The other day, reader “just waiting” emerged from two weeks of post-Sandy blackout. He conveyed some lessons learned and joked that he couldn’t see a downside to the storm from where he sat.

However, there’s a definite downside in the aftermath. This morning he requests help from the Living Freedom Commentariat:

I’ve never had to clean up after a major flood before (water was about 2 ft high over entire first floor). I’ve done some research and got the basics, but I bet there’s tips and pitfalls, what not to do’s, etc. that the sites I’ve seen don’t list.

With our vast scope of experience, and you in the NorthWet where water problems must be pretty common, I was hoping you might ask for me to get some insight from the group who may have been through this.

I know some of you have suffered through floods and other depredations of water. What advice do you have for just waiting (and the rest of the world who might be listening in)?

Thank you!

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You know how I’m always grousing about people using open cc on their emails? Well …

(H/T JG)

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A handful of links and two (longish) videos for your Friday and weekend pleasure:

• Nano-material stops bullets? This I’d like to see. (H/T PT)
• Among all the other laughs of the Petraeus scandal is the scandalously flawed method the lovers used to hide their email correspondence. (And this guy was the nation’s top intelligence officer?) The Electronic Frontier Foundation has analysis and advice. So does the ACLU. (Tip o’ hat to JG) It’s pretty amazing what the FBI went through to trace emails that probably weren’t even illegal — and the kind of data they had fingertip access to (e.g. hotel guest registers).
• The five ballsiest double-crosses ever.
• So. Now we know what it takes for a cop to get an unpaid vacation (but still not get fired).

Ron Paul’s farewell address to Congress (source)

And here’s 1984 talk by the late, great Karl Hess — speechwriter, philosopher, tax resister, welder, and cabinetmaker — on the role of communities in freedom (with thanks to R for the find).

When I was growing as a libertarian, nobody influenced me as much as Hess (though it’s hard to say in retrospect how much was influence and how much was simply recognizing spiritual kinship). The thing that set him apart from other early-modern freedom movement greats was that he put the emphasis on living everything he preached, even when it made for a precarious & perilous existence.

The above speech isn’t great oratory, but he was a great man.

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