the lexfiles

Funniest Thing Evar

We spend our days, most of them, with our amusements and hardships.  Most are scarcely worthy of note.  But every once in a while there occurs an event of such notoriety that it must be chronicled (or at least blogged).  This is the tale of one such remarkable feat.

I was out with my buddy Don last night, in a hotel bar near work, having a beer (perhaps two) and a few laughs.  At some point in the evening, nature called.  I answered.  The Little Drunk's Room is down the hall from the bar -- in the hotel proper.

I did my business, zipped up, washed my hands and headed to the exit.  Right as I reached the door, a tourist entered, and we had one of those awkward trying to get past each other in a confined space moments.  Then it hit me.

Me [cheerfully]: I hope you like farts!

Tourist [confused]: What?

I don't want to downplay the significance of the timing, which was, by the way, superb (future scholars may debate if I let it go too soon or too late by a fraction of a second, but for our purposes we can assume that it was done perfectly).  But the sound, the sound, my friends, was a thing of wonder.  The pitch and duration were each impressive in their own right.  The volume shook the very heavens.  Outside, car alarms were set off.  Upstairs in the hotel, children cried.  The ghost of Ben Kenobi complained of some strange "disturbance in The Force".

It was epic.

Tourist [sadly]: Oh.

Back I walked down the hallway to the bar, grinning bemusedly to myself.  Ok, that's a lie; I laughed so hard my stomcach hurt.  I was still laughing when the tourist and his wife appeared at the entrance to the bar.  They raised their fists in salute (I swear I'm not making that up).  I think they wanted my autograph.

Sorry, just had to share.

Beer

Is there anything it can't do?

But that is a potential stew of racial or ethnic sensitivities that we need not stir in this correction of Investor's Business Daily. Suffice it to say that the good news is really good: Beer is a health food. And you do not need to buy it from those wan, unhealthy-looking people who, peering disapprovingly at you through rimless Trotsky-style spectacles, seem to run all the health food stores.

So let there be no more loose talk -- especially not now, with summer arriving -- about beer not being essential. Benjamin Franklin was, as usual, on to something when he said, "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Or, less judgmentally, and for secular people who favor a wall of separation between church and tavern, beer is evidence that nature wants us to be.

Weird thought for the Day

If you had a piece of information that you wanted to timelock for a certain period of time -- I mean a period of years and months.  There is probably a way of predicting how long an encryption scheme will last.

You could probably encrypt somtehing today that would take, say 20 years to break with today's technology, but could be broken within a day given the tech 15 years from now.  Figuring out the earliest date, and the earliest date that it would be economical to crack it, cannot be all that complicated.

I'm just saying, that's all.

The Talented Mr Wilkinson

You could do worse things with a spare few minutes than read this thing by Will Wilkinson on "liberaltarianism".

That is all.

The Studying

It's about at the point where I should have this set up on autotext, but "Sorry for the light posting".  I've been devilishly busy at work, and studying for the silly Microsoft tests after work for the last little while.  Still, it can't go on forever.  Five tests down, two to go (one is scheduled for next Tuesday).

I'll be happy when it's all done.  Plus, increased employability!

Missed Mark

Amazon.com probably has more information on my buying habits than anyone but Visa.  So why would they send me an e-mail advertising $25 off sandals and Crocs?  Is there something in my buying habits that would suggest that I'm a filthy hippy?

It's a little embarassing, that's all.

Sweet!

The lowest rated player in Madden 2007 gets a little pro-bowl love.

The long snapper position isn't subject to Pro Bowl voting, so the coaching staffs for each team have to select a snapper if there isn't one among the linemen already chosen. Green Bay's staff will coach the NFC, and Packers special teams coordinator Mike Stock held the same position when Albright joined the Redskins in 2001.

"They need a long snapper," Albright said. "Mike Stock is the one who brought me to Washington, and he thought of me."

Same Topic, New Day

Julian defends his Reason article at Notes from the Lounge.

Libertarian Omerta Maybe the most common beef I'm hearing from sane-seeming people is that we shouldn't be talking about this stuff. It reflects badly on libertarianism, and Paul is still great all things considered especially compared with the wretched alternatives.

All other considerations aside, this is just premised on a repulsive conception of how libertarian journalists ought to operate—essentially as though "libertarian" nullifies "journalist" any time we're faced with a choice between reporting facts and cheerleading for our tribe. It's an argument with terrible pedigree, and reminds me more than a bit of an old essay in which Noam Chomsky argues scholars shouldn't write about the Killing Fields in Cambodia, because fighting capitalism was more important than, you know, facts.

But this goes beyond the "libertarian" vs. "journalist" thing.  Non-journalist libertarians should be discussing it too, and cheerleading for our tribe while we're at it.  Too many people subscribe to the view(s) that conservatives are bigots and that libertarians are just conservatives that want to smoke pot and/or fuck liberal chicks.  That the most prominent libertarian candidate in the country today can be tied to bigotry only reinforces that view.

The only possible good that could have come from Ron Paul's candidacy is that it might raise awareness of libertarianism -- he may influence people to embrace a more libertarian view.  That those views will now be associated with bigotry in the minds of some people makes it important that libertarians are out in front pushing this story and making sure that people hear that there are liberal conceptions of libertarianism out there.

More on Ron Paul

There's a good piece up at Reason by Julian Sanchez and David Weigel.

But perhaps the best refutation of the old approach is not the absence of race-baiting rhetoric from its progenitors, but the success of the 2008 Ron Paul phenomenon. The man who was once the Great Paleolibertarian Hope has built a broad base of enthusiastic supporters without resorting to venomous rhetoric or coded racism. He has stuck stubbornly to the issues of sound money, "humble foreign policy," and shrinking the state. He wraps up his speeches with a three-part paean to individualism: "I don't want to run your life," "I don't want to run the economy," and "I don't want to run the world." He talks about the disproportionate effect of the drug war on African-Americans, and appeared at a September 2007 Republican debate on black issues that was boycotted by the then-frontrunners. All this and more have brought him $30 million-plus from more than 100,000 donors; thousands of campaign volunteers; and the largest rallies he's ever spoken to, including a crowd of almost 5,000 in Philadelphia.

It's worth noting that although Ron Paul has stated that he is morally responsibe for the contents of his newsletters, he hasn't done anything to distance himself from the writers.  I doubt that the opinions in his newsletters really reflect his character, but the fact that he allowed those opnions to go out in his name certainly tells you something about him.

...And Speaking of Ron Paul

Via Brink, an interesting article on Ron Paul mentions a libertarian split from way back.

The division between paleolibertarians, centered around the Mises Institute, and cosmopolitan libertarians, centered around Cato, is also a case of "culture clash," according to Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar.com and prominent member of the Mises set. "There's the populist wing of the libertarian movement, and then there's the Washington crowd that's still trying to sell libertarianism, or their version of it, to elites. These people want to go along and get along. As long as they can abort their babies and sodomize each other and take as many drugs as they want to, they are happy. They don't care who is being killed in Iraq and how many Iraqis are dying. That's their hierarchy of values."

I feel bad for the people who bought into his campaign and supported him whole-heartedly.  Especially since it could have been me -- I had no idea.  I mean, I knew there were cranks that called themselves libertarians, but...

Small government, free market principles appeal to me because the moral case for them is so strong -- would appeal to me even if the free market weren't the best way to "organize" everything economic.

The limited government framework ensures the greatest human liberty.  It provides the best opportunity for each of us to live the sorts of lives we want  and to seek the sorts of experiences we want.

And poor Mises.