Elicitation. Kit Perez wrote an article about it last week. Every one of us should read it. If you haven’t, I’ll wait while you do.
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I hadn’t heard the term, but anybody who’s been around the Outlaw scene knows the tactic. It’s a way of getting us to snitch on friends, give away secrets, or incriminate ourselves without us fully realizing what we’re doing.
And it works off our ordinary personality traits — anything from a desire to be polite and helpful to a desire to show how smart and “with it” we are. Which is what makes it so insidious.
Okay, this is verrrrrry politically incorrect. And maybe not so funny. But I laughed anyhow: Nutz-R-Us. Guess what they own and operate?
I hate to say anything good about Google. But when it comes to self-driving vehicles they’ve taken a more sensible path than Tesla. (But then, people aren’t drawn to Teslas because they’re “sensible.”)
Gosh. What a pity that gun ownership is falling off. Yes, despite record numbers of background checks. Despite millions of new shooters (young, minority, female). Despite all that actual, you know, evidence.
How law and lawyers killed Europe’s Jews and have done plenty of other murder and tyranny. Which is merely the brilliant lead-in to a condemnation of the current “due process is an inconvenient luxury” anti-gun nonsense.
Jeff Jacoby discovers the biggest armed mob in America. Good question, there toward the end. But we already know the answer. (H/T FH)
It’s no longer some vague right-wing conspiracy that’s responsible for the nation’s distrust of Hillary. Now it’s certain corners of the Internet. Hey. Proud to be one of the many.
But wait. If you shouldn’t pay attention to the Constitution any more (because it’s, you know, so un-modern and so full of DWMs who shouldn’t be telling us what to do), then that means we shouldn’t have a president. Or Congress. Or taxes. Because that’s the main sort of thing the Constitution spells out. So … maybe you’re onto something there, Posner, even though you clearly don’t know it.
Hahahahahaha! The co-founder and CEO of ReMax says it’s a darned pity cash-poor renters don’t know about all those juicy 3%-down loans that are still out there despite all those overly restrictive lenders.
Can pot help prevent Alzheimers? Frustratingly academic at the moment. (C’mon, people, how many grams, ingested how?) But more fascinating data.
Courtesy of Fred in comments. Too adorable not to bring forward: Dr. Seuss Taxidermy. (Not a single one of the critters resembling any from my always-most-favorite Seuss book, On Beyond Zebra!, though.
Because the MSM (and of course most of the gunblogosphere) is currently “all murder, all the time,” I thought a bit of good news was in order (courtesy of MJR).
Seems recently the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife “requested” access to a creekside property to survey for some frog you’ve never heard of.
The homeowners said yes. That is, they said yes … BUT.
Yet another way cynical, opportunistic cops (and governments in general) quash our desires to be kind to our fellow man. Foul parasites. And apparently Canadian sneaks are no better than U.S. sneaks. (H/T JB)
Ohhhhh gawwwwwwd. Not agaiiiiiin. First Sudafed goes behind the counter and gets your name into a police registry. Now over-the-counter diahhrea meds — yes, Immodium, of all things — get targeted as part of Dreaded Scourge of Opiod Abuse.
It’s one thing to carry your heart on your sleeve. Entirely another to carry your heart on your back for over a year.
Well, I wouldn’t v*te for Trump if somebody put a gun to my head. But even so, being a gay, Hispanic Trump supporter doesn’t merit having your nose broken by leftist thugs.
People have called Windows 10 malware. But I figured that was figurative. Turns out that, given its recent, extremely deceptive sneak-install behavior, it actually is malware, by Microsoft’s own definition. MS’s vile sneakery has been confirmed by knowledgeable sources. Beware any pop-ups from MS!
Fascinating. The FDA and Interpol want to abolish 4,402 international websites selling prescription drugs. This is based on confiscation of 797 parcels in a brief recent period. Think on it. What does that number tell you about the number of parcels that have gotten quietly and safely to customers all this time — customers who are apparently happy with their confidential, and money-saving purchases. People who will want to make similar purchases in the future. Um … good luck with that, bureaucops.
And speaking of confidentiality (or lack thereof) in prescription drug purchasing … the DEA now wants warrantless access to your legal drug records. AND might hassle or arrest you for perfectly legal activity. (H/T to everybody who sent me this link; I already had it, which just goes to show you this is one to pay real serious attention to, even if you blow off everything else you see here today.)
Remember the story in our last links post about cops having a new device to let them steal more money during traffic stops? Thought you might be interested in the Department of (Achtung!) Homeland Security’s more favorable take on it. (And what is it they say about the differences between theory and reality again …?) Alas, the courts, as usual, take the pro-gov line in such matters.
