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The Mars Volta
There’s a new album from The Mars Volta: Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos Del Vacio Mercurial, unpredictable group of musicians satisfies two of Timothy Snyder’s tests for freedom: sovereign and unpredictable. Lucro Sucio: Los Ojos del Vacío in English means filthy lucre, vacant eyes. Continue reading
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Don’t delay!
Everything that’s on sale is for sale, but not everything for sale is on sale. It hasn’t always been that way. If you go back far enough — say to the 700s — “sell” meant to give. You can find it in Beowulf, and that’s what it meant in those days. A couple of centuries Continue reading
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No Kings
“We live in a moment when our freedoms are once again under attack from the highest office in the land. We see things that would be familiar to our revolutionary predecessors: the silencing of critics, the disappearing of people from our streets, demands for unquestioning fealty.” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey Continue reading
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People who live in different places, even though they speak the same language, tend to have different accents. Accents are not as diverse as they used to be, probably because everybody now listens to the same voices on TV, radio, and digital media. Even on local radio and TV stations, announcers seem to mostly sound Continue reading
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You can’t fine me, read page 942
It’s tax-returnseason in the US, which means that people across the country have been eagerly searching for “loopholes.” And the regime, of course, is all about loopholes, like most grifters. A loophole is a detail in a rule or law or regulation that enables you to argue, with varying degrees of success, that the rule Continue reading
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I mean, really?
I mean to explore a fantastic word today, but in the meantime, let’s instead talk about a very pedestrian one. How about… “meantime”? “Meantime” has the same meaning as “meanwhile,” and they’re both in common usage. Both refer to the unspecified time that occurs between one thing and another. The interesting thing about “meantime” is Continue reading
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Hey here’s an idea
I realize that “ideas” and “thinking” are not features of the current regime in America — or should I say “Amerika” — but here’s one anyway. If trade deficits are such a crucial thing, maybe review an industry where we have a big trade surplus: education. Thousands of foreign students want to come here to Continue reading
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Ketchup is still not a vegetable, though
If you’re a vegetarian or vegan in 2025, you don’t eat meat. But if you’re a vegetarian or vegan with a time machine who zips back to England about a thousand years ago or more, you’d find yourself eating meat all the time. This isn’t because of a previously undocumented side effect of time machines Continue reading
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Extra large
“Macro-” is a prefix meaning large or intensified in some way. It comes from the Greek “makro-” (long), which is also the source of the Latin “macer” (lean). Macer itself is the source of the English word “meager,” which, paradoxically, means scanty; not enough. Almost the opposite of “macro.” There are a great many English Continue reading
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Did you know…
The Nobel Prize in Economics is not a Nobel prize. It’s a fake created by the Swedish central bank in 1968. It “honors” Alfred Nobel, but the Nobel committee does not award a prize in economics. I believe that’s because they do not consider economics an actual science. And neither should we. Milton Friedman, who Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity.
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peterharbeson@me.com