Moons ago, I watched the pilot episode of Amazon’s series The Man In The High Castle. It was terrific. Dark, exciting, complex, suspenseful, brave. It’s based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, in which the Japanese and Germans prevailed in WWII. Now (that is, the early 1960s) Germany controls the eastern U.S. and the Japanese control the Pacific States, with only a narrow and perilous neutral zone between them. Though most Americans seem to have accepted their overlords (and many have become dedicated Nazis), a desperate resistance emerges from the shadows. One focus of the resistance is a film, produced by…
Author: Claire
Uh oh. Those infamous “armed anti-government activists” are at it again. Tsk tsk, says the New York Times. ADDED: For those who have trouble with NYT links, here’s CNN’s take on the protest. In the spirit of the holidays, part I: “love” the homeless whether they want your imprisoning love or not. (H/T jc2k in comments) In the spirit of the holidays, par II: bleed you, Bill of Rights be damned. Microsoft, I do not believe you for one little teeny minute. (H/T 4 2 MJR) Nine of the most isolated towns on earth. And sometimes don’t you wish you…
So I know from past Januaries that most Living Freedom readers (at least the most vocal ones) don’t do New Years resolutions. Maybe it’s just one of those “there are two kinds of people in the world things.” But I do do them and find them useful. The gods of the media seem to be with you non-resolving folks. You shouldn’t make resolutions because: You’ll fail to keep them and feel worse about yourself, which will just make meeting your goals that much harder. (Often true for us procrastinating writers.) You need resolve, not resolutions (a good point, actually) January…
Heh. Carl-Bear Bussjaeger has an idea for those who are likely to be reclassified as “gun dealers” by Obama fiat: comply, comply, comply, comply … and comply some more. Very good one from Mas Ayoob: Five myths of gun fighting. Until recently, the common assumption was that carefree, laid-back people lived longer, healthier lives and that anxiety and worry were bad for you. Lots of research these days points away from that belief. Here’s one more datapoint. Anxious people process threats in a part of the brain devoted to action. The Bill Clinton effect or why liberals may be more…
Well, since Tom Knapp wants to know and even David Codrea has announced his intention to get on the fried Cheerios bandwagon, this seems a good time to print the recipe. Actually reprint, since I posted it years and years ago. But despite my Cheerio cheerleading, people continue to find the notion of fried breakfast cereal strange. Really, though, it’s better than popcorn on a movie night. And probably better for you (well, if you count the fiber and discount the mass application of butter). My mom started making this when I was about six. We always called it “toasted…
It should be no surprise to anyone hereabouts, but even as Microsoft pretends to have been converted to the privacy gospel, it steals your disk-encryption keys. If you have v*ted in the last 15 years, you are screwed. (H/T MJR) You may think this absurd, insecure database of v*ters is no big deal, but the implications are pretty catastrophic. And nobody knows who compiled or owns this giant mess? Fedgov, anyone? The war on Asian-American academic success. Repeat violators of HIPAA privacy provisions pay little consequence. Which is totally unsurprising because HIPAA was always more of a privacy-violation enabler than…
A few years back, a reader and friend gave me a Kimber Pepper Blaster II. I’d seen them favorably reviewed in S.W.A.T., and knowing that S.W.A.T. has a no-BS review policy, I was sold. I’m a believer in “two is one and one is none,” but I can’t afford a second carry gun, so this seemed a good backup choice. Besides, I wanted something non-lethal against aggressive stray dogs. Of course, you don’t go out and just use pepper sprays. You carry them around until you need them — or until they go bad and you try to use them…
Wolf Richter has a very interesting (and IMHO plausible) theory about where all the anticipated inflation from QE actually went — and why it didn’t raise wages and consumer prices. Any of you money watchers out there want to comment on or critique this? —–
The five “best” drug scares of 2015. This year’s weirdest science stories. Fourteen — maybe 15 — ways to avoid the Obamacare tax. (Per A.G. in comments.) Thirteen things credit card companies know about you that might make you cringe. Well, thank heaven it wasn’t “gun violence.” Another Darwin Award nominee, courtesy of absorption in mobile device. How embarrassing to die of pure stupid. But hey — at least it wasn’t “gun violence”! In praise of Glock. Ross Douthat on cracks in the liberal order. Not meaning “liberal” as in that thing that “progressives” don’t want to be called these…
Ava is the cutest dog. She’s got absolutely gorgeous red cattle-dog coloring, but is more the shape of the border collies that make up the other half of her ancestry. She has big dark eyes in a complex double mask and ears like a bat. And above all, she has this soulful expression that says, “I live only to love you.”
It’s hard to get a good picture of her, though, because until recently she thought the camera was some sort of exotic punishment device, and even now she’s not certain. She tolerates it for my sake, but pictures of her always end up looking like Oliver Twist, she’s so wretched.
I once drew this pastel of her from a photo she blurred by leaping up from a lying position and running off to escape the camera. It’s called “Ava says, ‘Please Don’t Take My Picture, Ma!'”:
Border collies routinely test as the most intelligent dogs in the world and cattle dogs place in the top 10. Good thing Ava was absent when they were conducting the IQ tests; she’d have lowered the average considerably for both her breeds.