Quick Hitts

As you probably know by now the Texas school board has revised their educational guidelines so severely they’re going to have to put “educational” in quotation marks.  Phil Plait made fun of them, then, on Facebook, reacted to people whining about it.
In the ensuing conversation I made a comment about the Moron Badge of Honor, [...]

Note to non-US readers:  Knowing a few facts about the state of Mississippi will make the following story more understandable.
The sole purpose of Mississippi is to keep Alabama off the bottom of every quality of life list.  Whenever you see a chart of US states comparing unwed births, high school dropouts or average number of [...]

The New York Legislature is considering a bill that would make it a criminal offense for restaurant chefs to add salt to food. Yes, you read that right.  Once again, the absurdity of real life makes satire obsolete.
This is exactly what happens when you let the nanny camel get its nose in the tent.
It started, [...]

I’ve watched a few CPAC speeches, and they reminded me of townhall.com: It was a combination of brilliant thinkers and mouth-breathing wing-nuts.
It was encouraging to see they invited a gay rights group, and even more encouraging when a wing-nut who condemned them for it was booed off the stage. But it would be better [...]

Throughout his campaign LMO promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $250k/year.  The *first* thing he did in office was raise the tax on roll your own tobacco by an astounding 2,159%.  It’s a pretty safe bet RYO smokers are making a *bit* less than a quarter million bucks a year. (BTW, [...]

This has been a very bad week for the left.  They’ve received bitch slaps from three different directions, but only one of them will have any lasting impact.
The Democrats lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in one of the nation’s most liberal states, a state that already has its own version of Obamacare. (Which has been [...]

Back in 1978 F. Paul Wilson wrote Lippidleggin’, a short story about a farmer bootlegging butter and eggs, which had been banned to improve everyone’s health.  I’m guessing that back then most people thought it was entertaining, but silly.
Back in 2007, with the author’s permission, I did a reading of the story for an episode [...]

The latest terrorist attempt to bring down a plane proves, beyond any doubt, that the TSA’s security theater is useless.  This guy was already on their watch list but that didn’t even slow him down.  (The watch list has, however, caused a lot of perfectly innocent people, including infants, from getting on a plane, because [...]

Pfizer is abandoning the New London, CT site where their greed led to abolishing property rights for every single American.
The city of New London sold 24 acres of land to Pfizer for ten bucks, but Pfizer didn’t want to have to look at the older houses that dotted the waterfront.  They claimed they wanted the [...]

The Pew Research Center just released a survey about the public perception of media bias.  Before reading the rest of this article, check out the results and rate your own reaction.  How many times did you say “What The Fuck?”

First we have to ask if the survey itself is biased.  If it had been done [...]

The White House claims that 640,329 jobs have been saved or created by the stimulus package.
I love the “saved or created” scam.  While it’s possible to count how many jobs were created, it’s impossible to calculate how many were saved.   This lets them pull any numbers they like out of their ass and brag about [...]

I love this guy. After you’ve watched this video, check out the others in his series.

This week we’ve seen some fine examples of media bias in action.
The left wing insists that liberal bias in the mainstream media is a myth, cooked up by those horrible people at Fox.  The right wing insists that Fox is as fair and balanced as talk radio.  Both opinions are idiotic.
Bias, like pornography, can be [...]

This video is getting sent all over the place.  It’s already more popular than Sex With Ducks.

This guy isn’t a one hit wonder; he’s done quite a few very funny, well done parodies.
You won’t fully appreciate the next one unless you’ve heard the original.  Not only is Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take The Wheel”  filled with [...]

A couple of weeks ago I noted a new tactic from Obamacare fans: writing off the arguments against it, and the people making those arguments, as stupid.  The Sunday Times Union, known to locals as the Times Useless, featured an article berating questions about socialized medicine (of course he didn’t call it that) as dumb [...]

The Eighteen Million Dollar Web Site.
This morning someone had one of those talking heads infotainment morning “news” shows on in another room, and I was half listening to a story about the stimulus bill.  Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on roadside signs telling us that millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on sign [...]

The teacher’s union is one of the biggest reasons US education sucks. They’ve made it  impossible to give a teacher a raise for being good at their job.  And it’s even more impossible to get rid of the bad ones.
In New York City over 700 teachers receive full pay ($70,000/year) for not teaching.  They’re all [...]

Among the many reasons I remain skeptical about Global Warming – excuse me, Climate Change – are the veracity and agendas of those promoting it.  Government, non-government and quasi-government organizations (like the UN) are spreading fear at every opportunity while jumping on the chance to grow their power and income.
The EPA has been a junk [...]

The protests in Iran have been going on for a week a half.  They are not a flash in the pan, and despite being murdered and beaten the Iranian people are still protesting and refusing to accept the results of the faked election.
And what’s Obama’s reaction?  Half-hearted platitudes about freedom and people choosing their own [...]

My kids got me this for Father’s day.
The mug is emblazoned with the compete Bill of Rights, but when you fill it with hot coffee the parts negated by the Patriot Act fade out. There isn’t much left.
It’s not entirely realistic, because after it cools the missing rights come back, which will probably never [...]