Bush has decided to repeal the steel tariffs that caught him so much criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. See my earlier comments on the tariff. Looks like the commies will have one less issue to riot about.

I’m still in San Antonio, but the first of three photo sets is already up.
Update: I’m back – and the rest of the photos are up. (The photos were selected and resized: full-size originals are here.)

The County of Los Angeles has requested that equipment vendors avoid using the industry term “Master/Slave” in product descriptions and labelling.

I’m leaving for a week to visit my parents over Thanksgiving. I leave you with a 1860′s political cartoon that would probably be un-pc today. (Found here.)

This post is mostly for my reference. I responded at a local forum in answer to some questions about the nature of wages and the effects of productivity improvements. I don’t have much experience debating economics (as opposed to capitalism) so suggestions are welcome…
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Did you ever wonder about that story of a penny dropped from a skyscraper on a pedestrian’s head?

A bullet fired in the air during a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony came down and struck a participant in the head, critically injuring him, authorities said. [The]bullet struck…on the top of the head and exited at the bottom of his skull…

(Yet more proof of my long-held theory that the today’s KKK is just a bunch of hicks politicians use to attack “extremism.”)

VodkaPundit: “I’ve always joked that Jews who don’t stay Jews end up as either communists or Objectivists.”
How true. I have two compounding explanations for this: (a) For historical and cultural reasons, Jews are more educated and intellectual than the average citizen, so they are more included towards participating in two the dominant philosophical trends of our time: Marxism, and it’s opposite: Objectivism. They are also more intelligent than the public (for social rather than biological reasons I’d say) so they are more likely to seek and adopt the root of the philosophical tendencies they are exposed to. (b) A history of persecution and holding unpopular minority beliefs had led many former Jews towards more radical social solutions, especially utopian ones. Ironically, this led Jewish intellectuals to be some of the strongest supporters of the Weimar-era philosophical and political movements that brought about Fascism. It also created the utopian socialist vision that brought about the State of Israel, for better or worse.

Laurel mentions a panel at the University of Chicago’s “Center for Gender Studies” pushing for unisex bathrooms. I found these lines both hilarious and revealing:

…many women’s restrooms have a caricature of a person in a dress on it. “Going into it implies that we are willing to be associated with that image. There are only two [images] to choose from. This moment involves an act of self-labeling.
…
Nate Claxton, another panelist, knew people who had contracted bladder infections because choosing a gender bathroom bothered them so much that they did not go to the bathroom all day.

I can’t say whether sexual orientation is a choice, but one’s sex? Not unless you’re a transgendered freak –in which case you need an operation, not a unisex bathroom.

Sold Brides Endure And (Barely) Survive: To flee oppression, many North Korean women escape to marry Chinese men. Here are two tales of desperation.

Mike Mazza reports that Hillary’s filed a report with the FEC for the presidential vote in ’04. Could it be? I wouldn’t put it past her. May God have mercy on us all.