Posted 8:12 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Was yesterday a historic moment?
A Tuesday luncheon event at the Minnepolis Club marked the official opening of the Minnesota Chapter of the Institute for Justice, the libertarian public-interest law firm. Many local libertarians were invitees, as were many prominent local conservatives. It was a rather brief event, useful primarily to allow everyone in attendance to realize who their fellow IJ supporters are. It was, I think, a successful coalition-building event. IJ's focus is in 4 areas - economic liberty, property rights, commercial speech and school choice; all areas in which traditional conservatives and libertarians can concur. I might add that these are areas which liberals once championed before turning toward big-government socialism, and would do well to rejoin.

Posted 7:44 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Living internationally

There was a time when I lived in a small Iowa town, and a visitor from outside the town was rather unusual... and attracted attention. Enlisting in the military was about the only way for most of us to have contact with people from other countries. My, my, how that has changed!, because of the internet. I get emails in Chinese and Russian daily, hawking commercial products. That probably happens because my domain (smith.mn) that looks Minnesotan, is actually a Mongolian domain. Aside from those, though, No Force, No Fraud draws responses from all over the world. Although I don't invite discussion, I always answer those emails and good conversations often result, and sometimes involve people I consider rather famous.

It is indeed a small world. Just this morning, I heard from a young man in Brazil, yesterday a woman in Colorado. I get hits from Denmark, Great Britain, and just about any place where English is spoken. They contact me for a wide variety of reasons... because of my Midway Island photos, about smoking information, etc. One woman wrote about a picture of a computer form I designed about 1971... she still has a copy of it, and was intrigued to meet the guy who designed it.

The interconnections created by such activity is, I think, very positive. An almost inevitable results of such contacts is that we all find out that we are not so different, even though we live in radically different places and may even not share a common language.

Posted 9:07 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Write if you get work

That was a closing line from the comic team of Bob (Elliott) & Ray (Goulding), but it's exactly what I'm doing. I've been looking for part-time work for a couple of years. Naturally, I've gone from famine to feast. Just after finishing some spreadsheet work over a month's time, I won a web design job, for the city of Stacy. Shortly after getting into that job, I found a continuing part-time job, 10 hours/week, doing cleaning, which I enjoy. It's also the kind of cleaning I like best... DETAIL cleaning. It's just like detailing a car, but this is will be on a restaurant kitchen. Good work... very little thought required, some physical exercise (that I need), and the visual satisfaction of shiny results. The lucky kitchen is at Crema (34th and Lyndale S.), which is also the home of Sonny's homemade ice cream.