Bodybuilder Performs Smackdown on Serial Bank Robber [-y suspect]

In a suburb north of Seattle, a serial bank robber (I won’t say robbery suspect, though the newspaper does) had the misfortune of having an amateur competitive bodybuilder in the chosen bank who decided to be a good member of society and stop the robbery, whereas most would just be sheep and look for cover. It all happened in Lynnwood ...

Subsidize It…You Get More of It

In the comments to this post on health care, commenter TJIT left this little gem of a link that has the, supposedly true, conversation between an ER doc and his patient. Me (after reading triage sheet and rolling my eyes): Hi, I'm Dr.____. I'm the doctor in charge of the EMERGENCY Department tonight. I see that you came by AMBULANCE. What ...

Recent U.S. Migration Data

As a follow-up to James' Candidates From Nowhere post yesterday, the Charlotte [NC] Observer has an interesting (time-wasting?) interactive graphic of US county-to-county moves (moves in and out of counties, though you have to toggle between the two) based on 2000-2005 IRS tax returns, confirming we are a mobile society. The data shows most moves are relatively local, ...

More of the Nanny State

Now it seems that the next item in the crosshairs of the Nanny Staters are Ipods. Yep, walking and fiddling with your Ipod could get you a $100 ticket in New York if State Senator Carl Kruger gets his way. "We're talking about people walking sort of tuned in and in the process of being tuned in, tuned out," Kruger ...

Judging Presidents

Gene Healy has an excellent article about historians' fascination with activist Presidents.Whether they're liberal or conservative, presidential scholars seem to prefer militant presidents who stretch against constitutional bounds -- or break them. [...] But is that the right lesson to draw? Is there something wrong with limited-power republican presidents? Or does the fault lie with the scholars who give them short shrift? Consider ...

Wow, Was He Stupid

The father of Chelsea Clinton's boyfriend and former Congressman is in prison. Apparently he fell victim to a 600 year old scam...several times. Initially, Mezvinsky became the victim of "just about every different kind of African-based scam we've ever seen," federal prosecutor Bob Zauzmer told 20/20 for a report to be broadcast this evening. But then, says Zauzmer, Mezvinsky began to ...

73rd Anniversary of the End of the War on Booze

Seventy three years ago today the War on Alcohol was finally called off. What did the War on Booze give us? How about an increase in organize crime, and hence crime itself. Not that I expect this to make any difference in the War on Drugs. In any event, like Ronald Bailey I shall be drinking a glass ...

Internet Porn = Fewer Rapes

Here is an interesting article on the effect of the Internet and Internet porn on the number of reported rapes. The article is by Steven Landsburg, and economist at the University of Rochester. The argument runs as follows: If you look at the number of reported rapes in each of the 50 states you see declines are ...

Bangladeshi Financial Pioneer Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his creation of Grameen Bank, a bank that specializes in micro-credit loans to the very poor to help them establish their own businesses and get them started on a path out of poverty. According to the news story the first loan Grameen Bank made was only $27. Here is an ...

Beer Disaster in Yakima Washington

Four percent of the nation's hop harvest went up in smoke, rather than into beer yesterday as the S.S. Steiner warehouse in Yakima burned. If this were oil, we could expect a massive price increase of hop-using products (um, mostly beer, rejected stuff goes into soaps and such). Even worse, hops aren't exactly fungible as the alpha and beta-acids ...

Tony Blair’s Daddy State

Facing the consequences of 30 years hard work by the left to break down societal taboos and redefine "family"; LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday the state should intervene early - possibly even before birth - to stop the children of problem families growing up into troublemakers. One think-tank said the idea, the latest step in Blair's drive ...

Kansas City Joins the Pit Bull Banning

And plans on killing every "pit bull" they can get their hands on. I find these kinds of laws despicable and based completely on ignorance. More often than not these "pit bulls" are not American Pit Bull Terriers, but are often mistaken for other types of dogs (go here to see how hard it is to spot an ...

PSA: Commenting Issues

It seems that the linking function in comments is not working properly. It looks like the url and href= part of the code is stripped out. As a temporary measures you can past the url in the comments directly, but try to use something like Tiny URL to keep the page from being distorted by excessively long links. Update: ...

A Nation Without Trial Lawyers?

There is apparently a simple solution for the stain of being unpopular with the public, change your name. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America voted during its convention this week to change its name to the American Association for Justice. Spokeswoman Chris Mather said there was overwhelming support for the change, and that the new name "reflects whose side ...

Oregon births a boom in surrogate babies

Interesting article, if you pay for it , they will come (if you click on the print option, you will get the full article, but cancel the print). Oregon is on the leading edge of a new fertility frontier. Decades after artificial insemination became commonplace, would-be parents are testing the ethical boundaries of surrogacy here, partly because Oregon is one state in ...