Category: Uncategorized

Sarah writes: I don’t think you should get yourself upset over folks like Si or ‘anonymous’. By giving them undue attention and allowing your frustration to be exposed, I have a feeling that such things only make the problem worst. Perhaps you are giving them what they want? Also, it may even, perversely, affirm in their minds that they are in the right.

Please understand, pests like the aforementioned two don’t upset me personally in the least. I get email every day informing me that I am uneducated, stupid, evil and uncaring, a vast cornucopia of unfounded caricature. I actually enjoy this sort of thing, as it’s amusing to have the chance to properly tee off on someone who lobs a nice fat slow one at you. But I find it profoundly irritating when someone is so socially unskilled as to feel the need to defecate in the pool in which numerous people are happily splashing water at each other. As the Virginian said, “say it with a smile.”

I will ban without warning or announcement anyone who repeatedly insults me or anyone else on this blog, whether they are in agreement with me or not. I don’t expect intellectual accord, but I do demand civility. I responded at length to Si’s missive because one rarely encounters a so-called liberal who is willing to state in such outright terms their worship of the State and elevation of the community over the rights of the individual. I wasn’t surprised at the poor quality of his thought; I was surprised that he was so willing to expose it to all and sundry. Most leftists know better.

Still, I give him credit for trying, even if he would have saved himself a lot of trouble by reading the great economists of Left and Right, who’ve covered all of that ground before. He’s welcome to continue posting here if he likes, although Anonymous will have to rest content with the knowledge that his ban from this site was preordained from the beginning of time.

I always hated the 49ers. I was out in the Bay Area fairly often in the early 90’s, and there have never been football fans who were more annoyingly confident while being simultaneously ignorant of the game. I came to hate them almost as much as I hated the Steelers and the Raidess, not just because they regularly knocked out good-but-not-great Vikings teams out of the playoffs, but because the way in which they won was irritating no matter who they beat. I looked forward to the day when Montana and Rice would be gone, Bill Walsh would be outdated and the franchise would return to the morass of mediocrity.

Then Walsh pulled Garcia out of his hat three years ago and I watched in disbelief as the 49ers somehow managed to stay in contention. But I knew the end was near when the new so-called brain trust brought in Dennis Erickson, who didn’t do much with the Seattle Seahawks the last time he was coaching in the league.

And yet, I find that while I’m pleased to see new powers rising in the NFC West – even if I still have to remind myself that the Seahawks are there – I can’t help but feel a mild tinge of regret for the lost era. I guess it’s easier to despise an arrogant winner than it is to derive real pleasure from kicking the formerly lofty when they’re down.

The New York Post reports on Air America: The line-up will pit the new network’s talkers directly against the biggest names in radio. Franken is expected to air at noon and go toe-to-toe with Rush Limbaugh, who has a 15 million-listener head start. South Florida liberal Randi Rhodes will follow Franken and be up against Sean Hannity (WABC), Bill O’Reilly and Bob Grant (both on WOR) in New York. She told her West Palm Beach listeners this week that she plans to “bury” Hannity and Grant. Garofalo is the network’s choice for 8 to 11 p.m., Post sources say. Robert Kennedy, Jr. will host a weekend slot.

I am seriously anticipating the debut of Air America. I predict it will crash and burn in a more spectacular manner than the Hindenburg. Ozzy’s dead guitarist Randy Rhoads has a better chance to beat out Hannity than does this woman. I can’t wait to hear the explanations of how America is too stupid to support their moral superiors.

From Newsday: Four days after presiding over a slew of same sex marriages in his quaint Hudson Valley village, the mayor of New Paltz today was charged with 19 violations of New York’s domestic relations law, injecting the debate over gay marriages in the state with increasing drama and urgency. Jason West, 26-year-old Green Party mayor, was ordered to appear in court Wednesday to answer charges that he broke state law by solomizing about two dozen weddings without a marriage license, according to New Paltz police and West’s lawyer.Chief Raymond Zappone said he and a lieutenant from the town police served a 19-count summons to West Tuesday afternoon and that the mayor faces up a $500 fine and a year in jail for his actions which have attracted international attention and brought the fight over gay marriages squarely into New York.

We may never see Gavin Newsom’s face again. What’s he up to, 3,500 counts?

Several readers write variants on this theme: I’d love to read your whole blog. Please put up March’s archives as half of your days work doesn’t download on my system on the first try. I get it all from archives for some reason.

Pressing F11 twice seems to take care of this problem, which effects only Microsoft Internet Explorer users. I’d recommend doing that if you can’t bear to switch to Opera, Mozilla, or Firebird. But switching honestly is preferable, in my opinion, for the pop-up blocking alone.

