I have a back log of stuff I’ve been meaning to post about and probably would have last week if I hadn’t been lying blissfully semi-comatose on a beech.

So here is that backlog:

Go Go Gadget Bulleted List!

  • The British Government, after torturing Alan Turing to the point where he took his own life, has now decided not to issue him a pardon. I don’t think I can accurately describe the rage this engenders in me as a programmer, a libertarian, and a person with even a passing sense of justice.
  • My friend Jonathan, over at his excellent Trade Diversion blog, has a fantastic post on globalization and local prices. It is title, appropriately, Don’t go to Shanghai for your Big Mac
  • I’ve been meaning to post for awhile about the minor kerfuffle over President Obama signing statement calling out a measure that would restrict the government from using certain funds to advocate for gun control. Now I love the Pro-2A camp and I think we do a lot of good work. But the backlash against Obama was, in this case, wrong. Now take as read that I think signing statements are several varieties of bullshit. And I definitely don’t think that the government shouldn’t be advocating for more gun control. But in this case, Obama is accurately pointing out that the text, as written, could potentially impinge on his job as written in the constitution. To whit, Obama’s constitutional authority to suggest to congress whatever measures he finds necessary and expedient. So Obama is, in this exceedingly rare instance, actually protecting the Constitution. And the Pro-2A camp attacked him for it. *Headdesk*
  • What SHOULD the libertarian and pro-2A camps be worried about and about which I’ve heard barely a peep? Meretricious, mendacious fuckwittery like this. Alan Gura, one of the best friends Lady Liberty has in this country at the moment, got shat on by a bunch of beauracrats who are paid on the taxpayers dime because, in these trying economic times, we must be careful with the taxpayer’s money. So apparently it’s okay for DC politicos to impinge the rights of the taxpayer on the taxpayer’s dime, but when it comes time to pay the man who put them in their place, well, then we have to be tight with the purse strings.
  • Finally, on a lighter note, I present the latest from comedic genius Tim Minchin: