End the War on Freedom

An email arrived from the Social Security Administration entitled Help Us Slam the Scam. Explains how not to get scammed by people who want our checks. Wonder if they realized it applies equally to Elon Musk, richest man in the world, who wants to eat old people's cupcakes because, well I can't explain it.

An iron law of the universe is the opposite law of liberalism, which states that whatever the left is saying, assume the opposite and you will get close to the truth. It is not a perfect rule in that the opposite … Continue reading →

People give Matt Mullenweg a lot of grief, but do they realize how hopeless the open web would be if he and his friends hadn’t kept it going for 20+ years. I wrote the other day that I feel like a time traveler, discovering WordPress 20 years after I left UserLand. I care that it's open source, but I care much more that it's open web esp after we've been so thoroughly dominated by feature-limited silos such as Twitter, Facebook and yes -- even Mastodon and Bluesky. Even if there's a theoretical way to do it, practically speaking we have to wait for their developers to implement the features we want. Open source doesn't help there, but open web does. Matt puts the emphasis on the open source part, that's why it wasn't until very recently that I realized that open web is more important, to me at least.

I asked ChatGPT to draw a picture of a death panel as described by Republican lawmakers as they fought the Affordable Care Act. I was surprised it was willing to do it.

According to the bot: "The concept of 'death panels' was a widely debunked political talking point used by opponents of the Affordable Care Act. It falsely suggested that government-run committees would decide whether individuals—especially the elderly or disabled—would receive life-saving care.

"I can generate an image depicting a grim, dystopian bureaucratic setting where a group of shadowy officials in suits are sitting at a long, dark table, stamping papers while an elderly patient looks on with concern. The room would have a cold, sterile look, with a looming clock symbolizing bureaucratic power over life and death."

It’s one thing for Trump to have pardoned every defendant, no matter what Capital police officer they beat while enjoying their “tour” of the Congress or collection of souvenirs or depositing bodily excretions on desks, of the January 6th insurrection. After all, they did it for Trump, and how better to show his love of […]

Advocates of Basic Income have trotted out a lot of arguments for its benefits, but I never expected John Stossel (“Universal Basic Income Shows Why Giving People ‘Free Money’ Doesn’t Work,” Reason, October 9) to produce such a convincing one. When I was young, If I hadn’t needed to work to support myself, I wouldn’t...

Here’s the video of last night’s Mind Meld with Gard Goldsmith, who hosts the Liberty Conspiracy podcast.  We talked about “standing” with Keeeeeevvv, the ethanol grift and various other topics. My segment begins at about the 50 minutes in mark: . . . If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.  We depend […]

The post Latest Radio: Liberty Conspiracy 02/26/2025 appeared first on EPautos - Libertarian Car Talk.

Here’s the audio of this week’s talk with Bryan Hyde, host of the Bryan Hyde Show in Idaho! We talked about triggered Communists (there are no such things as “leftists,” “progressives” or “Democrats”) as well as what’s  going on in the motoring world – and what might (let’s hope) happen, soon: . . . If […]

The post Latest Radio: Bryan Hyde Show 02/26/2025 appeared first on EPautos - Libertarian Car Talk.

You can safely bet that when a car company or dealer offers a lease deal that can’t possibly earn a profit on the transaction the object isn’t so much to make a profit as to stem the losses. How about just $249 per month – with zero percent interest! – on a brand-new Charger? The […]

The post Desperation Leases appeared first on EPautos - Libertarian Car Talk.

Writes Gail Appel: Europe has only itself to blame. We don’t owe them anything. They’re so rabidly Russophobic that they’re commiting suicide within their own borderless caliphate. See here.  

The post Another beautiful day in Austria appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.  972 Magazine  

The post When a Jew shot by another Jew cries ‘Death to Arabs!’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

By Tim Donner

From the moment it became clear that Donald Trump had secured a decisive electoral victory, the left has been flailing about, desperately seeking a counter-narrative to explain away and diminish the evident allure of his far-reaching, revolutionary agenda. Early on, unable to challenge the reality of an unambiguous mandate from the American people, the hard […]

By Graham J Noble

In June 2015, Donald Trump famously descended that golden escalator in New York City’s Trump Tower and announced he was running for president. Sometime later in that same year, according to an FBI whistleblower, then-director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey set in motion an “off-the-books” operation to infiltrate the future president’s campaign. […]

By Liberty Nation Authors

Are Russia and Ukraine on the verge of finally stating clearly what each side expects? For more episodes, click here.

By Andrew Moran

For the economic observers keeping track, Apple can be added to the growing list of multinational corporations pledging to invest billions of dollars in the US economy. Is the iPhone maker ultra-bullish on Trumponomics, or is the tech juggernaut attempting to avoid the new administration’s tariffs? It could be a bit of both, as President […]

For day 15, we are simulating moving crates around a warehouse. We are give a map of the warehouse which we will read into a grid, and a list of moves of our little robot. When the robot encounters a crate, it will push it in the direction it is moving, if it can. If the crate rests against another crate, it will push both crates. If the crate rests against a wall, it will not move. If the crate cannot move, the robot doesn’t move either. The robot can only push.

The second part of the puzzle uses double-wide crates, so our input code has a flag to indicate whether to create single-wide or double-wide crates in the initial grid.

;;; -*- Lisp -*-

(in-package "ADVENT2024/DAY15")

(defun decode-cell (string package wide?)
  (if wide?
      (cond ((equal string "#") (list ’\# ’\#))
            ((equal string "O") (list ’[ ’]))
            ((equal string ".") (list ’\. ’\.))
            ((equal string "@") (list ’@ ’\.))
            (t (error "Unknown cell ~a" string)))
      (list (intern (string-upcase string) package))))

In the input, the directions are represented with the characters ^, v, <, and >. We will convert these to the corresponding vectors.

(defun decode-move (move)
  (cond ((equal move "<") +west+)
        ((equal move "^") +north+)
        ((equal move ">") +east+)
        ((equal move "v") +south+)
        (t (error "Unknown move ~a" move))))

We’ll use a regular expression to parse the input. If it is a line consisting of #, O, ., or @, we’ll decode it as a row of the grid. If it is a line consisting of one of the directions, we’ll decode it as a move.

(defun read-input (input-pathname &optional; (wide? nil))
  (multiple-value-bind (blanks grids moves)
      (#3M(lambda (line)
            (cl-ppcre:register-groups-bind (blank grid move)
                ("(^$)|([#.O@]+)|([><v^]+)" line)
              (values blank grid move)))
          (scan-file input-pathname #’read-line))
    (let ((blank-lines (collect ’list (choose blanks)))
          (grid-lines  (collect ’list
                         (#M(lambda (line)
                              (collect-append (#Mdecode-cell
                                               (#Mstring (scan ’string line))
                                               (series (find-package "ADVENT2024/DAY15"))
                                               (series wide?))))
                            (choose grids))))
          (move-list (collect-append (#M(lambda (line)
                                          (collect ’list (#Mdecode-move
                                                           (#Mstring (scan ’string line)))))
                                        (choose moves)))))
      (declare (ignore blank-lines))
      (values (make-grid (length grid-lines) (length (first grid-lines)) :initial-contents grid-lines)
              move-list))))

can-move-to? will determine if we can move to a particular cell in the grid from a particular direction. If the cell is empty, we can move there. If the cell is a crate, we can move there if we can move the crate.

(defun can-move-to? (grid coord delta)
  "True if location on grid at coord is empty, or item at location can move in direction."
  (and (on-grid? grid coord)
       (or (eql (grid-ref grid coord) ’\.)
           (can-move? grid coord delta))))

can-move? will determine if we can move an item on the grid one step in a particular direction. The tricky part is double wide crates. We need to check both cells to see if we can move the entire crate.

(defun can-move? (grid coord delta)
  "True if item on grid at coord can move in direction."
  (and (on-grid? grid coord)
       (ecase (grid-ref grid coord)
         (\. (error "No item at coord."))
         (\# nil)
         (@ (let ((target (2v+ coord delta)))
               (can-move-to? grid target delta)))
         (O (let ((target (2v+ coord delta)))
               (can-move-to? grid target delta)))
         (\[ (if (or (equal delta +north+)
                      (equal delta +south+))
                  (let ((target1 (2v+ coord delta))
                        (target2 (2v+ (2v+ coord delta) +east+)))
                    (and (can-move-to? grid target1 delta)
                         (can-move-to? grid target2 delta)))
                  (let ((target (2v+ coord delta)))
                    (can-move-to? grid target delta))))
         (\] (if (or (equal delta +north+)
                      (equal delta +south+))
                  (let ((target1 (2v+ coord delta))
                        (target2 (2v+ (2v+ coord delta) +west+)))
                    (and (can-move-to? grid target1 delta)
                         (can-move-to? grid target2 delta)))
                  (let ((target (2v+ coord delta)))
                    (can-move-to? grid target delta)))))))

move! will move an item on the grid one step in a particular direction if possible. It returns the new grid location if it moved, or nil if it didn’t. When moving an item we put a blank spot where the item was. The tricky part is double-wide crates, where we need to move both cells.

