It was sunny yesterday, O wonder of wonders. I spent the day painting the back porch. It’s a tiny porch, but has four different colors and a couple different wall textures and it kept my body occupied for hours. But my mind had better other things it wanted to do. —– I found myself thinking about Amy Fischer, the “Long Island Lolita” and her main squeeze with the perfect tabloid name, Joey Buttafuoco. Why the heck would I be there in the sunshine thinking about some long-eclipsed “crime of the century”? I have no idea. That’s so 1992. —– I…
Author: Claire
Yesterday I sighed about what we might as well call the “self-surveillance state”* — the growing culture of cool-tech that seduces people into adopting (and paying for!) the very technology that the Big Brother state and Little Brother corporations use to spy on them. The first comment on that post came from David, who also sighed: “There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle … and the sort of societal shift that would include protecting privacy of any sort seems increasingly unlikely.” He nailed it on the genie and bottle. And we’re certainly undergoing a tech-driven societal shift toward…
Sorry for the couple of days non-posting. This may make no sense, but it’s been a combination of having nothing to say and having too much to say. I’ve wanted to go back to that Memorial Day post to explain myself better and maybe answer a few commentors. But I didn’t think I should poke a stick in that hornet’s nest again. So I’ll just say thanks to those who commented thoughtfully (whether agreeing or disagreeing), thanks to those who offered new insights, thanks to those who defended me, and a much more ironic thanks to people who proved my…
Joel’s long-rumored book, A Solar Electric System On the Cheap, On the Fly, and Off the Grid, is now available. It can be yours in .pdf for a mere $4.99. Besides describing in good and useful detail how to build an ad hoc solar power system (Joel created his for just $350), it describes how not to do it (e.g. don’t do it like Joel did with the first system he scrounged together). It also shows larger, more professional systems created by five of his desert-rat neighbors. As you may know, Joel and I were desert neighbors for a while.…
I haven’t been at the computer much today. Have actually had Things To Do and a Life To Live. But several times in my very brief newsly perusals, I’ve encountered the oh-so-shocked question: “Did Holder Lie Under Oath?” The question always leads to this or something like it — Our Esteemed Attorney General denying all knowledge of targeting any reporter under the handy-dandy (to tyrants) 1917 Espionage Act just days before getting caught doing exactly that. He personally signed the warrant to go after Fox Newsy James Rosen as a “co-conspirator” in the supposed espionage. It’s not the targeting of…
Okay, a little lightening up seems in order. Dogs in pantyhose. Petheadz portraits by Zachary Rose. And in honor of graduation season: Six college degrees for dogs. Eight signs your cat is actually a dog: Source for those who don’t see the embed. And what if your roommates were like cats or dogs? Source.
I dislike government-declared holidays. I hate holidays designed to evoke uncritical emotional reactions. Above all, I hate holidays that demand that we all adopt some government-supremacist worldview — or keep our mouths shut when we disagree. We now have two holidays in the year that serve the same purpose: to impose upon us the lie that all soldiers who fight in any war are always “fighting for our freedom.” (As long as they work for the U.S. government, of course. Presumably soldiers who work for opposing governments are all poltroons at best and baby-raping war criminals at worst.) Today, we’re…
For crass commercial purposes To encourage you to support this blog Because people have been buying some interestingly useful stuff via my Amazon links,* I thought I’d start a semi-regular feature on what’s hot at Amazon for preppers, self-sufficient types, rebels, Freedom Outlaws, libertarians, free-market anarchists, and general hellraisers. I’ll kick it off by featuring a theme: preparedness items. If you just happen to see something you can’t live without, you’ll be contributing to this blog (and me!) by using these links. (Even if you don’t buy a featured item, everything you do buy at Amazon after entering via one…
Jeff Berwick’s take on the strange public “disappearing” of Adam Kokesh. You’d think that, with every public thing now being videotaped, the thug class would, at minimum, become more careful and cagey. Instead, they’re ramping up their violence and their sheer, bloody brazenness. Good. This means they’re scared. (And scared of activists who are, after all, people who are still hopeful enough to ask Massah to relent just a tiny bit.) Bad. For the reasons expressed in Berwick’s headline. Anybody hereabouts in contact with Kokesh?