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Month: November 2018

Friday links

  • Gab should not have to be explaining itself this way to the WaPo or anybody else.
  • Dick’s Sporting Goods — already hit in the pocketbook by its anti-gunnery — is now experimenting with getting entirely out of the gun business. Sebastian calls this folly.
  • Are you among the 500 million customers of Marriott’s Starwood Hotels? Then you’re pretty much screwed. That was some serious data they failed to protect. 10 Comments
  • Big quake in Anchorage

    Not a record-setting monster like the Good Friday quake of 1964. But significant; roughly 7.0, about the size of California’s 1989 Loma Prieta quake. Property damage is extensive, but so far no reports of deaths. A tsunami warning was issued, then canceled.

    9 Comments

    Thursday links

  • Well, that’s disgusting. Customer service reps on chat lines can often see what you’re typing before you hit send. Fortunately there’s a simple workaround.
  • Google now wants to monitor our moods, our children’s behavior, and our movements around our own homes.
  • John Lott: Contrary to propaganda, the U.S. is not the mass-shooting capital of the world. But gun-free zones are certainly capital targets. 6 Comments
  • Midweek links

  • You’ve probably heard that a New York state legislator has introduced a bill to allow Authoritah to search your online history before you can be “allowed” to buy a gun. You may not have realized how dangerously deep that rabbit hole goes. And have you heard that Kevin Parker, the pol who wants to inflict this, is himself a violent criminal, as well as a major financial deadbeat?
  • From Shel in comments: evacuation advice from a survival maven, Kevin Reeve.
  • The UK moves into the creepy territory of using AI to detect pre-crime. (H/T MJR) 6 Comments
  • Time to revisit the bug-out bag

    How time flies when you’re having fun trying to keep your house from collapsing into the mud. Sometime earlier this year, I shoved my bug-out bag onto the screen porch to get it out of the way of construction, and yesterday was the day for lugging it back into the house, checking and updating it. I’d have sworn I did a check-and-update sometime last year. But that was also the year of the Great Foundation Project and I now see I let things slide. If the Sharpie-marked packets of snacks in the bug-out bag are telling the truth, my last…

    24 Comments

    Easing slowwwwwwwly back into posting after an indolent holiday weekend, here’s an oldie but (I hope) goodie from blog days past

    Hi, guys. I hope you all had (and are having) a wonderful holiday weekend with great food, good company, and minimal stress. Mine’s been nice. Quiet with a combo of idle days, a few industrious hours of DIY on the house, and world-class Thanksgiving leftovers. I expect by tomorrow I’ll be back up to full blogging speed. But for now, I’m still idling about. So to ease gradually back into action, here’s a two-parter I posted four years ago. I recalled this when a member of Claire’s Cabal introduced a topic on memorable travel experiences. This piece involves an encounter…

    7 Comments

    Happy Thanksgiving

    Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. I hope you’ll all be feasting today and enjoying either good company or welcome peace and quiet. I don’t like the forced sociability of the holidays, but I like taking a day for gratitude. I have much to be grateful for, not least the community of individuals around this blog. Today I’m debating between feasting courtesy of a lodge in the next town over, which is putting on a whatever-you-want-to-donate banquet with my Neighbor J as one of the volunteers, or eating lite with goodies already in supply here. Someone at Claire’s Cabal posted linked a simple…

    23 Comments

    Thursday links

    Some progress for gun owners who also use medical cannabis. But it’s still Reefer Madness at NASA, which will investigate SpaceX because Elon Musk smoked a joint. Inspiring words from the city government of Republic, Washington, after passage of the freedom-stealing Initiative 1639. Global warming was not a significant factor in recent California fires. Cuba has withdrawn its employees from Brazil’s More Doctors program, because Brazil’s new president insists they be paid properly and be allowed to have their families with them instead of held hostage back on the island. Ah, the wonders of socialism! Even better — communism (even…

    5 Comments

    Midweek links

    Stories and photos from a remote, off-grid community in Scotland. There is yet another e-coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce. The FDA recommends tossing any romaine you might have. (I got this word from MJ yesterday evening … five minutes after finishing a big salad made with guess what? I seem to have survived the experience so far.) How a six-year-old survived being lost in the woods while walking 18 miles toward safety. He’s 39 now and revisits his trek with a writer from Outside. FBI data shows that armed citizens are 94% successful in stopping would-be mass shooters. (Via…

    4 Comments