Recent Comments
- Heroic Disappointment (1)
neill: "the POW business seems to be mccain's answer for everything.…"
- In Search of Catholic "To Kill a Mockingbird" (9)
Emily: "I've never read Walker Percy, but now y'all have inspired me to go find some of his books! Another Catholic novel that came to my mind last night --…"
Jerry: "I'd second Walker Percy. He may be an easier person to start with than O'Connor. I've read Evelyn Waugh's "Helen" and can recommend that. I've heard…"
- Why Is Prostitution Illegal? (104)
john: "Only cheap/inexpensive prostitutiion is illegal-- the kind which is controlled by a pimp. In New York City, escorts charge $300/hr. at the minimum.…"
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Steve: "RE: How I found this page. I googled 'red light' while looking for pictures of a red traffic light. Was not thinking about the 'district' but that's…"
Ales Rarus
A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog
random thought of the moment:
Income and inheritance taxes imply the denial of private property, and in that are different in principle from all other taxes. The government says to the citizen: ‘Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide.’
— Frank Chodorov, The Income Tax: Root of all Evil
education
Elementary Graduations are Ridiculous
Somehow in the last few years it has become popular to have traditional graduation ceremonies—caps, gowns, Elgar—for increasingly younger students at increasingly inconsequential stages in their education. Apparently this idiotic tendency has also taken up the traditional valedictorian and speech.
I say "apparently" because, while I have not seen this phenomenon in the wild, my blog—this […]
How Not to be a Kindergarten Teacher
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Last week, [Wendy] Portillo held a vote in her classroom in which the students "voted out" 5-year-old Alex Barton, who is in the process of being tested for Asperger's Disorder, a type of high-functioning autism, said his mother, Melissa Barton.
After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Alex […]
No Tenure for Teachers
"The [New York State teachers'] unions late Tuesday were successful in banning student performance in the classroom from the tenure process."
Say what?! News stories like this drive me nuts. There should be no such thing as tenure for teaching faculty who are not also professional researchers. The latter need tenure to protect them from malicious […]
Libertarians at the Pitt News?
The Pitt News, like most college newspapers, is know more for articles written by liberals and libertines than libertarians. Nevertheless, in the last few months I've noticed several editorials that present or at least hint at libertarian ideals. Here's a sampling. Give me your impressions in the comments.
Fight the REAL ID Act in PA
A new Meetup group dedicated to carrying out Ron Paul's principles apart from the presidential election (and there's plenty do on other levels and branches of gov't!) has organized a rally against the REAL ID Act in Pittsburgh:
