I just heard from Dave Duffy, who posted this on his blog. Backwoods Home’s website will go dark for 12 hours tomorrow, Wednesday, January 18 — joining Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, and other sites to demonstrate what the Internet would look like under the rule of SOPA, PIPA, and the evil cabal of government and its crony corporate owners. I wish we’d had more time to make the announcement, but my heart cheered when I got Dave’s email. See you after the blackout! Under the reign of crony censorship, that might not be the case. —– I’ll save Wednesday’s planned blog…
Category: Mind and Spirit
Spirituality, moods, feelings, and thinking free to live free.
Bravo, El Neil, for such a simple, realistic vision of personal freedom. And thanks for the reminder. We do have a habit of getting so focused on what we fear, dread, and hate in this scary world that we tend to forget — or sometimes not even know — what we want — what we would do with our freedom if we had it. (I’m talking about our “political freedom,” of course; we’ve already got the other sort with us.) I know we’ve been here before, but it’s a place we need to revisit frequently if we’re working for something…
That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me. Thank you, Neil. 🙂 I may adopt that as a tagline — although I think Kent McManigal has first dibs on the “hooligan libertarian” phrase. Be that as it may, the actual topic at that first link is Sandy Sandfort’s effort to find team members to build a smartphone app for people who care about gun rights. And although commentors have made some good suggestions, nobody has stepped up yet to volunteer for the development team. C’mon, I know there’s plenty of techie talent out there in the pro-gun…
Today from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Central Time, Oathkeepers founder Stewart Rhodes and friends will be giving a LiveStreaming presentation on the modern Intolerable Acts. That’s the NDAA, the proposed Enemy Expatriation Act, and related monstrosities like the USA-UNPatriot Act. Though no force on the planet could get me to sit still to watch four hours of streaming video, and my cynical and anarchistic old heart doesn’t believe in the constitutional governance these folks hope to restore, I think this will be interesting. Most of all, I like (in a terribly sad way, of course) the meme that these…
These days of course you couldn’t get me to v*te unless you stuck a gun in my ear. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the show. And I’ve always found it quite a show. Some of my fondest memories from childhood involve trying to keep my eyes open late-late at night as election returns trickled in. Sometimes when I couldn’t make it, Mom would wake me up around midnight to tell me who the new governor or president or senator would be. When the TV networks perfected the art of calling elections seconds after the polls closed, they ruined…
Pretty good WSJ article on the Institute for Justice. And speaking of justice (or the lack thereof), how about facing 20 years in prison for feeding whales? A businessman’s top five lessons for hard times. Thomas Jefferson and his bible. A little citywide sanity in the war on drugs. But enough good news. Here are a few of the new ways your privacy can be invaded this year. Could be worse, though. You could live in the UK. Or New York. Or you could lead a dog’s life. (H/T PT) (Tip o’ hat to MJR who has become a link-locating…
“Six certainties about the coming years. “Hope in a cold season.” Although this gives waaaaaaaaaay too much benefit of the doubt to Obama, it’s a pretty good history of how indefinite military “detention” got legalized. When times get tough the tough get a backbone. There’s nothing more dangerous than a woman with a child. (ADDED: Although this has gotten coverage in every media outlet and blog this side of Alpha Centauri, I like Joel’s take on it the best.) Dontcha sometimes feel like this? Well, not about baths, specifically. But about what lies in our future:
… in an emergency? And how helpful are you? Yesterday’s emergency drill by Jake MacGregor got me pondering that old question. In an emergency, or just generally in hard times, who helps you out and how helpful are you in turn? If you’ve lived in the same neighborhood for a long time or if you have family in your vicinity, then you’ve probably got a pretty good start on answering this question. You know from long experience who’s reliable and who’s not, who’s trustworthy and who’s not. You know who’s got certain skills or tools. You know who can keep…
(By Jake MacGregor with a few small edits/clarifications by me.) THIS IS A DRILL The following is ONLY a drill. THIS IS TO BE TREATED AS REAL BUT IS ONLY A DRILL. Situation: Last Night the European Union currency (Euro) collapsed. Overnight, markets crashed as uncertainty roiled the world. The President is set to make a closed-door address to a joint session of Congress at 11 AM Eastern. The Stock Market is closed until further notice. Banks have closed their doors with a taped-up sign reading, “Due to an Executive Order 19-173A all Banks, Credit Unions and Savings & Loans…
I have to admit it; if I were rich I’d have left the U.S. by now. Or I’d at least have prepared a nice little offshore getaway — a vacation place that would be there when the day came that it was really, really, indubitably time to escape. I’m not a rich person. You’re probably not, either. Still, we Americans are living in a country whose government (not our government, but some strange occupation force, some junta that seized power when good people and fools alike weren’t watching) has declared its authority either to assassinate us at will or “disappear”…