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November 07, 2006
October 20, 2006
When the Pigs Become Their Masters
• Epstein, Richard A. “Assault with Blunt History.” Reason 32.1 (2000): 55-60.
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• Katz, Stanley N., Hanna H. Gray, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Report of the Investigative Committee in the Matter of Professor Michael Bellesiles. 2002. Emory University 15 Oct. 2006 http://www.news.emory.edu/Releases/Final_Report.pdf.
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• “Shot Down.” The Weekly Standard 23 Dec. 2002: 3.
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• Wiener, Jon. “Fire at Will.” The Nation 4 Nov. 2002: 28-32.
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• ——. “Historians in Trouble: Why Some Get Nailed.” History News Network. 3 Jan. 2005. George Mason University. 16 Oct. 2006 http://hnn.us/articles/9229.html.
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• Wills, Garry. A Necessary Evil. New York: Touchstone, 1999.
August 29, 2006
Superstar!
Cartoon by Mike Luckovich
August 25, 2006
Place Your Bets
August 23, 2006
Beerfest
For some Pennsylvanians, this is breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
August 22, 2006
Share the Wealth
14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil, and is pregnant with mischief, and brings forth lies.
15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole which he has made.
16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own pate his violence descends.
August 19, 2006
Blown Save
...Earlier this year—around Mother’s Day to be precise—we had to read about the pathetic story of Los Angeles psychologist Michael Cohn, who filed a lawsuit against the Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels after he became offended when he didn’t receive a Mother’s Day tote bag at an Angels game. He wanted one, too, but the club didn’t give him one because they were reserved for women who were 18 years of age and older. Cohn didn’t understand the concept of Mother’s Day equating to women, and as such filed a lawsuit against the baseball team and the college that sponsored the tote promotion.
SANTA ANA, Calif. – A judge refused Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit claiming the Angels discriminated against men by giving tote bags to women during a Mother’s Day baseball game.
[…]
The lawsuit, filed by Los Angeles psychologist Michael Cohn, claims thousands of men and fans under age 18 are each entitled to $4,000 in damages because they were treated unfairly during last May’s promotion. Women over 18 received the gifts.
...The only forms of compensation that should be given out in this case are pacifiers and clean diapers for both Michael Cohn and Orange County Superior Court Judge Jonathan Cannon.
August 18, 2006
Antisocial Networking
...This afternoon I came to a conclusion. Our so-called representatives in Washington might be just as dangerous as predators that can be found on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Xanga. That’s not necessarily because they want to cause harm, but more because their clueless nature and naïveté can lead to harm.
- If you want to accurately identify any computer user, show up on their doorstep, interview them face-to-face, and demand a birth certificate. You can argue for using drivers’ license numbers, but keep in mind that companies will have to pay state governments since they’ll be using databases that are handled by departments of motor vehicles and/or state police agencies. They don’t work for free.
- If you mandate the use of credit card numbers as identification, you’ll have to charge users for the sites. If you do, those sites will lose millions of users, and most of those users will probably be younger ones. Any pedophile users will more than likely be willing to shell out money to stay, so what you’ll then have is a social network with an unusually high percentage of nothing but pedophiles.
- If you think that ordering 14- and 15-year-olds to use sites that are designed for only 14- and 15-years-old, you must be completely ignorant to how teenagers act. They don’t want to act their age; they want to be perceived as “adults”—even when they don’t act mature.
- Similar to the first point, pedophiles can lie about their age, too. Even if you want to create a “special” site which is for 14- and 15-year-olds exclusively, keep in mind that pedophiles can very easily create fake profiles saying that they, too, are 14 or 15. What’s most dangerous here is that it’s easier to lie and make yourself younger than it is to lie and make yourself older.
...Unfortunately, I have a feeling that we’re on the cusp of seeing a “war on terror” approach to the Internet and pedophiles. By that I mean that we’re going to hear more politicians cry “safety” and label anyone who isn’t supportive of massive federal Internet regulation as being “against protecting our children” or “against safety.” This can be likened to those who currently say that dissenters of the “war on terror” and all aspects of “fighting” the war (such as the Patriot Act, for instance) as not being patriotic or even being in favor of the terrorists.
