• Even lab rats, it seems, have empathy. Now, if only government agents could be raised to that level.
• I had no idea that my second favorite poem (and the one I most totally identify with) had such universal appeal.
• Only a government could manage to create a butter crisis.
• “The best way to understand the Euro Crisis is to get a DVD of “Animal House” starring John Belushi.” Snort!
• Open letter to some professorial tax eaters from Michael and Debra Jean Dean.
• The average household has a post-crash net worth of nearly $500,000??? Are you kidding? Where do I sign up to join the average class?
• The “I, Pencil” of food. (And apparently the writer never heard of “I, Pencil” until somebody mentioned it in the comment section of his piece.)

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• Shut up. When the Feds are involved. Because this is one way they trick you into becoming a felon, as Ken at Popehat knows.
• Incredible videos of bizarre natural phenomena.
• Freedom Feens Fun Forum. New kid on the block for freedomista discussion. From Michael W. Dean and Neema Vedadi.
• Dave Duffy blogged this first, but it’s encouraging enough to deserve repeating.
• “For your own good” is the same the world over. (Tip o’ hat to DA.)
• Standardized testing: it’s even worse than you might think. (Tip o’ hat to JS.)
• Bring health care back home.
• Tenting in the old backyard. Tom Knapp is doing it this winter. (Found via Brad at WendyMcElroy.com.)

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• This ad is in totally terrible bad taste. Which is what makes it so good. Seems this South African chicken restaurant has a history of similar terrible taste. And sometimes nicely pointed satire.
• A Rearden Steel case??? Please tell me you’re kidding.
• Kind of a shame that Stratfor feels the need to give such basic advice on situational awareness. And never mentions carrying something much better than a flashlight. (Tip o’ hat to A.)
• “Bailing out the Titanic with a Thimble.”
• And an interesting week ahead in Europe, heaven help us all.

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Sometimes when I write about freeing ourselves rather than joining mass movements or flinging ourselves into political campaigns, somebody will accuse me of being nihilistic or advocating me-me-me values.

If you’ve been around long enough, you know that’s not the point. The point is, of course, that true freedom can only arise from within the individual and spread from there. All “political” solutions are just band-aids on a wound if we’re not prepared to live free, to accord equal rights of freedom to our neighbors, and to personally oppose tyranny.

Still, it’s understandable that people who’ve always thought of freedom only in terms of mass action miss that point. After the recent blog, “Occupy Your Ownself,” that notion came up again.

I hate repeating myself, though after 15 years of doing what I do, I understand it’s a necessity. In this case, though, I stumbled upon an old Backwoods Home article that says some things that bear repeating.

I found it in one of the ancient issues of BHM that came with the house I bought last year. It wasn’t online and I had long ago lost any e-copy on my computer. Fortunately, webmaster Oliver keeps everything. And he kindly put it online for me a couple of days ago. He even took the initiative to add a good collection of links (thank you, Oliver).

So here is the first article I wrote for BHM after 9-11: “Freedom Tomorrow.”

It’s dated now, of course. But it’s still a pretty good statement on how the act of living free can build freedom in the broader sense.

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I’m going to take the next day or two off from work-work and blogging. I’ll be doing some projects around the house and hopefully also finishing J.D. Tuccille’s new novel High Desert Barbecue, which he was kind enough to send me in a really beautiful trade paperback form. It’s a terrific read so far and I’ll have more to say once I can finally make time to finish it.

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Early this year I used a wonderful Christmas gift to buy a lively, colorful template and a domain name, and I set about building what I hoped would be a freedomista portal — sort of a daily starting place for all things to do with living free.

I was going great guns on the project until I ran into a couple of tiny coding issues. The young man I hired to help took nearly two months to do the hour or so’s worth of work (couldn’t fire him; he was a friend’s son; and to his credit when it was all over he refused to charge me). Anyhow, by the time I could get back to the site … fizzle. I had run out of steam.

All year I’ve promised myself I’d finish the project and get the site online. But now the hosting company tells me my free year is running out and this morning I had to face the reality: I am never going to do this on my own.

In addition to the fizzlement, the fact is that any such site these days has to include a social networking component, and I’m about as interested in social networking as I am in running for president.

I had hoped that the site would be a fun place to gather — both for experienced freedomistas and for newbies seeking resources. I had also hoped it could generate a few hundred dollars a month from advertising, Amazon links, and various other vendor deals. But with me alone, it’s not going to do any of that.

So … would anybody be interested in “adopting” a freedomista site? I’m open to various arrangements, from ones that kick me clean out the door to ones in which I play a subsidiary role.

