For years now, I have been under the impression that in an election, undervotes (ballots where there aren’t votes for all the races) aren’t counted.  I read this years ago in a source that I considered reliable at the times.  Truth be told, I can’t even remember where I read it, only that I considered [...]

As we speak the heavyweights of the Republican Party are meeting to discuss how to recover from the debacle (for the Republicans that is) that was to 2008 election.  Their goal will be to figure out how they can win national elections again.  I wonder if they will even consider the advice of Ron Paul.  [...]

In less than a week it will be over; a year and a half of maneuvering, jockeying, speechifying, electioneering and speculating will thankfully draw to a close, and the U.S., which once was a sort of free republic, will crown a new king, who promises to reward the innocent and punish the guilty. In less [...]

Recently I had an interesting conversation with someone who leveled the following accusation: “You libertarians don’t care if people die from lack of medicine, or if someone can’t afford a doctor.  Libertarianism is the freedom to die from a cold while the doctor who could treat you is doing a checkup for a rich guy [...]

Comrades, once a year, sometimes more, we are confronted with the question of whom to vote for. Millions of man-hours are consumed every two years in debating and discussing who is standing for elected office, the pros and cons of their policies and their past performance. Billions of dollars are spent promoting or defaming candidates. [...]

I hope that Representative Sherman is the victim of a bad game of “telephone”. If he is not, if the administration really did threaten to impose martial law if the bill weren’t passed, then the time has come for us to cast out the vipers in Washington D.C. Hat tip to The Crossed Pond and [...]

The always thought provoking Cory Doctorow has a new book out, Little Brother.  I highly recommend it, even though I think he is very wrong on numerous points.  You can download it for free at the link above. It is very difficult to write a political novel.  I should know, I’ve started 3 or 4 [...]

No matter how jaded I get, American “Christians” seem to come up with new ways to make me aghast. The latest CINO (Christian in Name Only) is Sheriff Lott, who is prepared to use a 50 machine gun to keep law and order in what I thought to be the relatively unwarlike Richland County of [...]

One custom that gang members enjoy is posing with weapons. I suppose that the pictures serve a purpose of both reassuring members of the gang about their power to hurt people while acting to intimidate not only the innocent people the gang prays upon, but also rival gangs. The Richland County Sheriff’s Department has produced [...]

A few weeks ago, a man damaged the Total Air Temperature sensors on 9 aircraft. These sensors are critical to the airspeed gage, without them, a pilot can get an inaccurately low or high airspeed reading.. An inaccurate airspeed indication can cause a pilot to go unexpectedly into a stall. To understand the seriousness of [...]

John McCain must hate little girls. It is one of many inescapable conclusions that arise from reading his National Security position paper, which promises all things to everyone – well almost everyone. His foreign policy plans promise more submarines, more ships, more aircraft, more divisions, more security, more military assistance for allies, more attacks on [...]

Over in the Science Based Medicine blog, Wallace Sampson is expresses outrage that the National Institutes of Health has announced an initiative to fund “research” into Traditional Chinese Medicine …

While insightful, Dr Sampson fails to dig down to the real sources of the problem:

If the NIH wastes money on quackery, its officers do not suffer a loss. They don’t have to justify their spending to donors or shareholders. The money extracted at gunpoint from the citizenry will continue to flow in regardless of the junk science the NIH produces.

Senator Warner has a brilliant idea how to reduce gas prices; force Americans to consume less at gun point: Sen. John Warner, R-Va., asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in [...]

The left hand says Existing Legal Drugs Provide Superior Treatment for Serious Medical Conditions The FDA has approved safe and effective medication for the treatment of glaucoma, nausea, wasting syndrome, cancer, and multiple sclerosis. Marinol, the synthetic form of THC (the psychoactive ingredient contained in marijuana), is already legally available for prescription by physicians whose [...]

The always thought provoking J.D. Tucille of ‘The Disloyal Opposition’ answers this question with an emphatic , No! Both major presidential candidates have made it quite clear that — policy differences aside — they’re running to be national leader and they want to be assessed on their readiness to take the nation’s helm. That’s a [...]

Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker: Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a [...]

In barbaric cultures, when people find themselves facing unpleasant changes, like the failure of crops or natural disasters, they look for scapegoats to blame. In the Europe and early colonial America, all to often the quest for a scapegoat took the form of a persecuting old women, who were charged with having used magic to [...]

In a thread at Reason’s hit and Run, during a discussion where Enron was cited as an example of what happens when governments fail to regulate private behavior, frequent commenter fluffy wrote an insightful comment which is well worth reading in full. The second half of her comment read: It is customary in the US [...]

If you are a serial killer who is looking for human prey, you can find some very nice hunting grounds Yapavai County in Arizona. At night, you will be able to force any car you want to stop in a deserted spot at your whim – all you have to do is put some blue [...]

Last week some ex LAPD officers were convicted in Federal Court.  These thugs had been convicted of conducting numerous home invasions, violently battering the people they found there and tossing the homes for illegal drugs which they then fenced. The FBI, understandably proud of its role in apprehending these criminals, has issued the following press [...]