...After all, if we regulate all aspects of the Internet to the point where no one wants to use it anymore, we won’t have to worry about any of the dangers that come with it, will we?
...Internet safety has to come from educating parents and children on the dangers of predators and how to avoid them. It won’t do any good to sit around and wait for solutions from Washington. For one thing, we should be more hands-on with our personal security; for another thing, we probably won’t see any realistic solutions coming from Congress.
August 17, 2006
Thug Life
...Note: I’m out of town at present and must use an iBook G4 for all my online work. Any complaints regarding formatting abnormalities in this post should be directed at the folks at Apple. (Any complaints regarding viewpoints should continue to be directed at me.)
August 14, 2006
Strike Two
Bud Selig, Major League Baseball Commissioner (USA Today Photo)
August 10, 2006
Maybe the Lock Box is Green
Satan Saves
August 05, 2006
Brain Freezes Before Road
A Central Ohio woman said she has had the same license plate on her car for more than a decade, but now the state is calling her personalized plate obscene.
Pat Niple turned 74 years old on Tuesday. She normally ordered her license plates and renewal stickers by mail. But this year, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles returned her check, accompanied by a letter.
[…]
Niple’s personalized plates are NWTF, an abbreviation of Northwood Tree Farm—a business she owned with her late husband. It also means something else, officials said.
“Apparently, the young people use it on the computer,” she said.
Niple went to a BMV office to get some answers. A clerk had to whisper what the acronym means to some people.
[…]
BMV officials said they have a set of standards that includes no profanity or obscene language. So, Niple has to use a temporary tag until her new, acceptable plates arrive.
August 04, 2006
Academic Freedom, Part II
August 02, 2006
Academic Freedom, Part I
“But here’s the problem that I see at Wisconsin. There’s no leadership there. There’s no leadership in the Board of Regents at the university. This guy would have been gone at Boston University, my alma mater, in a heartbeat. The chancellor there, John Silber, this guy would be in the Charles River floating down, you know, toward the harbor. It wouldn’t happen. But here at the University of Wisconsin, there are no standards. This guy can go in and say anything, not back it up, and get paid by the taxpayers. And I’m just stunned.”
August 01, 2006
Gross Domestic Product
July 31, 2006
Fun with Screenshots
July 28, 2006
Intermittent Responsibility Disorder
Robert Lee Vincent, Sr.
July 27, 2006
Goolags?
July 26, 2006
War for Peace
July 24, 2006
Crooked Grind
(Photo by Cara Grae Meling)
Dressed to Oppress
Tarzan (© 2003 Les Edwards)
July 23, 2006
Unhallowed Ground
(Photo by A.J. Nelson)
The soldier did not start this war we are in. In fact, due to the current economy, many have even joined the military prior to this war as a means of financially surviving. Either way, soldiers serve a purpose, a deeper means. They put their lives on the line to keep us safe. Maybe we are wrong for being over in Iraq, but how is it justifiable for anyone to stand outside of a soldier’s funeral and criticize them for dying for our freedom? Furthermore, how can someone justify their own protest when they are arguing someone who is not even capable of defending themselves? Seems like a bit of a cop out to me. The energy could be directed in a much more positive and productive manner than picking at the deceased.
The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization’s policies and internal administration.
“Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement,” the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.
“Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising,” the proposals state.
July 21, 2006
In No Uncertain Terms
Far-reaching immigration reform in Washington is preferable to a patchwork of state or local laws, including the one proposed by Mr. Morganelli. It’s better to wait until the federal stalemate is resolved than to rush in with ineffective and polarizing local and state measures.
“The only ones I want to hear speaking up and complaining about immigration are the Native Americans who we screwed. A lot of this is being pushed by politicians who absolutely want to keep your eyes away from real stuff. They feed off hate and divisiveness.”
Everyone will have to register their nationality with the government. No one will be exempt. People of certain nationalities will be targeted for removal. Those who look like they might be from those nations will be marked as suspects, constantly subject to harassment, official and unofficial.
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There’s only one thing the “immigration debate” is about: It’s about white nationalism.
[…]
Official Amerika will never admit that the matter of “national origin” and “immigration status” is little more than a thin excuse for ethnic suppression and ethnic cleansing.