Cracked on air travel

A fine Cracked complement to the piece on airline ticket prices I linked to the other day.

Hat tip: Scott Imberman

Honoring Jim Tressel

A Michigan fan springs for a billboard.

OBL

The US has killed Osama bin Laden without holding a trial and by mounting a military operation on the sovereign territory of another country without letting that country know about it. The president then went on national television to gloat about the killing.

Adding this to the near-miss on Colonel Klink in Libya and it seems we are in the business of directly taking out bad guys these days. May I humbly suggest Mugabe and the Castro brothers go next?

I actually think it makes a lot of sense to kill one bad guy directly rather than hundreds or thousands of civilians or soldiers or followers in an indirect attempt to get at the bad guy, but wouldn't it be a bit more seemly, and a bit more legal and just, to have some sort of trial (in OBL's case) or declaration of war (in Colonel Klink's case) as a lead-in?

Christiania

I am about two years behind on reading my dead-tree reason magazines, which is actually kind of interesting, especially in regard to political articles, because I know some of the future that the authors do not.

Last night I read this fine article about Christiania, the "free city" located on an old military base not far from downtown Copenhagen. The article does a good job of describing the place as I remember it from my own visit.

I hope it lives on. It really is a public good at this point, not just for the tourists it brings to the city but also for the example it provides of a different way of living. The government would be foolish and mean to shut it down. Indeed, I think they should work with the residents to reestablish the kinder, gentler pot market that existed a decade ago, before the government shut it down and let rougher folk come in to replace it in the shadows.

Another alternative holiday interpretation

Maggie McNeill meditates on the meaning of May Day.

Victims of Communism Day

A worthy suggestion from Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy to make May 1 "Victims of Communism" day.

It is pretty appalling the extent to which communist crimes against humanity in the last century (and, in a few spots like North Korea, still today) are ignored.

Birthers, Triggers and now Balders

On the mysterious origins of Donald Trump's hair.

Hat tip: Jackie Smith