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.
News avoidance lurches right along. Mix of nooz and think pieces today.
New software (so far W*nd*ws only) aims to help activists detect and foil government surveillance. Get it here. Can’t say how effective it’s going to be, but it’s endorsed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amnesty International, and other big-timers in the field. (H/T MJR)
Along the same lines, Let’s Encrypt aims to bring SSL/TSL to the masses by taking the difficulties and mysteries out of those pesky web site certificates. (Remember: Encryption is subversive! Or so our masters claim. Which is, of course, all the more reason to do it.)
If you were talented enough to play in the NFL, would you quit to become a farmer? Jason Brown did.
Holleee freakin’ cr*p! The shooter who did this was lucky he didn’t (in the famous words of Ralphie’s mother) “put his eye out.” His (or her) eye. Or face. Or hands. Or parts of the guys standing next to him at the range. Just looking at that photo is mind boggling.
Which dietary supplement claims are backed by evidence and which aren’t? Interesting chart. But also not the be-all and end-all of truth. Much is still unknown.
It’s astonishing and discouraging how a cheesy, corrupt, lying, hustler can be considered “respectable.” And speaking of cheesy, corrupt, lying, downright embarrassing hustlers who nevertheless keep landing on their feet: Marion Berry, RIP.
First great reason I’ve seen to consider a smart phone: The iPhone 6 locks out the NSA.
And look how upset it’s got some lawbreaking authoritarians! The FBI director seems to think that, historically, it’s been okay for the feds to snoop randomly on everybody and verboten for us to have secrets from them. Apparently that’s what it means to be a “country of laws.”
While this article asks the irrelevant-to-most-of-us question of why billionaires get depressed, the solution it presents is one for anybody who feels stuck.
Wouldn’t you just know it? Wouldn’t you just? As soon as domestic drones even start looking like they could be a nuisance, somebody comes up with this: Drone Shield.
Yes, indeedy, you to can keep the paparazzi and other airborne vermin away. Fancy that! But look who all is in the list of potential clients — a veritable roster of the crony capitalist police state. Pity.
(H/T MJR.)
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People laughed earlier this summer when big-time columnist Maureen Dowd tried her first cannabis, did it unwisely, and wrote about feeling like she was dying. They thought she was making a ridiculous big deal out of a pot experience.
I didn’t laugh. I had an experience like hers. Edible pot. Not for some of us, no, no, not ever. Turns out even the Emperor of Pot, Willie Nelson won’t touch edibles for that very reason.
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In more mundane news, I had to pull a tick off the base of my cat’s ear tonight. We don’t usually get ticks and though I’ve yanked a few off dogs, I’ve never tackled a kitty.
I figured that “tackle” might be the operative word. But Kitsu is such a mild-mannered little thing that after a few token twists to keep her head out of my hands, she sat still for the procedure. She was very offended, and demanded out immediately afterward, but the only one harmed by the experience was the tick.
Couple of weeks ago I linked to Ryochiji’s farewell to his Serenity Valley cabin as he prepared it as best he could against approaching fires. Good news; his cabin survived. Barely, but it made it.
Um … I’m really not sure why various news media keep presenting this as amusing. I know socks often go mysteriously missing. But 43 (and a half!) … you’d think the family would have wondered. (Tip o’ hat to S.C.)
Tam? Tam, where have you gone? Your blog was one of the stones on which the gunblogosphere was built.
Doctors getting fed up with their profession. No surprise. Not really news. But an interesting perspective from a physician.
“Who owns your children?” Bayou Renaissance Man asks after last week’s case of a family subjected to an international manhunt for disagreeing with their son’s doctors.
What do you know about MaidSafe? Is this the future of communications privacy? (H/T PB in comments)
Teacher arrested over school shootings — that he wrote about in novels. David Codrea notes that we don’t know the whole story, but it doesn’t sound good.
Why, that would be as unthinkable as saying cops are lying thugs or that they get away with things that would send the rest of us to prison.
Why, that would even be like saying that feds and local cops are conspiring to keep information out of the hands of judges. Couldn’t happen. This is Murrica!
Sigh. Another hopeful libertarian project collapses into a rubble heap of fraud and scandal.
Oh well. Here’s something useful (and maybe even fun) to do while waiting for Truth, Justice, and the Murrican Way to triumph: make your own knife without power tools. (link fixed!)
ADDED: Per jed in comments on today’s other post: pit bull saves kid from swarm of bees. (Needed a little more good news here.)
“The boy who invented email.” Wonder why more of us don’t know this. When “experts” had dismissed it as too difficult, a precocious 14-year-old invented email.
Love this from Brigid: stripper clips and “Lab” dances.
Not sure whether this is high-tech creepy or just Cold Warish enough to be weird. Gov’t listens in on scientists listening to marine life and … well, it’s complicated. (H/T H.)
You have the right to remain silent. But only after cops tell you have a right to remain silent. ‘Cause if you remain silent before that it’s because you’re guilty. Got that? If not, stay out of California. Cheers!
