Today's Laws Are Not Law
"Never criticize a man till you've walked a mile in his shoes because, then you'll be a mile away from him... and you'll have his shoes." -- Joseph E. Schmortz
Libertarian Enterprise - PowerOutage2003.jpg - don't know if this is a real image, but it's a good joke if it isn't. A night-time satellite image with New York state markedly missing from the lights.
I went to Tanglewood yesterday morning with the family to watch the dress rehearsal of today's performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, four operatic soloists. I loved the first, and especially the second movement. Went to sleep during the third, and enjoyed the Ode to Joy. Of course, whenever I hear the Ninth, I remember Clockwork Orange. Hehe.
Jude Wanniski - Civilian War Deaths in Iraq - over 37,000, according to Dr. Mohammed Al-Obaidi, General coordinator of the Iraqi Freedom Party. [lew]
Will Dougan at Go Memphis - Defense of self, family is a personal duty - a "director of music ministries at a local church" says why he carries a gun. [firearmnews]
I am a fairly normal guy. I love to eat barbecue, I pay taxes, I vote. I'd like to take my wife out more often (to eat barbecue), I attend church and I'm a baseball fan - just like many other men in Memphis.
One thing that makes me different from some of those men is that I carry a gun. I do so because I truly believe that preserving the safety and well-being of my wife, my children and myself is my duty.
Do I think there are villains around every corner waiting to pounce? Certainly not. To quote the Boy Scout motto, my intent is only to "be prepared."
I carry a spare tire in my car, have emergency supplies at home, and always wear my seatbelt, all so that I will be prepared. I have used my spare tire twice, never used the emergency supplies and found my seatbelt's restraints necessary only once. So why do I still maintain all those safeguards? Because I know that when I do need them, I'll need them desperately.
For me, a handgun is much the same - a safeguard. I carry it and train with it just in case I ever need it.
High Road - KABA.com down? - in case you haven't noticed, KeepAndBearArms.com has been down for a few days. This thread includes an explanation. [highroad]
Working on the problem
Guys, I'm so sorry this is happening! I promise you we're working on the problem. Our tech guys have been at it for days - since Thursday afternoon when the server locked up. And Microsoft tech support is so bogged down with that SoBig worm, that they're not able to help right now either.
Anyway - we're working to fix the problem as fast as possible.
Thanks for being patient.
Nicki Fellenzer
KeepAndBearArms.com
Neil Lock at Libertarian International via LibertyForum - Why Today's Laws Are Not Law - This says very well something I have been saying a lot of late. You may not legislate criminality. Criminal behavior consists of initiating force with the intention of stealing or damaging property or physically harming a person. Period. Any law that criminalizes anything else is an abomination and those who make and enforce such laws are themselves criminals, guilty of assault and kidnapping or conspiracy to commit mass assault and kidnapping. [libertyforum]
In the common-sense view, and historically, there is a sharp distinction between civil wrongs and criminal offences. For a crime requires, not only an act, but also a state of mind - so-called mens rea. For an act to be criminal, the perpetrator must also intend to commit a crime. For example, to kill someone, or to steal or damage someone's property. But today, this distinction has disappeared. Politicians rush to apply penalties to acts or omissions, which no-one using common sense would think of as criminal. No-one today is safe from being punished for "crimes", however innocent they are of any real wrong-doing.
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Bad laws, said Edmund Burke in the 18th century, are the worst sort of tyranny. He was quite right. And that is exactly what we are suffering today. The law, the very institution which should defend good people from those that want to harm us, has been taken over by hi-jackers. These hi-jackers are making bad laws to damage, and to try to destroy, our liberties, our lifestyles, and our livelihoods. How long will it be before they start taking our lives too?
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What we must do is wider than just resisting bad laws. We must change people's perceptions. We must re-claim the law. We need to make it possible for the law to work as it should. We need to make it work for the benefit of us good, peaceful, honest people who respect others' rights, rather than against us.
Second, we need to make plain by our words and actions, that bad laws have no moral force. We should not criticize the victims of bad laws if they evade them, break them, or even flout them. Although, on the other hand, we should strongly censure those that break the law - for example, the violently aggressive, thieves and the fraudulent.
