The Kyle Conspiracy

Season at Liberty: Fort Lauderdale Ribs

2010-05-25T13:44:00.020-04:00

Here's an awesome rib recipe I came up with.

Pre-heat the oven at 300º and set a timer for 2½ hours.

Dry Rub

1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
1 Tsp Cumin
2 Tsp Chili Powder
1 Tsp Paprika
½ Tsp Cayenne Pepper
½ Tsp Coarse Sea Salt or Kosher Salt
½ Tsp Pepper
¼ Tsp Crushed Red Peppers

Combine the rub and apply to approximately 2lbs of ribs. You can do this ahead of time if you wish, but it's not absolutely necessary since it cooks for so long. It should look like this:

Put the ribs in a baking pan and cover with 2 layers of Heavy-Duty Aluminum Foil. Start the 2½-hour timer. While that's slowly filling the house with the wonderful smell of meat, you can relax and prepare the sauce at your leisure.

Rib Sauce

2 Cups of Heinz Ketchup
¼-½ Cup of Worcestershire Sauce (to taste)
1 Tsp Brown Deli Mustard
1 Tsp Light Brown Sugar
½ Tsp Salt
½ Tsp Pepper
½ Tsp Minced Garlic
(or 1-2 cloves fresh)
½ Tsp Chili Powder
¼ Tsp Cumin
Dash of Cayenne Pepper
Dash of Paprika

Combine the sauce and take the ribs out and head out to the grill. For this demonstration, I used a gas grill, but it should be noted that a charcoal grill is preferred. They should look like this:

Heat the grill at a Low temperature and add a few soaked wood chips if you're using charcoal. Cover the ribs with sauce (I usually put aside some sauce for pouring at the table. Thanks Rebecca!), and make sure they stay covered and moist over the grill, since they can burn easily if dried out. See:

Once you've got some nice black marks in the top side (about 15-20 minutes on Low, flipping regularly), take them off, divide and enjoy. I usually serve them with beans and coleslaw and a Yeungling.

Om Nom Nom Nom:

On the Topic of Larry Sucks at Civ Revolution

2010-05-24T17:06:00.004-04:00

There are times the fates conspire to create the perfect situation for a turning-point in time.

Gaius Marius marching on Rome.

Sherman turning South to the Sea.

But none of these can compare to the thrashing that was dealt on that balmy, South Florida summer evening.

I began my rivalry with Lawrence O'Neil Suarez over five years ago. Having accepted his request to move in to a houseful of gamers (and occasionally students), we began a long and illustrious division of minds and strategy.

At first, we assumed him crippled, since he walked in carrying a Macintosh. But despite these early deficiencies, Larry, as we came to refer to him, had shown a keen ability to be a cheap-ass barbarian.

We matched in several sessions of Settlers of Catan, where Larry displayed both intellect and diversity in his singular strategy of occupying ore spots and proposing insipid trade.

Despite the inherently sophomoric aire to this stratagem, Larry managed, by perhaps luck or a prophetic sense of hubris, to secure victory in more than a few rounds.

The table was set.

The match that night began on somewhat of a frantic note, with my lack of the fateful map preventing an expediency in the game's initial stroke. After downloading the proper additions, we embarked on a three-hour journey than left few questions unanswered.

Ever committed to the value of a Navy, I chose to represent the British while Larry had taken to fighting as a Roman. Since the Roman advantage is an efficiency of road-building, I found it quite amusing that Larry's mobility was so lacking later in the game.

Keeping ever the vigilant eye on my doomed rival, I was held in check by the Great Wall wonder, which, until it's obsolescence, excluded any belligerence on my part. But salvation from this speed-bump on the path to destiny was not far from realization.

After the prompt disposal of the Japanese empire, and the inclusion it's scientific treasure, I was able to negate the rather archaic advantage my opponent had founded, and soon began landing armies of my finest Knights upon Roman shores.

Larry's response, exhibiting all the bravery of a cancer-ridden possum, was to flee his rather sparsely-defended homeland and take refuge on the banks of several island colonies, which had neither the manpower nor the will to challenge the Royal Navy.

