Via Reason Hit and Run: Cops in Portugal will permit open smoking of marijuana by British fans before the upcoming Soccer match with France. They figure stoned fans won’t get into fights. The Dutch tried this in 2000, and it worked. Gotta love pragmatism.

I’ve never noticed it before, but looking at the audience as the president speaks in the National Cathedral, and seeing them side by side, Patti Davis shares many of her mother’s facial features.

I just got a call on my business line from a guy who was peddling the dead-tree LA Times.

Me: No, thank you. I’ve no use at all for that paper. My parakeet died, by puppy’s been trained, and I don’t fish any more, so I don’t need the wrap.

Him: But it’s only $2.75 a week! What can we do to get you to subscribe?

Me: How much will you pay me to read it?

Him: I love this job. Have a good day, sir.

Donald Duck is seventy years old today. He’s still looking good, but at his age, he should watch that temper–he could give himself a stroke.

Donald Duck is seventy years old today. He’s still looking good, but at his age, he should watch that temper–he could give himself a stroke.

Donald Duck is seventy years old today. He’s still looking good, but at his age, he should watch that temper–he could give himself a stroke.

Sooner or later pretty much everyone with libertarian leanings comes up with the idea of living on the sea in international waters, and I’m no exception. This came up in a conversation with Sean Lynch at the Space Access Society conference, and he pointed me to a very interesting site by some people who are actually making serious plans to do just that. I was on the Oceania project mailing list for most of its life, so I got a chance to see one way not to do this. The greatest value of the Seasteading site is its list of things that have been tried, a much larger list than you might expect. The only real success so far is Sealand, but it’s not for lack of trying.

Continue reading Seasteading →

Apparently about eighty percent of spam is being generated by zombie machines (i.e., home computers that have been taken over by trojans, and are sending out massive emails without the owner even being aware).

Folks, if you don’t have at least a software firewall, like Zone Alarm (there is a free version), you are part of the problem. As cheap as hardware firewalls are these days, there is no excuse to have an unsecured machine with a permanent internet connection.

Via Brad Delong, an article about a guy who makes a living selling donuts and bagels on the honor principle. Take an item, drop some money in the box. There are some very interesting regularities in who cheats and when they cheat. Who cheats is basically in line with my expectations based on dealing with people in different lines of work. If it confirms my prejudices, it must be true 🙂

Anyway, grab a donut, drop your coins in the slot, and read the article.

Here’s a very moving eulogy from a prodigal daughter.

I don’t know whether the loss is easier or harder if a parent is famous; maybe it’s neither. My father belonged to the country. I resented the country at times for its demands on him, its ownership of him. America was the important child in the family, the one who got the most attention. It’s strange, but now I find comfort in sharing him with an entire nation. There is some solace in knowing that others were also mystified by him; his elusiveness was endearing, but puzzling. He left all of us with the same question: who was he? People ask me to unravel him for them, as if I have secrets I haven’t shared. But I have none, nothing that you don’t already know. He was a man guided by internal faith. He knew our time on this earth is brief, yet he cared deeply about making his time here count. He was comfortable in his own skin. A disarmingly sunny man, he remained partially in shadow; no one ever saw all of him. It took me nearly four decades to allow my father his shadows, his reserve, to sit silently with him and not clamor for something more.

RTWT