The Stories and Novels By Derek Ward
I was listening to the Red Eye podcast and one of the guests made an off-the-cuff remark about sending all the illegal immigrants to Detroit. I chuckled, and then thought, that’s not a bad idea.
Project: Homestead Detroit. Reclaim urban blight. Citizenship after two years of productive work.
I mean, it can’t be worse than most of the eminent domain grabs?
Fifty years ago, America first heard Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream.
Yes, Dr. King, I will judge people, not by the color of their skin (or what was their first language, or whom they choose as their life partners), but by the content of their character. I will do my best to live up to your dream and to pass it on to those around me, especially my niece and nephew. I will remember the your sacrifices and those of your brothers and sisters to remind us that all humans are born with natural rights and it is immoral to take them away simply because of morphological or cultural reasons.
I will remember to try and make the dream as much of a reality as I can.
So some lady put up a manifesto on Slate demanding that all parents in America put their children into public schools. Because that will make them better. In a few generations. Maybe.
Of course, all is offered is anecdote. No real data on how this magic transformation is to occur other than people with”skin in the game” will demand change.
That’s worked so well for the past fifty years.
Update: It seems Larry Corriea decided that this article was worth one of his infamous fiskings.
Witzman
H.L. Mencken famously defined puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.†He might have been describing contemporary anti-smoking activists, that dour band of fuss-budgets constantly on the prowl for new ways to make life slightly less bearable by limiting the choices available to grown adults.Incredibly, the latest push from tobacco eliminationists doesn’t involve actual smoking, which has already been driven out of polite society more thoroughly than Rev. Jeremiah Wright sermons, early David Allan Coe records, and Three’s Company-era gay jokes combined. But it does lay bare the prohibitionist mindset and its fixation on scrubbing the planet clean of any behavior or attitude the crusader deems unacceptable.
This time, the buttinskys are trying to douse the dreaded e-cigarette, a device that supplies a safe nicotine hit to the user without bothering or endangering anybody else. E-cigarettes use replaceable cartridges in which nicotine or flavors are heated, vaporized, and inhaled (users are called “vapersâ€). Some e-cigarettes look like conventional cancer sticks and others look more like something from a bad Sylvester Stallone movie set in the near future. Questions of fashion aside, they are not just a safer way for smokers to get the nicotine they crave, they are apparently as safe as milk (well, pasteurized milk, anyway, and assuming you’re not lactose intolerant).
I’ve had several friends who made the switch from tobacco to electronic. One in particular saw his “smoker’s cough” vanish completely. Granted, this is purely anecdotal, but the scientific evidence is there.
This week’s Metal Tuesday is Circle II Circle’s “Heal You.” I like them because they remind me of later Savatage (around Taunting Cobras).
Lyrics:
Now I walk alone
Every waking hour
This power
I make my own
I’m not who I’ve been
Everything is changing
Arranging this flight within
They’re looking for something
Racing through this mad life
There’s only one thing
We can take this time
I can show you
I control you
Welcome to my life
I know you
I’ll conceal you
I can heal you
Of what you have become
Now this time’s arrived
Every waking moment
I wanted to feel alive
Breaking from the past
I know I’ll never have to
Go back through
Those places
At long last
All of us falling
On the sacred roads they’ve led us
Hear the calling
They will never forget us
I can show you
I control you
Welcome to my life
I know you
I’ll conceal you
I can heal you
Of what you have become
Okay, now this is just kick-ass! A lady sword fighter wins at the longsword tourney.
Even better:
She has several swords, and she designed the ones she uses the most. They’re specifically made for the style of fighting she does so they’re strong but not necessarily sharp. Regardless, I wouldn’t make her angry.
If a man neglects to enforce his rights, he cannot complain if, after a while, the law follows his example.
H/t reader David for sending in this quote.
When it comes to the legal aspects of using lethal force in self-defense, Massad Ayoob is one of the best. At some point, I am going to take his MAG-40 class.
He’s written fifteen articles on various aspects of the Zimmerman trial. Liston Matthews was nice enough to write an article with all fifteen linked.
If you carry a gun for self defense, or if you have questions about why Zimmerman was acquitted, take the time and read all fifteen.
This has been making the rounds:
I’m sure the author of this thought it was a noble statement against violence. It’s not. It’s a complete capitulation to those that would do harm to others. How does the author of this expect to stop someone bent on taking another’s life? Strong commands? Taser? Fisticuffs?
This type of thinking is so alien to me, I can’t comprehend how someone who is a father would believe it. Avoiding violence is a good thing, but what kind of father would not defend his children’s lives?
BTW, standing in front of your children and taking the bullets is not saving them. It is delaying the inevitable. At that moment, you must be prepared to do anything, including kill, to prevent their deaths. If this thought is abhorrent to you, please don’t pass along your genes or culture because you have all the survival instinct of an armadillo on a highway.
Because the free ice cream machine needs to be refilled.
