Excellent idea from Top of the Chain via Borepatch: a BUYcott to support Travis Corcoran, aka TJIC.

Top of the Chain sez:

Massachussetts has arbitrarily decided that the writer of a blog, in exercising his First Amendment right to infringe on his Second Amendment right by disarming him.

Travis is going to need money for the legal bills that are sure to follow. He runs an online comic book store. There are already comic book artists that are speaking out against him. What sweet irony would it be to buy something from Travis to help him make a living, that came from one of these bigoted fools?

Not interested in comics? Travis also has an online rental service for how-to videos of all sorts, from crafts to combat: SmartFlix.com.

I don’t agree with everything Travis writes, especially his belief that assassination is a valid political tool. He’s … um, more radical than I. (Now there’s something you won’t hear too often in these parts.) But even less should anybody agree with the thugs trying to deprive him of his first, second, and (as Buckeye Copperhead points out) his fourth amendment rights, as well — simply for making a remark that is roughly on par with the old joke about 20,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea — only better because it explicitly seeks to save the innocent.

Spread the word — and some bux if you can — to BUYcott for TJIC.

The other day when TJIC’s friend Chris first posted about this outrage in the comments section and asked what can WE do, I didn’t answer. I’m not so good at being put on the spot for solutions. Bless the brilliance of the gunblogosphere.

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Hey. I just noticed that BHM webmaster Oliver Del Signore has been blogging up a storm since just before Christmas. (And apparently blogging a big enough storm to dent in the top of his car.)

I can’t imagine how he finds the time to say so much and say it so well, since I knew he was already working 12 hour days before he started blogging so prolifically.

I confess to being the friend that he refers to in his blogs on Terry Pratchett Discworld books (there; Oliver and I now have dueling Amazon links) and the Judy Holliday movie Born Yesterday. I appreciate your discretion, Oliver. But it’s okay to “out” me on books and movies. :-)

But hey, fella, if we’re such friends, how come you never told me you were blogging — let alone doing it so well?

Lucky readers. Now you’ve got an extra great place to visit on days when Living Freedom is blank. Or even on days I’m being brilliant. Oliver may be moreso. :-)

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• The Michael Bellesiles saga continues. The Chronicle of Higher Education (which first printed the latest Bellesiles baloney) investigated and discovered (no surprise) that the tale of the sad student and his soldier brother is false. But it’s the student’s fault. Um … aren’t historians responsible for checking their “facts”? I mean, isn’t that what they supposedly do for a living? And that tale Bellesiles retailed to the gullible was so obviously too good to be true. It just begged for the half hour it would have required to check it. (Tip o’ hat once again to J.F.)
• Kudos to jellydonut for being first to spot the development: the shutdown of Blogetery was spurred by a “terrorism scare”. And it appears to be BurstNET that made the xtreme response on its own. But (per jellydonut’s link), could the whole flap have arisen over nothing but a link or two? Still unclear right now. Still reeks.
• Could this, rather than Obamacare, be the medicine of the future? So far it’s localized. Almost makes a body want to live in Seattle. Almost. Fortunately, Wal-Mart, Target, and others are also helping to return health care to the people. Not to mention all the private practices now switching to non-insurance models. I’ve spent too much time in the boonies. I didn’t even know about the Wal-Mart clinics until recently. When you don’t know what’s up at Wal-Mart, you really do live off the grid.
• A couple of today’s links came via Rational Review News, the most consistently useful libertarian news aggregator — and currently in need of funds.
• Finally, to end on a joyful note of personal initiative: when “the authorities” refuse to help, a man puts himself in peril to save a sick, starving dog from slow death. The video he took makes the story all the more astonishing.

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If you read tech blogs — and only if you read tech blogs (or a handful of online techzines) — you already know that, on July 9, some unnamed government agency, for unnamed reasons, ordered BurstNET to take 73,000 blogs permanently offline. All were part of the same WordPress platform called Blogetery.

A week later, a forum-creating service was shut down just as mysteriously.

If you rely on mainstream sources for your news — or even online mainstream alternatives — you haven’t heard a peep about any of this.

Why did some unnamed government agency order the death of 73,000 blogs?

Nobody has a clue. First guesses were that a few of the blogs that shared the same server were suspected of violating copyrights — although BurstNET denies this.

What unnamed agency issued the order?

Nobody has a clue.

On what authority did they do it?

Nobody has a clue.

Did anybody perform even a vestige of due process?

