Category Archives: politics

hell no, I’m too old to go!

Recent reading: Julian Sanchez (and those whom he links, and so on) on the specter of conscription. Will Wilkinson‘s argument (from last summer) is especially readworthy.

Posted in militaria | Leave a comment

cui bono?

Debra of Wolfesblog reports: the federal government (you know, the guys who swear they’re doing ‘everything possible’ to protect the beef supply) does not allow such private testing for mad cow disease. Perhaps that should read “to protect the beef … Continue reading

Posted in medicine, politics | Leave a comment

utopia and a pony

Micha Ghertner responds to the charge of libertarian utopianism: Neither Barnett nor Friedman exhibits the kind of wishful thinking that Belle Waring lampoons in her much cited blog post. If anything, they argue for just the opposite. It requires a … Continue reading

Posted in humanities, politics | Leave a comment

there must be a standard metaphor

We locked you up in jail for 25 years and you were innocent all along? That’ll be £80,000 please (cited by Joshua Burton) One might be reminded of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, in reverse: there, the man interrogated by mistake got … Continue reading

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go have your fun

In 1997 I decided that the symbolic pleasure of spitting in the wind was not worth putting my new home address on record. So, in defiance of any number of Hollywood talking heads who admonish us (with surprising accuracy) that … Continue reading

Posted in me!me!me!, politics | Leave a comment

that’ll teach ’em

Brad Edmonds: I Still Owe the Military Nothing Truman bombed Japan because the Japanese demanded as their only condition of surrender that the emperor remain emperor. They continued to demand this after both bombings, so Truman just gave in. The … Continue reading

Posted in history, militaria | Leave a comment

internal coherency

Mike Lorrey reports: . . . the Vermont town of Killington, VT is considering the possibility of seceding from Vermont . . . Well that’s a relief. If the Michigan town of Killington, VT were to debate seceding from Arizona, that would be silly.

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