A life in words

  • The Epic of Zagmurf

    I went to Cheney to visit Susanna yesterday, and had a great time. After going out to lunch, she, Ben, and I all sat around watching me play World of Warcraft. I love games like that—which is why I forbid myself from regularly playing them, because I can’t seem to play in moderation. But, this…

  • Pay-As-You-Drive?

    There is a proposal for Pay-As-You-Drive car insurance. Your insurance rate is per-mile, not per-6-month-term. This would decrease insurance rates of those who drive little (like yours truly) but raise them for those who drive long distances. It would of course motivate decreased driving, which is a good thing from the point of view of…

  • Oh, Senators!

    “Senate” is a from Latin word basically meaning “old folks”. You’d think with all of their combined years and experience they’d have learned something about discipline. Nope. Not a bit. Here’s the lineup for that offense to intelligence, that fiscal outrage, the shameful farm bill. Go ahead, be ashamed of your duly elected representatives: YEAs…

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech … Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. … A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their freedom of speech. … Freedom of speech is ever the symptom, as well as the effect of a good government. … Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to daylight.Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood no. 8, 1722 (orthography and spelling modernized)