A driving noise was coming from the office next to mine Friday afternoon, so I went to check it out. It was this song--a throwback bluesy rock track with a dark side. In short, I love it.
I haven't sampled the rest of their catalog yet--I'm not sure it can live up to this song, and given iTunes users ratings, the rest of that album probably falls well short of it. But I'll definitely check the rest out when I get a moment. Til then, I give you the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club:
If that's not your thing, perhaps you'll enjoy what at least one researcher claims to be the first Rock n' Roll song ever recorded. (Shocker: Elvis covered it.)
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
Monday, November 22, 2010
David Nolan, RIP
I never met David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party, who died this weekend at the age of 66. I've never been an adherent of "the LP," as we call it, though I have voted for their candidates on several occasions.
In addition to founding the LP, Nolan was famous for creating the Nolan Chart, a two-dimensional map upon which the views of economic and political freedom are measured after the answering 10 relatively simple questions. There have been many maps, surveys and quizzes based upon Nolan's chart--some more objective than others. (I did some digging and thought this one seemed to be the most even-handed online.)
I bring this up, and felt I should note Nolan's passing, because that chart helped start me down the path to my current life. I took a survey based on this chart for the first time in 1992. I was an ardent Republican then, but had already become disaffected by Rush Limbaugh and the Religious Right and knew which side I would take if the latent schism between the fiscal and social conservatives ever materialized. (Of course, it did in the late 90s and early 00s.) The quiz we took, oddly enough in my sophomore year English class, separated me from my classmates even more than I had been already. I was, apparently, a "libertarian" and I'm pretty sure it was the first time I'd ever read the term "classical liberal."
It may not seem like much to you, but it helped me by chipping away at the stigma associated with the term "libertarian"--those 'crazy people' who protest the post office on tax day and implore you to vote for someone you've never heard of who has no chance of winning. The result would lead me to find that I was, in fact, different--but that there were others, however few, that believed the things that I believe: that fiscal prudence and social tolerance are not mutually exclusive; that government welfare programs promote sloth and dependence, despite the good intentions of their designers; and that the government should be drastically smaller than it is now and the country would be better for it if it were.
Thus, for this seemingly innocuous survey--or, at least, the chart upon which the survey was based--I am indebted to David Nolan. My former colleague Dave Weigel has a nice write-up at Slate that's worth a read. Bob Poole, Nolan's personal friend and classmate, in reason here.
David Nolan, RIP
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
In addition to founding the LP, Nolan was famous for creating the Nolan Chart, a two-dimensional map upon which the views of economic and political freedom are measured after the answering 10 relatively simple questions. There have been many maps, surveys and quizzes based upon Nolan's chart--some more objective than others. (I did some digging and thought this one seemed to be the most even-handed online.)
I bring this up, and felt I should note Nolan's passing, because that chart helped start me down the path to my current life. I took a survey based on this chart for the first time in 1992. I was an ardent Republican then, but had already become disaffected by Rush Limbaugh and the Religious Right and knew which side I would take if the latent schism between the fiscal and social conservatives ever materialized. (Of course, it did in the late 90s and early 00s.) The quiz we took, oddly enough in my sophomore year English class, separated me from my classmates even more than I had been already. I was, apparently, a "libertarian" and I'm pretty sure it was the first time I'd ever read the term "classical liberal."
It may not seem like much to you, but it helped me by chipping away at the stigma associated with the term "libertarian"--those 'crazy people' who protest the post office on tax day and implore you to vote for someone you've never heard of who has no chance of winning. The result would lead me to find that I was, in fact, different--but that there were others, however few, that believed the things that I believe: that fiscal prudence and social tolerance are not mutually exclusive; that government welfare programs promote sloth and dependence, despite the good intentions of their designers; and that the government should be drastically smaller than it is now and the country would be better for it if it were.
Thus, for this seemingly innocuous survey--or, at least, the chart upon which the survey was based--I am indebted to David Nolan. My former colleague Dave Weigel has a nice write-up at Slate that's worth a read. Bob Poole, Nolan's personal friend and classmate, in reason here.
David Nolan, RIP
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Just for Fun Friday: Libertarian Cheat Sheet
There was much ado on the Twitters this week about what conservatism is, thanks to patently false comments by Jim DeMint, because people tend to lump all conservatives together as if they all believe the same thing.
Similarly, people often think of libertarians as having a monolithic way of thinking, but this could not be further from the truth. Indeed, to paraphrase Brian Doherty's book Radicals for Capitalism, if two libertarians agree on something, one invariably will accuse the other of selling out.
To clear this up, then, I've put together a short list of the many kinds of libertarians so you can tell us apart:
Catoites: Associated with the Cato Institute, typically urbane libertines. Work in a giant greenhouse. Often mistaken for Republicans, but indeed they are too principled.
Reasonoids: Associated with reason magazine, typically libertine urbanites with an aversion to professional attire and a penchant for Johnny Cash impersonators.
CEIers: Convinced that the polar bear floating down the Potomac was just a hallucination brought on by delerium tremens. Remedy: more drink.
