The fedgov’s new attempt to ban tech speech about firearms appears to be an attempt to slap Defense Distributed for getting uppity. But attacks on free speech are getting more ominous — and sometimes more stupid — by the minute. Thank you, Ken White, for revealing this outrage. Another good commentary on the subpoena served on Reason. Intellectuals: Leviathan’s Praetorian Guard. Thanks to a recent WSJ editorial, the world seems to have awakened to the fact that social “science” is little more than an intellectual justification of liberalism. Big debate now going on. Cameron of The Passive Habit agrees, but…
Category: Books and Movies
Kind of strange. This whole business with the unfixable vehicle has got me feeling absurdly vulnerable. Rationally, this makes no sense. Even with the car business coming on top of the broken ankle (and on top of $500 worth of car repairs in April), it doesn’t put me at any real risk. I’ve got neighbors who’ll pick up my mail or give me a lift to the post office. I’ve got friends who’ll get me to the grocery store. It’s not like I’m going to be stranded in a blizzard by the roadside and get eaten by passing Bengal tigers.…
Deep Web. Looks like an intriguing documentary. (H/T GL) Why does Google want to harvest and store your media for “free”? The four most dangerous words in the English language. (Tip o’ hat to MJR) And 24+ words that ought to be in the English language. (Ditto — and not all the words are SFW.) As usual, The Onion has the best commentary on our newly granted “FREEDOM” from NSA snooping and scooping. (H/T jed) Well, maybe. Millennials are destroying banks and the banks are to blame. Dunno if it’s worth $100k to learn the dreadful details of the secret…
“How Baltimore Became Pottersville.” Bovard riffs on the glories of HUD. Why Mozilla’s decision to attempt to push all sites from http to https
Just had a unique experience: watching Buster Keaton’s great silent film The General on a big screen, accompanied by live music from a “Mighty Wurlitzer” theater organ. Never before and probably never again. Not in a little berg like this one, anyhow. I love The General. And Buster Keaton was a gorgeous man with a magnetic screen presence, amazing directing and acting talent, and colossal daring (those stunts! he really does them). But I’ve never seen The General on anything larger than a mid-sized TV. Took a while to get things started. First they had a presentation by a “real…
I really wanted to like The Imitation Game. I mean, what could be more engrossing than a film about genius Alan Turing breaking the Nazis’ Enigma code while being just a few years away from tragic destruction? Starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Seriously. What could be better?
I finally got to watch this movie on DVD recently and I’ll tell you what could be better: Being dipped upside down in alternating vats of tar and maple syrup.
I’ll put the rest behind the “more” link to spare those who don’t like long, frothing anti-movie rants. Or who want to avoid spoilers.
The courts have been so all over the place on police search issues that it’s hard to say what impact this will have. But the Supremes just declared that cops cannot prolong a routine traffic stop even for a minute without legit cause. Inside the strange and wonderful world of micronations. Emphatically NSFW, but funny: company posts a … unique Craigslist ad for engineers. Bet we’ve all wanted to do this at some time or another. Looks like a must-see documentary (though the characterization of Tasers as “rifles” needs some explanation for sure). Gradeschooler challenges school anti-pot propaganda. His activist…
A Most Violent Year
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
I watched A Most Violent Year on DVD last night and found it a most remarkable movie.
It’s not the most technically astonishing movie I’ve seen lately (that would be Birdman). It’s not even the most chilling crime thriller (that would be Nightcrawler). It’s not even the best acted (which would be Whiplash). I occasionally didn’t buy some of the plot points and I thought 20 minutes could easily have been trimmed out of it.
Nevertheless, it was remarkable — and in a good way. Why? Because its protagonist is an independent businessman and a man of honor determined, against great odds, to do everything right.
MamaLiberty reviews Jackie Clay’s Summer of the Eagles. Somebody in the mainstream media finally questions whether it’s right to destroy mom & pop businesses that aren’t sufficiently politically correct. Glad ordinary folk don’t even need to ask questions like that. Back when the RICO statutes were first passed, libertarian alarmists predicted that they’d be so misused that the feds would soon be busting penny-ante poker games. Well, it seems they’ve been misused for just about everything except that. But here’s one of the most creative turns of the RICO story. David Boaz notes that the final stage of socialism is…
Ilana Mercer on freedom of association. And dialoging with a Neo-Nazi. Related: Kevin D. Williamson on the war on the private mind. Back in the day, science fiction was a realm where freedom of ideas prevailed. Prevailed by definition, I assumed, because how can you speculate about alternate futures and realities without the freedom to think unbound thoughts? I’m still having trouble understanding how political correctness has consumed SF. Self control in a world that promotes self indulgence. This is about primal eating, but has implications way beyond that. (H/T PT) Chris Christie has pardoned Shaneen Allen. (Updated to direct…