Nobody has a clue — although if any “due process” was used at all, it sure wasn’t the sort that the Constitution and Bill of Rights require; that would involve public disclosure, court battles, and presumably a guilty verdict before any legal shutdown could be ordered. More likely the mass slam-down was justified under one of the new star-chamber undue processes the federal government has recently granted itself. But who knows? (We don’t even know for sure that a federal agency is responsible — though the action and the secrecy reek of “fed.”)

Why is BurstNET not telling the world why it shut down the server with all those blogs on it?

Apparently — and presumably also under some “security” law — the same unnamed government agency ordered them not to talk.

Were all 73,000 blogs guilty of something? Anything? Let alone of offenses that can only be dealt with via summary mass-execution, carried out in totalitarian secrecy?

C’mon.

Why is all but the xtreme tech-media silent?

Hm. Maybe they don’t want to risk their proposed government bailouts. Or maybe they’ve just outlived their usefulness; no great surprise there. But there was a time not long ago when even the stodgiest mainstreamers would have hopped right on such an obvious First Amendment violation.

Above all … Is this any America that anybody recognizes?

—–

I just wrote an article for S.W.A.T. magazine on Joe Lieberman’s proposal to give the federal government a “Internet kill switch.” (The article will be published in the print edition in a few months.) Some of you guys helped me a lot on that, thank you.

If you recall, Lieberman seemed mystified by our objections and said that the U.S. would merely be emulating China’s policies on free speech and press freedom and what could possibly be wrong with that? He seemed to be under the impression (or wanted us to be under the impression) that in China and the U.S. both, this would be strictly a war-time power.

Anyhow, in the article, I focused on what you good folks — smarter than Mr. “Authoritah” Lieberman gives you credit for — already know: that China’s power over the ‘Net has nothing to do with war and everything to do with daily political control — and so would any ‘Net power given to the U.S. fedgov.

I didn’t know it at the time, but one of my S.W.A.T. editors, Kathy Allard, lives in Hong Kong. (Don’t you love the Internet?)

She sent kind words about the article. But she also sent an email detailing a bit more about China’s use of its powers.

With her permission, I give you Kathy’s words. Will this be coming soon to a technosphere near you? Until lately, I’d have said Americans wouldn’t be supine enough to accept such heavy-handedness. But now? Well, think about those 73,000 assassinated blogs and the silence of the media and judge for yourself:

[L]iving here in Hong Kong on China’s doorstep, I see examples of gov’t control of information every day.

– No Facebook in China.

– In China most people don’t use Twitter, they use a Chinese-language imitation called Wei-Bo. One Hong Kong writer who uses it said that on June 4, she posted as her Wei-Bo, “Good morning. It is the 4th of June.” One HOUR later her post had been removed!

– In Xinjiang last year [where there were anti-government riots], not only did the gov’t shut down the internet, but they shut down all cell phone service immediately, and kept it off. The vast majority of people have cell phones only, so that did away with anyone calling others to say, “Meet at x place at 8pm.”

– Whenever there is some problem in China, there is a news blackout (but the ‘net is getting around that, which is one reason word of trouble in Xinjiang got out, and hence gov’t stepping up efforts to control the ‘net). If something happens just over the border from Hong Kong (and which may very likely affect family members of people in HK), our news will report the rumor but then state there is a news blackout. E.g., the Chinese gov’t seizes land from farmers and other poor people in order to build luxury condos or whatever on it for the growing upper class, and sometimes the farmers riot.

– Last week was the anniversary of the Xinjiang riots, and without mentioning why they were doing it, CCTV ran a week-long series on its English-language news called “Xinjiang Stable Society.” Most of it was interviews with people in Xinjiang talking about their neighbors like this: “She is a Uighur. She is nice. Everybody likes her.” The odd thing is that, I can easily believe this flying with Chinese people (apologies for the racial profiling, but I’ve traveled a lot in China and have formed definite opinions), but this news program is aimed at English speakers living in China. How naive do they think we are?

– But on the other hand, on the same CCTV English-language news broadcast, I’ve heard U.S. news that I’d NEVER heard on any mainstream U.S. news, particularly regarding the wars.

China still isn’t the most oppressive country that I’ve been to — in Burma/Myanmar there isn’t even any email, there’s almost nothing that can be accessed online at all.

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… and some more miscellany.

The confession

The astute among you who’ve followed my links to Joel Simon’s blog, The Ultimate Answer to Kings, have noticed, shall we say, a few similarities between Joel’s life and mine.

I think it’s time to reveal the secret.

No, I am not Joel Simon. I have more hair and I’d look just awful in that beard, not to mention that Jayne Cobb cunning hat.

But I am the neighbor Joel refers to as W. or Uncle W. — and I suspect his attempt to turn me into a person of the male persuasion for literary purposes has fooled very few readers.

