The Peaceful Gnome

Remember, keep the MASS in Christ Mass! Go to church today! Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Enjoy the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord! Due to Lora and Mike being in the choir we went to two services last night and are going again this morning, when we get done that will be 2 full masses and one Service of Lessons and Carols, about 6 hours worth of church in less than 24 hours :-) Love it! Serenity spent the night at Mike and Maryann's with Topanga last night. After church we'll all go over there and open presents and have a ham and crab feast. After the first of the year our house is going full veggie and pretty close to vegan, though not totally... honey? Really? Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Been raining most of the day but it's clear above Livermore right now as the eclipse begins... Cool :-) Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Oddly they don't ever use the word anarchy, though it really is what they are talking about here: Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Check out this blog post by a now-grown unschooler, great stuff: I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write. The life and times of an unschooling vegetarian animistic green anarchist hippie child. Unschooling is Not Relaxed Homeschooling

From Father Hollywood , best Lutheran Pastor's Blog around :-) A Tale of Two Political Propagandas Here is an amusing little photo essay contrasting Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin with the American president Barack Obama. Now, obviously, this is humor.  The pictures are true enough, but individual photos do not tell the whole story.  Certainly (at least hopefully!), someone can find equally virile pictures of a lantern-jawed Obama looking (as they say) "presidential" even as one can likely find illustrations of Putin being gentle or silly with his family or with a goofy look on his face as well.  The choices are almost without limit as to what one could wish to portray about anyone in the public eye. I don't know either one of these guys - and to be honest, I'm not really interested in knowing anything about them.  They are politicians.  They are pampered and coddled.  They are handled and treated by the public as demigods.  I...

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from Our Family Blog

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from Our Family Blog

Mike and I went to Mitchell Katz release party for the Crackerbox Sangiovese and to 1st Street Wine for their grand opening. Winter in California :-) You snow bound east coasters can just, well continue to shiver :-) See and download the full gallery on posterous Posted via email from Our Family Blog

You don't have to read about it in sci-fi any more, it's happening now in front of us. You can even participate in it if you want to. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/08/the-push-button-tool.html Here is a video from Anonymous who are undertaking a counterattack against the enemies of freedom in GovCo who are trying to stop information by attacking Wikileaks, information wants to be free, information will be free... Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

I really like this wallpaper I found on the wikileaks.org site today :-) Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Minimalist Holiday: Gifting Kindle Books By miss minimalist | 3 comments Good news for minimalists this holiday season: you can now gift Kindle books on Amazon.com. Woo-hoo! As most of you know, I’m a huge fan of ebooks . They save trees, they save energy, and they save space in our homes. You can imagine, then, how excited I was to learn about this feature. I come from a family of readers, and we’ve always enjoyed giving each other books. However, most of us have given up physical books in favor of digital ones, so our book gifting days had drawn to a close…until now. Here’s how it works: 1. Click the “Give as a Gift” button (pictured above) on the book’s Kindle page. 2. Enter the email address of the recipient. (You can also include a gift message, if you’d like.) 3. Click the “Place your order” button to pay. The recipient will receive a gift notification at the email address you provide, and instructio...

Great post, be sure and read his linked article in the 2nd paragraph as well, I'll resist re-posting that in it's entirety here as well if you do :-) Libertarians, Power, and the Message of Freedom by William L. Anderson by William L. Anderson Recently by William L. Anderson: WikiLeaks and National Insecurity People who believe in liberty are in a minority, and it is a minority that few of us really can comprehend, as for the most part, libertarians cannot grasp the real costs that they will be facing in the coming years. Those of us who have spoken out against the abuses committed by those in power no longer will be ignored by those who control the police and "justice" apparatus, and we will be on the radar screens of those who believe they have the power to silence us. In response to the call for a boycott of Amazon because it gave in to pressure from Sen. Joe Lieberman, I had this post on Lew Rockwell’s blog. The post was a brief compilation o...

Recently someone I know posted to their Facebook page that they were bored (Hi JH!). How is this possible? Adults should not be bored, well unless they are at work doing something don't like much, but even then if it's really that boring to you a job change is in order. But to be at home and bored, that is inexcusable. Children are often bored in school where they are held against their will and force fed information they don't need and don't care about, that is understandable. But bored grown ups? What's with that? If you are bored your opportunities are endless! You can go to the library. You can visit a nursing home, you can volunteer for a soup kitchen, you can take a walk or start a new hobby. Being bored means you have FREE TIME to do things in! Being bored shows lack of imagination and ambition. Boredom is a CHOICE, not an inevitable consequence of some outside force. Write a poem. Write your congress-critter and tell them what you think the government should...

