The Traficant Zone
Left Objects to Inappropriate Mine Rescue
A Committee composed of Senators Daschle, Clinton, and Feinstein have announced that the rescue of the Pennsylvania coal miners has been repealed, and the miners will, by recommendation of the Committee, be placed back in the mine. The Senators noted the following violations in the rescue process:
10. Heavy diesel equipment was moved to the rescue site without concern for possible air pollution.
9. Water was pumped out of the mine without first determining if it was polluted, or providing an environmentally safe catchment area for the water.
8. Numerous holes were drilled in the ground during the rescue, without first performing an Environmental Impact study.
7. No effort was made to ensure racial, ethnic, and sexual diversity of the rescue workers.
6. The Governor of Pennsylvania was heard to "Thank God" during a live television broadcast of the rescue, violating the separation of church and state.
5. Several people at this public, government supported, rescue mentioned praying.
4. The trapped miners did not represent a diversified cross section of American society.
3. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Hillary Clinton were not given sufficient time to make speeches at the site.
2. The Senate was not given sufficient time to determine whether or not any Republican office holder owned stock in the coal company, thus being responsible for the conspiracy that caused the mine to flood.
And Number 1: No one mentioned that Al Gore invented mine rescues.
"Once a diversified group of miners has been chosen and placed back into the mine shaft, the holes will be sealed, the water will be returned to the mine, and the rescue will then be undertaken again, in an environmentally and politically correct manner", the Committee noted.
Scott Bowen at New York Press - Bill Ruger Of Brooklyn - some good biographical information about the late William Batterman Ruger. [villagechoice]
In 1928, when Bill Ruger and his boyhood friend, William Lett, were around 13 years old and living in Flatbush, they saw an ad in the back of Popular Mechanics for .30-caliber Krag rifles, surplus from the Spanish-American War. Ruger suggested that Lett get one, for $15. Thinking the new rifle was too loud to shoot in Lett's basement where they shot their .22s, they put the Krag in a canvas bag, hopped on the elevated Fulton St. train and rode out to what was probably then a remote section of Brooklyn, Forest Park, just at the borough line.
There they made a campfire and shot at a target. "We had an unforgettable afternoon learning what a full-power .30-caliber rifle was like... [We were] two of the happiest kids you've ever seen," Ruger says in R.L. Wilson's extensive book, Ruger & His Guns.
By the standards applied to today's 13-year-olds, this is dangerous and possibly antisocial behavior; merely drawing a picture of a gun on a piece of paper in some schools is enough to get you expelled. William Batterman Ruger, however, was one of the top shots on his high school rifle team.
...
A highly opinionated and sometimes irascible man, Ruger had little interest in what he saw as an American red herring--zealous gun control. "The people who are demanding more laws to control guns should instead be demanding more laws to control thugs," he once said. He lauded the right of millions of Americans who live in semi-developed or rural areas to defend themselves, a concept lost on (sub)urbanites trained to dial 911. More to the point, he declared, "The [Constitution] says what it says. 'The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.' If you can't live with that, then you shouldn't be trying to be an American citizen."
Maj. Anthony F. Milavic USMC via Meanoldfart at The Firing Line -
In Praise Of The 7.62 - lots of reasons why you should prefer an
M-14 to an M-16, unless you're shooting squirrels or other
varmints. Ample representation from the other viewpoint. Bottom line:
you don't want to be hit with any rifle bullet, not even a
lowly .22 long rifle. Placement matters more than power. Hit 'im in
the tear duct, and he'll drop.
From a comment by AmericanFreeBird:
.223rem feels like a pop-gun, sounds like a pop-gun, and recoils like a pop-gun because IT IS a pop-gun, an impotent, ineffective round for stopping anything bigger than a hedge hog!
