How to name your right-wing book. Or, the further dumbing-down of conservatism. One of these days, I’m going to write a Coulter/Malkin/Hannity parody called “Liberals Want To Eat Your Babies.”
This book looks trashtastic! Please, let there be a movie.
The Science Blogs are having fun with the “wellness editor” at the Huffington Post, a woman who claims to have a “doctorate in homeopathic medicine.” An odd choice for a lefty website that makes such hay of the right’s hostility to science. I like this comment: “…a doctorate in homeopathic medicine would be a blank piece of paper soaked in a 1:10,000,000 tincture made from the ink of an actual doctor’s diploma.”
Possibly the best speech ever given on the floor of the House. Also first called by the Onion years ago.
Off-duty cop’s pug wanders on to neighbor’s property, gets into fight with neighbor’s dog. You know where this is going….
More polls confirm that public support for legalizing marijuana is at an all-time high. I’ve said this before, but I really think we’re at a watershed moment on this issue. That’s good news.
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on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 9:35 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
She was allegedly his neighbor! GASP!
Wow! I can’t believe a cop would lose his cool and react violently like that!
You said “support for legalizing marijuana is at an all-time high” Hehehehe.
#1- Beat me to it, Ed! Nothing like an adverb modifying a personal pronoun…
So the cop who shot “his allegedly neighbor’s dog” could face charges, huh? I’ll believe it when I see it.
The dog killer is trained to shoot dogs first then ask questions… usually during a no knock scary pot bust, shoot the dogs for shock and awe, scare the crap outa everyone else in the house… only for the safety of our brave police force, screw the innocent people and their rights. If you smoke pot, get rid of your dogs!
About the book titles. While I can agree that it preys on simplistic and jingoistic us-vs.them mentality, the author of that linked post displays the typical left bias. After showing titles from Al Franken and Michael Moore that are in the same mold, we are told that at least liberals are ironic when they do it. Ok.
So take comfort – when the left is in power and violates individual liberty, it’s meant to be lighthearted and snarky. When the right does it, you know they actually mean it, those bastards.
One thing I dislike about many legalization proponents is their “legalize it and tax it” position. I fully understand their pragmatism in realizing that the prospective revenue is going to be the only incentive for many to support it, but I hate the ease with which people are willing to throw open the door to raising taxes as if it’s of no consequence. I’ve seen similar positions on prostitution and gambling. I bite my tongue and just appreciate that they are more on my side than not.
What I fear most, especially when people group pot with cigarettes and alcohol (not an illogical argument by any means), is that we won’t really eliminate the black market at all. Once legalized, I doubt that they will ever be able to “take it back”, but the existence of a large underground market in tax free pot could certainly diminish the benefits of legalization and perpetuate police state law enforcement measures against the industry and consumers.
Homeopathic medicine…ah yes, the liberals answer to bible thumping. “Our unsubstantiated make believe is much more credible than conservatives unsubstantiated make believe.”
The right wing book link mentions parliament of whores along with Hannity and Coulter. That really pisses me off. PJ O’Rourke is in no way comparable to the Neocon trash writers also mentioned.
Shatner Quake looks fabulous!! I have to get that one as I am one of the Bruce Campbell cult followers LOL
Kleptomania?
So… this asshole’s first thought is “Oh! My dog needs help killing that other dog! Better get my roscoe!”
As opposed to: “Shit! My dog is attacking another dog! I better stop it!”
And newspaper writers? “shooting his allegedly neighbor’s dog” makes no sense. This is why you shouldn’t drink at work.
#8 Dave:
When taxing marijuana you have to consider that the black market is there and ready to undercut legal prices if it is taxed too much. The retail price (including tax) must be less than or equal to current prices to have any effect on illegal trade. So it isn’t really “raising taxes” because people would spend that money anyway.
“Adam Bellow suggests a second strategy for titling a conservative book: Bait liberals with an insulting title and then allow their outrage to raise the book’s profile.”
This is just marketing, plain and simple… and as someone above mentioned, liberals do the exact same thing (LIES and the Lying Liars …. etc).
These folks are out trying to make a living and pay the bills. Fundamentally, whether Republican or Democrat, ALL OF THESE PEOPLE (POLITICIANS AND PUNDITS ALIKE) ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. They care about book sales. Rush cares about ratings. They don’t care about their agenda (nor do they care how it harms legitimate dialogue between reasonable folks).
Dan Hannan says that in a democracy we get the politicians we deserve. And he is 100% right.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/04/30/in_a_democracy_you_get_the_politicians_you_deserve
Dave Kruger…I agree. I have heard too many people say the tax money would fix our economy.
I am an econ professor, and if any of my studnets wrote that on a test, they’d flunk.
Off-duty cop’s pug wanders on to neighbor’s property, gets into fight with neighbor’s dog.
The off-duty chief of police said that the officer perceived he was off-duty threatened and acted in off-duty self-defense.
