L.A. Bans Master/Slave

In the latest round of government niggardliness (I love that word!) against the English language, L.A. County notifies vendors that using the term “Master/Slave” to describe computer hardware is racially insensitive!  

FREEDOM

This essay covers the impact of the freedom to carry guns on American culture. It uses many examples from history, playing the Hitler card quite often. While most of the essay is thick in history and philosophy, my favorite part uses a fictional example:

I recently visited a website that featured a picture of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, with the caption: My hero! Someone who thinks his way out of trouble! The implication, of course, is that force and violence are universally to be rejected and despised as unworthy of thinking people (or Vulcans).

Well bucko, Spock carried a phaser as well as a tricorder, and he used it when he had to. If the Star Trek future represents a hope for our species at its most reasonable and open-minded best, it would be well to remember that the Enterprise carries a hell of a lot of photon torpedoes because the cause of human decency cannot be advanced if all the decent humans lie dead.

Parents Abuse Kids' Good Credit

A growing trend for Mom and Dad to fuck up their kid's credit... That's parental love for ya!

Weird science

David Cohen salutes the weird and wonderful in the world of international scholarly research during the past year

"In the area of advancing technological research, the Australian physicist, John Keogh, probably surprised many by devoting part of the year to preparing an application for an unexpected patent in his antipodean homeland - for what he called a "circular transportation facilitation device", better known as "the wheel". Dr Keogh later said, a touch unconvincingly, that he did this to highlight problems in a new Australian patent law."