Liberty Defined

It's long, but it's quite interesting.  I don't agree with all of it, but Dr. Paul is an articulate spokesman for our side.  I don't really get the "End the Fed" stuff as the number ONE priority, though, I have to admit.  There are some fiddles that would improve the way the Fed works (like stop expecting miracles, and credible commitment), sure, but not "end."

Still, this is pretty cool.

In Feb 1981, that freak Angus dragged me to Graham Chapel (750 people!) on Wash U campus to see a completely unknown band.  They were from IRELAND, of all things. 

Concert was strange.  They didn't have many songs.  Most bizarrely, at least in my memory, they started with a song ("Ocean") which they later played again, as an encore.  As I said, they didn't have many songs.

But the concert was pretty great. I liked them enough that I went and bought their debut album, which hadn't been out long. The album was called "Boy," and I could only buy it because I had written down the cryptic name of the unknown band. It was called U2. Perhaps you have heard of them. Anyway, here is Bono, 30 years later, 2011, in Busch Stadium. He specifically recalls Graham Chapel. They got paid $750. I think that is what a ticket cost in Busch Stadium in 2011! Most gratifyingly, Bono confirms that they did in fact START OVER on the set list, for the encores, because they didn't know many songs. And he also confirms that being in a band is still a good way to meet girls.

It's 4:20 somewhere

Happy smoke-day, people.

Hit me with your memory stick

In a meeting with parents in a Catholic school in Northern Ireland held to prep them on what happens with their kids during their first communion, Father Martin McVeigh stuck his memory stick into the school's computer and out popped 16 "indecent images" of men.

The Father yanked his memory stick out of the computer and fled the room, only to return 20 minutes later and ask that the children consider giving some of their first communion loot to the Church.

The parents were unhappy and complained, but McVeigh's Bishop said everything was fine because the police told him "no crime had been committed".

Indeed, I would think that was a fairly accurate briefing on what kids can expect in their interactions with the Church!

Tied to the whippin' post

This is a pretty amazing table:

Let's break it down:

1. I guess Mustafa Kemal really did have some influence.

2. Pakistan and Egypt are seriously messed up places.

3. Those numbers do not conform to the pleasant image of Jordan that I have in my head.

Hat tip to Roving Bandit.

Roll over and see what you can do!

Recently saw this ad, on a site.

Not easy to read, but it says, "Menopause made intercourse dry and painful? Roll over to see what you can do!" And then, I shudder to think why, the picture of a doorknob.

However, to be fair, it made me look twice. Perhaps that is the real function of advertising, yes?

Back in Black

Records are back. They are so back that even The Economist has taken note:

One innovation that has helped vinyl sales is that albums often now come with codes that let you download a MP3 version of the music (occasionally, they come with FLAC downloads, but not often enough for nuts like me who sometimes buy both the LP and the CD(to get a high quality download)).

Apparently at lot of the young 'uns buy LPs and never play them.

Here's Dom from one of my new favorite bands (Dom):

“The reason we sell vinyl is that there will always be a market for it...people probably already downloaded the music anyway, and they’ll buy the record because of the big artwork and because it’s something you can hold on to.”

At Chez Angus, we have ditched the CD player. We have 800+ albums stored in lossless files and a cabinet full of LPs.

The culture that is New Jersey: booty call edition

Look, I am not saying this is wrong or right, but I am pretty sure that it's illegal:

"Sexy costumes lead to firing of NJ casino servers"

Pretty funny that they want to go back to the "Boardwalk Empire" days. That will take more than flapper costumes and age discrimination.

Prohibition?

Segregation?

Ah, New Jersey. Is there anything you won't do?

All you need is a good press agent

Amazing headline from Reuters: "PUTIN FROLICS WITH SNOW LEOPARD"

Here's the lede:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin frolicked with the real-life mascot of the 2014 Winter Olympics over the weekend, an endangered snow leopard that had been injured in the valleys of central Siberia.

The cat is called "Mongol" by local scientists who rescued it after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of poachers.

Putin broke a business trip to Russia's Far East to visit it in the Khakassia region some 3,500 km (2,000 miles) east of Moscow.


Ummm, OK, so Vlade is a judo black belt, I guess he is well equipped to frolic with a full grown wild animal with a full set of teeth and claws. Maybe he will ride it? or carry it on his shoulders? or just snuggle with it?

Now here's a link to the video showing what passes for frolicking when you are the dictator of Russia and the international press LOVES you.

