{"id":3027,"date":"2010-11-20T07:52:58","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T14:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=3027"},"modified":"2010-11-20T07:52:58","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T14:52:58","slug":"a-saturday-compilation-of-useful-useless-and-generally-interesting-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/20\/a-saturday-compilation-of-useful-useless-and-generally-interesting-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"A Saturday compilation of useful, useless, and generally interesting stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oftwominds.com\/blognov10\/going-thru-motions11-10.html\" target=\"_blank\">Just going through the motions.<\/a>\n<li>Even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.redstate.com\/erick\/2010\/11\/18\/another-tsa-outrage\/\" target=\"_blank\">more moronic than we thought.<\/a> (Tip o&#8217; hat to <a href=\"http:\/\/theultimateanswertokings.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Joel<\/a> and Jim B.)\n<li>But they <a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/18\/tsa-hand-work-in-the-new-york-times\/\" target=\"_blank\">sure do seem to enjoy their jobs.<\/a>\n<li>Man <a href=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/2010\/11\/man-lets-house-go-into-foreclosure-over-25-fee.html\" target=\"_blank\">lets house go into foreclosure<\/a> over $25 fee. Cutting off face to spite nose? Or method to his madness? Me, I think it&#8217;s clear he&#8217;s not doing it over the fee, but for the principle of the thing: because the bank did him wrong and now won&#8217;t even acknowledge him as a human being and a customer.\n<li>Companion piece: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/article\/just-when-you-thought-you-knew-something-about-mortgage-securitizations\" target=\"_blank\">Just when you thought you understood mortgage securitization.<\/a>\n<li>A few months ago, the great people at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flexyourrights.org\" target=\"_blank\">FlexYourRights.org<\/a> sent me a review copy of their DVD <i>10 Rules for Dealing with Police<\/i>. Life took some turns and I didn&#8217;t get around to reviewing it. But it&#8217;s a good one. And <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/rights\/148860\/10_ways_to_outfox_cops_that_are_abusing_their_powers_to_trick_you\/?page=entire\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s a good review of it<\/a>, complete with all 10 rules.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tonic.com\/article\/the-oddest-couple-in-the-world\/\" target=\"_blank\">Awwwwww.<\/a>\n<li>Okay. I&#8217;m Irish-hyphen-American. I care about what&#8217;s happening over there &#8212; even aside from what Ireland&#8217;s voracious bankers and idiot politicians might do to the Euro or the European union. My ancestors fled a sad, sad nation with a long history of defeating itself when it&#8217;s not being thoroughly beaten up by somebody else. It was <i>obviously<\/i> too good to be true when poor, fey little Ireland became the &#8220;Celtic Tiger&#8221; in the 1980s and 90s. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/newspaper\/opinion\/2010\/1118\/1224283626246.html\" target=\"_blank\">This <i>Irish Times<\/i> editorial<\/a> poignantly says it all.\n<li>If you&#8217;re not up on your Irish history, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Easter_rebellion\" target=\"_blank\">this is what that editorial means<\/a> by the &#8220;men of 1916.&#8221; Bunch of silly damn poetic fools (and unpopular ones, to boot) who tried to overthrow a government and got themselves executed for their heroic folly &#8212; and in dying accomplished what hundreds of years of (sometimes) better organized rebellions had failed to do.\n<li>Don&#8217;t worry. Here in the U.S. we won&#8217;t suffer food-price inflation as much as some parts of the world will. Because &#8230; um, there&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/morgan-stanley-heres-why-half-world-suffers-food-price-inflation-while-america-doesnt-2010-11\" target=\"_blank\">less actual food in our food.<\/a>\n<li>We&#8217;re having our first really cold, dank, gray weather. Snow threatens. Suddenly I discover that, with baseboard electric heaters cranking hard, I can get my new-old house up to a grand, whopping, toasty 60 degrees. And the semi-functioning pellet stove devours fuel at an alarming rate, so that might not be much help in the long run. Research! Time to research! Found (among other things) <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelbluejay.com\/electricity\/howmuch.html\" target=\"_blank\">this commonsense site<\/a> for understanding electric power usage. Didn&#8217;t answer all my questions. But a good site nonetheless.\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just going through the motions. Even more moronic than we thought. (Tip o&#8217; hat to Joel and Jim B.) But they sure do seem to enjoy their jobs. Man lets house go into foreclosure over $25 fee. Cutting off face to spite nose? Or method to his madness? Me, I think it&#8217;s clear he&#8217;s not doing it over the fee, but for the principle of the thing: because the bank did him wrong and now won&#8217;t even acknowledge him as a human being and a customer. Companion piece: Just when you thought you understood mortgage securitization. A few months ago,&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/20\/a-saturday-compilation-of-useful-useless-and-generally-interesting-stuff\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Saturday compilation of useful, useless, and generally interesting stuff<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,19,20,26,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-movies","category-government","category-miscellaneous","category-money","category-practical-freedom","category-privacy-and-self-ownership","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}