I am slack-jawed with admiration tonight. The source of my amazement is reports that female McCain/Palin supporters have started making and distributing T-shirts that say “Read My Lipstick: MCain/Palin 2008”. And wearing them in large numbers. This is deployment of multi-leveled irony as an offensive weapon. They are taking Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” remark… Continue reading Heh — “Read My Lipstick”
Timing the Entitlements Crash
Investor’s Business Daily ran a story recently, Tax To The Max, on a Congressional Budget Office study of the U.S. finances.What it says is that spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs is unsustainably high. The study projects tax increases of 150%, with the lowest income-tax bracket going from 10% to 25%… Continue reading Timing the Entitlements Crash
The Obama campaign smells of defeat
My normal style on this blog is to write think pieces. I post when I have an idea I need to grapple with; the process of writing and researching helps me organize and sharpen my thinking. Sometimes, the process changes my mind about an issue. This once, I’m posting to report a gut feeling I’ve… Continue reading The Obama campaign smells of defeat
Blog site defacement
Sometime shortly after 6AM this morning, my blog site and home page were defaced, replaced with a message reading “Happy 9/11 LOL” and a very ugly image. I happened to be up and working and discovered the damage quickly, probably within minutes of the attack. Less than ten minutes later I had received three pieces… Continue reading Blog site defacement
Kansas and the Vanishing Gap
In my last essay, The Vanishing Consumption Gap, I presented several lines of evidence leading to the conclusion that the consumption disparity between rich and poor in the U.S. is drastically less than the income disparity, and seems to be decreasing even as income disparity rises. This continues a historical trend, and there are causal… Continue reading Kansas and the Vanishing Gap
The Vanishing Consumption Gap
There’s an often-quoted statistic that the ratio between the average incomes of the richest and poorest quintiles of Americans is 15 to 1. Earlier this year I stumbled over some research (“You Are What You Spend”) indicating that there is less to that difference than meets the eye. According to the authors, the difference in… Continue reading The Vanishing Consumption Gap
Oh, those bitter clingers!
News flash: Presidential candidate Barack Obama says I’m not going to take your guns away in front of a hand-picked crowd of Democratic supporters in Duryea, Pennsylvania — and they don’t believe him. No, that was not a hook for an anti-Obama rant. Obama’s unbelievability on this issue is only partly his own individual fault.… Continue reading Oh, those bitter clingers!
McCain makes a bold move
Picking Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential nominee was a clever and gutsy thing for John McCain to do. I think he has just wrong-footed the Democrats on several levels. First, this choice looks bold and change-making in exactly the way Obama’s choice of Biden did not. Instead of a tired old pol with a history… Continue reading McCain makes a bold move
Why I hate identity politics
I was born with a congenital defect. That’s a value-free statement that nobody can conceivably insult me by repeating. It is a fact that I have cerebral palsy, probably caused by neonatal oxygen deprivation. It is a fact that my central nervous system (specifically the motor-control areas of my right temporal lobe) does not function… Continue reading Why I hate identity politics
A welcome outbreak of sanity
Instapundit links to this interesting news story: Texas school district lets teachers, staff pack pistols. While this is a step in the right direction, I think it does not go far enough. I think all teachers, day-care staff, and other adults in loco parentis for groups of children should be required to carry firearms on… Continue reading A welcome outbreak of sanity
Deducing From What Isn’t Reported
There are a couple of things we can deduce from what the national press is not reporting about the killing of Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney: The killer has no particular ties to the Republican Party or any other right-wing political organization. How do we know this? Because that is without question what the… Continue reading Deducing From What Isn’t Reported
The Great Skank Question
Monica Lewinsky. Rielle Hunter. I’d haul out the tired old Marx quote about history repeating itself as farce, but l’affaire Lewinsky was pretty farcical to begin with. As I looked at images of Hunter and Lewinsky, though, I was struck by a question: If power is, as is so often claimed, the ultimate aphrodisiac, why… Continue reading The Great Skank Question
George Lakoff Framed Himself
I’ve been a fan of George Lakoff’s writings on cognitive linguistics since reading Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things around 1990. Later, I observed his foray into political advocacy with increasing concern for him as the trajectory from expected savior to derided scapegoat became increasingly obvious. Now, the Chronicle of Higher Education gives us a retrospective,… Continue reading George Lakoff Framed Himself
On Enjoying a Fight – a Genetic Speculation
Sword Camp 2008 reminded me how much I enjoy fighting. I’m not speaking abstractly, here; by “fighting” I mean physical hand-to-hand combat. Now, on one level, this revelation shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows what I do for fun. I’ve trained to black belt level in tae kwon do, studied… Continue reading On Enjoying a Fight – a Genetic Speculation
Sword Camp 2008: Graduation Day, Day Seven
The final day of Sword Camp. We spent our morning learning advanced field medical techniques, up to and including learning how to suture a wound by stitching together a slash through the skin of a banana with actual surgical sutures. We also learned how to use a trach tube for clearing an airway in cases… Continue reading Sword Camp 2008: Graduation Day, Day Seven
Sword Camp 2008: Live Steel Day, Day Six
Live Steel Day arrived, and we spent the first half of the morning attacking a couch. This is a much less trivial exercise than it sounds. Couches are tough, full of padding and wood and springs and more difficult to cut than flesh. We had a tablefull of weapons — machetes, a parang, a couple… Continue reading Sword Camp 2008: Live Steel Day, Day Six
Sword Camp 2008: Zompocalypse, Day Five
The first word of the Zombie Apocalypse reached us at approximately 10:30 this morning. Sal calls those of us who had driven to the site that morning into his office and informs us that the radio news is carrying reports of heavy rioting in Flint, spreading to northern Detroit. US123 and I75 are closed, I69… Continue reading Sword Camp 2008: Zompocalypse, Day Five
Sword Camp 2008: Tactics Day, Day Four
Tuesday was Tactics Day. It opened with a class on ground analysis; how to match your tactics to the ground you have to fight on. We analyzed a particular area of the site for access and escape routes, cover, concealment, impediments to movement, and the way all these affect possibilities for attack and defense.
Sword Camp 2008: Firearms Day, Day Three
Monday was the day things went bang. Firearms, basic and advanced. We began with safety instruction and refresher by the lovely Lynda, emphasizing three basic rules: (1) Always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, (2) Finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot, and (3) keep ammunition separated from weapons until… Continue reading Sword Camp 2008: Firearms Day, Day Three
Sword Camp 2008: MacGyver Day, Day Two
Tuesday was designated MacGyver Day — all about cleverness, improvisation, and thinking outside the box. This sounded like fun, right enough, but what I was really looking forward to was…holmgang.