Apparently frolic actually means to pose crouching for the cameras 10 feet away from the perimeter of the cage holding the snow leopard!

Plenty of other memorable Putin moments in the video as well!!

JoPa is on the right track

American football has a big problem. The accumulation of huge hits seems to be causing severe neurological problems. The NFL has responded by adopting a more strict concussion protocol and now looks to be adopting or enforcing more rules against helmet-to-helmet contact.

NCAA legend Joe Paterno says that the league should remove the face mask from the helmet.

I say they should remove the entire helmet!

Really. You can't have helmet to helmet hits without a helmet! Maybe receivers and quarterbacks get helmets but no one else does.

It is not a huge stretch to argue that better helmets make for more vicious hitting and more injuries.

Maybe, a la Gordon Tullock, backs and receivers could wear a headband of metal spikes while defensive players go bareheaded.

If football doesn't solve this problem, it may not exist in anything like its current form in another 20 years.

Then poor Oklahoma won't be first in anything!

Foot in mouth disease, ecclesiastical edition

Regarding AIDS, the head of the Catholic church in Belgium recently said:

"I would not at all think in such terms. I do not see this illness as a punishment, at most a sort of inherent justice, a bit like how we are presented with the bill for what we do to the environment."

Regarding Gentiles/Goyim (aka non-Jews) the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator recently said:

"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,”

“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.

That is why gentiles were created,”

Thank you gentlemen, for clearing up a few mysteries for us.

Oh brave new world that has such people in it

"Like, it sounds so old," she told the press before her Las Vegas party. "And then the other half of me is like, I feel so accomplished and it's really no different than 29."

Kimmy Kardashian!!

Quotes entirely relevant for this election season

"Thank God I am not a free-trader. In this country, pernicious indulgence in the doctrine of free trade seems inevitably to produce fatty degeneration of the moral fiber."

--Teddy Roosevelt, 1895

The (mono) Culture that is Germany

Ah yes, Germany. Where people still want a "pure" country and 10% dream of a new Fuehrer.

The article starts strong:

Germany's attempts to create a multi-cultural society in which people from various cultural backgrounds live together peacefully have failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.

"Multikulti", the concept that "we are now living side by side and are happy about it," does not work, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam near Berlin.

"This approach has failed, totally," she said in Saturday's speech.

Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, CSU, told the same party meeting Friday that the two Union parties were "committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multicultural one.

"'Multikulti' is dead," he said.

I don't know what you think of when you hear the phrase "a dominant German culture", but it does not produce a pleasant image of unicorns and rainbows in my head.

Then the article progresses from intolerance among the elites to intolerance among the rank and file:

The study, by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think tank, showed that more than one third (34.3 percent) of those surveyed believed Germany's 16 million immigrants or people with foreign origins came to the country for the social benefits.

Around the same number (35.6 percent) think Germany is being "over-run by foreigners" and more than one in 10 called for a "Fuehrer" to run the country "with a strong hand".

Thirty-two percent of people said they agreed with the statement: "Foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce."

Far-right attitudes are found not only at the extremes of German society, but "to a worrying degree at the centre of society," the report noted.

More than half (58.4 percent) of the 2,411 people polled thought the around four million Muslims in Germany should have their religious practices "significantly curbed."

The integration of Muslims has been a hot button issue since August when a member of Germany's central bank sparked outrage by saying the country was being made "more stupid" by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants with headscarves.

That last bit reminds me of when I left GMU for Tulane and Gordon Tullock told me the move was terrific because I was "raising the average IQ at both places"!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Pat Riley and the Heat scored an unbelievable coup getting Wade, Bosh and James.

Adding Mike Miller was terrific and Udonis Haslem rates at least as a very good pick up.

Even Jo-el Anthony is aaight (who can doubt the ability of superman's father).

But, Zydrunas? Juwan Howard?

Holy Moly! Can you say "bottom of the barrel"?

Then it turns out, from somewhere under the barrel, Penny Hardaway wants another shot?

Really?

Ledell Eakles: call your agent!

So what will Miami's rotation look like?

Are they going to forgo a point guard? Or will Chalmers start?

Is Bosh really not going to play center?

How about Chalmers and Wade at guard, Lebron & Bosh at forward, Antony at center, with Miller and Haslem getting decent minutes off the bench?

Seems to me the Heat need to stop collecting ancient big men and sign another guard.

Wow, I guess me and Penny are on the same page after all!