The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 31 Jul 2002 12:00:00 GMT
Saints Bowing in the Mountains

Do you know how beautiful you are?

I think not, my dear.

For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.

I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.

Speak to me of your mother,
Your cousins and your friends.

Tell me of squirrels and birds you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales -
Let them soar wild and free in the sky

And begin to sing of God.
Let's all begin to sing to God!

Do you know how beautiful you are?

I think not, my dear,

Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!

(I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

From kaba:

No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up. -- Lily Tomlin

wraith at smith2004:

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

From brianf. And you thought you had a bad day.

I saw a Hi-Point Firearms 9mm Carbine last night. Cute little rifle. Retails for $200. Eddie wanted $170. Very tempting toy.

Caliber: 9mm Parabellum (also called 9mm Luger, 9X19mm)
Barrel Length: 16.5"
Overall Length: 32.5"
Weight: 5.75 to 6.75 Pounds (depending on accessories)
Stock: All-Weather, Black, High Impact Polymer
Finish: Blued or Chromed Receiver and Barrel Shroud
Sights: Fully adjustable rear Peep sight (Windage and Elevation adjustable)
Magazine: 10 round capacity.
Note: This is the maximum allowed by the Crime Bill of 1994.
Also comes with: Sling swivels, Scope mounts
Furnished with a trigger lock at no extra charge

JoeKen Firearms carries a wide variety of rifles, handguns, and shotguns. They even have a shoulder-mounted .50 BMG rifle for $1200. Their rifles are mostly from Hesse Arms. I'm interested in the (mostly) Russian Izhmash Armory AK-47s. Interesting rifles here, including a Bullpup. Added to my Arms Manufacturers page. [shotgunnews]

John Stossel's War on Drugs, A War on Ourselves was a breath of fresh air, a real pleasant surprise for network television. Conclusion: the war on some drugs is much worse, in every way, than the drugs themselves. What Mr. Stossel hasn't learned yet is that the war on drugs has nothing to do with drugs. It is a war on freedom, promoted by tyrants.

"The only reason that coke is worth that much money is that it's illegal," argues Father Joseph Kane, a priest in a drug-ravaged Bronx neighborhood in New York City. "Pure cocaine is three times the cost of gold. Now if that's the case, how are you gonna stop people from selling cocaine?"

Kane has come to believe that while drug abuse is bad, drug prohibition is worse -- because the black market does horrible things to his community. "There's so much money in it, it's staggering," he says.

Orange County, Calif., Superior Court Judge James Gray agrees with Kane. He spent years locking drug dealers up, but concluded it's pointless, because drug prohibition makes the drugs so absurdly valuable. "We are recruiting children in the Bronx, in the barrios, and all over the nation, because of drug money," he says.

Besides luring kids into the underworld, drug money is also corrupting law enforcement officers, he argues.

Cops are seduced by drug money. They have been for years. "With all the money, with all the cash, it's easy for [dealers] to purchase police officers, to purchase prosecutors, to purchase judges," says Oliver, the Detroit police chief.

The worst unintended consequence of the drug war is drug crime. Films like Reefer Madness told us that people take drugs and just go crazy. But, in reality people rarely go crazy or become violent because they're high.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership - Remember the Battle of Athens, Tennessee - Tomorrow and Friday are the anniversary of WWII veterans rousting, by force of arms, the tyrants who had taken over their city government. It's a good time to read or re-read their story as a reminder of the real reason for the Second Amendment. [jpfo]

George McGovern at Opinion Journal - Flying the Unfriendly Skies - the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, now 80 years old, tells of his experience with airport "security". Arrive more than 30 minutes before the flight or don't fly. Doesn't matter how empty the airport is. [pournelle]

Paul Marks at Samizdata.net - South Dakota and Jury nulification - SD will be voting on a constitutional amendment this November making it official that defendants may argue against the law at trial. Hope it passes. [samizdata]

Thomas L. Knapp at Rational Review - The Anti-State Thinkers Series - Mr. Knapp is creating HTML and PDF versions of public domain anarchist writings. On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau is now available. He plans to put up Tom Paine's Common Sense soon. He's accepting donations via Amazon's "Click to Pay", e-gold, or PayPal. Thank you, Tom! [smith2004]

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe -- "That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

Joel Greengrass at Slashdot - Douglas Adams, Narnia, and Trailers - Life, the Universe, and Douglas Adams, a tribute documentary, will be available for purchase at douglasadams.com on August 4. Also, it appears that Walden Media plans to produce a film version of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, beginning with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Hollywood Reporter article here. Hard to do justice to it in a film, but I'll bet my kids and I will like it. [/.]

User-Mode Linux looks neat. I haven't tried it. [brianf]

User-Mode Linux is a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup.

User-Mode Linux gives you a virtual machine that may have more hardware and software virtual resources than your actual, physical computer. Disk storage for the virtual machine is entirely contained inside a single file on your physical machine. You can assign your virtual machine only the hardware access you want it to have. With properly limited access, nothing you do on the virtual machine can change or damage your real computer, or its software.

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