The other MIchael Siegel runs down the biggest lies told by the media about second hand smoke — this from an anti-smoking academic.
Should reading your wife’s e-mail be a crime? I can’t agree that it should be, unless you’re actively going through a divorce. Scummy? Sure. Assholeish? No doubt. Jail time? No.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: ancient people were much more clever than they are given credit for. This is why “aliens built the pyramids” and similar conspiracy theories enrage me. It’s insulting to the clever people who lived in the past and arrogant by the people who live in the present.
Just some facts about how effective civilian trials of terrorists are.
You’re Full of It Watch: Neal Boortz. In one blog post, he rants that the deficit commission does not cut spending and then blasts them for controlling Medicare spending, even claiming Palin’s “death panels” comments is now justified.
El Paso, sisters city of the most violent city in Mexico, is the safest city in America. The reason? El Paso’s cops aren’t wholly-owned subsidiaries of the drug cartels.
McArdle makes the case for eliminating the corporate income tax. She’s right, but there’s no chance it would happen while Democrats (and some Republicans) still exist. Too easy to demagogue.
More light rail follies, this time from Detroit and Atlanta. I can tell you from having lived in Atlanta, the are flushing $100 million down the toiler.
Yet more evidence that if Ronald Reagan were around today, the GOP would denounce him as a dangerous RINO.
You’re full of it watch: Retroactive Edition. I was reading this amazing story about false confessions. I then googled the Central Park Jogger case and came across this repulsive sneering article by Ann Coulter saying the accused were definitely guilty. I wonder if she ever admitted to be wrong about that?
An interesting critique of modern education. I somewhat agree, but I really think the solution is to allow more private and local control to spur innovation. Some kids do well in the assembly line; some don’t. Let the parents choose rather than force a one-size-fits-all solution on the entire nation. Needless to say, this is the opposite of what our leaders are doing.
No, Virginia, the clusterfuck at the banks is not going to let you welch on your mortgage. This is one of those times when practical considerations may have to trump free market ideology.
I wonder if Philadelphia’s idea about licensing bloggers is a money grab or an attempt to silence the new media. Either way, it’s wrong. Freelance writers don’t have to pa a business license, do they?
A bookmark for the future: the coming “savage cuts” in Social Security are not cuts at all. Always remember the way Washington uses words – reductions in explosive growth are “cuts”.
I am shocked, shocked that the federal food insurance keeps rebuilding the same homes over and over. It’s almost like it has created a perverse incentive.
I am shocked, shocked to find out that Obamcare will outlaw cheap insurance for students. It’s almost like we warned you.
Turns out, that whole ebonics translator thing isn’t so funny.
What if the Earth stopped spinning? Remember, according to the Bible, it did.
Posnanski writes a great post on the idea that we were wrong about steroids. Notice that most of the people disputing him use the, “Oh come on, it was SOOO obvious!” line of argument.
You’re Full of Shit Watch: Paul Krugman is full of it on Paul Ryan, Newt is full of it on the Cordoba Mosque and Bill Kristol is just full of it in general.
San Francisco is rapidly becoming a joke on Nanny State issues. This is absurd.
The idea of removing the lifetime tenure of Supreme Court nominees tends to surface every now and then, mostly when the White House has switched parties. I agree the debate has gotten nastier, although we have Democrats to thank for that (see Bork, Robert). But this is a dumb idea. The best thing about the Court is that the justice are free to rule as they see fit. We’ve seen a number of them go in unexpected directions. And that’s a good thing.
Is the phone dying? I’m extremely doubtful. Modern texting and social networking are good for light contact. But for anything intense — like, say, discussing a gamma ray burst — the phone is essential.
I think I’m just going to start every linkorama with the best Cracked article of the day. This one is on movies and talks about some things that are driving me nuts.
Political links:
Holy shit, I agree with Michael Bloomberg. This whole mosque business has been incredibly depressing, watching a faction of the conservatives sink into ridiculous xenophobia. I can not imagine a better propaganda victory for Al-Quaeda than banning a mosque from US soil.
