Apr
2
2013

URLs du Jour — 2013-04-02

  • scene of the crime Local resident Sarah Long was grievously injured in broad daylight yesterday by a greasy Portuguese assailant. Best wishes for her speedy recovery.

    (Map of crime scene courtesy of MarineTraffic.com and Google; click to embiggen.)

  • The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) weighs in on the "Stomp on Jesus" class activity at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), and the ensuing charges. Unsurprisingly, their judgment is: "a screwup from start to finish."

    It's a balanced and thoughtful article, and notes the (possible) overreaction of the devout Mormon student, Ryan Rotela, to the exercise. Bottom line:

    The university's repeated attempts to get on the right side of the politics of the issue has instead simply added to the litany of problems it has caused. Here's hoping for the day when universities discover that sticking to your principles is the best form of PR.

    For a bunch of allegedly smart people, you'd think that discovery would have been made long ago.

    On the other hand, there's the uncomfortable fact that they are running an academically-bereft course at their bad joke of a college. If they had principles, they wouldn't be doing that either.

  • New Hampshire Watchdog Grant Bosse takes on my local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, for endorsing SB126, a bill that champions local car dealerships against their franchising manufacturers.

    Grant (correctly) notes that the state should stay away from changing contractual obligations freely entered into by the dealerships. And he also points out the "protectionist nonsense" involved:

    Tilting government to favor local, popular businesses against less popular out-of-state companies may be quite tempting for politicians and advertising-supported media, but it makes no economic sense. Undermining the power of contracts simply inserts political meddling into the marketplace. Local car dealers complain that they lack leverage with the auto makers. This is simply untrue. In fact, state law already grants them far more leverage than they’ve earned from their place in the market. State laws in all 50 states prevent automobile companies from selling their product directly to their customers. This is a ludicrous and indefensible restraint on trade imposed on manufacturs [sic] because local dealerships have more political clout than market power.

    Here's hoping Foster's is paying attention.

  • If you're in the mood for some cheering up, the NYPost provides (what they claim are) "The greatest gags, tweets, jests and jokes from the past year". I don't know about that, but here's one I laughed at:

    I wonder if Jeremy Irons ever quietly laughs to himself while he’s ironing.

    So far, the people I repeat that to invariably say: "That's stupid!" But they always laugh first.

  • If you're using the Pun Salad default view: my take on Anna Karenina is available on the Movie view, and A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block on the Book view.


Last Modified 2013-06-19 10:11 AM EDT