Paul M. Jones

I am going to declare February 14th Starbucks Appreciation Day, by encouraging gun owners to head to Starbucks to buy some of their fine coffee and pastry products.

Apparently some anti-gun nuts are boycotting Starbucks today because the company does not post "no guns allowed" signs on their stores. If you carry, go to Starbucks today and tell them you appreciate their pro civil rights stance. (Yes, being able to keep and bear arms is a civil rights issue.) I'm going.

via Starbucks Appreciation Day | Shall Not Be Questioned.

Words I am rarely heard to say. This is your chance to gloat. Warning: NSFW language, but lots of exploding coolness.

I have been hired as an Architect for parchment.com, starting 27 Feb. These guys have a great mission, and I'm really looking forward to working with them.

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Looks like it's the sun, not CO2. Via Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again) | Mail Online.

The value is not in the object, it is in your mind. Short, sweet, and genius:

Via 'That's the mistake that Karl Marx made' | Samizdata.net.

How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following?

(1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (13) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (13) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.

I submit that had Palin or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rice or Jeb Bush or John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney proposed doing even half of those things in 2008, you'd have declared them unfit for the presidency and expressed alarm at the prospect of America doubling down on the excesses of the post-September 11 era. You'd have championed an alternative candidate who avowed that America doesn't have to choose between our values and our safety.

Yet President Obama has done all of the aforementioned things.

via Dear Andrew Sullivan: Why Focus On Obama's Dumbest Critics? - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic.

Physicians in India have identified a form of incurable tuberculosis there, raising further concerns over increasing drug resistance to the disease1. Although reports call this latest form a “new entity”, researchers suggest that it is instead another development in a long-standing problem.

...

“The cases are a story of mismanagement,” says Migliori. “Resistance is man-made, caused by exposure to the wrong treatment, the wrong regimen, the wrong treatment duration.”

via Totally drug-resistant TB emerges in India : Nature News & Comment.

A 23-year-old died of cervical cancer because doctors said she was too young for a smear test, her devastated family have claimed.

Mercedes Curnow, from Cornwall, first went to her GP at 20 years old but her mother says her symptoms were 'ignored' because of her age.

After a year of doctors visits, Ms Curnow was taken to A&E by a family member and diagnosed with cervical cancer in April 2010.

But by then it was too late and, after 33 radiotherapy sessions and nine months of chemotherapy, she died at home in her mother's arms on December 14 last year.

See the article for a pic. Yet another reason to be against government health care. Via Woman, 23, died of cervical cancer 'because doctors said she was too young for a smear test' | Mail Online.

This is *so* hot: How To Carry a Concealed Gun in a Dress | The Firearm Blog.

In cities all over the country, protesters are drawing the battle line between the top 1% and the rest of us in the bottom 99%. Too much economic power is in too few hands.

It's unfortunate indeed that the Occupiers have so far ignored the country's most egregious concentration of economic power.

In 2010, a tiny cabal of 535 individuals -- just 0.00017% of the population -- spent $3.5 trillion, or about 23% of the $14.5 trillion U.S. economy. That leaves 77% for the other 99.99983% of us.

I don't expect Congress to do much about this. Via Congress: The Country's Most Egregious Concentration Of Economic Power - Investors.com.