Archive for 2010

ANOTHER cheap external hard drive on sale. Boy, you sure get a lot more for the money than you used to.

UPDATE: Reader Roger Baumgarten writes: “This REALLY is amazing…I still remember buying my first Compact Flash card for my first digital camera only 8 years ago. 256MB…for $150!!!” Yeah, now it’s 500 GB — half a Terabyte — for $64.99. Drop-resistant, with free antivirus software bundled . . . .

HERE WE SEE THE VIOLENCE inherent in the system. As always, it’s the opposite of what’s portrayed.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Citizens’ Group Helps Uncover Alleged Rampant Voter Fraud in Houston. “Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Steve Caddle, who also works for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures.” Read the whole thing.

Imagine that — ordinary citizens getting together to do things that existing institutions can’t, or won’t. Who could have seen this kind of thing coming?

TAXPROF: In asking pastors to support ObamaCare, did the White House ask them to violate IRS rules? Tax rules, like taxes, are for the little people. . . .

UPDATE: 100 Pastors to ‘Bait’ IRS Today on ‘Pulpit Freedom Sunday’.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stephen Clark writes: “So, the administration favors tearing down wall between church and state: Mr. Jefferson, tear down that wall!” They told me if I voted . . . oh, hell, this is too easy.

QUESTIONS FOR LORETTA SANCHEZ, in Vietnamese.

I’M FAMOUS! “Reynolds’ Law.” “Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.” That’s actually Philo Of Alexandria’s formulation, but I’m happy to bask in the reflection.

WELL, YES: Obama Stimulus Made Economic Crisis Worse, `Black Swan’ Author Taleb Says.

“Obama did exactly the opposite of what should have been done,” Taleb said yesterday in Montreal in a speech as part of Canada’s Salon Speakers series. “He surrounded himself with people who exacerbated the problem. You have a person who has cancer and instead of removing the cancer, you give him tranquilizers. When you give tranquilizers to a cancer patient, they feel better but the cancer gets worse.”

Today, Taleb said, “total debt is higher than it was in 2008 and unemployment is worse.”

Ann Althouse has thoughts.