In one city, a man who saved a child from a pack of attacking dogs (by shooting the dogs) may end up going to jail for violating gun laws (though presumably not the same one that David Broder violated). In another part of the country, the sheriff notes that police are not capable of handling all of the problems in a timely manner and wants armed citizens.
Which of these two areas is likely to be safer?
I’ve joked about doing this before: hire somebody to do my job for 20% of the price and then pocket the rest.
The one part of this which surprised me was the discussion about how clean the guy’s code was. Normally, when you outsource development, the end result is a horrible mish-mash of copy-pasted garbage. So whoever this guy hired apparently did a great job.
Whittaker Chambers’s autobiography of a Communist agent is 60 years of age. The Hiss-Chambers trial was a legitimate watershed moment in American history. Along with Elizabeth Bentley’s testimony, we found out about dozens of people in positions of some prominence (including Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, both of whom just happened to be at Bretton Woods leading the US negotiators in the creation of the United Nations and International Monetary Fund, respectively) were spying for the Soviet Union (if not actively taking things even further and accepting direct orders). When Chambers defected, he knew that his former life was over, and he was willing to accept going to what he expected would be the losing team—the team fighting international Communism—because it was the right thing to do.
We all knew it was a great idea. It turns out that the military thought the same.
… is not going to be the response to these lovely online petitions. Legally, the White House has to respond if there are 25,000 signatures, and Texas is already over the limit. Texas may be viable economically if it were to secede, but I honestly think Obama’s response will be along the lines of “lol Texas.”
There is no legal right to secede in the Constitution. None. Want to argue it’s implied? It isn’t: the Civil War handled that. Louisiana’s pretty close too, although Texas may be economically viable as independent (whereas Louisiana is not).
Look, I’m not delighted Obama won, but revisiting the worst crisis in American history is probably not the best way to register your opposition.
The wife and I went to the WWI Museum in KC on Sunday for Veteran’s Day. I’ll have some pictures up on Facebook soon, but it’s a pretty nifty museum, given that 1) the US’s role in the Entente Victory was fairly small and b) admission was free. It is definitely worth a look — you can see most everything in an hour or two, depending on how quickly you read — if you’re in the area. The current rotating exhibit is on Sports in World War I, which shows how much manlier baseball players were in those days. None of this fake “Yes, I was in World War II, but all I did was play baseball” crap. We do need more Ted Williamses (test pilot) and Bob Fellers (served as a Gun Captain), but look at Christy Mathewson, who actually got gassed during WWI.
Why don’t athletes today have so much patriotism?
Looking on the bright side of life, American allies are realizing that they’re on their own and are acting correspondingly. I’ve long been a fan of making American allies shoulder some of the cost and not free-loading on the US military.
For the depressing version of this, Richard Fernandez is here to help.
I’m out vacationing at the moment. Our resident Penguatroll may pop in with posts like he has graced us with over the past few days; otherwise, it will probably be pretty quiet on the home front.
I know what you’re thinking. “Did he bail out six companies or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is the American taxpayer, the most powerful bank account in the world…
