Press "Enter" to skip to content

Category: Poly-Ticks

Those blood-sucking vermin in state and national capitals and city halls everywhere

Weekend links

Mostly not nooz. 🙂 Think your way to stronger muscles. (No doubt has a lot of applications beyond muscles, too.) (Formerly) dying man says adopted stray dog — that he didn’t even want — helped cure his cancer. It’s not really news that religious people are happier than us non-religious. Question is, are they happier because of something about their religion or are they happier because they’re the sort of people who don’t poke and prod at every extraordinary claim, the sort who just accept the word of their chosen authority and get on with life? Yes, Christmas Eve was…

14 Comments

Meanwhile over at TZP

Vladka Peltel has those I wish I didn’t care about politics blues. She’s talking about this season’s billionaire disarm-the-peasants dream, Washington state Initiative 594 (which I agree inspires even my anti-v*ting soul to want to get out and you-know-what). If you don’t live in Washington and think I-594 doesn’t affect you, take another look. Win or lose, it affects us all. (And yes, this is politics and nooz and if it weren’t from TZP, I wouldn’t be linking it. Never fear, I’m also working on a post about hermitting, knitting, candlelight, and the veil between worlds. Coming soon.)

15 Comments

Monday links

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…

14 Comments

Tuesday links

Security Theater of the Absurd: petitioners want to have CopBlock declared a terrorist group. Why “everybody” is moving to Texas. The reasons given are as facile as the assumption in the title, so apply grains of salt. But other state governments could learn some lessons from Texas — not that they would. So, John Tamny, how do you propose to make that last paragraph of yours a reality? In falling empires, and overripe civilizations everything becomes political. Who (or what) killed adulthood? This article is mostly by and for young women, but the phenomenon it describes is too real for…

8 Comments

Monday links

“The boy who invented email.” Wonder why more of us don’t know this. When “experts” had dismissed it as too difficult, a precocious 14-year-old invented email. Love this from Brigid: stripper clips and “Lab” dances. More snoopery? No problem. More privacy tools. Haven’t really been a fan of Rand Paul’s (for the usual “he’s not Ron” reasons). But this is a good guy. SNL thinks Obama is nothing to laugh at. Do all languages derive from a common ancestor? Finally, via Keith in a comment over at Joel’s Gulch, here’s a funny for ya. The Expert. If you’ve been in…

6 Comments

Wednesday links

Safe spaces. Why not for geeks, too? Safe spaces for gun owners? Anarchists? Oh, the possibilities … So if you like both kale and bacon, does that make you a libertarian? (Via Alphecca) Oh, Kevin Wilmeth. Ouch. Only in The Onion: “The pros and cons of militarizing the police.” (Stolen from Wendy.) I think Egyptian officials are having a little fun at our expense. Not sure whether this is high-tech creepy or just Cold Warish enough to be weird. Gov’t listens in on scientists listening to marine life and … well, it’s complicated. (H/T H.) You have the right to…

7 Comments

You have “near-zero” influence on U.S. policy

Yeah, I know this actually came out last spring. But in this iteration of the news they keep using the word “startling.” Somebody is actually startled by this??? It’s rather like being startled by the sun rising in the east. A chancre turning out to be syphilitic. Or a politician lying. Still the study (early draft here) could be worth sharing with your “vote-to-make-a-difference” friends. Full study due out this fall, so we’re not months behind the news here; we’re months ahead of the next round of shock! Dismay! And we must DO SOMETHING about this! (H/T MtK)

6 Comments

Links that say a lot about the USA

This story is about the best and brightest leaving Russia. It has nothing to do with the U.S. — except that my email brings me daily reports about American ex-pats that sound just like this. “The leader of the unfree world.” Not long ago, this sort of privilege, with its cruel disregard for the “little people,” was granted only to puffed-up Oriental potentates and pashas in lands of the notably unfree. You already knew you were a terrorist in the eyes of “your” democratic, representative, passionately liberty-loving, and devoutly transparent government. Now read the criteria, such as they are, secretly…

6 Comments

Monday links

Fellow BHM blogger Massad Ayoob asks whether Joseph Wilcox did the right thing, and provokes an interesting discussion. Is anybody surprised by the latest creepiness from F*c*b**k? And why do so many people not get that when the service is free, you’re not the customer; you’re the product? Kevin D. Williamson: Politics pays. …and ushers in the the Age of Oligarchy. Hornady — bless its bullet-shaped little heart — has style. When Amish get rich. The Supremes side (narrowly) with religious liberty over Obamacare.

11 Comments