Quick Roundup 94

An Outstanding Post

Andy over at The Charlotte Capitalist gives the perfect answer to the question, "Daddy, why don't we recycle?"

That's the sort of question I have wondered how I'll answer whenever I start a family.

And that is exactly the right approach to answering it!

It is short, but it is a must-read.

Objectivist Club Association

Eran Dror emails me.

The Objectivist Club Association (OCA), a new organization dedicated to assisting Objectivist campus and community clubs, has launched a new forum - forums.objectivistclubs.org - for all those involved in a club or interested in founding one.

Discussions about recruitment and advertising strategies, speaking events, club meetings, and other sundry club-related topics are already ongoing, and you're welcome to start new threads of your own.

By registering for free, you can ask questions of fellow club leaders, share your experiences, discuss possibilities for collaboration, suggest services and materials you'd like the OCA to provide, and participate in a dialogue with other Objectivists who take ideas and cultural change as seriously as you do.

To learn more about the OCA, you can visit the main website at http://www.ObjectivistClubs.org.

Hope to see you on the forum soon!

The Shenanigans Go On in Mexico

Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal is due to deliver its final verdict on the validity of the recent Mexican presidential election. Unsurprisingly, the leftist demagogue who stepped down from his post as Mayor of Mexico City -- and who has orchestrated an army of useful idiots in the MSM to incessantly parrot his baseless fraud allegations starting even before the election -- will not accept any ruling he doesn't like.

Lopez Obrador, who stepped down as Mexico City mayor to run for president, already has said he won't accept a ruling against him and is moving forward with plans to establish a parallel government.

"The court is going to say 'The election was valid and Calderon is the president and that's the end of it,'" said political analyst Oscar Aguilar. "But that won't turn the page. That won't end anything."

For weeks, thousands of Lopez Obrador supporters have blocked Mexico City's stylish Reforma boulevard and set up a protest camp that has engulfed the capital's historic central plaza. They claim fraud, illicit government spending and dirty tricks swayed the election in favor of Calderon, a member of Fox's National Action Party.

This comes on the heels of the following bit of rabble-rousing joined by elected members of Lopez Obrador's party.

Waving flags and hoisting fists, about 150 opposition party lawmakers took over the floor of Congress on Friday and prevented President Vicente Fox from delivering his state-of-the-nation address.

It is thought to be the first time in modern Mexican history that a president could not give the annual speech to outline his administration's accomplishments.

Assuming that the electoral tribunal delivers the expected verdict, Felipe Calderon gets to open his term with a major headache on his hands at the very least.

Katrina Crime Wave

Awhile back, I asked, concerning the post-Katrina deluge of refugees:

People's lives were in danger and no one would warn us (publicly anyway). So do the alleged sensibilities of a minority group supercede the safety of a city's citizens (about a third of whom belong to that same minority)?

Here's an example of what happens when we worry too much about "offending" "sensitive" criminals.

To say that crime in my neighborhood, and especially next door to me, is "getting worse" is to grossly understate the problem.

This year I have had rocks thrown at my house and my windows broken and I've been burglarized. I was assaulted in my driveway -- pistol whipped -- and my jewelry and car stolen.

...

I am 80 years old and a native Houstonian, and I never thought I would see my beloved hometown reach such a condition.

Whew! Good thing we were careful not to paint the refugees with too broad a brush before they got here!

510!

Last week's Cox and Forkumlanche helped my blog reach a couple of new traffic records. First of all, Gus Van Horn saw 510 hits in one day! I don't keep track of blog statistics as religiously as I used to, but I am pretty sure this blog had never seen much more than 250 on a single day.

Also, for three days running, my average hits per day (as computed by sitemeter over the last week) have exceeded 200. If I ever hit that mark, it would have been in March, just before I switched jobs. The blog has hovered between 100 and 150 per day since then.

One thing I have no idea how to track is the number of RSS subscribers. While I know several people follow my blog that way, I don't know of a way to measure how many do, if there is one. Any ideas or recommendations out there?

-- CAV