What more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more … a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson
All my usual news sources were constipated by the election this week; interesting events were still there, but were blocked from emerging into daylight by the huge, malodorous mass that is the American political process. As soon as that filthy mess was done with, the rest started to flow normally again; unfortunately, that meant I had to scramble a bit to compose today’s column and yesterday’s TW3, and that I’ll probably have too many items for next week. Had I wanted to fill this column with boring election stories I could easily have done so, but I deemed only three worthy of inclusion.
This week’s link champ was Jesse Walker of Reason, who supplied everything down to the first video; the video itself, however, is my husband’s contribution. The second video was called to my attention by Walter Olson, and the links between the two arrived via AL 360, Krulac, Michael Whiteacre, my cat, Lenore Skenazy, Korhomme and two from Radley Balko.
- The People’s Bailout.
- Rowdy drunks of the animal kingdom; plus, a skeptical look at same.
- Puerto Rico votes to become the 51st American state; plus, a skeptical look at that story.
- In honor of Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, here are a gallery of rejected concepts for Phantom Menace bathroom toys and a parody video about Leia joining the ranks of Disney princesses.
- Metacensorship?
- The end of UFOlogy?
- Deceased Texas politician wins re-election.
- Cat comes in third in Virginia race for US Senate.
- 3-year-old fined $2500 for attempting to pee in his own yard.
- The British have invaded all but 22 countries in the entire world.
- US court declares military personnel have the right to torture dissidents.
- Georgians vote for Charles Darwin, Batman, Cthulhu, “my neighbor’s cat” and “burning bag of dog shit” over anti-science congressman.
I do use some of these, but Grace uses most of them AND has the accent:
- Psychology, Dungeons & Dragons and monsters’ eyes.
- Celebrity who says vaccines are dangerous also has sex with trees and claims that God talks to her.
- 60-year-old woman arrested and hauled off in handcuffs for speaking too long at a city council meeting.
- Important & powerful essay by Wendy McElroy on how the United States government is like an abusive husband.