Archive for November, 2010
Give ‘em enough thread
Buried amidst the minutiae of the Wikileaks dump is the shocking revelation that Jeane Kirkpatrick loved this advertisement. Talk about anything but the TSA.
November 29, 2010
· 
Angry DougJ · 
56 Comments
Posted in: Open Thread, Other
The V-chip and school uniform phase of this presidency
Except that no one got a wage cut freeze when Clinton wasted the nation’s time on that stuff. I’m an Obot and I’m all about baking cookies and standing by my man when we’ve got a competent Democratic president, but this is bullshit and it won’t satisfy the teatards anyway.
November 29, 2010
· Angry DougJ · 331 Comments
Posted in: We Are All Mayans Now
Too Legit to Quit
Thought this was interesting: Joey Burger was 14 when his naturalist parents moved from Santa Cruz to settle in the coastal forest of Humboldt County. Local hippies and homesteaders welcomed the new kid in the woods. They schooled him in the regional art — growing marijuana. “It was never looked upon as a bad thing,” [...]
November 29, 2010
· John Cole · 38 Comments
Posted in: The War on Your Neighbor, aka the War on Drugs
Ice-cold douche
Now I really am bored with the TSA and it sounds as though many of you are too. So I’m passing on this excellent post by Brad DeLong about how extreme today’s neo-Hooverists are, even (maybe especially) in comparison with their supposed idol, Milton Friedman: Hayek’s fellow countryman, Joseph Schumpeter, went further: “Gentlemen!” he announced [...]
November 29, 2010
· Angry DougJ · 76 Comments
Posted in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Fucked-up-edness
The TSA, ctd.
To DougJ’s pointL: no Blackwater is not the best example of private airport security. The best example is the private airport security which existed for decades prior to 9/11. We don’t need an analogy. The airlines were in charge of security – not the government. Blackwater, on the other hand, is a private military contractor [...]
November 29, 2010
· E.D. Kain · 121 Comments
Posted in: Domestic Affairs
Wait Just One Minute
When the local government in Fountain Hills, Arizona, reviewed a bunch of bids and awarded a garbage contract to one company for 25,000 residences in a county of over 4 million, and I was ok with it and laughed at the insane teabagger response, multiple libertarians sneered at me and screamed “LIBERALS FAVOR STATE-SANCTIONED MONOPOLIES” [...]
November 29, 2010
· John Cole · 51 Comments
Posted in: Domestic Affairs
I’m so bored with the TSA
When it comes to things like airport security and border crossings, I have a pretty extreme libertarian attitude in some sense: I tend to think most of it is theater, that a competent, sufficiently determined terrorist could get around whatever we put in place, and that the only reason we aren’t constantly attacked by competent, [...]
November 29, 2010
· Angry DougJ · 46 Comments
Posted in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Going Galt
Abolish the TSA
The post mistermix linked to at The League includes my desire to A) abolish the TSA and B) implement Israeli-style profiling if we are going to focus so much on our security. Personally, I find the focus on airtight security to be more than a little silly. That we should spend so much time and [...]
November 29, 2010
· E.D. Kain · 126 Comments
Posted in: Domestic Affairs
RIP, Leslie Nielsen
I was never much a fan of Police Squad and the Naked Gun franchise, but I still think Airplane! is one of the greatest comedies ever made, and can quote basically the entire movie. Which is sad and funny in and of itself. RIP, Shirley.
November 29, 2010
· John Cole · 69 Comments
Posted in: Popular Culture
The Faith-Based View of Private Contractors
ED at his other blog: Yes, we should abolish the TSA and replace it with private airport security companies. These companies should be strictly bound by the rule of law. There should be a transparent and streamlined complaint and abuse process available to airline passengers. Security firms should be kept on their toes. Unlike huge [...]
November 29, 2010
· mistermix · 90 Comments
Posted in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Security Theatre
Phone Porn
The Mozilla Seabird concept phone. (via Reddit)
November 29, 2010
· mistermix · 13 Comments
Posted in: Science and Technology
Unfit to Print
The New York Times received its dump of diplomatic documents from the Guardian, not Wikileaks. This isn’t surprising given that the Times’ editor went out of his way to call Wikileaks irresponsible, ran an unflattering profile of Julian Assange alongside the last Wikileaks story, and wouldn’t even link from their Iraq Wikileaks story to the [...]
November 29, 2010
· mistermix · 78 Comments
Posted in: Our Failed Media Experiment
Early Morning Open Thread: Pink Bows
From commentor Dog Is My Copilot: This is a memorial, sadly… RIP, Brandy… In December 2006, Golden Bond Rescue contacted me to do a dog evaluation in Puyallup, Washington. The dog’s name was Brandy. After the evaluation was done, GB asked if my husband and I could foster her. My husband (the softy) said that [...]
November 29, 2010
· Anne Laurie · 16 Comments
Posted in: Dog Blogging, Open Thread, Pet Rescue
Sunday Night Open Thread
Discuss. What have we missed? I’ve sort of been awol, sucking down equal parts of sudafed and turkey the last couple of days, while watching a TON of football.
November 28, 2010
· John Cole · 100 Comments
Posted in: Open Thread
Wikileaks Reaction
This link to the Spiegel’s summary (full coverage here) was quite good, thanks to the emailer who sent that in. I’ve reviewed a bunch of the coverage from multiple sources (but seen none of the actual documents), and I guess my thoughts could be summarized as: 1.) We really are doing everything they accuse us [...]
November 28, 2010
· John Cole · 317 Comments
Posted in: Excellent Links
