With Jake MacGregor on hiatus, what’s to read, what’s to read? Well, until Jake’s adventures re-commence (and even afterward), there’s Sandy Sandfort’s The Resurrections of Robert Heinlein. This is a Smashwords book, available in every conceivable electronic format. You can buy. But you can read the first 75 percent for free in most formats. Definitely a good read for Heinlein fans. —– For watching, here’s Jim Bovard doing his dissing of federal job-training programs on MSNBC. Jeez, Jim looks more like a surly eccentric hermit than I do. (I am neither balding nor bearded, thank the fates.) But he talks…
Category: War on Some Drugs
I wasn’t going to mark today. The tragedy for the 3,000 and their families and friends is beyond unspeakable. But we have to speak of it — ceaselessly — because the horror was delivered with such drama. And with such convenience for those who crave to rule. We don’t hold week-long “all mourning all the time” media events for the 100,000 who die in the U.S. each year from the effects of prescription drugs. Or the tens of thousands killed in pointless political wars. Why are we supposed to believe that those are lesser tragedies? Did those victims somehow suffer…
People sometimes ask how I feel to be writing for S.W.A.T. magazine. Am I conflicted? Hooboy, am I. The short version of the reason I write for S.W.A.T. is that Rich Lucibella, the publisher, is more stubborn than I am. The slightly longer version is that I have the utmost respect for both Rich and Denny Hansen, S.W.A.T.’s long-time editor. I think Rich and I are pretty much attuned, philosophically. Denny and I … not always so. But he puts up with me in gentlemanly fashion and both guys have always been wonderful to work with. Both are also men…
… that these two hail from Freedom, Pennsylvania. The detective who busted them ought to get himself a life. And a different job. I’ll be surprised if this holds up in court.
First they came for the … One of the hardest things about living in a police state is watching other people be crushed by state power and feeling unable to do a thing about it. We read Pastor Neimoeller’s famous lines as a warning to ourselves. But really, there’s not much chance of heeding the warning in a way that changes anything — except perhaps for the worse. If the police state is as ruthless (and as popular among the citizens) as Hitler’s, speaking out is only likely to get the speaker rounded up along with all the other “enemies…
I’m deadlining this week and into next. So a couple of blog entries I’ve been noodling may have to wait. One was to be about attitudes of independence. Rather than making you wait, then drowning you in prose, I thought it might brighten your day (and seriously compress your reading time!) to have the great links I planned to build the story around. Here goes: Windfall. And its backstory. What do you do when your neighbor’s storm-fallen tree creates havoc in your backyard? Stop calling them victims! says a woman who created a summer of joy for herself and her…
I said I was going to de-focus on bad news and its attendant blogistic knee-jerking. But once in a while the reality checks are too stunning to ignore. Here’s how bad it’s getting: The U.S. Department of Education sends a S.W.A.T team to kick down a door and terrorize a family — for defaulted student loans. (NOTE: Original link is now 404. Thanks to dsd in the comments, here’s another link, with photos. Check his other links, too.) Facebook is at it again. Keep your photos OUT of Facebook, guys. How you’re going to prevent Granny or your best buddy…
If you want to commemorate the honorable dead this weekend, you might join (in spirit or in fact) the OathKeepers muster for Jose Guerena, the young ex-Marine murdered by cops while trying to protect his family from vicious home invaders. The muster will take place in Tucson on Monday. When the SWATting of non-violent drug offenders (which Guerna was not) and gun owners (which he was) ceases, OathKeepers (both the members of the organization and those cops who finally recognize the unlawfulness of what they’ve been doing and stand by their oaths) will deserve everyone’s honor — hopefully not only…
“Confessions of a Spendaholic.” How to curb compulsive spending. (And that’s not just for people who have closets full of shoes they never wear. Even thrift-store impulses can bite you. Ask me how I know.) Turns out that drug-dog and bomb-dog handlers are unconsciously signaling the animals to produce false positives. That’s aside from the ones who do it deliberately. ADDED: Radley Balko has more on this study and others that show how cop-canine interaction is used to hurt the innocent. “Dogs must be banned from all public places!” (Never fear: spoken with tongue firmly in cheek.) Still, the Brits…
I’ve been working on a followup to last November’s blog “Defending Boundaries” (or, as I originally typoed it, “Definding Boundaries”). Will try to have that later in the week. But today I’ve accepted an invitation from a friend to go to the Big City. Not just the local Big City with the Wal-Mart (population 10,000 or so), but a real big city. Where I get to do something I’ve never done before — visit an Ikea store. Since I’ve always loved Scandinavian furniture, this could be dangerous — even aside from what friends assure me are the many other addictive…