Marijuana producers and distributors incur some extra costs due to prohibition (evading the police, going to prison, settling disputes without access to the legal system), but they also enjoy some savings (no taxes, no need to comply with regulations). It’s not clear to me whether legal marijuana would be more or less expensive than illegal marijuana. Dave Krueger’s concerns are well-founded.
Someone should remind the Essex officer that sometimes bad things happen to good people, like their houses burn down, sometimes….
if you’re taxing it, you will continue filling prisons with people not paying the tax. And more SWAT going after tax “cheats”.
Screw taxes. Cut the damn spending.
I’d shoot a dog, too, if I thought it was killing my best friend (which is a pug).
I want to know what the other dog was. All the dogs I have ever owned could eat a pug (or perhaps step on it). What sort of a dog is so pathetically runty that it can actually fight with a pug, yet simultaneously so threatening that a grown man has to use a gun to subdue it?
I really don’t buy the “black market will still exist if it’s taxed” argument re: marijuana. Yeah, a black market will still exist. But not much of one. Despite the costs, people are going to go to 7-11 and buy their pack of Marlboro Greens, even if it’s double the cost of what the street dealer would sell it to them for. For convenience reasons and for legal reasons.
So, he’s got time to run home and arm himself, but didn’t have time to go grab his wayward pug…which had trespassed into another person’s yard, for it must not have been on a leash to begin with.
So, who’s the ‘injured party’, here? The homeowner whose own dog was minding its’ own business, and only did what any dog would do to another that violated his territory? Or the irresponsible cop who let his dog run loose and provoke the incident?
I am reminded of the report a long time ago about a police academy candidate that was denied acceptance on the force because he was too intelligent. Stories like this do nothing to dissuade the public from wondering if that’s a nation-wide policy…
And yes, I like pugs, too. I’ve never met a mean one that wasn’t made that way by some real dumbf–k of an owner. Most of the time, they’re the happy-go-lucky clowns of the dog world, with hearts much bigger than their small bodies. Or as a lady friend of mine once said, “They’re so ugly, they’re cute!” as one tried to lick her face off. But this dog-killing was way over the top.
I reserve the position of having to be heavily reasoned into a tax rather than concede it by default.
Much like unions, if you have a black market you probably deserved a black market.
Andrew S.: As it happens, Cato has a policy analysis on the effects of New York City’s onerous cigarette taxes. From the conclusion:
Referring a 2002 state and city tax increase from $1.19 to $3.00 per pack, the author also writes,
The dog story is sad, but interesting in that this would be one of the rare cases of the police getting in any trouble for this BS
Police (dog) trespasses, property owner (dog) has no reason to know intruder is police (dog); property owner (dog) defends his property, is killed by police.
Remove (dog), and you have a summary of half of Radley’s writings.
Why all the hate for pointing out that sometimes bad things happen to good people, like fires, and thinking that maybe a guy who likes to shoot his neighbors dogs shouldn’t be allowed to live next to decent people?
The thing about the police dog shooting story that I haven’t figured out is whether the dogs were actively engaged in a fight.
The way the article is written and the way I initially envisioned the situation is that the dogs were separated and then the officer came back and shot the other dog. I know it could be read the other way (i.e. they were fighting and the officer ran inside and grabbed his gun and came back and shot the other dog). Either way, it looks bad for the cop. Normal people who are gun owners don’t do this type of thing.
Like Dave Krueger, I am always irritated by the phrase “taxed and legally regulated like alcohol and cigarettes.”
Marijuana is not tobacco. It is not grown, processed, or consumed like tobacco. Trying to treat it the same is silly. Even equating home-grown marijuana to home-brewed alcohol doesn’t work, because growing marijuana doesn’t require specialized equipment and knowledge; it’s a weed that thrives as long as it’s not interfered with.
The budget boost from legalizing marijuana wouldn’t come from taxing it. Just stop spending tax money to investigate, prosecute, and incarcerate people for marijuana, and it will have a just impact on government budgets.
Screw the “tax and regulate” stuff. Just strike out any laws making it illegal.
That’s exactly why it can’t be “heavily” taxed. Obviously, everything is taxed but if it’s legal and too expensive many people will just plant a bag of seeds.
[...] of The Huffington Post’s medicine and health section.” Mike, The Mad Biologist, linked outta Balko. Some of them links is good readin’, kids. I’m dyin’, already. May 02, 09 | 2:15 am [...]
The great thing about libertarianism is that those who judge (say) homeopathic medicine ineffective are free to disregard, avoid, and/or criticize its use, leaving others free to enjoy the benefits they perceive in its use.
Let 1K materiae medicae bloom!
Greg Beato had the best fake Coulter title: “MOTHERF**KER: The Liberal Plot to Sodomize Your Mom”
I have two pugs. If you can not, at any time, pick up your pug and simply carry it away from any “fight” it gets into then you have no business living on your own outside of a nursing home, much less being a police officer.