No, not my book and movie. I wish! But while I’m busy deadlining today, here for your perusal are … The Advisor. A novel being being published in blog form by our own “Jake MacGregor.” You may know this fine gentleman and darned good storyteller from the comment section. Atlas Shrugged, Part 2: the website! According to Jim B. in the comments, the site has recently gone up. If all those years of Hollywood “development hell” didn’t deter John Aglialoro from producing part i, it appears that disappointing ticket sales and predictable critical slams aren’t going to kill part II.…
7 CommentsMonth: June 2011
Been a long time since I did a pet portrait. Out of practice again. But I thought I’d share this in-progress pastel. The execution needs work, but I like the concept. This is “Bark,” a boisterous boy who recently died. Like so many Australian shepherd mixes, he had strange, striking eyes.
10 CommentsGood work up there, you Canadians! But don’t you always get a kick out of these statistics on the size of underground economies? Seriously. They know this how? (Tip o’ hat to C^2.) Remember, when your camera-containing device gets “lost” or ever-so-slightly altered in police custody, there’s always this. (Tip o’ hat to S^2.) Oh, the little people are getting so uppity! You know something will soon fall down and go bust when “experts” are this confident that everything is rosy. July 4 by Thomas Sowell. Two really good (and coincidentally related) ones from Get Rich Slowly: “Defining Your Financial…
5 CommentsThis wonderful story found by Jim B. must be rescued from the comment section. Oh, don’t you wish this woman could be your doctor!
8 CommentsL (who might possibly be on some mind-altering substance) writes: For some time I have been frustrated with web-based pontificators with memberships/advertisers touting “the end is near.” I have no objections to the notion that we are headed for calamity, and in fact think we are. BUT My frustration(s): 1) Would someone toss me a freaking bone and tell me WHEN … I keep hearing “any day now” and have for the past 12 years … I am getting “survival fatigue.” (NOTE from Claire. Only 12 years, L? Why, you’re just a babe in the woods. “Any day now” has…
14 CommentsProof that humans are born with respect for private property (well, sort of proof). The first comment is proof that some people are born or bred tyrants. “The Freedom of Simplicity. Yeah. Making life transitions more meaningful (and less hellaciously expensive). When the catalysts commence to catalyzing. The article’s not bad, but I was most taken with the comment by Scott. Suicide. And 13 other ways to deal with failure. I just discovered that Paladin has a very good combo deal on The Freedom Outlaws Handbook and I Am Not a Number!. In case you want to know. Otherwise just…
8 CommentsEverything is illegal these days. You know it. You’re lucky if you get through your first cup of coffee without committing a federal felony or three. Your state legislature churns out new offenses targeting you for improper swimming gear or an unlicensed lemonade stand. As we saw yesterday, mere countycrats may already be building a SWAT team to raid your unpermitted garden shed. That sucks, of course. But the silver lining is that when everything is a crime, everybody is an outlaw — and inevitably a gratifying minority of new-minted enemies of the state embrace their status, don their broad-brimmed…
10 Comments… and on private property. Though I’m trying to move the blog away from knee-jerk reporting of Bad Government News, when S. sent this, I realized it said as much about the resilience of the victims and the obvious fear “their” government feels toward them (armored teams for code violations?) as it says bout the outrageousness of L.A. County bureaucracy. So read it and weep: “A County’s Private Property War.” You desert rats might want to take special notice.
16 CommentsResearchers confirm another one of those things you intuitively knew.
3 CommentsI’m deadlining this week and into next. So a couple of blog entries I’ve been noodling may have to wait. One was to be about attitudes of independence. Rather than making you wait, then drowning you in prose, I thought it might brighten your day (and seriously compress your reading time!) to have the great links I planned to build the story around. Here goes: Windfall. And its backstory. What do you do when your neighbor’s storm-fallen tree creates havoc in your backyard? Stop calling them victims! says a woman who created a summer of joy for herself and her…
6 Comments