End the War on Freedom

Sorry I'm a little late with the update today. I was all set to go at 6:30 this morning, but my web service provider had a password database problem and took a while to restore it from backup. Sigh... Computers are great, when they work.

russmo.com - Modern Conservative - hehe.

Mike Shelton at the Orange County Register - Cuba - cartoon commentary on Carter's bahavior with Fidel. Hehe.

Bizarro - Airline Security Comics - hahahahahahahaha. [cryptogram]

From The Federalist:

The First Amendment...begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: "Congress shall make no law". -- George Will

Occasionally, even judges are capable of reading the Constitution. -- Don Feder

From battlerifles.com:

When you have a hammer...everything looks like a firing pin! -- garand

AIM Surplus sells surplus firearms and ammunition. Their Rifle Ammunition page includes Aguila Colibri powderless .22 long rifle and 12-gauge mini slugs, Silver Bear .223 ($74.95/500), PMC .30 carbine ($198/1080), South African .303 ($140/1000), .308 FNM of Portugal ($139.50/1000 shipped), and more. [ar15.com]

DC Collins at smith2004 - Re: El Neil's campaign... - a day-dream about a day in Mr. Smith's Oval office. Free membership required to read, so I''ve copied it below. Hehe. [smith2004]

I can picture it (happily) now:

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Neil sitting in the Oval office in his t-shirt, cotton slacks, and loafers. On the second, less formal day of the visit by a foreign dignitary, said dignitary sits down opposite Neil, with a look of disdain on his/her face. (Lets call this dignitary Joe, for either Joeseph or Josephine - political correctness, ya know?)

Joe says to Neil. "Look, if you don't give us the $2 Billion dollars of aid we want, we will cut off all oil exports to the U.S.! And we will convince our neighbors and partners to do the same."

Neil, with a bored look on his face, says, "Go ahead."

Joe, "What???"

Neil, "Go ahead. Let's hurry with this, its Breakfast time my family and stomach are waiting impatiently to serve the pancakes."

Joe, apoplectic, "What??????"

Neil, "Look - get over it. It isn't my money to give. Cut your oil and lose the money. No skin off my nose."

Joe, flustered, muttering foreign oaths, stuttering, and stammering, and shaking with rage.

Neil stands up and heads for the door. Joe sees the Full holster Neil carries, and it looks like a mind is changed.

Before closing the door behind him, Neil decides hospitality is in order, turns, "Joe, you want pancakes? We have maple, strawberry, and boysenberry syrup. Can't wait."

Rage overcomes Joe's common sense in the face of a man with a gun, and starts to charge Neil, arms outstretched to pummel or grapple him. Before two full steps are taken, there is a body on the floor and smoke in the air.

"Strawberry sounds good," can be heard outside the office, just as the door to the Oval office closes. Passing his secretary just outside, "You want some pancakes?"

=-=-=

Ahhhh, such a sweet daydream.

Steven Levy at Wired - The Man Who Cracked The Code to Everything ... - this is the story I quoted on Tuesday about Stephen Wolfram's new book, A New Kind of Science.

Brad Edmonds at LewRockwell.com - Founding Firearms - a concise, clear, decoding of the simple language of the second amendment. I probably linked to this back in March, but it's worth reading again and again. [firearmnews]

Hence, the most reasonable reading of the second amendment, as worded, would seem to be "Since residents well trained in arms and in cooperation in defense, are necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to own and use arms will not be infringed." The emphasis is mine because the translation is mine.

"Will not be infringed" deserves a second look. Though this phrase is simpler to decipher than "regulated" was, its impact is substantial. Notice that "Congress shall make no law" is omitted from this amendment -- in the first amendment, by contrast, "Congress shall make no law" meant the states could make laws: Early on, Virginia taxed its residents to support that state's chosen denomination, and some northeastern states required membership in a particular denomination for eligibility for public office. The ninth and tenth amendments more explicitly addressed the states and the people. The second through seventh, by contrast, were absolute in their wording; and since the Constitution was meant to override state government authority, the second through seventh amendments meant these rights wouldn't be infringed at any level of government. Regardless what one thinks of the Constitution overall, this amendment is pure libertarian doctrine. The inalienable right to self-defense was not to be interfered with in any way.

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What we need now is not more support for toothless lobbying organizations that do nothing more than resist the passing of new laws. We need you to get on the phone, write letters, and send emails to your elected officials -- local, state, and national. Tell them it's time to obey the second amendment and erase gun laws until the second amendment is the only gun law we have.