Since I got over my Amazon snit I put my wish list back. I want e-books for kindle, as I heard a rumor I'm getting a Kindle plus I have the Kindle software on my Blackberry already anyway... so here tis: http://amzn.com/w/3QJM083PFT0J3 Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

I'm over my anti-Amazon.com snit now. I am disappointed that they caved to pressure from some in the government and kicked Wikileaks off their system, but really it's not a surprise. Amazon is in business to make money, they are not a revolutionary organization seeking to reform the governments of the world. That's not what they are about really. So, never mind about my boycott :-/ Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

and go to hell GovCo! http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9JSHKUG0.htm Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from Our Family Blog

Review: John Adams conducts his Christmas oratorio at San Francisco Symphony By Richard Scheinin rscheinin@mercurynews.com Posted: 12/03/2010 10:56:54 AM PST Updated: 12/03/2010 11:05:24 AM PST Click photo to enlarge Mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung in Thursday's semi-staged San Francisco... ( Kristen Loken) « 1 » SAN FRANCISCO -- From its opening moments, with its crisp, piping rhythms, Thursday's performance of "El Niño" at Davies Symphony Hall was something extraordinary. All the performers in composer John Adam's Christmas oratorio -- and by night's end, more than 200 were involved -- seemed infected by the music's strange and startling beauties and by the clean, visceral energy that Adams brought to the performance as its conductor. Adams' unique setting of the Nativity story -- drawing on texts from the Bible, the Apocrypha, medieval mystery plays and modern Latin American poetry -- was co-commissioned by...

Serenity and I agree on John Adams El Nino. It was fantastic! Sort of a strange take on the Nativity but very nice. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from Our Family Blog

Not the usual stage at the symphony tonight. I'll post my impressions later. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from Our Family Blog

Serenity and I are on our way to the Symphony. Isn't she just the cutest? Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from Our Family Blog

...Why would anyone with a lick of sense read the media when they can read original material from WikiLeaks?  The average American reporter and editor must be very angry that his/her own cowardice is so clearly exposed by Julian Assange. The American media is a whore, whereas the courageous blood of warriors runs through WikiLeaks’ veins. Just as American politicians want Bradley Manning executed because he revealed crimes of the US government, they want Julian Assange executed. In the past few days the more notorious of the dumbshits that sit in the US Congress have denounced Assange as a "traitor to America." What total ignorance. Assange is an Australian, not an American citizen. To be a traitor to America, one has to be of the nationality. An Australian cannot be a traitor to America any more than an American can be a traitor to Australia. But don’t expect the morons who represent the lobbyists to know this much...  ...Mike Huckabee, the redneck bapti...

I've also deleted my Amazon Wish List, I'd rather no one purchase anything from Amazon for me for the time being, at least until they stop kow-towing to Lieberman and the rest of GovCo. Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

I'm not saying I will never again buy from Amazon, but I am saying I'm going to, right this very second, cancel my subscription to Amazon Prime.  I will also first search everywhere else before buying anything from them and if I can get the same thing for at least a similar price, even if it's a little higher, I'm not going to use Amazon any more.  From Anti-War.com Amazon Ousts WikiLeaks at Officials’ Behest Growing Consumer Backlash as Amazon Move Shuts Down Whistleblower for Hours by Jason Ditz, December 01, 2010 Email This | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Major Internet retailer Amazon.com is facing a growing public backlash and a call for boycotts, including a call by Antiwar.com, following its decision this morning to oust WikiLeaks.org from its cloud server hosting service. The move came following pressure from a number of top officials, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (I – CT), who slammed Amazon’s decision in allowing th...

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I have tickets to the Symphony tomorrow. It is a performance of John Adam's El Niño Oratorio. I have never heard it but I'm looking forward to it after listening to this podcast about it: http://www.sfsymphony.org/season/Event.aspx?eventid=43032# Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

About the denial of service attacks, that are ongoing even now,  that I mentioned in the last post, here is a short story about it . All Apple Business Gadgets Gaming Microsoft Open Source Science Tech Policy More Hardware Media Security Software Staff Telecom Web New Ars.TV News Guides Upgrade to a Premier Subscription Customize â–¾ Site Theme: White Black Choose body font: Arial Helvetica Layout (beta): Normal Compact OpenForum Login/Join Security Wikileaks moves to Amazon's cloud to evade massive DDoS By Ryan Paul | Last updated November 30, 2010 4:04 PM Controversial information disclosure site Wikileaks reportedly faced an intense distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack this morning. The site was temporarily disrupted by the onslaught, but is functioning again after migrating its services to Amazon's cloud. Wikileaks recent...

A couple of days before this happened, I predicted in casual conversations at work that the governments of the world, in panicked desperation before the onslaught of involuntary truth and openness being forced on them from Wikileaks, would trump up some vile morals charge; rape, molestation, murder, animal abuse, or whatever, in order to attempt to discredit the founder, Julian Assange. In a pathetically laughable and totally predictable and farcical move Interpol has done just that!   The governments of the world are in full panic mode as the common people suddenly have access the truth about just a few of their nefarious activities.  I feel sorry for Julian Assange as he will now be severely persecuted,  but it was obvious that this was going to happen.  It is how they always respond to any real threats of exposure of the truth about governments, and Wikileaks is a real threat.  They first try to ignore them and claim they are not true, then they t...