Five simple ‘Net security tricks from a Google engineer. I’m already doing four and a half of them. How about you? Don’t it just figure? Willie Nelson now has his own cannabis variety and hopes to open a chain of stores described as “the Whole Foods of marijuana.” Fascinating. Twenty-five percent of people have an extra color receptor in their eyes. Hm. Wonder how many of those are artists or go into fields requiring good color perception? So what do you think? Should this guy have been kicked off that plane or not? On hiding cops’ identities, a governor does…
Category: Books and Movies
You’re looking at three heavy boxes on that bottom shelf there. They’re physically heavy because they’re full of paperwork. But much bigger deal: they’re emotionally heavy because they contain everything I own that’s related to Randy Weaver and the horrors his family endured. Correspondence with Randy from jail. Notes from his trial. Notes and photos from my visit to his home (including the spot where son Sam was murdered by fedthugs).
I want them gone.
Summer of the Eagles By Jackie Clay Mason Marshall Press, January 28, 2015 205 pages, trade paperback or Kindle edition From Amazon.com or the publisher (scroll down to buy) When Jess Hazzard rides through the gates of the Wyoming Territorial Prison, he wants only one thing: to get away from people as far and fast as possible and be alone. He’s just served five hellish years for a crime he didn’t commit and is looking only for peace. But first he has to earn money, and here his reputation gets him in trouble. Not only is he known as a…
AT LAST WE MEET, SIR TERRY. More. Given that he had a rare form of early onset Alzheimers, his death at 66 may have been a mercy. But damn. He was the best. The best since Mark Twain. Maybe (we could argue about this) better. ADDED: It bugs me that the obits are calling Pratchett a “fantasy novelist.” That’s like calling Twain a “writer of adventure stories for boys.” Pratchett’s books, especially the Discworld series, are hilarious social and political satires that just happen to be set in a world populated by vampires, trolls, golems, witches, werewolves, one six-foot-tall dwarf,…
I Won’t Take the Mark:
A Bible Book and Contract for Children
By Katherine Albrecht, Ed.D.
Illustrations by Julia Pearson
Patterns and borders by AlfredoM Graphic Arts Studio
Designed by Monica Thomas
2014, 40 pages, $22.50
Available from VirtuePress.com
Or from Amazon.com
I have been remiss. I received review copies of this book around Christmastime and intended to write it up at the first of the year. I was planning to pair reviews with Vin Suprynowicz’s The Testament of James — something for believers, something for curious skeptics, good books from very different points of view.
Then the comment section on Testament got so weird (with people more interested in pushing personal grievances than talking about Vin’s book) that I freaked out & backed off from anything religion-related.
So I hope The Albrechts will be okay with “better late than never.”
Now it’s not only Mike Vanderboegh who is persona non grata at KABA. David Codrea gets sent down the Memory Hole. Remains to be seen whether all things Codrea will be “disappeared” or just that one news item. As David notes, KABA is Gottlieb’s property. He can ban anybody he wants from it. But perhaps somebody should send Mr. G a copy of The Commissar Vanishes and a certain Orwellian book or two
Verizon makes a sadly hilarious response to the FCC’s “Throwback Thursday” decision to apply steam-engine-and-telegraph standards to the Internet. Get another laugh by clicking on the translation. Prove your identity to Microsoft or they won’t “allow” you to use their products that you’ve paid for? (H/T cat) The author’s claims about U.S. tech losses thanks to snoopery are right on. Will now be interesting to see how U.S. residents and companies route around the new FCC regulations. Beware of being neighborly without a permit. Nice infographics show what’s allowed and what’s not in the four places that have now legalized…
Was up all night feeling creaky. Not actually ill; just too sour, achy, and generally uncomfortable to sleep. Useless today. But no doubt I’ll be brilliant (or at least brilliant-er) tomorrow. Would be hard to be less brilliant. Lucy and Ethel speak for the U.S. Department of State A letter concerning Muslim toleration. Ronald Ritchie, felony murderer of two, still thinks his primary victim deserved what he got. Oscar odds. Being mostly stuck with DVDs that aren’t out yet, I’ve seen very few of these films yet; probably soon. Looking forward to The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, Birdman, and Kill the…
In Washington state and in Colorado, banks (caught between state opportunity and federal terror tactics) struggle to deal with new cannabis businesses. Well, now those who won’t comply with the outrages of I-594 are not just “extremists” (per Gottlieb) but “a clique of gadflies” (per a Gottlieb henchman). Remember people: if you want a seat at the table so you can help Our Masters arrange the terms of our extermination, always comply-comply-comply with the law. Any law. We don’t care what law. It’s the LAW! Where oh where is Germany’s gold? Jim Bovard looks back on redneck ethnic cleansing that…
Part I of the interview and my mini-review of Vin’s new book, The Testament of James is here. —– Q. I found the resolution of TToJ more interesting, and certainly more relevant, than the resolution of The DaVinci Code, but surely some readers will see similarities. Were you in any way inspired by that book? A. I have to be careful not to seem scornful of Mr. Brown and his books, or Steve Berry or whoever. Here are these guys who have sold millions of books and entertained a lot of people and made a fortune, and I’m some little…