A retrospective on gun rights, 1994-2014.

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Posted in Guns and Gun Rights | 8 Comments »

On Eric Holder and those not-so-smart guns that make government control freaks and their cronies in the business world drool.

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Posted in Guns and Gun Rights | 11 Comments »

• Doesn’t it just stand to reason — doesn’t it just? — that the Human Ken Doll has has nothing good to say about the Human Barbie Doll? Weird old world we live in, innit?
• I know there’s absolutely nothing funny about a fatal mudslide, as the people of Oso, Washington, are learning to their horror. But at least there’s a certain strangely poetic justice to this mudslide in China.
• Government priorities. I swear, anybody as witty as Tam ought to have a late-night show of her own and be getting fabulously rich and famous.
• The homeless guy and the ATM jackpot.
• “Stop adding up the wealth of the poor.” Y’know, when you explain it that way, I see your point.
• A brief video tour of British accents. Hilariously well done!

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Posted in Government, Humor, Miscellaneous, Money | 9 Comments »

I’ve been trying to find good words to say about the McCarthyist botch of political correctness run amok at Mozilla this past week. I think this pretty much takes care of what needs saying.

Can hardly believe it’s from a former Obama speech writer.

(H/T JG)

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Posted in Free speech | 13 Comments »

My latest article on JPFO.

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Posted in Guns and Gun Rights, Mind and Spirit | 5 Comments »

Laird Minor, a good guy and a member of the Living Freedom Commentariat, has just published a new book. It’s called Kairos: A Proposal to Restore Federalism to the United States.

Okay, I hear the keyboards of the anarchists and cynics charging up now. I suspect I’m even hearing the sound of a few claws being sharpened out there. I suspect Laird’s expecting that.

Nevertheless, some things to note: Kairos is free for the next several days; Laird is more interested in getting it read than getting it sold, so he’s also offering a free .pdf copy to those who don’t have Kindles or Kindle-reading software, and his offer of .pdf copies will continue even after the Amazon price is no longer zero. You can share copies with your Constitutionalist friends or others who believe the fedgov can be changed “within the system.”

I’ve skimmed the book and it’s well-written and informative. Agree or disagree with Laird’s position, he offers some good history and food for thought. (Never mind that I’m one of the claw sharpening cynics myself.)

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Posted in Books and Movies, Government | 37 Comments »

You tell me.

I know that the right software and the right settings are key to electronic privacy on computers. But are there some computers (laptops, especially) that are inherently more private and secure due to their hardware?

I always buys used Lenovo laptops. They (and their predecessors from IBM) are the sturdiest beasties in the computer world. Mine have been knocked off tables by rambunctious dogs (or by me) dozens of times, and while various plastic bits may have cracked or broken off, the workings inside their titanium cases have just gone right on ticking.

Unfortunately the other day my main computer (ThinkPad T400) was sitting on a hassock next to a window when Ava spotted a cat. This time she didn’t knock the computer to the ground. That would have been fine. Nope. She stuck a claw into its screen.

Oh, it’s still working just fine. But when you spend as much time at the computer as I do, a dog-claw-sized hole in the middle of the display will drive you nuts. So I’m thinking about a new (used) laptop. It’s about time for one, anyhow.

But one of the things I like about this one is no built-in camera. It’s got a stupid fingerprint reader, but that’s totally ignorable. It worries me that the newer an electronic device, the more likely it is to arrive with hardware and pre-sets to communicate with Uber-Snoops. Shel reminded me of such unknown hazards when he posted this link in comments.

That’s not for me. But then, neither is the prospect of buying increasingly older laptops just to avoid creepazoids.

So tell me: how far off-base am I in thinking that I should be able to buy a recent, but used, laptop that isn’t designed and pre-set to betray its users to Our Robot Overlords?

And if I’m not off base, what are some good candidate laptops built in the last few years?

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Posted in Computers, Privacy and self ownership | 42 Comments »

From Sipsey Street.

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Posted in Guns and Gun Rights | 9 Comments »