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Month: July 2011

Good reads

I’m working on one of those Big Thought blog entries for later in the week. Meantime, between that and ongoing deadlines, posting may be “lite” around here. In case you’re looking for good reads to get you through your Monday morning (or any other day) … “Jake MacGregor’s” novel The Advisor has grown by four chapters since I linked to it last week. A world-class read, truly. This guy can tell a story. Via Brad at WendyMcElroy.com (and indirectly via C^2), here’s a great old one: Vernor Vinge’s “The Ungoverned.” Who says an anarchist society couldn’t protect itself against invaders?…

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Weekend miscellany

“Relevant stakeholders in the Second Amendment debate” my Aunt Fanny … Judge dismisses lawsuit against the TSA citing … wait for it … “a secret order issued by the TSA.” I marveled the other day that these days we take spying on innocents for granted. Yeah, and secret laws and orders, too. Well, that’s how it is when you live in a police state. (Tip o’ hat to D.) The lightbulb of the future? It doesn’t have to be a mercury-filled coil that induces headaches and adds 10 years to your appearance. “10 Reasons I’m Canceling My Credit Cards by…

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Friday miscellany

Still deadlining this week — on every day but Wednesday when I snuck away with girlfriends for an orgy of junque shopping. So still only “lite” posting. But I’m working on another Big, Heavy Tome of a Thought, which I’ll probably drop onto the blog with a floor-shattering thud next week. In the meantime … It’s so weird how we just take news like this for granted now. “Today you were lucky, but you will have to be lucky always. We only have to be lucky once.” Why the IRA was successful and Al Quaeda not, according to a very…

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You probably won’t enjoy reading this book

… but it definitely belongs on your preparedness shelf. —– The Prepared Family Guide to Uncommon Diseases Compiled by Enola Gay, et al. 148 pages May 2011, Paratus Familia Press I was pretty squeamish in my younger days. I felt faint at the sight of blood, especially other people’s. I imagined I had every grotesque disease my older female relatives described (“OMG, I’m coming down with pellagra!”). And they really liked to describe them. The more horrible the better (“No. Oh heavens, I think it’s tetanus!”). As I grew up, I got over that. I am (knock wood) immune to…

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An American marksman

Ephraim McLean Brank. From Wikipedia (and from a dismayed Brit): We marched in solid column in a direct line, upon the American defenses. …[W]hat attracted our attention most was the figure of a tall man standing on the breastworks dressed in linsey-woolsey, with buckskin leggins and a broad-brimmed hat that fell around his face almost concealing his features. He was standing in one of those picturesque graceful attitudes peculiar to those natural men dwelling in forests. The body rested on the left leg and swayed with a curved line upward. The right arm was extended, the hand grasping the rifle…

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Kevin Wilmeth on the real meaning of Independence Day

Yeah. what he said. —– ADDED: And what he said, too. (Tip o’ hat to LD.) Except that it is of course about the Declaration of Independence. And there are many ways to declare it. I have trouble with holidays. Nearly all of them. Because the “official” line, whatever it may be depending on the day, always removes the meat and substitutes pabulum. And the missing-the-pointness of Independence Day is one of the saddest things. These guys, Kevin and the Arctic Patriot, say what I, in sorrow, can’t say on the day.

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Merry Christmas!

That was the greeting on an email that popped into my mailbox bright and early July 1. Surprised the heck out of me, of course. A friendly stranger had promised himself last December to give me a “Christmas in July” smile (and that you did, B). So Merry Christmas to you, too. And why not? It’s Independence Day. But it’s hard to celebrate the birth of freedom while enduring freedom’s death agonies. Somehow this weekend’s three-day pops, sizzles, and crackles of fireworks sound hollow (wonder how long it’ll be before SWAT teams mow children down in their living rooms for…

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