Paying Zero for Public Services | Exploring the interactions among public opinion, governance, and the public sphere

Paying Zero for Public Services | Exploring the interactions among public opinion, governance, and the public sphere

Interesting. But I still don't understand what prevents the corrupt public official throwing the petitioner out of their office and then having them shot in the head when no one is looking.

Randy Barnett's response to 'State of the Union: How did he do?' - The Arena | POLITICO.COM

Randy Barnett's response to 'State of the Union: How did he do?' - The Arena | POLITICO.COM

Tacky, tacky, tacky...

In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds Congressmen?

8 Things That Suck About the iPad - apple ipad - Gizmodo

8 Things That Suck About the iPad - apple ipad - Gizmodo

Ok, maybe The Kid won't have to buy one after all. The lack of multi-tasking is a big downer.

The Kid was upset because this looked like a Kindle-killer. And he likes his Kindle. It may be simple and not very expandable, but it's not meant to be. It's meant to do one thing well - replace a book. And that it does an excellent job at.

Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too. - washingtonpost.com

Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too. - washingtonpost.com

The Kid has often wondered why AQ has not yet deviated from its focus on the spectacular to overwhelming small scale attacks.

Tough Love Needed for Haiti by Jonah Goldberg on National Review Online

Tough Love Needed for Haiti by Jonah Goldberg on National Review Online

It’s hardly news that poverty makes people vulnerable to the full arsenal of Mother Nature’s fury. The closer you are to living in a state of nature, the crueler nature will be — which is one reason why people who romanticize tribal or pre-capitalist life (that would be you, James Cameron) tend to do so from a safe, air-conditioned distance and with easy access to flushing toilets, antibiotics, dentistry, and Chinese takeout.

» The Filibuster Is Constitutional and Essential for Freedom - Big Government

» The Filibuster Is Constitutional and Essential for Freedom - Big Government

The one thing I can say is that I remember not so long ago when a bunch of fucking ntiwits in our party wanted to kill the filibuster in order to get half a dozen of President Bush's judicial nominees through. To which I responded "You know, someday, maybe soon, WE'RE GOING TO BE IN THE MINORITY!!!" Thank God Sen.... McCain cut that shit off at the pass. It's the only thing now standing between us and slavery.

Luis Garicano and Richard A. Posner: What Our Spies Can Learn From Toyota - WSJ.com

Luis Garicano and Richard A. Posner: What Our Spies Can Learn From Toyota - WSJ.com

We have an unwieldy multiplicity of agencies that operate largely independently. Dysfunctional bureaucratic incentives decree that an attack involving a repetition of a known terrorist procedure is the most damaging politically, so shoes are scanned because a shoe was used in an attempted airplane bombing. Now underwear will be scanned as well. The government seems always to be playing catch-up to the terrorists.

Zombie » From Each According to His Ability: “Progressive Pricing” Coming Soon to a Nation Near You

Zombie » From Each According to His Ability: “Progressive Pricing” Coming Soon to a Nation Near You

This bodes ill... Equality under the law is a bedrock principle of our society.

Last week the Swiss newspaper Blick broke the story of a guy who was caught driving above the speed limit through the town of Mörschwil and given a speeding ticket for $290,000. No, that’s not a typo — two hundred and ninety thousand dollars.

What could possibly justify such a large fine? One simple reason: The guy was rich. And under a new scheme of “progressive pricing” that’s becoming more and more common across Europe, rich people must pay higher fees for things because they can afford it — and because, well, they’re rich, and therefore deserve extra punishment.

...Underlying this whole drive toward “fairness” is what I consider a rather twisted worldview. The whole reason why anyone bothers to become rich in the first place is so that minor expenses don’t remain burdensome. If you’re broke and shivering and unable to pay your heating bill, your immediate response is usually, “I need to get a job!” But what if, having gotten that job and made more money, your heating bill is raised proportionally, to account for the fact that you can now “afford” to pay more. If this happens with every expense — and it already does happen to a certain degree with taxes — then what’s the point of making more money in the first place? You’ll always be at the same level of brokeness, since however much you earn, your expenditures will rise and fall in conjunction with your earnings. This, of course, is the recipe for individual inaction, which, multiplied a millionfold, becomes societywide inaction, which leads to the kind of cadaverous economies seen in communist countries.

Star Wars Burlesque: Tatooine-Styled Shenanigans at the Bordello - Los Angeles Music - West Coast Sound

Star Wars Burlesque: Tatooine-Styled Shenanigans at the Bordello - Los Angeles Music - West Coast Sound

New levels of awesome...

Will Soon Be Kickin' It ANDOR-STYLE!!!

Only 2 more days till open beta!

Commentary » Blog Archive » Blair, Israel, and the Global Struggle

Commentary » Blog Archive » Blair, Israel, and the Global Struggle:

Wow. What a remarkably clear sighted response from Blair. I guess this is why the guy was such a steadfast ally in Iraq, because he understands that we are all in the same position, fighting the same overarching phenomenon. And therefore, we are placed by our enemies in the position of having to respond, which unfortunately entails, as does all warfare, civilian casualties. But what Blair understands, and what the critics of Israel (or the critics of the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan) do not, is that the enemy bears the moral responsibility for the civilian casualties.

"Even more remarkable, however, is the next sentence: “I mean, we face this [situation] continually. We face it now, actually, in places like Afghanistan.”

In short, Westerners should understand Israel because they’re in the same boat: their own armies are causing civilian casualties “in places like Afghanistan” for the exact same reasons.

