The question for today: Where does your state rank on the 50 States Freedom Index — and do you care? (Readers from Wales and South Africa and Germany, et al — if you want to play, you could use the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom, the Fraser Institute’s Index (.pdf) or some other index that rates countries.) Some states, like NY, CA, and IL are so generally hellish that it seems the rankings mean a lot. Others, like WY and WA (that have oddball tax structures or something else non-standard about them), tend to produce rankings that don’t mean as…
47 CommentsMonth: March 2013
You’d think — you really would — that if you were in a place where a man had just shot a cop and the cops were setting up a siege (which would ultimately end with more shooting and a house going up in flames), you’d see immediately that something dangerous was going on. And you might logically take action to avoid the area. But nope. Happens that a friend and I were driving down a street yesterday where a cop had just been shot. Squad cars were zooming in. Lights were flashing. Yada yada. When my friend remarked, “Something big…
19 CommentsWent to another disaster preparedness presentation yesterday. This one specifically on tsunamis. Presenters (3) outnumbered attendees (2), but gamely soldiered on. In the first half, the earnest young AmeriCorps worker who has become the public face for emergency management in the county gave an excellent backgrounder on tsunamis. In the second, reps from the state did their PowerPoint bit. Their presentation began with an exhortation for us all (2) to become “Preparedness Superheroes” and ended with an order to “don your capes!” But in between they offered no actual preparedness information (unless you count the offer for free NOAA weather…
24 CommentsSo have you been watching the catastrophe in Cyprus? It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. The abuse of language surrounding it would also be amusing if it weren’t so Orwellian. The original plan was for even the smallest bank depositors to pay a “tax,” a “levy,” or a “fee,” or “take a haircut” on their deposits. Nobody in the MSM ever used the proper term: confiscation. Now that Ma and Pa Cypriot have been “allowed” to keep their allegedly insured deposits and the EU is free to take all they want from the rich the moderately well-off…
36 CommentsJim smacked me with this Google screen-grab*: Anybody who’s ever met me or anybody who knows my famous camera-shyness knows that ain’t me. There’s another woman out there who shares my name and does some public speaking in her professional specialty (nursing, I think). She’s probably long rued her accidental Google connections with me. My first thought was, What? Is Google now just grabbing photos of any old Claire Wolfe and pairing them with me? I figured that was probably a photo of poor Nurse Wolfe, who would no doubt now have even more reason to hope I get cooties…
20 Comments(Source for those who can’t see the embed.)
1 CommentA creepy observation on the state of things from Freedom Feens. Also: Source
6 CommentsMonkeywrenching seems sadly neglected these days. Do a search on the word and you’ll mostly turn up references to Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang or various acts eco-defense (or eco-terrorism, depending on who’s writing about it). Since the Homeland (Achtung!) Security State has gotten us in its grip, it seems the peasants are afraid to toss their sabots into the machinery of tyranny. Then, too, things are different in a non-industrial society. You could say that Anonymous is a champion of monkeywrenching — just on a technological level. Monkeywrenching, in one form or another will always have a place…
36 CommentsI’m always getting these ideas for the openings of stories. Then I either don’t know where to go with them or (more likely) don’t have enough ambition to figure it out.
So here’s one I’m tossing at you.
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76 CommentsRe-reading Atlas Shrugged for the umptieth time (but the first time in 10 years) has inspired that dangerous activity: thinking.
One part of the book that still holds up for me is Francisco’s money speech. That’s despite it being a speech. In the middle of a novel. It’s short, it’s brilliant, and it serves a plot-related purpose. I especially like this part:
13 Comments