Double Jeopardy in England
The problem is that once a politician swears on the Bible, he then proceeds to use God as a role model -- he becomes a whimsical, jealous, cruel, manipulative, violent tyrant. -- Jolly Rodgers
Blast Door Art is a photo of the blast door of the launch control center for a Minute Man Missile. Hehe. [brad]
Kevin Siers at toonville.com - Lindh's Plea Agreement - my title. Cartoon commentary on John Ashcroft's likely opinion of John Walker Lindh's plea agreement. [sierra]
Yesterday afternoon, I used the new Sharpshooter Supply trigger on my Savage 111 for the second time since I installed it back on 6/25. Fired a quick forty rounds of hand-loaded .30-'06. It was nice, but had a little problem. It worked fine on the second and subsequent shots, but on the first shot, closing the bolt sometimes released the firing pin as if I had been holding the trigger. I had to squeeze the trigger before closing the bolt. This made a clicking sound, the sound of the sear releasing from the trigger. Not a warm fuzzy feeling. Not even close. So I took it apart yesterday evening and discovered that the trigger guard had a ridge that impinged on the trigger near where it contacted the sear. This caused the trigger to wedge between the sear and the trigger guard ridge. All I needed to do was carve off a little of the ridge (the trigger guard is plastic, so I used my knife), and it now works perfectly.
Cryptome - Air Traveler ID Requirement Challenged: Secret rule demanding 'Your Papers Please' claimed unconstitutional - John Gilmore yesterday challenged a secret f.a.a. rule requiring that airline passengers show identification. Good for him. Contains links to the text of the complaint (worth reading) and a FAQ (also worth reading). [script]
History shows many abuses when government agents can demand 'your papers, please!'" said Bill Simpich, an Oakland civil rights lawyer, and lead attorney in Gilmore's suit. "TSA plans to deploy 'CAPPS II' later this year. This will use your ID to search in a stew of databases like credit records, previous travel history, criminal records, motor vehicle records, banks, web searches, and companies that collect personal information from consumer transactions. Your life history will be gathered and scanned, using secret criteria, whenever you book a flight or arrive at an airport. If the machine decides you're a risk, the airline will not let you fly, and federal cops will show up to interrogate you. They will probably tell you that you were 'randomly' selected for all this attention, but they will be lying."from the FAQ:
Q. Why are you challenging the ID requirement?
Before I answer that question, may I see your papers, please? Mind if I check a secret dossier on you, and do some web searches on you? Didn't you plead guilty to marijuana possession in 1983? Wasn't that you who wrote a piece critical of the first Bush Administration, too? You have more than five outstanding parking tickets; we'll seize your car out in the lot. Oh, and you are due for an IRS audit soon; you seem to be flying a lot more than your reported income would support.
If you refuse to provide your government-issued papers, or permit the search, then you can't ask me any questions. That's the rule. No, you can't see where the rule is written down, that's secret.
...
The 9/11 hijackings made it clear that those safety precautions did not keep the pilots in control of the plane. What makes air travel particularly dangerous is that all law-abiding passengers and crew have been disarmed. It's clear that when passengers realize the deadly goals of hijackers, they have the courage to attack the hijackers, with their bare hands if necessary. But we would all be safer if the honest passengers had weapons as good or better than the weapons smuggled aboard by hijackers. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that even with today's security screening, many honest people accidentally bring weapons onto airplanes, and are not detected. If honest people can do it, so can hijackers -- and unlike the honest people, they'll use their weapon to seize the plane.
My philosophy is to "educate and then trust the general public". This philosophy is in line with the basic values of democracies. The government's approach to homeland security is "keep everything secret and trust nobody". This is in line with the basic values of authoritarian governments.
...
Q. Do people really have the right to travel anonymously?
There hasn't been a Supreme Court case yet that directly asked the question of whether Americans have the right to travel anonymously inside the United States. We believe that people do have that right, and hope that the courts will choose to say so.
Wayne Madsen at Petitions Online - No cooperation with the U.S. Stasi - a petition against the new citizen spying organizations. I'm signature number 143. [trt-ny]
WE, the undersigned, categorically reject President Bush's Freedom Corps, Citizens Corps, Citizens Corps Councils, Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), Volunteers in Police Service, and Neighborhood Watch Program.
We refuse to participate in an American version of East Germany's Stasi or the similar citizens' spying programs established by Nazi Germany, Vichy France, Stalinist Russia, Mao's Cultural Revolution, or Khmer Rouge Cambodia.
Charley Reese - In Case Some Noticed - Mr. Reese's recent leave was due to open heart surgery. He survived, and, unfortunately, awoke to the same world his anesthesiologist turned out the lights on. Glad you're still with the living, Charley. Hope this'll give you twenty more good years of curmudgeonly behavior. At least.
I watched Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote speech via recorded webcast. Had to install QuickTime 6.0 on my Dell, then copy the plugin from the QuickTime "Plugins" directory to Opera's "Plugin" directory, and restart Opera. I'm looking forward to getting MacOS X version 10.2, "Jaguar". [kuro5hin]
Slashdot -
Sili-Hudson Valley? - according to a
NYT article 
,
Sematech is going to turn Albany, NY into a research
hub. Good. That means more high-paying jobs in my area of the
country. Not that I want to stay here. I'd much rather move back home
to Wyoming. But I haven't figured out how to convince my wife. The
problem with this thing, however, is that Governor Pataki is spending
$200 million of tax-payer money to make it happen. [/.]
ReverendX at kuro5hin -
UK proposes allowing double-jeopardy trials - a really bad
idea from Labour MP and Home Secretary David Blunkett. He's trying to
look like he's doing something about Britain's crime wave. The answer,
as you well know, is to re-legalize guns, and encourage people to use
them to defend themselves when necessary. Duh.
Meanwhile, here in Amerika, we've had double jeopardy for a long time,
they just don't call it that. If they fail to get you on a criminal
charge, they'll try to get you for violating civil rights. If that
doesn't work, they'll sue you for wrongful death. And then they'll
retry in a federal court. [kuro5hin]
AzTex at kuro5hin - Review of Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science - One man's opinion. He hated it. I still haven't looked at it much, except for scanning the pictures. More reviews here. There's even a page of A New Kind of Science Humor. LOL! [kuro5hin]
In summary, if you have this book on order, see if you can cancel your order. If you can return your copy unread, do so.
