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Weekend links

  • Oh, lucky us. Our cellphones are soon to be subject to a FEMA-driven “presidential alert system” that we won’t be allowed to shut off.
  • Ben Shapiro pens the very definition of socialism: “When government is everything, everything is crazy.”
  • Humans aren’t the only ones who suffer from socialism. Don’t miss J. KB’s last three paragraphs.
  • Speaking of which, Maduro raises Venezuela’s minimum wage by 3,000% (after 23 earlier increases since 2013). Workers lose jobs — but employers get in legal trouble for firing them without government permission. It’s getting surreal out there …
  • It’s a good thing there are black markets for everything.
  • With prices artificially soaring, how far are we from home-brew insulin?
  • Yep, you knew they were going to do it. Dallas cops went out of their way to smear Botham Jean, the innocent man minding his own business in his own home when badge-wearer Amber Guyger broke in and killed him.
  • Even the WaPo has to admit that the Feinsteinian attempt to tar Brett Kavanaugh with an anonymous letter alleging that he may have done something unpleasant when he was in high school nearly 40 years ago is utter sleaze.
  • Queue Twilight Zone theme. Are they ever going to tell us what’s going on at that evacuated solar observatory? (H/T MJR)
  • Someone who’s been there tells what it’s like to be the victim of a relentless prosecution persecution or smear campaign.
  • Via Myself in comments: Reefer madness marches on. Canadians engaged in the soon-to-be-legal cannabis trade will be treated as international drug traffickers if they try to enter the U.S.
  • Starting Friday, all credit freezes in the U.S. will be free. While it’s a damned shame this had to be mandated by federal law, it’s a welcome protection against the incompetence of companies who steal our data then leave their systems wide open to freelance thieves.
  • Lots of people have come up with depictions of hell as vivid as a George Romero movie. Nobody’s ever come up with a depiction of heaven that doesn’t sound like an eternal afternoon in a middlebrow church. Still, I must admit this is about the worst “heaven” I’ve ever heard of. Well, maybe not as nasty as Augustine or Aquinas’s heaven, which is cheerfully sadistic. But it’s certainly more dreary.
  • Awesome do-it-yourself backyard design ideas.
  • Cool, creepy creature grafitti.

13 Comments

  1. brew
    brew September 15, 2018 7:54 pm

    Free credit freezes…. it’s about bloody time….

    From the link: “Free freezes, which will be available next Friday, were required as part of broader financial legislation signed in May by President Trump.”

    See? Trump ain’t all bad…. besides, the She Devil would have woven in a special $2 fee into this somehow me thinks….

    Thanks for the article – I didn’t realize that 2 of the 3 CB’s already were free and have been meaning to do this… I will be doing so come Friday.

  2. lairdminor
    lairdminor September 16, 2018 8:43 am

    I rather like the Jewish idea of heaven. Certainly it would be more intellectually stimulating than perching on clouds strumming harps! This is one more reason why, if I were to choose a religion (fear not; that’s not going to happen!) it would be Judiasm.

  3. Claire
    Claire September 16, 2018 9:14 am

    LOL. Although my “religion that I’d pick except I’m not picking a religion” would be Taoism, I admit I’m very drawn to Judaism also.

    I just can’t picture spending eternity debating the fine points of religious law.

  4. Comrade X
    Comrade X September 16, 2018 11:32 am

    Don’t forget stoicism (I believe it can be treated as a religion that even allows for a greater being) where focusing on what you can control in life (doing what is right btw) over what you can not control is the way whereas maybe (since I haven’t been there yet) that same belief system can be transferred in death. Now if at death there is only a black hole and nothing else like a soul than the stoic view of life would have been all there is, so my question is what would be so wrong with that?

  5. ExpatNJ
    ExpatNJ September 16, 2018 12:19 pm

    “Our cellphones … to be subject to … “presidential alert system” … won’t be allowed to shut off.”

    May I politely suggest a few ways to deal with this situation?
    – Turn off _Notifications_ in cellphone Control panel. Note: you won’t hear any others, either.
    – Turn Off cellphone or remove cellphone battery.
    – Battery fixed? Put cellphone in tin foil, metal paint/garbage can, old abandoned mine, etc.
    – Root-hack cellphone or find some App that will stop the signal.
    – Storm ‘The Swamp’ with pitchforks and torches …

  6. Iwoots
    Iwoots September 17, 2018 7:09 pm

    Re. the FEMA Presidential alert test.

    I have known about this government intrusion since before the Trump administration.

    So, regarding the quote from Alyssa Milano, I have to wonder if she is just plain ignorant that this capability has been around for a while, or she is just upset that it isn’t Hillary sending out the test.

    I also noticed that the article did not have a “Comments” section. They should have – if they charged a dime for each comment, the hatred and vitriol from both sides would enable USA Today to give away the paper editions for free.

  7. Claire
    Claire September 18, 2018 7:54 am

    “I have known about this government intrusion since before the Trump administration.”

    It’s definitely been in the works for a long time. But it appears the test is newly announced. Yeah, victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome are a little over the top as usual, blaming Trump for what he didn’t do. But the damned “presidential alert system” is irritating and ridiculous in its own right.

  8. Paul Joat
    Paul Joat September 19, 2018 12:50 pm

    My phone has a setting to turn off the president alerts. I have Lineage OS installed.

  9. Claire
    Claire September 19, 2018 2:21 pm

    Oh, good to know. Maybe there’s hope for technology and freedom after all.

  10. strycat
    strycat September 21, 2018 11:44 am

    I find it very annoying that the only way one is allowed to criticize the Presidential alerts is by hating Trump. There’s so many good reasons that Presidential alerts are a bad idea, but they can’t be heard because we must hate Trump (Edit: Just to clarify … either our reason for opposing the alerts must be we hate Trump or our reason is ignored because we’re not showing enough hate of Trump).

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