Category: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
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How Smoking Saved Bertrand Russell’s Life
Put this in your pipe and smoke it, you no good, lousy tobacco wackos!
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American Digest
A tip of the New Year's hat to the proprietor of American Digest for his link to my recent post on the paradoxes of illegal immigration. Via his site I came to the Powerline post, A Week's Worth of Self-Defense. For repelling a home invasion, and separating soul from body in a manner most efficient,…
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Gunfire Tonight!
One of the exciting things about living out here in rural Arizona is that all too many local hombres love to greet the the New Year with a hail of gunfire aimed heavenward. It adds a nice Middle Eastern touch to the Copper State. Part of the problem is the sad state of science education in these…
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Cigarettes, Rationality, and Hitchens
Let's talk about cigarettes. Suppose you smoke one pack per day. Is that irrational? I hope all will agree that no one who is concerned to be optimally healthy as long as possible should smoke 20 cigarettes a day, let alone 80 like Rod Serling who died at age 50 on the operating table. But…
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Flash Mobs
Another indicator of the decline of the West. And another argument for concealed carry. And of course there is a Pee Cee taboo on mentioning any of this: The hateful murders of Matthew Shephard, who was gay, and James Byrd, Jr., who was black, were memorialized with national legislation. When similar crimes are committed by…
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Is Smoking Irrational?
To stymie the psychologizers, let me begin by saying that I do not smoke cigarettes. My enjoyment of the noble weed is restricted to the occasional cigar and load of pipe tobacco. What do I mean by occasional? Well, so far this year I haven't touched even one of my twenty or so pipes, and I…
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Anti-Tobacco Hysteria
Here is the latest example of the lunatic Left's misplaced moral enthusiasm.
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Speech and Guns
How should we deal with offensive speech? As a first resort, with more speech, better, truer, more responsible speech. Censorship cannot be ruled out, but it must be a last resort. We should respond similarly to the misuse of firearms. Banning firearms is no solution since (i) bans have no effect on criminals who, in…
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Divine Light, Sex, Alcohol, and Kerouac
If there is divine light, sexual indulgence prevents it from streaming in. Herein lies the best argument for continence. The sex monkey may not be as destructive of the body as the booze monkey, but he may be even more destructive of the spirit. You may dismiss what I am saying here either by denying…
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‘Guns on the Street’
It's a liberal phrase, a silly phrase, a phrase that aids and abets thoughtlessness. Liberals speak of the 'guns on the street' and of getting them off the street. Now I've walked down many a street inmany a city in this world, but I have yet to see any guns on the street. But I have…
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Famous Last Words: “Don’t Worry, It Isn’t Loaded”
Life in the fast lane often leads to a quick exit from life's freeway. You may recall Terry Kath, guitarist for the band Chicago. In 1978, while drunk, he shot himself in the head with a 'unloaded' gun. At first he had been fooling with a .38 revolver. Then he picked up a semi-automatic 9…
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Guns in the Delusional World of the Leftist
Your typical leftist wants it to be illegal for a citizen to own a gun for self-defence. In recent news, an 80 year old Chicago man shot and killed an armed home invader thereby defending himself, his elderly wife and his grandson. Well done, old man, a boon service to humanity. The miscreant was a scumbag…
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The Metaphysics of the Martini
Ed Feser expatiates. I checked in at W4 to see whether there was any commentary on the the recent liberal-left hysteria over Arizona SB 1070. Nothing. But Steve Burton's E pur si muove! held my interest.
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Brew 102
I asked an old friend if he remembered the huge Brew 102 sign visible from a Los Angeles freeway back in the '50s and '60s. (See photo below.) His response: 'Deed I do remember Brew 102.Over the Hollywood Freeway.My arm 'round a cutie in a '55 BuickGoin' long 'ol Highway 101. Here is…
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Ataraxia and the Tobacco Wacko
Near the end of the 1980's I read a paper at a multi-day philosophy conference in Ancient Olympia, Greece. After one of the sessions, we repaired to a beautiful seaside spot for lunch. We sat in the open air at long tables under a canopy. Directly across from me sat a Greek woman who had…