Spring Dried Up
"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." - Will Rogers
From Chuck Muth's News & Views (I've been seeing this quoted a lot lately):
The Goldwater Doctrine
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' interests, I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."
- Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), "The Conscience of a Conservative"
Amazon.com - Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom - customer reviews complain about the fact that batteries don't last too long, and:
More then just a BroomStick..., August 29, 2002
Reviewer: Rleek from NY
Well, I had my doubts of buying my daughter such a toy, but she seemed to like this movie a lot so..I got it. I wasn't too keen on letting her play with it when the batteries were in so I took them out. I mean come on it VIBRATES ...
My house's water comes from a spring up the hill. Gravity feed and a propane hot water heater mean hot and cold running water even when the electricity goes out, but every three or four years, after a dry summer or dry winter, we lose water completely for a week or three. It dried up yesterday. My next door neighbor has a plan to hook up a 500 gallon maple sap collection tank to the spring outlet via a valve and fill it with a hose from a nearby house with a well. Hope it works. Flushing the toilet by pouring two gallon water jugs into it isn't much fun.
Angel Shamaya at KeepAndBearArms.com - "I hope it doesn't come down to 'resistance'." - it already has. There are plenty of people already disobeying the 20,000 unconstitutional gun laws. [kaba]
But perhaps the biggest otherwise-lawful gunowner rebellion in America today can be seen where gun rights really get tested: bearing arms. In today's America, peaceable gunowners who wish to carry a firearm for self-defensive purposes have a very narrow, limited scope within which they can do so. In states that allow legal concealed carry, gunowners can submit to intrusive prior restraints on their basic human right of self-defense -- deep background checks, fingerprints, training requirements, costly fees and even mugshots, in some states -- and can then adhere to usually-restrictive guidelines on where, how and to what extent they can exercise their rights. And in the many states where concealed carry is still virtually banned to all but the elite and the connected, no amount of submission to such stringent requirements will earn you that "concealed weapons permit."
In states that "allow" concealed carry for people who submit to prior restraints, it's folly to believe that the only people carrying (bearing) firearms are people who've subjected themselves to such intrusions and have received government approval. And it's equally absurd to believe that nobody carries a firearm illegally in anti-concealed carry states like California, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, etc. Peaceable gunowners do carry firearms "illegally" -- in every single state in this great nation other than (perhaps) Vermont, where the right to keep and bear arms is actually honored. (The term "illegally" is in quotes because the highest law of the land specifically enumerates that keeping and bearing arms is not only legal but beyond the reach of any law or lawmaker -- anyone who says otherwise is simply a history-ignorant dupe or a liar.) Many (probably most) of these lawbreaking, gunowning Americans have no desire whatsoever to harm another person or to criminally misuse their firearms in any way at all -- they simply prefer being tried by twelve to being carried by six.
Gwen P at KeepAndBearArms.com - A Rape Survivor -- Now She's An RKBA Activist Who Carries a Gun - of course. [kaba]
It is my firm belief that arming a rape victim with a firearm is the single most effective means of breaking this cycle of fear and granting them the means to feel re-empowered, no longer feeling helpless in the face of a terror that can be all-consuming. They can now progress in their therapy, no longer being continually re-injured by the ongoing fear of their assailant. Yes, the firearm is a form of crutch, but not in the unhealthy sense, but in the healthy sense of a crutch given to a person with a broken leg -- it gives them support while the damaged limb heals.
Sherman H. Skolnick at Rense.com - The Overthrow Of The American: Republic - Part 15 - this one seems a bit over the top, but it's hard to be surprised by much about Amerikan presidents these days. [grabbe]
The Secret Service is puzzled by George W. Bush's reputed male sex-mate. Several times when that person was talking to Bush, that person would start crying hysterically like a woman, apparently beset by some deep dark medical secret threatening his very existence. As the Secret Service and some White House reporters are fully aware, Bush's reputed sex-mate has AIDS. And Bush reportedly has the onset of AIDS in a terminal form not yet fully seen on his face and skin.
