Who Were the Sea Peoples?

After reading Jeff Tucker's bold article on the uselessness of shaving cream, I was intrigued. And yet, I was scared. How could I shave in the shower without the benefit of a mirror? And wouldn't I cut myself horribly? But, with some trepidation, this morning I took the plunge. And I can happily report that my shave was no worse than it always is. I shall never again cream my face. (If you're going to make a double entendre it better be clever.)

For those of you unfamiliar with Miami, it is already summer. A couple months ago I noticed that my air conditioner was broken, but put off buying a new one because it's the type that you have to break open the wall to replace--like at hotels and motels. $$$$$ I had hoped by procrastinating, the old one might repair itself on its own, but this was not to be. The 90+ temperatures finally overcome my stubborn cheapness, and I had the nice fellows at Miami Breezes come over to take a hammer to my walls. I did not get a fancy model, but it does have an LED window that gives the room temp (When they turned the unit on, it gave the room temp as 87, btw.) This is the real kicker though: it has a remote control. This is so different from when I was a kid and had to walk a mile and a half in the heat and humidity--uphill, both ways, across the room--to get to the AC to turn it on. Young people these days just don't know how lucky they are.

One ofthe great intellectuals of our time, Jane Jacobs, died yesterday. My friend Sandy Ikeda has written a tribute to her at... at... ah, I can't type the foul name. But the tribute is good. And this is a rival of Sandy's for Jane's heart.

The other day, the NY Post devoted a full page to "Tomkat's" new baby. At the head of the article was a photo of an SUV with the caption, "One of several SUVs used to fool photographers outside the Los Angeles hospital where Katie Holmes gave birth." Of course, the caption could have more truthfully read, "The particular decoy SUV that fooled the Post's photographer..."

I heard Bush today saying that , while some rise in the price of oil was understandable, he would not tolerate "manipulation of the free market." By that he meant, of course, that he was about to launch a initiative designed to manipulate the free market.

Stefan Molyneux (who puts out a popular podcast on this stuff) wrote an LRC article on stateless prisons a few days ago. In my carefree days I would've written a lengthy reply, but time is short so a few quick points: (1) Why do libertarian males always use rape in the thought experiment?? (2) It seems that Stefan, in his desire to show that criminals would get punished a plenty in an-cap world, goes too far. He has the rapist being fined $500,000 and serving 5 years in prison, and getting all his utilities shut off, etc. In my view, the private judges deliver a verdict against you (which would almost always be a huge fine), and then if you don't pay all of the ostracism kicks in. (3) To see it differently, even if the system were initially the way SM thinks, wouldn't most crime victims say, "Hey, rather than you serving 5 years, why don't you just give me an additional $300,000 and I'll drop the charges"?

With my first novel about to be published, I've meandered into a third -- yes, there's a second mostly done -- and I've decided to post bits of it here. Why? Because why have a blog if not because you can post anything you damn well please on it! So: ************** Tom was the only customer in the bar when Carlos came in the front door, made a sharp left, walked eight feet forward, and came to a standstill, his gaze fixed on a rubber tree in the corner of the bar. Well, not quite a standstill, as he quivered in place. He was covered in light gray dust, and he wore a blue sweatjacket with the hood pulled up, hiding most of his face. Tom looked at Jenna and said, “I guess Carlos didn’t score today, huh?” She gave him a wistful smile and shook her head. About a minute later two well-dressed couples in their mid-fifties entered the bar, looking for dinner. When they were told that dinner in the restaurant upstairs didn’t start for a half hour, they decided to have a drink. They...