The War on Error

On NPR again today the issue of effective use of suspected-terrorist "watch lists" came up. Lest we strike the wrong balance between over- and under-identifying list members among the very large numbers of people constantly coming under our consideration--and something terrible should happen as a result--let's be totally clear about who we're dealing with: Suspected suspected suspectedly certain-to-succeed individuals dead-set on committing mass murder and destruction for no reasonable grounds or cause. We know they're out there. Whatever the critics say. I want to add we also know we'll find them.

Careful with that market reasoning

I just heard someone on the radio from Cato, the capitalist think tank, argue against the CAFE standards, and the beauty of his case carried me away. All that government waste that goes into trying, jailing and executing murderers, I thought, when history and the examples of other societies show that the incentive system of personal revenge and reprisal is unrivaled for efficiency and for bringing about natural borders and truces appropriate to the respective skills and strengths of the adversaries. In our own country we have enterprise zones that prove the principle--the L.A. neighborhoods of the Crips and the Bloods, for example, in which a thriving shadow economy in drugs and protection has persisted stably for decades. The societies of knights and lords persisted for untold centuries in Europe, and they did it on the honor system and by placing faith in the Invisible Hand.

Tell me again about this thing you call religion?

"I've never seen anything like it. Even for a music or sporting event, the number of people who just showed up and camped out just to be close for the funeral was staggering."

- TV cameraman beFrank on the Vatican massing of pilgrims after the death of Pope JPII.

Did the Pope have a soul and where is it now?

I can't believe reporters aren't addressing or soliciting outside comment on this. I mean, wasn't the official statement of the Catholic Church in Poland upon the death of John Paul II something to the effect that he'd devoted himself to the message of "eternal life"? What a scandal if it turns out that the man is simply dead! Talk about dereliction of journalistic duty: How about a little investigation and fact checking here guys?

Serious political capital

I think Bush-haters are on thin ice with this "Only 51%"/"Narrowest victory since Woodrow Wilson" line of reasoning. To me, winning this election means the increase in Bush's mandate is a divide by zero (because he lost last time). So this is huge. Given the preemptive war, Axis of Evil and UN flouting of last term, I think people should just forget about seceding and start thinking about moving to the moon or even another universe. This is dark energy folks, and it's time to be contemplating serious cosmology.