What is "IT"
A tip of the hat to Mike at GEEKITUSMAXIMUS for the link to End the War on Freedom in his left column.
Xav Test has a channel for End the War on Freedom. It is an RSS aggregator, currently containing 527 sources.
The IT Question - Ginger Project vs. Stirling Project - interesting discussion on Dean Kamen's Stirling Engine that he planned to use on his IBOT, and that he now claims he's using as the power source for a water purification system. I talked about Dean Kamen back in June when I saw him at the Progress conference in DC. The IT Question is a forum for the discussion of Dean Kamen's invention that will "sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking". It appears that noone really knows what "IT" (aka Ginger) is, except Mr. Kamen and possibly a few people who have seen a prototype demo.
Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - To hell with freedom! - Claire tells us many reasons we shouldn't bother fighting for freedom. It's hard work. Going along is easier. She's right. I will continue to fight.
Okay, maybe there's one reason to bother with freedom. Just one.
Because if you don't free yourself you'll be a nice, comfortable, happy slave. If you don't fight for freedom your children will be slightly less comfortable slaves, wearing their little ID-number tattoos under their skin as they walk past the retina-scanners and body x-rays to go to work, submitting numbly as robots armed with pain rays arrest them after computers diagnose their "suspicious" behavior patterns, stumbling through their therapeutically controlled lives. Your dependency, your collaboration, your tacit agreement with the goals of tyrants will have made it inevitable.
And your grandchildren will ...
Damaged Justice - Tuesday, August 7, 2001 - DJ quotes a reminder of the likely futility of using common law arguments to attempt to avoid taxes. I agree. At this point, voting is useless, the courts are useless, protests are almost useless. Shooting the bastards is the only real solution to the problem. and that is also unlikely to work. We may have to wait, as the Russians did, for the American government to self-destruct, while building a free society underneath its mantle. [MfM]
Hunter S. Thompson - 'Hey Rube' goes to Hollywood - Mr. Thompson, the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other fine gonzo journalism, writes a weekly column for ESPN. Far out. There's a whole long list of earlier columns in the right-hand column of the page (18 of 'em by my quick count). Monde thinks it's unusual for Mr. Thompson to be writing about sports. I vaguely remember that he had a regular sports magazine gig many years ago, but I don't remember which magazine. His new book, Fear and Loathing in America, is a collection of letters spanning the years 1968 thru 1976. [anodyne]
Wired News - Adobe E-Book Hacker Released - Dmitry Sklyarov has been granted $50,000 bail, to be released on Monday. His employer put up the bail money. It's about time. They don't take this long to grant bail to murderers. His lawyer is attempting to get the justice department to drop the charges. This would be much easier for Mr. Sklyarov, but if he's willing, I'd prefer it go to court and get the DMCA declared unconstitutional. Not that that's bloody likely, but I can dream. [grabbe]
Vin Suprynowicz - Will Nevada's lawmakers fall for the oldest trick in the book? - part of The Libertarian series. Richard Moore, "founding president" of the Henderson, Nevada, state teachers college, which does not yet exist, is trying to convince the Nevada legislature to contribute to his stone soup. Fortunately, it appears they're not falling for it.
Concerned Citizens Opposed to Police States - CCOPS Totalitarian Time, 9:49pm - News in the last month has moved the clock forward 11 minutes and back 7 for a net gain of 4 minutes. [ccops]
Sean Hackbarth at The American Mind - Embryonic stem-cell research - Mr. Hackbarth says:
Someone should ask this question in a poll: Do you think federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research is constitutional? I would guess a majority would say yes, but I can't find where in the constitution it says that.As I recall, it doesn't say anything in the constitution about funding any kind of scientific research. Hence, doing so is unconstitutional. The American constitution defines a government of enumerated powers. Anything not explicitly mentioned is supposed to be off-limits. Problem is, congress completely ignores the constitution these days, and the courts largely go along. [mind]
Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Government Cannot Mandate Solutions to Ethical Dilemmas - Dr. Paul discusses cloning and stem cell research. Guess what? The feds have no constitutional authority to say anything whatsoever about either issue. They are also not allowed to fund it. Dr. Paul believes that the market would not fund cloning. Only federal handouts have allowed this research to exist.
The notion that an all-powerful, centralized state should provide a monolithic solution to the cloning and stem cell debates is not only misguided, but also not in keeping with our Constitution. Remember, the republic was established to allow very decentralized, local decision making by states. Because the cloning and stem cell issues are so complex, we should not expect a blanket federal edict to resolve them without further dividing the American people.
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Congress should remain neutral by following a strict policy of not subsidizing research, which encourages private funding while respecting the rights of those who do not want to pay for practices that offend their moral or religious sensibilities.
