000517.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 17 May 2000 12:00:00 GMT

I'm adding new stuff at the bottom again, today. Scroll down...

Someone Should Start Laughing

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:

How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:

What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,

If you think that the Sun and the Ocean

Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,

O someone should start laughing!

Someone should start wildly Laughing -
Now!

I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz - Daniel Ladinsky

I get these Hafiz poems via a mailing list managed by David Williamson. He posts translations by people other than Daniel Ladinsky, but I've yet to see anyone else's translation that I liked. Here's the contact info at the end of one of the emails, in case you want to get on the list:

To Post a Hafiz poem: Hafiz@egroups.com
To Subscribe: Hafiz-subscribe@egroups.com
To Unsubscribe: Hafiz-unsubscribe@egroups.com
URL to Hafiz List Web page: http://www.egroups.com/group/Hafiz
For more information: http://www.david.williamson.dial.pipex.com/Hafiz/hafiz.shtml
To Subscribe to Discussion List on Hafiz: Distillations-subscribe@egroups.com
URL to Distillations List Web page: http://www.egroups.com/group/Distillations
To Subscribe to Rumi List: Sunlight-subscribe@egroups.com
URL to Rumi List Web page: http://www.egroups.com/group/Sunlight

Bit of a scare yesterday afternoon. My wife called saying that our 3 year old daughter, Victoria, had drunk an unknown amount of Children's Motrin liquid. My thoughts went to stories I'd heard about Tylenol overdose, that it destroys your liver and nothing can be done (not true, there is an antidote, but you have to get it quickly). Well, Motrin is not as poisonous as Tylenol, and she apparently didn't drink much of it. After a couple of hours in the emergency room, charcoal & heart monitor, the doctor sent us home. She's fine. Whew.

The Albany Times Union printed in Sunday's edition the letter I wrote last Monday. They changed my title from "Smith and Wesson, Not!" to "McCall faces hurdle over police weapons" and changed "on the radio yesterday" to "recently" to make up for the time difference between when I wrote it and when they published it, but otherwise left it alone. Here it is, just so I have an exact copy:

McCall faces hurdle over police weapons

I heard recently that state Comptroller H. Carl McCall is recommending that New York's police buy weapons only from companies with "safety'' agreements similar to the one that Smith & Wesson made with the Clinton administration.
If this is actually done, the moral of the story will likely be, "No More Glocks for New York Cops."
I think Mr. McCall is gonna run into some interference.
BILL ST. CLAIR
New Lebanon

John L. Perry at NewsMax - Too Late to Save Public Education: Rants on the horrors of public education, and concludes the following, with which I agree except for the "hurts really deeply" part: [max]

It hurts, really deeply, to have to write this, but truth is truth: Private enterprise is going to have to take over the job of educating America's youth.
The village idiots who have been running the village for their own aggrandizement have left no alternative.
Transition from public to private will be both painful and costly.
Maybe that's a good thing.
It's time again in this country for education to be a hard-earned mark of respect.

Sierra Times - Readers Report from S.A.S Rally: I've said enough about the Million Meddlers, but I couldn't resist one quote from this article, in the light of the government-initiated fire in New Mexico:

Gun laws are a controlled burn of our freedoms.
--Wayne LaPierre

Inprise/Borland Press Release - Inprise/Borland and Corel Terminate Proposed Merger: No reason given in the press release, but Elliotte Rusty Harold of cafe says: "Corel and Borland/Inprise have cancelled their planned merger because of Corel's plummeting stock price."

Mark Anderson at the Ottawa Citizen - Corel scrambles to find cash as Inprise/Borland deal collapses: Corel is looking to chop $40 million from its budget. The collapse of the Inprise/Borland merger has left them cash poor. Lots more stories over at Linux Today. [lt]

Kimberley Jane Wilson at Rightgrrl! - The Elian Snatch and What It Could Mean to You: A good rant on the turning of America into a police state in the name of the war on drugs and crime.

Stephanie Herman at The American Partisan - The Million Mom Mentality: how all those Mom's were convinced to support victim disarmament. Eddie Eagle, the NRA's program that's had real, measured, success in reducing accidential firearm fatalaties among children.

My advice to mothers who want to get involved in child gun-safety issues would be to follow the money. Find out who supports gun safety, who's paying for the programs, and lend your support there. I'm a mother concerned about my child's safety, and I took my own advice about a year ago. After paying my respects at the Columbine memorial, I joined the NRA.

Steve LeBlanc at AP via NewsDay via Cannabis News - Libertarian To Challenge Kennedy: Nice article about Carla Howell, the libertarian candidate for U.S. senate in Massachusetts. I heard her speak at the Massachusetts Libertarian Party convention a few weeks ago. Seemed like an OK person. Though her speech was obviously a rehearsed stump speech, her policies are right on. I hope she wins. It's time for Ted Kennedy's socialist ideas to leave the senate. I wouldn't have included this, but it was nice to see it at Cannabis News. [cn]

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair