Press "Enter" to skip to content

Month: September 2016

The big, scary project gets a little less scary

That’s the Wandering Monk up there looking like a rather tall member of the seven dwarves. That’s him taking a break from carving out the channel that will hold the footer for the retaining wall. That’s him with the block newly delivered to my driveway. You don’t see the pallet with the 54 sacks of concrete on it. Still. Even with five pallets of block and one of concrete to go, the big, scary project is now a whole lot less scary. Because this … … and this … … are done. It took two days of this … ……

24 Comments

Friday links

  • Now this is something. Cracked, which is normally entertaining as all get out but relentlessly anti-gun, points out the five biggest reasons “gun control” in the U.S. is a lost cause. Decent points they make, too.
  • Looks as if last Friday’s attempt to dump those FBI/Hillary documents invisibly before a holiday weekend is backfiring, reflecting even more on the fibbies than on Hillary. It’s clear that FBI agents were ordered to go incredibly easy on the crook. And Comey’s once sterling (though never deserved) reputation for being an honorable man has gone off the cliff it edged toward when he first announced (I paraphrase), “She’s guilty as sin but she’s a Clinton so she gets a pass.”
  • Is it a sign of progress that the media now reports on an LP candidate’s gaffe with speculation about whether it will sink his obscure candidacy? It has certainly led to some great laughs in major media Gaffeland 5 Comments
  • More beta testers needed

    Beta testing is going swimmingly at the new member site. All we need is another small round of testers to vet the new registration procedures Bill St. Clair is finalizing right about now. (Much smoother than the original sign-up.) Will five or six more people raise their hands to volunteer? Anybody who donated $20 or more to the late fundraiser is eligible for a membership (minimum three months) and therefore eligible to beta test. And once you’re in as a beta tester, you’re in and you can jump into the pool with your clothes on welcome to join the party.

    17 Comments

    Shoving us at gunpoint toward the cashless society

    Talk of forcing us into a cashless society has been around for decades. It’s very easy to tune it out as old news, something that’s going to remain a statist pipe dream forever. But it’s time to take this very, very seriously. The stage has been set. We’ve got central-bank desperation. Negative interest-rate policies. A police/surveillance state in which cash is more important to the authorities than any actual crimes committed. And the increasing ruthlessness of first-world states everywhere. We’ve got an atmosphere in which the desire for privacy is itself considered a sign of criminal intent. Now the faux-intellectual…

    26 Comments

    Autographed books (on Amazon!)

    Okay, this is an experiment, guys. But if you’ve been wanting an autographed dead-tree copy of either RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone or Hardyville Tales, you can — for the moment at least — get them on Amazon. Both links should take you straight to all the Marketplace sellers who have unused copies for sale. Living Freedom — that’s me — is at the top with the lowest price. If you find some other result when you click the link, just look for the Living Freedom handle. The listing procedures didn’t allow me to say the books were autographed,…

    5 Comments

    Oh, those laugh-a-minute elitists

    This comes from across the pond. But what a lovely example it is. Hugo Dixon is a big mover behind the effort to keep Britain in the European Union. He devotes this entire Guardian column to that wish. (The Guardian, leftist, pro-big-government rag that it is, in no doubt only too happy to host those thoughts.) But wait, you swiftly point out. Didn’t Brits already v*te to leave the EU? And haven’t we been hearing for lo these many decades that “democracy” is sacred above all other forums of government? And on top of that, aren’t things in the UK…

    13 Comments

    Update: Both big, scary projects

    Update on big, scary earth-moving project Rained all night, so the big-scary earth-moving project almost didn’t start today. But the rain wasn’t heavy and the area to be worked is sheltered by house, hill, and trees. Two inches down, the ground was dry. Or as dry as it gets around here. So it has begun: That’s Lester hunched over the controls of the machine. He decided he was well enough, after all. And I must admit he does better on the seat of that little tractor than he does on his own two feet. The Wandering Monk, there in the…

    5 Comments

    Monday-that-falls-on-a-Tuesday links

  • Per Adam in comments: “Inside the Federal Bureau of Way Too Many Guns.” How the ATF traces guns used in crimes since the mean old NRA has denied it a full computerized record. (Actually an interesting article, though it would have been better with some recognition of why that computerized database is verboten.)
  • Ah, but The Atlantic has something much easier to track, even though it could fill just as many large cardboard boxes: the scandals of Hillary from Whitewater to Bengazi.
  • With science fiction’s Hugo awards having become so politicized that a coterie of social justice pecksniffs will deny v*tes to great writers, artists, and editors merely because they’re supported by a rival (and more freedomista) coterie, The Dragon Awards arise. No cliques. Just fan voting. And of course that makes it “sexist,” “racist,” and … well, you know the drill. 10 Comments