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Jeff Berwick’s take on the strange public “disappearing” of Adam Kokesh.

You’d think that, with every public thing now being videotaped, the thug class would, at minimum, become more careful and cagey. Instead, they’re ramping up their violence and their sheer, bloody brazenness.

Good. This means they’re scared. (And scared of activists who are, after all, people who are still hopeful enough to ask Massah to relent just a tiny bit.) Bad. For the reasons expressed in Berwick’s headline.

Anybody hereabouts in contact with Kokesh?

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Posted in Official thuggery, bad prosecutions, and bad law, Resistance | 11 Comments »

• Well, isn’t that cozy? A top Obama donor is the founder and CEO of a company that will soon control about one half of all medical data on Americans.
• She’s 85. Just graduated from college. And already has herself a job.
• Ray Manzarek is dead. Jim Morrison might have gotten most of the press, but Manzarek was the real genius behind the haunting sound of The Doors.
• “Some of my best friends are germs.” Long, but fascinating. Maybe a leisurely weekend read.(H/T S)
• You see the wonderful thing about equality for women? We get equal opportunities for political corruption — and equal opportunities for paid vacations when we’re caught being bad. Boy, now that’s progress.
• “America isn’t Greece. Not yet.” Another reminder of the value of good old System D. (Tip o’ hat to JG)
• Two books I’m hearing very good word about: Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West (an incredible story about a man who was born in one of those hellish prison camps and didn’t even have the concept of freedom as we know it); and Denied a Chance: How gun control helped a stalker murder my husband.

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Posted in Books and Movies, Computers, Government, Guns and Gun Rights, Health, Miscellaneous | 7 Comments »

I know this is breaking news, which means it’s subject to every error and wild speculation. But this is weird.

The FBI is “questioning” a man (and apparently has him in their custody and control, according to another person they were also “questioning”). They’ve gone to the man’s apartment in the middle of the night (or “Wednesday morning after midnight” in the Orwellian way these things are put now).

And after some substantial long time of having control over him for this “questioning,” they kill him? They shoot him to death?

Yeah. Weird.

Name was Ibragim Todashev. Friend of Boston bomber Tamarlan Tsarnaev.

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Posted in Miscellaneous | 16 Comments »

A friend and I got to talking about the deeper implications of Cody Wilson’s “alarming” achievement (which, naturally, has already been trumped and will soon be trump-trump-trump-trumped ad infinitum).

My friend said that the real achievements will be in 3D-printed firing mechanisms and make-at-home-and-throw-away magazines. (Perhaps he’ll come here and give a more thorough explanation than I just did.)

As far as firearms go, that may be correct. But he got me thinking about the broader, long-term implications of 3D printing. Cory Doctorow speculated about that clear back in 2006 in his short story “Printcrime.” (Amazing foresight there, CD.)

So the question for today is: Will 3D printing do for physical objects what the Internet has done for communications? To wit: What will happen to patents and trademarks? Will this lead to a vast decentralization (right down to home-workshop level) of manufacturing of everything from toasters to automobiles? How will governments and mega-corps fight against the technology (as you know they will)? Will there be a huge burst of creativity as high-tech “tinkerers” get their hands on ever-more-affordable printers and open-source plans? Will innovators get screwed over by opportunists? Will there be greater prosperity as the price of thousands of objects drops? Or higher prices and political repression? What products will be most changed? Where will we be with this five years from now? Ten? Twenty-five?

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Posted in Guns and Gun Rights, Privacy and self ownership, Resistance | 21 Comments »

• Lessons from the singing spaceman (and a reminder of how only NASA could ever have made outer space so darned dull).
• Beretta says bye-bye Maryland.
• The Lulz Liberator. This one was made on a cheaper printer, fired multiple shots, and has a rifled barrel. Nope, you really can’t stop the signal.
• “We’ve comforted ourselves in all of this with the belief that, while government might potentially have all of this power, it would rarely use it or that, when it did, its use would be well-intentioned and circumscribed. Plus we had rules and systems to stop any abuse: The Bill of Rights, the due process clause, oversight by the media and courts, the two-party system, and strong procedural requirements.” Ha ha ha ha ha.
• “Even billionaires keep their mouths shut.” John Kass recalls how he learned about Chicago-style politics. (We’re all living in Chicago now.)
• Gold markets rigged? This time, even respectable Barrons admits gold bugs have a point.
• Yeah, what Kent said on Kokesh’s armed march. And on Kokesh’s kidnapping-by-cop”.
• I do find it odd, though, that in all this flapdoodle about Kokesh’s proposed armed march on DC, not one person has mentioned that the same thing was tried not so long ago in even more radical form. Big hoo-hah over it then, too. But that was in the Fidonet days when hoo-hahs didn’t make so much noise in the wider world. Linda Thompson. Ms “Acting Adjutant General” indeed …
• ADDED: Awesome. And a high school girl did it.

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Posted in Government, Guns and Gun Rights, Miscellaneous, Money, Privacy and self ownership, Resistance | 12 Comments »

Great piece from the great Paul Rosenberg. Smuggling as free trade and a boon to mankind. Which may be why the history books don’t like to talk about it?

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Posted in Money, Privacy and self ownership, Resistance | 4 Comments »

Funny how freedomista books can turn up out of the blue, disguised as something else. Two such landed in my hold box at the library this week.

