First Principles

I only got home last night in time to see the second half of the Presidential debate.  I didn’t hear anything unexpected, although overall I thought it was substantive and good.  Will it matter?  Who can say.  But here are my thoughts. ~~~ The most compelling thing to me was in the part I missed, […]

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So much great stuff around the Silver State’s Intertubes (and beyond) today… ~~~ Attorney General Cortez-Masto says that the presence of a middle man cures otherwise Unconstitutional transfer of money from government to private industry.  Interesting. I really hope NPRI files a lawsuit over this, if for no other reason than I always get a […]

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Here’s a roundup of some of the happenings of Nevada’s blogosphere over the weekend, in case you were off having a life or something. ~~~ Will NPRI’s separation of powers lawsuit continue forward?  There are clearly grounds for moving forward, even if the original defendant is no longer directly impacted, and eventually, a sitting legislator […]

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I wish this debate had happened sooner.  Although it definitely helped that there were fewer candidates on stage – it’s not an accident that fewer candidates and no absurd timeclock led to a far more substantive debate than we’ve seen in the past. I haven’t seen a lot of the post-debate spin from other people […]

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“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own […]

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We get a lot of university alumni magazines at our house.  They’re big and glossy and have a little news about your alma mater.  They’re full of self-congratulatory pap about how dedicated to social justice your school is.  And they include a handy envelope so you can help advance that social justice by sending a […]

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The problem with living off of other people’s money is not just that you eventually run out of it – it’s that in the meantime you also wind up having to play by other people’s rules. Well, unless you’re so self absorbed that you think you have a “right” to that money, indefinitely.  Or if […]

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I couldn’t live blog tonight, as I had a class to teach.  But I listened to most of it on the radio, and watched the rest on DVR when I got home. I wish the entire nation could have seen Governor Sandoval’s speech last night, in order to contrast it with this one.  Sandoval gave […]

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Well, no big surprises.  He made the same promises that he made a year ago, and the only difference is that now we can be even more sure he won’t keep any of them. The big takeaway from me on this was just how unserious this speech was. 

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I should have live-blogged this, so ripe it is with stupidity.  But here are some highlights as I sit a watch with increasing outrage and disbelief. Obama claimed that the “Stimulus” bill is stripped of earmarks.  Really?  Are you kidding?  Sure – only if you get really creative with the language.  You can rename all […]

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First, The Good.

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The other day a friend of mine sent me an article from my home town paper in Rapid City, SD, reporting that my once top-notch high school debate program has atrophied and faces the very real possibility of being cut: It’s been a rough decade for the Stevens High School debate team. They’ve had seven […]

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The Seattle Public Schools have felt it necessary to remind their teachers that Thanksgiving is not a time of celebration, but for some, it is a time to mourn “500 years of betrayal.” Never mind that the first American Thanksgiving was celebrated a mere 361 years ago.   Or that there is no cultural or […]

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