Thomas Szasz has died. He was 92. He was a great intellectual freedom fighter who carved out a unique niche. (Thank you, Jim Bovard for the news, sad though it may be.)
Month: September 2012
Man steals rare antique gun. He’s so proud he goes on TV with it Speaking of guns, here’s more on 3-D printables. This is gonna change the world. A little drug-war surprise from Paul Ryan. Some dogs are better than their people (sad story). Cage ’em without charges until they die. It’s the new American Way. When he tweeted about the new Congressional Research Service report on the Posse Comitatus Act, Radley Balko noted that these reports are done only at the request of congressthings. So who suddenly needs an update on Posse Comitatus — and why? Ya gotta wonder.…
Finally got through my latest round of deadlines and returned to the snitch book this weekend. The first-round reality-checkers (lawyers, security people, ex-cops, people who’ve been hurt by snitches) gave valuable input. The second draft took less time than I thought once I got to it. So … you guys who volunteered to be second-round reality-checkers, get ready. I’m awaiting an answer on one biggish question. Then I’ll do one more quick run-through and the re-draft will be on its way to you. Around the end of this month or early October it’ll be time for the eagle-eyed proofreaders (of…
For those of you who care (and I suspect it’s a minority, although you’ve also been an extremely helpful minority), I think the apple tree in my backyard is a newtown pippin. Gads, there are zillions of apple varieties! And apparently very few people curious about them. (When I put the most relevant discriptive terms into startpage, my own August blog entry popped to the top of the results. Very helpful, that. 😉 ) But newtown pippin is what fits best, even though I can’t decide whether the aroma is piney. Or not piney. Piney? Who knew that apples had…
Walking the dogs to town today, I spotted this: That’s the Freeloader family’s house. Looks as if they’ve been evicted for the second time in a year. All their sad stuff — including the little kids’ bikes — tossed to the roadside. Exact repeat of what happened when the church kicked them out of the (free) place they lived in before. Just when I was wondering where they could go from here, I passed one of the local drug houses (at least I assume it’s a drug house; we do have several and this house is a profile-fitting tumbledown with…
Reader just waiting put me on the Memory Lane Express. A link to Sean Gabb’s retrospective on the late, great Loompanics led him to take his copy of Loomps’ 2005 catalog off the shelf, where he discovered an old article of mine: “Dark Satanic Cubicles.” I didn’t remember it. Only vaguely recalled the title. But it sounded brilliant. 🙂 Took quite a bit of hunting to find. Had to go through some interesting byways. But here it is: imperfectly archived on the old Loompanics site. just waiting also sent me .jpg copies (thank you), from which come the stark Nick…
The official trailer (just released): Or if you prefer, the “freelance” trailer made last year: No cynicism here. I actually liked part 1 even with all its low-budget faults. But the new cast looks … well, tired. The square jaws and steely eyes have been replaced by weak chins and dark bags under the eyes. Hm. Worrisome. S’pose it’s possible the acting quality has improved, but I’m not seein’ it. And even if it looked like the smash hit of the year, I ain’t goin’ into civilization to see it this time. I’ll wait for the DVD and let you…
Apple has gotten a patent to remotely disable features on wireless devices based on their location. (This is from a not-always-reliable source, but is verified elsewhere.) I can’t think of a single legitimate reason to impose blanket blackouts like that based on location (language in the patent to the contrary). Lots of illegitimate ones, though. Halt recording at protests or public meetings. Or at cop checkpoints. Keep protestors from coordinating with each other on the spot. Not clear at the moment whether Apple plans to do this only on iPhones (one more reason not to have a smartphone). But no…