So why do many Westerners either refuse to see the parallels or regard their own armies’ behavior with similar incomprehension and outrage? In Blair’s view, the heart of the problem is that too many Westerners fail to understand that they face a determined enemy waging a long-term global struggle, not a series of discrete, unrelated local conflicts."

Crack TSA Manhunt Corners National Security Threat - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online

Crack TSA Manhunt Corners National Security Threat - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online

Great minds think alike:

Shutting down the airport, wasting thousands of people's time by pointlessly rescreening them, treating them as animals in pens without food or drink or bathroom breaks for hours on end, causing them to miss their flights and screwing up their lives... none of that is Mr Jiang's fault but that of the money-no-object TSA that imposes stupid petty rules on everybody else but doesn't even follow its own. And that's why Senator Lautenberg's anger is misdirected: It's not Mr Jiang's fault that Newark's "security" is a laughingstock.

Absolutely pitiful...

» The Survival of the Republic: A Second Reason for Reading Montesquieu - Big Government

» The Survival of the Republic: A Second Reason for Reading Montesquieu - Big Government

It is hard to see how republican government can survive in a world of unfunded and partially funded mandates in which the federal government systematically turns the state governments into instruments of federal policy. It is hard to see how it can survive in a world in which the legislative power confers on administrative agencies the right to make regulations that have the force of law, the right to enforce those regulations, and the right to establish courts to adjudicate disputes arising from the enforcement of those regulations. To an ever-increasing degree, decisions that affect our lives are made in camera behind closed doors by women and men who are unaccountable. That is, as Montesquieu once pointed out, the very definition of despotism.

The reason it is hard is BECAUSE we don't make our kids read Montesquieu, or Locke, or Madison, or Mill, etc.

Mark Steyn: Obama can't say who we're at war with | president, obama, war - Opinion - The Orange County Register

Mark Steyn: Obama can't say who we're at war with | president, obama, war - Opinion - The Orange County Register

What did the Pantybomber have a membership card in? Well, he was president of the Islamic Society of University College, London. Kafeel Ahmed, who died after driving a burning jeep into the concourse of Glasgow Airport, had been president of the Islamic Society of Queen's University, Belfast. Yassin Nassari, serving three years in jail for terrorism, was president of the Islamic Society of the University of Westminster. Waheed Arafat Khan, arrested in the 2006 Heathrow terror plots that led to Americans having to put their liquids and gels in those little plastic bags, was president of the Islamic Society of London Metropolitan University.

Doesn't this sound like a bigger problem than "al-Qaida," whatever that is? The president has now put citizens of Nigeria on the secondary-screening list. Which is tough on Nigerian Christians, who have no desire to blow up your flight to Detroit. Aside from the highly localized Tamil terrorism of India and Sri Lanka, suicide bombing is a phenomenon entirely of Islam. The broader psychosis that manifested itself only the other day in an axe murderer breaking into a Danish cartoonist's home to kill him because he objects to his cartoon is, likewise, a phenomenon of Islam. This is not to say (to go wearily through the motions) that all Muslims are potential suicide bombers and axe murderers, but it is to state the obvious – that this "war" is about the intersection of Islam and the West, and its warriors are recruited in the large pool of young Muslim manpower, not in Yemen and Afghanistan so much as in Copenhagen and London.

But the president of the United States cannot say that because he is overinvested in a fantasy – that, if only that Texan moron Bush had read Khalid Sheikh Mohammed his Miranda rights and bowed as low as Obama did to the Saudi king, we wouldn't have all these problems. So now Obama says, "We are at war." But he cannot articulate any war aims or strategy because they would conflict with his illusions. And so we will stagger on, playing defense, pulling more and more items out of our luggage – tweezers, shoes, shampoo, snow globes, suppositories – and reacting to every new provocation with greater impositions upon the citizenry.

No, a nearby supernova won’t wipe us out | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

No, a nearby supernova won’t wipe us out | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

A Type Ia does put out more high-energy radiation than a Type II supernova, which is caused when a massive star’s core collapses and the outer layers are ejected. That’s what most people think of when they hear about a supernova. Those have to be really close to hurt us, certainly closer than 25 light years. But even with their added power, a Type Ia just doesn’t have the oomph needed to destroy our ozone layer (as the press release indicates) from 3300 light years away. It would have to be far closer than that.

Unless it was the Hobus supernova! What classification is that?

Priorities

Man arrested in Newark airport security breach - Yahoo! News

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who was briefed on the arrest, said authorities found Jiang with "sheer, hard police work" of sifting through records and following leads. But he expressed anger that Jiang faces a charge he described as a "slap on the wrist" and will only be given a fine of about $500.

"This was a terrible deed in its outcome — it wasn't some prank that didn't do any harm — it did a lot of harm because it sent out an alert that people can get away with something like this," Lautenberg said.

The senator called Jiang's actions "premeditated" and said even though the his actions were relatively benign, "what he did was a terrible injustice" to the thousands of people who were inconvenienced.

So, Senator Lautenberg's main beef is that this guy slipped under the rope to say good-bye to his girlfriend - NOT that the TSA closed the entire terminal for 6 freaking hours! Maybe Lautenberg should become the next head of the TSA. He certainly has the right mindset.

We're Living IN The Future!

TSA funding airport mind-reading scanners | Raw Story

"It sounds like science fiction," WeCU CEO Ehud Givon told the Jerusalem Post. "But I can assure you that the technology is very real. We have accuracy rates that are higher than 95 percent."

Supporters of mind-reading technology argue that it would reduce waiting lines at security checkpoints and reduce the hassle for travelers.