Speaking of conservative lunacy, this article is old, but takes the air out of some of the “Oh my God! 40% of Republicans are birthers!” opinion polls. Apparently, phone polls can get about a third of people to agree to almost anything.
Bainbridge quotes Sowell on the difference between the constrained and unconstrained vision. I agree with a lot of this. The Left (and increasingly the Right) are far too fond of big “smart” solutions to problems as opposed to organic solutions like free markets and free peoples. While expertise is a good thing when dealing with a scientific issue like, say, global warming, that does not mean experts can dictate solutions to complex non-linear social and economic problems.
Exhibit 745/B why I would never live in California. And people insist that lawsuits have nothing to do with the high cost of healthcare.
Poetic justice. OSHA is complaining about legal costs.
The ADA is twenty years old. And it still hasn’t been fixed.
I am shocked, shocked to find out that body scans are being saved by TSA. Why, it’s almost like you can’t trust the government.
Reason gives the Nanny of the Month award to San Francisco. I remember when California use to be the crazy wild state. They are considering legalizing marijuana. Too bad their senator isn’t on board.
I’m with McArdle. While I accept global warming, the idea that we’re facing a phytoplanton apocalypse seems dubious. The planet has been a lot warmer in the past than it is today and supported more abundant life.
Meanwhile, another climate report confirms global warming. Expect radio silence from the Right Wing; but loud screams of fraud the next time an IPCC claim is found to be inaccurately sourced.
The Feds want more latitude when it comes to snooping through electronic records. Of course, this had nothing to do with embarrassing wikileaks expose. On the flip side, they’re after Google for inadvertently picking up open wireless signals.
MIchelle Rhee may finally be taking on the Cartel of Big Education. But it’s not clear yet that Race to the Top is going to produce the kind of change that decentralization and choice would.
Another reliable forensic test turns out to be anything but. You know, I’d like to see an episode of Law and Order where a man is convicted based on unreliable lab tests, voo-doo criminal profiling and bogus hand-writing tests and turns out be innocent.
Sully’s readers wax rhapsodic about Doctor Who. It’s a joy to read for this Whovian. The wife unit and I used to watch it every Friday. We’re recently turned some friends onto it. And meeting someone who’s a fan creates an instant conversation. I agree with what he says about the show. As science fiction, it has it’s problems. But as drama, it’s wonderful. And yes, the Doctor is anti-matter to Jack Bauer (but hopefully not Amanda!).
Cool slow mo video. I particularly like the mouse traps.
I think (hope) I’m somewhere on the main sequence. I had to play with the metrics a bit (there are, apparently, lots of Mike Siegels out there and I have a lot of GCNs under my belt at ADS). But my calculation are mid main sequence.
Political Links:
Not sure if this is political or not. It’s about the pink sari gang that are bringing vigilante justice to India. I often think that true progress in things women’s right comes not from a benevolent kind government but from millions of people suddenly say, “Hey, why do we put up with his shit?” If this thing ever reaches the Islamic world, the Earth will shake.
And just when you thought the smear on Shirley Sherrod couldn’t get worse, it does. Ta-Nehisi and Balko take it on. Again, we see why Ta-Nehisi is one of my favorite liberal writers: “The more I think about this, the more I am faced with the kind of question I feel naive and stupid for asking–What kind of human being writes a 4,000 word article to prove that someone’s long-dead relative wasn’t lynched because he was beaten to death? Callousness is scary. Stupidity is scary. When you combine the two….I mean seriously, What the fuck? It’s the worst of everything.”
More “failure” from Obama on illegal immigration. Again, expect radio silence from the “amnesty!” shrieking Right Wing.
Peter Suderman runs down the sad sad legacy of Democratic budget trickeration.
FOIA was used to discover that the SEC was, among other things, warned that Bernie Madoff was a shyster. So the Dodd-Frank bill fixes this by … exempting the SEC from FOIA. It’s amazing how often, under the current Congress, progress has been defined by preventing anyone in power from ever having to take responsibility for anything.