I deeply lament the lack of difficulty by which I smote Larry's culture from the world. It was not unlike the hunting of the dodo, in where an interesting specimen of a long-past era had been lost to the ebb and flow of time.

Upon conquering the last of Larry's settlements, I had employed a tactic akin to the maneuvers of Civil War generals, sending two fleets around to the north shores of the island. This feign allowed my main army to land unchallenged on the south portion.

This spelled the end for Mr. Suarez. Having ceded the initiative in Science, my technological advantage and the use Cannon corps made short work of his few remaining defenses. After a strange period of inactivity, often indicative of a network problem, I received the final word.

"GothamOddisee has disconnected."

Victory.

I'm Speechless

2009-11-04T14:47:00.002-05:00

Via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing:

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

14% of America is Retarded

2009-10-30T09:44:00.003-04:00

Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish posted the results of a Pew poll on the public's perception the biases of the major U.S. news organizations.

For the most part, as you can see, there's little surprise. Fox is seen as pretty right, the rest appear left (click the image for the full poll):

Quick question: How in the fuck do 14% of the respondents think Fox is "mostly liberal?"

CHECKPOINT ALERT

2009-10-28T11:31:00.001-04:00

From the Sun-Sentinel:

Hallandale Beach police will conduct checkpoints targeting drunken driving on Thursday and Friday.

The checkpoints will take place throughout the city from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30., according to the Hallandale Beach Police Department.

The Politics of Fine Print

2009-10-28T09:25:00.004-04:00

As with all government interaction, love it or hate it, one must follow procedure quite precisely. Three representatives want to hold America's first citizen to the same standard.

Via the Volokh Conspiracy (no relation):

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, Rep. Cliff Stearns, and Rep. Ron Paul say “no,” and have sent a letter to the President asking him to request congressional consent, which they expect would be speedily given. They point to the example of President Theodore Roosevelt, who created a committee, including the Chief Justice, to hold Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize money in trust until he left office...

Article I, § 9, clause 8, of the Constitution states that “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

When Roosevelt won the Peace Prize, there was apparently no controlling statute. Today there is: 5 USC § 7342 (titled “Receipt and disposition of foreign gifts and decorations”) sets out the conditions under which foreign gifts can be accepted without a separate action of Congress. The statute applies to an “employee,” which includes “the President and the Vice President.”

While we all know this is little more than a combative gesture, perhaps Congressional approval may be worth pondering. After all, if you or I miss one line on a DMV form or fail to submit a single item of a building permit, we will be denied automatically.

Why should the President be any different. I couldn't imagine George Washington would have wanted it any different, seeing as he refused to accept noble titles, and seeing as the writers of the Constitution felt it important enough to include in the once-pithy prerogative.

Looking Toward 2012

2009-10-27T11:59:00.005-04:00

Looks like we have our token quasi-libertarian in the works. Via Race 4 2012:

Gary Johnson is preparing to launch his Our America PAC shortly, as soon as he gets all of his legal ducks in a row. He will be hitting the trail hard soon, traveling the country to speak in support of issues and candidates, re-immersing himself in the public policy debate.

His campaign site, Gary Johnson for America, is already up.

So what do you think loyal readers? Cause for celebration or yet another pro-liberty non-starter?

Dear Republicans...

2009-10-27T09:47:00.003-04:00

...the GOP is not conservative anymore.

Or at least, not fitting of what was called "conservative" ten years ago. You know, back when the GOP was the underdog and small-government conservatives like Newt Gingrich were leading the push for smaller government.

Now such people are labeled RINOs as Mara Gay posts via The Atlantic:

The man who led the GOP to a 1994 revival is now dismissed being by some on the right as a RINO -- Republican In Name Only. Why? In a contentious New York State Congressional race that has split the Republican Party at the national level, Gingrich irked conservatives by endorsing moderate Dede Scozzafava, and urging Republicans not to support the more conservative third-party candidate Doug Hoffman.

You see, before the days of Dubya, back when I called myself a conservative, the title meant something far different than it does today.

In the 90's, and more specifically 1994, the GOP was the meeting place of people who saw Reagan's vision of a smaller government and actually thought it was something we could accomplish. Perhaps I now wouldn't agree with everything they proposed in the Contract With America, but it seemed like a step in the right direction.

