Author Archives: Joel

…when men were men, ATF agents were heroes, people were buying the bullshit about American guns flooding poor Mexico (without U.S. government help, that is), and SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE!!! Success on the front lines of a government blitz … Continue reading →

I’ve been spending the morning, off and on, trying to bring some order to the very messy pantry. I needed to swap lids on a bunch of pails, and I hate dealing with the lids. About half our pails have … Continue reading →

8^D So I’m surfing a bit at Claire’s, and she recommends this essay at Get Rich Slowly called “What Do You Care What Other People Think,” a question always dear to my heart. It’s not a bad piece, I recommend … Continue reading →

It’s been hot – really hot – for days. Afternoons above a hundred according to the nifty digital thermometer Landlady gave me, which is hotter than usual. Yesterday broke cloudy and hazy, breezy and much cooler. Around two the storm … Continue reading →

I didn’t exactly make that up… “One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principal ways of doing that … Continue reading →

Remember when it was America’s pride to be able to truthfully say it had no political prisoners? Me neither.

I’ve been seeing these talking points (sure wouldn’t call them “arguments”) quite a lot. Maybe they resonate with somebody. Somewhere. I hope not to meet those people. The ATF’s woes are entirely the fault of the gun rights lobby, concerned … Continue reading →

Tam, quite logically, asks Seriously, have we reached a point where we, as a nation, are so pants-pissingly scared of a bunch of self-immolating neolithic goatherds that we are willing to inflict any indignity on any citizen at any time … Continue reading →

Working on the last tweaks to the septic system before I start burying stuff. I pulled the pipe out of the first barrel for a little adjustment, and caught a really foul odor. That seemed premature. Looked down through the … Continue reading →

I love corned beef. And potatoes. And onions. It therefore follows logically that I should love corned beef hash like life itself. Instead, for most of my life the mere sound of the three words made me actively nauseous. Seriously, … Continue reading →

This looks like a good place to plug my friend Ian’s site Forgotten Weapons. I’ve mentioned it here before. He covers a lot of old, obscure designs, provides scans of old manuals, that sort of thing. Lately, though, he has … Continue reading →

Hiding in the Scriptorium and waiting for the heat to fade. The boys and Click are sacked on the shelves, everybody’s safe, everything’s coollaid-back, and I’m aimlessly surfing the afternoon away. I should be more careful where I surf. From … Continue reading →

The thing weighs a ton. But after the ninja bear incidents of a couple of weeks ago I thought I’d better upgrade my lighting situation, which I never took very seriously. I’ve got a fairly good belt flashlight, but nothing … Continue reading →

…hasn’t seen a professional news editor at work. Let’s play “Spot the Lies.” View more news videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com/video. Are all Chicago newsies this dishonest? Are all Chicago viewers this stupid? H/T to Black Sunday.

Editorial: Was Fast And Furious A Gun-Control Plot? Not the sort of question I’d expect Investors Business Daily to be worrying itself over. Scandal: Rather than a botched attempt to catch criminals, was the ATF program actually an attempt to … Continue reading →

Say what evil you will about Paul Helmke, we must also praise his virtues. He has been tirelessly self-promoting, ubiquitously visible, and a wonderfully available punching bag. His talking points – I’d never dignify them with “arguments” – don’t have … Continue reading →

Welcome to the brave new world, citizens! Feel safer now. That’s an order.

There’s always so much to bitch about! Seems like only yesterday I thought I’d freeze to death. Got so cold the snow never melted off my boots overnight. So cold the drinking water froze in its bottles. So cold … … Continue reading →

This is a reprint of something I wrote over two years ago. Almost nobody read it back then, of course, because back then almost nobody read the blog. What the piece says about web articles concerning the free market may … Continue reading →