Published on 1 Apr 2014
In a last-ditch effort to save their family, a group of cowboys drive a dangerous herd to Hollywood.
April 1, 2014
Wranglers of Death official trailer
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Innovative new bench design for woodworkers
The deep thinkers at Lee Valley Tools have come up with a brilliant solution to a perennial woodworking problem:
H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, who said “I’d like to see someone do a legitimate motion study on this and prove that it would actually work”.
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Losing a debate? Demand that your opponents be locked up!
Not, I’m afraid, an April Fool’s Day story:
Finally, someone has come up with a way to settle the debate over climate change: Put the people on the wrong side of the argument in cages.
A writer for the website Gawker recently penned a self-described “rant” on the pressing need to arrest, charge and imprison people who “deny” global warming. In fairness, Adam Weinstein doesn’t want mass arrests (besides, in a country where only 44% of Americans say there is “solid evidence” of global warming and it’s mostly due to human activity, you can’t round up every dissenter). Fact-checking scientists are spared. So is “the man on the street who thinks Rush Limbaugh is right. … You all know that man. That man is an idiot. He is too stupid to do anything other than choke the earth’s atmosphere a little more with his Mr. Pibb burps and his F-150’s gassy exhaust.”
But Weinstein’s magnanimity ends there. Someone must pay. Weinstein suggests the government simply try the troublemakers and spokespeople. You know, the usual suspects. People like Limbaugh himself as well as ringleaders of political organizations and businesses that refuse to toe the line. “Those malcontents must be punished and stopped.”
Weinstein says that this “is an argument that’s just being discussed seriously in some circles.” He credits Rochester Institute of Technology philosophy professor Lawrence Torcello for getting the ball rolling. Last month, Torcello argued that America should follow Italy’s lead. In 2009, six seismologists were convicted of poorly communicating the risks of a major earthquake. When one struck, the scientists were sentenced to six years in jail for downplaying the risks. Torcello and Weinstein want a similar approach for climate change.
This is a great standard for free speech in America. Let’s just agree that the First Amendment reads, “Nothing in this clause shall be considered binding if it contradicts legal practices in the Abruzzo region of Italy.”
The truth is this isn’t as new an outlook as Weinstein suggests. For instance, in 2009, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman insisted that “deniers” in Congress who opposed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill were committing “treason” while explaining their opposition on the House floor. (That same year, Krugman’s fellow Timesman Thomas Friedman wrote that China’s authoritarian system was preferable to ours, in part, because it lets “enlightened” leaders deal with climate change.)
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Libertarian Police Department
In The New Yorker, Tom O’Donnell goes on the road with the hardworking cops of the LPD:
I was shooting heroin and reading The Fountainhead in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole 474 million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down… provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said, “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
H/T to Walter Olson:
The New Yorker correctly tagged this as libertarian satire, Salon would have run it as a documentary [h/t D.H.] http://t.co/oZa3SLVCMg
— Walter Olson (@walterolson) April 1, 2014
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WestJet goes metric
Published on 1 Apr 2014
Effective today, WestJet is changing the way we display our flight schedules, switching from our current system of “a.m.” and “p.m.” to metric time. For more information visit http://fly.ws/Metric-time.
From the official website:
WestJet converts to metric time.
Concerned about guest confusion, airline changes schedule display system.WestJet announced it is changing the way it displays its flight schedule, switching from its current system of “a.m.” and “p.m.” to metric time effective immediately.
“We hope that by converting our flight schedule to metric time, it will simplify things for our guests and ensure they arrive for their flights with lots of time to spare,” said Richard Bartrem.
How to calculate your flight’s departure in metric time:
- Take your departure time in 24-hour time. Represented as HR:MIN.
- Multiply the HR by 60.
- Add the MIN.
- Take the total and divide by 1.44.
(HR x 60) + MIN = X / 1.44 = New metric flight time (in milliminutes)
Sample calculation:
5:42 pm = 17:42
(17 x 60) + 42 = 1062 / 1.44 = 737 milliminutes
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The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il: Q&A with Michael Malice
Published on 28 Mar 2014
Kim Jong Il, who was the supreme leader of North Korea until his death in 2011, was a leading authority on gymnastics, cinema, literature, war, cooking, and the arts. He wrote 1,400 works when he was in college, including a senior thesis that was an achievement comparable to Columbus’ discovery of America. He revolutionized the opera, personally discovered that Paleolithic man originated on the Korean Peninsula, and came up with a theory of art that was as impactful on modern culture as the Copernican Revolution. Why did the supreme leader always wear sunglasses? That’s because his eyes were constantly bloodshot from staying up all night figuring out ways to help his country.
These are details from celebrity ghostwriter (and former editor of Overheard in New York) Michael Malice’s new book Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il, a strange, tragic, and humorous first-person account of the supreme leader’s life. On March 18, 2014, at an event held at New York City’s Museum of Sex and sponsored by the Reason Foundation, The New York Times columnist John Tierney sat down with Malice to discuss the book.
Highlights from the event included a discussion of how Malice came to write Dear Reader (1:28); why Kim Jong Il is despised by North Koreans (7:00); how North Koreans are forced to engage in regular self-criticism sessions in which they’re denounced by their peers (9:00); why it was a surprise that Kim Jong Il succeeded his father, Kim Il-sung (12:00); why there’s no hope that political change will come to North Korea anytime soon (20:20); Ayn Rand’s influence on Malice (23:20); why Kim Jong Il hated the Mona Lisa (27:15); an example of a North Korean joke (29:15); why Malice thinks the media’s coverage of Dennis Rodman’s relationship with Kim Jong Un is deplorable (31:35); the story behind the 1987 bombing of Flight 858 by North Korean agents (33:20); the origins of the Korean famine (41:00); Kim Jong Il’s “spot on critiques of U.S. foreign policy” (42:00); why North Korea allows its citizens to reunite with family members from South Korea (43:30); the relationship between China and North Korea (50:00); and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities (51:15).
For more on Malice’s time in North Korea researching the book, read his account from the August/September 2013 issue of Reason.
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