Stormbringer's Thunder

Buon giorno. Last time, I discussed why I will not follow some people on Twitter. This time, it's slightly different: Unfollowing. (No, it's not a real word outside of social networking, but it's still useful.) I am not one of those people that needs to have loads of followers to validate my existence; in fact, I trim off the followers. OK, so I've been Twittering, Tweeting, Retweeting (gosh, those terms make me feel so manly...ha!) for a while. Then I see that I'm getting bothered by some of the material that appears before of my eyes. Here are some of the reasons that I may drop my following: Although I knew what I was getting into, someone sends links almost exclusively . Sure, I want news. But not quite that much! It would help if the person had personality instead of acting like some kind of posting bot. They ignore my links . As almost a sub-point to the above, I post some links myself. When I have a new Weblog posting, I'll share the link. When people a...

Buon giorno. I have to get some thoughts out regarding Twitter, and I will have a few installments. The next one will probably be about "unfollowing". If you don't use Twitter, I hope you will read these anyway, because I believe they have some deeper meanings for our communications habits in general. The "rules" or procedures for social networking are different in many ways from "real life", but there are also some things in common. One rule is that the rules are constantly changing. Wow, lookie here! Someone decided to "follow" me on Twitter. Naturally, I click on their profile to see what they say about themselves, what they have "tweeted", who else they follow, how many followers they have and so on. And when they decided to follow me, there is an expectation that I will feel obligated to follow them back. Not this little gray duck. By the way, in the real world, we don't "follow" people that we just met unless we...

Buona sera. I was hoping for something to let some venom loose on, and what did I find in my Inbox? A scam. And not just a scam, but one of the classics. So, I'll perform my public service of educating you on this stuff (and you can refer others back here so they can see this and learn something), and also try to humiliate the scammers. One way I do that is to post the thing that they sent (and they sent it three times to an account that I have under one of my assumed names). And I checked the headers (you don't have to, they're often faked). Although it pretends to be for the UK, the headers say that it came from Mexico. Here we go. I'll show you what was sent, and then tell you some things about it. Most of my regular readers do not need a refresher course, but it won't hurt in case you're getting rusty. Dear WINNER [No name, of course] We wish to congratulate you over YAHOO AWARDS CENTER ( UK ) UNITED KINGDOM Postcode Lotto E-mail program. [Don'...

"He has gloriously vindicated the right of the individual to be individual." Yes, I deliberately spelled the title that way. Plenty of people have sounded alarms about how the leftists are taking over the country for the sake of Statism. The loss of liberty is unimportant, it is only the state and big government that matter to these kinds of people. I will not go into detail on that now, it's been done better by other people . But the cowboy in me sees other things happening as well. When the state controls things, the individual is unimportant, just a cog in a wheel. Do what you are told and clam up. You have no real identity any longer. We saw this happen under Fascism, Communism and Socialism. It is becoming that way in the United States, because Statism is growing here as well. This is not just a government phenomenon (although I wonder if some leaders take inspiration from governmental models). It happens in cult-like religions, businesses and other places where ...

Buon giorno. I want to tell you a story, and I want to refer to Joe Jackson's song, "Don't Wanna Be Like That". And once again, I'm bringing up a place where I used to work before I became rich, famous and successful. This story is a spiritual story. It took place around 1985 or so. I was married at the time, and we were co-resident managers of a self-storage facility. One of the many duties that the bosses surprised us with was that we were to be collections agents after a fashion. Mostly, it was telephones and letters, and not with baseball bats. But it was still hard-hearted, "When do we get our money?" Sure, every business has a right to be paid. But these guys had no compassion. This bothered me. I complained to my then-wife that I "don't wanna be like that", hard-hearted and worshiping money like the bosses. Back then, I was still in the habit of praying, and I let God know my feelings on this, too. Then it got even more interesti...

This was in my mail, and I thought it was worth sharing. OK, LET ME SEE IF I GOT THIS RIGHT. IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR, OR SHOT. IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY. IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT. IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE JAILED. IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN. IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED. IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO PRISON TO ROT. IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET: 1 - A JOB 2 - A DRIVERS LICENSE 3 - SOCIAL SECURITY CARD 4 - WELFARE 5 - FOOD STAMPS 6 - CREDIT CARDS 7 - SUBSIDIZED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE 8 - FREE EDUCATION 9 - FREE HEALTH CARE 10- A LOBBYIST IN WASHINGTON 11 - BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PRINTED IN YOUR LANGUAGE 1...

Buon giorno. In my last post, I was emphatic that if someone is going to be a Minimalist, that they should do it at their own pace and in their own way. There is no creed or code other than the consensus that you cut back on non-essentials as much as possible so that you have time and money for things that you think are important. I want to expand on the part where I said that Minimalists can make themselves miserable by viewing every move they make through a filter of, "Does this fit with the Minimalist lifestyle?" "Yeah, the buttons on your shirt say you've been expanding again!" Clam up, Nicky. You do want that bonus, don't you? Anyway. If you go around testing and judging yourself, filtering your every action through whether or not it fits your chosen philosophy, you'll make yourself miserable. This is mainly because there is no creed or code. That thought should be liberating, so do not make it into a prison! Here are some ways that I can ima...