DARPA Does AP

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 30 Jul 2003 12:00:00 GMT

From smith2004:

Top 10 Reasons Libertarians (and Constitutionalists) Should Not Work Within the Republican Party:

10. The Tenth Amendment
9. The Ninth Amendment
8. The Eighth Amendment
7. The Seventh Amendment
6. The Sixth Amendment
5. The Fifth Amendment
4. The Fourth Amendment
3. The Third Amendment
2. The Second Amendment
1. The First Amendment

Kim du Toit - Bedside Guns - Kim likes his semi-auto handguns, but he keeps a .44 special revolver in his bedside table. Smith & Wesson -- the original "point and click" interface. Good, practical advice on choosing a revolver, choosing ammo, politically correct ammo in states where it might matter, and keeping your kids away from your night-time defense guns. [kimdutoit]

Ultimately, as I've said before, it all depends what you're comfortable with -- and if you'd rather park your Glock 17 next to the bed, be my guest. Just be sure that when you're half-awake and fumbling for the thing, you don't hit the magazine release by mistake (it's been known to happen, more than once) -- and that can happen with any semi-auto pistol.

A revolver is like a fork: you pick it up, and it works.

...

But most importantly of all, if your kid has friends over to play, lock the damn gun away. You may be able to trust your kid, but a group of kids has the collective responsibility of a treeful of drunken chimpanzees, and that includes yours.

The WBAL Channel - Defense Dept. Program Taking Terror Bets - The DOD implements Assassination Politics. Hehe. [smith2004]

Ken Guggenheim of AP via DodgeGlobe.com - Senators condemn Pentagon futures market that would let investors bet on assassinations, terrorism - some folks aren't happy about DARPA's new FutureMap idea (web page has disappeared, Google has a cached copy). [smith2004]

Murdo MacLeod and Scott McCulloch at The Scotsman - Playing with guns is 'good for boys' - Toy guns, that is. And they're going to do it no matter how much you try to forbid it, so give it up already. Boys will be boys, no matter how hard you try to make them behave like girls. Of course, boys, and girls if they're interested, should also be introduced to real guns, with your close supervision, as soon as they're big enough and careful enough, which varies radically from kid to kid. But the article didn't talk about that. [smith2004]

Becky Blanton at Sierra Times - HIV Does Not Cause AIDS says Doctors' Group - AIDS is a death sentence. The popular wisdom is that HIV always leads to AIDS. Dr. Donald W. Miller, an attendee at the 21st Annual Meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP), says that this popular wisdom is untrue. More importantly, anti-viral drugs used to treat people who are HIV positive actually make it more likely that they will contract full-blown AIDS. Note that this does not imply that the anti-viral drugs are not useful for AIDS. They are. But the doctors in this article claim that you should not take them just because you test HIV positive. Of course, the drug companies will never let this stand, since it takes away one of their cash cows. [sierra]

If HIV is not the cause of AIDS, then what is? Miller said Rasnick presented strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that AIDS is caused by three things, singly or in combination:

1) long-term recreational drug use (cocaine, heroin, nitrite inhalants, and amphetamines); 2) the anti-viral drugs (DNA chain terminators, like AZT, and protease inhibitors) that doctors prescribe to people who are HIV positive; and 3) especially in Africa, malnutrition (and lack of drinkable water). The noninfectious chemical bases for AIDS is supported by a lot of important data, facts like this one: HIV-positive people treated with anti-viral drugs have an annual mortality rate of 6.6--8.7 percent, compared with an annual mortality of 1.4 percent in HIV-positive people who refuse treatment with anti-viral drugs.

...

The good news the evidence shows that those who do have HIV can lead long, healthy lives. "It's like having herpes," he noted. "It's not the best thing, but it's not the end of the world."

"Those with HIV need to stop the drug use, eat healthy and live healthy lives," Miller said. "Having HIV is not a death sentence," he said. It's not a message the mainstream media is likely to pick up on however.

Don L. Tiggre at free-market.net - Freedom Book of the Month for July, 2003: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - he even thinks that it could win Freedom Book of the Year.

Second, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling's previous book, in which the evil wizard Voldemort returns from near death to threaten the world again), the major obstacle to fighting the resurgence of evil turns out to be ... you guessed it; government interference. Bureaucratic office politics and political pandering cause Harry Potter's warnings of the return of the most powerful evil wizard in centuries to go all but ignored by the magical subculture Rowling depicts existing beneath the surface of modern times. The bureaucrats running the Ministry of Magic would rather dream up new regulations to "protect" wizards and witches from "dangerously" thin cauldrons than confront a reality that they fear will be wildly unpopular.

This theme is continued and intensified in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Not only do the regulatory zealots steadfastly refuse to hear any bad news, and default on their responsibilities to the people they are supposed to protect, they begin persecuting those who dare to contradict the official take. Harry Potter finds himself the target of a vicious smear campaign, with officialdom censoring the news and actively using the single major newspaper to push its propaganda.

...

Am I saying that Rowling is a libertarian? No. I suppose she probably isn't. What does seem plain as day is that she holds, and is trying to teach, many of the values libertarians hold dear.

And she does it damn well, for many millions of young people.

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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