Four Pillars and a Double Standard

| March 3, 2013

A fire breaks out in your kitchen. You have and are permitted to own a fire extinguisher that is more than adequate to stop the blaze, but prohibited from using it in favour of running away to let the Fire Department handle the situation. An hour later, your house is rubble, and both your wheel […]

Which Side of the Lock is the Safety On?

| March 2, 2013

I’m in the throes of putting together a new Self Reliance Course series, and as usual, the Daemon that lives in my head pooped … I mean popped … out a poem. Behold … Ode to a Home Invasion By LFM My door was locked. You didn’t care. You kicked it from the frame. The […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – A Dose of Reality

| February 20, 2013

The search for the 13.5 meter (44 foot) fishing boat Miss Ally and her crew of five young Nova Scotia fishermen began last Sunday night when the Rescue Coordination Centre began receiving signals from the vessel’s emergency locator beacon (ELB). Designed to activate on immersion in salt water, the ELB signals from Miss Ally showed […]

This Just In

| February 19, 2013

The tireless research team at the LFM Institute have just announced their findings in the matter of the unprecedented resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. They hasten to add that they name it unprecedented because exhaustive – even Herculean efforts – have proven that there is no prior record of Pope Benedict XVI ever having previously […]

Halifax – This Has to Stop

| February 17, 2013

“Never go to clubs with metal detectors. Sure it feels safe inside. But what about all those niggas waiting outside with guns? They know you ain’t got one.” ~ Chris Rock Chris Rock uses the word “nigga” the way I use GU (Great Unwashed). All considerations of race, social status, or job description notwithstanding, an […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Clarity

| February 13, 2013

In last week’s edition of Worldly Wisdom Wednesday, I spoke of the The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse, and identified it as but a subset of the larger Discipline called Manners. Moving forward from there, let’s dig a little deeper. Why are Manners important? Because they garner approval from society, as well as from individual […]

Forsooth, Is’t Better to be Shot or Stabbed? THAT is the Question!

| February 4, 2013

The blade strikes more primal fear into the hearts of men than the bullet. Possibly this is because few people have ever been shot, but sooner or later everyone will cut themselves to a greater or lesser degree. Thus there is a clearer understanding of just how bad things can get when the blade is […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Misleading Vividness

| January 23, 2013

Misleading Vividness is a fallacy in which a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh a significant amount of statistical evidence. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form: Dramatic or vivid event X occurs (and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence) . Therefore events of […]

What in the Name of Hell IS an Assault Rifle Anyway? Part 1 – Origins

| January 21, 2013

In our ongoing quest to disinfect the world of misused, and sometimes even meaningless, firearms terminology, today I’m going to focus on one that’s particularly topical at the moment if the combined brain trust of news media and facebook are any indication. That most dreaded thing in existence today (besides “Pit Bull type” Dogs) – […]

Living by the Sword and Sleeping With the Elephant

| January 20, 2013

On compromising principles and the justification of cheating: “If there really is a principle involved, things are either black or white. There are no grey areas. You can’t be “a little bit” dead or “sort of” pregnant.  A ship is not seaworthy merely because the total area of its hull exceeds the total area of […]