Apr
17
2009

URLs du Jour

2009-04-17

  • Back in October, Reason magazine asked "a variety of policy wonks, journalists, thinkers, and other public figures" to say for whom they were voting. By my count, the contributors to that article gave Obama 13 votes, Bob Barr 11, "Nobody/No Answer" 10, McCain 3, "Anybody but McCain/Palin" one. Sarah all by herself got one.

    Which is relevant, because now Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason.com has a question for those 13:

    Question to the folks, including some of the libertarian persuasion (you fools!), who were bullish on Obama back when the alternative was John McCain, the Terri Schiavo of presidential candidates: When are you going to admit that Barry O stinks on ice? That for all his high-flying and studiously empty rhetoric he's got the biggest presidential vision deficit since George H.W. Bush puked on a Japanese prime minister (finally, revenge for that long run of Little League World Series losses in the '70s!). If you're the president of the United States and you're talking about goddamn traffic jams and you're proposing high-speed rail as anything other than an unapologetic boondoggle that will a) never get built and b) never get built to the gee-whiz specs it's supposed and c) be ridden by fewer people than commuted by zeppelin last year, you've got real problems, bub. And by extension, so do we all.
    I checked; back in October, Nick was torn between voting for Barr and not voting. Same as me.

  • Are you a terrorist? I suppose it's possible you might need help answering this question, so Reason has an easy quiz you can take, based on the recent report from the Department of Homeland Security.

  • If you need more information on that report, it's the subject of today's Jonah Goldberg coumn:
    The Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report last week. It's called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

    I had no idea there even was an ERBHETAD of the DHS working on the RECEPCFRRR.

    Yeah, me neither.

  • This is Pun Salad, and I am a Star Trek fanboy, so linking to a collection of Star Trek puns is only logical, Captain. But beware:
    Question: What did Worf say when small ice asteroids began hitting the Enterprise hull?

    Answer: "Captain, we are being hailed."

    … that's one of the good ones. (Via Geek Press.)