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Monthly Archives: April 2008
Every Now and Again a Writer Takes a Plane
Peggy Noonan is tired of the security theater at the airport. Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and … Continue reading
Posted in liberty, politics
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Same as Anyone Else
Oh, look, it appears that we’ll make the Arabs happy by leaving them alone. Who knew?
Posted in politics
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Talking Point for the Frugal Candidate
The government’s pockets are only as deep as yours.
Posted in politics
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No Choice at All
Shall we choose the profligate candidate, or the spendthrift? Where’s the frugal choice when you need one?
Posted in politics
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Talker
I was listening to John McCain talk on NPR this evening, and I have to admit that he knows what to say to get my attention. However, the chasm between his talk and action is huge. Robert Siegel failed to … Continue reading
Posted in economics, politics
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HOA Taxes
I have been serving on the board of the Dalton Farm Homeowner Association for almost a year. This past week we developed the budget for the next fiscal year. The bulk of the budget was already established by contractual arrangements … Continue reading
Are Guidance Counselors Superfluous?
The Arlington Central School District sends out a newsletter every now and again — oddly enough around budget season. This time it includes a piece titled “Arlington’s Investment Paying Off,” which discusses how additional guidance counselors have dropped the student … Continue reading
No Patina
Catesby Leigh writes in the City Journal, Modernist buildings, whether clad in glass or not, simply aren’t built to age gracefully—not only because of the way they’re constructed, but also because they aren’t designed to be loved. They are either … Continue reading
Posted in Place
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A Little Less Help, Please
For those of you not paying attention, fuel costs are up. This change in circumstances changes the calculation of which mode of operation is optimal. In the case of transportation, the cost of long-haul packet shipping over railroads has dropped … Continue reading
Posted in economics, politics
Tagged economics, highways, politics, railroad, transportation
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Compulsory Education
via Arnold Kling, we learn that the State of California does not like home-schooling by parents who are not also teachers, on the assumption that certification ensures quality. Mr. Kling pulls out this quote from the article. “Parents do not … Continue reading
Posted in learning, liberty
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The Good Shepherd vs. The Beast
Today’s readings speak of God and Jesus as our shepherd. We’re most familiar with this metaphor in Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In John 10:1-18, Jesus continues the metaphor, and identifies himself as the … Continue reading
Posted in General
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I Spent My Last $10 on Birth Control, and Beer
The bagel shop is raising prices. The pizza place is raising prices. And a six-pack of my favorite beer has just passed $10 at the grocer. What, you may ask, am I doing buying beer at the grocer’s? It’s convenient, … Continue reading
Encoding Meaning
I experienced a homograph attack on my productivity today, courtesy of Microsoft Word. This character, pasted here (–), looks like a hyphen, but it’s not. That codepoint is also Unicode Latin small letter a with circumflex: â, or â. When … Continue reading
You Made Your Bed, Now Lie in It
I read Joel Spolsky’s “Martian Headsets” post a while back, in which he discusses Microsoft’s about-face with regards to Internet Explorer 8 in terms of balancing backward-compatibility with standards compliance, as if they are necessarily incompatible. Mark Pilgrim followed up … Continue reading
Posted in economics, liberty, rant
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Low Opinion of the Press?
Would you like your opinion of the Fourth Estate lowered further? Thought it couldn’t get any worse? Suspect that journalists on deadline have less scruples than a Congressman on a junket? Then read Glenn Greenwald‘s series on how the chattering … Continue reading
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Yoo Hoo! Cato! Over Here!
I’m surprised that Cato hasn’t mentioned the stink around the latest memorandum from John Yoo [part 1, part 2]. Perhaps they are as shocked, shocked!, as I am to learn that the Executive has been up to no good. There … Continue reading
Posted in liberty
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Superluser
I’ve been running without root access to systems for nigh on two years now, and I must say that it is very annoying, even with sudo in order to start some web servers and such. The basic UNIX security model … Continue reading
Spain’s Forests
In the movie Elizabeth, Phillip II remarks that he has sacrificed Spain’s forests in order to build his fleet. That’s an interesting remark, and I wonder how accurate it is. Perhaps someone knows. While I was looking on the Internet … Continue reading
Posted in General
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500 Words or Fewer
Perhaps there need to be word limits on legislation. the legislation was a 262-page amendment to a far larger appropriations bill. What Created This Monster”, The New York Times, via David Sucher, in re Bear Stearns.
How Did People Watch TV Before the Internet?
We’re watching NCIS, and I can’t help but wondering what their jurisdiction is. If the show is in any way representative, they investigate pretty much anything. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has primary investigative and counterintelligence jurisdiction within the … Continue reading
Posted in General
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