The Washington Post reports today that Al Sharpton says that Howard Dean is “anti-black.” Sharptons says that

“Howard Dean’s opposition to affirmative action, his current support for the death penalty and historic support of the NRA’s [National Rifle Association's] agenda amounts to an anti-black agenda that will not sell in communities of color in this country,” Sharpton said in a statement.

There is a colorable argument that being opposed to affirmative action is anti-black (the argument is wrong, and backwards, since affirmative action harms black), but supporting the death penalty and the Second Amendment isn’t anti-black.

The nice thing about Sharpton is that he brings needed comedy to the political scene

Today’s lead Anchordesk article is about “black boxes” (event data recorders) in many cars today. Your car may be keeping track of vehicle speed, engine speed, brake status, throttle position, state of driver’s seat belt, and time from vehicle impact to air-bag deployment. Be careful, since this data has been used to convict people in court.

“All will tremble at the crack of our eggs and the hush of our toilet paper.” To understand, watch Homestar Runner’s Halloween special.

Rob Neyer is one of my favorite baseball columnists. Here are some excerpts from his latest columns.
Continue reading →

Generally speaking, Canadians must have an inferiority complex. All of the Canadians I have ever known personally are great, well-adjusted people, but north of the border some kooky stuff goes on.

Sony will soon release a game called Syphon Filter. Besides a stupid name, the game features some Canadian terrorists, apparently modeled after the Front de liberation du Quebec, who kidnapped and murdered Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte in 1970. The offending section of the game has terrorists taking over the subway in Toronto. But some Canadians couldn’t abide with the thought that a Canadian could actually be a terrorist. And worse, the Toronto Transit Commission says that “The fact is someone is putting the Toronto subway as a terrorist site, that is a very dangerous thing to do.”

Why would it be dangerous? It

Here’s a great article from ESPN about college basketball in Utah. As Rick Majerus said, “There are good Mormons, rogue Mormons, drunk Mormons, polygamy Mormons. But one thing they all have in common is basketball.”

The New York Times News Service had an interesting and revealing article a couple days ago. The article starts:

Minutes after President Bush finished an hourlong meeting with moderate Islamic leaders on the island of Bali this week, he approached his staff with something of a puzzled look on his face.
“Do they really believe that we think all Muslims are terrorists?” he asked, shaking his head. He was equally distressed, he told them, to hear that the United States was so pro-Israel that it was uninterested in the creation of a Palestinian state, despite his frequent declarations calling for exactly that, living alongside Israel.

I think this shows two real problems with the Administrations’ Middle East policy: (1) the Administration does not understand world opinion and (2) even moderate Muslim leaders are blinded by misconceptions. I don’t have answers for the Administration in dealing with these issues, but it will be tough because I don’t understand how thinking people can truly believe that we think all Muslims are terrorists or that the U.S. isn’t serious about a Palestinian state.

Earlier I have opined that Donavan McNabb is overrated (here and here). On Sunday McNabb showed some improvement. The Eagles beat the Jets 24-17 in the only stat that really counts. McNabb was 17 of 23 for 141 yards. His quarterback percentage is still the worst in the league and his completion percentage is as well. But the Eagles won the game that is really what matters.

The Jet have a 2-5 record, but they have the 12th best defense in the League. McNabb looks to improve his stats over the next couple weeks as the Eagles play the Falcons (the worst defense in the NFL) followed by the Packers (29th ranked defense in the NFL). Only time will tell if I’m right that McNabb is overrated, but McNabb needs to pad his stats over the next couple weeks.

The Free State Project got some press in the New York Times. The goal is to get enough fellow libertarians to move to Vermont that a libertarian government can be elected. While I like the idea, I would like to see an entire libertarian country, but an libertarian state won’t be a bad start.

Thanks to Anais–the “Confidential and Executive Assistant” to Lawrence Eagleburger–for the pointer.

The lover of technology in me loves the Concorde because it is a passenger plane that flies at Mach 2. The libertarian in me hates the Concorde because the British and the French subsidized the plane to cater to the rich. See articles from Wired and UPI. The libertarian in me was happy to see Richard Branson (the hear of Virgin Airlines, Virgin music stores, Virgin Wireless, and untold other Virgins) try to buy British Airways’ Concorde fleet. Branson offered $8.4 to British Airways for the fleet. But so far, British Airways has turned him down. In a letter to the editor in the Economist, Branson writes:

While we would have concentrated on the premium market, we would have ensured also that a few seats per flight were available to the general public at a much cheaper price. My feelings about Concorde simply reflect those of the British public, who, having funded Concorde, want to see it continue to fly