"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Because we can’t be trusted to run our own lives
In a post about Arizona’s new immigration law the other day, I naïvely posted this: I estimate that the Border Patrol catches around a hundred illegal border-crossers a day in Arizona alone. Anywhere you go in southern Arizona, you see Border Patrol checkpoints and the big white ex-Greyhound buses they use to haul the day’s […]
I’ve blown hot and cold on the populist gripe against red light cameras, that they’re only about enhancing municipal revenue. When Tucson set up red light cameras last year, the city probably enjoyed a significant revenue spike. But people learn fast, and now almost no one runs red lights . . . so there goes […]
Somehow this seems relevant: Original Video – More videos at TinyPic
What part of “illegal” don’t I understand? Uh, the part where loudmouthed white assholes get to speed and smoke pot and cheat on their taxes, while American citizens of Hispanic descent have to prove they’re not breaking a law any time a cop looks at them sideways, and oh by the way while Mexicans, Hondurans, […]
From my post of two days ago: “And I think corporate ownership of congress is going to get worse, not better.” Boy, I’ll say. Yesterday the Supreme Court extended free speech rights to corporations, who will now be allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political candidates and parties. Some say this’ll be the […]
Unconnected thoughts and observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might just amount to something: Tasers: This seems like good news, and it comes not a moment too soon: “Police need reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can’t use their stun gun simply because the […]
When I want fake news, I skip right past the Weekly World News, The Daily Show, and The Onion, and go straight to the source: the Korean Central News Agency, official press agency of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea. Anyone who follows the haps in North Korea knows Dear Leader Kim Jong Il is […]
The media occasionally report on Christian evangelicalism and proselytization in the military services, particularly at the military academies. One journalist who tracks stories about non-believing and minority religion servicemembers coerced into Christian worship is Ed Brayton, who blogs about this and other issues at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Last week he published a letter […]