Mad Ogre - May 15th - Wednesday - a "discussion" the Ogre had with a kid in a store about the Greek letters on his hat. You'll have to scroll down to find it (or go to his archives). Just discovered Mad Ogre. Me like 'em. Added to the "Daily" column of my links page. Molon lave! [geeks]

"It's Greek, and says 'mo-lone lah-veh' which means 'Come an get them'."

He looked like he has some questions, but couldn't formulate the language to ask.

"That's what the Spartan King Leonidas said to Xerxes, the Emperor of Persia who came to invade Greece with 600,000 troops. When Xerxes offered to spare the lives of Leonidas and his 300 bodyguards if they would lay down their arms."

The kid furrowed his brow as he was thinking really hard, and then said "So why do you have that on your hat?"

"Because I am a gun owner, and the message is the same today as it was then."

lendringser at madOgre.com - A Declaration of Civil Disobedience - No registration, no confiscation. Ever. Well said. Firing Line discussion here. Mirrored here. [madogre]

I will not register my guns...

I will not surrender my guns voluntarily, ever...

I will never again concern myself with concealed carry laws...

We do not ask for special rights, we merely ask that our right to self-defense and self- determination is respected and not undermined. We wish to be left alone, and we do not want to surrender our integrity and our means to enforce our right to life and liberty for a social experiment that has already been a massive failure in those countries who attempted it. We are citizens, not peons. We are free men and women, not serfs who exist to provide taxes to the ruling caste.

David Kaplan at The Houston Chronicle - It's kinda touch-and-go: New system lets Kroger shoppers pay with fingerprint - Amazingly, people are signing up. Fools. [smith2004]

George F. Smith at Laissez Faire Electronic Times - Whatever Happened to Sound Money? - FDR took us off the gold standard, that's what. Fiat money is government's way of stealing huge fortunes without most people even knowing it.

On June 5, 1933 Roosevelt signed a resolution he had introduced in Congress nullifying the gold clause in all government and private contracts. It meant what it said -- that no one had the right to demand payment in gold for any debt. [7] The Constitution says that no state shall "make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts" -- a clear challenge to the president's actions. When Roosevelt asked Senator Thomas P. Gore from Oklahoma what he thought of the resolution, the blind statesman replied: "Why, that's just plain stealing, isn't it Mr. President?" [8] Roosevelt succeeded in having the Senator unseated in the 1936 elections.

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Government's policy of debasing our money, which the U.S. Coinage Act of 1792 made punishable by death [11], hit full stride under Roosevelt. As the world's reserve currency since 1945, the U.S. dollar has been playing the part of gold in international trade. Almost no one seriously questions fiat money anymore. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told a House Financial Services Committee last February that "in years past, there's been considerable evidence that fiat currencies have been mismanaged in general and that inflation has been too often the result . . . [But we're] learning how to manage a fiat currency . . . Whether that continues is a forecast which I can't really project on." [12]

Bruce Schneier at Counterpane - Crypto-Gram Newsletter: May 15, 2002 - A good article on secrecy, security, and obscurity. Links to articles. How to foil fingerprint readers with $10 of household supplies. Reader feedback. [cryptogram]

Matsumoto uses gelatin, the stuff that Gummi Bears are made out of. First he takes a live finger and makes a plastic mold. (He uses a free-molding plastic used to make plastic molds, and is sold at hobby shops.) Then he pours liquid gelatin into the mold and lets it harden. (The gelatin comes in solid sheets, and is used to make jellied meats, soups, and candies, and is sold in grocery stores.) This gelatin fake finger fools fingerprint detectors about 80% of the time.

His more interesting experiment involves latent fingerprints. He takes a fingerprint left on a piece of glass, enhances it with a cyanoacrylate adhesive, and then photographs it with a digital camera. Using PhotoShop, he improves the contrast and prints the fingerprint onto a transparency sheet. Then, he takes a photo-sensitive printed-circuit board (PCB) and uses the fingerprint transparency to etch the fingerprint into the copper, making it three- dimensional. (You can find photo-sensitive PCBs, along with instructions for use, in most electronics hobby shops.) Finally, he makes a gelatin finger using the print on the PCB. This also fools fingerprint detectors about 80% of the time.

Gummy fingers can even fool sensors being watched by guards. Simply form the clear gelatin finger over your own. This lets you hide it as you press your own finger onto the sensor. After it lets you in, eat the evidence.

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