as the latest allegations imply. But satellite photos and other evidence from the last few days have been ominous. Good luck to us all. (And be glad you’ve got some preps to get you through hard times.)
Housing. It’s double-dipping. Anybody here surprised? “Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse.” Arthur Laffer says the illusory recovery of 2010 will go blooey on January 1. Bounty hunter offers Colton Harris-Moore $50,000 to surrender. Don’t fall for it, Colt. The secret wars expand. “Special Operations commanders have also become a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush’s administration … ‘We have a lot more access,’ a second military official said. ‘They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more. They are willing to get aggressive much more quickly.’” Forget…
So. You think government’s a joke? In Iceland, they know it is. “Two lessons from a rogue ex-cop.” Love that Barry Cooper. “A casino run by the banks, for the banks.” Well said. Darned well said. But there are billions of billions of reasons to be cheerful, anyhow. Or 85 of them. I think this op-ed says it all about Monday’s disaster at sea. Via Jim Bovard: Right to the end, I was about to say that this New Yorker article on Julian Assange and his heroic WikiLeaks was brilliant. It’s an intimate portrait of a secretive man, his world,…
Got this note last night from my beloved former veterinarian up in the Pacific Northwest: I thought this may make you smile. I had a visit … from an outlaw last night. Someone left a note attached to a $100.00 bill shoved in the front door of the clinic. The note said, “I had some extra cash while passing through, please use it to care for an animal in need.” It was signed “Colton Harris-Moore AKA the barefoot bandit.” [My receptionist] found it and was busy trying to figure out which client left it when I came in. After reading…
I know this is last week’s news and it’s already gotten a fair bit of circulation. But I think it’s worth a second read. Or a third: “Warning: Crash dead ahead. Sell. Get liquid. Now.” Paul B. Ferrell. I know that much doom-gloom needs to be taken with a healthy sprinkling of salt. But you do gotta wonder when we’re finally going to teeter over this brink we’ve been wobbling on. “The part of me the Watchers couldn’t see.” Encouraging. And apropos of nothing except a coincidence of wording (and some evils of government), I’m currently re-reading one of my…
Total follies: How wonderful! The federal government is going to pay for Medicaid expansion so we won’t have to. Seriously. If allegedly astute commentators spew stuff like that, it’s no wonder that 24 percent of Americans believe the fedgov has its own money supply, completely independent of taxpayers. (And we’re not talking about the famous printing press here.) And hey, while we’re still partying along on other people’s money, how about lifetime mortgages in which the principal is never paid? In the old days, I do believe we’d have called that “rent.” But Aussies are apparently up for it. And…
P.T. reminded me that today is the birthday of the late, great (and sometimes rather quirky) Karl Hess. She pointed me toward his 1969 Playboy article, “The Death of Politics.” Yeah, bits of it are dated now. But even those parts give an interesting look at the way politics and government never fundamentally change, even as the world shifts around them. If I have one hero in the ranks of libertarians and market anarchists, it’s Hess. Whatever else the man did, he seriously tried to live by his principles and implement them in the real world.
A touch of humor on the Euro-debacle. Funny how comedians get what most economists miss. Speaking of which, is this a sign of the contagion moving beyond Greece? A few mainstream commentators do get it, though. Here’s the sort of vaguely-libertarianish-when-he’s-in-the-mood-to-be Tyler Cowen in the New York Time, telling some truths about Greece. And speaking of missing the obvious … Lessee … You note that a particular function of government is bloated, inefficient, and dysfunctional. So you propose adding yet another layer of bureaucracy. The government (no surprise) hastens to follow your recommendations. Then you are shocked, simply shocked that…