001121.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 21 Nov 2000 13:00:00 GMT

Honda - Hunanoid Robot - Asimo: Honda has created a humanoid robot that can walk. This is something that has eluded AI researchers for many years. They made a robot that could jump on one leg a long time ago, but I haven't heard of a solution to the bipedal locomotion problem until now. Look under the "4" for a QuickTime videos. [/.]

Bill Utterback at Sierra Times - Stop The New Federal Centralized Electronic Voting System!: the newly elected Marshall of the City of Bulverde Northwest, Texas, tells us why he thinks the powers that be have messed up the election so much. They want to federalize the election process. Don't let 'em do it! He wants a return to paper ballots. He also gives statistics of how well the libertaian party did in local elections in Texas, lots of folks got between 10% and 20% of the vote. [sierra]

Wayne Hage at Sierra Times - America: Foreclosed: extols the dangers of the newest piece of "environmental" legislation, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (HR 701, S 25). This act will take $2.4 billion a year in offshore oil revenues and use it to buy land. Bottom line according to Mr. Hage, the end of private property in Amerika. He also talks about the end of the Bretton Woods agreement. [sierra]

If one were to attempt establishing a birth date for the modern day environmental movement, the evidence clearly points to the early and mid 1960’s. Almost overnight we went from the long held premise that the world and its resources were created for the benefit of man and that private ownership of resources was the best method to insure resource conservation and renewal; to accepting the dogma that resources of and by themselves have some heretofore unrecognized mystic value and only collective control of resources under government can adequately protect them.

flashcards.com - Political Pummel: a flash animation where you can take out your frustrations on either presidential candidate. About 600K, so it will take a while to download over a modem. [Offshore Insider]

There's a new issue of The Libertarian Enterprise. Things I liked:

Letter from Andriy Berezhny: a well-reasoned response to L. Neil Smith's ranting in Why I'm Doing It.
Private Sector Privacy by Carl Bussjaeger - Mr. Bussjaeger's local Radio Shack actually refused to allow him to purchase something with cash because he wouldn't give them his name, address, & phone number. Henceforth, he won't be doing business with any company that asks for personal data they don't need.
But I won't be cooperating with the snooping. I won't be shopping at Advance or Radio Shack again. Call it a personal boycott: I will no longer do business with a company that demands personal data for no good reason. Not Advance, damned well not Radio Shack, and not any other overly curious corporate collective.
It's a simple rule: Ask for unnecessary data that is specific to me, and lose my business. For good. Necessity does not include building a junk mailing list, especially one which may be for sale to the highest bidder(s).
Hold the Malaise, Please by Potter - Wanna be free? Learn your readin', writin', & 'rithmetic. Learn 'em well. Curriculim no longer covered in gummint skools.
If you believe that the "majority rules" theory of government even closely resembles constitutionally affirmed law and order, you might want to wrap your deprived and atrophied little brain stem around this precious nugget:
....when you and your slavish, plump sheep butt and a couple of big bad wolves inevitably wind up getting together to vote on what to have for dinner some night, I guarantee you, Honey, it ain't gonna be tofu burgers on the menu.
Does it kill you like it kills me how everyone always opines how this is such a great and free country? What the hell is so free about it, I ask you? Tell me how we are free ....free to be slaves?
You work until June to pay tribute and give sustenance to vast phalanxes of butch State Police troopers and porcine, waddling sheriffs and assorted jailers, ....not to speak of those vertiginously multiplying, mindless automatonic SWAT team armies. These ultimate and deadly extensions of puffed-up magistrates and bureaucrats everywhere are frighteningly commonplace in our Brave New World, routinely striking misidentified and unfortunate, peaceable and innocent victims, mostly with an insane and frothing, gung-ho, maniacal overkill. We didn't even mention all the cool super-macho global domination type stuff, either, did we ....like war ships, and intermittent tomahawk cruise missile showers?

Guns & Ammo via JPFO - The Battle of Athens, Tennessee: How GIs recently returned from WWII took up arms in 1946 to restore the rule of law to Athens, Tennessee. [jpfo]

Jerry Pournelle's Current View - Monday, November 20, 2000: Jerry stresses that the military MUST believe in the legitamacy of the vote. Hence, it is madness to invalidate their absentee ballots, regardless of missing postmarks.

Donna Ladd at the Village Voice - 'Puke and Shoot': takes some pot shots at KeepAndBearArms.Com and the Sierra Times Ends up being a good advertisement for their cause, IMNSHO. [sierra]

"jBoss is an open-source Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) and J2EE application server. It includes an EJB 1.1 Compliant Enterprise JavaBean Container, a JMS Implementation (SpyderMQ), Integration with Tomcat and Jetty Servlet Containers, a Name Service Implementation (JNP), a JMX Based Server Architecture and Management, support for J2EE EAR File Deployment, JAAS Based Security Implementation, Integration with CastorJDO, CocoBase, etc." This looks like a quality package, at least they did a good job on their web site. I haven't tried it. [meat]

Symbolstone - "Java Native Methods" by Alligator Descartes: the complete text of Mr. Descartes' book on JNI and RNI is available here in PDF. [cafe]

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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