000731.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 31 Jul 2000 12:00:00 GMT

From grabbe:

A Girl and Her Gun

Yesterday I read Python Essential Reference by David M. Beazley. To be more precise, I read the description of the Python language, skimmed the libraries appendix, and skipped the extending and embedding appendix. I found it while browsing the Java section at my local Barnes & Noble. It was in the next stack over from the Java books. This is a great Python reference book. If you're already a good programmer, it's also a good way to learn Python. Good descriptions. Lots of short examples. Definitely not a tutorial book. At $34.95 (retail, Fatbrain wants $27.95) it's not cheap, but quality rarely is.
Sierra Times - Carnivore: A Public Service Announcement: The Sierra Times asks its readers to ask their ISPs whether the FBI's carnivore system is installed at their server. Forward the answers to them and they will create a directory. [sierra]
Randy J. Lindower at Sierra Times - Honesty: The American way depends on truth. Sadly lacking in government, we must talk lots of it soon. [sierra]
It must be our goal in the months before November 7th, to educate as many people as we can to the importance of the first election of the twenty-first century. I fear daily that one day I will awaken to find out that Clinton has nullified the second amendment by executive order. Or that the United Nations is now the police force in my city.

bob lonsberry - Do Me a Favor, Go See a Movie: A glowing review of The Patriot.
There are plenty of guns in this movie. And without them, there wouldn't be a happy ending. Without them, the bad guys would have won. Guns were the means of achieving the movie's end and the nation's beginning.
The protagonist uses guns, regularly, and even sets his elementary-age sons in armed ambush of a patrol of British soldiers.
Children carry guns, fire guns and use guns to kill people. And it leaves you wanting to cheer.
The movie also quietly settles the matter of the Second Amendment. The "militia," which is guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms in the Constitution, is defined by the movie just as it was defined by the Founding Fathers. Not as the National Guard, but as the common man.

Robert A. Levy at the Cato Institute - Litigation Lunacy in Florida: Labels the $145 billion judgement against the tobacco companies as lunacy. I'd up that to "criminal lunacy" myself. [market]
Most important, the Florida verdict has yielded more in damages than the judge and jurors, blinded by their anti-tobacco obsession, could possibly realize. The biggest damage of all is to the rule of law and the reputation of our legal system. If we are to endure as a free society, the law must be objective and predictable. Individuals and corporations must be able to determine the limits of acceptable conduct and the punishment that will be meted out for transgressions. By contrast, the kangaroo court in Florida has given us law on the fly, governed by whim and emotion and manipulated by clever attorneys. Now it's up to an appellate court to restore sanity and equity — before the damage is irreparable.

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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