Inside Her Majesty’s Listening Service. Britain’s GCHQ, NSA’s partner in crime. (H/T JG) Are Bitcoins really just two-bit tulips? Arizona city to checkpoint operators: Get out of town. “Where’s their nerve? Today’s comics mock poop, not the powerful.” Truth. Well spoken. The 15 best movies that didn’t win Oscars. Some good ones in there.
Category: Rural and small-town living
Life far from freeways, Starbucks, malls, and other benefits/distractions
Since we’ve been on the subject of writers lately: here’s Megan McArdle on why writers are the worst procrastinators. This isn’t really just about writers, but about fear of failure and the recent “special snowflake” self-esteem generation. And this column about how to get a job at Google isn’t really about how to get a job at Google, either. It’s about creativity. Adaptability. And other good things. Good news for all you who listened to (or played) too much loud rock-n-roll. A cure for noise-induced hearing loss may be on the horizon All hope is not lost. Hungry cougar stalks…
Boy, this working for a living stuff is hard. Stimulating, challenging, often fun, and a great way to break a long financial drought. But hard.
This afternoon for the first time in quite a while, I was able to wrap up work before meandering in the woods with the dogs. Brilliantly sunny day — and we’ve had more of those than any winter I can ever remember here. I’m sorry for you in the east suffering all those Bad Boy winter storms (Zeus or Giorgio or Henri-Claude or whatever they’re calling them, these days). I’m sorry for you Californians facing a dangerously dry summer. But here? Glorious!
Anyhow, so instead of charging out and back for the sake of doggie exercise and canine elimination needs, I actually rambled. Meandered. I might have even managed a few minutes of strolling. It was amazing. Really.
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And now I’m just rambling here. Just writing down whatever comes to mind. These little verbal expeditions tend to embarrass me, but they also draw a lot of thoughtful, touching comment. Which is I guess at least part of what this blog ought to be about. It’s one of the best feature’s of Joel’s blog, that he just exposes all those warts and lets you visit him inside the Secret Lair on good days and bad.
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Still, other things go on in the world.
I took the dogs for a walk downtown yesterday afternoon. Passing a vacant house, I noticed an awful lot of water on its patio. Normally, that’s not unusual, this being the NorthWET, but it hasn’t done more than sprinkle the last couple of days. I poked around and sure enough, not only was the house sitting in a lake; I could hear ominous gushing noises inside the walls. I went up on the back porch to knock just in case. Water rushed under the door and over the dogs’ toes. City Hall is just a few blocks away, so I…
Yesterday was … a day. It was a Monday that fell on a Tuesday and a Friday the 13th that fell on the 29th. Yeah, that kind. Or maybe it wasn’t really so bad but my hermitty, deadlining writer self just doesn’t deal well with the particular type of chaos that involves people in and out of the house all day, asking questions, wanting to chat, making alarming saw, hammer, and cuss noises, and hauling mounds of deconstruction rubble through my living room. All for one little ex-bathroom. But bathrooms are complicated, and therein lies where I got to look…
“Dogs are people, too.” At least in their abilities to feel and anticipate — something that will come as no surprise to anybody who’s lived with them, but is apparently news in neuroscience. (Tip o’ hat to MLS) Federal theater of the absurd. (I also agree with Carl that the Crazy Horse monument is so superior to Mt. Rushmore in every way that even after the silly feddies remove the barriers I’d still just drive on past and watch free enterprise at work a few miles down the road.) Erm … I don’t usually read Glamour. But I found this…
In addition to all the other “joys” you’ve been reading about Obamacare and its Three Stooges rollout, here’s this from a local guy. His family business has always provided great benefits despite employing just six people (and some of them part time). He writes: 1. I have always provided employee healthcare. Always. 2. Currently, we have a high deductible, health savings plan that in addition to paying 75% of the premiums, we fund a good chunk of money into their savings account each month. It works. Our employees like it. They have saved up money over the years. They don’t…
We were all probably hoping and thinking that Glenn Greenwald and his partner David Miranda weren’t behaving stupidly while sending/transporting Snowden documents over international borders. Alas, perhaps they were. Even if you’re in major anti-news mode, you’ve probably heard about or seen Miley Cyrus’ grotesque “twerking” performance a few days back. The ‘Net has been full of tsking about the way “Hannah Montana” turned on her little-girl fans with her crude display of sexuality. But everybody’s missing the point, you see. It’s not that Cyrus’ performance was over-sexualized. It’s that it was racist! Yes. Seriously. Racist. I think this sets…
I’ve been saving some of these for a week or more. So if you’ve seen a few before bear with me. Chaos is gradually receding. But gradually … NYPD refuses to answer questions about how they (and Bloomberg) pointed firearms at an innocent audience. “At war with the concept of secrecy itself.” ‘Nother good one from Tom Knapp. The Free State Wyoming project has a brand new forum hosted by my old friends at the Mental Militia. (UPDATE: Please see Mama Liberty’s correction in comments. The new Wyoming Mavericks forum has no official connection with the FSW.) “23 signs you’re…
You know that constant busy-ness that’s afflicted (or blessed) me since late spring? It culminates this week. Specifically tomorrow. After that, though there’s another week or two of “heightened activity”* as the folks at the NSA-CIA-DHS like to say, it is done. I can go back to being my usual slug-lazy self** and poke around on the Tubz for good (and bad) stuff to blog. But look for the blog to have a couple of quiet days. Of which today was one. Tomorrow will probably be even quieter. So I count on the Commentariat to pick up the flag and…