(defun move! (grid coord delta)
  "Move item on grid at coord in direction delta."
  (if (can-move? grid coord delta)
      (ecase (grid-ref grid coord)
        (\. (error "Cannot move empty locations."))
        (\# (error "Cannot move walls."))
        (@ (let ((target (2v+ coord delta)))
               (unless (eql (grid-ref grid target) ’\.)
                 (move! grid target delta))
               (setf (grid-ref grid target) ’@
                     (grid-ref grid coord) ’\.)
               target))

        (O (let ((target (2v+ coord delta)))
               (unless (eql (grid-ref grid target) ’\.)
                 (move! grid target delta))
               (setf (grid-ref grid target) ’O
                     (grid-ref grid coord) ’\.)
               target))

        (\[ (let* ((targetl (2v+ coord delta))
                    (targetr (2v+ targetl +east+)))
               (unless (or (eql delta +east+)
                           (eql (grid-ref grid targetl) ’|.|))
                 (move! grid targetl delta))
               (unless (or (eql delta +west+)
                           (eql (grid-ref grid targetr) ’\.))
                 (move! grid targetr delta))
               (setf (grid-ref grid targetl) ’[
                     (grid-ref grid targetr) ’])
               (unless (eql delta +east+)
                 (setf (grid-ref grid (2v+ coord +east+)) ’\.))
               (unless (eql delta +west+)
                 (setf (grid-ref grid coord) ’\.))
               targetl))

        (\] (let* ((targetr (2v+ coord delta))
                    (targetl (2v+ targetr +west+)))
               (unless (or (eql delta +east+)
                           (eql (grid-ref grid targetl) ’\.))
                 (move! grid targetl delta))
               (unless (or (eql delta +west+)
                           (eql (grid-ref grid targetr) ’\.))
                 (move! grid targetr delta))
               (setf (grid-ref grid targetl) ’[
                     (grid-ref grid targetr) ’])
               (unless (eql delta +east+)
                 (setf (grid-ref grid coord) ’\.))
               (unless (eql delta +west+)
                 (setf (grid-ref grid (2v+ coord +west+)) ’\.))
           targetr))))
    coord))

We need a function to find the initial location of the robot:

(defun find-robot (grid)
  (collect-first
   (choose
    (mapping (((coord item) (scan-grid grid)))
      (when (eql item ’@)
        coord)))))

And we need a function to score the grid.

(defun score-map (grid)
  (collect-sum
   (mapping (((coord item) (scan-grid grid)))
     (if (or (eql item ’O)
             (eql item ’[))
         (+ (* (row coord) 100) (column coord))
         0))))

It isn’t necessary for the solution, but it is helpful when debugging to have a function to print the grid.

(defun show-grid (grid)
  (dotimes (row (grid-height grid))
    (dotimes (column (grid-width grid))
      (format t "~a" (grid-ref grid (coord column row))))
    (format t "~%")))

To solve the puzzle, we use fold-left to drive the robot using the list of moves. This will side-effect the grid. When we are done moving, we score the grid.

(defun puzzle (input-file wide?)
  (multiple-value-bind (grid moves) (read-input input-file wide?)
    (fold-left (lambda (robot move)
                 (move! grid robot move))
               (find-robot grid)
               moves)
    (score-map grid)))

(defun part-1 ()
  (puzzle (input-pathname) nil))

(defun part-2 ()
  (puzzle (input-pathname) t))

When I was a boy, cartoonist Charles Schulz introduced a new comic strip called Peanuts. Its central premise was children having the same problems as adults, and it was an instant hit. There were several recurring themes and, each autumn, the cartoonist would have his main character, Charlie Brown, attempt to fly a kite. At first all would go well, and Charlie Brown would build up his hopes, only to have them dashed when a tree would snag his kite and eat it. This theme was endlessly enjoyable, as it reflected a syndrome familiar to all adults. The cartoonist was careful … Continue reading →

The post Kite in a Tree appeared first on LewRockwell.

About half the time gunshot wounds are fatal or permanently crippling even in the best of emergency care and follow up surgeries. Without good follow up treatment–especially with infections–gunshot fatalities increase to almost 90%. Those are not ‘betting’ odds under any circumstances. In the first part of this topic we covered bare essentials of gunshot wound first aid with a slant on the KISS principle for untrained preppers when no paramedics or professional emergency services are immediately available. But this is also good procedure to know even where there are emergency trauma hospitals available but the ambulance or first responders might not get … Continue reading →

The post Surviving Gunshots in an All Out Catastrophic SHTF Scenario- 3 Combat Lessons From a Veteran appeared first on LewRockwell.

On nuclear war and expensive pennies Trump’s assault on USAID is more than an exposure of its alignment with far left narratives. It raises the question: How far will he go in dealing with its perceived waste and abuse? It looks like he won’t be satisfied with merely slashing jobs and the agency’s budget.  Republican Representatives Chip Roy and Majorie Taylor Greene have already introduced legislation to permanently abolish USAID.  And what about this proposed legislation would make it permanent, should it become law? Absolutely nothing. Government has been at odds with its Constitution since the establishment of the First … Continue reading →

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