Archive: September, 2005

Katrina - The libertarian spin

Colby Cosh lays out the best (that I’ve read) libertarian response to the Katrina disaster in one long paragraph (plus a couple sentences). Particularly insightful was the end of the last sentence:

…the 49% of Americans who have been complaining for five years about George W. Bush being a dictator are now vexed to the point of utter incoherence because for the last fortnight he has failed to do a sufficiently convincing impression of a dictator.

Add those forty-four words to the tally of, “Things Colby Cosh has written that Matt Moore wishes he’d thought of.” They perfectly pull together all the disparate thoughts I had when I read the mind-boggingly stupid (or brilliantly parodic?) comments that Wadard dumped all over several threads at protein wisdom. They’re hilarious, managing to be loaded with Castro infatuation and calls to impeach Bush (and Wadard’s not even an American) without any hint of awareness that that’s a contradiction.

Cosh also recommends that we turn government over to Wal-Mart and the Salvation Army. I had a similar thought this weekend when I read this article about Wal-Mart’s effective efforts to coordinate the delivery of supplies to victims. I won’t go as far as Cosh, but I do think we should consider outsourcing control of FEMA. I seriously believe that Wal-Mart (or a similarly well-run company with lots of trucks, like UPS or FedEX) could manage disaster relief much better than the bureaucrats, and they’d turn a tidy profit while doing it.

Popularity: 5% [?]

nano lust

iPod nanoI already have a 40-gig, pre-photo iPod, but I’d really love to have an iPod nano. Was anyone surprised that they could fit a harddrive in a case a quarter-inch thick? And were you even more surprised when you learned that it’s actually flash memory, and that four gigs (with a color screen!) only costs 250 bucks? I certainly was.

I think they’ve nearly reached the limit on how small these things can get. Much thinner and they won’t be able to fit a headphone and firewire jack in the end.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I’m back

Well, I’m not actually back yet, we don’t fly back to Denver until tomorrow. But I am back from the beach, that barren wasteland of Internet connectivity, so I’ve turned on unauthenticated commenting and trackback publishing.

In other news, the commercial talk at AdActors.com is heating up. Since I’ve been gone three new users registered and two (count ‘em, two!) posts requesting info have been submitted. So if you happen to know the name of the guy David Spade calls “Chubbs” in the Capital One commercials, or that of the girl who speaks fluent Italian in a Secret deodorant ad, please click through and post the answer.

Update: Find out who Chubbs is here, and who the Secret girl is here.

Popularity: 5% [?]