Our closest border with Canuckistan is about an hour north of us (the Derby Line/Stanstead I-91 crossing), and the second-closest one is two hours away in Vermont.
Imagine my mild surprise when, on the way back from town with the kids, I ended up in a U.S. Border patrol checkpoint right on I-89 outside Lebanon, NH, [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘liberty.’
November 6, 2009
you look kind of canadian, boy.
October 7, 2009
health care as a human right, part the 58th.
Picture a little town in Flyover Country, U.S.A—let’s call it Liberty Falls. You know the kind: three stoplights, one gas station, a little corner grocery store, white picket fences, and a covered bridge.
Liberty Falls has 1,000 residents, and one doctor, a kindly old country doc who’s a few years shy of retirement. Everyone who has [...]
September 29, 2009
you go, girl.
BBC brings us the heart-warming story of Rukhsana Kauser, a teenage girl living in Kashmir. When militants came to her house to force her into marriage with their leader, and started beating her parents, Rukhsana and her brother basically uttered the local version of “Oh no, you di’nt”. The girl disarmed one of the militants, [...]
September 4, 2009
you can’t ban ingenuity.
I don’t shy away from debates on gun control, and the merits and drawbacks of legislative attempts to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
However, there’s one argument that immediately makes me disengage from the debate, because it shows that the person putting it forth has a.) not thought their own argument through, and b.) [...]
August 25, 2009
a vote for gun control is a vote for thunderdome.
Every martial art that involves direct unarmed hand-to-hand fighting has weight classes. This is done because a bantamweight boxer will get his clock cleaned by a heavyweight ninety-nine out of a hundred times. Sending a 115-pound fighter up against a 220-pound fighter is simply not an even contest, because the heavyweight can deal (and absorb) [...]
July 26, 2009
you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means.
Yesterday morning, on my weekly sojourn into town for Dadcation Day, I spotted a bumper sticker in the Borders parking lot that had me shaking my head:
HEALTH CARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT
Now, health care is certainly an important commodity. I sure like being able to see a doctor when something ails me, and to get [...]
July 8, 2009
forcing you to do what’s good for you.
Interesting factoid, and a short object lesson on government-mandated common sense:
Massachusetts has a mandatory seatbelt use law.
Massachusetts has a 67% seatbelt use rate.
New Hampshire has no mandatory seat belt law for adults.
New Hampshire has a 69% seatbelt use rate.
(Details here. If you read the Comments section of that article, I will not be held responsible [...]
July 4, 2009
happy birthday, america!
Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, a bunch of anti-authoritarian misfits got together in Philadelphia, and wrote a declaration that boldly said, “We’re our own country now. Anybody got a problem with that?”
America: where our unofficial national motto is “You’re Not The Boss Of Me”. May she survive the combined efforts of politicians from [...]
May 27, 2009
what she said, +1, ditto, etc.
Libba Bray wrote a heart-rending and powerful essay on Proposition 8, growing up with a gay father, and the definition of “family”.
Quoted for truth:
There is nothing wrong with being gay. There is nothing wrong with the way you love. Jesus, we should count ourselves lucky that we ever find love at all. Love is hard [...]
May 25, 2009
remember.
With the tears a Land hath shed Their graves should ever be green. ~Thomas Bailey Aldrich