Balanced Budget? It's required by the stockholders of nearly every company in America, so why not our government? Eased regulations on small businesses? Great! Reduced welfare rolls? Excellent.

Yeah, it had some pretty nasty provisions for federal grants to local law enforcement, which laid the groundwork for the abuses we've seen under the USA PATRIOT Act, but all things being equal, the ideas of the '94 were more or less geared toward reducing the size of government.

Fast forward to today.

Last year's election featured a GOP candidate who only discovered tax cuts during the primaries, sought and got passed massive government intrusion in free speech, and recently followed the reactionary trend to create more financial regulation in response to the sub-prime crisis which in part was the result of government incentives and intrusion.

Hardly "conservative."

The leading figures today regurgitate the ideals of the 90's but in practice have little respect for small government doctrines, and that's why they look so foolish.

The concept of "starving the beast" doesn't really hold water when the beast grew more under Bush than it has in any other period in our country's history, and that's including the Great Depression.But what it does accomplish is giving small government advocates a bad name.

It doesn't look good when you preach helping small business but then throw billions of their tax dollars at a few large companies who, without government intervention, would have dissolved, opening up the market share for those small businesses.

Right-wingers like Michelle Malkin look like hypocrites when she rails against immigration when she herself was born to immigrant parents. She is defended by claiming only to be against illegal immigration, but anyone spending even a few minutes researching the hurdles that foreign nationals must jump to become citizens can see why a life off the grid is really the only option.

It's the Limbaugh-esqe idea that destroying the other team, consequences to your own principals be damned, is the new definition of "conservatism." The recent ostracization of Gingrich is just another example.

And for those of us who genuinely want to accomplish smaller government, we're left to watch from the sidelines as two teams, both invested in growing the power and size of Washington, fight Pyrrhic battles using our banner.

We are miles from where we were in 1994, but it's in the wrong direction, and if the GOP ever hopes to gain power again, the need to realize that.

China as a Model of Eww

2009-10-26T11:22:00.005-04:00

We hear all the time how the Communist Chinese state is a good example of how to develop a green, industrial economy. Barring the collective opinion of governmental farce known as the United Nations, econo-columnists like Thomas Freidman have been telling us for years that China should be a model of how to build green economy.

Is this what we really want?

It's rare that we get accurate information from behind a red curtain like China, especially such compelling pictures like those liked above. It's a shame that those in the U.S. whom we look to for opinions can be bothered to delve deeper than a state issued press release.

Why Haven't There Been Many Posts Lately?

2009-10-22T16:34:00.000-04:00

Cause it's my site and I haven't really felt like it...

Murder: Punishable by a One-Day Suspension

2009-10-19T12:42:00.003-04:00

Yet more proof that we are second-class citizens when it comes to the men in blue.

Via the Dallas Morning News:

A Dallas police officer who fatally struck a child last October received a one-day suspension during a disciplinary hearing this afternoon...

The punishment was for "for violating the emergency vehicle operations policy when he drove over the speed limit without activating the lights and sirens," police officials said...

Cpl. Vaughn's lights and siren were not activated as required.

The police accident report released lists speed as a contributing factor in the accident. It states that the speed of Cpl. Vaughn's vehicle ranged from 69 mph to 72 mph at the time of impact. The speed limit on that stretch of road is 40 mph.

Salem, Nigeria

2009-10-19T11:40:00.004-04:00

When arguing the reasons why religion can be dangerous, I am often told it's irrelevant to compare the Christianity of the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades or the Puritans of colonial Massachusetts to modern Evangelical Christians.

It's not fair, I'm told, because we live in a different world and such genocide wrought by the hands of men could never happen again.

Well, it does. From the L.A. Times:

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Now I understand this story is more complex than simply "Christians did it" and allow me to reiterate that I don't believe the concepts of Jesus were evil by any stretch but, as even the bible says, man is imperfect.

Organized religion simply provides a cover for imperfect men to do evil things.

People Who Should Speak Less in Public, Part XVIII

2009-10-16T11:31:00.005-04:00

I've always said that Gay Marriage shouldn't be an issue because, gay rights issues aside, I still don't understand why the government should be telling anyone whom they can or cannot marry.

