I am moving over here, y’all

That’s right, over here.

Still in process, but ideally it will be a proper blog. Or at least it will not have that unseemly “wordpress” in the title.

http://thestagblog.com/

An Update on Movies I Meant to Watch Last Summer

“Safety Not Guarantied  was way better than “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World”, because the latter really mostly is a poor, non-Canadian man’s “Last Night.” And “Safety Not Guarantied  cannot be discussed for fear of spoilers, but sometimes less subtle is more unexpected.

When considering time travel and apocalypses, one yearns to watch “Doctor Who.” But maybe I will find something bleaker. I worry I have run out of end of the world movies on Netflix streaming. 

I don’t think I was always this keen on movies like that, because they’re sometimes fucking scary. Even a mediocre movie like “Deep Impact” is bizarrely emotionally effective in spots. And a downright bad one can still raise the hairs on the back of my neck if the scenes of panicked masses are particularly well-done. The worst, of course, is the intimate scenes of end of the world (or just a world). Speaking of which, I never finished watching someone’s really grainy upload of “Threads” on youtube…

Pro tip

No matter how cool your mother is, try not to mention words like “trainhopping” or “going” “to” and “Mexico” as even halfway-considered life plans.

Look, a girl needs something to write about, and having a crazy cousin best friend might help.

 

Saturday Afternoon Links

• North Koreans are slowly moving into the age of cell phones, but the real, worldwide internet remains only for people named Kim Jong-Un and a few choice others.
• Drone hits Yemen less than a day after Obama wins reelection. New normal, people. A Republican would have continued these tactics with relish.
• There’s talk of a Casablanca sequel, which is not the worst idea ever, since there was a treatment penned by the original writer, but also good Lord no let’s not. A treatment isn’t enough to save it, a full script probably wouldn’t be, either.
• Look, I know that Rookie mag is for 14-year-olds in thick glasses, but it’s for teenagers and writers write about, say, how Hedy Lemarr was totally bad-ass. Do you understand how amazing such a magazine would have been when I was a teen? Do you understand that it still kind of rules, even though I am extremely old?
• I still blame Gawker for being lazy, but clearly New York Times mag was the one encouraging Donderoooooooooo.
• I am listening to Charlie Parr today, so you should, too. If only for his beard.

IJ on Pittsburgh Foodtruck Battles

Institute for Justice video on the fight to free up food trucks in Pittsburgh! My old homeschool friend Tim Cook, who is now the Founding Director of the Saxifrage School, helped out with the effort. The Saxifrage School is an awesome-sounding effort to make an affordable, local college and if I stick around or come back to Pittsburgh, I am tempted to get involved in their work.

Songs to Co-Opt for Libertarian Ends (As Best You Can)

• “Suspect Device” by Stiff Little Fingers; sample lyrics to sing loudly, but extra loudly during G-20 or other jackbooted thuggery life moments are “they take away our freedom/in the name of liberty/why can’t they all just clear off/why can’t they let us be? they make us feel indebted/for saving us from hell/and then they put us through it/ it’s time the baaaaaaaaaastards fell”
• “Riot Squad” by Cock Sparrer; “he’s in the riot squad/the shoot on sight squad”
• “Ain’t No Nobody’s Bizness If I Do” by Bessie Smith and other folks; fuck, it’s already downright libertarian with such lyrics: “If I should take a notion, to jump into the ocean/Ain’t nobody’s business if I do.”
• “Copperhead Road” by Steve Earle; libertarian fantasy lyrics “now the DEA’s got a chopper in the air/I wake up screaming like I’m still over there/I learned a thing or two from Charlie don’t you know/you better stay away from Copperhead road”
• “Ain’t It Enough” by Old Crow Medicine Show; if only for “let the prison walls crumble and the borders all tumble”
• “See How We Are” by X; for “there are men lost in jail/crowded 50 to a room” and other prisony lyrics.
• “Ruby Ridge” by Peter Rowan; non-racist, non-heavy-handed look at real human/government tragedy; “I got a wife and kids on Ruby Ridge/ please don’t shoot me down”
• “For An Old Kentucky Anarchist” by Erik Petersen/Mischief Brew/The Orphans; Do your own thing: “I never cared much for any government/ I got my Jesus for me when the time is right”
• “Fuck Tha Police” by NWA; shame about the sexism and homophobia, but: “searchin’ my car/lookin’ for the product/Thinkin’ every nigga is sellin’ narcotics”
• “Washington Bullets” by The Clash; it scorns the U.S. and wretched lefty regimes with “N’ if you can find a Afghan rebel/That the Moscow bullets missed/Ask him what he thinks of voting Communist/Ask the Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet/How many monks did the Chinese get?”
• “Holiday in Cambodia” by the Dead Kennedys; slanders fashion rebels in the U.S. and tries to point out the heinousness of the Khmer Rouge: “Well you’ll work harder/ With a gun in your back/For a bowl of rice a day/Slave for soldiers/Till you starve/Then your head is skewered on a stake”
• “Minority” by Green Day; your basic I am me and I rule: “I don’t need your authority/Down with the moral majority/Cause I want to be the minority” 
• “Bye Bye Policeman” by Jim Jackson, covered by the Carolina Chocolate Drops: I am never sure if the narrator kills the policeman or just waves him away from his gambling: “He said, “Stop there, boy! I’m the law, I command you!”/I said, “I ain’t thinkin’ ’bout that law you’re tryin’ to hand me”/
  Lord, I was pickin’ ‘em up, layin’ ‘em down/Curvin’ in and curvin’ ’round/Policeman, bye-bye”

