Vin Suprynowicz interview will continue as scheduled sometime tomorrow. Meantime, some tab clearing …
The dangers of tasers. Better late than never, I guess, and the info about the post-tase brain fog is something to think about.
Very impressive, resourceful, and brave little girl. Her father taught her well. It’s too bad her hell is just beginning.
Speaking of a child’s (and a family’s) hell, the Washington Post has an unusually even-handed story about how that Idaho toddler shot his mother to death. It being a story about Idaho and guns, I note that the D.C.-ites (without apparent irony) assigned it to a foreign affairs correspondent. (H/T. LA)
My first response to that widely reported claim that 2/3 of all cancers just come out of nowhere, sorry, complete coincidence, no way to prevent them, was okay, so the initial mutation might come out of nowhere, but what is your body equipped to do about it? I’m not the only one asking such questions.
Kevin Wilmeth resolves to continue to remain in “outrage fatigue recovery mode” in 2015. Good resolution, Kevin. 2014 was a rough one for too many people hereabouts.
As I recall, you guys tend to be resolution-averse. Maybe a good hangover cure to share, then? Uh … your best tips for managing to stay awake until midnight? Your best tips to avoid having your beauty sleep interrupted next year by all those pesky merrymakers?
I didn’t make any resolutions this year, but I have an idea of dedicating each month of 2015 to some different pursuit or goal. In January my aim is to see how little money I can realistically live on. Barring an emergency (knock wood), I’ll spend only for the most basic basics. I’ve allotted myself a few dollars for a mocha now and then so I won’t feel like a totally pitiful orphan :-), but beyond that I’m just paying unavoidable expenses. Will buy some groceries (mostly perishables) but will also tap into my preparedness pantry a bit. Just a bit, though. The object isn’t to see how little I can spend for one isolated month, but what’s a realistic minimum budget for any month.
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Not a resolution, but sometime in the next few days I’ll happily be bringing you an interview I did with Vin Suprynowicz on the publication of his beautiful new book The Testament of James. It’s good — as you already know if you’ve been reading the online excerpts.
As soon as everybody’s had a chance to recover from the enforced good cheer of the holidays, I’ll do a mini-review and run the Q&A. Meanwhile, you might want to purchase a hardbound copy (via ABE Books; NFI) or the Kindle edition.
And speaking of beautiful, the cover design is by a member of the Living Freedom Commentariat, Carl-Bear Bussjaeger. And if he’s made that classic painting look more than a little hallucinatory with those colors, you’ll understand when you read the book.
ADDED: Carl links to the “pre-review” by Tom Knapp. I agree with everything Tom wrote about The Testament of James. And I’m the proud owner of copy #15 of the limited first edition (Carl and Tom are 12 and 19). Mine is a review copy, which I didn’t pay for, but its freebieness will not affect anything I say. My policy with review copies of freedomista books is that I either give an honest positive opinion or if I don’t like the book, I keep my mouth shut about it. I may privately tell the author why I didn’t like a work, but I won’t do anything to undermine it.
So sadly believable. In the last century +, western nations have cut their average work weeks by 30 hours. Guess what people are doing with all that glorious free time?
Not sure why this didn’t get more coverage a few weeks back: Woman abused and jailed for taking perfectly legal photos from a perfectly legal spot finally gets a little justice.
Think your way to stronger muscles. (No doubt has a lot of applications beyond muscles, too.)
(Formerly) dying man says adopted stray dog — that he didn’t even want — helped cure his cancer.
It’s not really news that religious people are happier than us non-religious. Question is, are they happier because of something about their religion or are they happier because they’re the sort of people who don’t poke and prod at every extraordinary claim, the sort who just accept the word of their chosen authority and get on with life?
Yes, Christmas Eve was quite a time for that embarrassing data dump, wasn’t it, NSA? Kevin D. Williamson has some sharp words about that — before winding toward some very naive and foolish words. (Williamson is frustrating. He’s one of those guys who almost, alllllmost, gets it, then turns away.)
Shocked. Simply shocked. Guess which political party is “the party of the rich.” (Yeah, you knew, didn’t you? The real question is why will millions of supposedly informed people be genuinely shocked — and in denial — about this?)