Need an example why?

Take the recent case of Louisiana justice of the peace Keith Bardwell, who violated several Constitutional Amendments this month and said dumb shit like this:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

If you didn't click the link, Bardwell refused to issue a marriage license to an inter-racial couple. In the United States. In 2009.

This is exactly why the government should get out of the hitching business. Were Bardwell a priest, rabbi or imam, he'd just be yet another redneck asshole in Louisiana, and Mr. McKay and Ms. Humphrey could just go to another place of worship.

But they can't realistically just go to another government, and that's the point...

P.S. Where exactly does he keep his piles of black friends? In his backyard?

This Was Never About The People

2009-10-14T14:05:00.004-04:00

I know it comes as a shock to most of you, but the Government isn't acting in your interests. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.

It's not well articulated by the now intellectually-devoid right, since their few remaining intellectuals like William F. Buckley have long since past and the only response they can muster is "You're a Communist!"

One quote often parroted between segments on the Teabaggers is a relatively famous quote from Ronald Reagan, saying the nine worst words in the English language were "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

This sentiment is mindlessly thrown around as if it were in the Bible, but that doesn't make it untrue, just unarticulated. The government isn't out to get you or anything, as the Hannitys of the world would have us think.

They simply don't give a shit about you.

A majority of people were sold into voting for Democrats last year, thinking they'd bring government health care and really stick it to those evil greedy insurance companies.

Wrong. In the end, they're doing the very thing that got us here in the first place: subsidizing companies too big to be ignored/fail while telling blue America they'd be regulated.

Let's leave aside the fact that regulations never make competition "fairer" but simply easier for the few companies who line the regulators' pockets, but that's for a later post.

People in Washington aren't altruistically working to bring you health care. They're working to trade favors to bring more bacon home, and if you need proof, just look at the results.

This bill going to the Senate floor is nothing like what the right wanted, which was no bill at all, and nothing like the left wanted, which the general consensus was a single-payer system.

Nope, what we end up with is another ridiculous bill that solves no problems, creates dozens of new ones, and shreds through our money and the constitution at a faster rate.

Why Regulation Never Equals a Freer Marketplace

Anytime something in the business world goes south, be it health insurance or finance or energy, everyone on the left starts clamoring for increased regulation. Sadly, they don't realize that regulation, often written at the behest of the large companies in that industry, work to solidify the large few and limit competition, not make it "more fair."

Take the current health care debate. Large insurance providers pay off congresspeople to make sure the new regulations favor their companies.

Net result: Large, influential companies keep running along with a government crutch while smaller providers, the ones trying to undercut big companies and therefore provide downward pressure on prices*, are trampled underfoot.

Essentially, those touting regulation are only making matters worse, while the fat-cat fuckers in Washington laugh while using our money to light illegal cigars.

If leftists really want to be on the side of the poor and downtrodden, they might want to stop making things harder for the poor and downtrodden, even if it is with the best intentions.

*This is actual capitalism. Two or three big insurance companies whose competition was regulated to extinction is not capitalism, despite what Michael Moore says...

Update: I'm not alone in this opinion.

Contest: Who

2009-10-14T11:26:00.001-04:00

Contest: Who's a good little bear? You are! You are!

Posted using ShareThis

I'm Not Alone

2009-10-14T09:53:00.003-04:00

...in sheer awesomeness.

From here there be rodents, a rant to end all rants, or something...

Hey Mac People

2009-10-12T17:21:00.000-04:00

Suck It...

That Was Close

2009-10-12T16:08:00.004-04:00

Good thing this guy didn't have a chance to take out "the enemy" or, as they are more commonly known, "other humans."

From the Sun-Sentinel:

WILTON MANORS - Neighbors recalled how the 78-year-old Wilton Manors woman would sit in her driveway on a lawn chair, stark naked and caked in feces.

She lived with her 40-year-old son, who would linger in the trash-strewn backyard to experiment with small explosives, they say.

The reclusive mother and son had worried neighbors for years with their bizarre behavior, prompting calls to city officials and family services workers.

But no help came until Sunday, when neighbors saw smoke coming from the backyard, said Thomas Miller, who lived next to the home on the 2900 block of Northeast First Avenue.