Any more suggestions? Depends on how loose you want to get with libertarianism, and how much shitty music you are willing to tolerate?

And, of course, how much you like Rand or Rush.

Lazy Critique of Libertarianism of the Day

Lazy Critique of Libertarianism of the Day

See, it’s funny because Gawker headlined it “America’s Only Rude Libertarian…” and all libertarians are middle-aged white dudes who live in their parents’ basements, while simultaneously being Mitt Romney, I mean Paul Ryan, I mean a non-specific evil Hollywood businessman. And those of us libertarians who exist in the real world have never heard those strawmen before. Nor would we ever hear them, if not for the hardworking reporters at Gawker.

Eric Dondero; they decided Dondero(ooooooooo) was worth an entire post.

Hey statists, you won last night, mostly. Any compelling reason to kick libertarianism when it’s down? Because it’s always down.

Except, did the actual success of libertarian-friendly causes like gay marriage and legal marijuana on Tuesday make you nervous? Your president had to be dragged kicking and screaming into being an ally to the gay community (out loud, that is). And he has let his Department of Justice trample all over marijuana growers, state legality be damned.

Yep, the best aspects of the (arguable) left have nothing to do with Obama. He’s a sell-out war mongerer, and even if he becomes less of one this term, that won’t erase his last four years. That’s the thing about people’s lives and freedom being taken, there is no backsies there.

Oooh, I have another idea for a Gawker blog! I bet Wayne Allen Root said something stupid!

Early Afternoon Links

• New York Times op-ed doc on Chris Williams of Montana Cannabis  who is facing 80 years in prison. Another Montana Cannabis co-owner, Richard Flor, died in prison in August, a few months into his five-year term.
• “Police were forced to shoot a dog” during a narcotics SWAT search warrant on a house which contained an infant. Comforting! 
• Michael Moynihan says everyone’s a big fat liar, not just Republicans.
• Sometimes I wonder if Cosmo isn’t better than Esquire, just because Cosmo doesn’t think women have ever heard of politics and therefore nobody ever writes shit like this for Cosmo.
• Winner and finalists for the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography are worth a look. 
• Football is boring, but a little bad-ass girl playing it with boys is worth a look.
• Britain is awfully bureaucratic about contacting aliens.

Afternoon (Election Day Plus One) Links

• “Ron Paul Elected Ruler of Tiny Planet Inhabited by 1 Billion Tiny Ron Pauls” 
• DEA responds to Reason re marijuana legalization victories, suggests they’ll keep right on being dicks, no matter the state law.
• Mother Jones offers a more hopeful spin on legalization, noting that Eric Holder didn’t officially come out in opposition to Colorado’s Amendment 64.
• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) has all your marijuana results from last night.
• Ben Smith makes me cringe — in spite of the awesome marriage equality and marijuana legalization victories from last night — by deciding last night means “Welcome to Liberal America.”
• Obama’s victory tweet is the most popular tweet of all time, and I was totally rooting for Justin Beiber there.
• I hate weddings, and this is still insanely touching. Photography is awesome.
• Except when it’s campaign photography, then the magic is pretty much beaten out of the medium.

Thaddeus Russell won the election

He is the only person who has so far managed to make me wish I had voted today.

[Update: To reward Russell for his awesomeness, I purchased a copy of his "Renegade History of the United States" since I have been meaning to read it for ages.]