Jan
5
2007

URLs du Jour

2007-01-05

  • A thought-provoking essay from Peter Wood on how (what he calls) the "New Anger" is likely to doom any liberal/libertarian alliance. It's an introduction to the thesis explored by Wood in his new book A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Today. Which attempts, apparently, to answer the question: why are Those People so pissed off, bitter, and humorless all the time?

    If you're interested, you might want to look at Stanley Kurtz's review of Wood's book. You might also want to check out David Weigel's attempted rebuttal to all this at Hit&Run.

    And I should note: for all the ill-tempered kvetching I do about ideological uniformity here at UNH, the library was happy to order Wood's book at my request. Good for them.

  • Last year 'bout this time we pointed to Radley Balko's list of the "pettiest, silliest, most intrusive, God-awfullest legislation set for either a vote, or set to take effect this month" in New Hampshire.

    Mid-list was HB 1662, a bill establishing the crime of peonage. As it turns out this bill was passed, signed, and took effect this past Monday. Peonage is now a class A misdemeanor in the Granite State. So knock it off, you peons. You were able to pull that crap here for two hundred plus years, but as of 2007 you're no longer welcome.

    In the meantime, Don Gorman of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance reports no petty, silly, intrusive, God-awful legislation was proposed on the legislature's opening day. Because no legislation at all was proposed on the legislature's opening day. But give them time.

  • Andrew Roth points to a website that's probably as good right now as it's ever going to be. (Note: unless you click within a few days, this will probably, and unfortunately, not make sense.)

  • And I'll just yank this in full from Inside Higher Ed:

    A $1 million sculpture designed to represent the fragility of Earth collapsed under its own weight overnight Wednesday on the Kennesaw State University campus, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The 175-ton sculpture by a Finnish artist was unveiled just three months ago, but campus officials cited faulty glue as a possible cause of its quick disintegration. The phrase "our fragile craft" had been engraved on the piece — "kind of ironic," said one university employee.

    "Indeed."