Miller called police, who instead of finding a fire, encountered the son, Paris Martz, who told them they were "the enemy," according to a police report.

Martz struck one officer in the chest and kicked him in the groin, telling police to leave the house, authorities said.

As this went on, his mother ran out of the home, nude.

"[She] was screaming and wailing, 'Help me, help me,'" Miller said.

Martz was charged with elderly neglect, battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest without violence, according to police. He was taken to the Broward County Main Jail, where he is being held in lieu of $2,000 bail.

It sounds like we were lucky enough to catch this guy before anyone got hurt. Just remember folks, if you see a 78-year-old lady caked in shit on her front porch while her son is making bombs in the backyard, please, call the police.

Only in Florida...

The Nobel Prize - Irrelevant for Quite Some Time

2009-10-09T09:08:00.007-04:00

As I'm sure you've all heard, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Obama is a surprise move by a bunch of Swedish politicians.

Shocking! Astounding! Inconceivable!

But if one really looks at it, the Peace Prize, or PP, isn't really the badge of peace that everyone assumes it to be, or at least when it comes to sitting U.S. presidents.

There have been four American heads of state to get their own PP: Obama, Wilson, Carter and Roosevelt I.

First, the esteemed Swedes gave their PP to Teddy Roosevelt, the guy who wrote in-depth studies on naval warfare such as The Naval War of 1812, which is credited with increasing out Navy's strength by leaps and bounds. He was also the Brigadier General who took San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War.

But the "accomplishment" cited for his PP was the supposed end of the Russo-Japanese War, in which the American world police handed over Korea to the Japanese, and opened the door for the ultra-nationalism that swept what became Imperial Japan.

Thanks Sweden!

Or how about Woodrow Wilson, a white supremacist (peaceful!) and free-speech detesting Commander and Chief who dragged us into World War I, which was only labeled "I" because the allies, including the U.S., punished Germany so stringently that they elected Adolf Hitler out of desperation.

Now that's what I call a peaceful administration.

And let's not forget old PP winner Jimmy Carter, who got his PP jammed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the Camp David accords, of which nothing has been accomplished in 40 years. He began the covert funding of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, earned the U.S. a huge black eye in Iran, and even posthumously pardoned Jefferson Davis.

Yes, Jefferson "President of the Fucking Confederacy" Davis.

Also, let's not forget the deal brokered by Carter to prevent North Korea from going nuclear, which enable North Korea to go nuclear. Or Carter's monitoring of the extremely fraudulent elections in Venezuela, which he declared legit.

So I suppose it's fitting that our current president, the one who campaigned against Iraq yet is still fighting there, the one who is about to ramp up war in Afghanistan, long known as the Graveyard of Empires, and who by fiat supported Iran's recent human rights abuses after their sham of an election, won his own little PP.

After all, in a world where war and peace seem interchangeable, hope and change barely have much meaning by comparison.

Please Catch These People

2009-10-08T13:29:00.005-04:00

From the Sun-Sentinel, one of the most common-sense stings I've seen in a while:

Teams of state troopers and deputies have been ordered to stake out courthouses to catch drivers pulling out of the parking lot after they've lost their license.

The move is part of an aggressive crackdown by the Florida Highway Patrol and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office on unlicensed drivers who repeatedly get behind the wheel.

The focus on these drivers is part of a plan to put the brakes on what authoritiest call an epidemic infecting the roadways. A 2003 study by the American Automobile Association found that motorists without a valid driver's license are five times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than those properly licensed.

I want to extend a most sincere offer of support for this idea. If one is dumb enough to drive moments after losing your license, that person really deserves to be in jail.

Real Economic Reforms

2009-10-07T12:16:00.003-04:00

In a time when we look to be exploding the size of government, some of us still want actual reforms. For those who want to control the deficit the old fashioned way — by not spending so fucking much — the Cato Institute, a libertarian think thank, has compiled a department-by-department guide for cutting spending.

The guide can be found at DownsizingGovernment.Org

Will many of these project be eliminated? Unlikely, bit it's a healthy reminder of just where all that cash goes in April.

