Memories of the 28th Century

I just ran across a quote from Warren Burger regarding the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: the Second Amendment "has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public," saying that the "right to bear arms" is a right of the states or state militias like the National Guard, not of individuals. They argue that the well-regulated militia clause in the Second Amendment is a restriction on the declaration of the right, ...

Religion is seldom held up as the highest and best example of rational thought, but we often ignore the irrationality of religion, especially organized religion. The starting point is the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Legal proceedings, academic arguments, and other arguments that are public require evidence that can be observed by anyone, or could have been, if anyone had been there. Visions of angels or other supernatural characters are not admissible, unless there are photographs. ...

If no one ever said anything of value, then it wouldn't make any difference whether there was free speech. And if I were the only one in the world who knew any accurate information, then free speech would be pointless, because everyone except me would just make noise, rather than making real, useful speech. But it is possible that any and every person (almost) might utter something of value, so allowing free speech is a good idea. Please understand that this is my opinion; there are some people ...

On an online forum that I belong to someone asked for information about how a major illegal drug purchase might be done for a work of fiction that he is working on. I just realized that when we legalize everything he will lose the subject matter of his novel. There may still be a few things written about historical drug activities, but the ordinary businesses of drug companies like Pfizer, Sandoz, and so on aren’t as interesting for fiction as the illegal things that go on. A whole swath of fiction ...

There I was in Starbucks when I heard someone mention the matter of remaining properly hydrated. That reminded me about the most successful marketing campaign that I can think of, and that led me to think of get-rich-quick schemes, because that’s fundamentally what the hydration myth is about. If only I could think of something that could be so effective. What is it that people regularly use that they don’t appreciate as well as they might; the marketing of which would look like good medical advice? ...