Source And the shortest day: Source In other words, the winter solstice: Source The worst is over. Or will be by tonight, depending on where in the northern hemisphere you are. The light returns. Now all we have to do is slog our way through January. And February. And … everything else including the rest of December. If you live in Florida, Costa Rica, or the Southern Hemisphere, please keep your boasting about your glorious season to a minimum.
Author: Claire
No, not for Christmas. But for Rosie O’Donnell to be arrested for the blatant, unambiguous felony she just committed.
Despite predictions that Seasteading is dead, the project got a grand writeup in the Daily Mail this week and is moving ahead with plans for 2020. It seems Patri Friedman, Peter Thiel and company are sailing ever closer to conducting their experiment in liberating mankind from politicians. (Marvelous goal; to which I say with a touch of skepticism and an equal touch of joy in their monumental vision, “Good luck with that.”) Of course, it all begins with an agreement with government — in this case the government of French Polynesia. Not a bad neighborhood, Tahiti. Gorgeous concept drawings, too.…
An Amtrak train, making an inaugural run along a new, “improved” route between Seattle and Portland, has derailed onto the I-5 freeway during this morning’s commute.
When last we spoke, I couldn’t brain because I had the dumb. I decided to take the weekend off from blogging — and in fact from every sort of pressure or expectation for myself. That’s harder to do than to decide to do. It began nicely. Friday evening — softly drizzly, but peaceful — Ava and I wandered the town enjoying Christmas lights. Then I stopped into the grocery store to pick up ingredients for beef stew, my favorite fall comfort food. The old family recipe I adapted requires Kitchen Bouquet, a condiment from Mom’s day that I’m always surprised…
I could not make myself sit down at the computer yesterday. At least not long enough to blog anything brilliant. Had Jim Bovard not sent me a couple of links and a laugh, I’d have had nothing but blank pages for you. I did manage to use My Bad Brain Day to finish applying the tongue-and-groove pine to the ceiling of the bedroom-to-be. Well, mostly finish. Several edge pieces will require tricky cuts; I’ll try those later. Then I’ll turn them over to The Wandering Monk and his friend’s well-equipped shop if I make a mess. Still, getting that far…
FREE today and tomorrow, after that, $3.00: Jim Bovard’s new book Freedom Fauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty. This is a collection of essays. Jim assures me he’s been told that “the first essay alone is worth the price of the book — as long as it’s free.” You be the judge. But Jim received even more enthusiastic accolades for a recent article at The Hill. His topic there: The FBI as America’s secret police. Praise from Hill readers included, “kook, lunatic, Russian agent, sick, delusional, shill” — and that was just for starters.
Email to creators, just arrived. Patreon will not be rolling out the fee change that caused what one creator called the “Patreonpocalypse” (H/T MJ): Dear creators, From the bottom of our hearts, we’re truly sorry. Last week’s service fee announcement caused a tough week for you, your patrons, and your teams. We were trying to solve a problem for creators and, in turn, caused more problems for you and your patrons. You’ve spoken loud and clear. We’re not going to rollout the changes to our payments system that we announced last week, and are currently assessing other options. They followed…