National Ammo Day/Week 2

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 16 Nov 2003 13:00:00 GMT

From scopeny:

"Democrats raise taxes. It's their way of paying for programs that buy votes from people who don't pay high taxes." - Detroit News columnist Pete Waldmeir

National Ammo Day/Week 2 started yesterday. November 19 is the offical day, Kim du Toit's birthday, but as long as you buy at least 100 rounds of ammo, or hand-loading components, by a week from today, you're part of it. I'll probably get a battle pack of milsurp .308, if B&J isn't sold out on Wednesday. Otherwise, it'll be two boxes of Speer Gold Dot in .40 S&W for the Sub2000. And I need another pound of H4895, the powder I use for 444 Marlin and .30-06. Kim has posted his First Installment of Ammo Day purchases. [kimdutoit]

Yesterday afternoon, I finished reading Jeff Head's Dragons Fury -- The Long March, all four hundred and some pages of it. It kept me up for a few nights until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Things are set up for a huge final battle in Volume V. Whoohah!!! Not yet available on paper, but you can get it in Adobe or Microsoft eBook format.

Volume Five, the concluding book in the Dragon's Fury series, is scheduled for release in 2004.

Eagle's Talons takes the reader through the year 2012 as the allies continue to make the slow, costly, but steady progress in battling the forces of the Greater Islamic Republic and the members of the Coalition of Asian States. The progress ultimately leads to the borders of those nations and beyond.

As the various states allied with these powers fall, the pressure on the remaining states becomes unimaginable.

Be prepared fo a spellbinding, intriguing and surprising conclusion as the forces of this new "greatest generation" battle for victory. They will do so in a world that will be forever changed by the epic struggle that costs so many, so much.

The Libertarian Enterprise - Letter from Nydra Karlen - an idea that the Taking Scissors Away folks would jump on, were their mission really keeping weapons off of airplanes. [tle]

William Stone, III at The Libertarian Enterprise - Free State Problems - why some Free State Project members are having a hard time with the selection of New Hampshire as the (first) free state. [tle]

Richard P. Gabriel - The Feyerabend Project - Mr. Gabriel's attempt to "repair the arena of software development and practice". This effort appears to be mostly just beginning, though The Design of Parallel Programming Languages looks neat. But I included the link to this page because of this:

In 1999, Gerald Jay Sussman wrote the following:
Computer Science is in deep trouble. Structured design is a failure. Systems, as currently engineered, are brittle and fragile. They cannot be easily adapted to new situations. Small changes in requirements entail large changes in the structure and configuration. Small errors in the programs that prescribe the behavior of the system can lead to large errors in the desired behavior. Indeed, current computational systems are unreasonably dependent on the correctness of the implementation, and they cannot be easily modified to account for errors in the design, errors in the specifications, or the inevitable evolution of the requirements for which the design was commissioned. (Just imagine what happens if you cut a random wire in your computer!) This problem is structural. This is not a complexity problem. It will not be solved by some form of modularity. We need new ideas. We need a new set of engineering principles that can be applied to effectively build flexible, robust, evolvable, and efficient systems.

In the design of any significant system there are many implementation plans proposed for every component at every level of detail. However, in the system that is finally delivered this diversity of plans is lost and usually only one unified plan is adopted and implemented. As in an ecological system, the loss of diversity in the traditional engineering process has serious consequences for robustness.

This fragility and inflexibility must not be allowed to continue. The systems of the future must be both flexible and reliable. They must be tolerant of bugs and must be adaptable to new conditions. To advance beyond the existing problems we must change, in a fundamental way, the nature of the language we use to describe computational systems. We must develop languages that prescribe the computational system as cooperating combinations of redundant processes.

Matthew Cox at Army Times - XM8 prototypes surpass M16, Army experts say - more on the U.S. military's new rifle. It could be ready for shipping by late summer 2005. Long High Road discussion with photos here. [madogre]

This improved reliability can be credited to differences in the XM8's operating system from the one in the M16, the Army officials said.

For instance, a thin gas tube runs almost the entire length of the barrel in all of the M16 variants. When the weapon is fired, the gases travel back down the tube into the chamber and push the bolt back to eject the shell casing and chamber a new round.

The XM8's gas system instead is connected to a mechanical operating rod, which pushes back the bolt to eject the casing and chamber the new round each time the weapon is fired. So there's no carbon residue constantly being blown back into the chamber, reducing the need to clean the weapon as often .

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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