Rants of a Fuzzy Curmudgeon

Probably somewhere in between, but I’m somewhat annoyed at Dawn for assuming without data that it’s evil incarnate.
Dawn is far too intelligent to make a post like this without at least taking the time to see whether or not her assessment is fair. I will excuse it on the premise that she is clearly quite angered by what she’s seen of home schooling, but I hope that she will actually do the research she admits that she did not do, because she will find that there is an awful lot of good home schooling going on out there, including lots of opportunities (including, in some cases, sports teams that are accredited to play the public school teams!) for socialization.
I have gut reactions about things too, but I try to do enough research to feel that I’m on solid or at least semi-solid ground before I start ranting about them. There are plenty of people out there (mostly socialists, Democrats, environmentalists, Islamic terrorists, and anti-nuke types) who rant about things they know nothing about already. Let’s not add to the trend.

I have rarely in my life been so privileged to deal with more stupid people who think they are Internet gurus in my life as I was today. I have literally been working since my butt hit this chair at 8AM, with maybe 15 minutes out to eat something for lunch. Morons. Morons, morons, morons. The moronosity quotient of the Internet must be at an all-time high.
I remember when people actually knew what you meant when you said “RFC”. And it doesn’t mean “Regionally Fried Chicken”, either.
Sheesh.

Ah, Chuck, we hardly knew ye…
Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

In the same article referenced below:

Cigarette sales in New York plummeted almost 50 percent in July after the city raised the tax on each pack from 8 cents to $1.50. The new tax, which Bloomberg pushed to help close a record budget gap, drove the price of some name brands to more than $7 per pack.

I thought the point here was to raise money to cover health care expenses allegedly accruing on the system because of smokers, not to actually stop them from smoking so the revenue wouldn’t be raised. So let’s see, we’re also going to ban smoking in restaurants in NYC…so cigarette sales are going to, hmm, plummet even more, aren’t they?
Oh, wait, I’m beginning to sound like Rush Limbaugh here…
…which may not be a bad thing.

Headline: NYC Mayor Wants to Ban Smoking in All Bars and Restaurants
Fine, Mr. Mayor, you won’t find my wife and me as tourists in your little town anytime in the near, mid, or far future if this passes.
I thought you were trying to boost tourism, not kill it.

Who said this, when was it said, and what was it in reference to?
“Away with the idea of getting independence first, and looking after liberty afterward. Our liberties, once lost, may be lost forever.”
Answers in the full text.

Continue reading “For those who fear the loss of liberties…”

Mark Steyn has some extremely trenchant observations today, but his last paragraph is his most important one:

You’ll notice, incidentally, that I haven’t used the word “liberal” to describe the left. “Conservative” has been carelessly appropriated by the media to mean no more than the side you’re not meant to like. John Ashcroft is a hardline conservative, but so, according to the press, is the Taliban and half the Chinese politburo and the crankier Ayatollahs. So I think we conservatives ought to make an attempt to reclaim the word “liberal.” We believe in liberty, and in liberating human potential. I don’t know what you’d call a political culture that reduces voters to dependents, that tells religious institutions whom they can hire, that instructs printers on what printing jobs they’re obliged to accept, that bans squeegee kids unless they’re undercover policemen checking on whether you’re wearing your seatbelt, etc., etc. But “liberal” no longer seems to cover it.

I agree. I think the Conservative movement does need to reclaim the good old term “liberal”. Hayek used the term 60 years ago to mean what we mean today when we say “Conservative”, not what we mean today when we say “Liberal”. It does not mean “liberal with handouts to the point of nanny state”, it means “a believer in freedom of choice, thought, and anything else you can think of.” And today the correct definition of “liberal” has much more applicability to the right than it does to the left.

Via Instapundit, this article seems to indicate that knife assaults (or at least assaults by people using knives) are way up in the Australian state of Victoria.
Australia banned from private ownership just about every type of gun several years ago.
I wonder if they’d have less crime if people were allowed to protect themselves with handguns?
I don’t think there would be much argument there.

…is amazing today. I do not think I could be so kind.

Keep up the good work, IDF.