000624.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 24 Jun 2000 12:00:00 GMT

New stuff at end...

The Pachelbel Canon is on the stereo. Ahh... I've been singing it in the car all week long. To the words, "Allelujuh, allelujah, allelujah, allelujah, allelujah, allelujah, allelujah, allelujah," the way Pir Vilayat does at the end of retreats. Learned the changes on the guitar this week. I can't find at CDNOW the RCA/Maurice Andre version that I'm playing now. This Gordon Jeffries version sounds pretty good. So does this James Pease version. This ProArte version is very cheap, though not as nice as the other two. Still, none beat the one I've been listening to for 20 years.

I was doing one of my periodic searches for End the War on Freedom on weblogs.com, and I discovered Unknown News. It's got a long list of weblogs: "Do-it-yourself Media", a list of "Links Worth a Look", a long list of "Unknown News", which appears to include about 4 or 5 links a day for the last month, and an "Everybody's Talking About" section. Added to my links page.

Angus Glashier of latte sums up my feelings about Microsoft very well. If you don't like their business practices:

Stop complaining and start competing!

Patrick Crispen at NetSquirrel.com - The Urban Legend Combat Kit: Addresses many of the urban legends that make their way around the net. Most of them are false. A few might be true. [xray]

Alan Bock at WorldNetDaily - Another drug war victim: Another good story about Peter McWilliams. Vin's got one that I can release tomorrow. ["wnd"]

Peter McWilliams may have managed somehow to maintain a positive outlook and never to give up until the end. But while celebrating his life as, on balance, a joyful adventure on the road to a freer and more open society, it is important to remember that what the federal government did to Peter McWilliams was not just foolish and shortsighted but evil. I don't know any other way to characterize a stubborn determination to prohibit very ill people from using a medication that helps them and has not killed a single person in thousands of years of use.
I don't know if Judge King knows better, but I am utterly convinced that Barry McCaffrey and dozens of other drug warriors do, because they are forced to admit that the risk of medicinal use of marijuana to the patient is close to zero -- when confronted by a questioner who actually knows something. Yet they continue their cruel policy on the medicinal use of marijuana, despite the evidence, despite the fact that the people (and the Hawaii legislature and governor on the day Peter McWilliams died) endorse medical marijuana whenever asked or given the chance to vote.

Dr. Rath World Health Net - Stop the pharma cartel's Codex plans! Claims that there is a worldwide pharmaceutical cartel that is planning to implement vitamin-censorship laws at the next plenary UN meeting in August. May be true. The FDA has tried similar stuff in the not-too-distant past. Dr. Rath claims that vitamin C deficiency is the main cause of heart attacks and strokes. He claims that vitamin therapy can prevent high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer. The pharma cartel is trying to make it illegal to disseminate this information so that they can continue to make fortunes on drug therapies that don't work nearly as well (or are harmful). The entire site seems to be an elaborate advertisement for a network marketing plan. You can sign up to sell his vitamins via direct mail to the Netherlands. They sell for between 30 & 50 cents a pill. He claims to be continuing the work of Linus Pauling. May be true. Certainly interesting. [newsmaking]

John Lott at the New York Post - 'The Patriot' Is Right : the liberal audiences in the previews of Mel Gibson's new film on the Revolutionary War are all aghast when Mel hands guns to his 10 and 13 year old sons. John tells us why this is not a problem. [wnd]

Cynthia Grenier at WorldNetDaily - Gibson hits true with 'The Patriot': a review of the film. She likes it, though from her review it sounds too gruesome for anyone but me in my family. She points at Sony's The Patriot page. Guess I know what I'll be doing on Wednesday night. [wnd]

Phil Harvey at the Red Herring - Microsoft makes a big bet on .NET: all about .NET (pronounced: dot net), Microsofts new shift from software licensing to subscription services. Marc Andreeson has stated that Loudcloud is "adopting the whole Microsoft stack, from top to bottom." Loudcloud has a press release concerning a "strategic alliance" with Microsoft, likely a strategic cash infusion for Loudcloud, IMNSHO. Dave Winer is quoted in the Red Herring article, "This is not going to be Web-like until you let in people you don't like." How true. [script]

Dave Winer at Davenet - Dot-What? More on Microsoft's Dot-Net announcement. I was curious when Dave used the term BOGU, and then said at the end, "PS: Trust me, you don't want to know what BOGU stands for." So I took a trip to Google, and found a bunch of padded karate armor and B.O.G.U., a Davenet from a couple of years ago where Dave defines it for us. Hehe. [script]

Add comment Edit post Add post

Previous Posts:
000622.html
000620.html
000617.html
000613.html
000612.html
000610.html
000608.html
000607.html
000606.html
000605.html

Navigation

History

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