Jim Bovard is about to go e-live with his long-awaited memoir. He’s been assisted by a helpful volunteer Kindle wizard. But there’s one glitch left. He needs some simple formatting assistance ASAP and that volunteer isn’t available.

If you can help real soon, just go on over to Jim’s blog. I know he’ll be very grateful. You can tell him I promised you a comp copy of his book. :-)

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As bad as things are getting in some ways, did you ever think you’d see cops deliberately turning a blind eye to this?

As of midnight last night, smoking cannabis is legal in Washington state for anybody over 21. It’s not legal to smoke in public, but police ignored revelers toking beneath the Space Needle last night. Partly because nobody yet knows what the penalty’s supposed to be. Partly … well, just because.

In fact the official line from the Seattle PD is:

Does this mean you should flagrantly roll up a mega-spliff and light up in the middle of the street? No. If you’re smoking pot in public, officers will be giving helpful reminders to folks about the rules and regulations under I-502 (like not smoking pot in public). But the police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a Lord of the Rings marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to.

And that comes complete with this “official” government photo and warning:

Sure, anybody who wanted it could always get the stuff, legal or not. But isn’t this an improvement over the usual cops-vs-us?

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And if you liked that (and only if you liked that):

If you didn’t like that, you’re probably going WTF??? about now. Well, to each his own.

The other night, I watched the full-length feature that grew out of these strange little shorts. And I tell you, if you (like me, apparently) have a completely sick taste for really weird, never-cracks-a-smile, dour Finnish black humor and you think there’s not enough red in Christmas — this could be your new, guaranteed non-Jolly holiday tradition.

Did I mention that it’s dour Finnish redneck black humor?

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• Don’t know how long this will last, but the Kindle edition of Jackie Clay-Atkinson’s Ask Jackie: Canning Basics book is free right now on Amazon. Can be downloaded to any Kindle device, including free Kindle readers for the PC. (Thanks to B for the tip!) (Ooops. Sorry. Apparently the free offer ended just hours after I set up these links.)
• Speaking of books, anybody read Two Cheers for Anarchism? If so, what did you think of it? Here’s a review. And an Amazon link. It’s by the James C. Scott, same guy who wrote The Art of Not Being Governed (which documents how near-anarchism actually works in some parts of Asia) and Seeing Like a State (which documents why so much authoritarian do-gooding doesn’t work).
• I knew the FCPA “Africa sting” case had blown up in the FBI’s face earlier this year. But I didn’t know that piece of human pond scum, Richard Bistrong, the snitch-provocateur who masterminded the arrests of 22 innocent people in the firearms (and related) business, had gotten a mere 18 months in prison.
• This is good. Lifehacker presents the best replacements for privacy-invading online services.
• Also good. M.D. Creekmore presents some privacy-enhancing hacks for Firefox. Several require going into the scary looking config section. But they’re actually really easy to do.
• Which leads to Bruce Schneier’s observations on “feudal security.”
• I know this isn’t a happy homemaker blog or anything. But damn, these apple pie cookies look delicious, cute, and absurdly elaborate to make. (H/T to K for finding another apple tree project.)

Several of today’s links arrived courtesy of the prolific J. Thanks, J.

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