the muse

Wyman Brantley (who apparently noticed me on an INTP list) reports:

[Robert E] Howard said that the Conan stories came to him after a period of writer’s block, and that the stories went from brain to paper almost as if he were taking dictation.

I’ve had similar experiences, but my muse is more terse, dictating a total of nine words on the two occasions that I remember.

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relativity in everyday life

Very interesting thoughts on the Matrix series: Steven Chapman

2004 Oct 25: Strange: that item is dated 6/28/2003, but the same blog’s current page is dated April 30, 2002. Blogspot acting up again?

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QotD

Isabel Paterson: The God of the Machine (quoted by Julian Sanchez)

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.

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Harry Potter and the Libertarian Subtext

Shocking examples of anti-authoritarianism, enumerated by Natalie Solent. (Link from Modulator by way of Mindles)

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the spirit of ’89

The English Bill of Rights was enacted in October 1689. The US BoR was submitted for ratification in September 1789. Anybody happen to know if the centennial coincidence was played up in the rhetoric of the time?

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tartans in spaaace

Ken MacLeod, author of The Stone Canal &c, has a blog. (Thanks, Travis!)

But — oh dear . . .

It’s reminded me of the few times when I’ve felt the clammy suckers of capital’s covert-action tentacles on the back of my own neck.
[ . . . very big cut . . . ]
And that’s one reason why I’ll carry the SSP’s or even the CP’s red flag, even though I don’t agree with everything they stand for. It’s to keep the clammy suckers off my skin.

Of the three tentacles cited here, two belonged to the US Army and the CIA. Does someone as bright as Ken really suppose that a capitalist-free state would not have such organs?

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in more innocent times

It seems to me that in the Seventies – before John Belushi died – there was talk of relegalizing or decriminalizing the “soft drugs” marijuana and cocaïne. Does anyone else remember that, or am I (ha ha) hallucinating?

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