Classical Liberals: aging ex-hippies familiar with Latin, Greek and/or the Western Canon.
Randians/Objectivists:Making the principled argument for selfishness since 1957. They believe in objective truth as told by Rand, so they are very much like fundamentalist Muslims though thankfully they're too self-absorbed to blow themselves up.
Paulistas: A cult of personality much like the Randians but lack any cognizable sense of humor. They are best known for driving flame-traffic on websites that criticize the great and powerful Ron.
Liberaltarians: The one group in America that can legitimately blame Obama for their unemployment.
Beckians: Nominal libertarians but de facto conservative populists whose manifesto pines for the day when America was collectively at the height of its irrationality and bloodlust as we entered the anger stage of the grief process. (No, really.) Also, they seem to believe Jesus wrote the Constitution.
Constitutionalists: Lawyers and legal types who take the Constitution much more seriously than the Founders ever did. They seem to believe that Madison was Jesus.
Austrian Economists: Economists who hate math.
Chicago Economists: Economists who hate English.
Anarchists: Statists who've never been mugged.
Minarchists: Anarchists with commitment issues.
Seasteaders: Anarchists (on a boat!) who've never been marauded by pirates.
There you go. So the next time you're navigating a room full of drunk libertarians, this little cheat sheet will give you a good idea of what kind of person you're dealing with.
Have a good weekend!
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
Similarly, people often think of libertarians as having a monolithic way of thinking, but this could not be further from the truth. Indeed, to paraphrase Brian Doherty's book Radicals for Capitalism, if two libertarians agree on something, one invariably will accuse the other of selling out.
To clear this up, then, I've put together a short list of the many kinds of libertarians so you can tell us apart:
Catoites: Associated with the Cato Institute, typically urbane libertines. Work in a giant greenhouse. Often mistaken for Republicans, but indeed they are too principled.
Reasonoids: Associated with reason magazine, typically libertine urbanites with an aversion to professional attire and a penchant for Johnny Cash impersonators.
CEIers: Convinced that the polar bear floating down the Potomac was just a hallucination brought on by delerium tremens. Remedy: more drink.
Classical Liberals: aging ex-hippies familiar with Latin, Greek and/or the Western Canon.
Randians/Objectivists:Making the principled argument for selfishness since 1957. They believe in objective truth as told by Rand, so they are very much like fundamentalist Muslims though thankfully they're too self-absorbed to blow themselves up.
Paulistas: A cult of personality much like the Randians but lack any cognizable sense of humor. They are best known for driving flame-traffic on websites that criticize the great and powerful Ron.
Liberaltarians: The one group in America that can legitimately blame Obama for their unemployment.
Beckians: Nominal libertarians but de facto conservative populists whose manifesto pines for the day when America was collectively at the height of its irrationality and bloodlust as we entered the anger stage of the grief process. (No, really.) Also, they seem to believe Jesus wrote the Constitution.
Constitutionalists: Lawyers and legal types who take the Constitution much more seriously than the Founders ever did. They seem to believe that Madison was Jesus.
Austrian Economists: Economists who hate math.
Chicago Economists: Economists who hate English.
Anarchists: Statists who've never been mugged.
Minarchists: Anarchists with commitment issues.
Seasteaders: Anarchists (on a boat!) who've never been marauded by pirates.
There you go. So the next time you're navigating a room full of drunk libertarians, this little cheat sheet will give you a good idea of what kind of person you're dealing with.
Have a good weekend!
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Random Thought for Today
People aren't especially insane now. They've always been this way--it's just now, thanks to technology, we don't have the luxury of giving them the benefit of the doubt. Think of it like a window into the box with Schrodinger's cat. We knew the populace was unsophisticated and tribal, but now we can see exactly what that entails.
Ergo, Schrodinger's cat was Bill.
Ergo, Schrodinger's cat was Bill.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
This Is What Happens When You Prosecute a Senseless War on a Commodity
Although I had said that I was going to change the focus of this blog to more criminal justice issues, I haven't really done so to date, save adding the tagline "bellum medicamenti delenda est" to most of my blogposts. This is just crude Latin for "The Drug War Must End."
I have, however, focused my reading to more criminal justice and drug war issues. One of the blogs I read is El Blog Del Narco, a Spanish language blog that chronicles the drug war in Mexico--which, of course, is just America's drug war exported.
The blog is run anonymously, as one would expect when dealing with people who murder en masse with impunity. And not just simple murder: they make a spectacle of it. [N.B.: gruesome details of murders follow. Most links NSFW. ]
Take for example the latest entry: It's entitled "Fotos de ocho ejecutados en cd mante" which translates to "Pictures of Eight Beheaded [people] in Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas." The pics are as gruesome as they sound, yet having followed this blog for several weeks now, I can tell you it's not shocking to me anymore.
The heads are laid out, eyes closed--some blindfolded--on the opened tailgate of a pickup truck. The bodies of the victims are laid out behind them in the flatbed, with the gaping wounds, left behind by the blades that severed the heads, pointed outward. Underneath the heads is a banner--which often accompany these murders--that reads, very roughly*, "This is what happens when you work for the Zetas. Here are your dirty fucking hawks. Sincerely, the Gulf Cartel."
