Before I shut down for the day to return to hermitting, here are some links I’ve been collecting for you. Never mind that this prepper is living in New York City (whotta place to be in a crunch!). Never mind that he’s going public with exactly what ought to be most private. He’s right about a lot. For the rest of us if not for himself. Long but an interesting look at insanities of the past: Allen Ginsberg (in 1966) writing about “The Great Marijuana Hoax.” “Nine Things Remarkably Successful People Never Do” by Jeff Haden and “Nine Things Successful…
Category: Miscellaneous
With the gas fireplace now officially kaput (and with queries sent to the manufacturer and the propane company), I’m huddled in an alcove between two space heaters, drinking hot coffee and eating warm comfort food.
It’s funny. Fifty-nine degrees feels perfectly decent outdoors. And considering how humans have lived for most of their history (and how some, like Joel, still live), 59 indoors is a relative luxury. Heck, electricity is a luxury. Nevertheless, I’m exercising my prerogative of feeling like a Dickens character. In the snow. Barefoot. Tubercular. Selling matches. (Or was that Hans Christian Andersen? I forget.)
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Another thing the Little Match Girl didn’t have was a DVD player. And I admit its among my very favorite escapes from the cold. And from myself when the hermitting bit gets too intense.
Over at The Zelman Partisans. I made a bare beginning on listing things I’m thankful for. I hope you’ll go on over this holiday weekend and add a few items of your own in comments. Or do that here if you’d rather. Happy Thanksgiving!
News avoidance lurches right along. Mix of nooz and think pieces today. New software (so far W*nd*ws only) aims to help activists detect and foil government surveillance. Get it here. Can’t say how effective it’s going to be, but it’s endorsed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amnesty International, and other big-timers in the field. (H/T MJR) Along the same lines, Let’s Encrypt aims to bring SSL/TSL to the masses by taking the difficulties and mysteries out of those pesky web site certificates. (Remember: Encryption is subversive! Or so our masters claim. Which is, of course, all the more reason to…
So … how are y’all enjoying the deep freeze? Seems as if it’s settling in to stay, doesn’t it? We’re just on the edge of it here in the North(currently not so)Wet — cozy compared with some of you. But it’s clear and cold and fiercely windy and I’m ready to stay indoors surrounded by space heaters. Wonder if I could teach the dogs to use the toilet? Or just encourage them to go walk in the woods by themselves? —– Though I’m still having not much darned luck with “listening to silence” (e.g. sitting meditation), this week has felt…
Emory Hospital, which has successfully treated four U.S. Ebola sufferers, shares its learnings and its protocols. (Tip o’ hat to PT) Obamacare and the part-time workforce. I know this isn’t a good thing for people who want full-time work or for people who prefer honesty and small government. But in the long run, one of the best things that could happen to health insurance is to break its artificial link to employers. Maybe O’care will eventually do that. Flu shots: actually bad for the elderly. GOA alert to gun owners about our status as “domestic terrorists.” Nothing new or surprising;…
Okay, not hermitting yet. So here are some newslinks. Just vaporware so far, but Forbes thinks cops might soon add ‘Net-connected guns to their growing arsenal of monitoring gear. Nastiest political tactic of the year: siccing SWAT teams on your opponents and critics. A southerner apologizes for bigotry. But with the southerner being Fred Reed, things don’t quite come out the way northern liberals might wish. Nooz you can use (if you’re really into alternative housing): grain-bin homes. (I love the stuccoed one, but I’d like to know how you keep these things from getting hotter than the hinges of…
PayPal the Terrible I won’t go into detail about how my PayPal account became overdrawn.* It was a mistake (not mine). The mistake-maker assured me the problem was resolved days ago. PayPal being PayPal, though, what’s “resolved” on one end may not be on the other. So there’s a $50 negative balance and nobody will fix it. That means I can’t use my account. No problem. Hey, I’ll just add money. There’s a handy-dandy button for that. But suddenly, for me, the button yields only a variety of bizarre messages (“talk to the person responsible for setting permissions on your…
Just in case you ever wanted to become a crooked psychic/fortune-teller/medium … or in case you’d like to explain to a gullible relative how not to be so easily conned, here’s how cold reading is done. Wow. Sometimes using stupid passwords could be a good thing. Might have saved this young woman’s life. (But ohboy, OnStar, what a fail!) The Centers for Anything But Disease Control. Michelle Malkin lists just a few of the “diseases” the CDC has spent its billions on. I don’t intend to make this the all-Ebola all-the-time blog because I do think the fear is overblown…
The FBI’s report on mass shootings … doesn’t actually report on mass shootings. So says John Lott. Attorney wants to overturn the “machine-gun ban” and then take on the NFA. In four days, he’s more than half funded. (Via David Codrea) Blogs are 20 years old now. That’s older than dinosaurs in ‘Net time. (H/T JB) Robinson Jeffers handcrafted stone cottage. Just because. (This strikes me as a very apt sort of thing for a poet to do. H/T A.G.) They were Irish and they were slaves. Where are our reparations???