Nicki demands: stop trying to shove a false Trump-Clinton dichotomy down my throat! And Charles Murray might agree. Illegal gun marketing? Oh pleeeaase, writes Bear Bussjaeger over at TZP. Couric didn’t just go “the Full Rather.” She went way beyond Rather. Her second feeble apology doesn’t change that. Out with ya, Katie! Begone! “How America Lost its Mojo.” Its geographic and economic mobility mojo, that is. And related: the housing market horror story ain’t over yet. Hm. Too bad this gutsy seven-year-old didn’t have a firearm. OTOH, this man didn’t do too bad without one.
Category: Poly-Ticks
Those blood-sucking vermin in state and national capitals and city halls everywhere
… Now that momentum is building for the one true “DC outsider” candidate, an independent who’s bound to make an impact. Yes, Sweet Meteor O’ Death has distinct advantages over both The Hillary and The Donald. I was even going to buy a bumper sticker* for this outstanding write-in candidate. In the end, I quailed at the price and did not order. Yet the price does hint, at the very least, that SMOD is a sincere believer in capitalism — at least in the “whatever the market will bear” wing of capitalism. —– What? You think Sweet Meteor O’ Death**…
It was the premise of the Politico article that drew me in. It was the claim that politics of 2030 would be shaped by the ghastly presidential election of 2016. There would be big changes to come.
Given the tumult of the times, I don’t doubt that one bit. The contest between The Hillary and The Donald, and all the odd and shifting v*ter alignments and policy preferences around it, is bound to reverberate into the future. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about. I wondered if others were coming to similar conclusions. So I read.
And read. It’s quite a long article.
You don’t say! “The TSA is failing spectacularly at cybersecurity.” You don’t say! “The economy is running on monetary fumes.” You don’t say! Doctors are overscreening for cancer. You don’t say! Fed prosecutors need ethics lessons. Um … maybe. But those lines at Disneyland generally don’t kill you. If that’s all enough to drive you to drink, here’s a 5,000-year-old beer recipe. Not to mention evidence that beer may have helped kickstart civilization. Why the very poor have become poorer. While technically only a book review, this is jam-packed with interesting data and thoughts. But occasionally good news strikes. Terry…
The barefoot one didn’t manage to freeze Mama. Reading this article, I’m not sure whether Colton Harris-Moore is a naive young kid or a crass hustler who’s going to head right straight for trouble again when they release him from prison this summer. “This Bud’s for you, America.” Another one to read mainly because it’s by George Will, who writes like a barbed angel. The whole business with Budweiser’s temporary name change is as pathetic as it is cynical. Why are house prices soaring across this Great Land of Budweiser? One guess. When headlines lie: “American Airlines is fed up…
It is surely a mixed blessing to have time to design your own headstone. That’s a wonderful monument, though, and the Vanderboeghs could use some help getting it made. Kudos to Kurt Hofmann for a quote deserving of such immortality. “Trump: Why it happened and what comes next” by David Stockman. (How come presidential advisors never sound either this smart or this liberty-minded while they’re presidential advisors? Only afterward?) Yes, indeedy. We should always believe our heroic protectors when they tell us they need tools like Sting-Ray technology to catch terrorists, child-abductors, and the like. Sure thing. Herschel Smith says…
Naw. Nobody for president. But wouldn’t you love to hear more candidates sounding like this? Source (H/T Cat)
This Looney Toon of a presidential election takes me back, gods forbid, to elections past.
It takes me to Nixon-Humphrey, the previous absolute-worst political pairing in my lifetime. Before that, I was political, but only because my mom was political and I took after her. All Democrats were good, all Republicans were Eeeeevil, and John Kennedy was the best Democrat of all because he was handsome and a Democrat and he came to our town campaigning and I almost got to touch him. Life was simple.
I was still too young to v*te when the major parties threw up Nixon and Humphrey. But it was the first time I knew something was rotten on both sides. And Mom’s adoration for the tubby hack from Minnesota merely made me wonder what she’d been smoking (or rather, not smoking, since the smoking people of 1968 were as horrified by Hubie the Mediocre as they were by Milhaus the Whining Retread).
I think I may have even declared my intention to leave the country — years ahead of Alec Baldwin and his ilk, but just as insincerely. The fact that I was too young to get a passport excuses me, right? And shortly after that, there were Libertarians and retreaters (the name back then for prepper-survivalists) and cool non-political newsletters from the heady combo of Rothbard and Hess, and many other things besides politics-as-usual to put hopes in.
But this utterly hope-less election of 2016 — with its likely pairing of two megalomaniacs who use government for incessant personal gain and whose “principles” are light enough to blow wherever the next breeze takes them — also takes me back to the one-and-only national election where I felt an actual stirring of hope.
Talk about swords into plowshares! California city government v*tes to turn a former prison into a cannabis oil factory. Super high-tech tiny house. Pretty cool. (Helps to be a boatbuilder and cabinetmaker.) But c’mon. How much did it cost? (H/T MJR) 🙂 How not to take a gun selfie. And speaking of selfies, I assume this study (which concludes — wow, whodathunkit? — that narcissists are more likely to post and crave feedback on selfies) must have been funded by government. Not ours, fortunately. And speaking of governments: who’s named in the Panama Papers? Named so far, we should add.…
Sorrys in advance for being unable to remember now where I got some of these links. I’ve been saving them up for a while. So thanks to The Usual Suspects. 🙂 Wanna set up a pot business? Become a nun. Chase Bank holds funds and reports customer to the feds for paying his dog walker. Joel got to this one first, but it’s too pure-and-simply wonderful not to re-blog: the mystery of the squatter in the woods who came and left with no trace. Ghostery to the max! But this … once again takes “small-space living” to crazy extremes. Only…