Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Sarah Hoyt sez:

The people who thought they had all the power and could never be challenged are throwing a vast, ugly, bizarre psychotic tantrum in public.
—Sarah Hoyt, “Fun House Mirrors”

And Sean Gabb reveals that “conservatives” are just as idiotic and spineless in Great Britain as they are here. Apparently “conservatives” like loosing. And are self-righteous about it. In this issue, where he also notes:

Over the past few generations, a new Establishment or ruling class has emerged in this country. It is a loose coalition of politicians, bureaucrats, educators, media people and associated business interests. These are people who derive income and status from an enlarged and activist state. They have been turning this country into a soft-totalitarian police state.

Same here in this country. Busy-Bodies.

Sarah Hoyt writes of growing-up in Portugal:

You could say I have a contrary disposition. You could also say water is wet.

My brother who is almost ten years older than I, loved to tease me. When I started taking languages and literature and emerged as one of the better students and therefore likely to have a career in diplomacy once spent a summer night making up a mock-newspaper of my adventures 20 years in the future, when I’d have been declared persona non grata in most of the world’s countries, and sometimes offered money to go away.

It was funny. What it wasn’t, by then, was really true.

* * * But by the time he did that I was in college. And I wasn’t stupid. At least not stupid in the social-reading sense.

I knew where the power was, even if all the Marxists who wielded power at every institution of learning insisted they were the underdog. I’d learned in high school that I had to toe the political line or be punished.
[Link to According to Hoyt]

The Whole Thing is a good read. I would have reprinted it but kept forgetting to ask permission. Old age and all, ya know.

And from something called “Daily Beast”

U.S. Power Companies Warned ‘Nightmare’ Cyber Weapon Already Causing Blackouts
The first hack was small, cutting power to part of Kiev. But security experts now warn that was just the start—the malware is a genuine cyber weapon that threatens the U.S.
by Kevin Poulsen

Seven minutes before midnight last Dec. 17, a bomb of sorts went off in a high-voltage substation north of Kiev.

But if you were standing outside the 20 acres of gleaming metal transformers and coils, you wouldn’t have heard a bang or seen a flash. It wasn’t that kind of bomb. It was a piece of malicious software that had been hiding in a control-room computer miles away, waiting for the right time to reveal itself. At 11:53 p.m., the logic bomb transmitted a staccato burst of pre-programmed commands to the substation, popping one circuit breaker after another until a strip of houses in and around western Kiev were plunged into darkness.
[Read More]

Boy Howdy.

However, some Good News: Neil Stephenson has a new book just out:

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel. I am almost finished reading it. Wow! But all of Stephenson’s novels are Wow!. This one deals with time travel, and bureaucracy. With just the results you might expect. Recommended.

So, anyway, stay Deplorable my friends.