Author Archives: Rogier

Sign language

Published: Wednesday December 21, 2011 4:36pm
By Rogier

A panhandler finds himself in trouble with the NYPD. Wouldn’t have anything to do with what’s on his sign, would it? “Help!” the sign, in green letters, reads. “I Need Money for Weed!” The man, Joshua Long, has become a favorite of some tourists who pose for pictures with him and stuff dollar bills into his […]

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Post Office to Renew Combat With ‘A Series of Tubes’

Published: Wednesday September 7, 2011 5:01pm
By Rogier

The United States Postal Service is out of money, in large part because of the generous pension entitlements enjoyed by its employees. Trimming the workforce seems like a long shot because of the no-layoffs clause in the postal unions’ contracts (nice work if you can get it, huh?). What to do? No worries. Congress has […]

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An Expensive Education

Published: Wednesday September 7, 2011 9:24am
By Rogier

A company called Education Management Corporation just got sued by the Justice Department. EDMC operates more than a hundred schools for young designers, photographers, and other creative types. What dastardly misdeeds has EDMC committed? According to Photo District News (PDN), The government says EDMC violated federal rules against paying recruiters based on the number of […]

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Irony, Washington style

Published: Thursday September 1, 2011 3:22am
By Rogier

I haven’t lived in Congresswoman Nita Lowey’s New York district since June of 2005. That’s the month I moved to Maine. Her office knows that I moved, as evidenced by the correct address — in Maine — on the form letters I receive from Lowey Headquarters every so often. Evidently, Ms. Lowey, a member of […]

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Gone, but not forgotten

Published: Tuesday June 14, 2011 11:27pm
By Rogier

I run this old editorial of mine every year on the anniversary of Peter McWilliams’ death, as a reminder of the folly that is the drug war. Also, to commemorate a funny, decent, hardworking man who was hounded to death by a government that would rather see patients die than grant them the relief of […]

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Tennessee criminalizes the Internet — with pics!

Published: Tuesday June 14, 2011 5:52pm
By Rogier

The Tennessee legislature just passed a law saying that posting images online can be a crime if they “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress.” The distress doesn’t have to be intended, or targeted at a particular person. The rule is so broadly written that anyone who sees a web image that is in any way distressing is […]

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Government and unions — the nutshell version

Published: Monday May 30, 2011 4:36am
By Rogier

The United States Postal Service is billions and billions in the red, so much so that complete insolvency looms. Budget hawks have proposed deep cuts — but, says Businessweek, with Democrats receiving the bulk of the postal unions’ political contributions, such measures are unlikely under the current administration. Not only won’t the 275,000-member National Association […]

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Branches of government

Published: Saturday May 28, 2011 9:49pm
By Rogier

Does the government, at any level, care exactly how you trim your trees? You’d better believe it. Every two to three years, Eddie Sales trims and prunes the crape myrtles at his church, Albemarle Road Presbyterian Church. But this year, the city of Charlotte, NC, cited the church for improperly pruning its trees. “We always […]

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Video: the war on photography

Published: Thursday May 26, 2011 2:38pm
By Rogier

As a libertarian-leaning photographer, this brand new Reason production is close to my heart. For an ongoing chronicle of police harassing and arresting photographers and videographers (usually with absolutely no legal justification and yet with zero consequences for the officers’ careers), see Carlos Miller’s important blog site, Photography is Not a Crime.

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Belgium perishes due to lack of government

Published: Thursday May 26, 2011 1:50pm
By Rogier

Just kidding. I decided on a whim to check into Belgium’s health today, because it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard anything lately about how the country was going to hell in a hand basket without a government. The Belgians, you see, have had no functioning national leaders for many a moon now. To […]

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How the American people are like a 10-dollar whore

Published: Thursday May 26, 2011 1:03am
By Rogier

My wife and daughters are flying today and we know what happens to them in the name of safety. And now I have a related question to ask of you. Should the government spend up to 600 million dollars to protect one person from terrorists? Maybe the President, you say, right? Yeah well, I’m not […]

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Linkavaganza

Published: Sunday May 15, 2011 4:04pm
By Rogier

• If you’d like to qualify for a low-rate loan, it helps to be a celebrity, a lawmaker, or a judge: The three major agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, keep a V.I.P. list of sorts, according to consumer lawyers and legal documents, consisting of celebrities, politicians, judges and other influential people. V.I.P.-listers who detect errors on […]

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