Now here’s an idea: Name various TSA facilities after the jerks who inflicted them on us. Post prominent signs so people in those three-hour lines could contemplate whom to thank.
Finally, a political quiz with enough nuance not to leave libertarians banging their heads. (You may have to click “other stances” to get to the nuanced parts; might depend on your computer’s settings.)
Simultaneously published at ClaireWolfe.com/blog. Please bookmark that link, as the blog will soon be relocating there.
Comments are being shut off here, but comment away over there! Everyone’s first-ever comment goes to moderation, but Bear and I are keeping eyes peeled for new comments and approving them as fast as we can. Also, if you’ve ever embarrassed yourself with a comment typo (and haven’t we all), you’ll be glad to know that Bear (login name: He Who Fakes It Well) has figured out a way to let you edit your own comments. There’s only a brief opportunity — five minutes. You can’t go back the next day and change your entire statement or anything. But if you quickly realize you’ve made an oopsie, you can now fix it.
I’m online more than expected this week — coordinating on the website-to-be, thanking wonderful donors, chasing rainbows, keeping ahead of runaway trucks. You know, the usual. So I figure you guys might as well benefit from some extra posting while I’m at it.
Three years — or more — for possession of an eeeeevil BB gun? Only in New Jersey. I hope this poor schmuck’s fight goes well. (H/T DB)
I’ve always admired Peter Theil. So libertarian. So out-of-the-box. So creatively cheeky. But I didn’t realize he was the founder and chief investor in the ghastly, government-sucking, privacy-raping, Tolkein-savaging Palantir. Ugh. Why would a supposed “libertarian” do such a thing to the rest of us???
So even if you’re a hermit in the woods, you now know that a game called Pokemon Go is The Most Important Thing Ever To Happen In America, Seriously EVAHHHH. What fewer people are talking about is how it makes money off players while savaging their privacy. (Yes, even after its token well-publicized privacy corrections.)
NSFW, but an absolute must for the too-bad-to-be-true category: Has this ever happened to you? (Note: For those who didn’t catch too-bad-to-be-true, this is a parody)
No, darnit. I cannot find the iPhone. Where the heck is it? (H/t Jim B. in comments)
Today a convention begins in chaos, amid cries of law and order, that classic killer of freedom. Today, the media mourns three blue lives, as if the murder of armed agents of the state is worse than decades of police murders of the less politically protected.
Okay, I know we have enough to laugh about with our own politicians. We don’t need to mock furriners, even if they are socialists. But OTOH, the French currently have the biggest elected laugh-riot. Love the Star Wars photo.
So last year, scientists figured out that cinnamon might help prevent colo-rectal cancer (if you happen to be mouse). Now they’re saying it improves mousy learning, too. No word yet on how much us humans would have to ingest to get the benefits. (H/T VS)
If old people should be banned from v*ting, what about the young-but-terminally-ill? The left. It really is out of good ideas. (But then, is that worse than the political right, which has a few good ideas but not the courage to stand up for them?)
And I’m with Glenn Reynolds: There a lot of stuff that should be banned for all those political types who want to go around banning things and otherwise making other people’s lives miserable.
Eejits. Ignorant eejits, too. Ignorant, blood-dancing eejits, need I add?
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.
Here we are, less than 250 years after one of human history’s most glorious moments, the supposed beneficiaries of that glory, watching our country crumble. Economic ruin and stagnation. A police state obsessed with surveillance and control. Even formerly all-holy free speech under relentless attack from glassy-eyed apparatchiks.
And even the most unaware among We the Ordinary are beginning to wonder, “How did we get here?”
Well, at least you might have some recourse if Microsoft sneak-upgrades your computer to its Windows 10 malware.
This one’s for you who live within the New Madrid fault zone — or anybody who’s a follower of megaquakes and their lore.
Britain is a part of Europe and will remain so, says Boris Johnson, former mayor of London, prominent figure of the “Leave” campaign, and possible successor to David Cameron.
One of the few relatively dispassionate looks at key issues behind the Brexit. It wasn’t all just “hate!” and “racism!” on one side and “we know what’s good for you” on the other.
Sheesh. And here’s one more good reason to avoid political entanglements with the EU.
“Why Linkedin will make you hate Microsoft.” Wait. What? You don’t already hate Microsoft? But seriously, if they really do what this NYT article says they’re planning, we’re talking whole new levels.
Wow. Beer can, mama bear, and don’t-forget-the-dog save a woman during a long ordeal. But note what she really wishes she hadn’t left at home.
Have you ever sensed that Snopes.com, the great All-Powerful Fact-Checker of the Intertubz, sometimes needs fact-checking itself — particularly on political issues? Turns our you’re quite right. Look who’s providing those political “facts”. Makes me sad. Snopes has been a valuable resource and this is slowly destroying their credibility. (H/T OdS)
Oh, the poo, poo widdle antigun politician. And of course he merely joins the ranks of fellow hypocrites. (That second article is actually about the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the Clintons turning the White House into “a brothel.” Quite gross, really. It mentions Hillary’s fondness for firearms only in passing.)
Registering women for the draft? Sigh. I suppose it was only a matter of time. But if we must have the sort of bogus “equality” that puts women into combat, could we at least do away with the kind of bogus inequality that makes any young people, let alone all of them, slaves eligible for government disposal?
I know these rainbow #shootback posters (Gadsden style!) are old news now in Internet time since Shel put them into comments last week. But they are sooooo beautiful. And so much wiser and more honest than the O-admin’s craven claim that censoring 911 transcripts from the latest murder-for-Mohammed was done “for the victims”.
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.
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!
It was the premise of the Politico article that drew me in. It was the claim that politics of 2030 would be shaped by the ghastly presidential election of 2016. There would be big changes to come.
Given the tumult of the times, I don’t doubt that one bit. The contest between The Hillary and The Donald, and all the odd and shifting v*ter alignments and policy preferences around it, is bound to reverberate into the future. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about. I wondered if others were coming to similar conclusions. So I read.