If you’re interested and have either coding skills or marketing skills (or, amazing thing, both), let’s talk. And you have the enthusiasm to make it happen, of course. You can drop an email to me here: freedomsite at hermit dot cotse dot net. I can show you the work in progress (it’s online, just not publicly accessible) and tell you more about what I had in mind. If you’re still interested and I think you can bring to the site what it needs, we can talk business.

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“The bug-out bag resource list — covering the best sources online.”

Excellent collection of links on multiple aspects of bug-out bags — everything from “What is a bug-out bag?” to special-needs bags. Great site in general. Links, links, links on many aspects of preparedness. (A couple of the links are to this blog, I’m happy to say. But there’s so much more.)

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Speaking of preparedness, here’s a real-world idea from a real do-er. One of the readers of this blog, who doesn’t want to be named, is helping his friends develop their preparedness mindset and skills in a way that is both painless and clever. Maybe even fun.

He purchased copies of the booklet Surviving a Disaster by Tony Nester and distributed them to relatives and acquaintances in his area who were receptive to the idea of preparedness but maybe needed a nudge.

Then he set up an invitation-only email list using one of the common online resources (e.g. Yahoo!, Google, or MSN groups ) and asked those same people to join him for regular, structured discussion. And I know this guy; he is all thumbs when it comes to technology. He says if he can set up a discussion list, anybody can.

I didn’t ask, but I suspect he chose Nester’s book partly because it’s small and not daunting and partly because the book has a specific focus: evacuation strategies and kits. He lives in an area subject to several “predictably unpredictable” types of disasters, and Nester’s advice is appropriate for common non-TEOTWAWKI emergencies group members might find themselves in.

He didn’t just say, “Come join me to talk about it.” He’s assigned reading (“Pages 1-5 by this Thursday”) and is keeping discussions targeted and action-oriented.

What a great way to build a small preparedness community while also looking out for the people you most care about.

Surely this is something any of us could implement without breaking a sweat.

Okay, maybe in our case participants would have to buy their own books. OTOH, instead of books, you could easily base the discussion around online articles; your assigned reading would be in the form of links — of which there just happen to be tons.

Survival Tips and Tricks (linked above) and MD Creekmore’s Survivalist Blog are good places to start. But yeah … when it comes to this topic, you’ve already got your own favorite sources, right?

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• You’ve probably heard by now: Steve Jobs is dead. Farewell to an amazing innovator. He’s been part of our cultural wallpaper for such a long time it’s hard to believe he was only 56.
• Don’t know that I’d want to beta test a bank, but if you’re fed up with the Big Boys, here’s an interesting new alternative.
• Speaking of banks, the always-interesting Barry Ritholtz has a good take on their self-inflicted mark-to-make-believe wounds and other unintended consequences of Brilliant Government Ideas.
• Believe it or not Tim Burton did not create this wedding photo. (I was going to post the pic here but didn’t want to disturb the digestion of any readers who might be eating breakfast.) This is what happens when you’re rich enough to have all the plastic surgery you want and old enough to have had one hell of a lot of it.
• Hey, here’s an idea! Have yourself turned into ammunition. Okay, maybe it’s not a good idea. But it’s an idea.
• Here’s a better idea. A makeshift trash-can root cellar.
• “Why Men Are in Trouble.”
• Downloading is not the same as playing. A court decision makes sense. Whoddathunkit?
• Ten best (legitimate) ways make money from home.

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With thanks to Dan Adams of the wonderful self-sufficiency networking site Earthineer, here’s a perfect example of creativity (and freedom) arising from destruction.

VOLOS, Greece — The first time he bought eggs, milk and jam at an outdoor market using not euros but an informal barter currency, Theodoros Mavridis, an unemployed electrician, was thrilled.

“I felt liberated, I felt free for the first time,” Mr. Mavridis said in a recent interview at a cafe in this port city in central Greece. “I instinctively reached into my pocket, but there was no need to.”

Mr. Mavridis is a co-founder of a growing network here in Volos that uses a so-called Local Alternative Unit, or TEM in Greek, to exchange goods and services — language classes, baby-sitting, computer support, home-cooked meals — and to receive discounts at some local businesses.

Part alternative currency, part barter system, part open-air market, the Volos network has grown exponentially in the past year, from 50 to 400 members. It is one of several such groups cropping up around the country, as Greeks squeezed by large wage cuts, tax increases and growing fears about whether they will continue to use the euro have looked for creative ways to cope with a radically changing economic landscape.

More.

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