PowerBook G4 17"

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 09 Jan 2003 13:00:00 GMT

From smith2004:

"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain

From Quotes of the Day:

"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." -- H. L. Mencken

From The Federalist:

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last." -- Winston Churchill

and:

"Western values are superior to all others. Why? The indispensable achievement of the West was the concept of individual rights. It's the idea that individuals have certain inalienable rights and individuals do not exist to serve government but governments exist to protect these inalienable rights. It took until the 17th century for that idea to arrive on the scene and mostly through the works of English philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume. While Western values are superior to all others, one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. A person can be Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, African or Arab and hold Western values. It's no accident that Western values of reason and individual rights have produced unprecedented health, life expectancy, wealth and comfort for the ordinary person. There's an indisputable positive relationship between liberty and standards of living. Western values are by no means secure. They're under ruthless attack by the academic elite on college campuses across America. These people want to replace personal liberty with government control; they want to replace equality with entitlement; they want to halt progress in the name of protecting the environment. As such, they pose a much greater threat to our way of life than any terrorist or rogue nation. Multiculturalism and diversity are a cancer on our society, and, ironically, with our tax dollars and charitable donations, we're feeding it." -- Walter Williams

Scott Bieser at Rational Review - Voting as a self-defense strategy - cartoon commentary on the danger of democracy. Cute. [smith2004]

Flashbunny.org - Only Bad People Need Guns - the winning entry from six-year-old Charlie Bloomer in Flashbunny's "Children's Anti-Gun Contest". The words are anti-gun, but the picture sends an entirely different message. [rachel]

Flashbunny.org - Deep Thoughts - another great pro-freedom Flash animation.

First, they went after the smokers,
But I said nothing, because I didn't smoke.

Next they went after the SUV owners.
But I said nothing, because I didn't own an SUV.

Then they went after the fast food companies.
But I said nothing, because I didn't like fast food.

Finally, they went after the gun owners.
Which was a big mistake. Because, hey, we have guns.

Stand up for freedom.
Even if it's a freedom you don't like.

Other good new (to me) animations: Gun Control Heroes, Not About Hunting, Gun Show Loophole.

My latest property rights screed:

Privately owned businesses have the right to deny employment to anyone they want for any reason they want. They also have the right to deny serving anyone they want for any reason they want. Or to allow or disallow smoking or drinking on their property. That current "civil rights" law denies these rights is primae facia evidence that the law is wrong. Private property does not exist any more in America. Property taxes force you to pay rent to the state on something that you supposedly own. "Civil rights" laws force you to allow entry to your property to people with whom you would otherwise not associate. This is pretty much the definition of fascism.

Publicly traded corporations are an entirely different thing. They are a creature of the state that must follow the state's defacto laws.

This has nothing to do with religion. Owning property used to mean that, other than rights-of-ways established contractually when the property changes hands, the owner had absolute control over access to that property. We who care about liberty should work hard to restore that meaning.

Carl Bussjaeger - Just Checking - commentary on highway checkpoints in the new Amerikan Sekurity State. Mr. Bussjaeger suggests being painfully cooperative, just to waste their time. I reminded him of the American Motorists Association's Roadblock Registry.

Reuters - Norway Teenager Found Not Guilty of DVD Piracy- Jon Johansen, the creator of DeCSS, is off the hook. [rrnd]

2600.com - Decss Author Jon Johansen Found Innocent in Norwegian Court - the view of the story from a U.S. victim of the DMCA. Also see the EFF release on this story.

Halvor Manshaus, Johansen's lawyer in the case, told Reuters that the case sets a strong precedent in Norway. "It is saying that when you have bought a film legally, you have access to its content," he said. "It is irrelevant how you get that access. You have bought the movie after all."

...

Had Johansen been tried in the United States, the outcome would almost certainly have been different. DeCSS remains illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prohibits any software that could possibly be used to circumvent digital copy protections for any reason.

2600 Magazine remains enjoined from distributing the software on its web site, or even printing the program's source code for study.

SunSpot.net - Prosecutor drops charges in shooting of 4 officers - a Baltimore prosecutor was convinced to drop charges against a man who shot three police officers with a .45. He decided that the man's claim was credible that he thought the police breaking into his home were robbers. Sometimes the "justice" system gets it right. [kaba]

Stephen W. Carson at LewRockwell.com - Hogwarts Forced To Accept Muggles - fictional commentary on educational quotas. [lew]

Is the Shooter Ready? - Long Range Shooting Demo - a Flash demo of a CD containing a long range shooting simulator. [geeks]

John Przybys at The Las Vegas Review-Journal - Firearms Training: Moving Targets - cool. [firearmnews]

Apple - PowerBook G4 17" - Apple's PowerBook now comes in three screen sizes: 12", 15", and 17". The 17" version has a 17" diagonal screen, a superdrive (reads and records CDs and DVDs), Fast Firewire 800, a backlit keyboard, Bluetooth, 54MB Airport Extreme (802.11g). The low-end 12" model costs $1800. The full-tilt model is $3300. [wes]

Apple - Safari - a new web browser, based on Konqueror's HTML rendering engine. Beta available for download. I haven't tried it. Requires Jaguar: Mac OS v10.2. [cafe]

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair