http://positiveliberty.com Sun, 18 May 2008 01:50:03 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Speaking of promising political careers, I give you 13 year old Ralph Hardy who ordered a duplicate credit card on his father's account and used it for a $30,000 spree with friends that ended in a Texas hotel room with $1000 hookers playing Halo on XBox. What separates Ralph and his ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/forget-money-guns-lawyers-send-credit-cards-xbox-and-hookers.html Recently, a friend lent me a book and said, "Here. When I read this book, I thought, 'Oh, Jim will really like this.'" The book was "Blue Like Jazz: Non-religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality." I'd been encouraged to read this book back in 2006, while staying at a friend's house. ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/blue-like-jazz-reflections.html Bravo to Chardon Township, Ohio for turning down $10,000 in disaster aid from FEMA following a March snowstorm. Township Trustee Chuck Strazinsky explained it was a typical snowstorm unworthy of federal aid and that the money should be reserved for true emergencies, whereas Township Trustee Steve Borowski disagreed, saying ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/come-on-try-it-hey-the-first-grants-free.html One of the talking points of the wingnuts is America is a republic not a democracy. Although a few folks I respect have said such (notably Walter Williams), most folks who parrot this line don't know what they are talking about. America is and was founded to be ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/gay-marriage-republicanism.html There has been a lot of discussion about the California same-sex marriage decision, including questioning whether the state belongs in marriage at all -- as well as the old canard that if gays want to marry one another, we are now legally helpless against all those who are eager to ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/repost-on-nurturing-as-the-true-purpose-of-marriage.html I'll have to read the decision to see if I agree with the reasoning, but this was definitely the right outcome. http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/marriage-wins-in-california.html For the moment.... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/my-favorite-thing-in-the-world.html No, not really. For now, just file under Stories That Wouldn't Surprise Us: WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today in a surprise announcement just hours before the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin, former President William Jefferson Clinton declared his total and enthusiastic support for Barack Obama to become the Democratic ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/clinton-endorses-obama.html Via the Washington Post food section: A lunch of found food includes sauteed morels on toast, steamed garlic mustard greens and fiddlehead ferns. Katie Letcher Lyle is a regular and enthusiastic forager in her home territory of Lexington, Va. You find that toast in an alley somewhere, dust it off, it's ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/department-of-unfortunate-captions.html I'm reading some issues of Libertarian Forum from the late 70s and early 80s. In my defense, it's work-related. But I'm finding that it's just sad, ugly reading -- lots of infighting about issues that seem tangential or irrelevant, with little to offer an outsider about the value of having ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/why-the-libertarian-party-fights-with-itself.html Longtime blog friend Joshua Claybourn has a fantastic post about the Mexican-American War, one of the most unjust and unnecessary conflicts our nation has ever entered. An excerpt: One aspect of this oft-forgotten war is that it was quite divisive in its day. Whigs, particularly those in the north, opposed ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/the-mexican-american-war.html I suppose I could just walk over to his office and tell him this, but then... it's been a while since I've posted, and this is a bit of a teachable moment, so... Will Wilkinson writes, I hate [haggling]. I am terrible at it. As a consequence, I bought nothing ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/haggling-as-recreation.html "I'm still waiting to hear a valid negative (against) a kid accepting a scholarship, free education, at an early point in his life." – Howard Avery, whose 8th grade son Michael committed to the University of Kentucky’s basketball program this month. The obvious “valid negative” here, Mr. Avery, is that neither ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/nothing-but-net-gain.html Google has digitized the entire volume of Bird Wilson's "Memoir of the Life of the Right Reverend William White." White was an Episcopal Bishop and presided over the church in Philadelphia George Washington attended as President. He gives key eyewitness testimony that Washington systematically avoided communion in his ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/digitized-primary-sources-on-gw-religion-2.html Either Constant Viewer just saw Speed Racer or those LSD flashbacks he was promised in the 60s have finally arrived. Quite possibly the most visually stunning motion picture in decades and certainly the benchmark for special effects for the foreseeable future, Speed Racer is a movie which must either ... http://positiveliberty.com/2008/05/constant-viewer-speed-racer.html