Heritage Hunting
I load my rifle, put on my game bag and lock my truck 30 minutes after sunrise. After walking a few yards I bend down to hide my keys in a clump of mustard...
Monthly Archive: May 2012
See You At Leaguefest!
Your geocacher should read: 36° 8′ 13″ North; 115° 9′ 9″ West. On your navigation device, that’s 3000 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, Nevada 89109. From the airport, tell your cabbie, “Take us to the Hilton,...
Friday Jukebox: Antipodean Incursion Edition
It occurred to me recently, that I haven’t actually done of these yet, and as it happens this week is the perfect opportunity. You see, this week marks the US release of New Zealand artist Kimbra’s first album Vows....
On Beltway Insiders and Public Attention Spans
As a DC resident, I know that most of the sins that supposedly stem from nefarious Beltway Insiders have other, more specific causes. There’s a kernel of truth within Beltway bashing, though: people here...
On the Eve of #LeagueFest 2012
So the time has finally come. A dozen or so Gentlemen and spouses will be converging upon the City of Sin in the next 24 hours or so. Some of the more intrepid among...
Jungle Primary In The One-Party State
I filled out my absentee ballot to vote in California’s June primary yesterday. California has recently adopted a “jungle primary” law, in which all candidates from all parties appear on the primary ballot for...
“College is not for everybody”
A caller on NPR’s Talk of the Nation offered a very interesting story about whether a college degree is a sound investment. Note the reflexive defense from Kathleen Shea Smith, a student counselor who...
Shawn Gude gets a sub-blog
Shawn’s first post at “The Safe Depository” is live. He’s been posting occasionally to the front page, and now I’ve finally set him up with his own sub-digs as well. His intro post is here.
Libertarianism in a Nutshell
I fancy meself a South Park Republican, no prig he, more likely to laugh at the ineptness of somebody trying to offend than to be offended. A Piss Christ or a Virgin Mary made...
MON TIKI Update 5/23/12
On Monday we glued up the tillers. On Tuesday we finished up the foam-core laminated tops to the deck houses, the finally pieces that close in the hulls. Today we unclamped the tillers and...
Comment Rescue: The Right Answer?
On the well-traveled thread on the front page that I’m not really following because I just spent a chunk of my day writing on the sub-blog, Ryan says: Here. Let’s put it this way....
Thoughts Obama and Appalachia: It Ain’t (Quite) About That Southern Thing
1) Voter registration. Kentucky, West Virginia, and Arkansas are disproportionately Democratic—that is, when you compare voting preferences with party identification. In Kentucky and West Virginia, the margins are 56-37 and 54-29, respectively. While the Old,...
IDEALog Comparison, or Maybe We’re Really All Liberaltarians
by James Hanley Thanks to all who took the time to take the IDEALog survey and report their results to me, and my apologies for taking so long to present the results. I’ll present...
Mildly distracting notes on distraction
“Throw away your books; no longer distract yourself; it is not allowed…” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations II: 2
I don’t watch football for the violence
Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger writes in Newsweek/Beast of the Junior Seau suicide: If you asked reporters why they were there, they would give some mumbo-jumbo reason that as hard as it may be,...
Culture is the villain
I’ve had this sort of nebulous notion that culture itself is a problem. Not any particular culture, mind you, but rather the entire concept of culture. The exclusivity of the group over the individual....
The Oatmeal isn’t God and Alex Knapp isn’t the Devil
The Oatmeal published this, Alex Knapp took The Oatmeal to task, and The Oatmeal subsequently responded with a defense of the earlier comic. Some further tweets and hundreds of thousands of page views later...
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
I’m proud to say that I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid the blow-by-blow of the Presidential horse race this year. In fact, I’ve spent more time – a combined 5 minutes – watching...
Thoughts about the Ravi sentence
When the guilty verdict was handed down in the Dharun Ravi trial a couple of months ago, I expressed some concerns. Like many people, including many gay rights activists and writers, I felt very...
