Oh wow. Did you know about this? Anybody seen it? Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk have a new series that plays on their roles in the late, much-lamented, still grand-and-gloriously freedomista Firefly.
Speaking of rip-roaring, libertarianish fiction, Larry Correia’s latest Monster Hunter book is coming out Tuesday. An unusual amount of buzz around this one. Preorders now accepted on Amazon.
Twenty years ago, libertarians were “lunatics” for wanting to end the drug war. Now … mainstream. Twenty years ago, libertarians were “crazy and irresponsible” for wanting to end zoning laws. Now … the idea’s being discussed on Bloomberg.com.
Every four years, the Olympics cost cities, regions, and countries more than they earn. Every four years, a new athletic supercomplex begins to crumble into ruin. Every four years thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of poor people and small businesses are brutally displaced for the sake of an international show. Why do so few commentarors realize and write about the obvious?
Suspicions confirmed: the U.S. has only one native wolf species. The other two “species” are just the result of coyotes and wolves doing some … er, heavy partying.
J.K. Rowling tells of the founding of Ilvermorny, the North American wizarding school. There’s a video, too.
The Age of Disintegration. There’s a bit to disagree with. The author doesn’t get the difference between real free markets and crony capitalism within a statist system. But it’s as good an analysis of the Middle East mess — and its western roots — as any.
Thomas Paine wrote those wordsafter the shooting had already begun at Lexington and Concord, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a fact that always surprises me. We tend to think that by that time, the game was on, lines were irrevocably crossed, and everybody who was going to take a side and get involved was already committed. But not quite so.
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We of course haven’t even had our Lexington moment yet and frankly I pray we never do. Even in the best cases (and the American Revolution was certainly one of those), shooting wars ultimately play into the hands of the most wily statists. Who shoots first, shoots straightest, has the biggest weaponry, or has “God on their side” doesn’t always determine how free people are once the smoke has cleared.
“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”.
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!
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?
Surprise, surprise. Iran lies and Obama just nods like a bobblehead doll.
Alas, the middle class is now a minority. The graph says it most vividly. You can feel the squeeze.
LOL! Glenn Harlan Reynolds on Donald Trump as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. (Or to put it another way, when leaders are fiddling while nations burn you don’t get John Galt flying to the rescue. You get Donald Trump … or Marine LePen … or worse.)
Brendan O’Neill of Spikedwrites of Paris one week after. About the lack of passion:
It’s the feeling you’d expect to see following a natural disaster, when tragedy is inflicted on people by forces beyond our control, rather than after a conscious, bloody, moralistic attack, on the citizens of Paris and the values of France. The flower-laying, the books of condolence, the exhortations not to give ISIS our hate because that is what it wants… this has all been good and decent and moving. But where’s the fire? The anger? …
For some reason, the NRA sat on its review of the notorious Armatrix iP1 “smart” gun and just recently released it. They probably didn’t mean it to be hilarious, but it is.
Ten ways to lessen your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack.
#BlackLivesMatter may get all the press, but Tommitrise Collins, college student and new mother, is a lot more impressive.
Wendy McElroy found this one first, but it should be spread far and wide: thanks to asset forfeiture, U.S. cops now steal more property than all the nation’s burglars combined.
What The Hunger Games movies say about feminism and war. I read this week that Jennifer Lawrence was initially frustrated with her character Katniss’ reluctance to fight and to lead, but eventually came to understand that it’s one of the character’s great strengths.
Newly discovered spider named after a Lord of the Rings character. No, not Shelob.
Well, I’m sure that’s one good reason to fire the head of the DEA. But somehow it hardly seems the biggest reason (to fire the head of the DEA, send all its agents off to work at McDonalds, burn the agency to the ground, and salt the land on which it stood).
Crybullies, crymobs, and the left’s whiny war on free speech. That last paragraph is a doozy. (Tip o’ hat to D.B.)
Court rules for husband (and contract) in frozen embryos case. (Having a baby — or not having one — is a lot more complicated than it used to be.)
The Che Cafe is in the red and fans want California taxpapers and university students to go on subsidizing it.
Upon request, the FBI has released its files on two of my publishers. :-) (H/T A.G. in comments)
The released FBI docs give the impression that they really weren’t much interested in Loompanics or Paladin. But as I wrote in this 1998 Wolfe’s Lodge “Sound Off,” I have a bit of evidence to the contrary. (Once again a big thank you to Bill St. Clair for keeping that ancient site alive in his archives. Thanks also to the anonymous designer; I was struck again by what a beautiful site it was for its era (and still). Even now it’s a wonderful place for a rainy-day visit.)
The latest specials from Backwoods Home: give up to 10 gift subscriptions at half price; buy a copy of Backwoods Home Cooking and get Ask Jackie Homestead Cooking free. NFI on my part. These offers are good through Sunday midnight.
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