StephanKinsella.com

Cute story–excerpted from footnote 44 of my punishment article — This brings to mind the reported exchange “many years ago between the Chief Justice of Texas and an Illinois lawyer visiting that state. ‘Why is it,’ the visiting lawyer asked, ‘that you routinely hang horse thieves in Texas but oftentimes let murderers go free?’ ‘Because,’ replied the Chief Justice, ‘there never was a horse that needed stealin!’” Story told in People v. Skiles, 115 Ill.App.3d 816, 827, 450 N.E.2d 1212, 1220 (1983).”

Every time I need superglue, I find a tube of it in some drawer, and it’s invariably unusable because all the glue has turned hard, or the part in the spout has hardened, etc. Apparently superglue is usable only once per tube. So you might as well keep a bunch of unopened tubes around.

• Reply to Horwitz, about how conservatives are really just criminal socialists with some makeweight justification; comparing the motives of criminals to the theories of socialists. Someone sent me this email about this exchange:
  

  Now I know why you are bald—you tore out your hair trying to debate the paleocons. Jesus **** Christ, is it so hard to admit you favor aggression? I guess it is. Try debating liberals and they will swear that taxation is not aggression because there is some “social contract” you have to obey. It’s mystical mumbo-jumbo on both sides. Perhaps this is good—maybe most people know ~deep down~ that aggression is bad and are just trying to play word games to rationalize themselves. Maybe that’s a start of some sort, although you seemed to run into a dead end with everyone. But how many criminals admit they are criminals? I’ve seen former S.S. guards at Nazi death camps say with a straight face that what they were doing was self-defense. Yes, sending children into the gas chambers was “self-defense” because they’d grow up to be nasty adult Jews.

• Reply to Palmer (where he insinuates I’m a Nazi sympathizer because I made fun of the idea of “inadvertent racism”); followup reply by me posted on The Palmer Periscope.

Why aren’t feminist owned stored ever successful? Because of the signs that say, “DON’T PATRONIZE ME!”

I just made that up.

A law school classmate, let’s call him “Blaine,” sent me one of those stupid Christian chain letters, the kind with 200 people on the cc list, one that asks in broken, hyperventilating Engrish, Christian readers to support Dr. James Dobson in stopping some petition to the FCC–

“Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading

of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America. They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand! If this attempt is successful, all Sunday worship services being broadcast on the radio or by television will be stopped. This group is also campaigning to remove all Christmas programs and Christmas carols from public schools! ! You as a Christian can help!

We are praying for at least 1 million signatures. This would defeat their effort and show that there are many Christians alive, well and concerned about our country. As Christians, we must unite on this. Please don’t take this lightly. We ignored one lady once and lost prayer in our schools and in offices across the nation.”

It goes on to they beg you to add your name to this stupid list and forward the email on to others. Goddamned religious Amway this is.

Blaine is a guy I went to law school with. Good ole boy, smooth, slick, good w/ women, about 45 by now, used to be a “bad boy,” play in rock band, several marriages, etc.–finally “found Jesus” and settled down.

I told him, “Blaine, I love you, but jesus, if I get an email from you every 17 months, does it have to be this blue collar crap? Normie”

In his reply, he told me he was busy and in his new firm, he has a very smart attorney, who could maybe email me something next time.

My reply: “congrats on the new firm, sounds great. You should visit me on your next trip to Houston.

“As for these emails, it’s just beneath you. Aside from the religious aspects, it’s just the kind of email passed along by uneducated, illiterate, blue-collar, Oprah-watching, Amway-selling, cigarette smoking, Lake Charles gambling, NASCAR watching, Bush-voting, chain-letter passing, horoscope reading dumbasses with too much time on their hands. Not that I have any kind of opinion on it or anything. :)”

see also The Irreplaceable Jeff Tucker (Tucker’s Rules of Thumb for Living)

Earlier today, I posted a reply to this blog post: I said something like, “only idiots use spellcheckers.”

Jeff Tucker took it down, but he told me he liked it. I thought that strategy was brilliant.

Later, in response to this blog post, I posted this comment: “Motioned, that the sissy phrase “hat tip” be forever banned from blogs. ” A couple hours later, it was still up, so I asked Jeff what is the deal. Later, I saw … Jeff then took that one down too! I yelled at him and he says, “oh I loved that comment. I was so sorry it fell outside the editorial needs of the blog comment section.”

That is hilarious and brilliant!

Hey Jeff–let’s see you TAKE THIS POST DOWN!!! HA HA HA HA!

Update: 5 November, 2025, Swithun Dobson, Ep. 167: Time, Clock changes, and Industrialization. Something libertarians always go apeshit about (see various Twitter posts). See also https://youtu.be/8HRgLMhY8wg?si=LRMM2NDo_Wcdgw1G

It’s extremely annoying when you are setting the time on some digital clock and it asks you if you are currently in daylight savings time. How the hell am I supposed to know? I vaguely remember the “Spring Forward, Fall Back” rule, and can re-construct from there whether we have most recently set the clock forward, or back, and hour, but I have no idea which one is the normal, or “default” time, and which is the “adjusted” time. All I know is one is an hour ahead of the other. I must have missed that lecture in elementary school.

Must have also missed the lecture about the holidays. How are we supposed to know when all these bizarre holidays are, like Memorial Day, Labor Day… I’ll be working and wife will say, “you know next weekend is the memorial day holiday, right?” and I had no clue it was creeping up on us; for all I know it’s another 8 months away. And don’t get me started on stupid Holidays like Easter that are based on the damned solstice etc.

One day, I was 16 or so, I happened to spill three glasses of milk or water etc. in the course of one day. A cup of coffee spilled at breakfast, maybe a glass of milk at dinner, and a then another glass of milk … Little did I know but with each spill my paranoid dad was getting ever more paranoid. After the third one, he gets this bug-eyed look and yells, “ARE YOU ON DRUGS?!!!” and I just burst out laughing, infuriating him.

The Palmer Periscope: A blog dedicated to Tom Palmer.

• Enstrom’s Toffee
• Macadamia nuts
• green olives
• BLT (with avocado) and tall glass of milk
• Chips Ahoy and a short glass of milk
• Pizza Hut pizza (thin crust, pepperoni, shrooms, peppers, olives, onions)
• Taco bell tacos
• deviled eggs
• smoked gouda cheese w/ red pinot noir
• probably Popeye’s popcorn chicken, but I’m afraid to try it
• philly cheesesteak (best I ever had was from the Pepper Mill in West Chester, PA)
  
• beignets (and doughnuts)
• kolaches
  

On occasion, also:

• egg sammich
• Chicken big mamou pasta
• chicken fried steak
• fried okra
• grits and bacon and eggs scrambled and cooked in the bacon grease — for dinner
• jambalaya
• fried chicken and rice with dirty, dark gravy
• tater tots ‘n ketchup
  
• corn chips and french onion dip
• cheese coney
• Copa Too’s fries (potatoe and sweet potato and onions etc.)
• Chick-Fil-A sammich
• Small McDonald’s hamburger (no cheese)
• Bloomin’ Onion at Outback or Chili’s
• boiled peanuts (maybe dropped into a cold bottle of Coke)
  

What else is Daddy missing?

For some reason, I despise Roy Orbison. Too … Blue Velvet/John Waters-ish. And those I know who really love Orbison are all weirdos.