Sparks and Flame
"The State too often is like a driver who hits a pedestrian, gets out of his car and says to the victim, "It's lucky for you I was here to help." -- Alan Turinand:
"In the rush to cure all the ills to which humans are heir, liberty is too often an innocent bystander -- and an accidental casualty." -- Barry Goldwater, 1964
A little bit of excitement here this morning. I woke up to variable intensity lights. Investigation found a downed power line a mile up the road, sparking and making little shoots of flame. A neighbor had already called 911, but I called the power company's emergency number. I learned that they had already received a call from 911 and were sending out a line crew. I went up again to check it out and found a man in a pickup truck with a flashing red light, waiting for the power company, and ensuring that the fire didn't catch and spread. Thank G_d for the rain-soaked leaves. I turned off all the lights to reduce power drawn through the downed wire. An hour later, the power finally went off. And an hour after that it came back on in its full glory. I typed at my battery-powered laptop while they were working. And the phone worked, so I prepared part of today's offering.
Mark Clarkson at Jerry's Redneck Website - Fishin' Ain't So Bad - a Flash video. Once a hunter, always a hunter. "No deer were harmed in the making of this cartoon." Hehe. [smith2004]
whoohoo.net - Fly the Friendly Skies - Flash animation of an in-flight announcement I'd like to hear. Hehe. [rachel]
John Hoffman - Chi Xi Stigma - a possible future of the Amerikan Sekurity State. I sent him a note urging him to continue writing. [smith2004]
I first began writing CHI XI STIGMA in 2001, after I saw the United States of America turning into a police state right before my eyes. On and off I wrote, unsatisfied with my work, revising, revamping, and finally giving up.from the first chapter:
I felt what I had written was a waste of space sitting on my hard drive, and so I decided to put my incomplete work up on the internet.
If you think this story is worth finishing, please drop me a note.
Admittedly, Rob thought, the government'd had an excellent excuse for implementing the ID system. He closed his eyes. All those people... The final conquest of Iraq had nearly wiped away the shock America had received when the two planes set the twin towers ablaze, but the hydrogen bomb, planted in a cargo container and detonated in New York Harbor, took a hundred times as many lives and that shock looked to be permanent...
...
The Reactor organization had taken root even before the Libertarian Party had crashed, an offshoot whose members had disliked the Party's management and thought their platform had been too conciliatory. They were, for the most part, anarcho-capitalists; those who believed that individuals had the right to own property and the direct responsibility to protect it, with no requirement to kowtow to any government. Members swore an oath to adhere to the Non- Aggression Principle, an agreement to never initiate force against another person. One was only allowed to defend himself or others against the use of force or fraud.
This sounded reasonable enough, until you realized they considered someone trying to collect taxes to be initiating force, and all of that tax collector's superiors to be accessories to the aggression.
Sydney Morning Herald -
Richard Harris dies 
- guess they'll have to find another actor
to play Dumbledore in the third Harry Potter movie. Bummer.
Emmette Boone at The Washington Times - Whither citizen self-defense? - the militia, we the people, armed to the teeth, are the solution and the preventative for future "snipers". [Chuck Muth's News & Views]
Alas, when free citizens -- the militia -- are unarmed and vulnerable, it is easy for a lone gunman, bent on stealth and the application of his deadly skill, to bring a free state to its knees and enslave its people in fear.
...
We need more armed citizens -- citizens emboldened by their ability to defend themselves. Citizens who, instead of cowering behind a barrier as another victim is claimed, shout, "Sniper, there," and converge on the predator. We need more responsible and armed citizens, people of the stature of ordinary citizens such as Todd Beamer, who led his fellow airline passengers against armed hijackers. Citizens who rise to the challenge and quietly urge their fellow citizens: "Sniper, there. Let's roll."
L. Neil Smith - A Response At Last - a letter to "George," apparently in response to this message from Bill Woolsey about Neil's Dim Bulb speech. Classic L. Neil. Free registration required. [smith2004]
I've been connected, off and on, with the LP for 30 of those 31 years, and I was a libertarian for a decade before that. Throughout all of those years, there have always been whimpery little "weak sisters" (of both sexes) at its helm who are put off by straightforward language and a no-nonsense attitude toward making America a free country once again.
