URLs du Jour

2008-01-18 (PM Edition)

  • Jay Tea formalizes his candidate-evaluation "grayscale". It goes:

    1. I'd like to see this person as my president.
    2. I think they'd do OK as president.
    3. I think I can live with them as president.
    4. God help us if they get the nomination.
    5. Shoot me now.

    That's a good scale, and I agree with the people he puts in each category. Go see how you do.

  • I think Barack Obama is a rather doctrinaire statist liberal, but Ann Althouse reminds me why I put him in the "can live with" category: the pain of an Obama presidency would almost certainly be relieved by occasional actual humor.

  • "Sand in the Gears" would have been a pretty good name for this blog, but Tony Woodlief got it long before. He has an amusing take on the state of the presidential race, "gleaned from airport conversations and the occasional glance at Google news headlines." No excerpts, because you'll want to read the whole thing. (Via Megan.)

  • Iowahawk delves into solid investigatory territory—at least as solid as that trod by the New York Times—in reporting on an upswing in the "toll of violent crimes committed by journalists" which "has led some experts to warn that without programs for intensive mental health care, the nation faces a potential bloodbath at the hands of psychopathic media vets." So you'll want to know about that. Dan Rather does not appear in the article.

  • We've previously blogged about how "efficiency standards" gave us more expensive clothes washers that don't actually get clothes clean. At the OpenMarket blog, Richard Morrison notes that new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards set in the new energy legislation will continue that tradition by giving us more expensive vehicles that will be more likely to kill us.

    Many thanks to Congress and President Bush! Of course, the legislation might also reduce global warming by a fraction of a degree, by not only reducing auto emissions, but also preventing excess CO2 exhalation from all those humans that would have ordinarily survived.

URLs du Jour

2008-01-18

  • Advice to gang leaders: if you have the hankering to post YouTube videos showing you holding weapons and asking police to "come get some," you should probably lie down somewhere quiet until that hankering goes away. (Via Dave.)

  • Shawn Macomber visited Liberty Island, and wrote about it for Reason. Bottom line:
    I found a children's book in the gift shop that contains a handy glossary. It defines liberty as "the freedom to choose your work, your religion and your friends." In a perfect world, we'd chop that definition down to the first four words. Any kid paying attention would notice that Liberty Island exudes anything but.
    … but you should read the whole thing.

  • Down in Virginia, there's legislation in the works to ban "Truck Nuts." Which are … well, if you really need to know, there's a variety for sale here. Radley Balko quotes a legislator:
    It comes to a point where there are certain things you just can't do. And putting testicles on the back of a truck is just too much. So I am trying to stop it.
    I liked Raven's comment: "who the hell has rubber ones anyway? I have a steel set on my rig." No word on whether they sell Truck Nuts at Liberty Island. As for me, you can have my Truck Nuts when you pry them out of my cold, dead, … never mind.

  • Captain Kirk would not put Truck Nuts on the Enterprise. Probably. You can't tell from this new picture.

    (Yes, a new picture of the Enterprise gives me a total fanboy rush. Sorry. There are also not-in-character pictures of the cast. Cameron is playing Kirk's mom? That's wrong. But Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike is Dead Solid Perfect.)