Voting with a thunderous “aye,” Killington residents endorsed a plan Tuesday for the ski resort town to secede from Vermont. The overwhelming voice vote inside the elementary school opened the next chapter in what could be a long and costly push to join New Hampshire, a state 25 miles to the east. Town officials estimated between 200-300 people attended the meeting, and that about two-thirds of them supported the idea in the voice vote…. Vermont lawmakers have given the plan a lukewarm reception. They have said it is largely symbolic and probably will be voted down by the Legislature.

If self-determination is so important that we must fight for it in other countries, how can we possibly not respect it in our own? Of course, I have no doubt that the Vermont government will be justified in invading Killington and putting this secession down by force since, as we know, secession is really about slavery.

Fred Reed writes: The religious orthodoxy that impedes discussion of biological evolution continues with its accustomed dreadful tenacity…. The answers to these questions either lapse into a convoluted search for plausibility or else boil down to the idea that since guacamayas are as they are, their coloration must have adaptive value. That is, it is the duty of the evidence to fit the theory, rather than of the theory to fit the evidence. This is science?

Another excellent column from the marvelous Mr. Reed. I’m just wondering. Do Fred’s doubts – a marvelously meaningful word here – about evolution mean that he is yet another uneducated Christian creationist fanatic? This is an excellent example of the growing divide between science and scientism.

The Washington Times reports: “Cigarette smuggling costs the United States more than $1 billion in lost revenue every year, while pumping incredible profits into criminal organizations,” Michael Garcia, assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said late last month. Cigarette smuggling in the United States also has been linked to international terrorist groups. Last year, FBI and ATF agents broke a smuggling ring operating out of the Seneca Nation of Indians’ Cattaraugus reservation in New York. From 1996 until last year, the group funneled some of the $2 million in illegal profits to Hezbollah’s “orphans of martyrs” program, which benefits families of Hezbollah terrorist killed while committing acts of terror.

If it’s this profitable to clear $1.25 on avoided taxes on a pack of smokes, imagine how much more is realized by a kilo of marijuana, or cocaine. Especially considering that it’s actually less work to grow the marijuana than it is to buy and transport the cigarettes. I had some friends who harvested two kilos of high quality marijuana one year from their basement botany project – they didn’t realize any profit out of it, however, as they spent the next six months absolutely stoned out of their gourds.

Of course, the Federal government finds useful the ability to scare people into sacrificing their rights – or more to the point, what they think is their dangerous neighbor’s rights – in order to justify continuing this charade. Never mind that the results are predictably negative and the unintended consequences are uniformly hideous. Because, of course, if we don’t have the government to threaten us with asset forfeiture and jail, we’ll all be addicted to smack, ice and the devil weed within days, if not hours. Never mind that the public schools are the pushers nowadays – so many people are on legal drugs these days that the War on Drugs is increasingly beginning to resemble a war to defend the pharmaceutical industry against competition.

This is also a death blow – as if one should be needed – against the notion of static tax models. People alter their behavior much more readily than most people realize, and the legality or illegality of an action seldom enters into the equation. That’s why totalitarian states have to kill people – people control often boils down to a binary issue. They’re only perfectly predictable when they’re dead.

Polemics draws attention to this Boston Globe article. But I don’t see why anyone would complain about these individuals failing to breed. They’re self-absorbed and politically left, so they’d make for nightmarish parents. Furthermore, well, just look at the picture. It’s not like the genetic pool is losing grade-A material or anything.

Quasi in Rem writes: Spurred by the success of Mel Gibson’s recent movie “The Passion of Christ” studios have begun to target the massive audience who apparently desire to see movies which are accused of being anti-semitic. Through six days in theatres Mel Gibson’s “Passion of Christ” has grossed over $125 million. MGM has jumped on the band wagon first and completely re-edited and over-dubbed “Cody Banks II: Destination London”…. MGM was in a rush to get the movie out into theatres in order to compete with other purportedly anti-semitic fare from the major studios. Disney’s Shrek II has been recently subtitled “The Truth about the so-called “Holocaust,” opens on Memorial Day weekend. Similarly Paramount plans to re-release “Schindler’s List” this summmer with an added laugh track and an entirely new “feel good” ending.

I just about wet my pants when I read this. It perfectly captures and lampoons the way in which Hollywood and the secular press has misread the movie. Of course, the only real surprise about The Passion of the Christ besides its overwhelming success is that Hollywood didn’t have a second version coming out in three months, one that revolves more around John’s perspective instead of Mary’s.