The Superfluous Man, unmasked!

Via Brad Spangler, I found the South Park Character Generator. Here I am, in all my glory:


You can make your own here.

Sick as a dog...

... and thus not clear-headed enough to to go on a proper tirade about the fact that Governor Blagojevich has signed a statewide smoking ban. Perhaps I'll have something to say once I am hale again.

In cheerier news, at my other blog I've got a review of the excellent Solaris Book of New Science Fiction. Have a look.

I must save you from my products!

It should come as no surprise to the seasoned libertarian that "public-spirited" efforts to protect or expand state power are often in the financial interest of some politically connected business interest. Still, I have to confess I was briefly taken aback by the jaw-dropping cynicism of this. Who's proudly protecting our children and communities from the evils of liquor deregulation? Deregulation that would just coincidentally cut into the profits of alcohol wholesalers by reducing the need for middlemen? Why, the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America! Hat tip: Agoraphilia.

This may be my all-time favorite example of "politics makes strange bedfellows." The realization that paternalist, moralistic anti-liquor types are actually the unwitting tools of liquor distributors gave me a chuckle.

Maybe if there had been a junior high paper...

I spent three semesters as editor of my college paper's editorial section, and two years doing the same for my high school paper before that. That meant looking over article submissions from fellow students. I had to read some embarrassingly bad screeds in my time. I can honestly say, however, that even in high school I never had to read or edit anything as brain-shreddingly bad as this editorial, which was published by an actual regular newspaper. Apparently, the whole "provide arguments and/or evidence for a position when writing an editorial" thing is not the hard rule I thought it was.

Hat tip to the Mises Institute Blog, which has some good stuff in the comments thread.

I'm not dead!

Lest my three readers think I've dropped off the face of the Earth, I just wanted to check in. I've been kept busy lately with friends coming in from out of town. I've also been intensifying my exercise routine, which has been eating up some free time. (I'm insanely buff now. Don''t laugh, or I'll crush your skull with my tree trunk-like arms.)

I'll be back in action starting this weekend.