ELSEWHERE

“Lawrence vs. Texas is not a 'gay rights' victory nor is it an attack on traditional values or marriage. Lawrence vs. Texas is a victory for personal liberty and for the Constitutional restraints that bind the government from violating individual freedom."

”The opponents of biomedical progress .... are making the mistake that the ideal of political equality rests on the notion of actual equality. That's nonsense."

I must say I sympathize with those Corsicans who want their island to be independent of France. Their language is not even French. It is an Italian dialect. And even history’s most famous Corsican -- Napoleon -- had no love of France until he came to rule it.

Scotland has just marked the 400th anniversary of the union between the Scottish and English crowns. It was always a dubious advantage for England in my view and is certainly so now. Way back then it did not even put a stop to wars between England and Scotland and caused a civil war in England when Scottish kings would not respect English liberties. And in the here and now the over-represented Scottish electorate has often been instrumental in putting socialist governments in charge at Westminster. No wonder it is only the Scots who are celebrating!

Stupidity gets an apt reward: “A holidaymaker narrowly escaped death when lightning struck her tongue stud in an electrical storm. Becky Nyang, 26, was temporarily blinded, unable to talk and badly blistered by the bolt of electricity that surged through her body via the piercing.”

Some interesting facts: Of 34 Mars missions since the start of the space age, 20 have failed ... Intel has shipped its 1 billionth computer chip ... when you misinterpret the words to a song it's called a Mondegreen. Kids are great victims of Mondegreens. When I was a kid I used to think that there was a line in “Silent Night” that said: “Round John Virgin, mother and child”!

Rafe Champion has a brief note about something that is often overlooked -- George Orwell’s socialist economics.

The Wicked one has a post about hidden cameras in High School locker rooms.

A couple of psychologists have claimed on the basis of very flimsy evidence that Australians are particularly “authoritarian”. In my academic post here (or here) I report much more substantial evidence showing that not to be so.

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