Month: August 2016
Did you see that fundraising thermometer? Over there on the right side (or scroll to the bottom for you people on mobiles). Did you see that? Holy cats. I owe some extremely serious thank yous and those thanks will be delivered as best I can deliver them. To say this was unexpected when I thought the fundraiser was winding down is an understatement. But every dime will either go into building the new website or go under my house (where the beetles munching on the present foundation beams will be surprised, sometime within the next year, to find themselves evicted…
Before moving on to part 2, I thought it would be instructive and fun to find out a little more about what readers think about debt. Also fun to try out a rather sophisticated free online survey site. So I have created a four-part survey. If it works, we may do other surveys or polls in the future. If not … not. You are free of course, to take the good old freedomista MYOB stance, but I’ve tried not to make the questions too intrusive. The one catch here is that only 50 people can fill the survey out. That’s…
This post will be updated as the day goes on and new tributes come in. Mike Vanderboegh, RIP. He lived well and passionately. A grand Outlaw. We owe him much. So far, I have only a mainstream media account with the usual prejudices. But I’m sure many, many tributes will be pouring in from the gun and freedomista communities soon and I’ll post some of them here. David Codrea who, as always, is the first to have word about his friend Mike has already posted and promises more information later today. UPDATES: Carl-Bear Bussjaeger wrote a moving tribute to Mike…
On the same day the world’s biggest advertiser announced it’s scaling back targeted ads on F*c*b**k, FB announced it will start blocking ad blockers. For your own good, you know. The entire tone of FB’s news release is so patronizing it could have come from a politician. From their statement, one would think the entire profession of journalism would collapse into smoldering ruins if FB didn’t block ad blockers (although they do have a point about ad blocking companies accepting pay from advertisers to unblock certain ads). The makers of AdBlock Plus are not flapped by the news, describing FB’s…
The New York Fed recently announced that U.S. household debt has ticked up again. Small percentages but still big numbers. More worrisome is the type of debt responsible for the increase: Household debt — which includes things as varied as mortgages and credit cards — increased to $12.29 trillion in the second quarter of 2016, an increase of $35 billion, or 0.3%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. “Overall household debt remains 3.1% below its 2008 Q3 peak of $12.68 trillion, but is now 10.2% above the 2013Q2 trough,” the…
Amazon. It’s amazing. I don’t always love it, but it’s always amazing. Take today, for instance. I don’t exactly live at the end of the world, but we’re constantly reminded that this is an out-of-the-way corner. The DMV office is open four hours a week — if the one guy who staffs it isn’t sick or out giving driving tests. We have a hospital, but its one-and-only surgeon visits just two days a week. When we were cut off from the outside world for three days after a devastating storm, nobody we were cut off from gave a rat’s ass…