Public Service Announcement

2009-10-06T11:50:00.003-04:00

If you have an email account with Hotmail, Gmail, AOL or Yahoo, change your password because someone's leaking password information.

That is all...

All Things Being Equal

2009-10-01T11:59:00.001-04:00

To maintain an appearance of fairness, here is a completely legitimate used of a the Taser, from the Sun-Sentinel:

FORT LAUDERDALE - A man was taken to the hospital after he attacked a police officer and was shocked with a Taser this morning, authorities said.

The man, who has not been identified, was spotted behind some businesses at Victoria Park Shoppes on Federal Highway, Police Sgt. Frank Sousa said.

When the police officer approached him, he ran away, Sousa said. The chase ended when the man attacked the officer. That's when she shocked him with the Taser, Sousa said.

The officer was not hurt, Sousa said, but the attacker was sent to Broward General Medical Center to be examined.

Police expect to charge him with battery on a police officer and loitering and prowling, Sousa said.

Granny's Got the Goods

2009-10-01T10:04:00.008-04:00

As noted by several Reason posters and plenty of outraged people, Sally Harpold of Clinton, Ind. was recently arrested for a class-C misdemeanor and is facing a $500 fine and 60 days in jail (not counting court costs and all the other crap they tend to pile on in these situations).

Her crime? Buying two boxes of allergy medication in a 7-day period.

No big deal, right? Surely, the prosecutors will recognize the mistake and let the poor lady go. Not exactly, according to the Terre Haute News:

Just as with any law, the public has the responsibility to know what is legal and what is not, and ignorance of the law is no excuse, the prosecutor said.

“I’m simply enforcing the law as it was written,” [Vermillion County Prosecutor Nina] Alexander said.

I'll leave the practical arguments against this zero-tolerance idiocy to the pros. Jacob Sullum sums it up quite succinctly:

Marvel at the justification offered by Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marvel:

Sometimes mistakes happen. It's unfortunate. But for the good of everyone, the law was put into effect.

I feel for her, but if she could go to one of the area hospitals and see a baby born to a meth-addicted mother...

Note that the "mistakes" to which Marvel alludes do not involve arresting harmless grandmothers for innocuous purchases; they involve failing to keep track of exactly how much pseudoephedrine you're buying, lest you exceed the arbitrary ceiling established by anti-drug hysterics in the state capital. Also note Marvel's attempt to feed the meth-baby myth. Finally, there is no evidence to support his implication that arresting people for buying one box too many of decongestant pills reduces meth consumption. That does not mean the pseudoephedrine crackdown has not accomplished anything: It has increased business for Mexican meth traffickers, and it has driven explosive innovation in manufacturing techniques.

The real rub here is not whether it's drugs or guns or undeclared fruit at the border. The problem lies in the pervasive idea that all laws are automatically just because we wrote them somewhere.

Now first of all, I am in no way promoting anarchy. I don't own enough black outfits. Most sane people agree that a civil, modern society needs a system of laws to operate. Fine, I get that.

The nearly reflexive assumption that written law always equals correct law may be a product of our society. After all, we as a culture can't do anything anymore without the support of armies of therapists, administrators, and life coaches toting self-help books and enforcing one-size-fits-all policies.

At some point, our thought process went from "figure things out" to "mindlessly follow instructions." Luckily, not everyone was so willing to forfeit their minds.

Mohandas Gandhi certainly wasn't showing respect for unjust laws when he marched in the Salt Satyagraha. Austrian existentialist and Jewish refugee Martin Buber famously called such a struggle against injustice "man's duty as man."

But I think Martin Luther King, Jr. put it best, when he wrote in his autobiography that "I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good."

Perhaps Ms. Alexander should consider these sorts of things before she continues her small-minded track of enforcing injustice and throwing a "grandmother of triplets" in jail for buying cold medicine.

And perhaps those who write such laws might want to take a closer look before signing them, or as the rest of us call it, doing their fucking job.

Temporary Subbatical

2009-09-29T10:52:00.005-04:00

This site will be down for a few days* for some maintenance, since I've received several complaints that the Almighty Microsoft's browser won't display the page correctly.

We apologize for any inconvenience...

*Basically, whenever I get around to it.

UPDATE: All set. That actually took a lot less time than I had envisioned.