Presto’s Ramblings

Today I received a card in the mail from my local city government, supposedly advertising the upcoming Fourth of July festivities.  When I read the card, I was struck by this little blurb at the bottom:
Reminder: This is the first year the purchase, possession, and discharge of fireworks are banned in Newcastle.
So remember folks, when [...]

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My quote collection project is in full swing.  I now have 99 quotes in the widget in the upper right corner of this blog’s pages, and have 169 in the database for the screensaver project.  I still have more to add from the pages that I have found on the net and the quotes that [...]

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How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World
Chapter 2: The Identity Traps Notes

It’s ironic that I fell into this trap while writing about it. In Chapter 2 of Harry’s book he discussed what he calls “Identity Traps.” To quote Mr. Browne:
There are two Identity Traps: (1) the belief that you should be someone [...]

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On my Linux system, I have several screensavers that use a program called Fortune that supplies short quotes to be displayed on the screen by the screensaver program. The quotes provided cover many subjects, but I’d like to create a database for the program that contains explicitly pro-freedom quotes. To that end, I’d [...]

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How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World
Chapter 1 Notes
Harry Browne’s book begins with a simple definition of freedom:

Freedom is the opportunity to live your life as you want to live it.

My theoretician friends will of course have much more complex definitions of freedom, but I think that Browne’s statement captures the essence pretty well. [...]

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Inspired by environmentalist blogger Crunchy Chicken’s book discussions, I’m going to post my own notes about personal freedom books that I read. As I read chapters in the book, I will post whatever thoughts that come into my head and try to relate the content to my own quest for freedom. You are [...]

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