The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Working on the Sidebar
You may note some changes on the sidebar. There are more to come. I intend to group the “Best Posts” into categories (already done in a few cases) but there’s much more to do. The blogroll has been updated. If yours is there, please make sure it works properly. If yours isn’t there, and you think it ought to be, please do email me. I’ve got some stuff to do today, and I probably won’t get back to this until tomorrow, but so far, so good.
I’m Going to the Range
And run a few rounds through the Power Tool™. I think I’ll go to the Tucson Rifle Club and use their 500 meter range, too.
I really like getting off early on Fridays! (Even though I worked 53 hours this week.)
Of course, true, hardcore Randians don’t really have friends….just other rugged individualists with whom they enter mutually-beneficial economic agreements. – “Anonymous” in comments over at Sipsey Street Irregulars
Get your mind out of the gutter. Via Sipsey Street Irregulars comes a very sharp analysis of Ayn Rand and her philosophy. It’s a bit longer than Dipnut’s from a few years back, but it goes into greater detail.
All the News That Fits the Agenda
I really get a kick out of Matt Drudge and his skill at arranging (and titling links). Example:
The authoritative New York Times tells us that all this cold and snow we’re getting may be the result of Global Warming! (Which even the high priests of Global Warming have admitted has been on a ten-year hiatus and they don’t know why: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Kevin Trenberth from the East Anglia computer hack/leak.)
But the philosophy cannot be wrong!
However, there’s this interesting bit of continuing fallout concerning the “Paper of Record”:
UPDATE 3-New York Times ad outlook dim, shares fall
Print advertising declines to continue in first quarter
* Q4 adjusted EPS $0.44 vs $0.38 average analyst estimate
* Q4 revenue down 11.5 percent to $681.2 million
* Shares down almost 9 percent
NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The New York Times Co (NYT.N) warned on Wednesday that print newspaper advertising will continue to decline, sending shares down nearly 9 percent, even as the company slashed costs to reach a higher-than-expected fourth-quarter profit.
The results, like that of other U.S. newspaper publishers, show that revenue declines are easing as the economy improves and advertisers are taking ginger steps back into the market. Even so, they are reducing what they spend on print media anyway, keeping newspapers’ long-term futures uncertain.
Obviously this is yet another of the myriad of problems we’re told that are caused or worsened by Anthropogenic Global Warming!
Getting Your Priorities Right
This photo is one of a series ostensibly taken in Quebec City, Canada. They’ve had a bit of snow this year. This woman has her priorities straight, however:
Word of the Day
Gorewellian
That is all.
This is in relation to the previous post on this topic, Audi’s Super Bowl “Green Police” ad. Reader Perlhaqr in the comments:
Now I have “the Green Police… are buried under my shed…” running through my head.
First runner-up comes from SayUncle’s post yesterday, Ad Fail:
The ad says that, by virtue of buying this car, you will be a compliant citizen. In essence, you’ll be a better sheep. Fuck that.
The commercial should have ended with a guy in a big ass Ford Earthfuckertm that gets 5 miles per gallon with seats made from baby seals blowing past the roadblock billowing smoke. And, for effect, the driver flips them off. I’d buy that car.
Let’s see, the Escape, Explorer, Expedition, Excursion, Exclusion, and Earthfucker. Helluva lineup!
Quote of the Day – Tea Party Edition
(T)hat grass-roots, “never-done-this-before” sense of excitement and empowerment is the first thing that really hits you.
These are the most regular, decent people you’ll meet, and with very few exceptions not one of them has been involved in politics in any way. It’s just that – like so many of us — They’ve just had enough!
Of course, the media coverage has tried very hard to portray the normal, average, every-day Americans of the Tea party rallies as dangerous and angry racists and Wal-Mart knuckle-draggers, while identifying the mass-produced signs, the mass-produced T-shirts, the mass-produced members of bused-in wiccan nihilist anarcho-Maoist lesbian eco-weenie anti-war protestors as somehow the genuine voice of the American people. – Bill Whittle, Eject! Eject! Eject! – PARTY TIME!
With apologies to lesbian wiccan capitalists everywhere (this means you, Deb). No offense intended.
Time for a New Moment of Zen
Click for the full-sized version. No, I don’t know where this was taken, sorry.