a lucrative sideline…

from the Archive

That's a nice crop, Joe. Be a shame for something to happen to it...Lucrative. Outdoorsy. Bizarre. Potentially fatal. I tell you, this has me written all over it. I wonder if Crimestoppers pays by the bale or by the grow-op when you turn them in…

I’m just sayin’…one might run into such things from time to time on one’s travels. And one must think of the future. A future, perhaps, under an assumed name, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first nor for the last time for lil’ ol’ raincoaster here, as you can probably imagine.

Again, there exists the distinct possibility that the grow-ops, knowing on which side their bread was hemp-nut-spreadded, would pay one to keep such information to one’s self. And the fact that, should one take such money with every intention of turning them in anyway and should one thereafter actually do so, there would be, insofar as I can see, no law whatsoever that would compel one to give that money back. I mean, they can hardly claim under contract law for an illegal action: and I, I mean “one,” couldn’t be charged with blackmail if one never intended to keep the secret. One would, obviously, be guilty of lying to pot gangsters but while this is indeed stupid, I do not see that it is actually illegal. It’s not like they’re airline security monkeys.                    

How much…?  

I married a spy…and all I got was this lousy cottage in Essex

Works great on bloodstains...also gunpowder residueWell I, personally, didn’t marry a spy, although there’s still time (interested parties leave contact details in comments section, plz). No indeed, this is a piece from the Guardian, interviews with three wives of, all of whom are well past their “tempt the Russian delegation with your best meatballs, won’t you dear?” stage, and only some of whom have recovered. Fascinating reading, if only for the satisfaction of thinking to yourself Well, I’d at least have shot someone for fuck’s sake! Might as well stay in the playgroup, you lot of wankers.

Special bonus pointlessly salacious and juvenile tidbit: the interviewer’s name is Fanny.

In 1939, 18-year-old Betty Farmer was being wooed by a man who was not only good-looking and charismatic, but also, apparently, had a job “in the film business”. When he whisked her off for a few days holiday in Jersey, she was surprised by the two rather shady looking men who accompanied them, but kept her concerns to herself.

On their second day away, over Sunday lunch, with the sunshine dancing on the sea outside, Betty‘s paramour kissed her briefly, before hurling himself through a closed window and running down the beach, chased by the police. Betty had no choice but to rely on his repeated promise: “I shall go, but I shall always come back.”

With a lede like that, how can you not finish the piece?
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hey, what’re you doing to my house? pic o’ the day

Get away from my house, dude. And while you're at it, get off my lawn!

Dood, do you have any idea how long it took me to collect all those? Rifle stocks don’t grow on trees, ya know! And what’s with all the hunchbacks carrying pitchforks? I thought I told you people to get off my lawn!

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quiz: which classic dame are you?

Check this out, unbelievers! I stole this delightful little test from View from the Event Horizon.

 Gentlemen, what are you all doing on the floor?

Barbara Stanwyck
You scored 33% grit, 23% wit, 42% flair, and 9% class!

You’re a tough dame, a bit of a spitfire, and you can even be a little dangerous, but you do it with such flair that almost all is forgiven (and even when it’s not, you’re still the most interesting woman in the room). You can be witty and charming, all right, but you have a tough streak that keeps you focused and sometimes deadly. You’ve had quite a climb to get where you are, but you’re a hard worker and you mostly deserve all you get…and then some. You might end up destroying everything around you, but you must admit…you’ve got style.
Your leading men include Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, and when you forget yourself, Gary Cooper.
Find out what kind of classic leading man you’d make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test.
Why, yes. You CAN buy them for me.My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on grit
 
 You scored higher than 99% on wit
 
 You scored higher than 99% on flair
 
 You scored higher than 99% on class 

Yeah, suck on that, haterz! I’m classy!

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Edmund Burke on power: quote o’ the day

From the book The Orientalist, by Tom Reiss.

Lev concludes his indictment of the Soviet secret police by recalling Edmund Burke‘s indictment, in Parliament, of Warren Hastings, the governor-general of India. Hastings had been impeached on a charge of oppressing the natives, and argued in his own defense that his actions could not be considered illegal because he had been granted arbitrary power in India.
To this the British conservative and hater of revolutionary injustice – but also of all kinds of injustice, whether revolutionary or not – replied:

“My lords, the East India company have not arbitrary power to give him; the King has no arbitrary power to give him; your Lordships have not; nor the Commons; nor the whole legislature. We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power is a thing which neither any man can hold nor any man can give…
Those who give and those who receive arbitrary power are alike criminal.”