I’m sorry that today’s links have contained so many downers and nothing in the area of nooz you can use. At least we can end on a note of good cheer, courtesy of MJR. Here’s another of those optimistic post-TSHTF flash stories: “Hills” by Joe Miles.
Oh, Katie, Katie, Katie. You went the full Rather. You should never go the full Rather. And at least he didn’t make phony-baloney excuses.
A recent study says that the threshhold-based blood tests used by states to determine whether legal pot users are impaired or not aren’t based in sound science. This wild-and-crazy pro-pot-user claim comes from those mad radicals at … the American Automobile Association. AAA.
John Tamny: if we love the big banks (“we” meaning not you and me, necessarily), we must love them enough to let them fail.
Speaking of smartphones (as we were earlier this week), reader F. sends this cheery word that F*c*b**k’s admission that it’s listening to you via your phone’s microphone while you’re using its app may be only part of the even creepier, much creepier, truth.
How much creepier can things get? Advanced tech is not the only thing we have to worry about. How about nuclear capability coordinated by eight-inch floppies??? For you young things, eight-inch floppies were already obsolete when I got my first computer in 1982. (H/T MtK)
I normally like to end links posts on a cheery, or at least a “lite” note. But there seems to be no joy in Mudville or anyplace else today. I need to go look for some cute dog videos or somesuch.
ADDED: Well, wait. I didn’t have time to look for any cute dog videos. But since today’s theme seems to be “creepy as all get out,” I remembered this story about … um, men who live as dogs. Yes, not cute. But the best I could do today, sorry. I suppose we’ll soon be hearing these “pups” demand special restroom privileges. (And a big thanks to Cat for turning my stomach.)
Oh! But wait! That chart doesn’t include self-identified canines who have sex with any of the other 31 “genders.” Racism! Specisism! Haters! Privilege!
Synchronicity: These examples of stupid both involve Italians. In one case, a very smart Italian got stupidated by some “see something, say something” moron. In the second case, a very creative but perhaps not-so-smart Roman architect got outsmarted and doesn’t like it.
Get businesses freaked out enough about “discriminating against the disabled” and they’ll fall for anything.
12 lessons to learn and hang onto forever. (Especially for business, but plenty have applications in the rest of the world, too.)
Just to cheer you up, here’s the latest report on global-catastrophic risks. I confess not to have read it yet. I don’t need that kind of “cheering up” right now. But just in case you’re interested. (H/T MJR)
Assume your state government is in big trouble if one, single taxpayer saying goodbye could have this much impact.
It seems more lefties are realizing their fellows have become high-handed elitist snobs, and that it happened when the left parted ways with the working class.
Sorrys in advance for being unable to remember now where I got some of these links. I’ve been saving them up for a while. So thanks to The Usual Suspects. :-)
Joel got to this one first, but it’s too pure-and-simply wonderful not to re-blog: the mystery of the squatter in the woods who came and left with no trace. Ghostery to the max!
But this … once again takes “small-space living” to crazy extremes. Only in San Francisco. Or New York City. Or London. Or other places that have become hellholes for normal people.
Kevin Wilmeth comments on my TZP “constitutional carry” piece and gets it exactly right: “The only downside I can see, honestly, is that celebrating a good thing for what it is, isn’t going to help the sort of prag mindset that still can’t distinguish between long-term strategy and true pre-emptive surrender.”
OTOH … ouch. Stupid, angry people and guns are another matter.
Finally, an accurate scale model of the U.S. government. Only not dangerous enough. Or complicated enough. And more purposeful, even if nobody has any idea what the purpose is.
I’ve had a lot of time to think this week and one question runs through my mind: Why is freedom so closely and (for many) irretrievably associated with fighting?
Sure, we do periodically have to defend freedom against tyrants. And defend it more frequently against incremental encroachments and (if I may coin a term) the political encockroaches who so encroach.
But given that the main thing we do with freedom is enjoy it, given that it is, in most of our lives, as lovely and easy a thing as pure air, why the sticky association with strife, battle, bloodshed, anguish, and all things bad?
That doesn’t make freedom sound like much fun at all. Or like anything most people would want to have. Is it just because we’re hardwired to take freedom for granted when it’s not threatened? Is all this emphasis on fighting just because of the times we live in? What?
Why is freedom so closely and (for many) irretrievably associated with fighting? And for that matter, why are so many who claim to be ardent supporters of freedom the very sort of people you’d prefer not to have for your next-door neighbors in any would-be Libertopia?
Meet Twitter’s new thought police. Incredible (but not surprising in this anti-free speech day) that a company that lives or dies on the quality of its public forum of ideas would do this.
