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Month: September 2017

Friday links

  • No kidding. People who buy from legal cannabis stores make more visits to fast-food joints. (Is there anything somebody won’t conduct a study on?)
  • Yeah, tell us what we already know (but do it with graphs). The millions who feel left behind by the “recovery” were actually left behind by the “recovery.”
  • Using stored (treated) gas after five years? It’ll be interesting to learn the outcome of this experiment. 11 Comments
  • Thursday links

  • The right to be wrong. One of the key beliefs on which western freedoms are built.
  • New Equifax CEO makes noises as if he’s really sorry (his company’s stock has taken a giant dump) and intends to take real steps to salvage relations with the abused public. It’s something.
  • Does it really take returning to 1950s technology? I hope not. But stranger things have happened (like security-conscious nerds tippy-tapping on typewriters). 11 Comments
  • In the gutter

    The weather gods deigned to bestow kindness this week. It’s summer again! Well, until tonight. But hey, three days of beautiful; I’ll take it. Mostly I used the break to (nearly) complete the last of the pre-rainfall projects. Yesterday — gutters. Okay, one 16-foot span of gutter (with corner) and one downspout, but that took me all day. I’m using Repla-K vinyl DIY gutters* from the lumberyard, which are pretty good. They’re reasonably attractive. They’re affordable. I can install them myself. They do the job (as attested by the other small span of gutter I put up last fall). And…

    5 Comments

    Midweek links

  • Cops across the land can celebrate this milestone. The “non-lethal” Taser has now been implicated in over 1,000 deaths. (Each and every one of them, of course, is an anomaly, nothing to do with tasing at all, and besides all the dead no doubt got what was coming to them.)
  • The madness of driverless cars. (Especially given the present state of “security.”)
  • Wonder if a notice like this one would give SWAT cops pause — or merely encourage them to come in with guns already blazing? 21 Comments
  • Bad news, bad news, good news

    The first bad news was when Peder Lund, owner of Paladin Press died suddenly in June. The second bad news — the second shoe dropping — came this weekend when I learned that Paladin would be closing its doors after 47 years. Their last day of operation will be December 31. I’m a Paladin author. They picked up my titles from Loompanics when Mike Hoy decided to close shop, and later Peder commissioned one more book from me (an election-season tome, mostly consisting of article reprints). It’s incredibly sad that Paladin and Loompanics, two of the country’s more daring, unconventional…

    27 Comments

    Encounter with Hurricane Irma, Part III

    This is a guest post by Rick Burner. He’s a member of the Living Freedom Commentariat and one of several Florida residents who kept us posted before, during, and after Hurricane Irma. He was kind enough to write up this after-action report, of which this is the third and final part. Rick blogs occasionally at The Working Fish and Being Renewed. —– Click here for Part I and Part II. —– AN ENCOUNTER WITH HURRICANE IRMA, PART III By Rick Burner Heat indices (H.I.) are from the NOAA Heat Index Calculator. They are in degrees Fahrenheit at mid-afternoon, in the…

    18 Comments

    Encounter with Hurricane Irma, Part II

    This is a guest post by Rick Burner. He’s a member of the Living Freedom Commentariat and one of several Florida residents who kept us posted before, during, and after Hurricane Irma. He was kind enough to write up this after-action report, which I’ll post in several parts (of which this is the second). Rick blogs occasionally at The Working Fish and Being Renewed. —– Click here for Part I. —– AN ENCOUNTER WITH HURRICANE IRMA, PART II By Rick Burner Aftermath Heat indices (H.I.) are from the NOAA Heat Index Calculator. They are in degrees Fahrenheit at mid-afternoon, in…

    18 Comments

    Weekend links

  • “Consumers” aren’t the only ones upset with Equifax. Looks as if banks might sue them, too. Anecdotally, I have also heard that some banks are no longer sharing information with Equifax until they learn the company’s security practices are actually security practices.
  • Cops. breaking into cars and trashing them … in the name of preventing vehicle break-ins.
  • Why flu shots so often fail. (I’m not anti-vaccine; I’m pro-research, pro-good judgment, and pro-honesty. The pabulum-for-the-public claim that “flu shots are 97 percent effective” has always ticked me off. This article is a refreshing look at the reality.) 11 Comments
  • Are we still here?

    Thump … thump (Taps mic.) Are we still here? Today is once again the end of the world. I didn’t see a sign of Nibiru in the sky during my morning dog walk. Just Sol — and the only thing threatening him seems to be a scrim of perfectly normal, generally non-fatal clouds. Still, some, writing on this very day say they see signs that the world is about to go defunct. Have you spotted the Nemesis Star over your neighborhood yet? If so, please post in comments. But do it quickly. ‘Cause … well, you know. —- For the…

    15 Comments

    An Encounter with Hurricane Irma, Part I

    This is a guest post by Rick Burner. He’s a member of the Living Freedom Commentariat and one of several Florida residents who kept us posted before, during, and after Hurricane Irma. He was kind enough to write up this after-action report, which I’ll post in several parts. Rick blogs occasionally at The Working Fish and Being Renewed. —– AN ENCOUNTER WITH HURRICANE IRMA, PART I By Rick Burner Introduction No matter the emergency for which we are preparing, a bad snowstorm or the end of civilization, all disasters start out as short-term. If the situation lasts longer than a…

    13 Comments