I went online, searching for the parody The Dangerous Book for Dogs. In the mysterious ways of the library’s search engine, the words “dangerous” and “dogs” popped up a few other titles, as well. Children’s books. Hm, I thought.

Pretty soon both Dangerous and two other titles were waiting for me. While I expected to be just mildly entertained (because a good kid’s book is a good book, and usually easy on the brain), I was blown away by a pair of freedomista stories.

—–

The first is A Dog Called Grk.

Grk is a small black-and-white mutt found in the streets of London by independent 12-year-old Timothy Malt. Tim’s fussy, workaholic parents won’t even let him bring the dog in their house, and when they learn that Grk’s owner, a 12-year-old girl named Natascha Raffifi, has left London and returned to her native Stanislavia (an obscure nation somewhere near Russia), they determine to take the dog to a kill shelter.

Tim, who has a finely developed sense of right and wrong, decides that’s quite wrong. What’s right is to return Grk to young Natascha, no matter where she may be. So off he goes with the dog to Stanislavia. He is undeterred in his efforts to restore the dog to her — even when he learns that the girl and her family have been arrested by the evil Colonel Zinfandel, who has overthrown Stanislavia’s government. Zinfandel now holds the girl and her brother in prison and unbeknownst to them has killed their parents.

Tim lets nothing stop him — not Authority, not border crossing procedures, not carefully staged governmental PR events, not even the fact that flying a real helicopter isn’t exactly like “flying” one via computer simulation.

Adults will recognize … well, a certain lack of regard for reality. Kids should have a blast. And there were a couple of scenes that, if they appeared in a more conventional, explicit freedom novel, would have you cheering the courage and integrity of the characters. What the heck; they’re worth a cheer here, also.

A Dog Called Grk turns out to be book one of a growing series of comic adventure books featuring Tim, Grk, Natascha, and her older brother Max. And I say let me at ‘em!

—–

The second book is entirely different. Stormy is hyper-realistic. It’s also old enough to be called a classic. It was originally published in 1959, the 46th (and final) novel by outdoorsman and children’s author Jim Kjelgaard.

Kjelgaard (whose most famous work was Big Red, which became a Disney movie) believed you should never talk down to children, that in fact you had to live up to their expectations. And he does in this ultimate guy book.

Teenager Allan Marley is living alone in subartic wilderness. He and his father once earned their living guiding hunters who came to their lodge. But now his hot-tempered father is in prison for nearly beating a neighbor to death, and the neighbor’s vengeful family has cut off vehicle access to the lodge so hunters no longer come. Allan survives by hunting, fishing, and raising his own crops. He earns money by trapping and selling pelts, but his funds are rapidly diminishing.

Then, as winter sets in, early and harsh, Allan discovers a magnificent mixed-breed retriever, wounded (but dauntless) in the snow and ice. He learns that the dog is an “outlaw,” to be shot on sight for having attacked its last master. But Allan quickly realizes the dog, which he names Stormy, is not vicious at all, but an independent soul like himself, whose trust must be won and who will tolerate no mistreatment.

One of the things I enjoyed about Stormy is that, even though Allan interacts frequently with people in the nearby town, including authority figures like the local game warden, no one ever questions his right to be on his own or suggests that he needs any help or care. Everyone — including Allan himself — implicitly understands that he’s perfectly capable.

The novel is as much survival manual as story; you may get more information about wilderness living than you really want to know. But there are valuable lessons here, including think rationally and don’t panic even when a situation looks dire. Oh, and there’s a decent, if thin, plot in there, too.

Stormy is available via Amazon, but you can also read it free online via Project Gutenberg Canada.

—–

The Dangerous Book for Dogs (a comic twist on the famous Dangerous Book for Boys) turned out to be entertaining — anything from howlingly funny to mildly lame and doggily gross. But A Dog Called Grk and Stormy were the real prizes of the week’s book haul.

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Posted in Books and Movies, Dogs, Preparedness | 10 Comments »

• “Sovereignty without Territoriality?” (H/T Hobbit)
• Anybody seen Mud yet? A friend recommended it glowingly and it’s at 98% on RottenTomatoes.com — almost unheard of for a live-action feature.
• Become your very own spy agency with these secret! NSA! Google! Tips! (Creepy, and a far cry from a Orphan Annie Decoder Pin). (Tip o’ hat to JJ)
• Speaking of creepy: Skype. It could have been very non-creepy. But it’s a M*******t product; so what can you say? It’s creepy. (H/T Wendy McElroy)
• Oh, that laugh-a-minute IRS. Turns out they also gave supposedly “private” info on conservative groups to a liberal group. And there’s so much more of this tale still to come out. Does Big O really think it can be hushed up with a couple of IRS resignations?
• I’ve been meaning to do something deep and profound with that excellent PBS piece on the Stockholm Syndrome and money printing. Since I’m not brilliant this week, I’ll just link for the edification of anybody who hasn’t already seen it. Good one, definitely.
• One of the all-time great opening lines: “The friends of freedom are accustomed to being beaten like a rented mule in Washington.” (Bovard reviews James Antle’s Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?

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Posted in Books and Movies, Mind and Spirit, Miscellaneous, Money, Poly-Ticks, Privacy and self ownership | 12 Comments »