A federal judge rules that cheerleading is not a sport. Ignoring, for the moment, the Title IX implications, this is asinine. Whatever one may think of cheerleading, the college level has grueling training, judged competitions and a higher injury rate than most contact sports. To me, that makes it a sport.
Boy, these sex offender registries just keep getting better and better, no? Can’t they give him a “I’m not a pedophile” card or something?
And this mosque business sure brings out the stupid, doesn’t it?
A long story on the Phoebe Prince case. I ache for her parents, but I’m not comfortable with the criminal charges being leveled. I’m not sure if I believe everything in the article, but it’s clear we weren’t told the entire story.
Are bans on conflict diamonds making the situation better or worse? I honestly don’t know what to believe here, despite my inclinations against sanctions. Life is so much easier when I don’t have to think.
Glenn Greenwald lays into the media for attacking the blogosphere again.
Awesome. The navy shoots down on a drone with a laser.
OK, semi-political. I wish I’d had this woman as my philosophy professor when we were looking at feminist philosophy.
Political links:
Crime in Arizona, like the rest of the country, is way down … except in the district patrolled by America’s toughest sheriff. Funny that.
I’m forced to agree with a lot of what’s in this video. I wish our leaders would stop trying to pretend that solving global warming is an economic miracle waiting to happen. Not when things like public transportation are such boondoggles. When I hear pie in the sky talk about AGW, it indicates someone who isn’t taking the issue seriously, just using it as an excuse to prop up special interests. And, like the video, I wish global warming weren’t happening. But I can’t convince myself it’s a myth.
Ron Bailey links up the worst environmental disasters. You could add Chernobyl and Bhopal to the list if you wanted to get historical.
It is absolutely unsurprising that the NHTSA investigation essentially cleared Toyota of most wrongdoing. This is simply a repeat of the sudden acceleration incidents that happened twenty years ago. Ted Frank wades into the comments on the Toyota lawsuits. Worth reading as he is an excellent debater.
In the end, the Nanny Staters will press for this, taking kids out of homes that make them fat. Never mind that weight is a difficult issue to pin down (I linked last week to a school bashing the parents of a gymnast because her Bullshit Mass Index was high). Is the biggest problem we need to solve in parenting people feeding their kids too much?
Hey, it’s no surprise to me that one of the most religious nations on Earth is also the biggest consumer of porn. What do you expect when every woman in a ten mile radius is covered with the living room drapes?
Yep. Celebrities are stupid. Unless they’re conservative, of course.
Political Links:
One thing I like about Andrew Napolitano: he’s consistent. A few weeks ago, he blasted Arizona’s immigration law as unconstitutional. Today he said Bush and Cheney should be indicted for committing torture and eavesdropping. I agree. Our treaty obligations say that we must investigate allegations of torture and prosecute those who authorized it. And under our Constitution, a signed treaty has the power of federal law.
Radley Balko writes a brave column defending Johannes Mehserle.
Yet more reasons I’m glad I left Texas. That’s two cracked links in one linkorama.
I already posted on it at the other blog, but this Black Panther business is just ridiculous.
So now Google joins Microsoft and Paypal as companies that are getting trust-busted because they wouldn’t play politics.
A Holocaust survivor and his grandkids dance at the ruins of concentration camps. To me, survival is the best answer to that horror. One of my favorite movies is Schindler’s List. The reason I like it is because of the very ending with the real life survivors. I watch most of the movie with horror and sadness. But it’s only the triumphant ending, with the sons and daughters of Schindler, that gets me choked up.
Political Links:
Obama scores big, getting four agents from Russia in exchange for the bumbling Russian agents. Naturally … well just read the post and comments about how this all a big conspiracy.
What I was saying the other day about originalism? Jacob Sullum applies it to the DOMA ruling which, in my view, complied with the Constitution.
More on the vileness that is BP, one of the most politically powerful companies in the world.
Dear Conservatives/Libertarians: stop trying to politicize Lebron James’ move to Miami and say he did it because of the taxes. You just sound stupid. No one knows what’s going on in his head.
This is so offensive on so many levels, I don’t know where to begin.
Another inspiring note about people filling in for their corrupt useless government, this time in Detroit.