For some reason (and I suspect it's nothing more than rank pusillanimity) they hesitate to deal with collectivists in the manner in which collectivists must be dealt with -- even when those collectivists openly murder dozens of innocent, helpless women and children as they did at Waco, and thousands more in weak and impoverished countries overseas. As a direct result, there are still collectivists running the country, looting and raping and murdering people.
To put it succinctly, George, the badguys are allowed to gas, machinegun, and incinerate babies, while folks like you give me a hard time about my choice of words? Get a grip, man. Who do you want as a candidate? I'm afraid Mr. Rogers is dead.
Mari Kane at The North Bay Bohemian via MAPInc - Hempsters Go To Washington - an entertaining report of a trip to Washington by a lobbyist for the Hemp Industries Association. They're working at pushing through a Senate bill to change the jurisdiction over industrial hemp (the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana) from the d.e.a. to the department of agriculture. [cures-not-wars]
I'll go back too, since nothing makes me feel more politically potent than showing up at my representative's office door and insisting on having my grievances heard. Lobbying is a cultural cross between reality TV, horse racing, and a town-hall meeting. Far above protesting, letter writing, and voting, I find congressional lobbying to be the highest level of political activism a citizen can perform, short of seeing the president, and nothing makes me feel more like an American.
It sure beats waving a flag.
Larry Elder at TownHall.com - More gun control, please - Mr. Elder elucidates the absurdity of attempting to stop violent crime by restricting ownership of guns. Even a child gets it. [trt-ny]
A father recently sent me the following letter: "I had to go to work unexpectedly one night due to an emergency. My 8-year-old daughter was a little worried that I would be leaving her and my wife alone. We live in a very nice and safe neighborhood but nonetheless she was concerned. I jokingly told her that no bad men would come in our house because I put out a sign that read, 'No Bad Men Allowed.' She frowned and immediately responded, 'Daddy, bad men don't do what the signs say. That's why they're bad.'"
Sydney Morning Herald -
Special forces storm theatre to free hostages - sleeping gas
apparently conqued out the Chechan hostage takers in Moscow before
they could explode their bombs. [grabbe]
Peter Gorman at Narco News - Marines Ordered into Colombia: February 2003 is Target Date - the endless war against "terrorism" has a new front line. [grabbe]
Two battalions of US Marine Jungle Expeditionary Forces have recently received deployment orders for insertion into Colombia this coming February, 2003.
According to reliable sources, the battalions, which with support will total roughly 1,100 men, will rotate in and out of southern Colombia, with orders to eliminate all high officers of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), scattering those who escape to the remote corners of the Amazon. The FARC hierarchy has been the subject of intensive US intelligence scrutiny for several years. The offensive will mean that the US is fighting wars on three fronts simultaneously: Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia.
...
According to our sources, the administration will try to keep the presence of the Marines in Colombia secret for as long as possible, claiming casualties to be the result of training exercises or legal assistance to the Colombian military. But in the event that the American public discovers that we are actively engaging in an offensive war, the administration is said to be prepared to deal with that as it comes.
Bill Thompson at BBC News - Google censoring web content - Google removes pages from its index at government request, apparently without attempting to fight. [lew]
Responding to the discovery, Google spokesman Nate Tyler said on tech news programme ZDNN that the sites were removed to avoid the possibility of legal action being taken against the company, and that each site was removed only after a specific complaint from the government of the country concerned.
Independent Media Center - Anti-War Report - Links to stories on the anti-war protests taking place today in DC, San Francisco, and across the country. Unfortunately, many of the demonstrators are anti-capitalist, folks who don't realize that capitalism is the only reason they have a decent life.
DC Indymedia - Oct 26: An Absurd Response to an Absurd War - a Theater of the Absurd will gather at 11am this morning at the Washington Monument and march to join the large gathering at the Vietnam War Memorial.
SLOGAN IDEAS:Because we can't "Endure" another "Operation" for "Freedom" or "Democracy" or any other Noble-Idea-Twisted-Into-Orwellian-Knots-War.
- Regime Change Begins At Home
- OBEY
- All Hail The Idiot Boy King
- Attack to Defend
- Wag the Dog
- We Have Always Been At War With Oceania
- ExxonMobil (or whatever) Flag over the legend: "Try Burning This One, Asshole!" or "These Colors Don't Run!"
