The Boy Scouts: doing their best to close the gender gap. (Yeah, don’t ask me how that became their mission.) By Eagle Scout Jim Bovard. And don’t even get my friendly local Scout leaders started on the Michelle Obama-inspired (recently) new requirements for the cooking badge. Where’d the fun go? Any kid who had to learn cooking that way would probably avoid the kitchen for the rest of his life. You want to be treated with dignity? Behave with dignity. (Via ML who, like me, doesn’t agree with all Ringer’s points but thinks the overall piece is spot on.) Six…
Category: War
Two from The Atlantic: “The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous.” Science and addiction treatment. Long but interesting. And just for laughs: “The Confused Person’s Guide to Middle East Conflicts.” With the Saudi-Iran cold war about to go hot over Yemen, perhaps this’ll help us appear well-informed.
The Lt. Gov. of Texas asked the Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System to weigh in on campus carry of firearms. Pretty good response (pdf) for a bureaucrat. He nails the central issue: trust. (H/T LarryA) The legalization of pot and “drugged” drivers who aren’t. The rich and the poor. Which in this case also seems to extend to the powerful and the powerless. They both cheat but from very different motives. Bovard on Obama’s rosy belief that the U.S. can squander its way to prosperity. The Freedom Feens say that effective libertarians (blush) study Claire Wolfe. (That one…
Again, this is the opinion of a friend who wishes to remain anonymous. The following is not by me.
—–begin anon message, part II—–
I am not Charlie Hebdo, because I know that free speech is a lie. The Constitution is a dead letter, and I am a coward.
Charlie Hebdo published offensive speech that was found by a court of law to be worthy of protection. The speakers were killed.
Anwar al-Awlaki published offensive speech, and was killed. He was denied a day in court, and simply murdered.
I don’t want to be killed. I want to work for peace, but I’m not going to stick my head up and invite extremely well-armed people to shoot at me, no matter what costume they wear.
I did not write the following. It was sent to me by a friend who has concluded that free speech is now such a myth that anonymity is the only protection. These are my friend’s opinions. Because they’re long, I’ll split this into two parts and run them on successive days.
—–begin anon text—–
… for the long, idle post-celebration hours ahead. In The Atlantic James Fallows writes about “The Tragedy of the American Military”. How we can reflexively say, “Thank you for your service” and claim that all soldiers are heroes — precisely because most of us are so removed from the realities of their lives, their missions, and the management of military matters. The German ‘zine Spiegel Online goes inside the NSA for an educated guess about what types of encryption the NSA has broken, which it’s working on, and which are so far safe from its prying eyes. Both articles are…
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…
Wouldn’t you just know it? Wouldn’t you just? As soon as domestic drones even start looking like they could be a nuisance, somebody comes up with this: Drone Shield. Yes, indeedy, you to can keep the paparazzi and other airborne vermin away. Fancy that! But look who all is in the list of potential clients — a veritable roster of the crony capitalist police state. Pity. (H/T MJR.) —– People laughed earlier this summer when big-time columnist Maureen Dowd tried her first cannabis, did it unwisely, and wrote about feeling like she was dying. They thought she was making a…
Yesterday Mike Vanderboegh re-printed a classic that I’d missed first time around even though it riffs on a classic of my own — asking that ever-pertinent question, “When is it time?”
Mike uses the sorry example of the Weimar German Reichsbanner to show how even the prepared can tragically fail to act when the day comes. The Reichsbanner were a military group sworn to protect the Weimar Republic against an anticipated Nazi coup. But when Hitler rose to power they did … nothing.
They were waiting for a signal from a leader. And for various reasons, they waited. And waited.
—–
This got me thinking about the differences in packs vs herds vs lone individuals.
The more powerful people are, the more time they perceive they have. Interesting. And an insight into why some of us always feel as if we’re scrambling just to keep up! And here’s the schedule those successful people follow. This came up at Joel’s place the other day. I think it was MJR who linked it. In any case, it’s cool in more ways than one — poor man’s air conditioning. Hm. Jeffrey Snider also goes on (as I recently did) about how seventeenth century England made such a difference to Americans. Then he goes on. And on. About modern-day…