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Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 12:19:30 GMT
{pictureRef ({@CameronDiaz}, align:"right")} I have immersed myself in video stimulation this weekend. On Friday night, I watched the video of "Being John Malkovich". I enjoyed it though it is a bit strange. Yesterday, I saw "Shaft" at the theater. Not bad for cheap entertainment, but I'm glad I went to a matinee instead of paying full price for an evening show. After the movie I bought a cheap 19" Sanyo TV. We've had a little 13" TV up to now. I'll likely catch flak from my wife when she gets home. Tough. While the cat's away the mice will play. Last night I watched Nicholas Cage in "Bringing Out the Dead", and the lovely Cameron Diaz in "There's Something about Mary". Tonite my plans include 3 hours of Tom Hanks in {@The Green Mile}. Wednesday night, I'll catch Mel Gibson in the premier of {@The Patriot}, in sha' allah. For a guy who usually watches about one movie a month, this is quite a brainfull.

According to Brad Graham of The BradLands, I should take the kids to see "Chicken Run". On the docket for next weekend, if they haven't seen it by then, and if it's still running, which seems likely.

Brad's On Relationships page has "A handy translation guide for converting gay-man speak into English." Hehe.

While searching for "cocaine" at weblogs.com, looking for pointers to my recipe, I encountered the banner below at Jim Gallagher's News from the Rear. I added his site to my links page, and the banner to my Banners page.

FreeNetBanner: Only software pirates and pornographers need anonymous freedom of speech. 6 million Jews Disagree. Freenet, Free speech for a better world. http://freenet.sourceforge.net/

I used Opera version 4.0 beta 6 for a while. It crashed every half hour or so of normal browsing. I submitted a bug report. Bad news for something that they're claiming is the last beta before final. I'm now back to my trusty version 3.61.

Two new articles in The Libertarian series by Vin Suprynowicz:

  • Drug war hypocrites kill a troublesome author - Vin relates the history of the murder by government of Peter McWilliams. He also tells us the interesting news that the city of Denver can only get enough cops to enforce all the drug laws by allowing former drug "criminals" to join the force. I am reminded of a scene in A Clockwork Orange, where the "hero", freshly released from prison, is beaten up by the police, his former partners in crime who have now found a career where they can continue their ultra-violence with the sanction of the state.
    One might imagine a defendant like McWilliams would have had an open-and-shut dismissal, once he explained his deadly illness, presented medical testmony that only the medical benefits of marijuana were keeping him alive, and finally introduced evidence that he was being prosecuted in spite of the popular victory of Prop 215 in November of 1996 -- that is to say, "the law."

    Ha ha. You see, in federal court, Judge George H. King ruled none of that information could be introduced into evidence. McWilliams couldn't even argue that the Ninth Amendment voids any and all federal drug laws. Nope. All disallowed. Any lawyer who tried to mention any of these facts to McWilliams' federal jury -- carefully screened in advance to eliminate any potential juror who opposed the War on Drugs, of course -- would have been arrested, jailed, and disbarred.

    ...

    By thus violating the law which holds any adult of normal intellect responsible for acts which a reasonable man might expect to cause the death of another, Judge King -- along with all the other sadists still prosecuting the War on Drugs -- was directly responsible for the death of Peter McWilliams, whom they singled out and killed primarily for his outspoken political opinions.

  • Honoring the Las Vegas Strip - The Las Vegas Strip was designated as an "All-American Highway". The honor comes with the possibility of federal grant money. Vin urges the powers that be in Las Vegas to turn down the handout. Las Vegas is doing fine on voluntarily given funds, they don't need any government money stolen at gunpoint (taxes).

Charley Reese at the Orlando Sentinel - Supreme Court ruling on football-game prayer is flat wrong: Mr. Reese chimes in on The Supremes' latest ACLU-induced stupidity.

We would do well to remember the words of George Washington in his farewell address, in which he states that anyone who is an enemy of religion is an enemy of republican government.

It's interesting that Washington saw religion as essential to a free republic and Gorbachev sees the destruction of religion as essential to the triumph of communism. That means that both men are smarter than the majority of the justices on the Supreme Court who wrote this latest opinion about public prayer.

...

I would say to the people of Texas: If the spirit moves you, say your prayers at football games. If the U.S. government wishes to send armed marshals to arrest a youth for uttering a Christian prayer, then the people would at least see the true, ugly face of the government, which hides behind a smiley facemask.

David Abel at the Boston Globe - Critic accuses Pentagon of trying to silence him: Theodore A. Postel was visited by agents of the Pentagon's Defense Security Service last week. They requested that he view a classified letter. He refused. He has been an outspoken critic of an ABM system, saying that it cannot work. Their visit was an attempt to silence him. [wnd]

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