I still owe some thanks to some Santas! Right now, I gotta go walk the dogs in the rain, but I will get to that. I think I’ve already thanked the Santas themselves, in person or in email, but I had to guess on matching some of the packages up with their mystery givers. And here I really wasn’t expecting anything for Christmas this year.
Hope Santa was great to you, as well.
Am also reaching the end of my two-months hermitude and need to write a wrapup on that. A wrapup would be easier if I actually knew what I’d accomplished during these months, but surely even a failure to find what I didn’t know I was looking for is … something.
Just a quick note to thank you all for hanging in there and keeping things going while I’ve been hermitting more and blogging less. The Commentariat is alive and well!
Thanks also for making up (big time) for lost time on Amazon. Seems everybody was just doing their Christmas shopping at the last minute this year. I was worried when November flopped, but you’ve made December very good, indeed.
I also owe somebody a thank you for a gift that arrived this morning, an Opinel No. 8 carbon-steel folding knife (Amazon link for it). Has an impressively sharp blade and a little collar that twists to lock it open or closed. Very clever, very smooth to the hand (unlike many folders), very French. The ID of the “Santa” remains a mystery; the only note in the package thanked “me” for my order. But the universe of people who have my address and know I like knives is a small one.
I might guess “Santa” more easily than I could ever guess last Fall’s “Rockefeller.” (In fact, since Rockefeller went to such remarkable lengths not to be known, I’ve been trying to respect his or her wishes by not trying to find out. But I remain astounded and grateful for R., the two Big Anons, Family A, D, PSM, and all the magnificent benefactors who’ve kept that nice, dry roof over my head during the wild pineapple express storms we’ve been having this season.)
But … onward.
Have a few happy links to start working up some good holiday cheer.
Dog swims 1.5 miles through a storm then figures out where to meet up with her lost person. Her human thought she had drowned.
You know how the Oxford Dictionary people always announce the new “words of the year” long about December? Well, the Canadians at The Syrup Trap are waaaay ahead of them. They’ve already announced the words of the year for 2015-2035. :-) (Tip o’ hat to Canadian MJR)
While this next item may not exactly be in the good cheer category, it’s something that might give you comfort while you listen to that drearily bombastic uncle hold forth at Christmas dinner: boredom can be good for you.
And over at The Zelman Partisans Y.B. ben Avraham and Sheila Stokes-Begley have been telling the Hannukah story in terms you don’t usually hear it. Check out their passionate, eloquent, and unfortunately cautionary tales. I would not call their stories happy, but they might be inspiring and are absolutely informative.
Working on a longer think-piece from the hermitage. Meanwhile, thinking of you …
Okay, you know the .22 LR shortage is desperate when people start reloading the stuff. S, who sent the link, says he’s not about to start personally risking his eyeballs packing gunpowder into tricky little rims; YMMV.
Turns out that execrable CRomnibus spending bill (which rewards every pork-seeking group in the nation, with special attention to funding the D & R parties), has at least one good feature: it defunds the war on legalized cannabis.
Well, the Olympia non-compliance rally didn’t draw as many who had signed up for it. But by every other measure it was a grand success. Here’s David Codrea’s take. And Mike Vanderboegh’s. And video of Mike’s speech. Activists burning their concealed carry permits and cops making no arrests as they watched protestors repeatedly violate the new law. Oh yeah …
75 little hacks for making everyday stuff easier. Very clever! (H/T AG; note, the servers at guff.com are having some problems right now, apparently from sheer overload. But once you can access this, it’s worthwhile for sure.)
And a big thank you to they buyers who’ve lifted my Amazon sales into healthy territory in the last week. This may not be a classic December, but it’s safely into the territory of becoming a good month. Thanks to many — but special nod to a seamstress, a rifle shooter, a skateboarder, a fitness fan, and a very fancy cat fancier!
I’ve already had a couple of readers ask what I’d like for Christmas. And my answer is: You already gave me fabulous presents.
Last summer’s roof-raiser was all I could ask for — and more. You bestowed such bounty on me that I’m still struggling to feel worthy.
Been a weird year. One thing after another went wrong, but no sooner had it gone than somebody would pop up with a helping hand. It’s been really amazing.
So no. I don’t need anything for Christmas. I had Christmas already.
If you’re in a giving mood may I suggest again this year that you send a little something to Joel over at TUAK. His eyeballs are working again now, thanks to last year’s generosity. But he’s got that broken-down Jeep and … well, he just works his tail off and never has much. So think of Joel, not me.
Or drop a few coins into the tip jar over at Rational Review. Or at Carl-Bear’s blog. Or another favorite freedom site. Oh. The Zelman Partisans has a donation button, too (and may soon be offering a few special gun-related deals to contributors). Right now, no TZP people are paid, but someday we’d like to see all the writers — and what a fine bunch they are — getting a little something.
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That said, however, you can help rescue my Amazon links if you’re shopping online.
Suddenly, my Amazon commissions have cratered. Seriously. Cratered. Collapsed. Imploded. Fallen into a black hole. I’m in shock.
I assume my hermitting (even though it’s turned out to be only quasi-pseudo hermitting) triggered the downfall. OTOH, maybe the economy’s collapsed and the rest of the world doesn’t know it yet. Or you’re all on the outs with your relatives and not buying them anything for Christmas this year. Or you’ve all taken a no-spending pledge. (I can sympathize with that.)
In any case, we’re not just talking “a little bit off.” We’re talking bottomless pit.
November is usually very strong. This time it scraped bottom, coming in well below a typical month. December is always a barn-burner — generally bringing in three to four times the commissions of an average month. I’ve never seen it fail. Now? Sales are below average, and I don’t mean “below average for December.” I mean … 75 to 80 percent off a normal December.
So no, I don’t want gifts (though thank you very much). But IF you’re buying at Amazon anyhow, please use those links.
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P.S. Before I could protest, one Santa already dropped a very welcome present down the chimney. While I was grousing in the cold, a big, beautiful kerosene heater arrived. That thing is capable of warming the whole house! Like my smaller, less powerful, Buddy-type propane heaters, it’ll be used only for emergencies. But it sure did warm my heart.
Thank you (once again), Family A. I know you just went through a long, stormy power outage and are very aware of how useful a powerful heater like that one can be.
For this couple, energy-efficiency has jumped the shark. At least they now understand and are willing to say what a pair of idiots they were to build such a house.
Lyrics NSFW and hip-hop might not be to everybody’s taste. But Freedom Feen Neema Vedadi (with Mason Moore) has a way of putting freedom right in the face of a new generation: “See My Chains.” (Tip o’ hat to MD)
If you’ve never been to the Buffalo Bill Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming, you might want to make a detour next time you visit Yellowstone. Unless you’re Ian McCollum, it’ll show you more than you ever wanted to know about guns and their history. I’m noting this here because the firearms museum now has its first female curator — and from her qualifications it’s clear she’s no affirmative action hire.
Distracted and diverted from the police state. This one’s a couple of months old, but quite apropos.
And this one’s right up to date: Christmas. Is it the most menacing time of years? Troy Senik says it is if you really listen to those song lyrics! ;-)
Before I shut down for the day to return to hermitting, here are some links I’ve been collecting for you.
Never mind that this prepper is living in New York City (whotta place to be in a crunch!). Never mind that he’s going public with exactly what ought to be most private. He’s right about a lot. For the rest of us if not for himself.
Long but an interesting look at insanities of the past: Allen Ginsberg (in 1966) writing about “The Great Marijuana Hoax.”
This 2014 commercial for the British store Sainsbury’s apparently infuriated a lot of people. I think it’s lovely. The only infuriating thing is that the guys in this famous WWI story went back to killing each other the very next day.
With the gas fireplace now officially kaput (and with queries sent to the manufacturer and the propane company), I’m huddled in an alcove between two space heaters, drinking hot coffee and eating warm comfort food.
It’s funny. Fifty-nine degrees feels perfectly decent outdoors. And considering how humans have lived for most of their history (and how some, like Joel, still live), 59 indoors is a relative luxury. Heck, electricity is a luxury. Nevertheless, I’m exercising my prerogative of feeling like a Dickens character. In the snow. Barefoot. Tubercular. Selling matches. (Or was that Hans Christian Andersen? I forget.)
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Another thing the Little Match Girl didn’t have was a DVD player. And I admit its among my very favorite escapes from the cold. And from myself when the hermitting bit gets too intense.
I made a bare beginning on listing things I’m thankful for. I hope you’ll go on over this holiday weekend and add a few items of your own in comments. Or do that here if you’d rather.