- Free the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
- God Hates Peace
- Jail the Trees
- Peace is Terrorism
- Bomb Harder
- Make War Not Love
- No Justice! No Peace, Either!
- Before We Build New Weapons of Mass Destruction, Let's Get Some Use Out of the Ones We Already Have
- Bring Back McCarthyism
- Tell Us (US?) What to Think
- Bush is a Wimp/Cheney is a Pussy
- War IS Globalization
- More Bush Family Vendettas (Dukakis: You're Next!) (or Noriega, Perot, Buchanan, Clinton, Gore)
- We Want Gulf War III - Starring Jenna Bush!
- Annex Mexico
- We (heart) Halliburton, Harken, Enron, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Microsoft, etc.
- God Bless (same as above)
- Pre-empt Germany, France, Democracy, The UN, Congress, The Constitution
Because everyone from James Baker III to Nelson Mandela to CIA director George Tenet thinks this is dumb.
Because every time Bush opens his mouth it sounds like he's playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Robert A. Waters at Sierra Times - Shots from the Underground - while the mainstream media were busy reporting on 13 shots from a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, citizens around the country were saving lives with their firearms. The media reported on the wanton killing, but didn't tell us about the armed defense. [sierra]
L. Neil Smith at Sierra Times - It's Time To Flush This John - Conyers, that is. And how! [sierra]
As a practicing politician of long standing, Conyers is already a criminal, of course. There isn't an elected official anywhere in America who doesn't break his oath of office -- to uphold and defend the Constitution -- at least a hundred times a day. But as author and advocate of the most outrageous and disgusting kind of race-baiting, productive-class-hating, anti-self-defense legislation, he is also responsible for the injury and death of thousands, for which he must someday be arrested, indicted, tried, convicted, and adequately sentenced.
It's time to flush this John.
...
Thanks to Gary Kleck, John Lott, and hundreds of other researchers and writers, there isn't anyone left in America who can not know that guns are used to save dozens of times the lives they are used to take, and that a majority of the lives they are used to take are suicides, sad creatures who find a way to die no matter what weapon is outlawed. They used to lean a sword against a corner and push themselves onto it.
Sometimes it was simple depression and despair, the way it is today. Sometimes it was military officers who had lost a battle and didn't want to be dragged in chains in the enemy's victory parade. It's too bad the entire Bush Administration and the "intelligence community" didn't follow this noble example after September 11. It would have been a constructive first step toward genuine homeland security. Instead, they were promoted and given more of our money to waste.
Emory University Department of Media Relations - Oct. 25: Michael Bellesiles Resigns from Emory Faculty - the lying author of the despicable victim disarmament screed, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, has resigned in disgrace. Good. [kaba]
Michael Moore - Yes, It Was a Bushmaster - a victim disarmer rants against abuse of self-defense tools and encourages his fellow passive murderers to vote the self-defense supporters out of Congress. [kaba]
Rachel Lucas - Michael Moore, you are such an idiot - Ms. Lucas responds point-by-point to another of Mr. Moore's drivels.
Bill Richardson at Business 2.0 - Hasta La Vista, Titanium: LiquidMetal is harder and stronger than any other alloy. So why can't anyone make money selling the stuff? - Incredible! Check out the tables on page 2, and the web site linked to below. [wes]
Think plastic," John Kang says with a smile, holding up a small slab of blue-gray metal and passing it over for inspection in his Lake Forest, Calif., office. The shiny ingot doesn't look or feel like plastic. It looks more like coal and hefts like gold.
But when heated in its raw form to 750 degrees Fahrenheit at Kang's new factory in South Korea, the mysterious alloy does something that amazes even the most unflappable metallurgist. It softens into a viscous tar that can be molded like plastic. Then, when cooled rapidly, it congeals into a solid that's twice as hard as titanium or stainless steel, and so smooth that paint won't stick to it. The alloy, which scientists liken to "metallic glass" is called LiquidMetal.
Jerry Pournelle - Hydrogen Wells - instead of spending $100 billion for a war on Iraq, we could make 100 gigawatt nuclear plants and use them as "hydrogen wells" to completely eliminate our need for imported oil. Will move here next week. [pournelle]
Perry de Havilland at samizdata.net - Big Brother is watching: Not in 1984 but in 2002 - London has "Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes" posters attempting to convince the subjects that the surveillance cameras are a good thing.