So there you have it. Yes, Joel is the hermit neighbor who lives in the next trailer down the ridge. It’s nice having a crotchety old one-legged hermit for a neighbor. They leave you alone, which is good. Except when you don’t want to be left alone. Which is also good.

Joel is very much like his fictional character Shadow, from stories like this one. And he and Shadow are both more suited to being desert rats than I.

So that’s that. Joel, you can now quit your unconvincing attempts to hide my identity.

… and the miscellany for today

• Awwwwww. This is so sweeeeeeeet.
• On the other hand, this isn’t sweet at all. It’s crude. In the oily sense. Yet it’s strange how something so terrible can look beautiful when captured at the right moment, in the right light.
• And if you’re interested in a good site for following oil spill news — with speculation, but speculation by very knowledgeable people — The Oil Drum is a good place to start. The link goes to a current article that supports the viewpoint (that we’ve been hearing increasingly) that the well structure itself is compromised and the leak will keep getting worse. But no Alex Jonesy stuff this time.
• Oh, just what we need! “A Fannie and Freddie for Food.” Government-grocery store partnerships, all across this great land! That’ll ensure that we all have full bellies and healthy nutrition, won’t it? Ya sure, you betcha. (And really, while I knew I lived in an actual desert, I had no idea that living 10+ miles from the nearest grocery store put me in a “food desert.” Geez, should I just curl up and die, or what? You poor folks who live above the arctic circle somewhere or in rural Wyoming just ought to shoot yourselves before you starve to death, I guess.)

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I’d like your thoughts on making this blog everything it should be.

My arrangement with Backwoods Home is that I will blog once a week. On average. If I’m busy or don’t have anything to say, I can go weeks without a post and Dave Duffy won’t kick me off his website.

But you might have noticed I blog a leeeeetle more often than that. :-) Partly, the frequent posts are to suck you all in to this blog as a daily routine. (BWAHHHAHHHAHH! she chortles evilly). But seriously, I know it can be disappointing to visit blogs that are rarely updated.

So part one of my question to you is: How often should I post?

But that’s completely tied in with part II: What kind of content serves you best?

The title of the blog, “Living Freedom,” implies posting useful information and encouragement about how we can each live more free. But coming up with stuff like that is hard work. Can’t do it every day.

Far easier just to watch for weird, entertaining, or outrageous newsbits, toss in some snark, and post links. That’s easy to do every day or at least several times a week. (And I admit that I enjoy blogs that have lots of newslinks and lots of quick snark.)

So … fewer posts with deeper content? Or lots of posts, but more newsy?

What’s your preference?

Comment away …

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Still need some bucking up after Sunday’s ObamaCare disaster? Well, here’s one small reminder that even we ignored and “powerless” individuals can — and will prevail.

Okay. Maybe not exactly in our most idealized way …

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1. The Ultimate Answer to Kings. A few years back, on a forum that was in those days known as The Claire Files, I kept running into this guy. I’d be reading along in some thread. I’d think of a scintillatingly witty reposte … and before I could click to post it … this guy, Joel, would say exactly what I was thinking, only say it better and shorter. The nerve of that man, huh?

He’s blogging these days, and his blog is The Ultimate Answer to Kings.

When you go there, you can never be quite sure what you’ll find — an account of his latest off-grid adventures, a YouTube video of a really weird song, a snarky riff on government stupidity (but I repeat myself), or maybe just a long ramble about his dogs. But it’s always worthwhile.

2. The Anchorage Libertarian Examiner. I encountered Kevin Wilmeth much more recently — in the comments section of this very blog. But I was immediately struck by his warmth, humanity, and thoughtful, stylish writing, which is very much evident in his Examiner columns.

And despite being the Anchorage examiner, it’s not just about Alaska. It’s become an everyday stop for me.

3. Market Theocracy. Sigh. What can I say about George Potter? Like me, he can be a tad flaky. Unlike me, he’s a brilliant writer, particularly of fiction. And I don’t mean “brilliant among political ranters.” I mean flat-out, world-class brilliant. His fiction could stand alongside the greatest, if he had the ambition to pursue professional publication (and if the once-great American short-story market hadn’t mostly dried up and blown away).

As is, George’s gift is our gift. He has just resumed blogging after a hiatus, with posts that include both real-world observations and his astonishing stories. Looking at the site this morning, I see he’s off with a roar. (Glad you’re back, George. And I agree on the power of District 9. I don’t give it much of a chance at the Oscars, either. But it was great to see it among the nominees, and oh my, do I want to see Neill Blomkamp’s future work!)

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