Third, we need to reflect on the nature of those that are doing these things to us. There is no worse crime than hi-jacking the law. Those that lobby for bad laws, those that make bad laws, and those that call for strict enforcement of bad laws, are degenerates and noxious creatures. Many people are coming to understand this. There is already a powerful undercurrent of hatred and contempt for politicians and lobbyists. We need to help this process along. And how do we do that? Simply by telling the truth.
Patrick J. Michaels at The Cato Institute via LibertyForum - Energy Tax Blacks Out Many Lives in Europe - European countries have raised the price of their energy, via "environmentally"-mandated taxes, such that most people can't afford air conditioning. The result? Easily avoidable summer-time deaths due to heat. [libertyforum]
France claims that the recent European heat wave was responsible for the deaths of 3,000 of its countrymen. But for most of the summer, it has been much hotter in the American West, and no one can find even one body attributable to the heat.
The difference is air conditioning run by affordable energy, and the obvious fear is that if the next big blackout hits at midday during a major heat wave (when energy demand is greatest) and continues for days, a tremendous catastrophe will ensue.
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How have Americans adapted to our warming cities? They stopped dying. Even though the local temperature keeps going up and up, the threshold at which deaths skyrocket has become higher and higher, and now is beyond the highest temperatures.
In Philadelphia, a typical old urban core, deaths began to rise in the 1960s when the "effective temperature" (a combination of heat and humidity) hit the mid-80s. By the 1970s, the threshold was in the low 90s. In the 1980s the temperature threshold was in the mid-90s, and by the 1990s there was no measured effective temperature at which mortality rises.
This behavior repeats at virtually every American city we studied, except in "new" cities of the Deep South, such as Houston, which never have shown any temperature at which mortality jumps.
Obviously the solution is air conditioning powered by affordable energy. And that's the difference between America and Europe.
European cities are virtually devoid of air conditioning in large part because the energy to run them is so expensive. And why is that? Pressured by vocal environmentalists, European governments have levied energy tax after energy tax, with the latest excuse being global warming.
Eric Raymond - An Open Letter to Darl McBride - SCO's CEO didn't really need another new asshole, but Mr. Raymond rips him one anyway, in a civilized, but powerful manner.
And in case it's not pellucidly clear by now, not one single solitary damn thing I have said or published since 6 March (or at any time previously for that matter) has been at IBM's behest. I'm very much afraid it's all been me, acting to serve my people the best way I know how. IBM doesn't have what it would take to buy me away from that job and neither do you. I'm not saying I don't have a price -- but it ain't counted in money, so I won't even bother being insulted by your suggestion.
You have a choice. Peel off that dark helmet and deal with us like a reasonable human being, or continue down a path that could be bad trouble for us but will be utter ruin -- quite possibly including jail time on fraud, intellectual-property theft, barratry [*], and stock-manipulation charges -- for you and the rest of SCO's top management. You have my email, you can have my phone if you want it, and you have my word of honor that you'll get a fair hearing for any truths you have to offer.
Paul Andrew Mitchell at Supreme Law - 31 Questions and Answers about the Internal Revenue Service - interesting and unusual. [whatreallyhappened]
Norman D. Livergood at Hermes Press - Ashcroft's Dog and Pony Show - more on Herr Reichführer Ashcroft's speaking tour. [whatreallyhappened]
JPFO Presents: The News - a new page from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. News from InterestALERT. Categories: National News, World News, Business, High Tech, Health/Science, Sports, Travel, E-Learning, Politics, Bad Weather, Corruption, Terrorism, Torture, NYSE, NASDAQ, Alternative Medicine, Constitution, Firearms, Human Rights, Supreme Court. I found one link in all of that that looked interesting enough to follow, and the story wasn't good enough to link to here. [jpfo]
Tracy Saboe at LewRockwell.com - Today Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life - Mr. Soboe used to work for Wal-Mart, until he had a reasoned discussion with a customer using food stamps and was fired over it. [jpfo]
