000801.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 01 Aug 2000 12:00:00 GMT

There are now pictures of Dave Winer and me over at Jezebel's Mirror.

I installed Internet Explorer 5 on my Macintosh last night so that my wife could register at a site that only accepts the type 3 certificates that are not and won't ever be accepted by IE 4. If you don't have a PowerMac, you can't get there from here. IE 5 for Macintosh has the strange new Aqua look that will ship with MacOS X. I'll probably get used to it.

I also installed Python on the Mac. Seems to work, though I didn't play with it much. I wrote a Hello World cgi in Python.

#! /usr/bin/python
print "Content-type: text/html"
print ""
print "Hello world"

It took a while to get the initial line right that launches Python. I tried "#!/usr/bin/python", "#!/usr/local/bin/python", "

#!
/usr/local/bin/python

", and finally discovered what worked: "#! /usr/bin/python". That space after the exclamation point is important to my web server's shell. I was confused because I've seen examples without it.

Joel on Software - The Wireless Web: Spacesuits Needed: Joel plays with WAP on his cell phone and gets hit with a $284 charge for the first month. [latte]

If you actually find anything else useful or entertaining you can do with this wireless web stuff, that's actually better than just making a phone call, email me, OK?
...
Remember that when the web started, most Internet access was unmetered: you paid a low monthly fee no matter how long you used the service. But as the wireless web gets started, the fees are outrageous, and the early adopters are going to get reamed by their first phone bill. If you think you can make a profit in a wireless world in which the telcos are sucking out all the oxygen, well, you had better bring a spacesuit.

Sean Hackbarth is covering the GOP Convention over at The American Mind. Yawn. [mind]

Michael "Lance" Newby is back at My Cluttered Desk after a week's vacation. He's also talking about the GOP convention. Welcome back, Lance. [desk]

Concealed Carry, Inc. via Sierra Times - Limited Conceal Carry Now Legal in Illinois: Though it may not have been the intention of some people voting for the law, Illinois' new Safe Neighborhoods Act allows you to carry an unloaded firearm and its ammunition in a case designed for that if you have a Firearm Owners ID card. Concealed Carry, Inc. is suggesting that people buy a fanny pack to store their unloaded pistol and ammunition. That puts them 6 seconds from self defense with lethal force. [sierra]

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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