“I think it will happen sooner than you think. We’re in talks with a handful of players who are considering it. There are up to four players being talked to right now and they’re trying to be organized so they can come out on the same day together. It would make a major splash and take the pressure off one guy. It would be a monumental day if a handful or a few guys come out.” Brendon Ayanbadejo
To many of us it seems like the fact that no NFL player has come out is quite surprising for 2013. Just like skin color, sexual orientation doesn’t matter (and hasn’t) to most people. What matters is the person themselves. Whether an NFL player is straight or gay is not a big deal what matters is if they are a good person (and a good player of course is a bonus).
It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.
The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle. After the invention of the flintlock, and before the invention of the percussion cap, the musket was a fairly efficient weapon, and at the same time so simple that it could be produced almost anywhere. Its combination of qualities made possible the success of the American and French revolutions, and made a popular insurrection a more serious business than it could be in our own day. After the musket came the breech-loading rifle. This was a comparatively complex thing, but it could still be produced in scores of countries, and it was cheap, easily smuggled and economical of ammunition. Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccans — even Tibetans — could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one. There are fewer and fewer foci of power. Already, in 1939, there were only five states capable of waging war on the grand scale, and now there are only three — ultimately, perhaps, only two. This trend has been obvious for years, and was pointed out by a few observers even before 1914. The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon — or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fighting — not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant.
Should President Obama be willing to print a $1 trillion platinum coin if Republicans try to force America into default? Yes, absolutely. Paul Krugman January 7, 2013
The fact that Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics and would make a statement like this says a lot about the lack of value in the Nobel prize and the intellect of Krugman. Talk about a farce.
From Thomas Sowell:
Whenever you hear people talking about “a living Constitution,”
almost invariably they are people who are in the process of
slowly killing it by “interpreting” its restrictions on government
out of existence.
Do either Barack Obama or his followers have any idea how many
countries during the 20th century set out to “spread the wealth”
— and ended up spreading poverty instead? At some point, you
have to turn from rhetoric, theories and ideologies to facts.
I am so old that I can remember when liberals were liberal — instead
of being intolerant of anything and anybody that is not politically
correct.
If you truly believe in the brotherhood of man, then you must
believe that blacks are just as capable of being racists as
whites are.
One of the most foolish, and most dangerous, things one can
do is to take love for granted, instead of nurturing it and
safeguarding it as the prize jewel of one’s life.
“The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to slavery,
the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes,
the really evil people in a word — these are never the publicans and the sinners.
No, they’re the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best
brains, the noblest ideals.” — Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English writer
Spammers need to keep finding ways to get past the spam filters. One way to do this and in the process hurt SpamCop users is to disguise your spam. Various methods exist to do this, but one that has an extra benefit is to make your spam look like a bill. People come to your web site or have to phone you to get removed from your mailing list. Both of which increase name recognition or contact with a potential customer.
Even better, SpamCop’s admins may view these as not spam since “they look like an unpaid bill” resulting in warnings for SpamCop users. This is just want spammers want – cause extra work for SpamCop and get SpamCop users warned about reporting something that is spam, but doesn’t look like it. Even better, since it looks like a bill and it requires effort to determine that it is not, you may not have to include an unsubscribe link so you can require people to call in to be removed, giving you an opening to sell to them.
You don’t even have to get the person’s name right – Jim Smith is as good as John Smith for admins at SpamCop who do not pay attention.
“I am leaving because you consider that success, creation, talent, anything different, must be punished.”
Gerard Depardieu, in an open letter to French prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault , December 16, 2012
A friend now says that those who voted for President Obama are no longer welcome at their house. She doesn’t believe in supporting those who would sell their (and our) freedom for a free phone and free birth control. She doesn’t believe in supporting those that believe that their need gives them the right to force someone else to provide for them. She knows that if she takes money directly from someone’s pocket, it is theft, whereas if the President does it, it is supposed to be admirable, but is not. She knows it is not charity if it is someone else’s money. She knows that it is racist to vote for someone because of his skin color. She knows that nothing is free, not even health care – someone has to provide it. She knows that the quest for power in Washington knows no bounds.
As much as possible she intends to support those people and businesses that support liberty, and avoid those that do not. She intends to support employees who value their freedom and let those who do not go. She knows that freedom is the best path to prosperity and the only moral path.
In short, she believes in freedom and equality for everyone and is taking steps in her life to attest to that. Her advice for the Republican Party is to adopt the slogan “We’ll stay out of your pocketbooks, and out of your bedroom.” She’ll support the Constitution, and the Founder’s view of freedom in the hope of protecting liberty in the United States.
“There is all the difference in the world … between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: First, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent, and second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent.
The first may be wise or unwise, and effective or ineffective way to help the disadvantaged – but it is consistent with the belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty. The second seeks equality of outcome and is ENTIRELY ANTITHETICAL TO LIBERTY.” ~ Milton Friedman