- Library joins the TOR network to give its computer-using patrons privacy. Local cops intervene. Hope is not yet lost, however.
- Skunk water. Cops’ latest weapon against we the uppity — and anybody else who happens to be in the way.
- Yes, that 13-year-old boy was stupid. But then, 13-year-old boys are. Law enforcers ought to know better.
- If you happen to be passing through Colorado on Wednedsday …
- Those new, more complicated (and vastly more invasive) medical codes Shel warned about in a recent comment section are to become official on October 1. Quadruple the info for doctors and medical billers to cope with and more info on you going to government. Even if the so-called “benefits” of the codes were valid, this just goes farther in turning doctors into unpaid government research teams and informants.
- A new titanium rib cage for a cancer patient. Is there anything 3D printing can’t do?
- “15 Books to Read This Fall.” Normally, I ignore lists like this ’cause 15 books some posturing media intellectual recommends are usually about as good as 15 bottles of sleeping pills. But this list of new titles for the fall looks great. Books for real people! (And of course, you can get them using my Amazon links, thank you very much.)
(Big H/T MJR)
Good luck to anyone who’s in northern California right now, having to deal with those monstrous new fires. Unbelievable how far and fast they’re spreading.
“Unbelievable how far and fast they’re spreading.”
Actually, quite believable in many cases… if you ever lived in California especially. People will build houses and even towns in the damnedest places. Of course, the subsidies, zoning and nonsense forest management insanity contributes to that, but one great problem is the completely unrealistic insurance rates that make it possible for people to build again and again in spite of fires, floods and mudslides. If they had to pay the actual cost of the risk, I suspect that most of the forests would be inhabited mainly by animals.
It’s not as if there had never been any wild fires in California… the insurance people have to know better.
Do the new ICD-10 codes cover invasive search by law enforcement?
Building codes, insurance rates, and subsidies(?), have little to do with 4 years of exceptional drought. Not to worry though. New building codes and zoning put in place for rural California will take care of it in the future. Large areas of the Sierra and Coast Range are being rezoned “recreational” thus prohibiting rebuilding. New construction, where allowed, requires fire proof cement type siding, metal roofs, and sprinkler systems throughout with high pressure back up holding tanks and emergency generators. In addition the state has imposed a tax called a fee on every rural parcel for the benefit of Cal Fire (what most of us still call the California Department of Forestry) to fund more rural fire stations and build fire breaks. (Yeah right, more bonuses for the apparatchik.) The effect of all this is to make it so costly and cumbersome no one will be able to build. Add in some of the highest state taxes in the country, lousy public schools, roads falling apart, state and county regulatory insanity on businesses, statewide Cap & Trade insuring the highest gasoline prices in the country, meters on private wells, and the upcoming need for everyone to learn Spanish, and pretty soon no one in their right mind except the very wealthy and the dirt poor will be able to live here.
Hasta la vista California. Montana, Oregon, Washington, & Idaho here we come.
Colorado occasionally makes me wish I had one of those “government-issued photo ID” things.
Re: the California fires.
I’m reminded of the biblical quote “Twas the foolish man built his house upon the sands”
If you build your house in a place known for certain disaster/s, then it should be built to deal with that or those disaster/s. For example, if you build in a flood zone, don’t you think you’d be better off building your house on stilts?
Used to be, people build to suit their environment. People on the shores of New England used to build their houses to deal with the frequent high winds in their areas instead of building their houses with wrap-around porches that were common in the South. Otherwise their houses would be destroyed in short order.
So I think if you have to build in areas where forest fire are common, then wouldn’t it make sense to build Hobbit styles homes with fire-proof doors and windows? I think it would also help with the bills in the winter as well.
the insurance people have to know better.
People who rate and sell insurance do know better.
Progressive legislators who pass insurance laws and bureaucrat regulators who write the rules regulating insurance, notsomuch. And they’re the ones that mandate 95% of insurance business decisions.
So I think if you have to build in areas where forest fire are common, then wouldn’t it make sense to build Hobbit styles homes with fire-proof doors and windows?
Sure. If you can convince the building code inspectors and the homeowner association.
The new insurance codes are puzzling, even ridiculous. There are separate codes for repeat visits – second, third, subsequent. And there are codes you’ll never expect them to need – e.g. ‘struck by a turtle’, and ‘struck by a turtle – second time’. Same for fish, etc., and these don’t mean the follow-up visits, they mean separate incidents. Who, once struck by a turtle, would not be on the look-out for speeding turtles forever after?
[Progressive legislators who pass insurance laws and bureaucrat regulators who write the rules regulating insurance, notsomuch. And they’re the ones that mandate 95% of insurance business decisions.]
If you look into the statutes of any state you will find that insurance is possibly the most heavily-regulated business in existence. No surprise that fascism doesn’t work very well; however it is great for the protected industries and those who run them.
As to that TOR thing, the article did not make clear whether the library was running a relay or an exit node. I understand the relays are usually left alone by the internet cops since everything going in and out is encrypted, but the people running exit nodes get a lot of grief since the outgoing traffic is not encrypted, and the cops get to see people accessing child porn sites and the like. It makes me think exit nodes ought to all be located in Netherlands and Switzerland…