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The Random Texan

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Dilletante * Raconteur

therandomtexan

  • “We need more Texans.”

    Gary Jones sums up the recent discussion about Rick Perry and the Texas job market, and explains why working beats living on the dole: The chief defect is “social death”. You may have a safety net, welfare payments and rationed health care but you don’t have a job. You have no career, no status, no Read more

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  • “I don’t know.”

    Penn Jillette is the opposite of a Know-It-All: It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying Read more

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  • Don’t stand next to me kid, ya make me look bad

    I just read what’s got to be the hoot of the month, Abercrombie and Fitch–once THE outfitter, but now a purveyor of wrinkled sportswear befitting a bag lady–is offering to PAY cast members of “Jersey Shore” to NOT wear their products.  Hey, you don’t have to be a doofus from Jersey to know that money Read more

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  • Treat him ugly? How about tar and feathers?

    Four days into his announced candidacy, and our rather rough-hewn Aggie governor is already ruffling feathers by suggesting that “Texans might want to treat the Republican economist ‘pretty ugly’ if he ‘prints more money between now and the election.’”  And of course, the usual band of thumbsuckers from President Obama to this Emory University professor who Read more

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  • Weekly geekery

    Back from a hectic JSM in Miami, so back with the odd items. Statistics Paul Meier’s survival function converges to zero Through the eyes of a statistician (JSM award winner) Even more statistics videos from JSM user333 wanted an autocorrelated binary sequence; I introduced him to a simple Markov chain Recipes from Miami mango mojito Read more

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  • Forgiveness => Punish

    IBD explains that “debt forgiveness” is a code phrase for “screw the responsible creditor.” Tip from the Instapundit. Read more

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  • Guns don’t kill people, recycling bins kill people

    I thought my brother-in-law was an alarmist when he told me about people falling into their new city-mandated large-capacity trash bins.  It turns out they’re lethal.  The Precautionary Principle, so beloved of environmentalists and social engineers, would seem to suggest an immediate Bin Ban. Read more

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  • Flash mobs and flash robs

    Walter Russell Mead talks about the mobs we don’t want to talk about.  The Mayor of Philadelphia takes it to heart.  Meanwhile, London burns, and this dingbat is in complete denial. Update (10 August).  Aha.  This isn’t random violence perpetrated by criminal layabouts. It’s a cry for social justice: Here are some of the demands Read more

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  • Over-rated virtues

    It turns out that benevolence, like nice, is totally overrated.  I’m plumping for thrift and courage, myself. Update (10 August).  Silly me.  I forgot industry, a sure sign that I’ve been goofing off. Read more

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  • Let’s all pay our Fair Share

    NRO’s Peter Kisanow is coming around to my idea of the Non-Alternative Minimum Tax: everybody kicks in something, even if it’s only a few bucks. Read more

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