Author Archives: Rogier

Divine delusions (or, why I prefer observable reality)

Published: Saturday February 11, 2012 5:57pm
By Rogier

The other day, I came across a photo of an Egyptian pyramid. The camera had been pointed in the general direction of the sun, and what  appeared to be a beam of purple light streamed across the top of the monument toward the viewer. Almost everyone recognizes this phenomenon as lens flare (an artifact of […]

Posted in philosophy, religion, science | Comments closed

The iPhone owner’s guide to liberal hypocrisy

Published: Friday January 27, 2012 3:10am
By Rogier

I’ve been watching the indignation build over the alleged treatment of workers at Apple’s biggest supplier, the unfathomably huge Chinese Foxconn plant, where iPhones and iPads are assembled. The New York Times published two big stories about Foxconn this week (1, 2), setting off the discussion. Today, on an Internet forum for professional photographers that […]

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SOPA author is caught stealing someone else’s photo

Published: Thursday January 19, 2012 12:24am
By Rogier

Congressman Lamar Smith (R, TX) is the author of the awful SOPA copyright bill that is about to go down in defeat. Rep. Smith clearly cares a lot about creators’ copyrights, but not as much as he cares about his desire to save a few bucks by…ripping off a photographer. Turns out that Rep. Smith […]

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Bloomberg morphs into Giuliani

Published: Saturday January 14, 2012 1:35pm
By Rogier

Here’s one cool thing about being a politician: You can make up shit about little people, like accusing them of being cokeheads even if the white powder they were caught with was in fact aspirin. So if you hold elected office, go ahead and commit slander. No problem. If the victim of your lie sues, […]

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Going mental, going metric

Published: Saturday January 14, 2012 12:10pm
By Rogier

Another pot raid [via Balko]. No deaths this time, not even a gun battle, just seventeen shattered windows, a battered-down front door, plus half-burned curtains and char marks on the walls from the flash grenades the officers threw. The haul? Some water pipes and, allegedly, 20 grams of marijuana. Isn’t it interesting that when cops […]

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A hard line against a soft drink

Published: Thursday January 5, 2012 3:44am
By Rogier

Noted without comment: The Indiana State Police told a student working at the Statehouse on Tuesday that she could not bring a full can of Dr Pepper, packed in a lunch bag, into the building — despite the fact that Dr Pepper is sold in cans in a number of Statehouse vending machines. The Dr Pepper, […]

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Illinois battles drain cleaner

Published: Wednesday January 4, 2012 6:42pm
By Rogier

Got a plugged-up drain? If you live in Illinois and are thinking of buying Drano or Liquid-Plumr, better bring an ID. You’ll be asked to show it and sign for your purchase. That’s mostly because some evil asswipe threw acid in a woman’s face in Chicago three years ago. Hence the new measure. The legislators, […]

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Maine: Come for the lobster. Stay for the corruption.

Published: Wednesday January 4, 2012 4:21pm
By Rogier

Here‘s how the loophole works (kudos to the normally catatonic Bangor Daily News): If [fictional] legislator Mary Smith is an accountant and performs accounting services for the state for which she is paid more than $1,000, she would have to disclose this under the requirement. But if she were the president of Accounting Associates, Inc. […]

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GOP candidates’ big swinging dicks trump their small-government “ideals”

Published: Friday December 30, 2011 4:43am
By Rogier

‘Limited government’ is just an empty buzzword for these people. They believe that government is too powerful, too big, and too fallible — right up to the moment they reach the Oval Office and get to play with the launch buttons. From today’s New York Times: Even as they advocate for limited government, many of […]

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Just what we needed: More laws!

Published: Friday December 30, 2011 3:47am
By Rogier

State legislatures have had a busy year. In 2011, all 50 states and territories met in regular session and enacted close to 40,000 new laws on issues across the board. Forty. Thousand. Laws. In one year. One that caught my eye: Washington state approved special license plates expressing appreciation for music teachers. Not gym teachers, […]

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That’s some fine personnel screening there, TSA

Published: Thursday December 29, 2011 9:47pm
By Rogier

Deborah Newell Tornello says of the TSA, one would not expect an organization whose job it is to “keep us safe” to be hiring child porn enthusiasts, child molesters, and child rapists. No, one would not. But in fact, the TSA does it all the time. Tornello cites just the 2011 cases (correction — just […]

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Bastion of Liberal Media Elites embraces Ron Paul

Published: Thursday December 29, 2011 7:32pm
By Rogier

I said something critical of the crop of current GOP contenders yesterday (OK, I called them crooks, panderers, and liars), and someone immediately commented that I sounded like an “Obama fan.” Such has long been the knee-jerk reflex of most Americans: Someone who says unkind things about a Republican must be a hardcore liberal, and […]

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