The Week Online with DRCNet - Canadian NAFTA Suit Over Hemp Restrictions Enters Arbitration - Kenex, Ltd. is suing the US government because the DEA stole a shipment of hemp from Canada to America. I've eaten Kenex'es hemp seed. Yum, yum, yum. [drcnet]
The Week Online with DRCNet - Federal Judge Deems Utah Asset Forfeiture Initiative Constitutional - Utah's Property Protection Act, which directs asset forfeiture proceeds to public education instead of law enforcement, passed by a 69% to 31% margin. The cops, not wanting to lose their booty, challenged it in court, and lost. Good news. [drcnet]
The Week Online with DRCNet - South Dakota Lakota Successfully Harvest Hemp Crop - after having their (industrial) hemp crop stolen by the ferals two years in a row, the Lakota harvested it early this year. They've sold it to the Madison Hemp and Flax Company of Lexington, Kentucky, who plan to pick it up on August 14. Far out! [drcnet]
While federal law currently prohibits hemp cultivation, the Oglala Sioux (Lakota) Tribal Council voted in 1998 to legalize it. The tribe argues that it is a sovereign nation with the ability to apply its own laws on its own land. Whether from fatigue or because White Plume outfoxed them, this year the feds have failed to mount a counteroffensive, and a hemp crop has been harvested in the US. Or at least in the Lakota Nation.
Washington Times Editorial - Fairfax County wastes tax dollars harassing citizen - Virginia law-makers are claiming they need a tax increase to provide "essential services", but they appear to have plenty of money to hassle one citizen about having three old cars on his property, a fence that's too high, and a run-down shed. Shoot 'em. [trt-ny]
Nora Koch at The Philadelphia Inquirer - No more drug-free urine sold here - New Jersey has made it a crime to sell urine with the intent to help someone beat a drug test. Get it through your thick fascist skulls, you nazi pig-rapists, drug tests of every kind are blatant violations of the fifth amendment prohibition on coerced self-incrimination. Anyone who has anything to do with administering drug tests belongs in jail for a long, long time. [unknown]
Russell Madden at Laissez-Faire Electronic Times - Your Friendly Neighborhood Bankerman - Know Your Customer is alive and well and operating at a bank near you. [grabbe]
Once upon a time, banks were primarily private and independent entities. In the Nineteenth Century, for example, banks issued their own "money," i.e., claims for real money, i.e., gold, and relied upon their reputations to become successful. Customers rewarded bankers they trusted by depositing more of their wealth for safekeeping. They punished bad bankers by withdrawing their funds. If enough individuals lost their confidence in a particular bank, a "run on the bank" occurred as people en masse demanded real money for the paper claims they held to their wealth.
Such relative freedom, however, has long been a stranger to the financial world. The State did not like competition besting it in the monetary realm. Over the years and decades, it slowly drove free banking into extinction. Reserve requirements that created instability in financial transactions; legal tender laws that forced people to accept only government scrip in payment of debts; repudiation of gold and then silver certificates that robbed people of real money; and unconstitutional abandonment of the gold standard aided the State in its silent theft-by-inflation as it monetized its unlawful debts and unobtrusively destroyed the savings of prudent citizens who suspected too late what evil was being perpetrated in the name of "protecting" them.
...
The Know-Your-Customer law that mandated banks monitor -- and report -- your spending habits for "unusual" peaks or irregularities died a welcome death after massive citizen protest...then was quietly resurrected after the tragedy of the World Trade Center attacks. This vampiric beast has just barely begun to suck the last drops of freedom pulsing feebly through the financial veins of this country.
If the War on Drugs won't get you, the War on Terrorism will.
George F. Smith at Laissez-Faire Electronic Times - Ending the Income Tax: Judgment Day in Massachusetts - Mr. Smith encourages Massachusetts voters to vote for Carla Howell's measure that will end their state income tax. [grabbe]
Supporters of the income tax tell us it's the price we pay for civilization. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we condone theft as a civilized act, no matter who the perpetrator is, we open the door to force in our lives. A government that coerces its citizens promotes conflict and decline, not peace and prosperity.
P.J. Gladnick at Laissez-Faire Electronic Times - The Traficant Zone - James Traficant's story as it might be told by Rod Serling. Hilarious fiction. [grabbe]