Other posts this week have included, inter alia, pictures of a group of men going down to authorities Bonnie and Clyde style, video of an ultimately successful but botched two-man hit on one man in what appears to be the entrance to a shopping mall, photo of one guy wearing beachwear in Acapulco shot 14 times at close range--with a three shot coup de grâce--a mass grave in Acapulco that contained 18 bodies, a story of two informants killed in the same clothes in which they made their statements to police, and a video of an interrogation and beheading of another man confessing to working for another dealer. This is in addition to recent photos of a woman decapitated and put on display with her severed head between her legs and several people strung up on an overpass--both with banners explaining their murders.
Since January of 2007, there have been an estimated 28,228 drug-war related deaths in Mexico. Notice they are not drug-related-- they drug-war related. Our prohibitionist policy, exported around the globe via treaty and trade agreements, has cost countless lives in our country and around the world. El Blog Del Narco is a remarkable source that brings home the unspeakable brutality of the consequences of our misguided moralist policy. That Proposition 19 went down to defeat Tuesday because people are afraid of the consequences of legalization would be laughable if it were not enabling further this ongoing tragedy.
This is Mexico on America's War on Drugs. Any questions?
bellum medicamenti delenda est
*I can't speak Spanish, and only can read it on a very basic level thanks to my fading acquaintance with Latin. I used the site's auto-translate and asked my wonderful girlfriend, Dara, to fill in the gaps.
I have, however, focused my reading to more criminal justice and drug war issues. One of the blogs I read is El Blog Del Narco, a Spanish language blog that chronicles the drug war in Mexico--which, of course, is just America's drug war exported.
The blog is run anonymously, as one would expect when dealing with people who murder en masse with impunity. And not just simple murder: they make a spectacle of it. [N.B.: gruesome details of murders follow. Most links NSFW. ]
Take for example the latest entry: It's entitled "Fotos de ocho ejecutados en cd mante" which translates to "Pictures of Eight Beheaded [people] in Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas." The pics are as gruesome as they sound, yet having followed this blog for several weeks now, I can tell you it's not shocking to me anymore.
The heads are laid out, eyes closed--some blindfolded--on the opened tailgate of a pickup truck. The bodies of the victims are laid out behind them in the flatbed, with the gaping wounds, left behind by the blades that severed the heads, pointed outward. Underneath the heads is a banner--which often accompany these murders--that reads, very roughly*, "This is what happens when you work for the Zetas. Here are your dirty fucking hawks. Sincerely, the Gulf Cartel."
Other posts this week have included, inter alia, pictures of a group of men going down to authorities Bonnie and Clyde style, video of an ultimately successful but botched two-man hit on one man in what appears to be the entrance to a shopping mall, photo of one guy wearing beachwear in Acapulco shot 14 times at close range--with a three shot coup de grâce--a mass grave in Acapulco that contained 18 bodies, a story of two informants killed in the same clothes in which they made their statements to police, and a video of an interrogation and beheading of another man confessing to working for another dealer. This is in addition to recent photos of a woman decapitated and put on display with her severed head between her legs and several people strung up on an overpass--both with banners explaining their murders.
Since January of 2007, there have been an estimated 28,228 drug-war related deaths in Mexico. Notice they are not drug-related-- they drug-war related. Our prohibitionist policy, exported around the globe via treaty and trade agreements, has cost countless lives in our country and around the world. El Blog Del Narco is a remarkable source that brings home the unspeakable brutality of the consequences of our misguided moralist policy. That Proposition 19 went down to defeat Tuesday because people are afraid of the consequences of legalization would be laughable if it were not enabling further this ongoing tragedy.
This is Mexico on America's War on Drugs. Any questions?
bellum medicamenti delenda est
*I can't speak Spanish, and only can read it on a very basic level thanks to my fading acquaintance with Latin. I used the site's auto-translate and asked my wonderful girlfriend, Dara, to fill in the gaps.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
What, there's a difference?
A funny website I just found about one of the pains of owning an iPhone: Damn You, Auto Correct.
But I don't get this one...
Tomato, to-mah-to.
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
But I don't get this one...
Tomato, to-mah-to.
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
Change: Ur Doin It Wrong
No, I'm not talking about Obama.
Even in last night's anti-incumbent "bloodbath," House incumbents had an 87% survival rate, roughly. That anyone thinks last night was a radical shift in our government is a damning indictment of the intelligence of the electorate and demonstrates an expectation to protect our professional liars class.
And these people are scared of "corporate money"--what the hell is it going to do? Knock the incumbency rate down to 84%?
Gimme a break.
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
Even in last night's anti-incumbent "bloodbath," House incumbents had an 87% survival rate, roughly. That anyone thinks last night was a radical shift in our government is a damning indictment of the intelligence of the electorate and demonstrates an expectation to protect our professional liars class.
And these people are scared of "corporate money"--what the hell is it going to do? Knock the incumbency rate down to 84%?
Gimme a break.
bellum medicamenti delenda est.
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