{"id":3539,"date":"2010-12-27T03:30:37","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T10:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=3539"},"modified":"2010-12-27T03:30:37","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T10:30:37","slug":"monday-miscellany-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/27\/monday-miscellany-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Post-Christmas! Happy Pre-New Year! I hope your holidays are being wonderful. Mine are &#8212; in large part thanks to you.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>So in the belated Christmas cheer department &#8230; Serious side: Teenager Jeremy Marks, one of the most cosmically abused victims of the &#8220;don&#8217;t you dare photograph police, you scrofulous peasants&#8221; scam, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.laweekly.com\/2010-12-16\/news\/jeremy-marks-bailed-out\/\" target=\"_blank\">was bailed out by a good Samaritan<\/a> in time to spend Christmas with his family. The generous Google engineer who got him out of jail also contributed some extra money toward a Merry Christmas. Silly side: Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangerousminds.net\/comments\/the_star_wars_george_lucas_doesnt_want_you_to_see_the_1978_star_wars_h\/\" target=\"_blank\">most ghastly Christmas special<\/a> of all time. I doubt there&#8217;s a human being alive (and not on some seriously mind-altering substance) who could sit through its entire two-hour length. But even if you just watch the opening and a few snippets, it&#8217;ll probably stick in your mind for the rest of your days. Um &#8230; might want to keep that in mind before you take so much as a peek at it.\n<li>No surprise: Those &#8220;safe&#8221; porno-scanners <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2010\/12\/23\/tsa-has-no-regular-t.html\" target=\"_blank\">aren&#8217;t subject to any safety inspections<\/a>. Or standards. And the DHS has been &#8230; the no-surprise continues &#8230; lying through its black and crooked teeth about the alleged certifications.\n<li>More on a Googler &#8212; actually a former Googler &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/TECH\/web\/12\/24\/ex.google.employees\/\" target=\"_blank\">doing good<\/a>. For privacy this time.\n<li>I don&#8217;t get it . Why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/local\/breaking_news\/2010\/12\/college_student_2.html\" target=\"_blank\">was this young man arrested<\/a>? Isn&#8217;t that the way passengers are <i>supposed<\/i> to be treated these days? Oh. Wait. I see. It&#8217;s another case of &#8220;government hates the competition.&#8221;\n<li>Another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Wv49RFo1ckQ\" target=\"_blank\">fabulous short video<\/a> via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">LewRockwell.com<\/a>. This one is &#8212; truly, truly &#8212; &#8220;for the children.&#8221; I&#8217;ve watched it half a dozen times. Can&#8217;t get enough of it.\n<li>While back, when I asked for ideas on what to do with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/2010\/11\/20\/pellets-that-arent\/\">defunct and crumbling stove pellets<\/a>, Keith from North Idaho suggested making fire starters out of them. At the time I wasn&#8217;t inclined to do that, but when I realized how expensive those puppies have become, I changed my mind. Some of the ex-pellets will be put to other uses. But upon Googling (actually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startpage.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">StartPaging for greater privacy<\/a>), I discovered that fire starters are super-easy to make, and can be created out of all manner of materials &#8230; old crayons and candles, for instance, mixed with dryer lint or sawdust. More <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ehow.com\/how_18193_make-fire-starters.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.associatedcontent.com\/article\/394886\/make_your_own_outdoor_fire_starters.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.food.com\/bb\/viewtopic.zsp?t=200774&#038;sid=ef167280f8919e6c35cb0a7c40c91c1b\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.\n<\/ul>\n<p>Over this laid-back weekend I&#8217;ve been feasting on dried apricots, watching DVDs, reading, and treating the pups to sessions with their brand-new dog toys &#8212; among other things. One book I&#8217;m reading is better than I anticipated: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0385529090?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=livifree07-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0385529090\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian<\/i><\/a> is a memoir by Avi Steinberg, a rootless young man who stumbled into a job in a Boston prison. His account is funny, heartbreaking, scary, well-written, and above all an insightful glimpse into prison life and culture. I can see why this one&#8217;s getting a lot of attention. <\/p>\n<p>Next up on my reading list: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0393048470?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=livifree07-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0393048470\" target=\"_blank\"><i>The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition<\/i><\/a> (thank you, D&#038;K!). I read an earlier, less comprehensive, version years ago. <i>Alice in Wonderland<\/i> and <i>Through the Looking Glass<\/i> have looked better ever since. Can&#8217;t wait to delve into this expanded and beautifully crafted volume.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Post-Christmas! Happy Pre-New Year! I hope your holidays are being wonderful. Mine are &#8212; in large part thanks to you. So in the belated Christmas cheer department &#8230; Serious side: Teenager Jeremy Marks, one of the most cosmically abused victims of the &#8220;don&#8217;t you dare photograph police, you scrofulous peasants&#8221; scam, was bailed out by a good Samaritan in time to spend Christmas with his family. The generous Google engineer who got him out of jail also contributed some extra money toward a Merry Christmas. Silly side: Here&#8217;s the most ghastly Christmas special of all time. I doubt there&#8217;s&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/27\/monday-miscellany-23\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Monday miscellany<\/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":[6,11,18,19,23,26,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-and-technology","category-government","category-mind-and-spirit","category-miscellaneous","category-thuggery-and-bad-law","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\/3539","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=3539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}