One of the things that irritates me out of all proportion about smoking banners is the self-righteousness with which they push their proposals to bully others into catering to their preferences—at its most nauseous when it involves painting the non-smoker as a put upon victim. You’ve probably heard some cretin insist that when he walks […]

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There are exactly two useful things teachers said in high school that have stuck in my head ever since. For different reasons, they’ve been bouncing around my head a bit lately, so here they are in case anyone else finds them useful: I spent a lot of time when I was younger trying to be […]

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The advice I got in reply to my post below has allowed me to expand the functionality of Firefox so that I can now almost make it my only browser. The only thing I still can’t figure out is why my backend, running Movable Type 3.2, displays just fine in Firefox, while the Hit and […]

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I’ve been on the national Do Not Call List, which telemarketers are supposed to consult so they know not to bug me, for over two years now. (Can a libertarian rationalize being on that list? I gave it a shot here and here around the time I signed up.) I still get calls from charities, […]

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An old friend and ex-D.C. resident mentioned over IM that Dahlia Lithwick, Slate‘s excellent senior editor/legal correspondent, was coming to town to speak. He added: The nice thing about the boonies is that visits by important, interesting people almost never overlap with each other. Furthermore, they’re kept at a manageable level such that you can […]

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So, ideally, I’d just be using one Web browser for everything. But I end up using both Firefox and Safari, because while I generally prefer the former, there are some significant gaps in what Firefox does that require me to switch to Safari for certain things. Here’s the breakdown: Firefox beats Safari The status-bar search […]

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Over at Hit and Run, Ron Bailey posts about Pat Robertson’s warning that after Dover, PA voted out a pro–Intelligent Design schoolboard, well… it’d be a shame if something should happen to their very nice town. But accidents happen; locusts eat things. And commenter KipEsquire has the killer observation: But remember: Intelligent Design is not […]

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Have you been feeling a little, well, queer? You may be one of millions of Americans afflicted with a condition called “homosexuality.” Fortunately, there’s Hetracil, the prescription medication guaranteed to put an end to chronic impure thoughts about members of your own sex. Such, at any rate, is the premise of Anti313!, an ingenious fictive […]

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Saturday morning, November 19 is the D.C. Help the Homeless Walkathon, and a friend at The Atlantic Monthly informs me that his fine, fine publication has volunteered to sponsor a gaggle of walkers. Or, um, thon-ers. Whichever. Anyway, the upshot is, if I know you even vaguely and you feel like (and think you’ll be […]

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In a Web piece up today at Reason, I look at the DTV transition and our spectrum policy, which doesn’t seem to get much attention when you consider how insanely wasteful and inefficient it is. Among the most appalling ironies here: For the amount they’re proposing to spend to subsidize converter boxes for old TVs […]

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