End the War on Freedom

"Another consideration is that the process of radicalization — to the point that a person undertakes a terrorist attack — rarely occurs in a solitary setting. Many individuals require the feedback and encouragement of like-minded individuals to help them reach that point."

The idea that a lone individual will appear seemingly out of nowhere to launch a horrific terrorist attack sends shivers down the spines of public security planners and law enforcement officers — not to mention average citizens. Because of their unique traits, “lone wolves” present very real challenges to the law enforcement and security professionals charged with guarding against such threats.

However, with the road from desire to actual destruction fraught with obstacles, the lone-wolf terrorist — one capable of causing mass casualties — is a rare individual indeed.

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We bought a brand new washer & dryer shortly before my son was born, over sixteen years ago. Sears Kenmore brand. They both served us well until recently, when the dryer motor died, and the washer bin stopped turning around. I decided it wasn't worth the money to replace the dryer motor, and didn't feel competent to work on the washer myself, so rather than pay Sears $100 for a repair guy to come out and possibly tell us the washer cost nearly as much as a new one to repair, we bought new ones.

I saw a new style of washing machine in Sears a few years back. Top loading, but with no agitator inside, just a little bump in the middle, and water jet holes. Well, we got one of those. Whirlpool brand name, though apparently Whirlpool makes Kenmore stuff. They were delivered today, after a two week wait from our purchase. And they're nice. Washed a long week's worth of clothes today. Quite satisfied.

I can't afford to buy major appliances very often, so it's nice when I can. Wish I could afford a new refrigerator.

Click the "read more" link for pictures.

At the end of March, I wrote about my first coffee lobotomy. I completely lost my forebrain, and my physical energy, from drinking two large cups of strong coffee a day. It took four full days of coffee fast for my brain to come back and another three days for my energy to fully return. Well, it happened again. This time I had been drinking mostly decaffeinated coffee, which made the experience different. I wasn't nearly as physically exhausted, but my frontal lobes were again completely paralyzed. Couldn't think my way out of a paper bag. I tried to work last Monday, but found it impossible. So I called in sick, "mentally exhausted", and took the rest of the week off. On Friday morning, I awoke with a brain, but still shell-shocked, so I didn't work over the weekend either. It feels like I'll be able to work today. Time will tell.

Once again, besides not being able to think, near panic was one of the symptoms. Worry that the condition was permanent, hence I'd never be able to write software again. Fortunately, all I needed to do was stop drinking coffee for a week.

Bottom line: I'm going to have to stop drinking coffee. Black tea, too, since it affects me pretty much the same way. Not sure about green tea. Hot chocolate will remain OK, I hope.

I was headed outside to give the dogs a walk at about 4pm this afternoon. Got their radio fence collars off and their leashes on, went to open the door, and, it wouldn't open. No amount of turning or pulling would make it budge. Screwdriver time. Took off the inner door handle, pushed the outer door handle out. Still wouldn't budge. Half an hour later, I'd managed to break apart the mechanism and convince the bolt to move, so I could open the door. I guess 25 years is a long time for what was likely a used part when the house was built. Off to Home Depot for a brand new Schlage locking handle set. Just $22. But it needed a little deeper hole than the old set, and I couldn't find my little hand saw, so it was chisel time. Finally got it to fit, and now we can lock our front door. Yay!

Well, the girls in my family did it. They bought a second cockatiel to keep Sunshine company. So far, the new bird has been absolutely silent. She won't be out of her cage for a little while, so that's where I took this photo. My daughter hasn't named her yet (nor are we sure that's she's not a he).

Found outside my house this morning:

I got a new hat at Agway yesterday. Made in China for Carhartt. I've been wearing a knit pull-over hat in the winter time for as long as I remember. Switched to a baseball cap when I bought my hoodless rain coat. Now I wanted a brimmed hat with some winter warmth.

I thought I'd never put the new hat's flaps down over my ears, but today the thermometer said 7 degrees, so I did.

Do I look like a hick, or what?

A tree fell over the road in front of my house last night. I denuded it at first light this morning. My neighbor has agreed to make some cuts with his chainsaw, after which I'll drag it out of the way. The joys of country living. More details and photos at billstclair.com/treefall.

I awoke on Monday morning around 4am for my morning pee. Felt sorta funny. Felt even more funny when the "pee" came out of my nether regions. Yes, boys and girls. Your intrepid reporter had food poisoning, or a stomach flu, but by whatever name you call it, my bowels were liquid, I had one four-part purge by mouth, and I couldn't stay vertical for more than a few minutes until yesterday afternoon. Subsisted on water and Poweraide.

Feeling well enough to sit at the computer this morning, but still a little fuzzy, and still not hungry. Don't know yet how long I'll manage to stay vertical.

Got a call yesterday afternoon about bringing food to the upcoming winter fair at my daughter's school. Was told that I was one of fourteen so affected. Think it was something we ate.

I looked over my normal news sources, but nothing grabbed me and said, "Post me!"

Spending lots of time reading the Programming Ruby, even bought the second edition as a PDF.

Also working on my S3 code. Should manage to get some image files up today to test whether they still work correctly without Apache-provided MIME types. Probably will. Then I just need to walk my 911 Timeline page and upload it to S3.

Puppy Linux continues to satisfy. Installed GNU Privacy Assistant (gpa) today. It's a GUI frontend for gnupg, the freeware implementation of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). It is unfortunately missing the nice clipboard interface of PGP. It only interacts with files.

My daughter got a baby cockatiel this week. Took me a while, but I finally got an in-focus picture. Click on it for higher resolution (744x1145 pixels, 112K). I have a 1488x1290 pixel version (354K), which I'll gladly send you if you ask, but I'm not posting it here to save my bandwidth.

Claire Wolfe - Claire's phone goes away on February 1, and she starts a ten-day silent retreat. Claire, may you find a part of yourself that has been hidden, or grok something new. Blessed Be! [claire]

Claire Wolfe - Bark did the technical work to start the Claire Files forums, back when they were hosted at The Mental Militia (currently down). He succombed to throat cancer this morning. Elias Alias, who has been caring for Bark since October, wrote a sterling send-off. Claire tells a little about people who helped with money.

Walter "Bark" Doss, R.I.P.

For the past few days, the temperatures have been in the forties, near fifty. Nearly all the snow melted, after exposing threacherous ice, and the dirt roads were starting to soften. I don't remember ever seeing a mud season in January, but we almost got there yesterday. This morning, winter is back. It's fifteen degrees out with four inches of new snow.

My son, Christopher, turns fourteen today. Unless he's changed his mind, we're going to shoot traps this morning. This will be his first time with the 12 gauge. He's fired it before, at the rifle range, but has never shot traps with it. I think he'll like it.