All posts by Rand Simberg

Social Commentary

Walking Eagle

I don’t know if this will be the last word on the subject, but Matt Labash certainly has the best take so far on Lord Minniehaha:

All this anarchism has made me thirsty, so I cross the street to get a Diet Coke, and take a coffee order from Churchill and Saito. All I can find, however, is a Starbucks. When I come back to the fair with two venti something-or-anothers, surly anarchists look like they want to kick my windows in, just like they did the Seattle Starbucks back at WTO ’99.

Churchill, to his credit, doesn’t subscribe to any meaningless “praxis of personal purity,” so he takes his coffee (black) with a shrug and lights a Pall Mall. I ask if he’s an anarchist, and though they have an affinity, he says no. He’s an Indigenist. Not quite sure what that entails, I ask him to explain. He’s a wordy bugger, and goes on for a good while about a “consciously synchronous level of population” and a “latitude of action that is governed in a self-regulating manner” and a “unity in the differentiation that’s consonant with natural order.” I figure this would all go down a lot easier if I’d first eaten peyote.

Media Criticism

Did I Miss It?

The sixtieth anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt’s death was last Tuesday. I’m surprised that the MSM didn’t make a big deal of it, considering that he was arguably the last (and perhaps only) great president that the Democrat Party has issued.

Political Commentary

The Rest Of The Story?

Ten years later, Fox News isn’t letting the Oklahoma City story die.

The government’s story continues to not hold water. For example, check out this strawman:

Editor’s Note: Watch the FOX News Channel on Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT for “The Oklahoma City Bombing: Unanswered Questions.” And check out FOXNews.com on Monday for a story showing how FBI agents are convinced they got the right men.

No one is claiming that they didn’t get “the right men.” The point isn’t about whether or not McVeigh and Nichols did it, though the defenders of the government action would have us believe that that’s the issue in contention. Everyone agrees that they did (as far as I know). The question is whether or not there were others involved, who remain free. And more seriously, if there were foreign governments involved that the Clinton administration would have found politically inconvenient to finger, particular since, if it restricted its investigation to “angry white guys” it could pin it on those evil right-wing Republicans.

As the article points out, the official story remains quite fishy, and there was a disturbing amount of evidence destroyed. And does this make any sense?

Oklahoma City attorney Michael Johnston said the FBI was not given all the tapes from as many as twenty-five cameras that he says were in and around the Murrah Building.

Technology and Society

Robots And Supervolcanoes

On Tuesday, I noted that someone needs to categorize and prioritize all the things that might kill us. Well, someone must have read my post, because the Guardian has done just that. The Daily Ablution has the story.

I’ll chime in with Glenn and others, and note that I also welcome our robot overlords.

I disagree, though, that there’s nothing we can do about supervolcanoes (at least in terms of preserving humanity). Having an economically independent and genetically diverse population off planet will at least preserve the species against such an event. That won’t help with gamma ray bursts though. This list is a little terracentric, in that it doesn’t distinguish between those events that would be a problem just for the earth (e.g., a supervolcano eruption) and those that would be more comprehensive (e.g., gamma rays, or obstreperous robots). By the way, does the robot scenario encompass gray goo?

Anyway, they need to rectify this.

[Tax day morning update]

Phil Bowermaster has all the solutions.