Winter Solstice 2001

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 21 Dec 2001 13:00:00 GMT
My blessings to you on this darkest day of the year. It's uphill, light-wise, from here, though downhill, temperature-wise, for another couple of months.

From Quotes of the Day:

In America any boy may become President and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes. -- Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
and:
America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. -- John O'Hara
and:
I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change. -- Dan Quayle

From office email:

Q. Have you heard of the new coffee drink that's sweeping the country?
A. It's called the Osama bin Latte. You take a half cup of strong, black coffee, add 2 double shots of bourbon, and mix in three squares of ex-lax. After drinking this concoction, you will be totally bombed and then run like hell.

I finally gave in to a long-standing temptation and paid $25 for a six month membership to Roadhouse Sierra, the members-only section of Sierra Times. I think I'm gonna like it. Claire Wolfe, L. Neil Smith, Angel Shamaya, and J.J. Johnson's novel: Cracking the Liberty Bell, which alone is worth the price of admission (you could pay $5 for a one month membership, if that's all you want).

Harry Browne at WorldNetDaily - The Bush coup d'etat - GW has pulled the same trick in the naughties that FDR did in the forties, traded American liberty for a mess of pottage.

The Roosevelt coup d'etat destroyed the Ninth and 10th amendments – the ones limiting the government's functions.

The First and Second Amendments remained in form -- although the Supreme Court now decides when they can be overruled by the government's "compelling interest."

Amendments 3 through 8 have survived, although considerably battered. But now, the Bush coup d'etat is aimed at erasing these last restrictions on government power.

Bush wants to decide when people can have a jury trial, be safe from cruel and unusual punishment, be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures and able to confront their accusers.

When the Bush New Deal is completed, the Bill of Rights will survive in name only. And you will live and breathe only by the sufferance of the all-mighty government. Your fate will be in the hands of people like George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy and Strom Thurmond.

Of course, George Bush is doing this to save America.

Yancey Roy at The Journal News - Police powers expanded - New York's state Court or Appeals OK'd the police practice of stopping vehicles for a traffic violation and then searching the vehicle or its occupants for evidence of more serious crimes. This makes New York state guidelines match the already-heinous federal guidelines. Heil Georgie (Pataki and Bush). [geneice]

Thomas Ulrich at Sun Duke Speaks: Free Speech Synthesis - Sun researchers in Burlington, MA have created a pure Java speech synthesis system. FreeTTS requires JDK 1.4, and it currently has only an 8KHz diphone voice (whatever that is), but it apparently works. [newsforge]

Slashdot - KDE 3.0 beta 1 is out - I don't plan to try it, but I'm glad that the KDE team is hard at work. I look forward to trying the released version as soon as one of the big Linux vendors bundles it in their installer. [/.]

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